Tag Archives: culture

Fire on Grand Street

16 Nov

When we visited Nyonya in early 2003, before the internet food site explosion, the Malaysian restaurant, though located in Little Italy a few doors from the great Di Palo Fine Foods, was still somewhat under the radar. At the time, it had a following, but nothing like it does now. It was our group’s first experience with Malaysian food and the unadulterated heat that distinguishes it.  We like unadulterated—heat or otherwise—so Malaysian food became one of our most repeated cuisines.

Nyonya
199 Grand Street
Little Italy

Zio confided that he had many options for our upcoming food destination, but the thought of crispy pork intestines, beef tripe noodle soup, fresh fish head cooked with lemon grass, and sooi pooi (sour plum) drink which Nyonya, the place he ultimately chose, offered, was too enticing for him to pass on. So all of us, Eugene excepted, who was on a Caribbean cruise and most likely at work on the unlimited buffet line, assembled in the bustling tiki-hut like restaurant in Chinatown. We were the few non-Asians in the restaurant; a very promising sign.

The menu was extensive and when not entranced by the bloated fish swimming in the tank behind our table, we had to concentrate on the task ahead: what to order. Crunch time came and all Zio could come up with after the promise of a variety of organ meats in coconut milk was the relatively conventional mango chicken. Eugene was probably experiencing more exotic fare on his cruise.  Zio’s selection was vociferously vetoed and after much urging switched to the more adventurous, kari ayam, described in the menu as chicken cooked over low heat with lemongrass and chili paste and simmered in thick rich coconut curry. Charlie stuck with chicken as well and gambled on the Hainanese chicken, steamed (room temperature) with a chef’s soy sauce. Gerry ordered the kang kung belacan, which translated meant sautéed “convolus” with spicy Malaysian shrimp paste sauce. We had to ask one of the dozen or so waitresses who were attending to our table for the translation of “convolus,” and were told that it was Malaysian string beans. Rick showed his fortitude by ordering cheng-lai stingray while I went with the comparatively mundane curry spareribs.

 

 

It wasn’t that the promise of gargantuan main courses was not enough for us. It was that Nyona’s appetizers looked much too good on paper to pass up. So we started with the so-called “Malaysian national dish,” roti canai, an Indian pancake with a curry chicken dipping sauce. Chicken satay and Poh Piah, a Malaysian spring roll stuffed with jicama and minced shrimp rounded out our first courses. To drink there was Chinese beer for most of us while Zio insisted instead on the fresh coconut juice. When his drink arrived in half a real coconut and a big straw, we wondered why the pink umbrella was missing.  Zio, oblivious as always, cradled the coconut in his hands and sucked the juice from the straw. We looked at him for a moment, savoring the absurd sight, and then went back to our beer.

The parade of waitresses began piling the food on our table almost immediately and just as quickly we began to devour it, eating the roti canai with our hands, dipping it into the murky, but very tasty curry, pulling at the tender satay, and wondering over the jicama in the spring roll. Rick’s sting ray (a.k.a. skate) was the first entrée to arrive and we picked at the perfectly cooked flesh, dipping it into a fiery sauce. At Nyonya, fiery was the theme; the curry spareribs particularly sinus-clearing while Zio’s chicken, also very spicy and falling off the bone. In fact, all of the food, including the sautéed “convolus” which tasted nothing like string beans, wax beans, green beans or anything else we had previously encountered, was hot with the one exception of Charlie’s wan-looking “room temperature” chicken, which many at the table found unappealing; though Gerry and I thought it’s blandness was the perfect antidote to the heat in the other dishes.

 

 

We worked through all the food at the table with only a few pieces of the above-mentioned Hainanese chicken remaining—and no volunteers to take it home. Our stomachs bloated, no one even mentioned dessert…not even the usually insatiable Zio. In Eugene’s absence, I was left to do the math and after tip and including drinks, we came in one dollar over our $20 budget—meaning, excluding the drinks, that we actually came under budget.


A few years ago Nyonya moved across Grand Street to a shiny new space. It also branched out to Brooklyn with two locations. I’m not sure if now Nyonya would qualify for our group. Too popular. Really almost a chain with three branches in the city. But that is now, and the above was then and none of us had any complaints about what we experienced in 2003.

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La Pavoni Love Call

12 Nov

La Pavoni Love Call

Espresso, expresso, call it what you will.

It beckons me each afternoon,

until I’ve had my fill

One shot, two,

No more or I’ll quake, but

without the bittersweet brew,

I would surely ache.

 

Grind it long or short,

careful, not too fine.

I would not want my La Pavoni to

ever cry or whine.

Stamp it down, fit it in tight,

twist it on until it’s just right.

With your thumb, you press the button.

Hear the  hum and feel the warm flush.

But wait, it’s not time, there’s no rush.

 

Listen for the gurgle, and then the hiss.

In just a few moments, you’ll find bliss.

Soon you’ll hear her low earthy call.

Now’s the time for you to really stand tall.

Pull the handle down hard and fast.

No need to be gentle, La Pavoni is built

to last.

 

Hear her sing and watch the nectar

flow.

Sometimes fast.

Sometimes slow.

See the crema on top, so frothy and rich.

What is that stuff anyway?

How does it come out that way?

 

Sugar? No that’s for tea.

I like my espresso pure.

But that’s just me.

 

In the tradition of Don Fanucci,

I suck it down with zest.

You know who I mean,

the Godfather guy,

the one with the white vest.

Don Fanucci: Espresso Lover

And then it’s over,

my cup drained and done.

La Pavoni sighs,

her song sung.

And all that is left,

is a faint pungent flavor

on the tip of my tongue.

 

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Pupusa Love

26 Oct

Still in our first year, but now on our second round of picks, Charlie found La Cabana Salvadorena “in the heights”…several years before the musical of the same name opened. I remember driving up and around the hills past the George Washington Bridge trying to find parking. I also remember how glad the owners and chef were to have us at his restaurant. Something that happened quite often throughout our years doing this.

La Cabana Salvadoreña
4384 Broadway
Washington Heights

Having gone full circle; everyone fulfilling their responsibility and picking a restaurant within our still vague guidelines, it was back to Charlie, who led off last February with the Puerto Rican restaurant in El Barrio, La Fonda Boricua. Keeping in that Latin vein and also keeping us in Manhattan, Charlie chose La Cabana Salvadorena, on 187th street and Broadway, the northern fringe of Washington Heights. The food promised was not just Latin, but Salvadoran, a cuisine none of us had the pleasure of previously experiencing. I admit having come close while living in Los Angeles in the 1980’s. During my seemingly endless time behind the wheel of my wreck of a car, I would pass establishments advertising pupusas. These establishments were called pupuserias. Though always somewhat adventurous about food, I never had the nerve to pull up to a pupuseria in Los Angeles. Hot dogs were a big part of my subsistence while I struggled in Los Angeles and I ate all kinds there including a very memorable one called an Oki Dog, two hot dogs

wrapped in a big burrito-sized flour tortilla and stuffed with pastrami, cheese, chili and onions. The Oki Dog experience I still remember fondly as a youthful indulgence akin to experimenting with a hallucinogenic drug. I had no limits when it came to hot dogs, but I could not get myself to try a pupusa. There was the connotation with something cuddly that just turned me off.  So here, many years later on a cold damp autumn evening in Washington Heights, I think I was ready to try a pupusa.

Zio and I were the first to arrive at the brightly-lit restaurant. We choose the big round table next to the “Real Women Have Curves” poster. Our waitress came up immediately to begin taking our orders. I held out my fingers in the right manner to alert the waitress that there would be six of us and ordered a Presidente beer. The waitress obviously knew little or no English and Zio and I pointed to the menu helping her to understand. And looking at the menus, which were under the glass on the table, we noticed different variations of the same menus. One item on all the different menus, however, was consistent: pupusas.

After struggling to find parking, the others soon all arrived. I warned them that getting help on what to order from the exotic menu might be difficult considering the language barrier with our waitress. No sooner had I said that than Raul came to our rescue. Raul, it turned out, had no financial attachment to La Cabana Salvadorena; he was an electrician and a friend of the owners. He offered his bilingual services to us along with his expertise in choosing the best items on the menu. We gave Raul free reign as what to order for us. We trusted him implicitly. And Raul, despite being from Honduras rather than Salvador, delivered. He came back with pupusas, rice and corn flour patties, stuffed with beans, pork, and cheese. He picked a mixed seafood ceviche for us, a few platters of “Plato Tipico” a combination plate of typical Salvadoran food; thinly pounded steak, steamed chicken tamale in the husk, a cheese pupusa with “loroco” a grated cheese, sweet plantains, and a “tortilla;” an omelet with chorizo and onions. We engulfed it. Consumed it. Devoured it all including the tasteless cabbage salad that came in a jar and was on every table. While we were eating, the chef, who also spoke little or no English came out to check on our progress. Looking somewhat like the actor, Edward James Olmos, the chef was impressed with our work, though upset that Raul had neglected to order us the boiled beef, also a Salvadoran specialty. Next time, we promised. He went away smiling and satisfied the gringos were pleased.

As with most of our experiences, dessert was limited here as well. We all sampled a piece of what seemed like fried dough in sugar syrup. Eugene immediately proclaimed the meal as his favorite of the seven we had experienced. And it certainly fulfilled our original aim; even with beers and other drinks, our bill came under $20 per person. We were getting pretty good at this.

I returned to La Cabana Salvadorena recently.  I was glad to see that pretty much nothing had changed in the eight years since I’d last visited. They had no website and there were no stickers from Zagat, Yelp, Citysearch or anywhere else on their windows. The awning, small front counter, and dining room, with the exception of the “Real Women Have Curves” poster being gone, was exactly as I remembered it. But best of all were the prices—still frozen at 2002 levels.

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Spleen on a Bun

19 Oct

Rick was the last of us to make a pick during our first go round in this still experimental food group. His choice was a convenient restaurant close to his then apartment in Carroll Gardens called Ferdinando’s Focacceria. This was in 2002 and at the time I had no idea of the burgeoning gentrification and real estate boom that was happening in that neighborhood. I’m not sure Rick was even aware of it even while he was living in the midst of the boom. Looking back, the changing clientele in the restaurant at the time was a tip off though it was really just the start. Within a few years, townhouses that were owned for generations of mostly Italian Americans were being gobbled up for astronomical sums…and still are. The upward creeping prices at the ancient restaurant should have also been an indication. My recording of that meal in the fall of 2002 follows:

Ferdinando’s Focacceria
151 Union Street
Brooklyn

The red flags went up soon after I sat down at Ferdinando’s Focacceria Ristorante on Union Street in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn. Just a short walk from Rick’s apartment, Ferdinando’s was his pick, the last of our first go-round at this food adventure thing. The red flags were up because of what I noticed on the restaurant’s ancient (circa 1904) brick walls; plaques with a commendation from Zagat and another with a printed review by Eric Asimov of the New York Times in the $25 and under column he used to write. His review of Ferdinando’s appeared in 1993 when $25 and under went a longer way than $25 and under does now. And anyway, our aim wasn’t $25 and under, it was $20 and under. And commendations from popular guides like Zagat and of course from the Newspaper of Record meant that this was far from an “under the radar” establishment. Okay, so every place we go to can’t be a discovery, but could we at least be not too far off? I guess if you’ve been around since 1904 that’s pretty hard to do.

I’m mainly familiar with Carroll Gardens through Rick and the abundant barbecues he holds in his backyard. Whenever I visited, I’d see the old school Italian-Americans sitting in their rickety lawn chairs in front of their brownstones. These were the people, Rick claimed, who were the clientele of Ferdinando’s and that’s how he sold it. But on this Friday evening, the restaurant was inhabited not by those I used to see sitting on those lawn chairs on summer evenings. The diners at Ferdinando’s were more like the six (myself included) who waddled in from somewhere else. In other words, Ferdinando’s, like the neighborhood, was getting seriously gentrified. So because it had already been discovered by the New York Times and Zagat, and despite what looked like an intriguing menu, I was wary that Ferdinando’s might not pass the somewhat stringent and purposely vague criteria we had set for ourselves.

I confess as never having visited a focacceria and was unsure of what it was. I knew of foccacia and assumed Ferdinando’s specialized in typical focaccia, maybe with a brush of fresh tomato on top, or a sprinkling of olive oil and herbs. Ferdinando’s focaccia wasn’t quite typical. Rick recommended the “panelle” special so we had a few brought to the table. These “focaccia” were more like buns, made with chick pea flour and deep fried; the special was topped with ricotta and grated cheese. We also indulged on other of the smaller Sicilian specialties such as the “arancina,” a rice ball deep fried with chopped meat, peas and sauce, and an incredible “caponatina,” the famed Sicilian eggplant salad. No one, not even the adventurous Zio tried the “vastedda,” a sandwich made with calf’s spleen, ricotta and grated cheese. Zio, however, did not disappoint by quickly and decisively ordering his entrée of “trippa,” tripe stewed in tomato sauce with peas. Eugene was also very resolute when he ordered another Sicilian specialty, pasta con sarde, pasta with sardines, fennel, and pine nuts. Rounding out the orders were Rick with the pedestrian pasta con vongole, Gerry with linguini con seppia (squid in its ink), Charlie with the downright lame, chicken parmigiana and rigatoni, and myself with one of the specials of the day, pasta with baby polpo (octopus). As if that were not quite enough, Rick thought we should also try the calamari ripieni, stuffed calamari with mussels. The beverage of choice for most of us was the Italian beer, Peroni.

 

 

We soon finished off our appetizers and, while waiting for our entrees, devoured the endless baskets of fresh unadorned focaccia. Rick had noticed the diners as I had and a bit nervously assured me that whenever he had visited Ferdinando’s in the past, usually for lunch—the restaurant is only open until 9 on Fridays and Saturdays—that the locals; specifically, the old timers, were the only diners, not the gentrified groups we were seeing on this night. By then, though, I was no longer aware of the diners, only the food in front of me. The baby polpo on my linguini was perfectly tender, the sauce, sort of a sweet and sour sauce, maybe a bit too sweet for me. Zio’s “trippa” appeared hearty; the white lining of cow’s intestine swimming in tomato sauce.  And for some reason, with the exception of the courageous Gerry, he had no volunteers for samples. I was curious about Eugene’s pasta con sarde, but by the time I got around to asking for a taste, it was gone; Eugene enthusiastically proclaiming its virtues. Finally came the stuffed calamari and though Zio had previously and rancorously announced that he never ate anything “stuffed,” he relented and tried the calamari, which, filled with bread crumbs, garlic and herbs, he grudgingly acknowledged that it was “damn good for something stuffed.”

With the dry focaccia we cleaned the sauces on all our dishes reserving, incredibly, a bit of room for a cannoli sampling. This simple, classic Italian pastry was also worth noting for its perfection; the shell fresh, the cheese spectacular. Finally finished, our check was brought to the table. In the scrawl on a tiny piece of paper, Rick knew we had gone over our “budget.” Eugene did the math and the damage was $36 per person. It wasn’t as bad as it seemed at first glance. There were empty bottles of Peroni littering our table and drinks do not factor into our price limit, so that reduced the total somewhat. Add in the stuffed calamari extra and we were really only about three or four dollars over the $20 allowance. Rick did not meet the criteria. Not only did he not factor in our gluttony, had he read the Zagat review, he would have known that the total figured within that book was $22. Asimov’s $25 and Under review was another tip. Rick obviously just did not do his research. Not that I, or any of us were complaining

Looking back on our experience at Ferdinando’s, I’m very surprised no one had the courage to try the spleen. I think we were all a little raw at this and did not want to test our limits too much. That changed as the group evolved.  I  did revisit Ferdinando’s. It was probably in 2007 at the height of the real estate boom in Brooklyn. My experience was not as positive; the food not as good as I remembered from the above visit and prices had climbed so much that it was hard to imagine any of the old timers from the neighborhood (if any still remained) spending much time at Ferdinandos…even for lunch. Carroll Gardens was a much different place. Even Rick had fled.

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Ode to Whoopie (Pie)

15 Oct

Ode to Whoopie (Pie)

Two moist little round mounds of cake,

usually chocolate in make.

Stuffed with white stuff, I know not what.

Maybe cream, maybe butter,

maybe corn syrup the bad.

So sweet, so delicious, it’s a pleasure to be had.

Press tenderly on those pliant brown mounds,

one above, one below.

Press firmer and the cream will flow.

Catch it quick, with tongue or finger,

don’t dare miss a bit.

Their likeness uncanny,

the pretenders are many.

There’s Ring Ding, Yodel, Oreo and Suzy Q.

None of them give the magnificent Whoopie its due.

I’ve had Whoopies in pumpkin, in chocolate chip, mint and

vanilla too,

but for me only the chocolate with the white stuff will do.

From Maine to Cape Cod,

Whoopie’s legend is secure.

In the Big Apple, they’re just not so sure.

Whoopie’s humble appearance—no

glaze, no sprinkles, no frosting adorns it—is

surely a deception.

This pie is simply pure perfection.

So eat your silky mousse,

your dark ganache, your sweet red velvet cupcakes.

For me, I’ll feast on the Pie of Whoopie

…until my jaw aches.

Whoopie!

Have a great weekend everyone.  Look for a new Adventures in Chow City on Tuesday.

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