I wear a stained t shirt that drives Jo crazy. It’s too small, there’s a giant oil blotch right in the middle, it only accentuates my ever growing dad bod. We have a rule now where I’m not allowed to wear anything stained or with a hole in it but this one remains. My old Fatty Crab t shirt.

I had a weird roommate situation when I lived in New York. Goddam, this was a long time ago now. We’re talking winter of 2005…I’m not sure of the exact time, but this woman, Noen, just started randomly living with us. A “friend” of my roommate, Yohay, who was also his lover? I was never quite sure. She slept in his bed but also wore a wedding ring and talked about her husband a lot, as if we all knew the guy. She and Yohay often collaborated on projects together, sitting in front of their laptops, drinking beer and smoking so many cigarettes the living room would be blue. She disappeared for weeks and then reappeared for months.

When she spent longer periods of time at our place, she would take the three of us out to a cool restaurant as a way to say thank you, I guess for not charging her rent? The first of these expeditions was Fatty Crab.

We made our way down to the dankness of Hudson Street in the Meat Packing District. The first thing I noticed, of course, was the cool yellow crab logo above the door. Unique among the other store fronts. It had these long windows that could be cranked open during pleasant weather.

Inside, the place was tiny…and dirty. A sort of film over everything despite the place being new to the scene. Barely any space. This was the heyday of “shared dining” by the way (I can’t remember the real term they used). Where you would often go to a restaurant and be placed at the same large table alongside total strangers. A way for restaurants in New York to cram even more people into tight areas. Fatty crab was so cramped, in fact, that the tables along the far wall had no spaces between them. Just a row of deuces, maybe six or seven of them? When you needed to sit, the host or server would pull the table out, one of you would sit on the banquet, and they’d slide the table back into place, basically trapping you there.

In those days if you showed up to a joint with three people, oh boy. They despised you and would make you wait until they sat all the deuces and four tops. Luckily, they had a separate table by the entrance where they put all of us.

Noen and Yohay thought I was such an anomaly. A young American guy who would eat anything. From Israel and Vietnam, respectively, they shared cultures with more dynamic food than my own meager upbringing of canned and boxed goods and were always surprised when I would try something, normal to them, but abnormal to an American palate.

But I had “gone bamboo” long before ever meeting them. I blame a drought in Vermont, in the middle of summer, 2001. I had worked as a landscaper and we had run out of lawns to mow. Every morning I got a call from my boss telling me I wasn’t needed and to stay home. I had thought at the time I had escaped restaurants for good. Ha. I ended up applying as a prep cook at this legendary restaurant in my home town: The Five Spice Cafe.

The Five Spice Cafe began its journey in the mid 80s. One of the first “fusion” restaurants in the entire country at that time. They did dim sum on Sundays and the menu was odd even by today’s standards. Before then, my only Asian food experience had been takeout from Silver Palace in high school. Hot mustard sauce packets and umami before anyone knew what the hell that was.

Anyway, I cooked at Five Spice for many years and became the sous chef before having a mental breakdown and leaving to be a cook at a private golf course.

Back to Fatty Crab. The stench of the place was entirely familiar to me. Fish sauce and spicy chili permeated every pore. Soaked itself right into the wood. I started sweating without eating one morsel of food. We ordered giant Malaysian beers to start off. Angkor? Tiger? One of those, maybe both. Cold brown glass. Cold green glass.

Unlike the Five Spice, the menu was tiny. A little placard. No desserts. We got most of it. Oliver Platt, the guy from Flatliners was there, stuffing himself. An enormous man for that little spot. We started off with the watermelon and pork belly salad, and some steamed buns. I remember a delicious green curry with crab and these whole roasted peppers that sizzled the top of my scalp. My tolerance for spice back then was much higher than it is now, next level, but I would sweat like a whore in church. The beef rendang, my lord. Ethereal. Topped with a chiffonade of lime leaves. My first time encountering it. More. More. We really ate. I think there were ribs and chicken wings somewhere in the mix. More beer. A cocktail or two or three. The finale, two huge Dungeness crabs drowned in this weird orange cracked pepper sauce. A supremely messy dish requiring carloads of wet naps.

I had never experienced anything like it. The Five Spice was a great restaurant, for Burlington, Vermont, but not for a place like New York. This food was what the Five Spice would have been if an actual chef had been in charge. No offense to the hard work done by myself and the others before and after me, but it was obvious the mastermind behind Fatty Crab, Zak Pelaccio, had done his homework, had actually gone to Malaysia and immersed himself there for a while and become obsessed. Goddam it was good.

The restaurant eventually took off and spread out to start a temporary empire. New locations in the Upper West Side, Brooklyn, Hong Kong, the Virgin Islands. I ate once at the UWS version. Clean, large, enough space for big booths to accommodate customers (even a three top). Not as good as the original. There was always something about the cramped, stinky space that made it totally uncomfortable as you would gorge yourself and sweat. The best restaurants are never the spotless, clean ones with perfect service and flawless execution, they’re the ones containing the best memories which is why they’ll never be the same when you go back, even if the food is identical. It’s about who you’re with and the beautiful but strange circumstances that brought you together.

The Fatty empire is long gone, but the dirty t shirt remains…