Oh David Chang. How hyped up you’ve been. How polarising your food is. Inevitably, you either love your hate the brazen and sometimes winning concoctions that Momofuku restaurants serve up. The noodle bar is especially well known for a fresh approach to pan-Asian cooking, for amazing pork buns, and for a bowl of ramen you just have to try. Well, if it involves noodles, clearly I’m there. So, I marched down to 1st Ave the first time I was in New York City as an adult, patiently waited for the hot seat, and dove in. Now here’s where the yelpers declare war. Some claim the joint is well worth the big city prices, the big apple wait times, and the big names behind it, while others think it’s an over-priced, over-spiced, over-hyped trend.

And on which side of the line do I fall? Momofuku may be hit or miss, but for me it’s mostly miss. I’ve been a few times now, and as a Momfuku vet, I have to say the allure has rubbed off and in its stead lie over-salty noodles, over-sauced rice cakes, and not enough skill to back up the build up. Of course I still greatly enjoyed the experience, I was after all facing the prospect of a bowl of ramen, or ginger noodles, or spicy chow mein, or whatever was on the large chalkboard over the bar. Still, there are better noodles to be had faster and cheaper.

Perhaps my woes are the context. The ramen, so beloved by the write-ups, is crashing haute cuisine by the new “it” kid against the age-old fast food. The whole appeal of hot ramen is the efficiency, the standard-ness of it all, the mere fact that because you are only using two ingredients really, noodles and broth, they both better be damn good. There’s something about putting too-chewy noodles in searingly spice broth with a mucky egg and something more akin to cuban pulled pork that just rubs me the wrong way. Sure it’s got that cramped counter feel, that eat-it-and-run vibe, but the loving intensity of the chefs is not imbibed in every marble of fat that floats on the surface. So no, Momofuku, you ramen failed. But, if you stop thinking of the ramen as the crowning glory, in fact of the noodles being center stage at all, the place becomes infinitely more appealing. I was taken aback by how truly delectable all of the starters were, and again by how perfectly the seafood was paired with the accouterments. So perhaps, Momofuku, I failed you.

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Don’t let me for one moment convince you any of the Momofuku establishments aren’t worth your patronage. The food is innovative certainly, and it’s rare someone takes on pan-Asian fusion wildly and aimlessly and comes out of it with accolades, but if you were ever to find an exception, New York would be the place, and David Chang would be your man. He ignores all the rules, and while a purist like myself can sometimes balk as Chang steamrolls the cultural nuances the average diner misses, he does add a good dose of open-mindedness to the American melting pot that can hardly be considered uncalled for. For all the food falls short, I’m still a fan.

The die-hard Daikokuya fan in me can’t concede the title of best ramen (tonkotsu is the real McCoy) to a contender as hodgepodge and poorly seasoned as Momofuku, I can say there are a few hits in the menu. For $35, the four-course pre-fixe is a steal, and every time I’ve gotten it at least one of the dishes has been stellar (last time was fennel and apple soup with rockpool oysters, the time before was seared skate medallion with pineapple salsa). The pork/shitake buns truly are some of the most unbelievable buns I’ve ever eaten: soft, moist, dripping with god knows what is in that sauce (probably baby tears, again, because something so delicious can only come from something so sacrilege). And of course, Texan as I am, any place you can get a Lone Star is okay with me.

My advice is to go, if nothing else to see what the fuss is about. Have yourself a soju slushie, sit at the open kitchen if you can, and at least consider the pre-fixe menu. Brave the line, definitely order the buns, and enjoy the ambiance, the experience, the wow factor that you can find only in New York, the kind of place that lets wacky experiments in multicultural inbred cuisine not just occur, but thrive. If all else fails, there’s always the soft serve for dessert. Don’t call it Milk Bar, just call it Plan B.

More pictures and videos of Momofuku and the rest of my trip to New York at Unlikely Squiggle’s Flickr.

On my plate: rigatoni with chunky neopolitana sauce, roasted garlic bread, and a salad of arugala, goats cheese, and warm roasted golden beetroot all dressed in lemon juice and olive oil

Generally, I hate rewards programmes. I believe in complete services instead because I’m driven mad when companies pretend to offer you something but instead just waste your time or fill your inbox with junk mail. When was the last time your supermarket rewards system saved you more than .02% of your total? When was the last time your bookseller membership’s 20% off actually paid for itself? I was an Arclight member for years and dozens of $14 movie tickets never once got me so much as a free popcorn. There’s nothing fair about frequent flier miles you can’t actually redeem and magazine subscriptions that haunt you for years after you’ve stopped subscribing and I’d be lying if I said I was comfortable with so many unused perks accounts opened in my name. Yet, the perk has a purpose. At their hearts, rewards programmes aren’t evil things. It doesn’t have to be a one-way street, and even someone as skeptical as I can fall prey to a few well executed perks. As the holidays roll around there are quite a few point systems sending me weekly email reminders to redeem before 2010 arrives, and though most of these newsletters are auto-filtered into my bin, every once in a while a company gets it right. Hateful though I may be, there are a few perks programmes that I actually adore.

1. Godiva Chocolate Rewards
Make no bones about it, gourmet chocolate is a luxury good. I enjoy a nice truffle now and again, and I think fancy consumables make for a classy gift, which is how I ended up at the Godiva store purchasing a host gift. I’m all about free rewards, but when I enrolled in Godiva’s rewards programme, I did not expect to actually use it, let alone enjoy it as well. It’s pretty simple, for signing up you get free shipping on one online order, one box of two candies, and one free piece of chocolate a month. That’s right, you get a free $2 truffle, any truffle in the store, every month. You can walk into the store and get a free candy, just like that. Of course, that’s the genius of it all. Godiva says, “Hey, we get that gourmet chocolate is a little too pricey to splurge on all the time. But now you have an excuse to come in and get excited about chocolate without having to buy anything,” and you do. I find myself in the store once a month to keep that free truffle from going to waste, and, I’m sure to Godiva’s joy, I buy my token gifts exclusively from Godiva, occasionally treat myself to a half-dozen truffles, and have become a snobbish elitist who eschews the competition. It wouldn’t work if chocolate wasn’t already a trivial purchase, but because the freebie gets me in the door, I’ve gone from a rarely consumer to a regular customer. Plus, I get free high-quality chocolate every month.

2. Half Price Burger Night
My local pub round the corner is just that, a pub round the corner, and as such my expectations are pretty low. I go because it’s a good place to meet up with mates and catch a pint, to grab a seasonal Sam Adams on tap, and to watch the Man U games they occasionally air on Sundays. It does its job well, but their breakfast sucks, the service is mediocre, and I’d ordinarily never frequent the place for anything more than a nightcap or a football game. Except every Wednesday is half-price burger night, so, presuming I come early enough for happy hour, I can get a beer, a burger, and a side of luscious mac’n'cheese for something in the single digits. Glorious, and brilliant, because now I’m a customer who instead of never buying a meal, goes once a week. We both win, and if that isn’t perky, nothing is.

3. Amazon Coupons
Paying for Amazon Prime was the best decision I ever made (I had to talk myself out of buying paper towels via Amazon yesterday and go to the grocer’s like a normal person), but I expect that decision to pay off. It’s a service I paid for. What I didn’t expect is all the coupons that come from buying things. I much prefer Amazon’s MP3 service to buying a hard album — much less waste all around, plus you get it instantly and it saves me a step to getting the album on my iPod — but Amazon Prime won’t save you much on digital downloads. Amazon, to encourage me to buy more music, keeps giving me $1 off my next album purchased through the MP3 store. They keep giving me 10% off my next MP3 store purchase. They keep giving me special prices on the new releases by artists I’ve already bought from them. Except, unlike an endless stream of Bed Bath & Beyond coupons I keep receiving as junk mail, I actually use these coupons. $7 is insanely cheap for a full-length album, and the break suddenly makes me not only buy more music from that store, but makes me insanely loyal. Between routinely getting music freebies and constantly getting my 2-day shipping packages a day early, Amazon has made me into a die-hard customer for life. That’s intelligent marketing.

What about you? Any perks that work?

I have a great many funny images hiding int he back of my hard drive, from bizarre error messages to entertaining infographics and a set of totally bizarre subway service announcements. I’ve been meaning to spread the joy and share the numerous and hilarious charts and graphs I’ve run across in my time, but until a recent round of flowcharts reminded me that even charts and graphs can be funny, I daresay it had slipped my mind. So now, I pay hommage to the hilarity of the flowchart, in what will surely be a long string of hilarious informational and data driven graphics to come whose sole purpose is not to inform, but to leave you in stitches. And so, let it begin.

1. The Unemployment Flowchart
This one is actually terrifying because it’s real. That’s right, the smarties over at the Mint blog have provided an easy flowchart to show just how many hoops you need to jump through to qualify as unemployed, or rather, how often you can wind up as neither unemployed or employed regardless of your employment status. Who know bizarre limbo-land was so easy to get lost in?

2. The Panflute Dilemma
The panflute dilemma, while an age-old and often confounding dilemma, is easily solved with the use of a modern-day flowchart. It’s hilarity lies in its simplicity.

3. Sara Palin’s Debate Tactics
If you’re planning on entering a vice presidential debate and still want to scrape by, or if your name is Sara Palin, follow this flow chart and perhaps the public will forget they’re watching a debate. Whether you agree with the political view behind the chart, you can’t deny it’s at least a little bit clever.

4. The iPhone Etiquette Guide
Should you pull your iPhone out right now? When is it appropriate to whip your fanciest gadget out? Will your girlfriend mind? All these questions put to rest with a flowchart meant to narrow your decision down.

Should You Use Your iPhone Right Now?

5. The True Identity of Your Online Girlfriend
Click the link below to view the only flowchart with the power to reveal the true identity of your online girlfriend. You’re just a few simple boxes and arrows away from knowing the truth!

Who Is Your Online Girlfriend, Really>

6. Thanksgiving, Predicted
Think your Thanksgiving night plans were original? Think again. Under the right conditions, everyone’s holiday always ends up the same, and here’s the flowchart to prove it.

How Will Your Thanksgiving Pan Out?

7. What To Eat, Drink, and Munch
What exhibition on funny flowcharts would be complete without a trifecta of flowcharts helping you decide what to drink based on your gender and fashion choices, what to eat based on your hunger situation, and what cereal to ingest without having to leave the apartment? It’s these three flowcharts. Click the links to find out.

What Will I Drink?
Where Will I Eat?
What Will I Eat?

There’s air travel and then there’s budget air travel, and if you live in the US, flying any distance is pretty easy to dread. Some of our domestic airline carriers leave you grounded on the tarmac for hours at a time, while others consistently delay flights, and still more are constantly overbooked. There’s nothing enjoyable about spending four hours in a cramped airliner seat, especially after you’ve had to pay your checked baggage fee, buy your own lunch, and purchase headset if you don’t want to accidentally cause bodily harm to the small child squirming in the seat directly behind you. Suffice to say, it’s not a pretty picture.

But in a world where nearly every carrier I can think of is committing more customer service sins then I ever knew even existed, there is a glimmer of hope, and that small ray of light isn’t gold, it’s purple. That’s right, it’s the in-cabin lighting of Virgin America’s ultra-posh Airbuses. Now, before I spend an entire article gushing about how Virgin America is doing things right, you need to know I am not taking handouts from Virgin. No one is paying me to write such wonderful things about the airline, and while at first it may seem like I must work for Virgin on commission, by the time you read through all the reasons why Virgin America is worth your pennies, you just might find yourself becoming a disciple. Your path to seeing the purple light begins with just that, Virgin America’s mood lighting.

Mood lighting in the main cabin, licensed by http://www.flickr.com/photos/crucially under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Like a well-engineered ride at Disneyworld, or a particularly trendy lounge, Virgin America has some pretty funky atmospheric elements. From the moment you check in at those ultra-fast kiosks to the moment you board past those blaringly white gates, greeted by Euro-coat toting stewards with spiky hair, it’s pretty easy to pick Richard Branson’s newest airline endeavour from the crowd. The plane’s ambiance is the best example of the company’s attention to detail, as the cabin lights go from discoteque pink to a cool purple, a change which is intended to be less harsh lighting that mimics the time of day, creating a more restful flight experience. And you just thought they were cool.

It’s the little touches such as daylight-timed lighting and the half-size boarding passes that provide an entirely different user experience than the average airline carrier does. In fact, the entire flight is filled with brilliant design left and right. For example, the headphone jacks usually found on airlines are of the two-prong variety, while on Virgin America they’re the standard, single 1/8″ jacks that allow you to use your own headphones. Imagine that, making headphone jacks compatible with headphones! Every seat on Virgin America, even in coach has standard-outlet electrical plugs, so you don’t have to ration your ipod battery anymore. Even better, every Virgin American flight now offers free in-flight wi-fi, so you can actually get something done next time you pull out and power up your portable computer. How much extra do all these little bits and bobs cost? Nothing. It’s included in every Virgin America flight. It’s like they actually care about their customers needs, and instead of cutting corners or trying to capitalise on uncomfortable two-prong headsets, have decided to accommodate the needs of the frequent flyer. What a concept.

Seat on Virgin America, licensed by http://www.flickr.com/photos/binderdonedat under CC BY-ND 2.0

I’m just getting started, too. Let’s talk about in-flight service. All the liquids you’d normally get for free on any other domestic carrier are the same — beer, wine and spirits for sale, and all the juices, pops, and hot teas and coffees you can drink are still gratis — but it’s not really the selection that’s so great. You order your drinks from your seat, saving you the frustration of A) having to wait for the drink cart to reach you in seat 26, B) not being able to return to your seat because of the damn drink cart, C) drinking when you are not thirsty because you only get one shot at hydration, D) only getting one drink. It’s a great system, and I imagine it saves the flight attendants because it spreads the drink requests out to a more manageable stream. The other great part about your in-flight services is that they don’t necessitate an endless stream of loudspeaker announcements. Virgin America flights go through the basic and required announcements, but they don’t pester you with duty-free shopping options, a list of things you can buy, or news about how to earn double points with the Elevate flyer programme. They’re quiet. They let you get on with your book, or your movie, or your nap, or your internet browsing, or your whatever. I swear they actually want to make your flight experience better or something.

That brings me to the food. I knew I loved Virgin America when I looked at the food menu and saw the words “extra crackers” in the description for the cheese and fruit plate, as if to indicate that instead of getting a one gram cube of cheese with a single cracker, you were going to be given multiple cheeses and more than enough crackers with which to gobble up the goodies. Virgin America was true to its word, for I received a serious wedge of Camembert, four slices of soft Swiss, two thick cut pieces of yellow Cheddar, and a hunk of Gouda, plus half a dozen Mozzarella balls with cherry tomatoes, red grapes, and a marinated artichoke. A serious cheese plate for $8. Moreover, I was excited that there even was a cheese plate. As a vegetarian, I often find that if I want to eat on a cross country flight, I have to bring my own lunch, which can get pretty tricky if you’re going through security somewhere like DC, where even dried apricots can appear suspect. Every Virgin America flight I have taken had a vegetarian option, and a pretty good one at that. I’ve eaten awesome caprese sandwiches and even seen the cold soba noodle salad with panna cotta and marinated shitake. There are thai beef wraps and arugula and goat’s cheese salads, and no shortage of fancy nutmixes if that’s your thing. Of course all of these are for sale, but aside from Continental, I haven’t been fed for free on a flight (in coach) since I wasn’t old enough to make my own plane reservations. Being able to pay via credit card, email your receipt, or even buy food you actually want to eat is one gigantic perk.

Vegetarian in-flight lunch, licensed by http://www.flickr.com/photos/santos under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The only bit we haven’t covered is the Red, Virgin America’s personal entertainment system, which beats the pants off of Jet Blue’s because not only can you order food, drinks, and snacks, watch live satellite television, and listen to music, but you can rent from a large variety of movies, instant message your mate eight rows up, and challenge another passenger to a multiplayer video game, like Doom. Most of it’s free, and all of it’s pretty comprehensive, making your flight much more enjoyable than staring at the seat head of you for six hours. And that’s another reason Virgin America earns some sizable brownie points: all their flights are nonstop, so when you fly to SFO from JFK it takes you 6 hours instead of 12, and with a 3-hour time change and a business meeting hours later, timed saved is everything.

Now, to any pioneering American, it would seem that so many amenities would come with a fairly hefty price tag, but it’s all included. Yes, you get the extra legroom, the electrical sockets, the normal headphone jack, the tetris and TLC, the peace and quiet, the gourmet meals, the funny safety video, and the mood lighting all for the price of a normal ticket. In fact, Virgin America is consistently and significantly cheaper than most airlines for the flights it does offer. For example, the average flight from IAD to LAX costs about $275 on a good day, usually has one stop, and is, well, not nearly as fun to fly. The Virgin America flight between IAD and LAX (which I have flown many times) is $205 on a good day, while many of their other legs, especially those out of San Francisco, can get ridiculously cheap. Their last holiday sale had flights between SFO and JFK as low as $39 each way. That’s all kinds of crazy competitive. The only downside is that Virgin America doesn’t fly everywhere. It’s picked some major cities and flies between them more or less exclusively: Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas, Boston, New York, Washington DC, and hopefully more to come (Philadelphia, Houston, and Chicago would be nice). If you’re like me and would rather be stuck on a United flight to Honolulu than take a propeller plane to Wyoming, then Virgin America is the carrier for you, but even if you don’t dig their ports of call, Virgin America is still doing quite a few things right.

On my plate: marinated seaweed salad with sesame and yuzu, part of a sushi dinner completed by edamame, assorted nigiri, and ice cold Kirin Ichiban

We all remember our first trip to Tsukiji (pronounced “ski-gee”) fish market. In Tokyo it’s a right of passage, a tourist destination, and a local icon simultaneously. Where else can you buy a 85kg tuna for millions of yen? Where else do you have to chew your still-wriggling octopus tentacle before you swallow to ensure it doesn’t strangle you on the way down? And where else do you have to wear wellingtons year round?

It isn’t just the world’s largest, busiest, and most prestigious fish market, Tsukiji is a Japanese landmark. It’s the most readily accessible glimpse into the intense world of the Japanese work ethic, filled with zooming carts, white-gloved traffic managers, and more men smoking, talking, carting six cardboard boxes, throwing fish, shouting, spearing yellowfin whole, and trying to get you to buy a gross of their tomatoes. It’s a shoppers paradise, and it all happens before 4am.

Tsukiji isn’t just known for it’s impressive variety of seafare, or for the rapidity with which business transpries, though both are awe-inspiring in their own right. In my opinion, Tsukiji stands as a reflection of so much blatant Nippon-ism: the tireless working man’s vigour, the fisherman’s pride, the massive oceanic bounty readily bought for consumption from seaweeds to roes, well-oiled maneouvers that keep a large-scale machine running without hiccup, and of course, the sheer masses and palpably formidable presence of the Japanese. Seeing how much and how many different types of fish the Japanese eat is like seeing a microcosm of how big the country is, how many people it must support, and where it excels in the world arena. The tuna bidding wars are a sight to behold, and remind me of just how cutthroat the culinary world can be, as I watched several tourists being removed for touching a tuna too many.

Tsukiji market — and I mean all of the market, from the political fish trades inside to the garden-variety produce outside to the passerby merely glancing off the outer stratosphere of planet Tsukiji without even knowing how deep the rabbit hole goes — it’s a display of mastery, nothing more. The precision of fish sales, the exacting nature in which boxes make their way through the fireman’s drill off of the farmer’s truck, all of it is a demonstration with such everyday luster that if you aren’t paying attention, you might be convinced it’s nothing special. But it is something special. It’s this little hub of activity that turns pre-dawn glow into a boiler fire and ushers in a new day amid elbowing and elbow grease.

The above, by Myles in London, encapsulates the hubbub one can experience while the rest of the city is still a-dreamin’, the sort of frantic to-and-fro that, though routine in places like Shibuya crossing or Shinjuku station, is almost entirely out of place somewhere like Tokyo Bay. Contrast the insanity of the tuna auctions hidden deep in the heart of the warehouse maze that is Tsukiji with the quiet, calculated, calm of the sushi stalls rimming the outer ring of the wholesale market. Instead of 85kg tuna fish you get 2g, perfectly sized sashimi that tastes milder than anything you’ve ever put in your mouth. You get lines out the door for a morning course of nigiri sushi. You get foreigners from as far as Timbuktu placing complete trust in the sushi chef they’ve never met and don’t have a hope of understanding. It’s a place where the world gets turned upside down for a few hours every day, and then miraculously righted in time for the salarymen to make it to the office before their bosses.

My first night out in Japan I had every intention of visiting Tsukiji; in many ways the catacombs of seafood were always the first thing on my “must see” list, and yet I lay my head down at a ripe 3:00, wholeheartedly believing I would make it to the market before the clock struck six. Of course I kick myself for not just hitching up my skirts and heading towards Tsukiji then and there, because I didn’t make it out to the very place I wanted to be most until six hours before my flight out of the country months later. At the same time, the greatly delayed gratification ensured it was a place I’ll never forget, always love, and long to return to. Yes it does carry that kind of allure.

I have never seen anything like the zoo, nay, the orchestra that was that fish market, and before I could even poke my nose around, my mate Alisa was there, looking like the かいしゃいん I never knew she was, smiling like a banshee because she knew I was about to get an eyeful. She led me past the easily one hundred-person line awaiting Daiwa sushi and we took a seat at the entirely empty sushi bar next door. Alisa and the chef chit-chatted about the crazy tourists, and after we made our less than conservative (tako, uni, and takuwan are apparently unusual preferences for がいこくじん tastebuds) order, we were treated to a tour of the coldwater oceans. Alisa and I, both aspiring surfers, were hungry for the slightly salty aftertaste and critiqued one another’s favourite surf spots in Chiba before we said our goodbyes.

“Well,” she said, “now you’ll never want to leave.” And she was right, because I spent as many minutes as I could possibly spare ambling endlessly through the labyrinthian market, sacrificing much-needed sleep and photography equipment amid the piles of こつおぶし and the few remaining bunches of たむぽぽ greens. Tsukiji is a place you don’t forget, and while it’s in all the guidebooks and on all the travel shows and at the top of any shortlist you consult, that doesn’t mean it isn’t deserved. Tokyo is a city of places unlike anywhere else, a land of truly unique, and Tsukiji is perhaps the crowning gem of them all. It doesn’t matter that it’s been a place to visit since farther back than your grandfather can remember, because Tsukiji is not going to stop being amazing anytime soon.

Want to see more of what Tsukiji’s all about? You can see the rest of my photos of Tsukiji, or you can also check out Mark Wu’s comprehensive Tsukiji flickr set.