In which the protagonist chronicles his adventures in trying to eat at every restaurant on the 2005 Village Voice Cheap Chow Now list and frequently posts other food-related musings.
His budget: $20 a day.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Quick bites: 3rd Avenue's grease emporiums.
Not being a cheesesteak expert (read as: never having been to Philadelphia), I feel a little bad making grandiose proclamations, but this much is certain: I liked Carl’s steak better than the one from the East Village’s 99 Miles to Philly. The concept is similar – both places’ prices are comparable ($6.50 per cheesesteak with no toppings), both have TV’s to entertain while waiting and eating, and I even heard that a former Carl’s employee started 99MtP. Something got lost in translation, though – the bread and steak at 99MtP isn’t nearly as good, for some reason. I’m not even sure it’s better than the best cart cheesesteak (other than, of course, the availability of whiz). That said, it sure is more conveniently located to various drinking establishments. A trade-off, certainly.
On the same block as 99MtP is the illustrious Blue 9 Burger. Once upon a time the class of NYC fast food burgers, and a worthy east-coast imitation of California’s In-and-Out Burger, the quality has lately gone a bit south. Particularly late in the evening, you’re likely to receive a burger with a higher percentage of grease than is probably necessary or wanted. No matter: my roommate still craves them. Fries are pretty good, too – the fry-sauce-colored mango chili dipping sauce is a total mystery to me, though.
Walking down to the corner of 11th Street brings us to my longtime favorite place in the neighborhood – Roll N’ Roaster. An unrepentantly old-school establishment whose original branch is in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Roll N’ Roaster’s as dirt-cheap as they come. While the specialty of the place is roast beef, which is available mounted on a roll for $4.45, the burgers ($3.25) are also good enough for the value-conscious. Paper-thin and a little flavorless, they seem like a cartoon version of a national chain fast food restaurant, particularly when the only cheese available (45 cents extra) comes in pourable form. Said cheese goes better with the fries ($1.75), which are round cross-sections of potato instead of the usual shape, though it costs 90 cents extra in this context (I don’t think they use twice as much). Lately they’ve added strange things like pizza to the menu – never fear, this is merely to entice drunken students, who have discovered that, with a small food order, pitchers of beer are under five bucks apiece (I forget the actual number and their website makes no mention of it, but it’s absurdly low). Pregaming, ahoy!
I don’t know if I’ll have a review to post tomorrow. I might have a post or two from Belgium, but, in any case, regular posting will resume on or after 4/11/06. See ya!
Hi gang, My girlfriend and I are embarking on a trip to Brugge, Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium Friday evening. Depending on how ambitious we are, this may include side trips to Amsterdam and London.
Anyone got any hot tips for cheap eats (particularly in Belgium)? E-mail them or, better still, post them in comments. Dank u!
Take the B-train to Xinjang: Cafe Kashkar's excellent Uighur.
I have to hand it to Mr. Sietsema – the farther out in NYC (or NJ) he’s sent me, the better the meals get. Compare Sukhadia’s centrally-located disappointment with the far-off charms and culinary excellence of Café Kashkar, the 33rd entry on the 2005 list. Kashkar is located near the far end of the B express line in Brighton Beach (you can also take the Q), in a neighborhood lately inhabited by Russian émigrés. It’s quite jarring to stumble out of the train and soak in the neighborhood: underneath the station, on Brighton Beach Ave., a brand-new Starbucks faces off with 99 cent stores and pharmacies. A little further, after the train has taken off to the north, the stretch featuring grocery stores, variety stores, and delis faces a recently-constructed complex of enormous Florida-esque condo towers. It’s what Rockaway would look like, if Russians moved there and wanted to build a beach resort. Seems like there’s lots of money rolling around the area, which is atypical for many of the far-off neighborhoods in NYC, and in absolute contrast to the extreme poverty in the neighboring Coney Island area.
It appeared to be a mostly Russian clientele in Kashkar when my girlfriend and I arrived, befitting the menu’s English and Russian explanations. The décor, though, reminded me mostly of Chinatown’s humbler lunch counters – wall-mounted moving waterfall picture and all. Without Mad Ludwig’s excellent translation skills, we were left to our own devices to interpret the English approximations of the dishes, but having taken a few notes from Sietsema’s column beforehand, I felt pretty confident. (I should mention at this point the KIND of food we were preparing to order – Uighur. Hailing from China’s northwestern Xinjang province, the Uighurs claim Turkish ancestry, and our waiter looked almost Icelandic.) The food itself is like a cross between Uzbek and Chinese, though I’d say that there are similarities to Russian and Tibetan foods as well.
We started with the “geiro lagman” ($6), which is listed rather strangely under “soups.” While the soup version of this dish is available under the title “lagman,” the geiro version (under-described as “noodles with meat & vegetables”) is more of a noodle dish with toppings. It’s also one of the best things I’ve eaten on my nearly half-complete journey through the Cheap Eats list. It features hand-thrown noodles that rival Super Taste’s and a sauce that includes tender, fatty chunks of lamb (watch out for the bones!), green and red pepper chunks, green beans, onions and scallions, and it’s tied together with a oily red sauce enhanced with ground black pepper. We practically licked the plate clean – no joke!
Second-favorite, for me, were the kebabs. We tried both lamb ($2.50) and lamb rib ($3) versions. If you’ve not been to a Uzbek-style kebab restaurant before, your skewers arrive on a plate, with about four or five pieces of meat per kebab, covered in raw onions, with a mild red dipping sauce which I usually skip. You could easily make a carnivorous, cheap and Atkins-friendly meal from just kebabs, as a neighboring table did. The lamb was tender, smoky (thanks to the charcoal grill), and melt-in-your-mouth fatty. Avec rib, the meat became even more flavorful – picking them up and sucking the meat off the bones gave me a flashback to youthful Tony Roma’s visits (thankfully, the barbecue sauce was nowhere to be found).
We also sampled a second impressive starch: the pilaf ($6). No longer referred to as fried rice on the menu, it features the very same chunks of succulent lamb that the lagman did, except it presents them in an oily (according to Sietsema, unrefined sunflower oil), sticky rice with a few shaved carrots. I realize that it doesn’t sound particularly great (can you imagine the TGI Fridays’ menu-copy-writers trying to tackle it?), but you’ll have to take my word for it – lovely and delicious.
Our attempt to conquer yet another lamb dish (I want to see the chef here challenge Chen Kenichi in a lamb battle, especially if I can be on the tasting panel) was stymied by what I think was waiter confusion – we had ordered the samsa, which were to be small, lamb-filled dumplings, but they never arrived, and we had entered a food-coma induced forgetfulness by the end of the meal. Suffice to say we weren’t that disappointed.
I’ve never been very impressed with the salads at Uzbek places (achik-chik being somewhat of an exception, but it doesn’t appear to be offered at Kashkar), and I’m sorry to say that the pickle plate ($6) proves that uninteresting salads are also a problem further along the Silk Road. Consisting of dry pickled red cabbage chunks, what might have been pickled tomatoes (they seemed a little overripe), and bland pickled cucumber shards. Not worth $6, at all.
Similarly disappointing was the bread – the Uzbek-style bread, which I believe is referred to as “naan” on the menu, was a bit on the stale side, and was not oven-warmed or pre-oiled, as the better iteration at Cheburechnaya was. Perhaps it would have done better as a soup sop.
I loved Kashkar. Loved, loved, loved. Even better, it’s actually not even that far from me, if the B train is running – about 15-20 minutes from Atlantic Avenue. You can bet I will be back with as many people as I can muster.
(Address: 1141 Brighton Beach Avenue, between Brighton 14th and Brighton 15th Sts.)
Sukhadia's vegetarian fare mainly bettered elsewhere.
Clocking in at number 82 on Sietsema’s list, Sukhadia, at 17 W. 45th Street in Manhattan, is a mixed bag. On one hand, one could assemble a quite reasonably priced meal from the menu. On the other hand, it would require some inside knowledge of what to order to be completely successful, as not everything they offer is worthy.
With my roommate and one of his co-workers, we arrived at Sukhadia last night to find the place rather empty. The “international crowd” was half right – the ethnicity of the various people who filed in and out was varied, but “crowd” would have been an overstatement with twice as many people. I guess it WAS Monday, but the place was practically abandoned.
To get to the back room where the tables are, you’ve got to walk through a typical lunch-buffet-looking area – it really looks like any other corporate lunch place. It’s totally incongruous with the back room, though, which features chandeliers and marble-topped tables that, while not terribly expensive-looking, give the impression that Sukhadia is attempting to be something more upscale.
I wouldn’t call them upscale, though – the food, good and bad, was quite humble. We started with the samosa chat ($4) and channa tikki ($5), which were the definite highlights of the evening. The samosa, a vegetable dumpling, was pleasingly topped with chickpeas and an array of sweet and mildly spicy sauces. As I had actually ordered the kachoori chat, I was a bit chagrined when it arrived (the service at Sukhadia, by the way, was inattentive bordering on incompetent), but it proved to be the best thing we ate. The channa tikki, with a mildly spicy sauce and chickpeas over chunks of potato, was also good, though perhaps a little too same-y for our taste.
Both of those were heaven compared to one of the mains – the palak paneer ($9) was among the worst iterations of the dish I’ve ever had. Containing nothing resembling fresh spinach, and a green paste-like substance that approximated canned creamed spinach, it’s hard to believe that this dish and Spicy Mina’s excellent broccoli-rabe-ish dish are purportedly the same thing.
Fortunately, the dosa (mysore masala version, $8) was better. The lentil crepe and potatoes inside were quite good, even if the sauces left a little to be desired: the sambar didn’t reach the level of Pongal or Dosa Hutt Jersey City, and I’m not sure what the other sauce was supposed to be (it looked like a cross between sambar and coconut chutney).
Per my roommate’s desires, we indulged in a dessert of gulab jam. At $3 for two balls of deep fried sweet cheese and flour in a heated honey sauce, I was rather nonplussed. It wasn’t any better or worse than things I’ve been handed at the end of Indian meals for free, and the warm honey lent a rather sickly sweet flavor to the whole experience.
I can see why, in Midtown, Sukhadia would be a boon for vegetarians – the options for nearby cheap and interesting eats are few and far between, particularly if you’re not in walking distance of 9th Avenue. For the rest of us, Sukhadia scarcely qualifies as a destination restaurant, and I think there’s better stuff to be found elsewhere.
Cheap meatballs and runway views offer respite from IKEA chaos.
Where to begin? IKEA, across the NJ Turnpike from Newark/Liberty International Airport in Elizabeth, NJ, is a fucking zoo. Crowded with strollers and screaming kids, and smelling like my mother’s old third-grade classroom (hint: sweaty kids plus stale food plus crayons), any visit to IKEA is to be endured rather than enjoyed. As my roommate so aptly put, it’s an amusement park of commerce – a truly staggering reminder of the inability of the American consumer to save money for quality goods (much less for saving’s own sake).
But you don’t read me for social critique, I realize, so let me get to the point: the high point of any trip to IKEA is, of course, the Café. Not because it isn’t as crowded and loud as the rest of the place (it certainly is at many times of day, and I’m betting the 99-cent breakfast hour is the worst of all), but because it alone offers the things the rest of the store takes away: natural light, nourishment, and the ability to relax for a few minutes.
Thankfully, the IKEA café is CHEAP. Damn cheap. I don’t think there’s an item on the menu over $7, and it’s not all hot dogs and hamburgers – some genuinely interesting and relatively healthy-seeming meals can be assembled for not much cash, even if you avoid the dodgy salad bar.
As we were already relatively sated from our enormous egg sandwich breakfasts, my girlfriend and I didn’t truly take advantage of the plethora of options. Indeed, we might not have even stopped, if I hadn’t earlier made it a personal mission to test out IKEA’s meatballs before leaving Elizabeth. So I braved the line while she grabbed a table, and 10 minutes later (the process will remind you of your college dining hall, without question), we were happily seated by the window with our food.
I quite liked the meatballs, considering their origin in a freezer, but it would be tough to complain about paying $4 for 10 of the mysterious orbs, with gravy and lingonberry jam, at any rate. The meatballs are as fresh and moist as could be, and given how many of them they go through on a typical weekend day, they probably haven’t been sitting around long. The gravy is nice, too, but I thought the jam was rather bland (the same thing went for the lingonberry drink from the soda fountain).
We also sampled the lingonberry mousse ($1) and the D’aim torte ($2.50). Of the two, the D’aim is certainly superior. Kind of like a cross between a Kit-Kat, a peanut butter cup, and a toffee bar, the super-sweet slice was the perfect pre-fabricated dessert. I’m sure they do a great business in selling the whole thing in their food shop (strategically located near the exit and directly opposite the waiting area for large items, natch).
The mousse, befitting its low cost, was low in flavor, but certainly not without merit. Mounted on a sugar-cracker-cookie crust, it was gone in the blink of an eye.
The nicest thing about IKEA, and the café specifically, might not appeal to everyone as much as it did me. As a kid, I frequently flew in a small plane with my grandfather to various small airports across New England. The smallest airports might not have had much more than a coffee machine, but the slightly bigger ones usually had a café or restaurant overlooking the airstrip. Either way, I spent much quality time with my grandfather lingering over a Coke or a meal, watching the planes fly in and out. As I got older and had less time to fly with him, I would occasionally find myself in that rare airport terminal with a runway view, and would sit glued to the window until my flight boarded. This of course before the terminals all became indoor malls, and many airport cafés were replaced with frozen-yogurt stands (reserving the good views for members of pricey airline clubs, it would seem).
At this point, IKEA stores and airports aren’t that far apart in terms of atmosphere. Thankfully, IKEA left one nook for those of us who need a break from looking at particle board, though, and you needn’t be a member of the Admiral’s Club to gain entrance. As we sat in the café next to the windows overlooking the airport, the simple pleasure of watching plane after plane touch down put a stupid grin on my face and, in concert with the meatballs and desserts, erased the stress of one of the least-fun places to shop in the world.
Quick Bites: lunch with Robyn, PIE, and Better Burger.
I had a nice lunch with Robyn of The Girl Who Ate Everything today – we went to Alidoro and traded halves of our Cortina and El Capitano sandwiches. She’s made some pretty fun t-shirts, too, if you’re into that. I’ve already rambled about Alidoro enough for one column, so I’ll leave the details to her (will insert link when she posts), but I had a good time. Thanks, Robyn!
Now, a few quick bites: I had a slice of the fresh mozzarella pie from PIE (Pie by the Pound) last night. While it served well as a quick dinner, I think it rates somewhere below a good NYC fast food slice in quality, and significantly below a place like DeMarco’s. Mainly, I thought that the crust was too hard and the was tomato sauce too sweet. Also, it was expensive! A portion of the pie (which comes in a long rectangle with rounded ends) that I’d say was equivalent to a big piece (or a regular piece and a third) was about $3.75! If I was a tad more cynical, I’d say that they changed the size and shape so that people wouldn’t get bent about paying an absurd amount for a slice. Oh well.
Recently, I had a burger delivered from Better Burger Chelsea via SeamlessWeb. SeamlessWeb is an interesting invention – sort of a meta-delivery site of mostly crap food (at least with what can be delivered to my location at work). I tried the “classic organic beef burger” ($5), cooked medium rare, with a $2.50 side of smashed potatoes (I avoided the fries on a tip from my girlfriend). The burger, for what it’s worth, reminded me of a fast food restaurant, though it was of much higher quality and cooked as close to medium rare as the thin patty would accommodate. The smashed potatoes seemed strange until I realized that they had no dairy and were “reduced-fat” – then I realized that they were just sabotaged from the start. Still, I’m sure, better than the “air-cooked” fries.
Some of you have noticed that not many places on the list have been crossed off recently. With the nice weather around the corner, I aim to have a good chunk of the list polished off by the time this year’s list arrives in late spring/early summer – stay tuned!
Can someone please tell me how to tell average old-school red sauce places apart from each other? I really can’t figure it out. They’ve all got the standards, and some of them have got specials, but when it boils right down to it, they’re all so same-y that it’s basically just an exercise in finding one that’s polite and reasonably inexpensive.
Of course, part of the fun of going to a place like Cono and Sons O’Pescatore (Graham Avenue and Ainslie Street, Brooklyn) is being totally out of place – a young, relatively hip looking couple strolls in, and the waiters and staff scratch their heads and wonder why. Hey, I like Italian-American food as much as the next WASP, and my girlfriend is no slouch herself, but you’d figure they’d be used to it by now – the restaurant IS in Williamsburg, after all, and it’s not like it was crowded (I think there were two other tables in our dining room that were full, and they may have had a second dining room available).
Nonetheless, if the staff were slightly nonplussed and perhaps a little confused by our order of three dishes containing pasta, they certainly were efficient – the dishes arrived in a very timely fashion, indeed. Per this blog, we had the pasta with fagioli as a starter, as well as the broccoli rabe. Our choices were the gnocchi (advertised as homemade) with Bolognese, and a special linguini with three mushrooms and chunks of veal in red sauce. In the little time we waited before and between courses, we noshed on fairly unspectacular bread and speculated about the windows – they’re nearly completely obscured with plants living in old champagne buckets. It’s almost as though the clientele has a privacy fetish…hmm.
No Sopranos-style tables this time, though: just us and, at first, the fagioli and broccoli. There was a moment of suspicion on my part when the waiter initially said that the broccoli rabe was out of season. He then went to confer with his bosses in the back; I imagined the conversation going something like: “Hey, do we have any broccoli rabe frozen? This young couple wants some, and I don’t think they can tell the difference.”
I suppose their estimations may have been correct – we both LOVED the rabe, and it was absolutely our favorite dish of the evening. Oily (but not over-oiled), garlicky, slightly bitter, and with a subtle undercurrent of pepper, it was the only iteration of the dish my girlfriend had ever liked, and one of the better varieties I’ve had. I think it was $9, but the menu didn’t say, and I forgot to take specific note when the check came.
I wish I could say the rest of the dishes titillated that much. As the waiters were to us, I was to the bowl of fagioli pasta – okay, so there’s five different kinds of pasta in there. So I guess they use the remnants of everything else, chuck some beans and a dash of soup in, and call it a meal? To me, it seemed like something I would have thrown together in college on a low budget – fine, but probably not worth $7.
Our mains weren’t terribly unique, either. While the homemade gnocchi ($12) were good (my girlfriend liked them best just as they came out of the kitchen), I thought the sauce did them little justice. And while the three-mushroom sauce accompanying the veal and linguini was fine, I’d have been just fine without the rather tough veal and the accompanying $17 price tag. “Just throw the mushroom sauce on the gnocchi, and you’ve got something much more interesting,” I said, glancing around to make sure our waiter wasn’t in earshot.
We skipped dessert, the check already a bit higher than we’d hoped. Perhaps we should have taken Sietsema’s advice and gone to the cheaper, less formal pizzeria across the street. Like the last remaining ancient Italian restaurants of Carroll Gardens (the former northern end of Italian Red Hook), Cono O’Pescatore seems to exist to cater primarily to those who remember the dishes from old days, rather than those from other backgrounds who want to learn about them. It’s too bad, really – I don’t imagine most of these places will be around for many more years, and it’s a tradition that’s such an integral part of New York City history that it’s really a shame to lose it through attrition and indifference.
My girlfriend and I agreed: if one wants old-school Italian-American cuisine, it would be better to save money for a splurge at Roberto’s in the Bronx rather than half-ass it at Cono’s or something like it. There, at least the atmosphere and food are worth the journey and expense.
I'm now jealous of people who work near Union Square.
It’s a low-down and dirty shame that Ennju isn’t close enough to my place of employ for me to eat there regularly. Located on 17th Street between 5th Ave. and Union Square, it just barely (by an east-west block or two) is out of reasonable range for me to eat at regularly. I say “regularly” because I ate there today, taking a slightly longer lunch than normal, and was quite impressed – Ennju (#34 on the Sietsema list) is a serious contender for best “fast” Japanese food in the city.
Walking into Ennju at lunchtime is like driving slowly through a strip mall parking lot – you barely have time to contemplate the sushi case, the soups, the buffet salad bar, or the bento specials before someone whisks up behind you laying on the proverbial horn. Resist the urge to grab and go – stepping back and taking it all in is the only way to find the excellent bento boxes, combining a peanut-flavored diced chicken or salmon with egg and shaved green beans on a bed of rice.($6).
From the sushi case I picked the spicy tuna roll, which was $4.50, but plenty more complicated possibilities are available: three different kinds of dragon rolls, a “dancing” spicy tuna with salmon and avocado on the inside, and the spicy tuna on the outside, and a roll somewhat amusingly entitled “I Love Eel.” Also in the rice+fish realm: rice balls packed with various things (I had cooked salmon in mine) and pre-wrapped for your transporting convenience. At $1.50, not a bad deal.
Also looking quite interesting were the various platters that emerged from the rear – several kinds of teriyaki, tempura, and katsu were available, along with curry rice with or without a pork or chicken cutlet, a couple of gingered meat dishes, and something called “tofu steak.” Hah?
I’d guess that the salad bar items vary day by day (though I have no evidence of this), but I had, in order of descending deliciousness, a cucumber-laden salad, a large piece of sweet-sauced chicken with onions, lotus root tempura, and a piece of cold vegetable pancake. I’d probably skip the last two on a return visit, but I particularly liked the chicken.
The BEST things available at Ennju are the frozen desserts. For $3, you can get a pretty huge cup of red bean, green tea, mango, or ginger ice cream. My girlfriend had the red bean, which I’m happy to say was excellent. Creamy with a slightly sweet flavor interrupted by the occasional bean, the ice cream was more delicious than we had anticipated.
I hit the real home run, though, with the Korean ice cream sandwich. At $1.50, it’s a steal, even for this devotee of H.P. Hood’s summer treats: the slightly coffee-tasting ice cream with chocolate bits (it ends up being somewhat like cookies and cream) lies between two thin sponge cake layers. It’s a real sandwich, on the thinnest Wonder-cake you’ve ever seen. Too bad the summer ice cream trucks don’t sell these; I’d reconsider my hatred of their tinkling theme music.
Reminded by a comment by Harry Hawk on my Corner Bistro entry, I realized that I have consistently forgotten to review the best burger I’ve had in my own neighborhood: Schnäck, Mr. Hawk’s restaurant, serves a deliciously addictive patty in miniature, and, if they delivered up to Boerum Hill, I’d probably be fat as hell.
The original Schnäck is located, somewhat obscurely to non-Carroll Gardens residents, on Union Street between Hicks St. (the BQE) and Columbia St. It’s a small place, but a friendly one, and it’s rare that I enter these days without seeing at least one family with small children teaching their kids the virtues of a good burger (and, subliminally, the value of Carling beer – one wall is covered in a giant advert for it).
My roommate and I were there for brunch a week or two ago, and, though the prices have seemingly gone up slightly, the quality has not declined. Ordering fries will bring an enormous shareable basket of thinly cut goodness (try ‘em with the strange-looking hot sauce if you like, but they’re also perfect with ketchup). The fries come out first – a brilliant innovation.
Between the two of us, we nuked the basket just in time to get our burgers. I opted for two doubles with cheese, while my roommate made an attack on the gargantuan order of three doubles without cheese. The burgers are crispy on the outside, pleasingly greasy, and mounted perfectly on a whole wheat mini-bun. A variety of toppings are available, but none are really necessary – the burger is flavorful enough as-is.
To complete the caloric trifecta, I usually opt for a vanilla milkshake. Made, for once, with real ice cream, and not big enough to induce a Jenny Craig visit, it’s the perfect complement to the burger and fries. Lactose-intolerant or pre-gaming? They have pitchers of beer, too, in a variety of price categories – the schwag isn’t awful, if I recall correctly.
I keep threatening to have my birthday party at Schnäck, either the original branch or the “Express” outpost at the Brooklyn Lyceum (4th Ave between Union and President). Aside from the ability to accommodate a pack of hungry folks, and proximity to Columbia Street bars, I think my friends and I would set an all-time record for “most unhealthy birthday.” Perfect!
Diner's corned beef serves well as St. Patrick's substitute.
One of my friends, a film buff of Irish extraction, is predictably a St. Patrick’s Day enthusiast. It stands to reason, of course, that we tried and failed to find space in a traditional Irish pub on Friday – the way the city fills up with miscreants of all stripes (I’m looking at you, Long Island, Westchester, and Jerz), it seems like it can’t possibly be fun for anyone, except maybe the guys wearing firefighter dress jackets (who, I presume, are indeed firefighters).
We were a little cheered by our success at finding a traditional Irish meal, however – corned beef and cabbage at the Lyric Diner (3rd Ave. at 22nd St.). The $16 special was only advertised in the window and not by our somewhat annoyed waiter (we did take a while to make up our collective minds), but my friend and I agreed it was a fair imitation of the goodness that was likely being served next door at Molly Malone’s. Including hunks of cabbage, strips of corned beef, and enormous skinned potatoes, the meal proved an excellent base for a late night of Guinness drinking for me, and a fine interim between afternoon and evening drinking from my friend.
The other four people at the table didn’t order the special, but expressed general satisfaction at their burgers and soup. So I’m not sure if this qualifies as a recommendation, but if you need some corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day and don’t want to wait in line, Lyric Diner is a fine choice.
Sandwich addiction threatens nascent food column: film at 11.
Occasionally, I go completely retarded and go to the same place for lunch ten times in three weeks – only if it’s really, really good, though. My current obsession is, I’m happy to relate, Alidoro, on Sullivan between Prince and Spring. Some of you may recall my initial mention in a Quick Bites column a few weeks ago – that blurb didn’t really do the place justice. I’m not sure I’m the best person to actually do the place justice (one of the friends who introduced my girlfriend and I to the place has consistently offered to guest-review), but let me make the attempt, and hopefully I won’t then be the only one who gets embarrassed because he’s in there like three times a week.
The wall of Italian products, including my favorite cookies (the apple-filled ones – much better than it sounds, trust me) will attempt to distract, as will the movie posters which haven’t quite been wall-mounted yet. Half the remaining area is taken up by a gelato cart and an espresso machine, neither of which is in use as of this writing.
You’ll have time to look at all this, though, once you’ve perused the extensive menu. The sandwiches of Alidoro have names, and though the ingredients list isn’t all that diverse, you’ll need time to figure out which of the many combinations tickles your fancy. I did a poor job of scanning the menu the first time and ended up with the Pinocchio ($10), which is a rather underwhelming combination of prosciutto, sopressata, mozzarella, sweet peppers, and olive pate.
Mind you, that sandwich wasn’t underwhelming because of the ingredients, but rather because the ingredients don’t fit together terribly well (yes, not all sandwiches are created equal - I'm looking at you, Dagwood Bumstead). At Alidoro, I’ve only liked the olive pate, for example, on a sandwich featuring tuna – the special Capitano sandwich ($10.50) featured on a card taped to the front counter, which features a canned Sicilian tuna that will knock your socks off without using mayo, along with Italian baby onions, arugula, and he afore-mentioned olive pate, mozzarella, and sweet peppers. The card also offers a version with prosciutto, which I think is totally messed up.
A better context in which to sample the prosciutto is in the Mischa ($9.50), which features that meat with provolone, hot peppers with a good balance of spice to flavor, and the ubiquitous arugula, which is always exceedingly fresh. Did you know the British call arugula “rocket?” They’re damn goofy, they are. Another good introductory sandwich is the Fellini ($9.50), with hot peppers and arugula again, as well as sopressata and mozzarella. Quite tasty.
I’ve still not cracked into the more exotic possibilities – a semi-soft Italian cheese known as Bel Paese, a caponata of eggplant, artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes, smoked mozzarella, salami, and smoked chicken breast await my whims, as well as sardines. Sardines? Hmm.
The last decision to make before ordering is between kinds of bread. I’ve had better luck with two of the breads that cost extra: my favorite remains the semolina ($.50), which is crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, and has a strong flavor to match its outer dusting of sesame seeds. Others may prefer the sfilatino ($1.50) bread, which is flour-dusted and quite chewy, if not as absorbent. I’ve not yet tried the focaccia or tramezzino breads ($1 and $1.50, respectively) – the latter is frequently sold out, in fact.
I’m going to make a conscious effort to go to some of my other favorite sandwich places soon, for a little compare-contrast. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. Suggestions are welcomed, either via e-mail or by comment. For now, I’ll probably be sneaking off to Alidoro in a bit. I’m an addict, what can I say?
I was up on 54th Street hanging out again last night – not far from 9th Avenue’s multifaceted dining strip, happily. At 9:15, my buddy stepped away from the Neumann and we stepped out to grab a bite. After a few recommendations were parried about, we settled on Mee Noodle Shop, on the corner of 9th and 53rd Street. I’m happy to say that, like the young Warren Sapp, the noodle shop handles itself with more aplomb than you’d expect from a place of its size and standing.
The menu is, by the way, as enormous as the shop is tiny. There’s got to be at least 100 ways to order noodles in this shop, though neither of us availed ourselves of them. No, I was feeling less like a noodle and more like a tofu cube, so I opted for the “Special Platter” category (what makes these special, I always wonder to myself) and its “mapo tofu w. meat sauce over rice.”
Now, the experienced Sichuan diner will realize that ordering mapo tofu can be a blow-your-head-off experience. With this iteration, it was practically the exact opposite – the most danger I was in all evening was from eating tofu that hadn’t quite cooled enough yet. Indeed, the sauce was admirably bland, with much of the flavor coming from the clusters of ground meat, reminding me more than slightly of a tomato-less Bolognese sauce. The tofu itself was creamy, if not entirely bursting with the flavor of the sauce, and the rice was, of course, sticky.
My buddy’s mu shu pork was, we agreed, possessed of a pleasing seared flavor, but certainly was not burnt. The pork itself was in narrow, inch-long strips – though he didn’t eat it in the traditional American-Chinese style (loading the pancake with hoisin and pork), one wouldn’t have a problem with a loaded pancake’s contents falling out with each bite. The pancake, I should note, was pretty generic, and neither of us tried the hoisin.
When the check came, we had whatever the reverse of sticker shock is – two hungry dudes had just gorged themselves for $12.55. My tofu was $4.55, incredibly.
I know I often slag places that can’t seem to find their spice rack, but for some reason, Mee Noodle Shop didn’t provoke that reaction in me, even before I realized just how cheap my meal was. In fact, I’d gladly go back, even though I’m sort of scratching my head as to why. Mee Noodle Shop – the ultimate in unaccountably pleasing blandness! I really should go into advertising.
I’m fortunate enough to get linked to by Gawker occasionally – yesterday’s Blogorrhea being the most recent example (two cokeheads and a burger, coming right up!). A Gawker link is a BIG DEAL to a small site such as this. Obviously, I get a crapload more hits than usual (about 1,500 yesterday), and a lot of new people reading my reviews. Unlike when, say, Yahoo! linked to me, most of Gawker’s readers are NYC-based, young, underemployed, and probably seriously embittered about all three. These are generally the kind of readers I think would enjoy my blog the most anyway, so I’m really happy Jesse and/or Jessica keep featuring me.
You don’t get far on the internet, though, without the ever-popular backlash, and I’m proud to say that my backlash started yesterday, with my first comment-haters. Actually, they were my first tip that Gawker had linked to me, because I usually figure that most of the people who read my blog on a regular basis actually LIKE it. At any rate, it warmed my heart, so thanks for the memories.
I thought that couldn’t be beat, but, today, a quick stroll through my Site Meter’s “Referring URL” section (which tells me which website you, the reader, have arrived from) yielded the best-yet piece of hate-age, in article form. If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, I’ll summarize: the burgers at Corner B are too lean to be any good, and, because of my high opinion of said burgers, I’m an idiot.
Folks, I’ve truly arrived – the long-form haters have spoken. I could not possibly be any prouder right now.
(By the way, if you did read the entry and are confused – a good possibility, considering – Ron Popeil is an inventor of products sold on television. No, I don’t know what the deal is, either.)
Walking uphill on Smith Street leads to resto gone downhill.
My girlfriend puts up with some wackiness from me from time to time – for instance, when we leave the house without a destination in mind, I’m prone to wandering from restaurant to restaurant feeling dissatisfied with the posted menu. Smith Street is probably the worst offender – wandering from Bergen Street southwards, I can consistently say, is one of the least satisfying potential-meal walks I know of. Besides the excellent Boerum Hill Food Company, the slightly-expensive Bar Tabac, and the Dominican El Nuevo Cibao, there aren’t a lot of reasonably-priced places that ENTICE.
I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this. In the past six months, a plethora of closings have occurred: Cholita (allegedly for health violations), Tabouleh, Village 247, and lately, Banania Café have all fallen under the axe. I’d say that places like Rosemary Restaurant (is that the name?) and Union Smith Café are probably next, because they never seem to have anyone in them.
With Union Smith Café, I can probably see why. Dining there last night was an experience that I’m not sure I’d repeat, and not just because of the food. The hostess had a plastic-like fake smile and seemed to speak from between clenched teeth, and the waitress seemed totally nonplussed by our food choices, and seemed moderately insulted when we declined to order any of the $6.50 desserts, which she went out of her way to describe as “delicious,” in a rather strange instance of overselling. I don’t know, maybe it was a bad night? Not the way to promote a return visit, though.
Perhaps we should have taken her reticence as a warning, because neither of our pastas exceeded the Olive Garden’s quality level. My orecchiette with pancetta and peas ($9.50) were swimming in a layering of cream sauce and what seemed like it ought to be pesto, based on the color. Sadly, there was not enough flavor to determine its actual content. The tiny chunks of pancetta offered a little fatty smokiness, but not enough.
My girlfriend’s gnocchi ($10.50) also came with two sauces, side-by-side: one red sauce, which I’d swear was canned, and one actually flavorful pesto. The cloves of garlic we crunched into made us happy, but the soggy-ish gnocchi didn’t.
One perk of dining there on Tuesday – every bottle of wine was 50% off. We opted for the a half-bottle of French white (sorry, wine fans – I forgot to note what it was, but it was the only half-bottle available), which ran us only $11. I can see coming here with a big group of wine drinkers, I guess, but if the food’s no good, what’s the difference between drinking the bottles in a restaurant and drinking them at home? The big table? The onion focaccia that seemed on the border of stale, with an olive oil/balsamic dip featuring too-old vinegar? I digress.
I’m kind of sorry I didn’t try the hamburger, because my girlfriend said it had gotten a good mark in someone’s book. I doubt, though, whether it would have impressed me, having eaten Corner Bistro the night before.
It’s not often that I feel like standing in line for a meal, and it’s even less often that I feel like standing in a cramped, stinky space for an interminate amount of time while starving. Just about the only place you’ll ever find me doing so, in fact, is the Corner Bistro, on the corner of West 4th Street and Jane St (at 8th Avenue).
Let’s be frank: the Corner B is a dive bar poorly adapted to restaurant status. Its atmosphere reminds more of O’Connor’s than Burger Joint, and the place is unlikely to please your neat freak friends. Add to this the fact that at any normal mealtime (and late into the evening indeed on weekend evenings), you’ll need to wait in a line that can stretch outside – and if you’re not inside, you’ll be scarfing McSorley’s ale (a small-ish mug of which is only $2.50, thankfully) as fast as possible to deal with the complete claustrophobia of the situation, as well as the wait staff, some members of which get surlier as the line gets longer. Look out for flying elbows and burgers, in other words.
Though it is tempting from a purely logistical standpoint to denigrate the place (translation: if I slag it, will I be able to get a table faster?), I can’t even begin to do so, because the Corner Bistro is, hands down, the best burger I’ve ever been served in a restaurant. I should disclaim that I haven’t tried every burger in town (P.J. Clarke’s and Peter Luger’s being two strong-but-yet-untested competitors), but the Bistro has thus far slain the legendary Shake Shack, the well-regarded Burger Joint, the less-regarded mini-Burger Joint, the also-miniature burgers of Schnack, Roll N’ Roaster’s old-time fast-food-style sandwich, the faux-Californian Blue 9, the late and lamented McHale’s, the eponymous Goodburger…plus probably dozens of places you’ve never heard of in cities across the nation. It even bests Sophmoricles’ famous burger recipe, somehow.
Making their status even more impressive, Corner B doesn’t utilize any fancy cooking techniques – they broil the burgers ($5.50) in a continuous process, in an oven that’s not much bigger than something you’d find in a small apartment kitchen. You want cheese? It’s added towards the end, and, for a quarter extra, it doesn’t make or break the experience. My girlfriend loves the Bistro Burger, which adds a couple of slices of bacon to the mix for a few quarters more. Just stay away from the chili burger, which drowns your perfectly medium-rare patty in, well, needless chili.
The patty itself is a thick, juicy, fall-apart-if-you-put-it-down beast – I’d be very surprised if this meat was ever frozen, and I’m nearly certain the patties are hand-shaped. Again, I’m continually amazed at the accuracy of cooking temperature – when you order a burger medium-rare, a medium-rare burger emerges from the kitchen. Same with medium and medium-well, though there’s no telling what might happen if a patron ordered his or her burger well-done (my preference would be to take them out back and shoot them, but I’m a bloody burger partisan at heart).
The condiments, in case you care, are raw onions, tomatoes, pickles, and lettuce – ketchup is left to be applied tableside, but the burger oozes enough liquid without it. The fries, cut even thinner than Goodburger’s, taste of beef and are probably cooked in beef fat. No vegetarians need apply, I guess. The potato-shard-like taste is improved when adulterated with salt or ketchup, I’d say, and two people can probably share a plate ($2.00).
Last night, my girlfriend’s father and sister accompanied us to the Bistro and found the burgers as good as we had promised – no small feat, as North Carolina has its fair share of amazing burger shacks. Of course, the dinner conversation, in between bites of burger, covered a few more bombastic meals; the yet-unreviewed Uncle Bino’s and its delectable pig’s ear/liver stir fry was surely the most popular topic of conversation. I’d be happy to take you there this summer, Liz – just say the word.
My roommate is always wierded out by empty restaurants. Surely, he wonders almost every time I drag him in one, they must be empty for a reason? I usually respond with some variant of my opinion that people are charlatans, but only after we’ve tasted the food.
This time, he probably breathed a sigh of relief. Inviting two of our friends to Hadramout, recently reviewed in the Voice, we had arrived early and gone for a drink at the nearby Last Exit. When they called to tell us of their arrival, they had not made it to the abandoned and subterranean Hadramout, but stopped several doors earlier and one floor higher at the rather more generically-named Yemen Café.
Of course, he wasn’t relieved because of the differing location, but rather because Yemen Café was comparatively jam-packed with families, couples, and groups. Plenty of folks filtered in and out, as well, for a cup of the excellent Yemeni tea, which tasted like cinnamon and honey, though Pepsi proved to be a more popular drink among those dining in.
Of the dishes served to other tables, I can easily say that the leg of lamb was most popular: I saw shank after shank whisked through the dining room. We didn’t opt for one (definitely on the next visit), but I did have an admirable rack of baby lamb arrive on the side of my salta. It wasn’t roasted in your grandmother’s style and served with mint jelly, mind you, but the meat was falling off the bone and flavorful without being skanky. The salta itself, described as the Yemeni national dish, was a stew of various vegetables and a fenugreek puree whipped to resemble egg whites (“houlbeh”). Despite arriving in an impressive sizzling metal pan, wowing my friends, I can’t say the stew’s flavor was all that distinctive.
Better was my roommate’s “special Yemeni fateh,” a stew made with diced lamb and day-old pita, coated with an orange gravy. Indeed, Orange seemed to be the theme color of many of the dishes – one friend ordered gelbah, which was a similarly colored lamb stew arrangement (less gravied than seasoned, though), served with a side of rice. And our other friend, whose refusal to eat lamb was the source of much slightly hilarious commentary, did well with the entrée-sized appetizer of white kidney beans, served with another orange sauce, this time quite oniony.
The best part of the meal was absolutely the pita bread. Arriving first with the soup course, and acting as an admirable sop for that savory brown lamb broth, the bread was finished nearly-instantly, only to be replaced by another freshly cooked loaf. This process was repeated until we couldn’t possibly stomach any more bread, lamb, or anything else. It’s better bread than Bedouin Tent, for sure, and not just because it doesn’t turn rock-solid after it cools.
Between the soup course and the entrees, we were treated to a salad. Comprising one chunk of feta cheese, a couple olives, and a salad dressing that resembled the hot sauce served with the soup (which you NEED to use, by the way), it was a nice thought, even if it probably just took more stomach space that could have been used for pita and lamb.
I have no idea whether Hadramout’s stews would be more satisfying, but I’ll be back to Yemen Café for a cup of tea and as much lamb and pita as I can stomach.
Our trip to the Queen’s Hideaway had been a long time coming. A first trip during brunch hours proved unsuccessful, due to the fact that brunch is no longer served there (though the proprietors have hinted at resuming brunch at some point). Second, third, and fourth attempts were stymied by, respectively, closure, closure for renovations, and illness on my part. Finally, all the stars aligned last night, after the anticipation had built to a probably-unreasonable level – would the Queen’s Hideaway prove worthy of the hype?
Reservations are probably a good idea, but my girlfriend and I managed to waltz in unannounced and score a table, disturbing the owner’s dogs, who had been slumbering underneath it. We were surprised when a wine list came along with the menu, but BYOB is apparently still available, though the corkage fee isn’t insignificant ($5). Arriving on our table roughly concurrently were peanuts, boiled with what looked like dried red chiles. My girlfriend exclaimed her excitement and explained that boiled peanuts are a southern roadside staple. I’m pretty sure I like the Fenway ballpark peanuts better, but I suppose that’s what the Waffle-House-IHOP line will do for a relationship.
The menu, for the unfamiliar, is written on a daily basis, based on availably fresh ingredients, greenmarket produce, organic, etc. I mention this not because it’s any guarantee of goodness, but rather to warn that the dish I liked, or that you heard recommended in some other article, probably won’t be available. It’s probably good if you’re open to new flavor and texture combinations, at least.
Our appetizer, which was a fritter of black eyed peas in a spongy, almost fishy squash batter ($4), quickly tested our open-mindedness. The included “Hideaway hot sauce” was a bit of a mystery, but the included lemons are absolutely to be squeezed over the batter balls – they make the dish.
For her main, my girlfriend ordered an oyster casserole ($16), which promised to include artichoke hearts, chestnuts, and leeks. She found it to be good, particularly the oyster parts, but thought that the rest seemed a bit mush-like. I agree, and I thought it was a rather artichoke-y mush – not being a big fan of said artichoke hearts. (Old habits die hard.) Included were two biscuits, on the harder side, which reminded both of us of shortbread in their buttery wonderfulness. We wanted a bag of them to take home.
I was more impressed with my pulled pork dish ($17) – it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that the proprietor had smoked it herself, and it was served in two amazing crepe-like cornmeal cakes, making these the best dry enchiladas I’ve had, possibly ever. The bed of plantains and yams were sweet enough without being cooked in maple syrup rum, I think, but you may disagree.
We unfortunately didn’t save room for dessert (I blame having Alidoro for lunch again – those sandwiches are huge!), but the beignets and chocolate-blood orange parfait (called, mysteriously, “fool”) seemed intriguing.
I may well be back to sample the desserts. Despite being slightly overpriced (I give credit for the home-made factor, like Shopsin’s), the food has the capability of being unique and amazing, though, with only four entrees, you’ve got to make sure everyone’s willing to eat anything. As for getting there – it still sucks. Cursed G-train, why do you taunt the hipsters and the Polish people so?
My girlfriend and I skipped a planned outing last night because my eyes were acting up (I get the most ridiculously sensitive watery eyes when I’ve got a cold), so I don’t have anything major to report, I’m afraid. We did have some good delivery from Pongal, the Michelin-starred Southern Indian restaurant on 1st Avenue and 64th Street – although I find their dosas a bit soggy when delivered, their spicing is impeccable.
Thankfully this wasn’t a stomach flu, so I ended up eating a hell of a lot of Boerum Hill Food Company last weekend – even at my most feverish, I had a craving for the perfectly flavorful/bland chicken in their tacos and enchiladas. I also had a damn good plate of breakfast nachos there, as well as an excellent Irish lamb stew at Ceol. I guess the spicy stuff doesn’t appeal as much when you’re unwell?
I had an EXCELLENT sandwich from Alidoro for lunch today that was worthy of note – the Fellini, which consists of sopressata, mozzarella, arugula and hot peppers. I had it on a semolina baguette, and it was amazing. Just what the doctor ordered.
Hopefully I’ll have another update or two before the end of the week – at any rate, look for normal post volume to resume next week. Stay well!
Hey gang, Sorry for the lack of eats yesterday and (likely) today. I had to leave work early Friday with the flu, and I’m still recovering. The good news? Spring’s just around the corner…my favorite time of year, and a great time to be wandering around in strange neighborhoods.
The Tuck Shop’s menu claims that “waking and baking is our job,” pun very much intended. While my inner stoner respects that existence, and my inner drunkard celebrates its proximity to many favorite watering holes (it's located on 1st St. between 1st and 2nd Ave.), my inner food critic kind of wishes the pies were a little fresher. That said, if you want a pie with ground beef, the Tuck Shop’s traditional pie ($5) is where it’s at. Spiced nicely and not over-greased, it was far better than the mysterious special “steak and Guinness” pie, which didn’t taste much like Guinness or the advertised horseradish. The sausage roll ($3) was less disappointing; a combination of ground pork and sage easily outpaces the average pizzeria’s rolled offerings. We were offered dessert, but to the proprietor’s great surprise, he was completely out of desserts. That’s what happens when you smoke up with a full refrigerator, pal – take it from one who knows.
My roommate’s birthday party was at O’Connor’s on 5th Avenue (Brooklyn) last week, and my task before getting to the bar was to pick up some kind of quick dinner. O’Connor’s is a little far from the main restaurant area of Park Slope, so I was happy to find City Sub around the corner on Bergen St. (a couple doors down from Melt). More or less like a Subway taken to its logical quality extreme, the menu advertises the use of real Hellmann’s mayonnaise (that’s Best Foods to those of you out west), and the wall boasts of Boar’s Head meats. Most of the sandwiches are between $6 and $7, and they’ll toast the bread (in a charming array of toaster ovens) and nuke the meat and cheese (in a less charming array of microwaves) if you so desire.
At the other end of the sandwich spectrum is Alidoro, at 105 Sullivan St. in Manhattan – a particular favorite and recommendation of some friends of my girlfriend. At the opposite side of the sandwich spectrum from City Sub, Alidoro offers an array of named Italian subs – most of the names, somewhat unsurprisingly, end in vowels. I picked the Pinnochio ($10), which combined prosciutto, sopressata, mozzarella, sweet peppers and olive pate. My girlfriend opted for the Mischa (9.50), which took the same prosciutto and stacked it with provolone, hot peppers, and arugula. Both were excellent. Besides the standard white or wheat bread, three other kinds are available: Semolina (an extra 50 cents), sfilatino (a mini-baguette that costs $1.50 more), and tramezzino ($1.50). According to Google, the word “tramezzino” was made up by the fascists in the 30’s, purportedly to combat the encroachment of the English word “sandwich.” When the guy behind the counter berates the poor girl in the back, resist the urge to compare him to Mussolini.
When I reviewed Kebap G the other day, I neglected to mention that it was the SECOND meal of the day – indeed, the second lunchtime meal of the day. What gives? I’m not usually prone to noshing my way through a neighborhood, but the Kebap G visit was at least partially necessitated by the unbearable lightness of the day’s first feast: Patsy’s, the original 1933 coal-oven pizzeria that must be one of the last remnants of the old Italian East Harlem.
Patsy’s is one of those places that, like Roberto’s, attracts a rather more upscale crowd than the nabe would suggest – many arrive in livery cabs and depart in livery cabs, and, in these times, particularly, I’d ordinarily lament such tactics as sad at best, disturbing at worst.
Of course, when WE got off the bus, we immediately heard what certainly sounded like gunshots coming from one of the public houses across 1st Avenue. I’m not being suburban and paranoid here – gunshots have a certain kind of metallic report that doesn’t sound like backfire (I’ll admit, though, it’s been a long time since I’ve been to a gun range), and when they arrive in sets of three with neighborhood-local onlookers looking on, a little freaked, you don’t really want any more confirmation of authenticity.
The atmosphere of the meal was a little less steely and a little more mellow, but nonetheless bizarre. Patsy’s looks like it last underwent a reno around the same time as Peter Luger’s – dark wood walls up to about 3 feet, and plain white walls from there to the ceiling. Furniture and flooring are neat but plain. The atmosphere, I felt, could have benefited from some of the genius that gave the restaurant the funky old neon sign in the front window. Perhaps agreeing with me, one of the patrons seated behind us kept periodically bursting into tears.
Or maybe they were tears of joy stemming from the excellent pizza. We opted for a fresh mozzarella and basil pie, which, to my great annoyance, cost $6 more ($3 per extra ingredient) than the $11 plain pie. Is there any way that mozz and basil should cost $3 each? I say no, especially considering the extra sogginess that the fresh mozz imparts on the pie. Alas, should you follow our route, your crust will droop; at least this time it’s not from an careless slosh of olive oil, courtesy of your (drunk?) pizzaioli. In fact, our pie was virtually grease-free, which I think accounted for my continued appetite after consuming over half of one. Hear that, Pizza Hut? You’d sell twice as many pies if they were greaseless – get on that!
A reminder: it’s Sunday, your waitress will inform you that you have only pizza and salad to choose from, so don’t go up there expecting to sample the veal piccata. Then again, I’m not sure why you’d go to a pizzeria and order anything but the pie, anyway. Be smart!
Sarajevo's Cockta and grilled meats tough to beat.
I am eternally grateful that my girlfriend comes along with me on these food excursions, and I’m even more grateful that she’s flexible and patient – for instance, last night’s excursion to Egyptian Nights, ostensibly (according to Voice sources) located at 35-25 Steinway Street, turned up only a pool hall across from a suburban-style movie theater, and very little in the realm of surrounding charm to fall back on. (Today, after a more thorough Google search, I have found that it’s actually located at 25-35 Steinway – a return trip will happen soon.)
Fortunately, as we were walking down 34th Avenue thinking that Greek would be our best option, we happened upon Cevabdzinica Sarajevo – a perfect coincidence, as I had been meaning to investigate the world of Bosnian grilling for some time.
Though the service was a bit reserved, we appreciated the pictorial menu (though it did take some of the adventure out of ordering). Not everything on the menu is worthy of note. One pleasurable possibility is an order of cevapi (5 for $5) – skinless grilled sausages with an oniony flavor, served with a red pepper spread and onions, as well as what seemed like freshly baked bread pre-slicked with oil. It makes a lovely sandwich. I’m sure the pljeskavica, which seemed like the same meat, would also be excellent – though, due to its enormous footprint (I struggle to describe its enormity, but it wouldn’t kindly share the plate, even on your mother’s biggest platter), it might require several people to demolish it.
We should have gotten more grilled meats (I’m aiming at veal hearts and sweetbreads on my next visit), because I was less impressed with the potato burek – also available in meat and spinach varieties, among others (a portion appears to be about $6. It’s not because I hate pastry, or that it wouldn’t have been delicious coming out of the oven, it’s just that they microwaved it instead. (I think the people who came in to get takeaway burek probably are oven-heating it at home.) The stuffed cabbage ($7 for 5 pieces) met the same appliance before hitting our table, and ended up being a bit soggy for my taste (as well as the usual temperature inconsistencies – just like leftover night!).
My ambivalence about the ungrilled foods notwithstanding, the bill came to $24 for enough food to make us very full, and they offer tiny bottles of the local cola called “Cockta.” It’s the little things in life, really.
