21 January 15

A Great Pan-Asian Lunch and an Independent Book Shop
Chop Shop and 192 Books 

I love Asian food and, since I haven’t had it for a long time, Chop-Shop was an especially big treat for me. It's a cool little place with very sweet service and a simple interior of Eames wire chairs and pretty Chinese lanterns. Located on 10th Avenue at 25th Street it can be hard to spot, so keep your eyes open.

My partner, Brian, recommended Chop-Shop and, since we wanted to try different things on the menu, we ate “family-style” where you get to share the different plates. I can recommend the things we tried: sesame noodles, vegetable dumplings, Japanese eggplant, and the Murray chicken Penang curry. It was all so tasteful and delicious. I have to go back soon!

On our way to Chop-Shop we passed this little book store, 192 Books, that reminded me of the book store from You’ve Got Mail. I love these small independent book stores and Brian remembers nostalgically that they used to be very common in New York before Barnes & Noble and the other chains put most of them out of business. 192 Books has different events where authors come in read to people and they were about to have one later that evening. The store is not very big so this must be a very intimate and special experience. I want to go one day!

I’m a big reader of books and magazines and when I step into a small shop I can spend hours looking at the covers, reading the blurbs on the backs, and just  scrolling through the pages. I feel bad that I buy most of my books online and want to support these small stores instead.

Chop-Shop, 254 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY 10011
chop-shop.co

192 Books, 192 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY 10011
192books.com/intro.htm