Tag Archives: Travel

Vodka Amongst the Cranberries

23 Aug

The Cape Codder

I have no insecurities about imbibing a cocktail with a pinkish hue. Not if the pink comes from a substantial splash of cranberry juice—the dark red of the juice turning pink when mixing with the spirit of choice: vodka. And especially if that vodka is a gift from our Russian allies. Add a few ice cubes and a slice of lime and after a few sips, any doubts I might have had about my manhood and those stone age stereotypes regarding “girlie” cocktails immediately disappear.

Still, there are times when vodka and cranberry juice taste better than others. And it has nothing to do with the vodka or the juice.

 

It has to do with where you drink it.

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The Noodles on Prince Street

22 May

Prince Noodle House
3717 Prince Street
Unit A
Flushing

I’ve gone over the rules of our Chow City group many times in these electronic pages. We look for $20 and under places. We do our best to unearth those that are under the foodie radar, which nowadays is practically impossible. We look for virgin territory in terms of cuisines, but after ten years, the only cuisines we’ve skipped are the big name items (French, German, “American,” nouveau or fusion anything).

But there was one clause that was really never discussed or spelled out in our unwritten rule book. It didn’t have to be; it was taken for granted. That was the concept of waiting in line for a table at a restaurant. It goes against everything we hold sacred when it comes to eating; it’s a shock to our eating sensibilities.

So when Rick suggested a very well documented—at least by foodies—noodles and dumpling place in Flushing called Nan Xiang Dumpling House, I gently pointed out that, from my knowledge of these things, the place has become a “foodie destination.”

Rick understood immediately and, knowing the unwritten (and never mentioned) rule, quickly dismissed his original choice and instead went with an alternate, quite literally, down the road from Nan Xiang, the road in this case being Prince Street, called Prince Noodle House.

Of our group, only Mike from Yonkers, who was called to an urgent co-op board meeting, did not make the trip to bustling Flushing. There was absolutely no wait or line to get into the Prince Noodle House and we were given a big round table next to a large celebratory party of Asians.

One of the reasons Rick decided on, first Nan Xiang Dumpling, and then the Prince Noodle House were the aforementioned dumplings; in particular soup dumplings. He wanted to experience the Shanghai-style dumpling where the soup is “frozen” within the dumpling only to melt inside when steamed. Prince Noodle had them on their menu, here called  “soup buns,” so we ordered the crab meat mini buns and the “special” mini buns for the table.

Crab meat soup buns

While we ate the soup buns, improperly at first and not with the provided spoons, the soup bursting all over our plates, Eugene told us of his trip to Jefferson City, Missouri where he attended a wedding.

“It was ridiculous,” he complained. “The wedding was catered. All they had was Mountain Dew, a keg of beer, and franks and beans. Can you imagine that?”

We couldn’t imagine it especially for a man used to the all you can eat buffets on the cruise ships and all-inclusive resort he regularly frequents.

While Eugene railed about his Jefferson City experience, I peered behind me at the big table. They were given one of those rotating round trays so they could spin it around making sharing easier. How come we didn’t get one of those, I wondered? The food was beginning to assemble on their table and I liked what I saw.

I asked our waiter about a dish they ordered that was a mix of a green, spinach like vegetable combined with what looked like tofu.

The waiter pointed to something on the menu called “malantou (kalimeris indica) w. dried tofu.”

“Indica means cannabis, or marijuana,” Zio offered as if he really knew of such things.

I ordered one for our table along with five spiced beef.

Kalimeris indica, also known as malantou with dried tofu

Served at room temperature, the malantou, vinegary greens mixed with dried shredded tofu, was a refreshing appetizer, though did not induce the melancholic buzz worthy of its name. The five spiced beef, on the other hand, thin slices of roast beef, cured with five spice powder and a sweet soy sauce drizzled over it, also served at room temperature, were addictive in a more familiar way, at least for us, than what Zio had presumed we would experience with the malantou.

Five spiced (roast) beef

Gerry immediately had his sight set on the “sliced fish swimm hot chili pepper sauce,” that was on the menu, highlighted in red to indicate that it was spicy. No one had any disagreement with his choice or of Rick’s twice sautéed pork belly.

I thought we should at least try some of the noodles at Prince Noodle House and ordered hot and spicy pork noodle soup. I added a rice dish, snow cabbage with rice cake and pork, while Zio studied the menu for one last dish.

The waiter hovered over his shoulder. “I want this,” he said, pointing to something on the menu.

The waiter bent down closer to see what Zio was pointing to.

“You want crap fish?” he said.

“Huh?” Zio immediately got flustered.

“The crap fish?” the waiter said again.

Zio looked at the menu. What he was pointing to read: “spicy bean paste Buffalo crap fish.”

“Yes, I want…number 102,” Zio concurred, indicating the number adjacent to the item where the a and the r had obviously and mistakenly transposed.

Sliced fish “swimm” in hot chili pepper sauce

First to come out was the family-sized sliced fish that, in an enormous casserole dish, was literally “swimm” in hot chili pepper sauce. A few bites brought tears to Eugene’s eyes, a sheen to Rick’s forehead, and loud honking from Gerry’s prominent, yet distinguished nose.

The noodle soup was equally spicy and the noodles, hand pulled, gelatinous in texture, lived up to its princely reputation.

Relief from the heat came with the arrival of the pork belly and the snow cabbage and rice cake. Covered with a one inch layer of fat and glazed to a burnished reddish color, the pork belly was ultra tender; the meat kept moist by its fatty coat and marinated with light soy sauce, sugar and rice wine.

Sauteed pork belly

Last to arrive was the whole carp. Smothered in a bean paste and topped with scallions and ginger, Zio was the first to sample it. He didn’t have much to say as he picked through the many bones. Gerry tried a few bites.

“Hmmm, crap fish has a very unique taste,” he said with a straight face.

There’s crap fish under all that spicy bean paste.

While we polished off almost everything but the unfortunate carp, the dishes on the rotating tray on the table behind us kept piling up. We were done and they were just starting on a huge platter of lobster. Despite having completely stuffed our faces, we gawked enviously as we paraded out of the now fully booked restaurant.

Good thing we didn’t have to wait, I thought to myself as I made my way back to the parking lot where my car was parked. Once inside my car, I stared through the windshield at Prince Street. I noticed a line had formed outside of the Nan Xiang Dumpling House. Maybe the soup dumplings and noodles were better than the stuff we just experienced at Prince Noodle House, but I wasn’t going to wait to find out.

The line for soup dumplings at Nan Xiang

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Tony and Tina’s Post-Honeymoon Burek

11 May

Tony & Tina’s Pizzeria
2483 Arthur Avenue
Bronx

I planned to meet Zio at 593 Crescent Avenue in the Belmont section of the Bronx. This was just off Arthur Avenue, also known as the Little Italy of the Bronx. But I wasn’t making the trek for Italian food; the area is also an enclave for Albanians, Bosnians and Kosovans. I wanted the Albanian equivalent of pizza, known as a burek and Djerdan Burek was, according to Google maps, just a half block from Roberto Paciullo’s place, Roberto’s, and the planned destination for our consumption of  bureks.

“I’m bringing the Colonel,” Zio said over the phone on the morning before we were to meet.

It was no problem with me if he brought the Colonel, his long time companion, and the mother of his children, though for some reason he wasn’t very enthusiastic about it.

When I arrived at 593 Crescent Avenue, my enthusiasm waned as well, but not because we would be dining with the Colonel. Instead of being greeted with the smell of freshly baked bureks, I was confronted with the odor of hair tonic from Bato’s Professional Barber Shop. I peered inside hopefully thinking that maybe the bureks were sold in the back of the barber shop, but from what I could see through the window, there was no food at Bato’s.

593 Crescent, where you can get a trim and a shave, but no burek.

I knew there were bureks not too far from Crescent Avenue. I even noticed a “burek” sign in a window a block from Fordham Road when I was driving into the neighborhood. So Zio, the Colonel and I decided to head in that direction.

We strolled past Randazzo’s Seafood, Dominick’s Restaurant, Roberto Paciullo’s other place, Trattoria Zero Otto Nove,  Ann & Tony’s Restaurant (“Five Generations”), and the Arthur Avenue Baking Company, before arriving at Tony & Tina’s Pizzeria.

Inside the small pizzeria, we glanced at the assemblage of phyllo dough stuffed pies behind the counter known as bureks. And then we turned our attention to the pizza, garlic knots and calzones on the other side of the counter. Zio’s jaw drooped slightly as he stared at the wan, cold, cheese-congealed pizza. “Is that what an Albanian pizza looks like?” he asked incredulously.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never been to Albania.”

Stick to the items in Albanian.

We went for the combination platter of bureks; cheese, meat, spinach and a spiral shaped one stuffed with sweet pumpkin. As we were about the dig in, the Colonel got a phone call.

“Sorry, I have to take this,” she said, walking out of the pizzeria, cell phone in hand.

“Should we wait?” I asked

“Are you kidding?” Zio scoffed, and quickly began to devour one of the meat bureks.

Meat burek

I was a little hesitant.

“She’ll end up just taking a few bites, anyway,” he garbled with his mouth full of phyllo dough.

The Colonel was outside, leaning against a parked car, cell phone attached to her ear. I decided to take Zio’s advice and began eating.

Cheese burek

All the bureks were flaky and fresh; the cheese mild but not too dense, while the spinach was fragrant with onion. The ground meat in the meat burek had just enough grease to slightly absorb into the pie dough.

Spinach burek

The Colonel returned. “That was my friend M,” she said. “She’s almost 10 centimeters dilated.”

“Uh huh,” Zio muttered disinterestedly, his mouth now stuffed with a cheese burek.

The Colonel took a tiny bite of each and then bagged the rest.

“What did I tell ya,” Zio said.

I tried to answer, but I felt a tickle in my throat. I drank some water. The tickle was still there. I coughed and then took another sip of water. I coughed again. A miniscule flake of phyllo dough was caught in my windpipe. I coughed once more. The flake finally dislodged.

Bill Clinton: A friend and ally of the burek.

The Colonel took her bag of  nibbled bureks, and the three of us walked back down Arthur Avenue, Zio stopping briefly at Umberto’s Clam House, where  a sign said:“Bus tours are welcome.”

“Didn’t they used to sell live chickens here?” Zio asked.

“They did,” I said. “I once wanted to buy one, but they told me you needed to order it at least a day in advance so they could kill the bird and then clean it up.”

Zio stared at the colorful sign proclaiming Umberto’s many happy hour specials. He shook his head. “Isn’t Umberto’s where Joey Gallo was whacked?” he asked.

“Yeah, but that was at the original on Mulberry Street,” I replied.

He continued to stare and then shook his head. “I liked it better when it was a chicken place,” he said. And then we continued our walk through the Little Italy of the Bronx.

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Adventures in Chow City: The First Decade

27 Mar

This past January, our group celebrated ten years of traveling New York City’s environs searching for mostly unheralded, inexpensive, usually ethnic eating establishments. To honor this very important anniversary, we hoped to gather at a place somewhat representative of the restaurants we had been visiting the past decade. We were looking for something maybe slightly more broadly appealing than a place where cow foot soup and goat belly were the signature dishes. And since this was supposed to be a special occasion, we also decided to invite spouses, partners, significant others; anyone our members wanted to bring along.

Gerry recommended an old time Italian place in Mount Vernon, just over the Bronx border, called the Lincoln Lounge. From his description; “good pizza—old school, family-style Italian in a run down neighborhood with a full bar,” the Lincoln Lounge sounded exactly what we were looking for.

It took numerous group emails to nail down a date when all could attend. And then things happened. A wife dropped out due to family obligations; a girlfriend couldn’t come because of a conflict until we got an email from Rick saying “Sounds like its turning stag. Should we just commit to no wimmin?”

We never did commit to it, but as it turned out, no “wimmin” were in attendance.

And on the appointed day, neither was Rick; a family emergency denying him our celebration.

To make up for the loss of Rick, we were graced with the presence of original member, Charlie, who left us in 2005 for the greener pastures of the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania.

It was a Friday night and the Lincoln Lounge was mobbed with large groups; the small bar two deep with “regulars,” including one uniformed policeman who ate at the bar with his bullet-proof vest on and gun holstered around his waist.

No room at the Lincoln Lounge bar.

After we were seated; cramped in a corner, we quickly ordered a sausage pizza and here the Lincoln Lounge did not disappoint. With its thin crust, sauce bursting with flavor, nicely charred crust topped with fresh sausage; the pie, as it turned out was the highlight of the meal.

Lincoln Lounge’s excellent pie.

The antipasto salad, a bowl of greens topped with provolone, sopressata, and olives and doused in a vinegary dressing was passable while the steamed clams in white wine and garlic, standard and more than acceptable.

The calamari pasta, however, along with the shrimp scampi were disappointments. Apparently, when the dishes at the Lincoln Lounge are advertised as family style, they don’t mean our gluttonous family.

The shrimp, of which here they most definitely count, were barely enough for each of us to get a taste. As it turned out, a taste was more than enough.

The modest amount of spaghetti adorned with a light tomato broth and tiny pieces of calamari was devoid of flavor.

Calamari compromised

Zio shook his head as he gazed at the miniature calamari.  “I like big fat calamari rings,” he said. “Not these little ones.”

“Was it really worth slaughtering baby squid for this?” I questioned indicating the “family-sized” platter.

“Yeah, it’s inhumane,” Gerry said as he speared one with his fork.

Thankfully, the pork chops with peppers and onions were good enough to almost redeem the travesty that was the squid and shrimp.

Pork chops with vinegar peppers and onions

While we cleaned our plates, Eugene began to, once again, muse on a trip to a Caribbean all-inclusive he was soon to embark on. “You know what I like to do,” he swooned. “Eat a big breakfast, stay at the beach until two, take a nap, and then eat dinner. You never have to leave the hotel.”

Trying desperately to divert the conversation back to why we were at the Lincoln Lounge, I was curious about our group’s memories of the past ten years.

“Remember the bean dessert,” Eugene barked out. “At the Filipino place in Queens. The worst!”

“Yeah and the cheap Polish place in Greenpoint,” Zio added. “I went back once.”

“What about that one in Chinatown. The place with fish stomach and goose feet,” Mike from Yonkers reminisced.

“Sheesh, that was inedible,” Eugene spat. “Even Gerry had a hard time eating it.”

And from there they all came back. The highlights and a few lowlights of our ten years.

Chow City’s Top Ten Moments (Good and Bad)

Presented in chronological order:

  1. Eugene’s bean drink revulsion The Beans of Halo Halo
  2. Cherriolies and Kvass Kvass and Vodka  
  3. Pan fried chicken and old school soul   Across 125th Street
  4. Eating ribs in a South Bronx backyard junkyard Southern (Bronx) BBQ
  5. Traversing mountains of snow to get to the great Tandoori Hut. Dining With Sikhs

    Tandoori Hut

  6. The rending padang at Upi Jaya  Spice Tsunami
  7. An after dinner espresso served on my lap. The Un American African Place
  8. Broccoli rabe pizza, the choice meal of strippers. Bronx Broccoli Rabe From a Brother From Corona

    Bronx broccoli rabe

  9. Fuzhou fish stomach and goose feet. F(e)asting on Fuzhou Style Fish Stomach
  10. Zio’s upper body massage apres fufu and four fingers. The Bistro that Serves Fufu and Four Fingers

And let us not forget those who are no longer with us.

R.I.P

La Fonda Boricua

LeWoro Dou Gou

La Pollada de Laura

Southbound Bar-B-Que

M&G Diner

Bay Shish Kebab

Uncle Sal’s Ribs and Brew

Malaysian Rasa Sayang

Zabb Queens

Florence’s Restaurant

Yamakaze

Spicy Mina

World of Taste Seafood and Deli

Treichville

M&G Diner circa 2010

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And the Answer is…

26 Mar

On Friday I posted the image below and challenged all of you to Name That Place.

I’m happy to report that I received a number of correct answers.

They knew that at this place, you would also see this magnificent vaulted tiled ceiling.

And that the place is known for these:

Where if you, god forbid, missed your train.

You could happily pass the time, slurping on this.

Oyster pan roast

At the 99-year old, Grand Central Oyster Bar.

Congratulations to all those who guessed correctly.  Stay tuned for another installment of Name That Place next month right here on Fried Neck Bones…and Some Home Fries.

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Name That Place

23 Mar

It’s just an old fashioned, bland, Formica covered restaurant counter. Old, in this case is the operative word and the only clue you’ll get. Those in the New York know will have absolutely no difficulty nailing this place. Others might be sidetracked, confused, led astray by the very basic, almost nondescript diner-like image. Any other images of the place besides the one above would immediately blow its cover and I don’t want to insult anyone’s New York City restaurant intelligence by doing that.

Good luck and leave your answers in the comments section below or email them to me at friedneckbones_andsomehomefries@yahoo.com.

The place will be revealed on Monday.

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Neckbones’ Rum Diary: The J.M Incident

4 Nov

After boarding the ferry in Dominica, I downed an extra-strength Dramamine. The weather was clear, the waters calm, yet I didn’t want to risk a bout of seasickness before arriving at my destination: the J.M Rum distillery in Martinique.

Keeping my eyes straight ahead and sitting upright, I ignored the young man next to me and the others around me who were retching into plastic bags given out by the ferry’s crew as the boat was pummeled mercilessly in the channel between the two islands, also known, as I found out later as the “Blue Vomit.”

The ferry on the seemingly tranquil “blue vomit.”

With Martinique in sight, I was a bit groggy and wobbly, but my stomach remained intact and, once I exited the ferry onto the streets of Fort-de-France, Martinique’s capital city, a taxi whisked me to the northeast tip of the island to a place known as Macouba. I knew we were close and as the taxi descended down a steep incline, the red copper-tin roofs came into view and I could see the steam from the stills rising from the distillery through the dense greenery of palm fronds.

The distillery in Macouba

As we pulled in front of the old distillery, I smelled the alcohol-tinged cane juice as it was being “cooked” in the stills. Taking a healthy whiff, the vapors immediately restored my equilibrium, still somewhat shaky from the Blue Vomit nightmare.

Passing barrels of rum and ignoring a tour of the facilities, I headed straight to the tasting room/gift shop. A sample of J.M’s velvety white rum improved my situation even further but it wasn’t until I sipped the brand’s  VSOP “rhum vieux”  that I knew I had finally found what I was seeking. The taste was something so pure; so delicately smooth that the horrors of the Blue Vomit were worth the ordeal just to sip this amber nectar.

Stills and barrels of rum

My mission complete, I bought a bottle and returned to Fort-de-France where the next day I was to board a plane to San Juan and then another back to New York.

Keeping my precious cargo close by in my carry on bag, I was instructed by security at the Martinique airport to put the rum in a clear plastic bag. I did as told and was granted access to the plane.

Rushing through San Juan’s Luis Munoz Marin International Airport to make my connection to JFK, I waited on line at security. When it was my turn to pass through the gates, an overzealous customs officer, and most likely a rum aficionado, spied my bottle of J.M.

“You can’t take that on,” he said gruffly.

“But it’s in a clear plastic bag,” I pleaded.

“You could go back and check it in,” he offered, obviously knowing I had no time to do so. “or…I’ll have to take it from you.”

I stared at him. He stared at me and then held out his hand. I had no choice. He took the bottle, hiding a satisfied grin behind his bogus official demeanor.

The shock hit me as I settled into my seat. I was trembling. Once we were in the air and I knew my prized possession was gone, tears came to my eyes.

“Why are you so sad,” the abuela  who was sitting next to me and on her way to visit her daughter and grandchildren in the Bronx,  asked. “Have you left a loved one behind?”

I turned to her, dabbed at my eyes and nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Time will cure your sorrow. Watch the movie. It’s funny.”

I looked up at the small screen. It was something with Adam Sandler. I didn’t laugh.

Even the comedy of Adam Sandler could not penetrate my sorrow.

The wise abuela was right. Time did heal the deep wound of loss. When I first returned to New York, I frantically searched the many liquor stores looking for the J.M VSOP Rhum Vieux, but with no luck. I abandoned my search and resigned myself to settle for other “old” rums.

But then, one evening when dining at a cacophonous, yet delicious high end eatery downtown, my eyes were drawn to the offering of Rhum J.M VSOP on the restaurant’s cocktail menu. My heart pounded. I looked for my waiter and saw him at another table. I waved. I snapped my fingers. I rudely whistled. People were staring. I didn’t care.  I needed him now.

Seeing my frantic state, he rushed over. “I want that!” I pointed to the listing of the J.M VSOP on the menu.

I tried to control my excitement as I waited at my table. I tapped my foot. I chewed on my lower lip. I stroked my cell phone and then it arrived. The beautiful amber fluid, served with just a twist of lime. I sipped. It was exactly how I remembered it. “Where,” I asked my waiter, “can I buy this?”

Liquid gold

He said he would check with the beverage manager. He returned with the name of the liquor store on a business card. I knew the place. I checked my watch. It wouldn’t be open now. I would have to wait until the next day.

I slept little that night, got up early and headed to the store to wait until they opened. As soon as the gates were pulled and the doors unlocked, I rushed in and found the rum section. There it was. The price was astronomical, at least twice what I paid for in Martinique, but I didn’t care. I bought a bottle that came in decorative box.

The rum now sits in a glass cabinet. I have yet to open it. I tried one evening, but I couldn’t do it. If I opened it, I would begin to drink it and eventually, maybe in a month, maybe more, the bottle would be empty. The thought chilled me to the core.

I’ve come now to accept that I will never open it, yet I do not care. It is mine. I possess it. And no one can take it away again…

Mine. All mine.

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Colombian Air in White Plains

25 Oct

Aires de Colombia
64 West Post Rd
White Plains, NY

Zio was behind the wheel, stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on First Avenue. He was muttering and cursing, though clearly not under his breath. We were on our way to White Plains in the middle of rush hour to a destination chosen by none other than the innocent seeming, though truly sadistic Gerry who has tormented us with restaurants in hard to reach and traffic congested locales such as Sheepshead Bay, Valhalla, Jersey City, and Fort Lee, to name just a few. Was his motive in choosing these hard to reach destinations to exact revenge on those of us who live in the New York City environs and take for granted how easy it is, via public transportation, to experience worldly culinary pleasures in the city as opposed to the suburbanite who, with a few exceptions, is a prisoner to his vehicle and must commute to find food nirvana. We weren’t sure, but as we inched along on First Avenue, the conspiracy theories were percolating rapidly.

Rick had already bowed out of this adventure;  a trip from the city to White Plains during rush hour and then back to his money pit in Atlantic Highlands New Jersey, much too stressful on his already commuting-frazzled nerves.

“This better not be like that mother f*****g mariachi place in Yonkers. I couldn’t even eat that s**t,” Zio spat, referring to Gerry’s ill fated Yonkers’ Mexican choice, Plaza Garibaldi.

The venom was flowing from Zio’s rotund frame. It got so bad we seriously considered pulling over and eating at nearby Patsy’s Pizzeria in East Harlem, or, if the traffic continued beyond the entrance to the Bruckner, driving to Hunt’s Point for one of Fratelli’s broccoli rabe “Grandma” pies.

With our intentions now clear, Zio seemed to calm down and once we were able to get onto the Bruckner, the traffic dissipated and we quickly decided to go back to our first option and head on to White Plains. Gerry and Eugene were waiting outside Aires de Colombia on a strip populated by a variety of Latin restaurants.

Trump infested downtown White Plains

Looking at the restaurant, I recalled that when I was living in White Plains, the location of Aires de Colombia was near a bar I frequented back when the drinking age was 18 and I was a bit younger called DePalo’s Dugout. At DePalo’s each night there was a half hour where beer was free. My high school friends and I took full advantage of the offer, taking turns going up to the bar until our table was overflowing with pitchers and almost enough beer to get us through the night.

Back when I was filling up on beer instead of rice, beans, and chicharrones, which I was planning to do at Aires de Colombia, there were no Latin restaurants on this stretch of Post Road. And driving into White Plains with its many gleaming glass towers, I noted that there were no Ritz Carlton’s or Trump Towers either in the disco days of my youth.

Gerry had already visited Aires de Colombia and was disappointed to say that the television near our table and above the bar had been removed. When he visited he was entertained by Colombian dancing girls on the screen which, according to Gerry, only enhanced the dining experience. The bartender who also served as our hostess and waitress spoke little English but enough to say that she had two English language menus while the rest were in Spanish. Neither did me any good because it was much too dark where we sat for me to read any language. The bar crowd was amused at our pathetic attempts to converse with our waitress, which, to me, was a good sign. Our group being a silly spectacle for the establishment’s regulars meant that we had hit upon a truly authentic destination, though the inebriated grin directed toward Gerry from one the bar’s patrons had him slightly unnerved.

Colombian deep fried pork belly

We began with the aforementioned chicharron, a long, deep fried until practically charred, piece of pork belly, the intense saltiness paired beautifully with the cold Aguila beer I was drinking. The chicharron was accompanied by an arepa, Colombian corn bread topped with a heavy sprinkling of cheese. While waiting for our beef empanadas, I excused myself to visit the restrooms. On the way, I passed the half door opening that led to the kitchen and noticed a woman with a head scarf scurrying between the stove and a table where she was rolling out dough for the empanadas. The sight was more than reassuring and I was confident that Aires de Colombia would not be like “that mother f*****g mariachi place in Yonkers.”

Colombian condiments

The empanadas that soon arrived at our table were as good as I’ve had anywhere and remarkably, tasted as if they were hand rolled by a Colombian woman in a head scarf. But the “starters” were not light fare and when they were followed by enormous platters of meat; beef with French fried potatoes and onions known as “lomo saltado,”  rolled, stuffed pork, steak, more chicharrones, and lengua (tongue) described as our waitress in her struggling English as “sweet tongue” and all of the meats accompanied by rice, beans, tostones, maduras, yucca, aquacate (avocado) and a hard, dry round “arepa” that was the only disappointment of the night, it soon became a struggle to eat. There was, apparently, a bottom to our collective bottomless pits. The one exception to all the meat was a platter of shrimp in a creamy garlic sauce that, though tasty, not quite worthy enough to veer from the meat side of the menu.

An empanada, an arepa and more chicharrones.

The dishes soon were cleared except those in front of Mike from Yonkers who was still picking at the “sweet” tongue. The rest of us were glassy-eyed and dazed by the cholesterol onslaught.

“100 crunches every morning,” Eugene droned, patting his ridiculously flat stomach. “And no more junk for breakfast. Fruit. Granola. Oatmeal. .. ” The arrival of our check spared us from having to listen to Eugene anymore and after tallying it up, the result put us a bit above our $20 food budget.  No one complained that we had gone over budget. The hardship of getting to Aires de Colombia was temporarily forgotten in our food-induced stupor.  We gathered our things and went outside to listen a bit to the very noticeable silence on the deserted White Plains’ street before getting in our respective vehicles and driving home.

Unfortunately, we missed the great Oscar D’Leon’s performance at Prophecy.

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Linguini and Cape Cod Clams: Manhattan-Style

30 Aug

Nauset Beach Clams

Thanks to the hard work of the very generous owner of the 100-year-old house I rent with my family each summer in Cape Cod, a bucket of freshly dug little neck and cherrystone clams was waiting for us when we returned one day from the beach. I could make chowdah, New England-style with potatoes, milk, onions and bacon. I could just open them up and eat them raw. I could steam them and dip them in butter and broth. Or, considering I had several ripe, in season, tomatoes that I wanted to use before they became overripe, I could make linguini with clam sauce, Manhattan-style (meaning a tomato-based sauce).

Local tomatoes

Given the option at a restaurant between red or white clam sauce, I always prefer the latter; the hearty red tomato sauce usually obscuring the distinct flavor of the clams. White clam sauce works for me. The garlic, olive oil, white wine, some red pepper flakes, and then the broth from the just opened clams makes for the perfect complement to either spaghetti or linguini. It’s easy to make and really, the only danger to screwing it up is to overcook the clams.

But with those ripe tomatoes and the bucket of clams, I decided to take a chance and combine the two over linguini.

This is what I used for the sauce:

4 overly ripe fresh, large tomatoes, diced.

20 clams (Cherrystone and Little Necks combined)

3 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup of chopped white onion

2 tbs of chopped basil

1 ½ pounds of linguini

¼ cup of olive oil

½ teaspoon of hot red pepper flakes

I first diced the tomatoes not bothering with skinning or seeding them and put them in a bowl with a few sprinkles of Kosher salt. While the tomatoes macerated, I rinsed the clams in cold water to remove whatever sand was clinging to them. Once cleaned, I put the clams in a big pot adding about an inch of water to steam them.* Covering the pot and turning the fire on high, I steamed the clams just until their shells opened and then put them aside.

The clams now steamed open.

Using a large skillet, I added the olive oil and softened the onions and garlic sprinkling the red pepper flakes into the pan. When the onions and garlic were cooked, I tossed in the tomatoes adding the broth from the steamed clams and brought it all to a low simmer.

Cooking the tomatoes down

While the tomatoes cooked down, I removed the clams from the shells and roughly chopped them. Chopped clams, in my opinion, should not be uniform in size. I like the surprise of a big, juicy belly along with the tougher tail end of the clam.

The clams chopped.

After chopping the clams, I boiled the water for the linguini. Once the water boiled, I tossed in the pasta, adding salt to the water. Just before the linguini was cooked al dente I folded the chopped clams and the chopped basil into the sauce, keeping it on a fire just hot enough to heat them.

The sauce.

Using tongs, I tossed the linguini in the sauce and then into bowls.

The result was a light, fresh, briny tomato sauce where, in this case, the flavor of the clams and the broth balanced each other perfectly.

Linguini and Cape Cod Clam sauce: Manhattan-Style: As pretty as it gets after too much “limeade.”

*Before I began preparing the meal, I had told myself to save about a half dozen of the smallest of the little necks to steam open directly in the sauce. The clams in their shells would not only look nice, but because of their size, also remain tender. But while preparing the above dish, I began to consume multiple glasses of limeade spiked with vodka and when it came time to steam the clams, dumped them all into the pot including the few I was hoping to reserve.  Once I realized my mistake, it was too late. The little necks were cooked.

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Today’s Special: Cape Cod Edition

25 Aug

And yummy it was.

 

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