Barrio Chic
February 4, 2010
When I walked past El Museo del Barrio, I was wowed by the formerly gritty museum’s new bold yellow Plexiglass façade and, once inside, by the bright, airy modern café, with its huge arched windows overlooking the Central Park Conservatory garden. Part of El Museo’s $35 million renovation, El Café is
catered by Great Performances, the same company that brings you warming root vegetable soup at Wave Hill or artisanal cheese boards at BAM. [Read more]
What I Found in My (Pita) Pocket
January 27, 2010
“You’ve got to try Pita Joe,” Pete told me, week after week.
Pete Blumenthal and I have spent years after school on the P.S. 75 playground, sometimes talking about our kids, but mainly talking about food. And while I trust his instincts, I wondered what could be so special about yet another falafel joint.
Well, Pita Joe is not your “average Joe” of falafel joints. For one thing, it’s a strange mix of German, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Indian tastes stuffed in whole wheat or white pitas. [Read more]
Chinese Firecracker Bang for the Buck
January 13, 2010
Never mind the indifferent to unfriendly waitstaff, the run-down décor and refrigerated soda cans on display. Never mind that they charged me 40 cents to take home the crispy noodles that arrived the moment I sat down—those eggy noodles that send you right back to the 1960s as soon as you dip them in duck sauce. The lunch deal here is just too good to pass up. [Read more]
Savory Specialties, Syrupy Sweets
December 31, 2009
In New York City you have only to think of a restaurant specializing in poached eggs or the cuisine of Papua New Guinea, and Chowhounders will soon be telling you the cross streets. Dream of a café selling myriad types of baklava? Your culinary prayers are answered with the opening of Midtown’s Güllüoglu.
Long known as a purveyor of baklava imported from Turkey, Güllüoglu is a sleek, sophisticated café with aerial images of Istanbul on the glass tabletops. Make it past the displays of baklavas and other desserts oozing cream and honey, and you’ll see a wide array of authentic savory specialties. [Read more]
Farmers’ Focaccia
December 16, 2009
In winter, the city’s farmers’ markets have an austere beauty. No longer spilling over with a rainbow of summer’s harvest, the market shows more somber tones: ochre, cream and faded reds. Potatoes, root vegetables, cauliflower, apples and smooth brown eggs. [Read more]
Chilean Dogs Get Their Day
December 9, 2009
“Chile: Long and Narrow Land,” was the title of my 5th-grade report. Years later, I would think of Chile when under the spell of Pablo Neruda’s odes or listening to Victor Jara’s music and reading of his sad fate. Never once did I encounter or think about Chilean food. Yet, Barros Luco has moved in to introduce us all to “authentic Chilean cuisine” in the form of grilled cheese sandwiches with Chilean touches, like string beans and banana peppers, empanadas and vienesas (Chilean style Frankfurters). [Read more]
Bringing Home the Booty
November 24, 2009
Would you eat something called a “Cheese Rock,” especially if it looks like a rock? I did, but only because it was a bad name for something incredible, otherwise known as pan de yuca. Break open the lumpy roll ($1.75) at this small, charming bakery, and you will find a culinary geode exposing fluffy, buttery, cheesy caverns made with yuca (cassava) flour. The small roll is dense, so with Big Booty’s coffee, which is good and strong, it could be all you need to get up and go in
the morning.
[Read more]
Move Over, Banh Mi
November 11, 2009
The Asian sandwich craze has a new contender in these plump, round little numbers that arrive in waxed paper bags, served on wooden dumpling steamer trays. As with Shake Shack’s burgers, which also come in wax paper, much of the goodness is in the bun, or man tao. These are made of the stark white, fluffy steamed bread that you’d find swaddled around a morsel of meat in a Northern Chinese pork bun, but they are slightly sweeter and the tops are studded with sesame seeds. [Read more]
Teriyaki Boy, Oh Boy!
November 4, 2009
Tempura: tempting, temporary. The deep-fried shrimp and vegetables at Teriyaki Boy—a Tokyo-meets-McDonalds fast food joint—tempt me. They are so inexpensive ($4 for three shrimp and three vegetable pieces), but the satisfaction of eating them is so temporary, with the deep-fried casings melting in my mouth. “Sayonara!” “Sayonara!” the teriyaki ladies wave cheerfully as I leave past the line snaking out the door. I want to march right back in to get another order. It is that good.
[Read more]
Rice & Beans: Food of ‘El Pueblo’
October 23, 2009
I spent much of the late 1980s at marches chanting, “El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.” Whether in solidarity with Nicaragua or El Salvador, the marches would culminate with parties at union halls where we spooned up rice and beans, saying, “Arroz con frijoles, por favor,” in our best Spanish accents.
Yellow rice and beans, once united, shall also never be defeated, at least when it comes to simple, satisfying sustenance. And you can get excellent yellow rice and red beans ($4.49) at Sophie’s Cuban Cuisine, along with toasty, carmelized maduras, which are fried sweet plantains ($1.99). Like the best yellow rice, Sophie’s is orange, and I have no idea what gives it this characteristic color—whether achiote, annatto, turmeric or saffron. [Read more]
