 the world I’ve tasted and helped cook. The regular and vegetarian tasting menus were both so fantastic, I had to restrain myself from fist pumping the air with affirmation.
Early in the omnivorous meal, the nilaga course, with silky A5 Wagyu beef, ribbons of cabbage, and pearlescent short grain rice with Wagyu broth on the side, embraces its origins while transcending the story.
Just about every culture has its own variation: Korean seolleongtang, Chinese oxtail soup.
Flores learned to love the dish as he became an adult.
“Turning that dish into something that people are enjoying on a 13-course tasting menu — something that reminds me of my mom’s cooking and things that my dad ate, that’s just homey and comforting — is just so satisfying,” he said.
The vegetarian menu was so creative, I wondered if some of the dishes still had as much of a hold in Filipino food, or leaned more uniquely creative to Kasama.
The vegetarian kare-kare, for instance, swaps lamb belly with halloumi, served with a round of paratha flatbread to swipe through a soft quenelle of defining peanut sauce.
A squash and long bean pinakbet, an earthy, Indigenous Filipino vegetable stew, remarkably replaced a quivering smoked roe-garnished salmon fillet on the nonvegetarian menu.
Alongside the beautiful tasting menu, beverage director Josh Daws’ drink pairings ($95) went far beyond wine. His nonalcoholic pairing ($35) was so breathtaking and such a bargain that it was intoxicating. The spirit-free ube gin fizz that followed the 10 savory courses and preceded three desserts looked like a milkshake, but sipped like a tart, effervescent cocktail, much needed as a palate cleanser.
A mini truffle croissant followed, bridging savory to sweet, and Filipino-inspired dishes to the French-inspired interlude. 
Unfortunately the stigma persists that some Asian cuisine should remain cheap. Kasama upends that notion with ease.
“Filipino food is not just rice and a stew, or lumpia and pancit,” Flores said.
His re-imagined pancit shrouds black squid ink noodles in jamón, unlike any I’ve experienced, even on a culinary trade mission to the Philippines. The crisp lumpia wrapped in rice paper and herbs triggered a taste memory of my elegant Shanghainese aunts teaching me how to eat spring rolls, which moved me to tears.
Somehow Kasama has reached these extraordinary heights while constantly planning for the next phase of the pandemic.
“It weighs on us every day,” Kwon said. They require reservations and proof of vaccination or a negative test from each person. As of this moment, they’ve reverted daytime service to takeout only. “We’re taking all the precautions we can take,” Flores said.
Kasama deserves more than all the stars. Not just for the tasting menus or pastries or longganisa sandwiches or mushroom adobo, offered by day with garlic rice ($16) and by night as a maitake frond with mussel emulsion.
Not even for the chocolate salted caramel tart ($8), which they say serves one to two people, but which I wolfed down alone after a contact lost their senses of smell and taste. If I lost mine to COVID-19, I wanted that tart as my lasting taste memory.
They deserve the world for devoting their world to heroic humility, deliciousness and triumph, whether it’s served in a paper box or handmade bowl.
Open: Wednesday to Sunday, breakfast and lunch, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Thursday to Sunday, dinner 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Clarification: Kasama is in the East Ukrainian Village neighborhood.
Man.
They then travelled to England to become the first NRL team since 2003 to win the World Club Challenge by defeating the reigning European Super League premiers, Leeds Rhinos 28-20, cementing their position as the world's top rugby league club for that season. 151.
He is also the highest scoring forward in the history of the game.
The Sea Eagles have never won the wooden spoon in their 64 seasons, the longest period of any club.The October surprise that could have been: Obama first learned they likely had bin Laden in September. Think of how he could have affected the November election if he had been so inclined.

From [this commentary](http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/an-october-surprise-that-could-have-been.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+andrewsullivan%2FrApM+%28The+Daily+Dish%29) at The Daily Dish. 

&gt;Obviously one can argue that any president with this type of intel could have and would have done the same as President Obama. Fair enough. Yet, what strikes me the most is this: The C.I.A. tracked down the courier last August to the compound in Abbottabad. By September "the C.I.A. had decided that there was a “strong possibility” that Bin Laden himself was hiding there."

&gt;If you recall, this was all happening while Obama and the Democrats were getting crushed in the polls. Any President could have taken the information, simply bombed the hell out of the compound, claimed they killed for Bin Laden for a nice "October surprise" to score political points. Obama not only decided not to do this, but not even a whisper of it leaked out. That to me is something this president could have done and did not do. I'm not sure every president would have done the sameTHE great though expected news that Cape Town has been ranked as the top holiday destination for the year by British newspaper The Guardian and the The New York Times was welcomed by Western Cape tourism MEC Alan Winde on Monday.
“This is fantastic news for our city’s tourism sector and excellent publicity as a destination,” he said in a statement.
The New York Times article, 52 places to go in 2014 in the city, noted former president Nelson Mandela’s association with the city, its rich history and the fact that it was chosen as this year’s World Design Capital.
Additionally, Cape Town topped The Guardian’s list of holiday hotspots for the year. The newspaper also emphasised the city’s election as World Design Capital 2014, and entioned the trendy cafes and restaurants to be found there.
“I am absolutely confident that our inclusion in the travel lists of these top publications, coupled with the World Design Capital, will help us to achieve our aim of drawing a record number of travellers to our beautiful city in 2014,” Mr Winde said.
Commentators offer a variety of interpretations as to why Avraham sends his servant all the way to Mesopotamia rather than finding a suitable wife for Yitzchak from among his neighbors. Josephus and a number of the early medieval exegetes propose that Avraham wants to find a wife from his family. In contrast, the Keli Yekar and R. Hirsch focus on the potential negative influences from marrying a local woman whose idolatrous family is always nearby. Finally, Jubilees and many others stress the moral bankruptcy of the Canaanite people and the desire that Yitzchak's wife, in contrast, be of noble character. These different perspectives have important ramifications for understanding Avraham's portrait of the ideal wife for Yitzchak, how the servant's plan of action fit with Avraham's instructions, and how contradictions between the original story and the servant's retelling can be resolved.
The most important criterion in the search for a wife for Yitzchak was that she be from Avraham's family.
Why specifically from Avraham's family?
Family – Rashbam defines "מוֹלַדְתִּי" as family.6 Thus, Avraham explicitly instructed his servant to find a wife from his family.
The servant's uncertainty19 in verse 21 – Rashi20 and Radak explain that even though Rivka had passed the water test, the servant needed to know whether she was from Avraham's family before he could be certain of the success of his mission.
When was the jewelry given? Almost all of these exegetes assert that the servant gave Rivka the jewelry only after finding out that she was indeed from Avraham's family.21 R"Y Bekhor Shor explains that the "וַיִּקַּח הָאִישׁ נֶזֶם זָהָב", which appears before his asking about her family, merely means that he prepared the jewelry but did not yet give it to her.22 Rashi is the lone exception,23 and he explains that the servant was so confident of Divine providence enabling the success of his mission that he gave the jewelry first.
Crux of the position – This approach interprets Avraham's instructions (and their implementation) in light of the news of Rivka's birth which precedes the story as well as the servant's account at the end of the story. It maintains that the servant is not taking liberties with the truth merely in order to flatter. It also assumes that the most logical reason for the servant to go