My First Food Pop-Up is Next Week + Stuff I Did in June

Seasonal Asian veggies, missing the Song of the Summer, Ghost Quartet in Green-Wood Cemetery (Kernels, June 1 - 30, 2025)

June was not a good month to be out and about, since we had a week of that torrential rain followed by that horrific heat. (The start of July has been a relative balm.) I’ve largely been laying low since getting back from Spain earlier this month. I only ate out six times since returning, which is barely anything in a city like New York. There were a lot of meals cooked at home.

On the subject of cooking…

I’m hosting my first food pop-up!

In one week, my cousin Eric and I will be taking over the kitchen at Orion Bar and serving some fun Vietnamese-American dishes. If you’re in New York come by and say hi! (Though it may be a very brief chat. I’ll be working the line, after all.) Bring your friends, lovers, and enemies.

Here’s the info:

Dru & Ric’s present Tiến Lên Night

• Sunday, July 13, 4 PM till 9PM (or we sell out; drinks until midnight)

• Orion Bar in Bushwick

• RSVP on Partiful is not required but appreciated. This is a casual “order food at the bar” situation!

We’re making four dishes, which are best when shared:

Illustrations by Amanda Nguyen! Designed by Eric!

Photo by Brian!

I’m especially excited about this menu because it’s a combination of Viet and American cuisines that reflect our California upbringings. We hope you like them. “The worst thing about these dishes,” Eric remarked, “is that I have to be the one to make them. I can’t just go somewhere and pay for it.” But next Sunday, you can! Everything has fish sauce, so vegetarians… You can have dessert and drinks lol

Beyond our dishes, chè, a delicious Viet dessert, will be provided by Ch-Yeah. They’re either vegan or vegetarian and all gluten-free!

At the bar will be a special cocktail for only $13 thanks to Bacardi (!!!) in addition to Orion’s regular drinks menu. Plus, playing cards will be available so you can play Tiến Lên!

Also known as Thirteen or Big 2, this card game holds a lot of fond memories. At our family get togethers, whenever we’d get the chance, all of the cousins would scurry off to a room, dirty Bicycle decks in hand, and play Tiến Lên. One of our aunts would pass around plates of fruit or freshly made pandan waffles. Surprisingly, we didn’t really place any bets on the outcome of the games.

It’s super simple to play and games don’t usually last longer than five minutes, making it an ideal way to pass the time while waiting for your food or sipping on your drinks. Explainers on how to play will be passed out, but here’s all the rules if you wanna study in advance!

I’ve regularly hosted dinner parties in my home for the past four years, many of them with Eric, but it’s a big step to host a public event. Instead of the 10-12 people I squeeze into my apartment, we’ll be feeding several dozen (maybe even 100??)

We’ve spent the past couple months refining the recipes and practicing our plating, but in Diana’s words, “the shrimp don’t have to stand up, they just have to stand out.” Putting this together has been a true family affair: my brother Brian took all the food photos (disclaimer: the bar’s plates don’t look like these) and his girlfriend Amanda did the illustrations in the menu cards.

Hopefully this will be a springboard for me and Eric to do more restaurant/bar takeovers. (And I’m always down to collaborate on all things involving cooking, movies, or both, for private or public events!)

Here’s hoping nothing goes wrong!

Back to our regularly scheduled programming…

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The Six Places Where I Ate Out in June

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This is the cocktail bar where Eric works. It used to be known as 929 but they’re moving to midtown and the original location in Long Island City has shifted from being a bar that plays Chinese pop music to a bar that plays… Japanese city pop. I’m a sucker for any negroni riff, so I enjoyed the Ryuichi, which includes yuzu juice and sencha green tea.

Don’t skip the Japanese-Taiwanese fusion food: I especially loved the cold appetizers set and the mala fries are perfect when downing your third drink of the night.

Went with Isaiah after a special 35mm screening of The Virgin Suicides at the MoMA, where Sofia Coppola did a great Q&A. Ran into Byron and one of his friends so we all sat together at the bar and collectively almost drank the entire menu. There was a hangover the morning after.

99 Favor Taste

It’s been some time since I last had hot pot, but it’s the best place to go if you’re in a large group. Always loved 99 Favor Taste because it’s all you can eat so I was able to get tripe and pig brain without much pushback. But my favorite hot pot dish is any kind of fish ball.

Went with all the cousins and some associated partners. Go on your birthday with a group of at least four; you’ll eat for free!

Han Dynasty

Tried to get into Bánh Anh Em for lunch on a Friday, but the hour wait was too long for some folks who needed to get back to work in the afternoon. So instead we went across the street to the super reliable Han Dynasty. Not the best Chinese food, but very good and it’s always there.

Went with some of the cousins and associated partners plus a couple of Kevin’s friends who were also trying to eat at Bánh Anh Em. Someday we’ll get a table there…

Semma

Byron snagged a table the morning of for a small birthday dinner in his honor. It had been over three years since I last visited this South Indian hotspot. Ever since opening, it’s been one of the toughest tables to get in this city, and it will remain that way for a long time, thanks to it just being crowned by the Times as the number one restaurant in New York. But it deserves all the acclaim. It’s in the West Village and is tastefully designed, but you can smell the mustard seeds getting toasted in the kitchen.

The gunpowder dosa is rightfully their top seller. Other faves: the sweet and spicy annasi pazham scallops with pineapple pachadi and jaggery, an amazing meen pollichathu (banana leaf-wrapped branzino), and muyal pirattal (wild rabbit leg braised in a very pungent, very spicy tomato-based sauce).

With the meal, we got a bottle of Domaine Louis Magnin Arbin Mondeuse 2015, which the somm warned us had taken on some farmhouse funk. Perhaps a little bit past its prime (which was reflected in the price) but as the meal went on it opened up quite nicely.

Olea

A little catch-up brunch with Jessica and Vincent, who were visiting from the Bay. I got a really nice tuna salad sandwich and we shared a delicious green pea dip. You get a choice of pita, endives, or both; we picked both but wish we just did the pita lol.

Wu’s Wonton King

My old roommate Daniel and his girlfriend Jess left the city and on their final night here, they booked a big table at this Chinatown stalwart. Cantonese food is the cheeseburger of Chinese cuisines, in my mind. It has a low ceiling but a very high floor, so I’m pretty much always gonna have a good time. Plus the massive tables are great for groups.

We got a massive king crab served three ways, along with a flotilla of other dishes, some of which the servers helpfully divided into individual soup bowls. The titular wontons are terrific, as was a beautiful steamed trout.

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Proud Member of the Asian Vegetable Club

I’m now a few weeks into the inaugural season of Choy Commons’ Asian Vegetable Club, a CSA where you get a share of the harvest of three Asian-owned farms, and so far it’s been great! The weekly hauls have integrated more Asian cooking into my weekly meals, while other members are being introduced to local produce.

Some favorite things I’ve made with my fresh Asian veggies:

• Godeungeo jorim (Korean mackerel and radish stew)

• Celtuce salad à la Wenwen (but I couldn’t get the same mala fizziness…hopefully I’ll get another shot at it)

• A salad of mizuna, fava leaves, cucumber, and nasturtium (from the farmer’s market) tossed with a miso-sesame vinaigrette

And the summer harvest is really just about to begin…

A tidbit probably interesting only to me: my weekly pickups are at the catering company Pixie Scout, who inhabit the space formerly occupied by Crown Finish Caves. The erstwhile cheese aging facility also made a cave-aged butter that was one of the greatest butters I’ve ever had in my life. It was introduced to me during a dinner at Momofuku Ko, which also no longer exists. I held onto my last pack for like six months. From what I can tell, no one has taken up the mantle of cave aged butter in the three years since they closed which is quite a shame.

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Dinners for Friends: Euro Smuggling Edition

It seemed rude to do all this cooking in June and not invite my friends over at least once. The highlight was showing off everything I brought back from my travels: cheese from Denmark (including gammel knas aka the best cheese ever) plus conservas and jamón ibérico from Spain¹.

My goal was to open up a good amount of tins and somehow we opened only three, so I’ll need to throw another party. I was actually kind of perplexed about that because 16 people came over, but it was a semi-potluck and folks brought some great treats to share that I took zero pictures of, whoops.

I also recreated a dish I had at El Cisne Azul Taberna in Madrid: shiitake mushrooms and surimi (imitation young eels/elvers). Surimi is pretty much the same as imitation crab, just shaped and colored differently. I did get a tin of the real thing, which was 30€ compared to 3,60€ for the fake stuff, so I could do a side by side comparison in the near future.

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Wine Time!

I’ve gotten a lot more into wine in the past year and change (there are currently 76 bottles in my apartment). Taking classes never really appealed to me, mainly due to price (I am also generally anti-wine bar) but also comparing palates and noses with strangers is a level of vulnerability that makes me uncomfortable!

So I decided to start my own wine club that would be super informal but still structured. It helps that I have a few friends who are incredibly knowledgeable and guided us through everything. Everyone brings one bottle, and we go through them one at a time.

The theme for the inaugural Wine Time meeting was simple: bring your go-to wine. Some folks had one specific bottle in mind, others were more general. It was great to hear everyone’s stories about their picks. Halfway through the party, America bombed Iran, so it was a good thing there were still six unopened bottles on the table.

This is what we drank, in the order that we had them:

• 1 rosé

  • Dom. de L’Estoile - France, Vin de Pays 2022 (Cabernet, Syrah, Cinsault, Grenache)

• 1 white

  • Domaine Didier Raimbault Sancerre 2023 - France, Upper Loire/Sancerre (Sauvignon Blanc)

• 3 orange

  • Paleokerisio, Dom. Glinavos 2022 - Greece, Ioannina (Debina, Vlahiko)

  • Florèz "Kind of Orange" 2022 - USA, California (Viognier)
    Ponce Gulp Hablo Orange 2024 - Spain, Castilla/La Mancha (Sauvignon Blanc, Verdejo)

• 7 red

  • Niepoort "Nat Cool" Bairrada 2023 - Portugal, Beiras/Bairrada (Baga)

  • Casa de Mouraz Antonio Lopes Ribeiro Chibu 2021 - Portugal, Dão (Field Blend)

  • Suertes del Marqués El Ciruelo Viñas Viejas 2018 - Spain, Canary Islands/Valle de la Orotava (Listan Negro)

    • This smelled so chalky and funky that we thought it had corked but it wasn’t quite that old and was recently purchased. After quadruple decanting, all was well.

  • Manoir de la Tête Rouge Bagatelle 2020 - France, Saumur (Cabernet Franc)

  • Fabien Jouves “Tu Vin Plus aux Soirées” 2024 - France (Malbec, Cabernet Franc)

  • Le Grand Chai Grande Réserve Merlot 2017 - France, Pays d'Oc (Merlot)

  • The Atom Cabernet Sauvignon 2022 - USA, California (Cabernet Sauvignon)

And here are the notes that Aeron took throughout the night, who rated the wines by the number of “booms”

That thirteenth drink was a cuvée of all twelve wines that I had poured into an oversized margarita glass. We all took a shot of it and honestly it was pretty drinkable…

The goal is to meet every six weeks or so, with roughly the same group of people. Not sure what the next theme will be, as it has to be pretty open-ended to ensure variety.

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Where’s our song of the summer?

Many people are saying this.

One year after the chart domination of the Powerpuff Girls (Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan) and the explosive Kendrick Lamar feud, the monoculture has once again disappeared. The aforementioned have spent the year taking a victory lap, with Kendrick dissing Drake at the Super Bowl and the three pop girlies headlining Primavera Sound².

Yes I am bragging right now.

But there’s a void where this year’s inescapable summer hit should be, the song that you’ll listen to dozens of times whether you like it or not. Last year had so many contenders, this year has… nothing?

Go to any cookout in God’s country and you’ll hear Morgan Wallen, but he’s a nonfactor elsewhere.

PinkPantheress is gaining popularity thanks to the viral success of “Illegal,” which I am super happy about because I love her. But she won’t break through to the mainstream: her frenetic sound is too UK-coded to succeed in Middle America.

I hope no one has forgotten Lady Gaga’s Mayhem, which remains my fave pop album of the year³. But she hasn’t pushed any singles this summer, which is baffling when “How Bad Do U Want Me” is there, among many other worthy tracks.

And with all due respect to Addison Rae and Lorde, none of the songs from those projects have risen to Song of the Summer status. “Diet Pepsi” came out last year and nothing else she’s put out has been as sublime. People made fun of the Lady Gaga album for being “reheated nachos,” but Virgin is a bigger offender. The title of Lorde’s lead single, “What Was That,” was also what I said when the record ended.

Perhaps we’re too busy doomscrolling to dance. The vibes in America have been rancid since January 20, 2025. Is the Song of the Summer… existential dread?

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Post-Tonys Theater Hangover

Theater critic Helen Shaw calls summer “the lame-duck season” and it’s true. Now that the Tonys have passed, shows are closing and stars are leaving town.

Floyd Collins and Dead Outlaw are two offbeat musicals who kind of have the same story and themes: early 20th century rough ‘n tumble cowboy wannabes who die due to greed, societal exploitation of tragedies, banjoes galore. But both were received very differently, which I largely believe is due to the quality of its directing: poor on the former, stellar for the latter. (If all the individual elements of a work are great or at least solid, but overall it doesn’t come together, that’s usually an issue with the direction.)

It didn’t help that a lot of people going to Floyd Collins were there for Jeremy Jordan and maybe expected some trite tourist fluff like Gatsby, but instead they got an Adam Guettel musical. I want to defend it but also found myself baffled by a lot of the choices on the part of director Tina Landau. (When Jeremy Jordan gets trapped, he’s just laying down on a recliner? It doesn’t give the impression that he’s stuck in a cave.) The show itself seems really good given the chance; I listened to the soundtrack album afterwards and was quite taken by it.

Dead Outlaw is a show I hope has a long afterlife. There will be a full audio version coming out later this year, but listeners will miss seeing Andrew Durand lay in a coffin for a full 45 minutes without moving a muscle.

Off-Broadway, I saw Lunar Eclipse, A Freeky Introduction, and Sarah Ruhl’s very weird but very brilliant Eurydice, which had excellent performances by Maya Hawke and especially Brian d’Arcy James, who could make me well up with emotion with just the turn of his hand.

Very Off-Broadway, but On Cemetery: a special performance of Ghost Quartet by Dave Malloy, who created my favorite musical of all time (Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812) and would be joined by the original musicians from its original productions at Bushwick Starr and the McKittrick Hotel, ten years ago. I had no idea that this was even happening until I saw my friend Kenji post about it on Instagram. I bought a ticket for the next day’s performance, which happened to be the final one. (They only did three shows.) Plus it was at Green-Wood cemetery, how perfect a venue for a show about “love, death, and whiskey.”

When I passed through the entrance gate, there was a small reception with free whiskey tastings. There were six to try, all basic well stuff: Jameson, Johnnie Walker Red, Evan Williams, Bulleit Bourbon, Maker’s, and Jim Bean. I have sampled all of these at one point or another in my life, but never did a direct comparison until now. Jameson was my favorite, Evan Williams was undrinkable.

The song cycle itself is strange but haunting (heh), and the quartet were in top form. But what I’ll remember most, no offense intended to the musicians, was watching the sun go down and the fireflies rise up from the earth. It was worth the price of admission just to hang out in Green-Wood at night, and the music was a bonus.

This was put on by Death of Classical, which will be staging more performances at Green-Wood and other venues this summer! You just might see me there…

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June Grog Log

The first alcoholic drink I consumed each day, and where.

By the numbers:

• 11 wines

• 3 beer

• 3 saké

• 1 hard cider

• 4 cocktails

• 1 spirit

• 7 days I didn’t drink anything

1. Oliveda Brun Artesanal Vermouth Rosso at Peter's (Barcelona)

2. Miranda Chardonnay at Bar But (Barcelona)

3. Hermós Orange Wine at Hermós (Barcelona)

4. Estrella at Entrepanes Díaz (Barcelona)

5. Gramona Innoble Cuvee 319 at Disfrutar (Barcelona)

6. Txakoli doniene at Ultrapaninos Marín (Barcelona)

7. Castiñera albariño at Shunka (Barcelona)

8. Tzatziki martini at Two Schmucks (Barcelona)

9. La clave raul Perez Bierzo 2022 at Sartoria Panatieri (Barcelona)

10. Brooklyn Kura Ashokan Nama Genshu at Olo's

11. Nothing

12. Nothing

13. Brooklyn Kura Occidental at home

14. Stone IPA at Beast Next Door

15. François Chidaine Le Chenin d'lci 2023 at Lai Rai

16. Brooklyn Kura Ashokan Junmai Ginjo at home

17. Brooklyn Kura Ashokan Junmai Ginjo at home

18. Nothing

19. Nothing

20. Txo Euskal Sagardoa Cider at Brigid & Chrissy’s

21. Modelo at Ben's

22. Nothing

23. Txurrut Basque Vermut at home

24. Nothing

25. Nothing

26. Rabarber Negroni at home

27. Thanga Magan Colada at Semma

28. Paper Plane at Little Pig

29. Jameson Whiskey at Green-Wood Cemetery

30. Veuve Cliquot at Wu's Wonton King

Bonus: The Summer Birthday Party Tracker

• 5 birthday parties attended in June

  • 1 backyard BBQ

  • 1 dinner at a restaurant

  • 2 bar hangouts

  • 1 apartment brunch party

• 3 birthday parties I had to skip due to schedule conflicts

1. Full travel diaries from these trips will be coming soon!

2. This was why I was in Barcelona btw!! Funny how each day had a completely different vibe: brat girlies and circuit gays on Thursday, the blondes were out in force on Friday (I saw one girl walking the festival grounds in heels…), and queer women everywhere on Saturday. Chappell Roan gave the best performance of the three headliners, and had the best crowd vibes. Everyone was just so jubilant and singing every word.

3. During the Coachella livestream of her headlining set, which started at like 2 AM on the East Coast, I was just gonna see the first ten minutes then go to bed and catch up the next morning. Ended up watching the whole thing.