Spicy and Tasty: not an oxymoron.

My girlfriend reminded me recently that we came up with the idea for this blog while dining in Blue Star, on Court St. in Cobble Hill, but the moment of old-timey flash-of-light conversion came on my first of two (so far) visits to Flushing’s Spicy and Tasty – and, no, I’m not sure it wasn’t just an errant Sichuan peppercorn numbing some crucial part of my brain.  Coming in at number 10 on Sietsema’s 2005 list, it would certainly score in the top five (if not top, period) on mine.

On the most recent visit, my girlfriend’s radiologist father (an adventurer at heart) accompanied us to Flushing.  The excellent steamed bun appetizer with the mysterious, homemade-frosting-like dipping sauce was his first foray into this strange new world.  While I generally like my buns with meat in them, the yellowish frosting-dip makes these buns palatable even without savory filling (snicker, snicker).  Our first time at S&T, we had also ordered the red-bean filled sesame balls, far better than the average Chinatown pastry store variety because of the use of sweet potatoes.  We’ve not tried any of the excellent-looking offerings from the front appetizer case on either of our visits (check it out when you walk in!), but I have a feeling that one could make a meal solely from those.

Of the main menu, we’ve tried the tea-smoked duck, a version of chicken with cashews, and a spicy eggplant dish.  I like the smoked duck a lot less than Sietsema, I guess – when I had it at Grand Sichuan, it was so dry that it made me thirsty, and the S&T version was only a bit moister.  I suppose I should note, though, that the fat was perfectly rendered and benefited greatly from the smoky flavoring; the meat is okay but less satisfying to me.  Be prepared to eat this like you’re eating ribs, though – much of the serving is most easily eaten as finger food.  At any rate, it’s unlike any duck preparation I’ve had anywhere else, so if you’re a barbecue nut or a duck enthusiast, feel free and give it a whirl.

Quite satisfying, but a little “boring” compared to the other dishes, according to the good Doctor, was the chicken and cashews.  Pretty much a standard stir fry, the dish was given a bigger dose of flavor than usual by dint of roasted nuts.  A good “safe” dish to order, and one that will help cool the palate in conjunction with a cold Tsingdao.

On our first visit, we ordered without a net – the bright-purple eggplant that my girlfriend ordered came to us cubed in a fiery red sauce that was certainly not to be trifled with.  It was pretty early on in our relationship to foist a Sichuan menu on her, but she handled this dish with aplomb (me = lucky), despite claiming beforehand not to be terribly enthused by spicy foods in general.  The eggplant, for what it’s worth, was tender without being too mushy, and I think the sauce erred more towards chili spiciness than Sichuan peppercorn numbing.

The king of all the Sichuanese I’ve ever eaten, though, has more than its fair share of both “la” chili sauces and spices, as well as the “ma” peppercorns.  On the last page of Spicy and Tasty’s menu, the bottom section on the page, boasts, if I recall correctly, of Sichuanese specialties.  While I’m sure all the dishes in this section are prepared similarly, it is the shredded pork which I have ordered on each of my visits.  It is, without question, the most heavily spiced dish I’ve ever eaten, as well as the most flavorful.

Like I described in my review of Grand Sichuan, the pork is in a huge puddle of red sauce, sitting on a pile of cabbage, and topped with a layer of spices and peppercorns so thick that they remind me of when I made cinnamon toast as a 7 year old (the top to the shaker was a bit loose, and the rest was history).  The portion is huge, particularly if you include the cabbage in your estimations its size (you should – coated in the oily sauce, it’s quite nice).  My advice is to wait for it to cool slightly, as the heat (temperature) of the dish only makes the heat (spice) of the dish stronger.

As you taste a truly complex, well-balanced spiciness for the first time, as I did, contemplate the various other experiences you’ve had with extreme spiciness.  Marvel as the peppercorns numb your mouth at the same time the spices set it on fire.  Understand for the first time how bland the average American meal truly is, and how singular chili flavors (jalapeños or today’s ubiquitous “chipotle”) rule the spice world here.  Is it any wonder non-masochists avoid spicy food?

Of course, while you’re doing this contemplating, you’ll be gulping down beer (water ain’t gonna help, sorry) and discovering new places from which you can sweat (personal favorite: underneath the eyes).  Who says enlightenment is easy?

Old school sandwiches at Eisenberg's.

Last night, as I bit happily into my tuna sandwich, I pondered the age old question: is the sandwich the perfect food?  I seem to recall my father and his father making that claim, and turning out some pretty fine (to a young man) sandwiches to prove that point.  Not having had a family-made sandwich in a while, and harboring a comfort food craving, Eisenberg’s (5th Av. just north of 22nd St.) was my and my girlfriend’s destination last evening.  This egoless locale may not declare its sandwiches to be perfect on the awning, but the case is pretty compelling.  

For those of you who, like me, may have spent idyllic childhood/teenage afternoons hanging out with the grandparents, the concept of a lunchtime sandwich is as comfortable as an old shirt.  While I don’t ever recall being served tuna by the fam, Eisenberg’s egg salad on rye with lettuce and tomato ($4.25) is as close an imitation of my grandparents’ preparation methods as I’d dared to hope existed in this day and age.  A hunk of lettuce and a none-too-ripe tomato from my dad’s side, and rye and fresh egg salad from my mom’s side – simple!  The generous helping of pickles (more available on request) do Vlasic’s jarred variety several notches better, thankfully.

Their grilled sandwiches also exude perfection in a home-made, old-fashioned sort of way.  Looking for a panini-style grilled cheese?  Keep moving.  This griddle is absolutely flat, greased to perfection, and, most importantly, not used to crush whatever sandwich you were looking forward to into something unrecognizable.  It does, however, grill the cheese sandwich to crispy perfection ($4.00).  Just like dad used to make, except for the choice between American, Cheddar, Swiss, or Muenster (dad was a strict Cheddar advocate in those days).

The grill also makes a pretty damn good version of a tuna melt ($5.75) possible, but the real star there is the tuna salad itself.  I’m not sure anyone in my family ever made tuna salad this good, probably because they were using Miracle Whip or Hellmann’s to sweeten everything up.  Non-sweet mayo, as Sietsema suggests (Eisenberg’s is number 56 on the 2005 list), makes this salad better – mixing it fresh and to a strict recipe help, too.

Eisenberg’s has even thought of a few Dagwood possibilities never divined by any of my relatives – perhaps a few of my stoner friends, though.  Can’t decide between egg salad and tuna salad?  Get both on the same sandwich for $5.95, in a combination that tops Shopsin’s “Mother and Child Reunion” in the category of weird sandwich mash-ups.  Don’t worry, though – the tuna and egg salads aren’t mixed together.

I’ve not tried Eisenberg’s pastrami, brisket, or corned beef, nor sampled their cream cheese and jelly sandwich ($2.25) – has this ever been on the menu anywhere else?  The Tuesday and Thursday meatloaf special (supposedly an original recipe since 1929) sounds intriguing, though – bet they make a mean meatloaf sandwich.  Mmm.

Wash it all down with a lime rickey ($1.50) – not as consistent as the sandwiches (carbonation, lime flavor, and cherry flavor have varied from visit to visit), but guaranteed not to taste septic like that Goodburger one did.  They can make a real egg cream, too, and they carry the NYC deli staple Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray ($1.10), what must surely be the world’s only celery soda (and an acquired taste, according to my girlfriend).

If you’re looking for a retro soda-fountain date locale, Eisenberg’s is the place – along with the right drinks, the ambiance is pure early-20th-century lunch counter, right down to the built-in stools and soda-water.  I’d probably avoid the tuna and egg combination if you want to be kissing afterwards, but in any other case, the sandwiches are dynamite, and highly recommended.

Fort Hamilton Parkway pizza perfection.

Hi, gang!  Hope Thanksgiving passed with a minimum of stress and a maximum of gluttony – no better day to sit on the couch and avoid all activity.

One of my activities over the long weekend involved a trip of sorts down memory lane – my first return visit to Windsor Terrace/Kensington since moving out in June.  Make no mistake – there’s very little I miss about the place.  It’s altogether too much like a dense suburb – two family houses with plastic siding abound, and, rather than integrating, pockets of conservative Irish-Italian families alternate blocks with immigrant communities and the recent influx of new hipsters and families.

One of the things I DO miss was this weekend’s destination, though: Little Tonino’s Pizza, located at the corner of Greenwood Av. and E. 5th St, near the Fort Hamilton Parkway F-stop, and across the street and dividing park from the rumbling Prospect Expressway.  (Word to the wise – take the exit at the front of the train going outbound, or you’ll exit on the wrong side of the expressway.)  According to my former landlord, it’s been a neighborhood staple since her childhood, which I conservatively estimate means 40 years ago.  It was a staple for this neighborhood newcomer, too: Tonino’s was one of two decent places that would deliver to our E. 3rd St. home during my 6-month tenure there – the new Windsor Café was under construction – and I ate enough pizza during that time that I haven’t had but a slice or two since.

That’s not to say I was unhappy to OD on Tonino’s – their pizza is probably the best I’ve ever had.  The plain pie is, at $8, also the best pizza deal I’ve yet found.  Combining a dense but chewy crust with a mild, thick sauce and the finest-quality mozzarella available (seriously – the owner once told me that it costs nearly twice as much as the cheapest alternative, but that nothing else would do, quality-wise), the pizza is a delight to consume.  Depending on who makes it (and whether the standard ‘squirt of oil’ is omitted or retained), it can also be practically grease-free.

My favorite, though, is the Little Tonino’s special pie ($14), which resembles somewhat the Grandma’s pie you may have tried elsewhere.  With a ton of fresh mozzarella, garlic, basil, plum tomatoes, and the afore-mentioned crust to die for, the Tonino’s special is great pizza.  Again, I’m curious as to why the oil squirt is necessary, as I’m fairly certain that it’s only necessary to keep pies made for slice consumption moist; even drained, the pizza is delicious, particularly hot from the oven.  Both pizzas are available in ‘baby’ versions ($4 for the plain, $5 for the special), if you’re dining solo and want fresh-baked rather than slices.

I’ve had mixed success with Tonino’s other food options, which I hear is usually the case at a pizzeria of renown.  I can recall having a memorable first potato and egg (omelette) hero here, in the variety that includes onions and mozzarella – a bargain at $5.50 and a gut bomb big enough to be shared.  I think the meatballs were frozen – if so, feel free to avoid.  I’ve also tried the thickly vodka-sauced pasta that occasionally graces the steam table.  I say it’s mediocre, but it’s zipped up a bit by the inclusion of lots of garlic and strips of prosciutto.  Try the same sauce in the gnocchi alla nona instead, which are probably also right from the freezer, but at least would be boiled fresh (both $9, and also big enough to share).

Brooklynites may recognize the rice balls in the front case – these softball-sized borough specialties are deep fried, but usually are served reheated and topped (“deluxe”) with cheese and red sauce.  They make an ok meal in themselves – I’m curious as to how fresh (frozen, perhaps?) they are, though, and I’d love to someday try one right out of the fryer.  The garlic knots are usually oily and gross; the zeppoles (fried dough coated in powdered sugar) are much better, though still greasy.

Yes, Little Tonino’s is far out of the way of most pizza fans, but it’s worth a special trip, and I’ll even give you a suggestion for an itinerary: when it’s nice out, take a pie to go and head across the pedestrian bridge to Prospect Park – it’s about four blocks from the other side of the freeway.  Pizza in the park = pure bliss.

Reader suggestion: Bedouin Tent.

Located on the northeast corner of Bond St. and Atlantic Av., Bedouin Tent is the least flashy of the three-restaurant cluster on that corner.  Its menu suggests that it is run by a Jordanian family, and that it has been a neighborhood staple for nearly fifteen years; that’s no small feat in a neighborhood that must have looked vastly different fifteen years ago.  Perhaps its location, sandwiched between the heavily Muslim area near 3rd and 4th Aves. and the Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Brooklyn Heights neighborhoods, has helped.  I was turned on to it by reader Matt A., who submitted the first suggestion to the Twenty Bucks e-mail box.  Thanks, Matt!

Matt was right on the money – the food at Bedouin Tent is quite excellent.  The freshly baked pita bread is a revelation, taken from a pizza oven that dominates the restaurant’s décor.  It’s much more flaky and doughy than the usual pita product, particularly when just removed from the oven (the pita, sadly, doesn’t make the takeout trip nearly as well).  Speaking of oven products, I haven’t tried a “pitza,” but there were several that came from the oven while I waited for a recent takeout order that left me nearly drooling on the counter – the ground lamb version known as lambajin, and one that appeared to use artichoke hearts to great effect.

What have I tried?  Arriving with a fresh pita, the hummus is cool and perhaps smokier in flavor than Hummus Place’s version.  It’s also oil-infused and extremely fresh-seeming.  I liked it, but perhaps not enough to order again – Hummus Place has spoiled me rotten, and $4 seems a bit steep for a small portion.

I’ve also had the merguez (spicy lamb sausage) sandwich ($6), and it’s a delight.  A huge hunk of the non-encased sausage is slapped on a fresh pita, snuggled up against lettuce, the freshest tomatoes this side of a farmer’s market, and a squirt of tahini.  Of course, the star of the show is the medium-spiced sausage, and the spice adds a significant advantage over any kind of doner-like meat I’ve previously encountered.  The spice masks the lamb’s natural skankiness – the ordinary smell and flavor don’t bother me, true, but this merguez might still be the perfect kebab meat.

On a recent weekend, I took advantage of a Chicken Ouzi (pronounced “uzi”) special – or, perhaps I should say, it took advantage of me.  Complaining initially about the $12 price, I was hard-pressed to finish what was presented to me, and certainly not for lack of quality.  Lying on a bed of fresh pita, the sides of the plate strewn with lettuce and tomatoes, a flaky pastry crust is placed, containing rice, cubed chicken, peas, toasted almonds, golden raisins, and some kind of light oily coating to hold everything together.  Unsweetened yogurt comes on the side.  Unbelievably delicious and easily enough to feed two – when I had eaten until nearly full, I decided to roll up the pita and eat the rest like a sandwich.  Lo and behold, the sandwich was bigger than the merguez version!  I practically rolled home that night.

Not to be missed, despite the filling mains, are Bedouin Tent’s desserts.  Now, I’ve eaten a lot of baklava in my life, generally infused with varying degrees of pistachio, finely or coarsely chopped, and many times so soaked in honey that it was hard to taste anything else.  Not true of this version ($2) – the primary flavor is, astonishingly, cinnamon, and there’s just enough honey to hold everything together without the usual “sticky sweet.”  Sublime and possibly the best version I’ve had anywhere, including my favorite Syrian restaurant in Berlin.

One dessert that good would be enough, but Bedouin Tent has another – a cake made with semolina flour, honey, and yogurt, and called basbousa ($2).  Looking like a yellow cake that maybe rose not quite enough, and topped with toasted almonds, the basbousa is also just sweet enough without being over-honeyed.  It’s quite dense, too, without being overly rich or overly crumbly – just perfect pastry all around.

Bedouin Tent is no secret, and I’m glad of that, kind of.  Funny story: I encountered my first photoblogger there, taking pictures of his chicken, hummus, and babaghanouj platter and inquiring as to the composition of the sauce on the side (for the record, it was tahini).  It felt very meta, particularly knowing that I would be writing about the place soon, and having read Lindsayism’s recent rant about the ruinous ubiquity of photobloggers.  I mean, the poor schmuck must have taken five minutes to set up the perfect picture of his food, which I thought was totally nuts.  So, in case you’re wondering why I don’t have photos: true, I’m not a good photographer and I don’t have a good camera, but more importantly, I don’t want to screw around when presented with a dish of food as good as the ones I’ve had at Bedouin Tent.  Not touching that pita for five minutes after oven removal is damn near criminal.    

This "Slice" is far from perfect.

I realize that I’ve been avoiding writing about pizza – the reasons for that are twofold. One, I totally burnt out on pizza during spring of this year, while living in a rather obscure corner of Brooklyn with limited delivery options. Two, I think that Slice (the website) does a fantastic job covering it. I’m going to do a review of the place that caused my pizza burnout soon (it’s fantastic, seriously). In the meantime, I’ll fill you in on last night, when my girlfriend and I ordered in from a new place, named in an unwieldy and immodest fashion “Slice: The Perfect Food.”

Far be it from me to argue with the categorization of a pizza slice as the perfect food, at least in a certain category of local fast-food specialty – it’s hard to imagine NYC without its pizza parlors, which are to this city what doner kebap joints are to Berlin, or burrito stands are to L.A. Most pizza available in the city at least toes the line of some kind of long-established and well-thought-out tradition, though – whether it’s Neapolitan, Sicilian, or Italian-American, variations on a theme are the name of the game.

“Slice: The Perfect Food” (hereinafter STPF) has none of those pretensions; its affectations are altogether more precious. Like its spiritual (if not gastronomical) predecessor, the California Pizza Kitchen, STPF throws the whole lot of tradition out the window in favor of the idea of pizza – a baked crust with sauce and the occasional cheese sighting, where seemingly any topping is fair game. As an additional affront to pizza traditionalists, STPF (located at 1413 2nd Av.) claims to concentrate on the organic and restricted-diet-enabling side of the ingredient spectrum – the cheeses available, for example, start out at a relatively straightforward organic mozzarella, but move along to the lactose-intolerant-friendly goat cheese, soy mozzarella, and rice mozzarella. There is a gluten-free crust available, too, which makes the availability of whole-wheat crust seem downright normal.

Needless to say, this kind of menu is likely to give fans of traditional pizza the heart attacks that the healthy ingredients were designed to prevent – that is, if the prices of the pies and slices ($4?!?) don’t cause a coronary first. Being the open-minded sort, though, I thought I’d give the place a try (full disclosure: it was also pouring rain out, and my girlfriend’s internet wasn’t working to check menupages).

We elected, from a book-like menu containing several more drawn half-naked women than pages of food choices, the rather irritatingly named (hint: the more money you shell out, the smarter you are) “expert” pie ($24), which promised grilled organic rosemary chicken and basil with marinara sauce on herb crust. We added the organic mozzarella at an indeterminate cost, braving the fact that the price of extra cheese wasn’t listed.

Thirty-five minutes or so later, the pie arrived, and the disappointment began. The crust was tough as nails, a fact not aided by the pizza having cooled substantially from its removal from the oven. While the cheese-and-sauced portions were fine, if bland, we frequently discarded bits of the outer rim of crust. Yes, the pie was good enough to finish, but if it had been any colder, we would have had to reheat it (it would have been tough in a standard-sized oven, too – the pies are rectangular).

You’d think the story would end there, but you’d be wrong. My girlfriend and I were picking at Ciao Bella Chocolate Sorbet and Pumpkin Gelato pints (the former, by the way, is still my favorite of the two, but the latter…it’s really, really good), when the doorbell rang. Having ignored his phone call earlier, she and I thought that it would be her best friend coming to collect something he’d forgotten. Instead, it was a second STPF delivery person bearing an “expert” pie with added cheese, an hour and ten minutes after our initial order.

Needless to say, she was as befuddled as we were, particularly when confronted with the evidence (read: box) that we had just consumed the pie we’d ordered. This pie even had the address written on the side – did we end up with someone else’s pie earlier, I thought? My girlfriend, always quick on her feet, offered the use of her telephone to the pie-bearer to call STPF and clear up the mystery. We’re not quite sure what the problem was, but after the call ended, the second pie was offered to us, gratis (other than my girlfriend tipping the delivery person – rarely has a tip been so well earned).

Anyway, “expert” #2 was leagues better than the first. Most importantly, it was hot out of the oven, making the crust significantly less tough, and the chicken/cheese/sauce combination more appealing – just a completely different experience. Frustratingly, we were too full of cold-ish pizza and gelato to really appreciate it. My girlfriend just reported, though, that even cold (refrigerated overnight and consumed for lunch), this pie was much better than our original from last night.

I can’t really complain about two pizzas for $30-ish, but I don’t think this experience was typical – if it is, STPF won’t be in business for much longer. I’m not sure if it will anyway – I suppose there are plenty of people in the UES who will happily pay $24 per 2-person pie, but are these people also finicky enough to order rice mozzarella and gluten-free crust, and forgiving enough to order again after a cold pie is delivered? Regardless of what I think of the place from a business standpoint, the inconsistent pies could also use some improvement, even within the constraints of the menu; hot delivery of every pie should also be a top priority. Perfection, to put it mildly, remains elusive.

Hat's tricks fail to impress.

An argument could be made, I think, that there’s no better example of the bizarre style of gentrification in the Lower East Side than the continued existence of the Puerto Rican-run Mexican restaurant called “El Sombrero.”  El Sombrero, at Ludlow and Stanton, is the kind of place you’d think would be replaced in one of the first waves of gringo invasion – prime corner real estate on Ludlow’s hip strip and a large dining area being  two of the biggest factors.  But the Sombrero has endured, somehow, and managed to attract a totally different kind of clientele in the process – the afore-mentioned hip gringos grabbing food before hitting Pianos or Arlene’s.

Their endurance is, unfortunately, not a testament to the quality of the food.  The chips that are planted in front of you upon your arrival seem far from fresh, even though the watery red salsa is appealingly warm in both temperature and spice (not as much fun when it cools, sadly).  The margaritas, while strong and tasty in both frozen and rocked incarnations, seem expensive - $7 buys you a pint of either – though you’re unlikely to need too many.

The entrees are a similarly mixed blessing.  I had noted a chicken mole listed on the entrée, and wondered to our rather surly waitress if I could get the mole sauce poured over some chicken enchiladas (a la the previously reviewed El Huipil).  I was surprised to receive an affirmative answer, but I needn’t have bothered – the mole was nothing special or even really recognizable (save for a brief burst of cocoa).  It, like the salsa, was thin and watery.  The enchiladas themselves would have been better had they utilized better tortillas, and not been drowned in a sea of jack cheese.

The tortillas were similarly disappointing on my girlfriend’s tacos, but the chicken in both places was at least palatable and flavorful.  That’s more than I could say for the rice and canned-seeming refried beans, which certainly weren’t up to any kind of standard.

I’ve also had the chimichangas at El Sombrero, and if you’re a fan of grease, you’ll probably enjoy this Tex-Mex gut bomb.  I wouldn’t say it’s the best I’ve had, by any stretch, though, and the limited range of fillings don’t help any.

I’m willing to declare that El Sombrero is a good place to meet friends for an undiscerning meal of Mexi-sludge and margaritas (carryout available – shh!), and it would seem that LES diners agree – the dining room gets packed on weekend evenings.  I’m not exactly eager to go back again, though.

Experiments in instant gratification.

Ever feel lazy?  Sure you have – why else would NYC offer delivery of just about everything at just about any time of day?  Services like FreshDirect and Amazon’s same-day-to-Manhattan delivery are more recent additions to the near-instant delivery sphere, augmenting the more traditional restaurant deliveries.  Many restaurants even do a majority of their business this way – for plenty of families (not just in New York, admittedly), I know that “Chinese” and “delivery” are virtually synonymous, much like pizza before it, and Indian and Thai seem to be not far behind.

The internet offers new paradigms of delivery, though – faster, with more diverse offerings.  One delivery site that straddles the line between FreshDirect’s grocery and pre-prepared foods field and a restaurant’s delivery service is MaxDelivery.com, which offers as close to instant gratification as is possible without actually leaving your chair.  MaxDelivery’s gimmick is that they deliver in an hour or less, and I was astonished to note after ordering at 12:38 that their website updated, nearly-instantly, that my order was assembled within five minutes and out the door in another two, and slated to arrive by 12:53.

Such punctuality is almost unheard of in areas other than German train service, so I awaited the arrival of the delivery dude with some interest.  Of course, given the security of the building I work at, a four minute delay (I received the call indicating the drop at 12:57) is more than acceptable.  The food was delivered in a series of white bags, making me look like an idiot on the way back to the desk, but enabling the easy hiding of my two pints of Ciao Bella gelato and sorbet in the freezer on the way back to my desk ($4.50 – actually cheaper than buying pre-packed pints at the C.B. scoop shop).

I had ordered a sandwich for my lunch, believing the promise that it would be freshly assembled, and believing that it couldn’t possibly be worse than the shite I’d eaten once at Togo’s/Dunkin’ Donuts (easily the worst sandwich I’ve ever eaten).  I’m happy to report that the incongruously-named “Harlem” sandwich is the closest thing to banh mi delivery we’re likely to get in the West Village any time soon.  It’s got chicken breast, cilantro, pickled carrots, cucumbers, and seedy jalapeños(!), with a swab of mayo on the very fresh, dense hero bread – all that’s missing is the hot sauce, really, and I probably could have ordered a bottle if I’d been thinking ahead.  For $6.50, it’s obviously the most expensive banh mi ever created, and its authenticity is Nicky’s-lite, but, all things considered, it was a lot better than I was expecting.

Sugar Sweet Sunshine is my favorite NYC bakery; their baker’s dozen cookies-in-a-box is a good alternative to the rest of MaxDelivery’s cookie category – all Chips Ahoy and Pepperidge Farm stuff, basically.  This is not to say that the cookies were hot off the press – though the date on the bottom of the box indicated that the window for consumption wouldn’t be over for another three days – but they were far from stale.  At $5.40 (on sale, for some reason), they were, again, a little expensive, but they sure made the office a lot happier when I shared.  Brownies are also available.

In a few years, the stoner “classic” Half Baked might seem more dated than even Reefer Madness, and not because of Dave Chappelle’s then-sanity.  After all, with MaxDelivery.com, Harland Williams would never have had to go on a munchie run.  For just over ten bucks (the sandwich and cookies came to $11.90, plus tax), with free delivery this week and next (and two free deliveries with any new account at any time), even the guy on the couch would have had to turn over and give his approval.

MacDougal Street's griddle treats.

I’ve ignored a couple of previous favorite MacDougal St. eateries lately, given that Hummus Place is so astonishingly and consistently good (their latest menu addition: ShakSuka, which is described as a Mediterranean vegetable stew, but looking and tasting more like your grandmother’s stewed tomatoes, if they were served in a skillet with pita bread on the side).  So, today, I went back to Kati Roll and PressToast, to see if they were still good enough to recommend.

My first stop was PressToast, on MacDougal between Minetta Lane and Bleecker, which I frequented for a time just after it opened in 2004.  I had always enjoyed their iteration of toast, which shares nothing with the Blue Ribbon version other than bread – Israeli toast is like a panino made on extra-soft bread, and it’s grilled on a flat griddle press rather than a ridged one.  I’m not exactly sure why I stopped going – I think it coincided roughly with my discovery of Abbondanza around the corner.  Anyway, I was tickled to find it this summer at the 68th position on Sietsema’s current list of cheap eats, and decided to go again at some point (some point being, of course, six months later).

PressToast, I’m happy to say, has improved – they’ve added a small seating area and have expanded their menu to include the Israeli wraps known as Mallawah, added sliced chicken to their list of potential toast/wrap ingredients, and upped their dressing possibilities by including Russian and honey mustard.  I tried the new chicken avocado toast ($4), which also included tomatoes, onions, and ranch dressing.  Quite good – I didn’t notice the ranch as much as I thought, but warmed avocadoes, tomatoes, and onions always do me right, and the chicken was a nice touch, too.  I also remember them having a mean mint lemonade, but I didn’t try it this time.

After picking that up (I actually recommend eating it there rather than taking away, if the weather’s not frigid), I headed across the street to Kati Roll.  Apparently part of a chain that includes at least a midtown branch and the less-than-satisfying Indian Bread Company around the corner, Kati Roll was a very frequent destination of mine last year.  Again, I’ve not been back in a while, but little has changed – the Bollywood movie posters still hang on the wall, and the prices ($3.50-$4.50 for most rolls, with a two-roll deal that knocks a buck or so off the price) haven’t changed.

Also not changing is the inconsistency of the food.  I’ve had paneer (cheese) rolls there, when warmed enough and with fresh bread, that truly were great.  I’ve also had the very same paneer rolls be heated not nearly enough and be drab.  Given that my two favorites there are the paneer and the aloo (potato) rolls (I think the meats are too dry – the reheating doesn’t work as well), I would advise that, if you get a paneer roll, watch it like a hawk to make sure it stays on the grill long enough, and eat it in-store.

I was carrying out, so I opted for the aloo roll, which is surprisingly spicy.  The aloo is heaped onto the grill from an unseen container and flipped once – it’s fairly resistant to the reheating process, which made it my most frequent carryout roll.  The bread was a bit greasy this time around, which is always frustrating to note when they’re making fresh bread on the griddle in the back of the store.  It could also have been the sauce squirted on the roll (and that later squirted on my keyboard…whoops!) that was making the bread translucent, I suppose, and the carryout, again, does nobody any favors.

I can absolutely recommend Kati Roll, but unfortunately with the caveat that their food is inconsistent as hell, due mostly to preparation methods.  PressToast is much more likely to yield a satisfying meal, in my mind, and now that they have a seating area for the cold winter months, may yet see more of my business.  Hey, I’ve got a frequent toaster card with eight punches – just one more and I’ll get free toast, which is about as cheap and satisfying a meal as is possible.

"Yahoo!" I exclaimed, as I read the site traffic report.

Exciting news – yesterday, Twenty Bucks a Day was named one of the Yahoo search directory’s “New and Notable” sites for 11/16/2005.  Our traffic absolutely skyrocketed!  Thanks to Yahoo, and welcome to our new readers!

I’ve also added buttons at the bottom of the right column for My Yahoo and Newsgator readers to easily add Twenty Bucks a Day to their homepages.

Hoppers take Manhattan: Sri Lankan sans ferry.

It was with great happiness that I recently noted a chowhound post claiming a Sri Lankan restaurant had opened on 1st Ave. at 6th St.  Many of you have no doubt wandered by the spillover from 6th St.’s “Curry Row” and been harassed by what possibly are the only Italian-tourist-restaurant-style “patron wranglers” in America – would this obnoxious spot yield cuisine good enough to brave the flashing lights and signs?  My girlfriend and I went on a mission to find out.

Sigiri is one of the upstairs restaurants on this densely-filled block, and our window table afforded us a fine view of 1st Ave. and the projects across the street.  Unsurprisingly for a new ethnic restaurant, we were one of two tables filled at 6:45 on a Tuesday.  With so few customers (and the other group being the worst mother ever and her daughter, who my girlfriend and I couldn’t stop feeling sorry for), the newly-painted dining room felt a little empty – no music, even, save for the occasional blast from a passing bass-mobile.  The cheery colors and Pier 1 table settings won us over, though, even before the friendly waitress came to take our order (who doesn’t love a restaurant that feels like your mother could have decorated it?).

While we were pondering our order, the waitress had brought us a small dish of what must be the oddest appetizer I’ve yet been served in an ethnic restaurant – Chex Mix.  I can’t tell if it was right from the bag or not, but I’m encouraged to say that it wasn’t, given several of the satisfyingly crunchy ingredients would seem out of place in a Chex Mix bag, and that the spice level was relatively high.  Can’t say for sure, though – it’s been a few years since my last munchie run to the Cumberland Farms.

I find hoppers one of the most fascinating parts of Sri Lankan cuisine, and I wasn’t about to pass up an order of four ($8).  For those who aren’t aware, hoppers are sort of like a thin, somewhat crispy bowl-shaped pancake, into which the various dishes can be loaded.  There’s another kind of hopper called a “string” hopper, which is a sort of pressed rice vermicelli patty that looks like a refugee from Vietnamese cooking, but the similar name does not reflect any taste similarities.  The hoppers proper look kind of like a boule crossed with a crepe, if that makes sense.  One hopper in our order had an egg over easy deposited into the middle, which was aesthetically pleasing as well as tasty.

We ordered a fish curry ($8) as the primary dish to load into the hoppers.  The fish seemed like frozen swordfish, and wasn’t particularly thrilling (nor was it bad, like Mina’s fish), but the curry was excellent.  We had ordered it spicy, and it came to us with a slightly redder mustard color.  One thing that hoppers aren’t good for: sopping up the curry sauce.  I would probably order a dhal or chicken curry next time, and make sure to get some kind of bread to wipe the bowl clean.

Our other dish was Chicken Lamprais ($12), a kind of rice casserole served in folded banana leaves.  The rice is sweetened, seemingly, and added to it were a boiled egg that looked like it had been deep fried somehow, a kind of “ash” plantains (sweet and delicious), chicken pieces (on the bone, so watch out!) and something called a fish cutlet, which I wouldn’t be surprised to find was some part of the fish the western palate isn’t used to (it was fishy, but the texture was considerably different than your usual fish filet).  Also included were a kind of fishy flakes – I didn’t discover these until I was scraping the last remains of the dish from the leaves on to my plate (I think they were huddled in a corner), and I’m rather glad I didn’t – not a very good texture or flavor.

For dessert, we tried the Watalappan ($3), which is a flan-like egg and coconut custard made with the unrefined palm sugar known as “jaggery” – our iteration also contained cashews.  As with the Tapajos River Steakhouse flan, the custard had the consistency of a real egg dish – a way of falling apart into shards that custard-from-a-box just won’t do.  It was quite delicious.  I had also tried the Sri Lankan iced coffee with dinner, which we were told contained a bit of rum.  It was delicious, as well, presented in a champagne flute-like glass and looking good enough to elicit jealousy from the afore-mentioned worst mother ever, at least until she discovered it was coffee-based (I’m glad she didn’t find out there was rum involved).  The rum certainly didn’t overpower the coffee – it just lent it a nice flavor.  I enjoyed it more than the average over-sugared Thai iced tea, for sure.

It seems to be a trend for NYC’s south Asian restaurants, after years of flying the Indian flag, to declare their true nationalities – witness Spicy Mina’s emergence and the diversification of Curry Row from “Indian” to “Bangladeshi.”  Sigiri offers hope that Manhattanites and borough-phobes will share in this revolution – much as the introduction of different regional Chinese cuisines has enriched the city’s understanding of the depth and complexity of that country’s myriad culinary cultures.  Given that most of this city’s other Sri Lankan restaurants are located in Staten Island (where the proprietor of Sigiri and his family live), it’s particularly great that this cuisine has made it to a location where many more people will encounter it.

My girlfriend and I, despite some unorthodox menu choices, and prices that I would consider somewhat high, enjoyed our meal immensely.  I’m encouraged that the prices for take-out and delivery seem to be somewhat lower (though you can’t get hoppers) – hopefully Sigiri will stick around.

Indoor picnic assembly on the Lower and Upper East Sides.

After a foodwise-mediocre but atmosphere-perfect (dig the park-view outdoor seating) and cost-effective brunch ($10 with juice or well-spiced Bloody Mary, coffee included) at Esperanto on Sunday, my girlfriend and I decided to wander down to SoHo, slowly.  Some of the nice things about a rambling Sunday excursion are the surprises en route, and one of this Sunday’s surprises was the farmer’s market at the southwest corner of Tompkins Square Park.

A great deal smaller than the more well-known Saturday Union Square farmer’s market, the Tompkins market had an impressive array of foods available, especially apples.  Being that it is prime local apple season, I wandered from stand to stand admiring the array of possibilities, daydreaming of pies.  I settled on Macintosh apples – ¾ dozen for under four dollars, a much better price than I’d been paying at Blue Ribbon Bakery Market for virtually the same thing.

As we wandered back towards 7th St., we noticed a stand selling various kinds of breads, and I had a thought: as we had no dinner plans, and, given our brunch hour, probably wouldn’t want to eat until late anyway, why not make a meal of peasant bread, cured meats, and cheeses?  We bought half a loaf of a crumbly, dense white bread from the vendor to this end, and our final purchases of the farmer’s market were a dollar cup of hot apple cider (delicious – fresh makes all the difference here), and a four-inch pecan pie ($2.50).

After a brief trip to the Apple store (I got a kick from toting a bag full of fresh Macintosh apples in), we headed to Ciao Bella’s scoop shop on Mott between Prince and Houston.  Momentarily saddened to see that they didn’t have any chocolate sorbet available for fresh pack, we tasted the pumpkin gelato – almost immediately, the chocolate sorbet longing was a distant memory.  Absolutely amazing stuff – between it and the pumpkin pie custard that Shake Shack was featuring a week or two ago, I’m not sure I have a need to eat pumpkin pie in its standard form any longer.

We chose to get a fresh pack pint of the pumpkin gelato ($5.75), so we had make a beeline to the freezer uptown, via the 6 and, strangely, 2 trains.  On the way from the station to home, we stopped at Melange (1st Ave. between 64th and 65th Sts.), a purveyor of cured meats, cheeses, and Middle Eastern desserts, among other things.  Melange claims in their window to have the lowest prices in town, and it’s certainly hard to argue with that assessment: we purchased ¼ lb each of sopressata (sweet and salami-like) and capicola (hot and ham-like), ½ lb of fresh mozzarella, a small container of olives, and a wedge of brie for about fifteen dollars.  I can’t imagine doing the same at Whole Foods for so little money – we figured it would cost at least 50% more there.  I plan on trying the myriad array of pastries (ruglach, baklava, etc.) next time – there was also a Close Encounters-esque mountain of an unidentified beige sweet that I’m jonesing to try sooner than later.

Once home, the olive oil flowed like water, and the meats and cheeses made a perfect combination.  A better Sunday night light dinner one couldn’t ask for…though I guess it was only light until we broke out the gelato.  And, as far as its impact on the wallet was concerned – we already had the oil and balsamic vinegar, as I’m sure most of you do.  Meats, cheeses, and olives were $15, and we had leftovers of the sopressata and the brie.  The bread was $3, and we polished off only half of our half loaf.  The pecan pie was pretty forgettable (maybe it would have been better re-baked), but an apple or two went well with the cheeses (let’s say you’re not as much of a nut as I am, and buy three apples for around $1).  Sans gelato, we spent less than $10 a person, had a satisfying feast AND a nice walk around Lower Manhattan.  On a beautiful fall Sunday afternoon, it’s an itinerary that can’t be beat.

Anyone know a good artery doc?

Regular readers will know that I’m mildly obsessed with the fry-up: I’m continually excited to discover new places to have an Irish breakfast.  This weekend, a lazy day spent loading my girlfriend’s new iPod led us to a very late first meal of the day – at 4pm, we stumbled out of my apartment into the rapidly fading afternoon with increasing hunger.

Fortunately, Ceol (Smith St. at Warren St.) serves their Irish breakfast all day, which we were glad to discover upon sitting at a table in the back room and studying the bill of fare.  That rear area, at least, doesn’t feel like a bar – more like an ADHD-addled interior decorator’s idea of a kitschy bed and breakfast’s meal room.  There is, however, a gas fireplace that projects a fair bit of warmth, as well as an extremely friendly and informal staff, who treated us like old friends (almost weirdly so – I was really surprised).

A shout out to my girlfriend, whose close reading of the menu produced the unlikely culinary gem of the day in the fried pickle appetizer ($6).  Not fried pickle chips, as apparently exist at Brother Jimmy’s, but rather full-length pickle wedges, coated in crispy, thin, not-soggy batter.  Of course, you’ll need to like pickles, as this dish won’t change anyone from a long held anti-pickle bias, but I would swear that the heating of the pickle in the fryer (it got quite hot!) actually enhanced its flavor.  I thought it was rather cheeky that the dipping sauce, seemingly the same as would be served with potato skins, contained chopped dill.  Six to a plate, you’ll need more than just two people to finish the platter and still have room for the main course.

Preceding the pickles’ arrival on our table was a basket of fresh Irish soda bread with raisins, and a dollop of butter.  I’m a big fan of this quick-bake treat (my suitemates and I made it a lot our senior year in college), and I was disappointed when my second trip to D.J. Reynolds didn’t yield any.  Ceol’s iteration is crumbly and soft in all the right places, and between it and the pickles (and a pint or two), probably would have made a perfect light meal.

Of course, with us not having eaten anything more substantial all day than some chocolates, there would be no such waistline-watching.  My fry-up arrived containing two eggs over medium-ish, two pieces of English-style bacon, two sausages, two pieces each of black and white pudding, and two wedges of stewed tomato (two heart attacks were also included, though not listed on the menu).  The expected potatoes provided a surprising twist – home-fry sized chunks of potatoes were deep-fried and served on a side plate.  Beans arrived shortly afterwards in a gravy boat (whooo-ooooo).

Needless to say, I was pleased, and ate until I was full and then some.  My girlfriend was similarly pleased, both to taste white pudding – bloodless, I assured her – and by her burger ($10, I think) which was better than one should expect from a pub.  While describing it as medium rare would perhaps be a stretch, it was certainly juicy and tasty, and absolutely huge.  It was sided with a generous helping of steak fries, as though enough fried food hadn’t already been consumed by us.

The Irish breakfast isn’t the cheapest I’ve ever had ($11) – Nick’s Lunch Inn and D.J. Reynolds both come in cheaper.  But the portions are enormous, the atmosphere is infinitely better than either Nick’s diner-y environs or D.J. Reynolds’ ancient wood-paneled splendor-squalor, the staff can’t be beat, and the location is much closer to my usual weekend-morning stomping grounds.  Fried pickles and decent burgers are also a plus.

Chinese tex-mex 'strategery.'

So I know you’re curious – have I ever eaten at one of those Chinese-run tex-mex places anywhere in the city? Well, yes, I have, the one on Varick at Houston, mostly. I’m not afraid to admit it. What might shock you, though, is that I think they’re worthwhile – to a very small point.

First of all, avoid the beans. Like the effing plague, folks. They’re undercooked-yet-mushy and I can only describe them as “slithery.” Ick, ick, ick. Not that most of the other ingredients are high quality (particularly the chorizo, which claims to be “ground sausage” but looks more like mystery meat). Even if you’re brave/starving and want to try something I don’t recommend, please avoid the beans.

Also, I think their lunch combos are a scam. After you remove the icky beans, the combos consist of varying combinations of meat, lettuce/tomato or peppers/onions, some guacamole that could best be described as “preserved,” and a bunch of cheese thrown on top of rice and melted in a steam-cooker. Oh yeah, you get a free soda, too, and I’m sure that’s the most expensive wholesale ingredient in the $5 package.

Burritos aren’t much better – they generally use 12” tortillas from a package, wrapping from one to all of the above ingredients in the burrito, and you don’t even get a free soda.

What’s to like? Well…basically just the fresh 8” tortillas. They’re really, really good – watch the cooks take a ball of dough, squish it in some kind of press contraption, then throw it on the griddle to brown.

I know the thought of just tortillas isn’t enough to inspire a visit, so I’d recommend the quesadillas. With the included huge glop of melted jack cheese (and, if you want chicken, which is better than the steak by a long shot, or jalepenos), it might remind you of something you attempted to cook in the microwave as a kid, or maybe as an inebriated college student, except with non-stale tortillas. In fact, it’s probably too much cheese, as the grease in the bottom of the container will demonstrate. For under three bucks, though, you could wipe some off. Tacos, too, use the fresh tortillas.

Yes, the food is mostly bad. But, barring a trip to the tortilla factory, where are you going to get tortillas fresher than this? Just don’t ever order the beans.

Parallel coverage.

Elsewhere in the food reviewing universe, it’s nice to see the NY Times, Village Voice, and Gothamist take on restaurants that I’ve recently covered. All three of the restaurants covered (Goodburger, Himalayan Yak, and Rai Rai Ken, respectively) are more than worthy of further coverage, although (as one commenter on Gothamist noted) little Rai Rai Ken’s going to be totally overrun. That’s life in the reviewing biz, I guess – look what happened to underground sensation Momofuku after the NYT review.

Max's malevolent moll and pasta penance.

If you’re me, you need Italian pasta sometimes to stay sane and grounded.  The challenge is finding a place to eat that pasta that’s both cheap and good – if I wanted mediocre red sauce from a jar and cheese from a green can, I’d probably be cooking at home more often.  It was with these targets in mind that my girlfriend and I visited one of her favorite Italian places, Max.  Located at 51 Ave. B in the East Village, Max was also the number 4 choice on Sietsema’s 2004 Italian restaurants list, and, unlike one of its list brethren I ate at recently, Roberto’s of the Bronx (the number 2 choice), Max is cheap!

I should make a note about the hostess, though, before we go any further – she was a heinous wench of a human being, or at least acted like one.  I’m used to frosty service in NYC, and I don’t generally hold it against places, but when your customers are a couple who probably want to have a romantic dinner for two, and you lead them to the crammed-together row of tables that always exists in restaurants in the Village (and Brooklyn, lately), you’ve got to at least throw them a bone and NOT put them right next to the only other table in the row with people.

When we asked if we could take the next table, she actually said no, claiming in a rather snide manner that she reserved it for groups of three.  Now, if this were a full restaurant, or was to become one during the time immediately after we were there, I’d understand.  However, nobody sat in this table the whole time we were there, and it was questionable whether a third person could sit there anyway (there wasn’t even a chair for a third person when we got there – she brought one over about ten seconds after negging us).  I understand the point about it being hard to seat people between two full tables (table selection at restaurants, for me, being the opposite of NYC real estate conventional wisdom), but again, this problem wouldn’t arise if you sat people in a rational pattern, filling in the least desirable tables last.

I’d probably not have mentioned it here, but she did the very same thing to another group that came in a few minutes before we left – on the other side of the row.  Note to OCD-afflicted hostesses everywhere: you are not the table Nazi.  And when you start moving tables to accommodate an incoming group and slam another table into ours, politeness dictates an apology.

After resisting the urge to flip her off, we ordered the lasagna and the gnocchi, with a side of sautéed broccoli rabe (and the waiter, for what it’s worth, was fine).  A large portion of bread and some kind of olive tapenade came shortly after, and we were happy to nosh a bit and dry out from the late afternoon rainstorm that caught the two of us with but one umbrella, basking in the glow of the low lighting (except when the lighting dimmed every time the dishwasher was turned on – uh, guys, you might want to call an electrical contractor).

The service was quick, and we were served our dishes promptly.  The lasagna ($10) came in a round crock that reminded me of a European “al Forno” preparation.  It is advertised as in the style of “mama,” and, while Dad was the lasagna-maker in our family, it stacked up fairly well against the decidedly average lasagnas I’ve been exposed to in most restaurant settings.  The beef and cheese were plentiful and the sauce, while on the sweet and bland side, was by no means unwelcome.  I thought the noodles were a bit overcooked, though.  The portion is quite generous.

The broccoli rabe was quite acceptable, while bitter and lacking somewhat in garlic flavor, despite the presence of several whole cloves.  Oily and crunchy, it was the vegetable infusion that my body probably craves far more often than it gets.  At $6, it was a rather large portion, enough for a whole meal or two sides, and I would probably have been happier with a $3 portion that was half as big (unlikely, of course).  Menupages.com seems to indicate that the rabe used to be $4, which seems more reasonable.  Guess they’ve raised the prices on sides to keep the main prices under $10?

I haven’t had tastier gnocchi ($10) in quite a while, if ever – the little morsels of potato noodle seemed fresh, not frozen, and while they were not al dente, they retained their spring and flavor well.  The tomato sauce may have been the same sweet-bland combination that adorned the lasagna, but I wasn’t complaining.  The cheese was, also like the lasagna, out of control – we were sharing dishes and had strings of mozzarella going back and forth like a spider web.  You could even have your own personal lady and the tramp moment, if you were so inclined!  Like the lasagna and rabe, a large portion – nothing like a pasta gut bomb to cap off a rainy Wednesday.

I liked Max, and I’ll be back, I’m sure, but I do have reservations about the sauce, the pasta cooking times, and (especially) the hostess.  I doubt that they’ll be improved on my next visit, though – Max seems to be resting on its reputation as the Italian answer to Mama’s around the corner: home-style comfort food at a reasonable price, with a low degree of personal space.

Spicy Mina: a group excursion.

I went back to Spicy Mina last night for a more in-depth investigation (check further down the page for the original visit coverage), this time with my roommate and two other friends.  Taking one of the larger mid-room tables, we took some time to study the menu.  Finally, we came up with the following dishes: palak paneer (again – had to introduce my friends to this), mustard fish, chicken jhal fry, Mina’s special dal fry, aloo gobie, to follow a chicken lollipop starter.  3 orders of nan, one order of paratha, and one plate of rice were to accompany these dishes, along with the baskets of papadums already consumed (the good onion relish and mint sauce did not appear this time, strangely).

First, the good: even my normally-cauliflower-hating future doctor friend declared the aloo gobie to be good, with big hunks of potatoes and cauliflower in a burnt-orange-colored sauce.  At $7, this is one of the cheaper dishes on the stay-in menu (the take-out menu is totally different and seemingly a lot more straightforward, for what it’s worth).

I loved the dal fry/lentil mash, which was spicy, though not as spicy as I expected.  Others thought it was blah – I think it might have been a texture issue, as it’s a little like thick oatmeal crossed with lumpy mashed potatoes.  The chicken jhal fry was much more universally acclaimed – tender chicken in the spiciest sauce we consumed during the whole meal.  A winner, to be sure.

The palak paneer, contradicting in this case Mr. Leff’s assertion that Mina’s dishes are likely to vary wildly from visit to visit, was remarkably similar to the preparation of it I consumed on Sunday.  The ingredients are wilted spinach or spinach-like greens, dotted with crumbled cheese, and the dish’s primary flavor was garlic and a simmering undercurrent of spice.  I’m not sure we got enough cheese this time, though.

As to the non-entrée dishes: the nan was buttery, fresh, and delicious – I’m not sure if she makes it herself, but if she doesn’t, it’s quite tasty for pre-prepared.  The paratha was also good, and refreshingly free of the excess grease that sometimes consumes multi-layer pancake breads.  The chicken lollipops were acclaimed to be good by my friends, and I even thought them acceptable, despite my general aversion to chicken wings.  The batter is pretty light, which helps greatly.

On the other hand, the mustard fish was pretty poor, I thought, and it wasn’t just the bland sauce.  No, the underlying fish could have been MUCH fresher.  The fish is served whole, and upon picking apart the side of the fish facing up, we were struck by a way-too-fishy smell and taste.  I would have left the rest if not for my medical school friend, still hungry (more on that in a second) started picking at the other side.  Strangely, it was significantly less fishy – actually edible.  Again, though, the sauce was really bland, and I probably wouldn’t order it again even if the fish was fresh.

My favorite dish of the night was, far and away, the rice pudding dessert.  Described accurately by Mr. Leff as bordering on controlled-substance addicting, the pudding (served in a small portion) was creamy and delicious, not gloppy or ultra-sweetened like another rice pudding favorite, Rice to Riches.  It was served with a small sweet cheese globe, dusted with pistachio powder, and adorned with a mint leaf (do me a favor and try this: suck on the mint leaf and have a bite of half of the cheese ball with rice pudding – it’s unbelievably good together).

I’m now of two minds on the Mina experience.  Obviously, most of the food is good, occasionally great or sublime, and I’m all for a positive rating on that end.  What’s the prob?  Well, with four people, when you order four dishes, a whole fish, an appetizer, four large pieces of bread and a dish of rice, two of you have desserts, you practically lick the plates clean, and the check comes to $80, and you’re still sort of wondering if there’s anything else you could nosh on – I guess I could say that I thought the portions were a little small and the prices a little big.  I, too, am all for not letting your favorite chefs starve to feed you cheaply, but I’d be likely to go far more often if the prices were a bit kinder.    

Taking the 6 train to Sheboygan.

“What could be a more perfect meal for our lethargy?” my girlfriend and I wondered last Saturday, as we rode the 6 downtown.  We had originally planned a brunch excursion to the East Village (I’ll get to the Sunburnt Cow’s offering eventually), but laziness and the inherent appeal of the Shack’s delicious burgers and frozen treats tempted us astray.

Of course, we had to make a detour before detouring – the 7-11 on 23rd St. near Park Av. South was our first stop, and a total time-warp of weirdness it was, indeed.  I can understand the initial excitement voiced by some about 7-11’s arrival in Manhattan – I spent a goodly portion of my childhood stopping at the Sev or its mini-mart equivalents (Phillips 66, especially, since my best friend had a gas card from there that charged his father) on the way home from school, to pick up junk food and a tankard of the teenage jesus juice, Mountain Dew.

Manhattan’s 7-11 is, of course, different from Salt Lake City’s: a hell of a lot more coffee was my first tip, and a hell of a lot less white redneck counter help was my second.  But the gigantor soda machines and soda cups are still there, even improved from what I remember from my childhood.  When did they invent a device to enhance/pollute your diet Coke with one of several additional flavors?   More importantly, since when has IBC root beer been available in fountain form?

So we got our buckets of diet Coke and root beer (44 ounces for under a buck fifty – thanks, 7-11!) and proceeded over to Madison Square Park.  Let me tell you, we were glad we got our drinks first – the line was out of the gravel dining area and twisted around the 23rd St. side of the park, nearly halfway to Broadway.  We were surprised but determined – we joined the line at 2:30 and decided to make an afternoon of it.

Now, obviously, you could pick more pleasant spots in Madison Square Park to laze around, and certainly more comfortable positions than standing up, but, overall, the atmosphere isn’t bad.  You’ve got really gorgeous buildings around, the wind might rustle the trees occasionally, and, if you’re lucky, Danny Meyer’s hospitality squad will bring you free fried goodies or frozen custard to knaw at (we, strangely, got bookended by handouts, but didn’t manage to snag anything).

At 3:20, we ordered our meal – yes, it took nearly an hour.  Were we too hopped up on caffeine and sugar from our 7-11 tankards to really care?  Not really; it took forever, but, hey, that was evident going in – the line doesn’t lie.  If you go with a friend or group, the wait can be at least pleasant, and at most (judging by the boisterous groups of twentysomethings around) a lot of fun.  I think going alone, like the girl in front of us did, is the true mark of insanity – I’ve only been by myself when there is no line, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

At about 4:00, our name was finally called, and we happily sat down to nosh.  I opted for the double Shack burger ($6.23) and one of the special pumpkin pie custards, my girlfriend for the single burger ($3.23) and cheese fries (of which, of course, I ate half).  For those who haven’t been, the shack’s burgers are made from a combination of brisket and sirloin and are exceptionally flavorful, and the fries ($2.54 with cheese, $2.08 without) are of the Ore-ida style wave cut variety which, smothered in a cheese sauce that is neither polyester nor lumpy, are a class example of the old dining hall staple.

This trip’s surprise, though, was the special pumpkin pie concrete.  Watching the custard-creation portion of the kitchen (ain’t it fun to see the hyper-efficient kitchen crank out the food?), I saw that the main ingredient truly was a hunk of pumpkin pie, from an orange box that looks like it could have been bought at Stop & Shop #25, E. Harwich, MA.  Ergo, the pumpkin pie concrete had both filling and crust in irregular chunks throughout the vanilla custard, and the whole shebang was to die for – one of the best dairy desserts I’ve had in a long time.

It’s been said that the Shake Shack is Danny Meyer’s homage to the middle American fast food stand, and it does carry that mantle exceptionally well (except for the whole “hot-rod cars and greasers” thing – Happy Days was real, right?).  Matched with a trip to 7-11 to sate our thirst for the long line, I can truly proclaim this past Saturday afternoon to have been just like a day in the ‘burbs west of the Mississippi – if only you could take the 6 train there and back.

Internet hype and Spicy Mina.

Based on experiences with various implementations of harnessed chaos in discussion website form, I’m generally skeptical of the opinions, collective especially, of internet users (oh, blissful irony). However, I find the same users an invaluable source of information – tips on things I want to check out myself and form my own opinions on. Other than Robert Sietsema, my best source of ‘tips’ has been chowhound.com, so far.

Given the rudimentary, even primitive interface, it can take a while to appreciate the substance-over-style ‘atmosphere’ of the chowhound site. To its credit, it doesn’t allow is the kind of easy personal-reputation inflation that most discussion sites allow. There are no hard-and-fast usernames, there are no post counts, and there are no avatar-pictures to assist in the creation of virtual alter-egos. The chowhound.com founder, Jim Leff, has no special highlighting on his name, nor pushes his opinion under the cloak of “expert” opinion – the limit of his egoism seems to be in having dubbed himself the “big dog,” which pales in comparison to the world wide web’s worst self-aggrandizers.

What’s the reason I write all this, you ask? Most recently, I’ve seen a chef and restaurant proprietress named Mina turned into a demigod of home-cooked south Asian food on chowhound.com. Mr. Leff, who, to his credit, has remained the sort of person to share opinions and credit for discoveries rather than preach, has consistently gone on record praising Mina’s cooking. I was particularly intrigued by Mr. Leff’s insistence that Mina rarely cooks dishes the same way twice – shades of Kenny Shopsin, I thought.

Interestingly, the kind of frothy anticipation that usually isn’t a hallmark of chowhound erupted from the many threads – wondering where Mina’s newest restaurant was located, when it would open, and what kind of food it would be offering. Updates bordered on the daily – also unusual for chowhound.

Well, Spicy Mina is now open on Broadway, at the 65th St. GRV station, just next to the lovely and scenic BQE, and my girlfriend and I made a journey over there yesterday night to investigate the substance that, hopefully, lay beyond the hype. Upon entering the two-thirds-empty dining room, I thought it unusual that nearly every diner was Caucasian. Occasionally taxi drivers would pop in the back door for pickup, but the possibility of a restaurant with $12 entrées in a relatively blue-collar, hype-free neighborhood is proof of the power of chowhound.

Belying the old saw that good ethnic restaurants must have ethnic constituencies, the food did not disappoint (as Mr. Leff says, people of all races and creeds can be food snobs or Olive Garden devotees). I’ve misplaced the menu that is my usual point of reference when writing these articles, but we certainly had the palak paneer, which was less like the chunky cheese spinach casserole Indian restaurant staple and more like an Italian-style wilted spinach and garlic concoction. It had an underlying current of spice, but nothing on the level of Zabb or Spicy & Tasty (long, skinny brown pepper hulls were on the side, they might have been tien tsin?). Interestingly, the cheese was more crumbled and feta-like in consistency, but there seemed to be more of it than usual. I believe our other main was chicken dopaiza, which was a creamy, korma-like sauce that held treats like golden raisins in its grasp, accompanied by tender chunks of chicken breast. Not spicy at all, though the rice, interestingly, had dried pepper strips on top (gave me quite a start on my first bite). Both dishes, and the rice, were excellent bordering on amazing.

I was a bit disappointed by the puri, which was a smaller, less puffy and (happily) less greasy version of the staple bread, but the papadum more than made up for it. Included were the freshest iterations of onion relish, the green mint(?) sauce, and the only version of tamarind sauce I’ve ever liked. The wafers themselves were crispy, lacking the usual baked-in seeds, but still flavorful.

I was absolutely impressed with Spicy Mina, but I’m not ready to draw a conclusion yet – I’m going to try and take a group there in the next couple of days, so I can try a bunch more dishes and report back more accurately on ingredients and prices. I don’t think we scratched the surface of what Spicy Mina has to offer.

As to the hype – justified? I can give a preliminary thumbs up, but, interestingly, Mr. Leff has tempered his praise slightly, calling the restaurant “good-not-great” in an October 26th post. I guess the two criteria that I can cite as evidence of its quality are that I would recommend it without hesitation, and that I’m going back. Try it and see what YOU think.

One week at Ray's Super Deli.

Ray’s Super Deli, located on Hudson St. between Morton and Barrow Sts, is the kind of place that could easily get overlooked by the foodie crowd even without the anonymous blue awning that blends it into the rest of the block’s businesses (hint: it’s the northernmost of the two delis on the block).  Even walking in, the first things you see are those staples of delis everywhere: the meat counter, the cash register, the ATM, and the drink cooler, and these do not generally scream “Dominican specialties” to anyone.

If you walk along the deli counter to the back of the store, though, you can catch a glimpse of a steam counter containing all manner of Dominican stews, rices, roast chickens, soups, and salads.  Of course, there’s no menu or guide permanently posted anywhere nearby – most people who eat here can recognize the dishes by sight, I guess, and the staff is generally helpful at answering questions about specific dishes.  The takeout menu located at the cash register also provides a cheat sheet and study guide for the rotating daily menu – though, in my experience, not all listed dishes are prepared every day, and not all available dishes are listed.

What was the price for every single one of these lunches, you ask?  $4, except the Cuban.  The “small” size was certainly enough for me, though I think the large size could probably feed 2 (at $5.50, this would be even cheaper per person).  I think it’s safe to declare that a bargain, though you’ll pay more typical deli prices for sandwiches, sodas, and other grocery items.

Monday’s (also listed as served Friday and Saturday, but I saw it every day this week) roasted pork shoulder (pernil) was tender and delicious, with the crispy and fatty portions being not so crispy or fatty as to be inedible (it’s a fine line!).  Despite being out of yellow rice, the white rice took on the sauce of the red beans for flavor, and I ended up eating a lot more of the otherwise bland and sticky grain than I thought I was going to.

I had a suspicion that the pernil would make a good sandwich, and Tuesday’s Cuban sandwich (not a special, but if they didn’t have pernil, it wouldn’t be right) proved it.  Your pork is thrown on the grill and topped, successively, with turkey (not sure why this is necessary) and ham, and flipped over and layered with Swiss.  Meanwhile, the bun was pressed – I think it was on the griddle rather than the panini-style pressing machine, which is a nice touch.  However, I have a huge complaint – no pickle!  The lack of garlic spread I can possibly live with, but to omit the pickles from a Cuban sandwich is near-criminal.  Provided that this was oversight and not dogma (I swear that the menu said it came with a pickle), I feel good about recommending this enormous sandwich ($5.50) for feeding 1 hungry person, and probably two with normal appetites.

On Wednesday, I had a hankering for the asopao de gallina that is described in English as “Hen Soup” – first on the daily menu, in fact.  Unfortunately, when I asked for it, the guys at the counter were more than a little confused; it didn’t seem as though they’d heard of it, or at least heard of a gringo wearing a suit (thanks to the Michelin event) ordering it.  Forced to improvise, I selected a good-looking stew filled with chicken parts (apparently called stew chicken, or pollo guisado), though I was a little nervous to note that said chicken parts were bone-in (my record of spilling on myself is a long one, but I’ve avoided the catastrophic fancy-clothes-spilling, for the most part).

Upon carefully eating the chicken, I was rewarded – this chicken was fall-off-the bone tender, infused with the stew’s spices and color.  The leg (you may need to request one) yielded the best meat, but the thighs were not far behind.  The bed of rice was yellow today, much more flavorful than the white, and the sauce of the stew helped further, but I (having requested beans on the side in a Styrofoam coffee cup, for no additional charge) adulterated it further by mixing in the beans and their delightful sauce.  Delish.

I went in Thursday thinking only one thing: meatballs.  Again, I was disappointed – this time because they had just run out.  I guess I need to start going in earlier than 2pm.  Sigh.  I ended up with yet another version of Ray’s pork, this time with some kind of marinade/sauce.  It was fab, just like the other three iterations of pork I’ve had from them this week, and a fair bit less dry on the end bits.

Friday I went in at 1:30, and it’s perhaps a good thing that I did, because I’m not sure how many servings of codfish salad (ensalada de bacalao) they had left – enough for my portion, though!  This salad consisted of reconstituted dried cod (possibly the most important food in history – no joke!), onions, tomatoes, green peppers and cubed potatoes held together with olive oil.  Depending on whether you’re a fan of bacalao (I am, but it can be an acquired taste), this was a treat.  Light and delicious, it might become my new Friday favorite meal.  I got rice and beans with it this time, but in the future, I might ask for salad-only: the warm rice and beans aren’t really a match for the cold salad.

Despite the perhaps-excessive carb-loading of a week of near-daily rice and beans, I was extremely pleased with my food at Ray’s and would happily go back again.  Additionally, I hope to make this the first in a series of in-depth investigations into restaurants where the menu is too extensive for a one-or-two visit investigation.  Have a great weekend, gang!

Zap!

Sorry for the last 12 hours’ technical difficulties (particularly Safari users).  I attempted to make a few stylesheet revisions which broke everything.  “Stick to the food reviewing, King,” I can hear you saying…point taken.  Back to normal now, I hope.

Siam Garden celebration.

Wow! Big day for the blog – we got a link from Gawker and our traffic shot through the roof! Thanks again, guys, and welcome to all our new readers.

Some celebration was in order, so my roommate and I went and had a couple of beers at Floyd’s on Atlantic Av, where we enjoyed checking out their selection of canned beers – never seen Stroh’s in any other bar. Could it be the next Rheingold? Afterwards, we wandered back down Atlantic and Court St, wondering where to procure dinner.

After rejecting a few places and collecting a few menus, we stopped to read Siam Garden’s menu (172 Court between Amity and Congress), and noticed they had larb listed – the salad that I’ve loved since first trying it a month or so ago. Sold! We went in to the nearly empty restaurant and procured one of the prime tables by the window. The décor of the place is quite nice – one wall is totally done in burgundy, and there are nice-looking paintings on the wall and statuettes positioned throughout the restaurant. A couple of (decorative) fish tanks sit towards the middle, one of which features a barb as its inhabitant. They even have a retro-foreign ‘pay’ phone in the back, which was ringing for a constant stream of delivery orders. I guess this is how they’ve stayed open since 1985? The very friendly staff and quick service don’t hurt, either.

Needless to say, we ordered the beef larb ($7) to begin, and I made sure to order it Thai spicy. Fortunately, she believed me – this stuff was way effing out! Far hotter than Myrtle Thai, and still hotter than the catfish labb that I loved at Zabb, it had both of us sweating underneath the eyes and gulping water for a momentary cooling effect – after we ate it, the fire didn’t subside for at least ten minutes. Thankfully, it wasn’t just flavored with spice – the subtle fermented fishy flavor tipped us to the use of fish sauce. The scallions complemented the fishy beef perfectly, and I also liked the shredded red onion that was mixed in.

For our entrees, we scaled back a bit on the spice – my roommate ordered something called Bangkok chicken ($11), which I’m ready to anoint the king of all sweet and sour chickens the world over. Fried but not heavy or too greasy, the chicken pieces were doused in a plum-ginger sauce t