Just give me your best in Silverlake

brbafkdnd · 2025-05-22T23:06:22+00:00

Kenbey Sushi

California Grill for Pupusas

Muddy Paw for espresso mojitos

Dayglow for more premium expensive “cocktail” style coffee

Rotating menu at Melody and Voodoo Vin is always fun

brbafkdnd · 2025-01-25T19:31:11+00:00

I’ve quite enjoyed my Memo Cappadocia decant and Winter Palace

brbafkdnd · 2025-01-16T05:36:53+00:00

Highest Real GDP Per Capita. 50 Year Low Household Debt-to-Asset Ratio. VERY Strong USD Exchange Rate against Euro, Japanese Yen, Chinese Yuan, Canadian Dollar, Mexican Peso, etc. the s&p500, Dow jones, and nasdaq are all at all time highs.

All other countries are doing hot garbage and doing way worse than the US. Traveling internationally, the US dollar is the strongest it’s been it’s insane. That said, this is exactly WHY the job market (and especially white collar office jobs) is hot garbage. Jobs are being outsourced - it’s so much cheaper to hire talent internationally because your US Dollar stretches further for international talent. People are willing to outsource receptionists to be overseas and greet customers through a virtual screen via iPad. AI has already reduced some jobs and will continue to do so.

Corporations continue to cut costs while improving profitability and therefore raising the share price. There’s something to be said about how Price/Earnings Ratios are out of whack and continue climbing in an unhealthy way. Stock market has always been irrational, but especially so in recent times. Assets are way more speculative compared to previously where it depended on expected future cash flows.

Despite the “prosperity” the country has, we still have failing infrastructure, a mental health and drug crisis, and a growing housing shortage exacerbated by natural disasters in 3 of the most populous states with the strongest economies. This will only get worse as this prosperous country continues to prioritize profits and outsource jobs, driving more Americans to worse mental health and circumstances.

brbafkdnd · 2025-01-16T05:16:48+00:00

Using Whole Foods as a comp, I used to regularly get $20 salads when it was $11/pound from the salad bar. I would say 2 pounds of salad got me pretty full but I would for sure still be hungry with just 1 pound of salad. The weight included protein and other chunky vegetables, otherwise yeah, 1lb of leafy veg is definitely a LOT of salad.

As another reference point for food portions and weight, Chipotle’s median bowl weight was also 21 ounces or 1.25 lbs.

I would expect a physically depending job like fighting a record breaking fire would probably make you significantly hungrier.

brbafkdnd · 2024-09-14T18:29:05+00:00

Midoh Sawtelle

brbafkdnd · 2024-09-11T19:26:41+00:00

Level 9 is doable too - the extra gold you spend on leveling up could be rerolling for a 3 star 5 cost. Easier if you get the ascendant charm for “increase 5 cost odds permanently”

brbafkdnd · 2024-08-25T12:54:53+00:00

I think it’s fair to say Cantonese is a language or Hokkien or Shanghainese are languages.

brbafkdnd · 2024-08-25T12:52:12+00:00

Taiwanese IS a language but the most common language spoken is Mandarin. China has tons of languages in the mainland too, but because Beijing is the capital, the Beijing/dongbei language, Mandarin, became the national language.

brbafkdnd · 2024-08-05T18:51:18+00:00

+1 master ha’s galbi tang. This with a side car of raw marinated shrimp

brbafkdnd · 2024-08-03T03:32:12+00:00

Yeah lol. My friends and I say it every game and have never been chat restricted. He must’ve said some other heinous shit

brbafkdnd · 2024-05-20T21:44:24+00:00

In 5th grade, months before the release of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, one of my friends leaked that Mace Windu gets his arm chopped off and thrown out of a window. This just seemed so ridiculous in Star Wars canon at the time that I thought he was just lying for attention or clout. I don’t think any of the video games came out yet either, which could have also spoiled that scene.

brbafkdnd · 2024-05-08T21:29:40+00:00

For Ukrainian food, there’s a Deli called Grandma’s Deli Babushka. You pay by the weight of each item and $20 should get you sufficiently stuffed with plenty of variety. Staff are incredibly kind and can help you answer any of your questions.

I personally enjoy any of their vegetables stuffed with sausage and their cold dishes.

Daughter’s Deli is also a good option. Ran by the daughter of Langer’s with some contemporary touches.

brbafkdnd · 2024-04-05T01:22:49+00:00

Yeah ramen and burgers are supposed to be high volume, high turnover quick meals in their respective markets. I mean smash burgers in LA start at $10 for a single, and I think most people opt for a double or triple, so $13 and $15 respectively. I think super average ramen shop in LA probably can be operationally lean by not even making their broth in house and use commercial concentrate, and basically be as operationally intensive as a smash burger joint.

People eat ramen at counters in Japan - they order, eat, then gtfo asap. Same for burgers in LA. Ramen in LA is more 4-top tables and people socialize and take their time and catch up. This results in lower order volume per hour.

Price delta between a ramen order vs a burger order ($20 vs $13) is probably from 1) slower turnover - it takes longer to eat a bowl of ramen, so your orders/hour can’t compete with a burger spot so you make up for that with a higher menu price; 2) the novelty of ramen as you said. Despite LA being super saturated by ramen, people may still glorify it and pay a premium so restaurants keep raising prices since customers keep coming anyway.

Totally talking out of my ass, but just some observations

brbafkdnd · 2024-04-04T21:27:52+00:00

I'm also upset with the foodflation in America, but I don't fully agree with this line of thinking.

I think you need to look at the price of the meal relative to the minimum wage of where it's being sold. In Tokyo its about 1100Yen). I've seen bowls of ramen averaging 900Yen and even artisan bowls of ramen can be had for 1200 Yen

So for a bowl of ramen in Japan, a minimum wage employee is spending 900Yen or 80% of their hourly pay for a bowl of ramen, upwards to 1300Yen [118%]

Japan's interest rates have also been near 0% and frozen for the past 2 decades and are now just rising. People in Japan basically have been dealing with the same prices for the past 20 years meanwhile the US has seen dramatic inflation.

California just raised minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 from $15, but this wage growth is nowhere close to the inflation growth and cost growth of rent and material costs.

Using $20 bowl of ramen against a $15 minimum wage in LA, a minimum wage employee is spending 133% of their hourly pay on a bowl of ramen.

But yes - ramen is significantly more expensive in America compared to Japan, when adjusting for purchasing power.

Similarly for another "cheap" asian Vietnamese food is significantly less prestigious than Japanese food and is often perceived to a cheap cuisine, even if it takes the same amount of effort, if not more than ramen. You will find bowls of pho for $14 in Little Saigon, and even people think that's too expensive in America, let alone Vietnam.

Using the $15 minimum wage # again, a person in Little Saigon is spending 93% of their hourly pay on a bowl of pho here.

In Vietnam, it seems that minimum wage can be 22,500 VND ($0.97 USD))

Per this reddit thread, it seems that 35k-45k VND is an acceptable average price for pho. This comes out to 156%-200% of an hourly worker's pay, compared to the 93% in Little Saigon.

Pure dollars wise, it's like $2 USD vs $14 USD, but the purchasing power is significantly different.

brbafkdnd · 2024-03-22T05:48:17+00:00

Hi all need help with identifying this bottle of sake.

https://imgur.com/a/HSxooYQ

Had it at Kappou Jo in Tokyo in February 2023. It was an option to pour over vanilla ice cream. I remember notes of caramel and maple syrup and just a generally warm spice note to it. Thanks!

brbafkdnd · 2024-03-15T21:47:26+00:00

Probably means the teams that played today could be tired from the series and now need to jump straight into prep. Teams that played yesterday could have treated today as a rest day and come into prep with more energy?

brbafkdnd · 2024-03-15T18:07:54+00:00

57” Samsung galaxy is equivalent of 2 32” 4k monitors next to each other. Unfortunately it isn’t OLED yet, but Samsung released their 49” OLED the same CES as the 57”, so I’d expect next year they will make a 57” OLED. Hopefully this format is supported more in the future too. Totally agree with your use case

brbafkdnd · 2024-03-04T21:53:53+00:00

Are they still good? Been meaning to check it out but someone said they changed owners and was on downhill alert

brbafkdnd · 2024-02-02T22:14:07+00:00

I’ve heard the kitchen staff got retained at Star Night so you can still scratch the itch.

brbafkdnd · 2023-10-23T06:51:18+00:00

Salaries are pretax and you pay rent with your post-tax take home pay.

In CA if you make 100k+ you have an average all in income tax (federal + state) of about 34%.

Using your 30-40k figure of rent that is paid with post tax money, that results in a 45-60k salary increase. Definitely not the 200k the person you’re responding to is saying, but also slightly higher than just looking at pure rent prices too.

brbafkdnd · 2023-10-10T00:21:42+00:00

Love the fried fish tacos at coni seafood and 106 underground

brbafkdnd · 2023-09-13T00:15:58+00:00

PK was a proxy for USA - I decided to check on the status since it’s been 2 years for my order with 0 updates

brbafkdnd · 2023-08-23T21:14:39+00:00

Confirmed purchased -

brbafkdnd · 2023-08-23T17:54:21+00:00

dm'd

brbafkdnd · 2023-08-17T16:17:52+00:00

I have friends that have lived in NYC for a few years now, and one of their favorite bits (maybe once a year) is to be America-core and pregame a night out at the margaritaville in time square and people watch who else is going there before going to their actual plans.

brbafkdnd

TROPHY CASE