Momoya

Occasion: Post-movie dinner
Location: Momoya on 7th Ave and 21st (momoyanyc.com)
Edibles: chef's choice sushi dinner

Musings: Of course, I walked out of "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" just starving, and dying for sushi. After a few blocks of aimless wandering failed to uncover a sushi place, I asked a gay guy walking his dog for a recommendation (because a dog's a good indication that the walker lives in the neighborhood). The guy sent me to Momoya. (Hilariously, he didn't remember what corner it was on in terms of ordinal directions, but did remember that it was where some bar or club named Merkin used to be. Oh, New York.)

The chef's tasting included ten pieces of nigiri sushi and one roll. The Black Dynamite roll I picked had a bit too much going on with two sauces and multiple fillings.

The sushi was likewise overly complicated. There were lots of garnishes piled on top that made it impossible to dip the sushi in soy sauce. And they didn't make much sense, e.g. a slice of jalapeno and some caviar on the fluke. The best pieces were the eel and the rock crab.

A nice dinner, and one that certainly hit the spot after the movie. But not worth $50.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Directed and produced by David Gelb
Featuring Jiro Ono of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a three-Michelin-star sushi restaurant in Tokyo

My review: 4/5 stars

If you like food porn, this is the movie for you. Macro shots of the sushi just fill the screen with their vibrant colors and varied textures. The way with slices of fish repose, glistening under a thin glaze of sauce.... it's sexy stuff. From the visual style alone, you can tell that the filmmaker loves good food.

Jiro clearly loves food too. His dedication to his craft is simply mind-boggling. His work ethic, and attention to detail, his drive to innovate and perfect - he puts even NYC workaholics to shame. The movie is a great character study, and provides interesting insight into Japanese culture. Not just Jiro himself, but his staff and his suppliers all pride themselves on being shokunin, the very best at what they do. And almost none of their knowledge comes from formal education - instead, it's built on decades of practical experience.

The rice dealer: [I'm paraphrasing] "The Grand Hyatt asked to buy the same rice. I said, only Jiro's apprentices can cook that rice. You can't cook that rice with just big talk. If Jiro says you can buy it, I will sell it to you." (At which point Jiro agrees that the particular rice he buys is very hard to cook, requiring a lot of pressure.)

[Note: The film picked up a North American distributor, Magnolia Pictures. In fact, it was the first sale at Tribeca this year. So hopefully it'll be publicly released soon!]

Social Eatz

Occasion: Lunch with Meredith and Mike, with lots of ex-Death Star crew
Location: Social Eatz on 53rd between 2nd and 3rd (socialeatz.com)
Edibles: I had the bulgogi burger and fries, and a bite of Meredith's spring rolls and chop salad

Musings: Social Eatz is the new eatery of Top Chef Season 7 finalist Angelo Sosa. It's Asian fusion - not exactly a shocker for anyone who's seen Angelo cook on TV. But I actually like the concept here - Asian-inspired burgers, tacos, etc. Casual streetfood, in a yuppie diner setting. The menu's got some cheeky, fun items like the Imperialist Hot Dog, and some cringingly pretentious ones like the Chili-Kissed Tilapia Tacos.

The shrimp and chicken spring rolls were flavorful, but surprisingly heavy considering the ingredients. The chop salad not a hit with the table - it's a tiny little portion, and the so-called six minute egg was barely cooked long enough to hold together. Meredith rightly avoided the egg; the runny yolk would have completely drowned the small amount of lettuce.

I got the bulgogi burger with a side of fries. First of all, potatoes are dirt cheap, Angelo - your burgers should come with fries. Second, my burger was way underdone. I mean, it was literally half raw. Not rare. Raw. I practically like my steaks still mooing, but that burger was on the borderline of what I'd eat (v. what I'd send back and ask them to cook longer). Another person in our group left her burger patty half uneaten for the same reason. So please ask your diners how they like their burgers.

That said, I think the concepts of the bulgogi burger, bibimbap burger and Korean taco are genius. I love the salt-sweet flavor of the beef, accented by the tart bite of the pickles. I'd come back to try those latter two.

Hatsuhana Park

Occasion: Dinner with Jon
Location: Hatsuhana Park, in the little passageway between Park and Lex, 45th and 46th (hatsuhana.com)
Edibles: Jon got the sushi dinner; I got the Ladies' Set

Musings: It was pretty empty for dinner, but I bet this place is hopping at lunch. (Not that I'm complaining - it was nice to be able to chat without having to shout over ambient noise.)

I got the intriguingly named Ladies' Set. Upon seeing it, I was immediately curious if they would actually refuse to serve a man who ordered this, but Jon didn't put them to the test.

The first course was a trio of pickled okra, a bite of egg omelet and tempura salmon with pickled carrots and daikon. All very nice. Next, I got some broth noodles, and a little sushi plate with four pieces of nigiri and a roll (diner's choice). There was also a little scoop of vanilla ice-cream for dessert. Good value at $18.

While it's nothing spectacular, Hatsuhana serves a nice dinner set - for women, at least. The restaurant and sushi counter were scrupulously clean and the fish was of a decent quality. Our waiter was also funny and personable. All in all, a solid option for a quiet weekday dinner in midtown.

Sapporo

Occasion: Lunch with Kathy and Gerald
Location: Sapporo on 49th between 6th and 7th
Edibles: pork katsu and miso ramen

Musings: The pork katsu is actually a meal in itself, but I ordered it as an appetizer / side dish. It's two enormous pork chops, breaded in panko and fried to crispy perfection, conveniently sliced for easy sharing. Yum.

The ramen was okay, but not particularly memorable. (It certainly didn't help that I had already inhaled an entire pork chop and half a bowl of rice by the time it arrived.) Is Sapporo as good as my go-to, Minca? Sadly, no. It is, however, a decent midtown lunch option.

Note: If you only have an hour for lunch, get there early. We arrived just before noon and there were already people waiting; by the time we left, the line was out the door and down the block.

Menya Musashi

Occasion: The search for authentic ramen.

Location: Menya Musashi in Shinjuku, Tokyo. You can find them at www.m634.com/634/

Edibles: ramen, natch - I had the cold ramen with one pork and one egg (then had to get an extra pork - it was just so good); my mom had the regular hot ramen with one pork and one egg; my brother had the house special hot ramen with three porks

Musings: It's a tiny little unitasker shop. There are maybe twenty seats, four guys in the kitchen. A fun part of the experience is ordering from the ticket machine. (Apparently, this kind of set-up is fairly commonplace in Tokyo - this way, the cooks don't have to handle any money.)

We spent quite some time trying to figure out the options, cobbling together info from my brother's rudimentary Japanese and my mom's Chinese (the source of Japanese kanji characters). Eventually, the kitchen guys took pity on us and sent out an English-speaker to explain the machine.

As it turns out, the machine has three rows, one each for cold ramen, hot ramen, and the house special. Then the columns represent different combinations of pork and egg. The first button is one pork, half an egg. Then one pork, a whole egg. Two porks, half an egg. Three porks. And finally, three porks and half an egg. The eagle-eyed will see that there's a fourth row of buttons further down. The function of most of these remains a mystery to us (side dishes? beverages? cigarettes?), but one was the button for my desired extra piece of pork.

On a hot, swelter-y day, cold ramen REALLY hits the spot. Zaru soba is one of my favorite summer meals, but cold ramen absolutely surpasses it.

The noodles were awesome - thick and really chewy, with a little twisty texture. The pork was likewise awesome. Each piece was a hefty block of meat, luscious and fatty, falling-apart tender, with deep, rich flavor.

Below is the house special with three porks. Looks like a real winner for colder weather.

Best of all, this place was way cheap. It was really just the beer that tipped us over the $10 mark. I have never had better ramen in my life. Unlike yesterday's yakitori, this place gave me a little pang. As good as my Minca is, this is leagues better.

[Note: Japanese people eat fast! In the time it took us to finish, I think they turned the seats next to us three times. And we weren't dawdling.]

In case you were wondering how we found Menya Musashi, the concierge at our hotel had a ramen map for the neighborhood!! How cool is that?

(click to enlarge)

Momotaro

Occasion: Our first proper dinner in Tokyo
Location: Momotaro in the Ebisu neighborhood of Tokyo (description and exact location in this article)
Edibles: lots o' chicken and skewers - details below.....

Musings: My sister was in Tokyo for business last year, and got taken to this place for dinner. I figured if Sony folks would take business guests here, it must be pretty legit. It wasn't too difficult to find (look for the KFC as a landmark) and, upon entering, I was pleased to see that it was a) tiny, and b) full of actual Japanese people. We ordered the tasting menu, about $35 per person, and waited for the magic to happen.

They started out with a bang - our first dish was chicken sashimi with raw sliced onions and grated ginger. Not for the faint of heart. I was immediately excited, but my mom refused to eat it. My thought process: if they dare to serve it, they must really trust their supplier. (They used to serve chicken sashimi at Yakitori Totto. They took it off the menu a couple of years ago during the avian flu epidemic, and I've always kicked myself for not trying it when I could.)

The chicken sashimi was lovely, very silky and subtle. Would I eat it again? Absolutely. But it wasn't SO special that I feel the need to seek it out stateside.

A proliferation of skewers followed: gizzard; chicken oyster (a part of the thigh); knee; chicken with scallion; chicken meatball; liver with a soy glaze; chicken neck; chicken "entrails" (I still have no idea what this was).

The liver and the neck were wonderful. I don't order liver a lot, but I do really enjoy it when it's prepared well. The chicken oyster was a little greasy compared to Totto's version. Momotaro's meatball was indisputably inferior to Totto's as well. The gizzard and the knee were a tad gristle-y and chewy for my taste (I don't usually order those) but objectively well-executed.

More skewers came: bacon and cheese; bacon and tomato; quail eggs; shiitake and peppers with sauce and bonito; some other kind of mushroom, possibly porcini or matsutake. The quail eggs were surprisingly delicate and tasty.

We got a couple of fried dishes next: deep-fried chicken strips; deep-fried knee; deep-fried something cartilaginous - I thought it was perhaps the keelbone.

We got a salad with some more chicken sashimi, some cold summer rolls with a garlicky sauce and some liver pâté on crostini....

.... and finally some onigiri (rice cakes).

Whew - what a meal! I ended up being a little divided on the chef's tasting. On the one hand, we undoubtedly ate some amazing things that we wouldn't otherwise have ordered. On the other hand, I'm familiar enough with yakitori that I could have done a decent job ordering à la carte, and saved myself crunching through quite a lot of chicken knees....

Bottom line: it was a great meal and I would certainly recommend Momotaro. But I'm also quite smug for NYC that we have some amazing yakitori right here.

Otafuku

Occasion: Post-dinner snack with Winnie
Location: Otafuku on 9th between 2nd and 3rd
Edibles: Combo C - six pieces of takoyaki (described by on the menu as "hot savory wheat flour balls with a chopped piece of boiled octopus inside") and a half order of yakisoba (fried noodles)

Musings: A popular and busy food stall across the street from Robataya. (Methinks they get a fair bit of business from the restaurant's still-hungry diners.) They serve basically three things - the two things in our combo, and okonomiyaki, a sort of Japanese pancake.

Combo C was a wallet-friendly $9, and big enough to share. The takoyaki was topped with teriyaki sauce, some other creamy sauce, and bonito flakes. I wasn't crazy about the takoyaki - too soft and gluey for my taste. The yakisoba, however, was excellent. Studded with bits of shrimp and octopus, accompanied by a little pile of julienned pickled ginger, it was piping hot and flavorful. Yum.

The yakisoba is definitely worth a replay, and I will probably try the okonomiyaki next time as well. A good addition to the cheap eats repertoire.

Robataya

Occasion: Dinner with Winnie
Location: Robataya on 9th St between Stuyvesant and 2nd Ave (robataya-ny.com)
Edibles: grilled egglant; grilled onion; lamb chops; duck; Kobe beef; snow crab rice (they were out of our other choices - miso cod, smelts, portobello mushroom)

Musings: Robataya provided what, to me, is the quintessential Japanese restaurant experience: the food was exquisitely prepared, but the portions were miniscule and it was incredibly expensive. (Come to think of it, that's the quintessential NYC restaurant experience too.) Each item was between $5 (onion, eggplant) and $13 (Kobe), and typically was about four bites of food. To get a filling meal, I'm guessing you'd have to spend more than $100 a person. If you're looking for an Asian tapas sort of meal, I much prefer Yakitori Totto.

A lot of the dishes are cooked out front by two chefs. There's an incredibly elaborate staging area with all the proteins and veggies laid out. The chefs use long paddles to reach the raw materials and to serve the cooked dishes. If you're able to reserve a seat at the bar (we were not), it looks like it would be a good show.

I thought the Kobe beef was the weak link of the things we tried. It was barely seared and the rich veins of fat in the meat were still cold and solid. Everything else was good, and I only wished that there was more of it.

The snow crab rice ($15) was the highlight for me, really fragrant and hearty. I'd come back for just the rice and a beer. (Incidentally, snow crab is C. opilio - the stuff they fish on Deadliest Catch.)

Sakagura

Occasion: Post-theatre (Glass Menagerie) bite with Michael
Location: Sakagura on 42nd between 2nd and 3rd (sakagura.com)
Edibles: gyu miso nikomi shredded beef back rib stewed in miso with grated daikon; tsukune chicken meatballs; surumeika yaki grilled squid; a seared scallop special

Musings: After wandering aimlessly around midtown for 20 minutes after the show, my brain finally clicked on Sakagura. In the culinary wasteland of midtown, Sakagura is a welcome oasis and it's one of the very best options in the area for late-night. Food is served until midnight on weekdays, until 1am Fridays and Saturdays.

I'm always tickled by their location. You go into a regular-looking office building, down some fire stairs, and enter into a little pocket of Tokyo. The main room has a warm, relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. There's a nice long bar and lots of tables and little booths. They also have very cute bathrooms, built into giant barrels.

It was really more of a snack than a proper dinner, but it was exactly what I wanted at that moment. Everything we had was delicious, very delicately and thoughtfully made. The scallop dish was a highlight and the beef rib was my favorite, absolute perfection in texture and flavor. Four dishes, a round of draft beers, tip and tax came to about $25 a person.

I haven't been here enough times or eaten enough of the menu is give Sakagura Hall of Fame status... yet. But tonight's dishes were just exquisite and it's definitely headed in that direction.

Aoki

Occasion: Lunch with Nellie
Location: Aoki on 48th between B'way and 8th (aokinyc.com)
Edibles: 3-roll sushi lunch for both of us; my rolls were the spicy tuna, eel and cucumber and California

Musings: Can't beat the price: miso soup or salad plus three rolls clocks in at a mere $11. The rice in the sushi was a bit mushy but the seasonings on the eel and the spicy tuna were nicely done.

The space is pretty posh, too, with nice wood floors and furniture. Big Boss (my boss' boss, the CIO) LOVES this place.

Soba Koh

Occasion: Dinner with Abby
Location: Soba Koh on 5th St between 1st and 2nd Ave
Edibles: cold soba with slices of duck in a warm dipping sauce for me; hot soba with deep-fried tofu for Abby

Musings: I passed by this place a couple of times while on my way to Minca, and the chef making noodles in the window caught my attention. Abby and I decided to give Soba Koh a try after facing a crazy wait time at Ippudo.

As you may know, soba is made with buckwheat flour. Buckwheat flour has no gluten, unlike regular wheat flour, so making noodles with a high buckwheat content is very difficult because the dough is so brittle. Soba is commonly made using 80% buckwheat and 20% wheat flour. The highest quality soba contains 100% buckwheat. It takes Japanese chefs years, and sometimes decades, to fully master the technique. While I have no doubt that the soba noodles at Soba Koh are made with consummate skill - in fact, this place would probably be a real find for a soba connoisseur - I just happen to prefer a chewier noodle. (Texture-wise, it's sort of like the difference between a cracker and a chewy bread.)

The dish I got came as a pile of cold noodles and a bowl of hot, soy sauce-based dipping broth. (The duck was in the broth.) I'm not sure how this dish is supposed to work, but when I dipped the noodles in the broth, it made both sort of lukewarm. I also used the soup spoon provided to drink some of the broth, but it seemed too salty for that. (At Soba Totto, they come by at the end with a little carafe of the noodle cooking water for you to dilute the dipping sauce before drinking it.) Do drop me a line and tell me if you know whether I was eating it wrong.

My dish was $18; Abby's, slightly less. We walked out of the restaurant not exactly hungry, but definitely not full. We decided to get some fries at Pommes Frites (see following entry). It's never a good sign for a restaurant when you need more food immediately after.

Next time I'm down in the East Village for noodles, I will likely bypass Soba Koh in favor of my old faithful miso ramen at Minca.

Studio Square

Occasion: Beer garden revelry with Yining's friends
Location: Studio Square on 36th St near 36th Ave in Astoria (studiosquarenyc.com)
Edibles: a few pilfered fries [and two donuts (glazed and old-fashioned) from Dunkin' Donuts, conveniently across the street]

Musings: Sept. 19 - not done yet! This day just might be one for the history books. A meander-and-graze through Flushing, followed by an al fresco lobster feast at sunset, followed by donuts and beer? Doesn't get much better than that.

The beer garden area of Studio Square is huge, and bar is pretty slick and modern compared to the others I've been to. The crowd looked pretty innocuous when we got there but seemed to get a lot younger on average as the night wore on - the number of meathead guys and hoochie women increased exponentially after about 11:00.

Pitchers are $18 and there's a selection of about 20, foreigns and domestics. We drank a lot of the seasonal Oktoberfest offerings (by Sam Adams, Spaten, Hofbräu) and some Blue Moon. They appeared to serve a decent sausage but I was too full to try to bum a taste. For some strange reason, sushi was also on the menu. One of Yining's more reckless friends ordered some and deemed it so-so but edible.

Oh, and one more thing. The bathrooms are all self-contained stalls. While there's nominally one side for ladies and one for men, the attendant will call ladies over to the men's side when their line gets long. Equality in waiting for bathrooms - I like it!

Minca Ramen Factory

Occasion: Dinner with my bro
Location: Minca Ramen Factory on E 5th between Ave A and B, closer to B - it's reeeeaaaally far east, folks! (note: 5th St looks like it ends on 1st, but you can cut through the apartment complex's park and continue east)
Edibles: one each of the pork and shrimp gyoza; miso ramen (#9) for me; shoyu ramen (#4) for Edward

Musings: This place isn't quite as perfectly delicious as I remembered from before. Then again, I broke up with someone the last time I was here, so maybe it's the taste of sweet, sweet freedom I'm remembering. ;)

The pork gyoza were wonderful. The skin was silky-thin, the filling was yummy and there's a lovely crunch from the caramelized bottom. The shrimp ones were not as good. I liked the idea - a whole shrimp wrapped in a dumpling with the tail sticking out - but the shrimp were overcooked and tough and the gyoza tasted overwhelmingly of ginger.


My ramen's broth was very rich and complex. It got a bit salty towards the end, but I still drank most of it. The noodles were perfectly al dente and the various toppings (seaweed, half a stewed egg, bamboo, bean sprouts, sliced pork, corn, etc.) were high quality across the board. The shoyu broth is clear where the ramen broth is enigmatically cloudy, but it's also very flavorful and robust.


I think the ramen at Minca stands head-and-shoulders with Momofuku Noodle Bar and Ippudo, and I believe (I couldn't verify for Momofuku) it's cheaper than both. I'm looking forward to a lot more visits in the cold months to come.

[Postscript: Happy birthday, Allie!]

Tampopo

Written and directed by Juzo Itami

Starring Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto, Koji Yakusho and Ken Watanabe

My review: 4/5 stars

Unlike Julie & Julia, this movie is populated with characters who really care about food. I mean, they REALLY care about it. To the point of literal life and death sometimes.

The main story follows Goro, a lone cowboy-type, as he leads our heroine Tampopo in the quest to make the perfect bowl of ramen. (The noodle theme is a play on the idea of a spaghetti western.) It's quite a journey, involving calisthenics with stock pots, espionage, bribery, a makeover and renovation, and countless rounds of practice and taste-testing. They call in various experts to consult; my favorite was the leader of a band of foodie hobos.

The story often meanders away from the main plot to a series of unrelated episodes, many involving a gangster in a white suit and his mistress, all centered around food. Every moment is novel and unexpected. The underling in the French restaurant was great, the etiquette class was hilarious, and oh my god - that little old lady in the grocery store. Fantastic.

The film felt very foreign and weird to me but I certainly wasn't bored.

Boka

Occasion: Dinner with Amy
Location: Boka on St Marks between 2nd and 3rd
Edibles: Bon Chon Korean fried chicken (of course!); scallop appetizer; tuna-kimchi roll; shrimp and crab (called Boston) roll

Musings: We shared the cocktail special which was basically a bottle of soju poured into a hollowed-out watermelon with some watermelon juice and Sprite. It was a smallish watermelon, but the cocktail basically filled it to the brim. Our waiter described it as serving 3-4. We polished it off by ourselves. Let's just say we were pretty giggly by the end.

I'm a little bit at a loss to adequately describe the magnificence of Korean fried chicken. I'll try. It's incredibly crispy, juicy, delicious... nope, words fail me. Just try it. Seriously.

I thought the scallop app was sort of meh. The sushi was not cheap - about $10 per roll - but it was a pretty generous size. Amy liked the kimchi roll better; I liked the Boston roll better. Fun dinner overall.

[Note: By request, I will mention that we went to Bar 82 afterwards and played a game of pool. Amy kicked ass.]

Yakitori Totto

Occasion: Dinner with globe-trotter Kent, who finally made it back into the city
Location: Yakitori Totto on 55th between B'way and 8th

Edibles: tori dango steamed chicken meatballs with a layer of rice pressed into the surface; zaru tofu, served in a basket with condiments (ginger, toasted sesame seeds, chives, bonito, flavored salt); skewers galore - seseri chicken neck; hatsu chicken heart; shishitou tsukune tsume chicken stuffed in Japanese peppers; aspara maki chicken breast wrapped around asparagus; negima chicken thigh with scallion; tsukune umejiso chicken meatball with shiso; kuro buta negi pon pork with ponzu and scallion; harami skirt steak with onion; shiitake mushrooms with ponzu and bonito; yaki nasu miso dengaku eggplant with miso; deep-fried tofu with miso...
... still not done: three rounds of shochu with fresh-squeezed citrus (one each of grapefruit, orange and lemon) and vanilla and green tea mochi ice-cream for dessert
Musings: After all the food listed above, you'd think we left stuffed to the gills. I guess I can only speak for myself, but I was just moderately full. We shared the majority of the skewers, which equals about a bite and a half each person. This dinner also happened over the course of three hours. Which we needed, to catch up on all the happenings in each other's lives! It's been a busy year.

Yakitori Totto, like all of my very favorite restaurants, is rock solid when it comes to consistency. The ingredients are high-quality and many of the components to their dishes are made from scratch, including their outstanding miso and their tofu. The meatballs are mixed, then shaped by hand. The skewers are cooked over a small trench of charcoal and timed to split-second precision. I've introduced more than twenty friends here over the years and only one failed to be blown away. Easily makes my NYC Hall of Fame.

Travis, you shoulda been there!

E Bei

Occasion: Dinner with Tania, Warren and Kim (well, a second dinner for Tania and Warren)
Location: E Bei Japanese on Granville at W 41st Ave in Vancouver
Edibles: California roll; chopped scallop roll; assorted sashimi (salmon, tuna, some kind of whitefish, tako octopus and hokkigai surf clam)

Musings: My brother and his friends love the late night all-you-can-eat at this place, which costs something like $10. The regular dinner hour all-you-can-eat will run you $23. Since you can only order it as a table, and Tania and Warren had already eaten, I just ordered à la carte.

The tuna and hokkigai sashimi were fantastic (though not as fantastic as the specimens pictured to the left - not my plate). The other pieces were fresh but not particularly memorable. The chopped scallop was a bit slimy, and both it and the California roll had too much rice. You definitely will not see particularly good knife skills or sushi-rolling technique here. But you get good value for your money.

Kyotofu

Occasion: Pre-theatre (West Side Story matinee) lunch with Nellie
Location: Kyotofu on 9th Ave between 48th and 49th (kyotofu-nyc.com)
Edibles: carrot and miso soup; chicken and tofu burger


Musings: This place is probably most famous for its tofu desserts, but we thought we'd try it for lunch. I liked the soup, but for a slightly heavy hand with the miso. The burger was big and hearty, on a brioche bun with a great Asian bbq sauce. I couldn't taste the tofu at all, but it kept the burger wonderfully moist. Good value, at $13 for both courses.

(We skipped dessert and went up the block to Cold Stone Creamery for ice-cream. It was just that kind of wonderful, sunny day. My usual at Cold Stone - sweet cream ice-cream with graham cracker crust and pecans - was excellent as always.)