"At Bonnie’s, in Williamsburg, the cocktails include an MSG Martini, made with a healthy shake of the seasoning, plus olive brine, Shaoxing wine, and vodka or gin. The L.L.C. behind Bonnie’s is called MSG 88, which was printed on egg-custard-yellow hoodies that the chef-owner Calvin Eng sold to commemorate his most ambitious offering, Yeung Yu Sang Choi Bao, a deboned and stuffed whole rainbow trout; like almost everything else on the menu, it’s enhanced with MSG. The steep price of the whole trout (fifty-three dollars) reflects the scrupulous effort it requires, which Bonnie herself undertakes only twice a year: bones and flesh are removed, the latter ground with shrimp, garlic chives, and water chestnuts and whipped into a paste that acquires the bouncy texture of a fish ball after it’s encased in the trout’s painstakingly preserved skin and cooked on a flattop grill." - Hannah Goldfield
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