It's been an interesting week. Today, I got such a publicly ripping from Chef Pardus, that my friend Ryan asked me at lunch if "he'd left any of my ass." It probably was the worst anyone has ever given it to me and was tough to make it through without getting totally emotional.

On Tuesday, the Asias kitchen I'm in was closed and the whole class taken to New York City for an Asian Food Show, amongst others. It ended up being pretty lame on the Asian side, but the Latin American Food Show and Kosherfest 2006 (complete with DJ) was pretty awesome. Israeli wine is just terrible though, and I can say with confidence, that 10am is too early for Sake samples.

Attended a really interesting lecture by two women running an indian-latin america fusion restaurant in Chicago, called Vermillion. They were really interesting and their concept and execution for their restaurant was very impressive. Around 4pm, we headed back to the bus to head over to second ave to a place called Bao Noodle. It's a traditional vietnamese restaurant that's pretty small and cozy. I really liked the building and the owner was a friend of our Chef. They treated us to a traditional vietnamese family meal, 10 courses long, that was very well done; changed my perspective on vietnamese food.

If you're ever in the area, look up Bao Noodle.