Favorite restaurant: Katsuo and Kombu
(where I'm writing this, right now.) Katsuo and Kombu is tasty, inexpensive, unpretentious. They're one of the only places in the world where the staff know my name [1] the other being Matching Half, which I also recommend.
- The proprietor is devoted to the craft of noodle-making. He hails from Japan.
- Focus: the only main they serve is udon
- But there's a large variety of udon options, both hot and cold, meat and veg.
- I've asked them to cater various events I host, which I expect would be quite profitable, but he turned me down, I think because of the inability at this time to produce high quality food at such a scale
- The staff are bubbly, enthusiastic
- service right up there with Japanese norms
- little touches like yuzu shichimi containers at every table, cloth baskets to hold your materials off the ground, yorushika playing over the speakers
My favorite dishes: the farmer's market salad (served cold, always includes in-season veggies accompanied by a zesty sauce rather than broth); the pesto genovese (hot pesto udon! available vegan!); the curry (if you're okay with beef; the fried kale melts right in); hojicha panna cotta (if you're lucky enough to catch it)
Favorite person: Rachel Weinberg
- [1] unfortunately, Rachel's favorite person is not me, it's Ada. fortunately, Ada's favorite person is me.
Favorite song: Love & Roll by Supercell
Favorite book: Ender’s Game
Favorite movie: Your Name
Favorite earbuds: Final E2000
Unsure if these count, since I’m picking these out now:
Favorite alcoholic drink: Pina Colada
Favorite blogger: Scott Alexander (?)
Favorite drug: modafinil
Favorite game: Magic: The Gathering
Favorite “board game”: Hanabi
Notes on these favorites
- Not the same as “best”, or even “best per Austin’s taste”. A favorite is qualitatively distinct. For arbitrary categories like “TV show” I can probably come up a single best item if I do enough head-to-head comparisons. But that doesn’t mean I have a favorite TV show.
- Parents aren’t supposed to have favorite kids. Likewise, I don’t know that I should (or can) have favorites among things I’ve made.
To have a favorite, it usually has to strike me as unique, special, standing completely above other items of its category. I need to have consciously thought “huh, this is my favorite X”.
I’ll usually have consumed the thing an ungodly number of times. I’ve read Ender’s Game cover to cover 10+ times; I’ve purchased 6+ copies of the Final E2000.