Bash Compactor: Take A Bao

Downtown chef and noted rabblerouser Eddie Huang, whose
most recent exploits include a 4Loko party that ended with his
restaurant Xiao Ye being shuttered, celebrated his 29th birthday last
week on Rivington Street. Dudes in hoodies with unscuffed Nikes mingled
with hot Asian girls as a soundtrack of mid-’90s New York hip-hop
blared. It stank like weed, but it was great to hear the Beatnuts being
blasted for the first time in years.

One of the guests was filmmaker Kenzo Digital, who
claimed he was working on a visual project about Huang, but that the
details were top secret. He was looking at me like I was some kind of Bradley Manning, so
I switched up the questions and inquired as to what attracted him to
the birthday boy. "He comes at it from a different angle that’s engaging
to my generation," he said. "I like how he has no filter."

Will Horowitz, executive chef at pingpong parlor SPiN, also
expressed a deep appreciation for Huang’s antics. "If all these people
who don’t know anything about food can go online and criticize a chef,
then why shouldn’t he be able to come back and say whatever the fuck he
wants?" (New York Press alum Sam Sifton was conspicuously absent.)

Elsewhere in the club, the lovely Briana Layon, of Briana Layon and The Boys, was
celebrating success at her day job. "I got a promotion. I’m in a band.
I’m the shit," she said, accurately summarizing the situation.

She
tried to school me on how to manipulate New York. Her theory involved
something about balling out at hotels and ordering cookies from
bellhops. It made little sense, but she must have been doing something
right; all of the Jameson I drank was on her dime.

Eventually, I found my way to the man of the hour. Surrounded by friends at a table in the back of CV, I
managed to grab him when he stood up and asked him a few questions in
the back room. Time was tight, he said, as he was flying that night to
Vegas to continue the revelry.

He told me his future plans included pop-up restaurants and a second location of his Lower East Side eatery Baohaus, this
one with more seating. Was he going to tone it down in the future? "I
can’t be anyone but who I am. I’ll always be an outsider, these are my
people," he said, gesturing to the crowd.