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Creator lessons from NYC food: Xi’an Famous Foods

Okay after Very Fresh Noodles the other day the craving came back pretty fast. Instead of going back, I thought I’d go down the street to the newer Chelsea location of Xi’an Famous Foods.

Got the lamb noodles and a pork burger.

It was, unsurprisingly, delicious. As good as I remember.

So now let me do a biang biang esque pull and try to connect this to creative work.

  • Help your audience pick: There are a couple pages posted up alongside the menu. I remember one from the first time I went to the St. Marks location: eat take out orders fast or the noodles stick together. At this location one page had a disclaimer about spiciness. The owner would order it spicy, otherwise he finds it too bland.
  • Compromise, sometimes: Now, there’s a story Seth Godin tells where David Chang allowed customizations at Momofuku when Godin went in the early days. Then one day it was, nope, no customization you’ll have to go elsewhere. And in not compromising, he became a creative success. It’s a good story. It’s also not a black and white world. Sometimes it’s worth following the data. Someone spreads the word by bringing a friend in, but their friend doesn’t handle spicy well. The mild option helps in that situation.
  • Treat your team well: No tips signals that employees probably get paid a good wage. And the owner responds to reviews, defending his workers if they’re accused of some kind of devious intent. While it might be breaking the “customer is always right” idea, his team must appreciate that support. Good for the long game.

I’m writing this at the end of my week in Manhattan. I might write a couple more: Katz’s, Minetta Tavern. But for now I’m very, very full.

(P.S. for my Road to 159 audience, dry lamb noodles are 1000 cals. Well worth it.)

Creator lessons from NYC food: Very Fresh Noodles

Here we go with some different things I’ve been eating and tenuous life lessons.Very Fresh Noodles (same stuff, less stuff, very good location)

I love Very Fresh Noodles. I also love X’ian Famous Foods. Which one’s better? I don’t know. Probably just depends on the day. I think it’s a stretch to say that either is way way better than the other.

(Where, while I also enjoy both In-N-Out and Shake Shack, I can see why people think one is way better than other. They’re more different than Very Fresh Noodles and X’ian Famous Foods. I also sometimes wish that In-N-Out didn’t have a good burger so I could say that In-N-Out vs Shake Shack boils down to being from California vs. liking good burgers. Because there’s something more pleasant about going to In-N-Out and so then California people will say you don’t get it, you don’t have to spend $22, and other true things but that aren’t about the burgers themselves. Anyway, this argument doesn’t happen anymore because Shake Shack is in California now too.)

Okay so basically X’ian was a great lunch option with multiple locations.

Very Fresh Noodles opened up a single location in the Chelsea Market. It’s very touristy, so that can be a non-starter for some people. But the side entrances meant it was somewhat easy to get in and get out without waddling through Chelsea Market’s main corridor. I’ve never seen Very Fresh Noodles without customers.

Very Fresh Noodles has similar food but with a much simpler menu. It was roughly: beef or lamb, dry or with soup.

A nice 2×2, like Apple’s offerings.

“Basically, Steve hit Apple’s entire product line with the Simple Stick. He was going to transition Apple from its multitude of computer models to a simple grid of four: laptops for consumers and pros and desktops for consumers and pros. It was one of the most dramatic minimizations of a product line in technology history.”

They’ve since added a few things, but not to the point of X’ian’s table of elements esque wall of photos to pick from.

Anyway, the takeaway: simplify your offerings and be on a platform where people already are.

Always, always write in the editor

I’ve written this a bunch but the good stuff is worth repeating endlessly: there’s nothing that helps me publish more than writing in the editor.

Whenever I write in something where I can’t directly hit publish, I run into issues:

  • Telling myself “oh I’ll fix these things when I copy it over and edit it”: Inevitability, I put too many placeholders in. Every “TK” I casually toss in is another anchor on the editing process. A handful leads to not wanting to edit and finish at all.
  • Not being entirely clear on if the writing will be for publishing: This leads to half finished pieces. I’ll start off with something for publishing but then write a note to myself. Then I’m right back to the issue mentioned in the previous bullet. It’s not always easy to distinguish which sentences were for publishing or not. And it can be tempting to just give up on writing a published thing and tell myself “well at least I’m getting practice typing the words, even if it’s private.”
  • It’s easier to lose drafts: While I can use an action to publish in Drafts, and also I can set up a workspace to separate things intended for publishing, it’s still too easy for things to get lost in the shuffle if I’m writing finished work in the same place that I write “reminder: drop off suit”.

Anyway, just wanted to hit publish again on something after doing these unfinished actions while on a trip to NYC:

  • Wrote 9 thread drafts on the plane (none published)
  • Wrote 5 thread drafts in a coffee shop (none published)
  • Wrote a very long thread in another coffee shop (not published)
  • Recorded something like 90 minutes of voice notes (not published)

If they were private, that’d be okay. But I wrote them all with the intention to hit publish and didn’t get it out.

Write in the editor.

Road to 159: Week 8 of 8 — is this the end or the beginning?

The journey ends. Let’s call this one a failure. But a failure we can build on. There was a lot of momentum in this last week leading into the 2-week east coast trip.

  • What went well: pre packaged salads and cubed chicken — often the effective thing will be the boring thing because the effective thing is something you can repeat. We got a bunch more of the pre packaged salads from Costco. It makes all stages of eating easier. Prep and planning is gone, just open the things. It doesn’t take too long to eat but also isn’t just something to wharf down mindlessly so it makes for a good lunch break option. No clean up afterward other than tossing the packaging. And then tracking is super easy since it has a barcode. Again: boring, but effective.
  • What could be improved: the social eating begins — I can already feel the pull of social eating and “what the hell, I’m traveling!” Had House of Prime Rib for the first time for my birthday so that was totally worth it. Now I just need to minimize the damage.
  • What to try out: “I already know what that tastes like.” — I heard about this mantra on Reddit somewhere. (I think it was leangains but I’m not certain.) it’s something that Action Bronson would tell himself on his own weight loss journey. I’ll see if it works, alongside “I eat like an adult.”

The trip begins. This particular road to 159 was an absolute failure, going by the numbers. And also going by a lot of other things.

Recording it week by week was good. And it could be a great thing if I’m able to learn from it and execute the next attempt better.

If I can capture the week 7 & 8 momentum after the trip to get back on the wagon, that’ll be good.

Until then…!

Stand up to live, sit down to earn a living

From A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

I only say this because part of the reason my life had become uninspiring is I’d sat down to earn a living. Literally, I sat in a chair and typed words. And that’s fine, because I like the work, and it pays the rent. But Jordan was right: my life was a blank page, and all I was putting on the page were words. I didn’t want to live in words anymore; I wanted to live in sweat and pain.

I keep getting stuck staring at glass. I should be walking around exploring New York but sometimes it becomes more tempting to sit down and write about walking around exploring New York.

Gotta find some kind of balance. Especially because this writing isn’t the writing that actually pays my rent.

In any case, I’ve been enjoying listening to A Million Miles in a Thousand Years while walking around New York.

I’m glad I’ve had some interest in food, because it does become a reason to head out to different parts of the city. It’d be GREAT if new delicious food was disconnected from physical health.

In any case, the sweat and pain for me tonight will be from overeating Minetta Tavern’s cote de beouf.

Which I need to include in the “7 life lessons from steak” post. An idea that keeps coming back to me every time I have a significant steak.

Jotting some quick steak ideas down:

  • Sous vide making years of practice obsolete: I used to be proud to be able to cook a good steak. Now anyone can cook a perfect steak every time for only like $99. In a somewhat random connection, this reminds me of Tiago Forte talking about how he used to be an expert in organizing his mp3s in iTunes. He put dozens of hours of his time into his collection. Eventually Apple released music match and all that work was obsolete.
  • The people matter more than the steak: When I think back to any memorable steaks, I picture the people there. Then I just assume it was a rib eye or porterhouse. Because that detail doesn’t matter as much as who I was having it with.
  • Good marbling over giant pieces of fat: Though I do love a nice crisped up piece of fat, pricier steaks are just that because of good marbling through the muscle. It makes the entire steak better. There’s something about consistency over intensity here.
  • The IKEA effect and cooking a steak from a cow you’ve murdered and butchered on your own: I’ll send an email to Zuck to see if he’ll guest write this section.

Okay time to stand up, step away from the glass, and live.