1. Cafe Noodle Zen
Nestled in between an Irish Pub and a tattoo parlor (just a few doors down from St. Marks Burgers) this is the cute, little, neon green Japanese place on St. Marks that offers 50% off ALL Sushi and basically has Happy Hour whenever you want it. We went here the other day with a mutual friend and ordered an appetizer, least 5 different kinds of sushi, 2 very strong drinks, AND (new addition to the menu) a Ramen Burger all for $60! (Added a 20% tip on top because the staff are also ridiculously nice.)
Located at 31 St. Mark’s Place, New York, NY 10003

2. Jeepney
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING WORTH NOTING ABOUT JEEPNEY IS KAMAYAN NIGHT. Kamayan Night. Every Wednesday and Thursday (make sure you make a reservation) you get the opportunity to properly eat like a Filipino.The word kamayan refers to shaking hands but is simultaneously used to describe eating with your hands - a Philippine tradition.  For $40, a huge plank the size of two 2-tops covered in palm leaves is served with… well, we don’t think we can describe it all, so we’ve borrowed this description from NYC Food Guy: “Our server carefully placed a whole fried fish in the center of the long white mound of coconut milk-flavored rice. Spreading out from both sides of the fish, he symmetrically placed chicken, smoked soft boiled eggs, two kinds of pork (one in a coconut milk gravy, one marinated in Coca-Cola), sweet longanisa sausage, sauteed bok choy, bitter melon salad, piles of fried tripe and fried bread, and grilled green onions...It was at this point that I snapped a few quick photos because as soon as I put that iPhone down, it was time to eat. With only my hands.  For about 30 minutes straight.” See above for pictures from NYC Food Guy and his full review here.
Located at 201 1st. Ave. New York, NY 10003

3. Maharlika
Next door to Jeepney is its sister restaurant, Maharlika, another gem of the East Village. Maharlika’s Dinner Menu is to die for with Filipino Favorites such as Pancit Bihon, Sinigang, and Kare-Kare (it even has balut for those of you who love it or dare to try it), and the Brunch Menu full of hearty and delicious items such as Longanisa, Tocino, and the Dasilog, but what is definitely worth mentioning is the Flip’d Chicken and Waffle on the Brunch Menu! Batterless fried chicken served on top of a purple yam waffle, with anchovy-bagoong sauce and macapuno syrup to start your Saturday morning off right. Affordable and delicious.
Located at 111 1st. Ave. New York, NY 10003

4. Grill 21
Just found this fun little place on 21st between 1st and 2nd Avenue just North of Stuytown. This Filipino restaurant boasts of fresh bitter melons, juicy adobo, and refreshing halo-halo! Everything on the menu is easily affordable (nothing on the menu is more than $17) and there’s outdoor seating for the summer! Also, they cater. Because they know how Filipinos love to eat and share.
Located at 346 E. 21st St. New York. NY 10010

5. Pig & Khao
Amazing Asian Fusion gem on the Lower East Side that offers primarily Thai and Filipino food options. What first caught Kelly’s eye was that they offer chicharron as the first item for appetizers (and really, is there anything better than fried pork rinds and vinegar on the side to start off a meal?) There’s also pork belly adobo - perfectly crispy on the outside and deliciously juicy on the inside. It is a Lower East Side restaurant with great food, a small space, and loud customers - so expect a wait. But you won’t be disappointed!
Located at 68 Clinton St. New York, NY 10002

6.  Vanessa’s Dumplings
This Union Square staple is home to one of the best deals in town: $1 for four dumplings.  Other highlights include $3 Peking Duck-stuffed sesame pancakes, bubble tea, and a small assortment of sushi.  Vanessa’s also sells frozen dumplings so you can eat these in the comfort of your own home!  
Located at 220 E 14th St, New York, NY 10003.  

7.  Congee Village
There’s nothing that says home to Kaela like a warm bowl of zhook, also known as congee or rice porridge.  This comfort food is showcased at Congee Village on the Lower East Side-- along with youtiao (Chinese donuts) and amazing Chinese-American-restaurant style decor (indoor trees! weird lighting! neon!)
Located at 100 Allen Street New York, NY 10002.



8.  Pho Bang
Craving Vietnamese noodle soup? There are few better places than Pho Bang, a little Vietnamese hole-in-the wall in Little Italy.  You can buy a huge bowl of pho for $6.50 ($7.50 if you upgrade to the large size!), and they also have good Vietnamese coffee.
Located at 157 Mott St New York, NY 10013  

9. Central Buffet
We won’t lie; we had to Google search real hard for the name on this one: Central Buffet is a hidden Chinatown gem that will give you five delicious selections of dishes to go, including rice, for four dollars.  $4.25 will get you the same amount of food to eat in.  The rotating selection features tea eggs, whole fish, bean curd dishes, an assortment of vegetables, and even dessert.  Kaela has been frequenting for five years, so she’s a more than little sad to divulge this information to the public.  
Located at 195 Centre St New York, NY 10013

10.  Fay Da Bakery
This Chinese bakery, featured in Episode 3: “Eviction,” is one of Kaela’s favorite places to get cha siu bao, or barbecue pork buns.  In fact, Fay Da carries all kinds of baked goods, from coconut cream buns to hot dog buns and back-- and with most of them priced at under one dollar, you can’t lose. 
Located at 191 Centre St New York, NY 10013 (right next to Central Buffet, above!).  Other locations throughout Chinatown, SoHo and Queens. 

A while back, I end up on a first date at this comedy club on Bleecker Street in New York’s West Village.  In an odd turn of events, comedian after straight white dude comedian gets up to explain how he definitely doesn’t hate “the gays,” holding for the audience to applaud his halfway-decent actions.  One such comedian, so un-homophobic it almost hurts, segues from the subject of gay-marrieds (“they’re totally fine by me, dude!”) into his own recent marriage.  “Marriage is stupid because having sex is like trying ice cream, dude,” says he.  “See, my wife is vanilla-flavored ice cream.  I love vanilla.  I’m totally happy with vanilla.  But what happens if, theoretically, twenty years from now, I want to try another flavor of ice cream? Say, Asian?”

The club erupts in white guy comedian laughter.  Even my date, neither white nor a comedian, is laughing.  “Oh, I mean, uh, green tea ice cream!” the comic adds, and everyone laughs harder.  

If you’re reading this, Anonymous Comic, I’m not sorry for the dirty look I shoot as you retreat to your lone seat.  First of all, there’s got to be a funnier metaphor for having sex than “trying ice cream, dude.”  Secondly, not to be cruel, but it’s pretty clear why you showed up sans wife to your set.  I’m guessing--hoping--that your wife would take issue with your material: first at being literally objectified into ice cream, then at being deemed “vanilla.”  Can’t a white girl at least be peach flavored?   But hey man, at least you totally definitely don’t hate the gays cause you're such a Stand Up Guy (cue snare drum)(cue applause at what a great guy you are.)

The reason that bad comedian’s bad joke bothers me so much?  It is based on a reality I live in, but it only perpetuates the stereotypes I see in the world instead of turning them on their head.  When first researching this series, I google image searched the word “half-Asian.”  What returned was page after page of scantily-clad mixed-race Asian ladies.  I was dismayed to find that with no modifiers signifying gender or sex, I was still served a full plate of adult images featuring female breasts, thighs, abdomens, as if every half-Asian is a woman, as if every half-Asian woman is perpetually in a state of undress, as if half-Asian women are solely meant to be consumed. Now, I’m no Puritan.  I support everyone’s right to be photographed in a thong!  But with its passive voice, even that last sentence implies the photographee as object-- not inherently problematic, but frequently so.  

“Asian” is one of the most-searched porn terms in America, as if race was, indeed, a sexual ice cream flavor that one could try.  This fetishization of Asian peoples, particularly women, has its roots in Orientalism and colonization.  It finds its base in the obsession with the other, with the unknown, which, again, is not inherently wrong; it simply leads to debasing and dehumanizing patterns of interpersonal behavior, some of which are chronicled in Kristina Wong’s awesome xoJane article.

We wrote about some of this in episode 2 of our series, “What Are You?,” an almost-verbatim recreation of a night when two grown men approached Kelly and me with the titular question of that episode. They insisted on guessing our ethnic makeup, an interesting tactic that, unlike the Bend and Snap, has a 0% rate of return on a dinner invitation because it’s seldom used appropriately.  I don’t necessarily mind being defined by my race, but may object when my race solely defines me, or worse, solely defines my desirability.

Our series name, 2 Girls | 1 Asian, is a racial equation which describes my co-creator and I in light of the ever-present “what are you?”  My co-creator Kelly Colburn and I are each half-Asian; together, there is one whole Asian between us.  Our title is meant to add us together, to place us in light of our friendship, something unfortunately rare in current mainstream media.  Together as 2 Girls | 1 Asian we are better than our individual parts. (Unless you put us in a bar; then we’re just drunker than our individual parts.) As some have inquired, our title is also a double-entendre, referencing an infamous and, from what I understand, less than savory (sorry!) pornographic video.  But contrary to what our spoof title may suggest, the actual content of our series is fairly PG-rated and fairly feminist.  Kelliye and Caela are portrayed with regards to their relationships and their accomplishments (or lack thereof) rather than their sexploits or sex appeal.  They audition together, they drink together, they wait tables together and, as you'll see in the upcoming Episode 6: "Model Minority," they eat kale chips together.

With our title, we ultimately hope to address the most important part of the show: our friendship. Along the way, we hope it is a reclamation and lampoon of the excessive sexualization of mixed-race women, particularly women of Asian descent.  If you can’t beat ‘em, parody ‘em, right?  Because making this webseries, at least for me, is like eating ice cream-- the further I get into it, the happier I am with the choice I made.