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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

ORGANIKA CAFE...maybe i am just morphing or shapeshifting into Gordon Ramsey


Organika on Urbanspoon

Maybe the air conditioner at 69 7th ave South just broke yesterday and maybe the ravioli wasn't frozen and maybe all Italian organic wines are crayola yellow...and maybe the plate for the whole grain pasta (good!)
wasn't the size of a bar mitzvah frisbee/vase centerpiece....and maybe I should have warned the new arrival with the Colgate sweat shirt out of school loyalty...and maybe I shouldn't have scooted Jim away from this place and taken him to Perilla when Jeanne spotted the Albanian checking out the menu. As Hank Snow said, "Maybe I'm right,Maybe I'm wrong Could this be something good? Maybe I'm weak...Maybe...

Saturday, June 25, 2011

FORK and VINE...Glen Rock LIRR Station


Some,including me,like it hot

Sitin at the rail road station...waitin for my destination...THEN BINGO. An excellent bar with wasabi hot soy nuts and crunchy fresh chips---Billy Holiday is singing and as i grab some nuts, I see the screen at the end of the bar showing (a sign from the food gods): "Some Like It Hot"...I  like it hot and I also like the red pepper flecked cockles in broth with celery and garlic and chorizo. And carafe of sancere and two chicken sliders with slaw.  This was a great way to kill an hour after the dentist and before racing to Greenwood Cemetery for a trolley to the outdoor ,amidst -the -graves musical theatre spooky victorianesque SPOON RIVER PROJECT.
Fork and Vine on the right side of the tracks

Monday, June 20, 2011

Coast Grill N SEA LI

Sophie performs tribute to Grandpa Meyer and his thimble magic.

Takahachi Japanese Bakery now on Murray




Still on Av A and another on Duane st. These pastries and breads look and taste pretty.

Diane's Cafe in Roslyn LI was disappointed in Father's Day ...we were not

There were too many cancellations on Sunday for Diane to be happy but the salmon for Caroline and the buccatini for jeanne and the spagetti bolognese for Brother Lane and the ricotta gnocchi for me with sausage and the Vermentino
made our LIE fathers day respite nice...curly haired retrievers squashing us and all.
CAROLINE


Gnocchi

LANE

23 Bryant ave 5166212522.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Dumplings at Bar Reis 5st and 5av in Brooklyn


This  friendly bar with a basement garden and a rambuctious late eve vibe has tried tacos and tamales in their side store but all were awful but now they may have struck dumpling gold...ask inside the bar or go for take out. The soup with noodles and dumplings was good..even better if they didnt overcook the noodles.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Verde on Irving? the pizza of my Bushwick childhood.

I want pizza


Lane and I like pizza
Coponata




12noon Sat....PART 1---Tonight we go in search of that elusive pie of my childhood. My brother says it may be just a function of a child memory enhancement (he used other words). The recollection: we'd call
from our rotary phone in the linoleum store on Wilson Ave(formerly Hamburg, before WW1) ...Glenmore 5-4512.
Mom would the send me with the $5?? I would walk to Central or Evergreen and Bleeker or Greene???
I am sure it was a bar. I am sure the was a side entrance and that Rheingold, the one beer to have when you are having more than one, or Schaefer or Schlitz was on the floor and in the air. "Wait here ,Kid, on the wood chair with the round seat in this small space next to the curtain ." He had come from behind the bar to toss the dough which i could see him do through the heavy curtain made of the kind of material that draped the screens at the Rivoli on Myrtle or the Madison or the Parthenon or even the Chinese restaurant upstairs with the female impersonators to which my parents took out of towners if they didn't go to Ben Massicks? Country something and something Club or THE ELEGANTE.  He dropped basil and oregano on the cheese and sauce. He left to pour a draft and returned to check the coal...we had coal too in our store basement and a coal stove and on Harmon the super fed coal into the furnace and at school we saw a film about back faced miners with head lamps. The pie was boxed... returned to the store and there Mom and Bro and I ate. We ate the char and the luscious cheese and the tomato ambrosia.
And now with a big birthday pending ..."and imminent even," as Snaglepus would say,,,I am headed blocks from that bar...to Irving because someone found an old coal pizza oven and built a restaurant around it based on a grandfather clause that allows such unhealthy environmental activity to continue. The hunt is on. Tune in later.

Like a madelaine the foyer tile of my apartment building

My apartment birth to 16 same but we had no air
conditioner


roasted potatoes and cheese and rosemary

Part 2  1215am  We saw the tile foyer ..mosaic of my childhood home and walked to Verde....Soon i realized this was Webers bakery where my Dad got his crumb buns, and soon we were listening in as customers described Connie Francis' roots in this hood and Jackie Gleason's home on Chauncey street. We ate amazing roasted potatoes with primo de sale cheese and rosemary and had coponeta on toast and an artichoke pizza and a margarita. All good though the pizza was different than the kind I knew. And then we visited the oven...and met the team and received an out of the oven bread...warm like those from La rosas for 14cents in 1954 (scaletta?).
                I saw Rella's place,the coal and ice and later fuel oil friend of my dad's .  I found a place where my childhood is remembered. But I won't stop eating pizza at totonos or franny or la villa or petes or lombardis or peppinos or grimaldi..but I will go back to Verde .

Verde on Smith (Baltic st)




Feast

Putanesca

Lobster Feast and strawberry/ricotta salad and spagetti putanesca and baked clams and clams on the half shell and a garden and a $23 fallanghina . Wait staff from Italia,sweet but unsure. Nice way to kick off the week's end.   Verde on Smith on Urbanspoon

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Dao Palate




Vegetarian Asian on 5av and so good. Dumplings and avacado salad and moo shoo and and pumpkin soup,perfectly spiced.
Dao Palate on Urbanspoon

Wall and Water in the Andaz Hotel may be the latest best





Try the seafood pot pie in a tomato broth or make a sandwich with 5 elements. The Artichoke was a gift. The manager had hot sauce in his pocket so the pot pie was perfect. Try the fish and chips downstairs. Service so kind and thoughtful . Wall & Water on Urbanspoon