Eating Out In Inwood: John's Fried Chicken

I just got back from a morning of wandering around Washington Heights and upward: first I had breakfast at Trie Cafe inside the Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park, then I left through the heather gardens and took the A up to 207th street, and decided to walk around Inwood.

My eating stop was at John's Fried Chicken, where I had a single fried breast. The serving lady didn't understand, and kept thinking I wanted the three-piece special. I felt like that scene in that Wayons movie: "just one rib." The piece arrived slightly mutated, containing an extra piece of something. It was way too large to just be a breast. And it came with two, small, fluffy mini-buns. And a little packet of salt.

I ate quickly and gave up halfway through. It was a little dry, and it tasted like it was coated in semi-sweet cornflakes. Another distressing note: one of the many odd combo specials featured a chicken breast, a "pot. ball", and a "meat pipe."

I have no idea what a Meat Pipe is, and I have no intention of finding out.

Excellent Brunch: La Palapa

My girlfriend and I just had an excellent brunch off of St. Marks. And even more incredibly, it was Mexican. I may have to revoke my citywide New York boycott of Mexican food.

La Palapa, located at the corner of St. Marks and 1st Avenue, had:

a) really good homemade chips, guacamole and salsa
b) homemade chili sauces
c) amazing Mexican french toast made with bollila slices and cinnamon syrup
d) really good heuvos rancheros with homemade queso fresco
e) addictive coffee brewed with authentic sugar, cinnamon and orange peel
f) really reasonable prices
g) none of the annoying hipster crowds that plagued Veselka

I'm moving to the Upper West in a month and a half, but I'll treasure this place.

Where Art Thou, Via Emilia?

Via Emilia, the great northern-Italian pasta joint, is gone from its location on 20th and Park. A sign claims a new location and a "new menu!" on east 21st street, but in fact the restaurant is nowhere to be found.

I'm not looking forward to the new decor and inevitable higher prices. This is the old NYC shell game. It just happened to Chinese Mirch in Curry Hill. Redecorate, and lose the ambiance and lower prices that made it a find in the first place.

New York City, sometimes I hate you.

A picture of me downing a beaker of 40-year-old Lagavulin scotch (Islay, Scotland)

More on this one soon. It was pipetted out of the oldest cask of Lagavulin in the world.
But don't I look oh-so-hip-hop?

Dearly Departed: Tre Pomodori

Good-bye, cheap pasta, and spaghetti with anchovies and sundried tomato: me and my girlfriend's favorite little trattoria just closed on 34th between 3rd and 2nd Aves. We thought we'd reward ourselves after a hard week of final exams for her and freelance hustling for me, only to arrive to a mysteriously closed storefront, with no identifying characteristics to indicate that it was anything previous to be being a shuttered-up wall.

Their 9.00 anchovy, sundried tomato, and garlic-and-oil spaghetti was a revelation. I'm not sure if their other remaining location (according to Zagat), at 2nd and 90-ish street, still exists. We may make a field trip.

Instead, we ate at Notaro's, on 35th and 2nd Ave. The tortellini and spaghetti carbonara were delicious, tremendous, and really much, much too rich. My acid reflux didn't thank me on that one. But they have a $24.95 prix fixe after 6:30 pm, which is absurd in Manhattan.

We'll just have to move on, and learn to make anchovy pasta ourselves.

Bagels in NY...NOT AFTER 11!

I'm recounting an old experience I had a few months ago here in New York City, and I'm still fuming.
I was heading to work, and the thought occurred to grab a bagel on the way. But I thought to myself: I'm late. I'll get to work first, and then catch a bagel later. So I went upstairs, got to my desk, and of course I became distracted by phone messages, email, and my own short attention span.

Soon enough, it was 11.

No problem. But it was definitely time for a bagel.
Well, you can guess what happened by the subject header. I went to the local deli/salad-tosser/sushi/overpriced hot-table racket, one of about 854,347 in Manhattan. I saw bagels. I made a beeline, and asked for one with cream cheese.
"Sorry, we're not serving breakfast anymore," was the response.
I was infuriated. I demanded that bagel. And they at last relented, but they wouldn't give me cream cheese.
"You have cream cheese?" I asked.
"Yes, but it's not breakfast," they answered.
I refused to buy the bagel, and went elsewhere. Which began an hour-long odyssey to five different places, all of which: a) had bagels but no cream cheese, b) cream cheese but no bagels, c) neither bagels nor cream cheese, or d) bagels AND cream cheese, both of which they refused to sell me.

I finally got cream cheese at one place, a bagel at the other, and went back to work soul-crushed.
There were no honest-to-goodness bagel places around, the type that actually (gosh!) serve bagels and cream cheese ALL DAY LONG. But this horror show in midtown taught me the bureaucracy of eating on this overpopulated isle. I feel no sympathy to these fly-by-night Paxes and Food Exchanges (what are we supposed to be exchanging, anyway?). May they all go out of business; if they were really desperate for money, they'd sell me that damn bagel and cream cheese.

I just returned from the land of Haggis and Scotch

After a jet-lagged weekend featuring three plane flights in one day followed by the NFL Draft, I'm back in NYC. I was completely out of touch in a world of little internet connection, much sheep, and the best whiskey in the world.

More to follow once pics are uploaded.