Studying...

Sorry for the slow week, all. I'm taking the GMAT this coming Monday and I'm pretty much in hardcore study mode. More reviews to come after my test, including Saison part 2, Dosa, Pizza Politana, and Namu.

The triumphant return

So after neglecting the site for a few years, a few problems popped up here at Arthur Hungry HQ. Namely, I got a build up of about 330,000+ spam comments in my server that pretty much screwed everything up. After some work I've finally found a way to clean them up. I unfortunately had to lose a few legitimate comments along the way, but I've kept almost everything. I've disabled comments for the time being, and I'll now be working on upgrading my Movable Type software - I'm 3 years of versions behind. Once that is done, I'll be able to start things back up again...
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Yes, I am alive.

I realize I've been completely MIA from arthur hungry for over a year and a half now. Full-time work unfortunately had that effect on me. Thanks to all those who have inquired about my well-being - I am indeed alive and well, and eating just as much as ever. I'm going to re-structure the site so that I can keep up with it given my time constraints. Watch out for arthur hungry 2.0, coming soon to the intarwebs near you...
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Arthur Hungry Limbo...

Well. I'm in a bit of an Arthur Hungry limbo at the moment. I have finally graduated and moved back to San Francisco. In the process, I've managed to forget my external hard drive's power supply in Boston, and so I don't have access to all my photos and what not. Dave is kindly UPSing it to me so I'll be back up and running soon. My desktop is also currently in the trusty hands of UPS, so everybody pray for it. I've got a few awesome trips coming up this summer, and at various times I will be in SF, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Kyoto, Beijing, and Manila. It'll be the first time I'll be in Japan since I started the site, and I'm looking forward to re-eating some of my best meals of all time. Huge stash of photos are of course still waiting to be posted from Australia, SF, and more... I'm going to have to start picking the better ones and leaving some others out.
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In transit!

Hey all - sorry for the absence again. I've spent the last week packing, taking an exam, and generally finishing stuff up in Sydney. I'm currently posting from my cousin Kim's office in Christchurch, New Zealand. I'll be heading to Kaikoura to stay with my Uncle Jack and Auntie Betty later tonight, and my dad will be arriving tomorrow. So after 4 short months I've already left Australia. I had an absolute blast during this past semester. I've made some great friends and learned a good bit too. My internship at Filtra was awesome - thanks to everyone there for having me around. As for my schedule now... I'll be spending 10 days here in New Zealand relaxing in beautiful Kaikoura. Hopefully I'll do some cool water stuff like swimming with the dolphins and fishing. On the 18th, I head back to San Francisco for about a week, then to Vancouver for Christmas and the New Year. After that, I'll have another 10 days in San Francisco before I head back to Boston for my final semester. I know, you're all thinking, where are the frickin' Sydney food posts? Well rest assured, they're coming. I'll probably clean up the balance of my summer posts in the next couple of days while I'm in Kaikoura, and then I'll begin an absolute marathon of Sydney posting. No joke - I've got about 40-50 places to post, so starting in about a week, I'll probably be posting every single day for about 2 months. I hope you guys have enough time to read it all! :)
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A non-food blog!

I know most of you come here to look at great food, but I also know there's some demand that I start doing a normal life blog. I've decided that I might as well post updates about what I'm doing here in Sydney for the family, so if anyone else is curious, check out my Sydney blog.
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Server stuff

So it looks like my web host moved me to a faster server. I'm having some issues with my FTP now - hopefully I can get my settings fixed momentarily...
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I'm going to France!

I am happy to report that I'll be boarding a plane bound for Paris in about 2 hours. I'm spending a week in Provence, in a town called Maillane. We'll have a car to drive around for good food. After that, I'm spending 4 nights in Paris, where I'll find out what this fancy French food is all about. Hopefully I'll have internet access, and I'll try to keep the updates coming. If I time this right, I should be able to finish SF posts while I'm in France, and then start posting French meals right when I get back. Anyway, I'm off to eat my first-ever Michelin stars!
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DMBLGiT & The Cook Next Door

Sorry about the brief disappearance. I took a quick trip to NYC to visit a friend. It's my last week now in Boston - I leave for SF on Saturday. Anyway, here are a few updates from the food blogosphere... Meg over at IHEARTBACON is hosting Does My Blog Look Good in This? for the month. It's a photo contest that accepts submissions from all kinds of different food blogs. Meg kindly asked me to help judge this month, which may have been a mistake since I don't really know what I'm talking about! :) Anyway, the results should be up soon, so keep an eye out over there. Fatemeh over at Gastronomie tagged me with this Cook Next Door meme, so here goes. I apologize in advance for my lack of insight on all things cooking, especially compared to my food blogging peers. What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own? I don't cook much at all, so I don't really have any first memory of cooking. If anything it'd be making frozen tater tots. Or something else frozen. Who had the most influence on your cooking? Again, this doesn't apply much to me, but I guess I'd say Dominga, my babysitter growing up. She's a gifted chef, and I wouldn't hesitate a second to claim that she makes some of the best Chinese food in the SF bay. Do you have an old photo as 'evidence' of an early exposure to the culinary world and would you like to share it? I might, but certainly not on the computer. I don't have access to any of the old photos from my childhood right now, but I'm sure there are some of me at dinners around the world. Mageiricophobia - do you suffer from any cooking phobia, a dish that makes your palms sweat? For some reason, I can't imagine myself ever succesfully making any type of pastry... or I guess dessert in general. It just looks so hard. What would be your most valued or used kitchen gadgets and/or what was the biggest let down? My most valued kitchen gadget is without a doubt my rice cooker. It's a wonderful little machine, and I'm always surprised by the number of people who still try to cook rice manually in a pot. An honorable mention would have to be the Hot Diggity Dogger - that hot dog toaster thing that you always see in the SkyMall catalogs on the plane. My friend Lauren actually bought me one, and believe it or not the thing makes some great hot dogs. Name some funny or weird food combinations/dishes you really like - and probably no one else! Back home, my mom used to sometimes pick up various p�t�s from the deli. During late-night fridge raids, some p�t� with toast is an awesome snack. Many times in the past, I've discovered that we'd ran out of bread during this raids. One time I got desperate and tried using an Eggo - turns out p�t� on Eggos tastes great. This also works well with foie gras. What are the three eatables or dishes you simply don't want to live without? Sushi. Fresh pasta. I guess... butter! Any question you missed in this meme, that you would have loved to answer? Well then, feel free to add one! Your favorite ice-cream... I'm a purist. I like straight up chocolate. And I mean plain chocolate (as in, not dark or white or something else notable). You will probably never eat... Lamb testicles (dombalan, in Farsi). This is leftover from Fatemeh's answer - I'll just throw in that I'm not too eager to try testicles of any kind. Your own signature dish... I don't have one. Corned beef with rice? I stole that from Keith. A common ingredient you just can't bring yourself to stomach... Most definitely ketchup. I HATE KETCHUP. Which one culture's food would you most like to sample on its home turf? (Added by Fatemeh)... Wow - too many to list here, but I'll go with Thai. I'm gonna send this over to Keiko at Nordljus. Unlike me, she can actually cook!
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National Hunger Awareness Day

I received an email from a reader today informing me of what appears to be a worthy and simple cause. June 5th was National Hunger Awareness Day, and to mark the occasion Dannon (the yogurt company), America's Second Harvest nad the Food Bank have launched a drive to raise money. It is pretty simple - you just go to this page on the Dannon website, click a button, and for every click a $1 donation is triggered. You also get a chance to email someone about the drive and raise another $1. Stop by if you have the chance.
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Server Upgrade

My web host is doing a server upgrade and my site is in the process of being moved over, so I apologize for any weirdness that goes on. Performance should improve after the switch!
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SF Wine Auction Charity Event

I got an email from Tom last night telling me about the 29th Annual SF Wine Auction. It's a charity event to raise money for disadvantaged children in the Bay Area, and is taking place on Friday, April 29th in the Westin St. Francis in Union Square. There's going to be a tasting, auction, and also a dinner prepared by Michael Mina. Looks like a nice event if any of you guys are interested!
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The List

I've added a new little section to the site, The List. I'll be using it mainly as a reference to keep a running list of restaurants I want to try. I just jotted down some quick ones off the top of my head - I'm sure there are many I am forgetting, and I'll add them as I remember them.
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In the Washington Post!

I got my first-ever press mention in this article in the Washington Post today! Welcome to all of you who are seeing my site first the first time - I hope it doesn't disappoint. You can poke around and look at my archived photos by clicking "archives" over on your left, and browse by city or by category. I spend most of my time in San Francisco and Boston, but also have a lot of photos from my travels. Some of the SF restaurants coming up include: Michael Mina, Town Hall, Tartare, Zuni Cafe, A16, and more. I hope you enjoy your stay! Please do come back. :)
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Site Problems

I'm experiencing some minor site problems due to a recent server upgrade - something messed up my image thumbnailing software. It should be resolved soon... UPDATE: This is proving to be more problematic than I first thought... Joseph at Future Point has been working hard to help me try and fix it. I just got back to Boston; hopefully I'll be able to fix everything this week as I settle down again. Sorry folks.
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Picture Zoom

I'm trying something new again here at arthur hungry. I guess I've been in the update/upgrade mood recently. I've been looking for a way to implement some bigger images for a while now that's easy and doesn't suck up too much bandwidth. You should now be able to click the images and get a bigger popup version. Of course, remember that I do have high res versions of every picture (2592x1944), which are too big to put on the site. But should you ever want to use one for a wallpaper or... print it (heh) feel free to ask. Anyway, the ones you can click to now are 760x570... a little more than twice as big as what's on the front page. Note that this will only work with pictures from now on. To do it with the old posts, I have to manually edit every entry. Maybe I'll get around to it over winter break. Hope you like.
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