Daylight savings time is so great! I had an extra hour to get to Brooklyn for brunch with Elizabeth. It took me no time at all to get to the Pacific stop on the N train. She wanted to check out Miriam. The folks on chowhound.com dug it, so she thought it would be a good choice. It was good, though I was a little worried at first. When we walked in, it sort of smelled like dirty mop head. I don't mean greasy hipster hair, I mean that smell of a floors that have been washed with an old mop. But I got used to the smell and truthfully, it probably doesn't smell all the time. Anyway, I realized that I'd had brunch there before earlier this year, but it was called Surreal Cafe.
But it's Miriam now and the food has a Mediterranean influence. I forgot the name of my dish, Mediterranean bread or something. Basically it was a pita fried in butter with eggs of my choice (over easy, of course!) pickles, harissa and a tomato sauce. It was tasty and only $8.95. I guess the coffee was included because our waitress didn't charge us extra. Elizabeth had an omelette with home fries and salad. It looked okay.
Overall the food was okay; however, not that exciting. Granted, the spirit of brunch is not about the 10 dollar eggs, it's about spending time with your friends. I'm just always looking for that food excitement.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
99 cent quickie
What movie is that quote from about sex being like pizza, even when it's bad, it's still pretty good? I dunno, I kind of feel like 99 cent pizza is better than bad sex. And you can get both around Port Authority! On 41st and 8th Ave. right next to the Stiles Farmers Market (a great place to get cheap produce in midtown), the slice is still 99 cents. It's perfect after bowling or whatever it is one does around the Port Authority...
Friday, October 21, 2005
In closing, more sadness
Perhaps I'm just depressed because of my job and the approaching winter, but all I see are sad endings. Eat at Joe's pizza place on 2nd between East 4th and 5th is closed. This happened before, maybe a year ago. Joe's was closed, and I was scared they had closed. He was just on vacation, and then they did a little reconstruction. Added some mirror, removed a booth, added a ledge for barstools. But this time, it looks like Joe is gone. There's plywood up around the storefront. I'll miss seeing Joe's enormous belly thinly covered with a messy teeshirt as he sat in front of the store fanning himself on a chair. I'll miss the old westerns I guess they watched on video on a ancient tv near the AC in the front. But most of all I'll miss Joe's slice hot out of the oven eaten on the half block walk to my apartment. Ugh, I feel like watching "the Champ."
Saturday, October 01, 2005
September hiatus
I’ve been too bummed out this September to write.
A couple of things have changed. My job ended. I have a new one that’s not as good. Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. My family visited the city when I was a kid. The one thing I remember is the amazing taste and texture of those famous Cafe Du Monde beignets. I had some beignets recently at a seemingly Goth coffeeshop in the East Village called the Bourgeois Pig. The beignets were indeed fried dough with powdered sugar, but they lacked the fluffiness that I remember from Du Monde. The Pig’s coffee was pretty good though, served it in a tall ruby red cut glass.
My sadness is also compounded by the fact that two of my favorite places have closed down.
Havana Pies was a great spot on 23rd St. that served affordable (nothing over $5)
empanadas. You could get your choice of baked or fried and they were all yummy. I won’t describe them because well, what’s the point? Granted, Papa’s Empanadas (www.papasempanadas.com) in Queens is the best because they are delicious and dirt cheap, but they are too far away. Empanada Mamma (763 9th Ave. 212.698.9008) is very similar to Papa’s except that everything costs $1.25 more, but they’ve got to pay their Midtown Manhattan rent. Ruben’s is ok, but not my favorite. Nope, Havana Pies was the best in my opinion, and they’re gone.
And now my favorite Chinese noodle shop. Now where can I go after a bike ride on the East River for an amazing bowl of hand-drawn noodle soup? I can’t go to Golden Wok Noodle House, that’s for sure. Now that it’s chilly, I’ve been craving noodle soup, but I don’t always want to pay 10 bucks for it at Momofuko, Minca, Rai Rai Ken or that place near HairMates on St. Marks . So I head down to Chinatown.
At the corner of Catherine and Henry in the part of Chinatown that I never go to unless on my bike, a young Chinese couple served the best noodle soup. The wiry armed husband pulled a blob of soft dough into thousands of supple noodles which he handed off to his wife who boiled them. She plopped them into a delicious bowl of broth and your choice of meat or veg. He then sprinkled the bowl with cilantro and delivered it to your spot. Take my word for it – that noodle soup was out of this world. Especially at those prices, again nothing was over five bucks.
It’s really upsetting but all too common to see a really hardworking couple (they were open from 10-10 everyday!!) with a fabulous product have to close their doors. I hope they did it because they won the lottery and not because they couldn’t afford the rent.
A couple of things have changed. My job ended. I have a new one that’s not as good. Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. My family visited the city when I was a kid. The one thing I remember is the amazing taste and texture of those famous Cafe Du Monde beignets. I had some beignets recently at a seemingly Goth coffeeshop in the East Village called the Bourgeois Pig. The beignets were indeed fried dough with powdered sugar, but they lacked the fluffiness that I remember from Du Monde. The Pig’s coffee was pretty good though, served it in a tall ruby red cut glass.
My sadness is also compounded by the fact that two of my favorite places have closed down.
Havana Pies was a great spot on 23rd St. that served affordable (nothing over $5)
empanadas. You could get your choice of baked or fried and they were all yummy. I won’t describe them because well, what’s the point? Granted, Papa’s Empanadas (www.papasempanadas.com) in Queens is the best because they are delicious and dirt cheap, but they are too far away. Empanada Mamma (763 9th Ave. 212.698.9008) is very similar to Papa’s except that everything costs $1.25 more, but they’ve got to pay their Midtown Manhattan rent. Ruben’s is ok, but not my favorite. Nope, Havana Pies was the best in my opinion, and they’re gone.
And now my favorite Chinese noodle shop. Now where can I go after a bike ride on the East River for an amazing bowl of hand-drawn noodle soup? I can’t go to Golden Wok Noodle House, that’s for sure. Now that it’s chilly, I’ve been craving noodle soup, but I don’t always want to pay 10 bucks for it at Momofuko, Minca, Rai Rai Ken or that place near HairMates on St. Marks . So I head down to Chinatown.
At the corner of Catherine and Henry in the part of Chinatown that I never go to unless on my bike, a young Chinese couple served the best noodle soup. The wiry armed husband pulled a blob of soft dough into thousands of supple noodles which he handed off to his wife who boiled them. She plopped them into a delicious bowl of broth and your choice of meat or veg. He then sprinkled the bowl with cilantro and delivered it to your spot. Take my word for it – that noodle soup was out of this world. Especially at those prices, again nothing was over five bucks.
It’s really upsetting but all too common to see a really hardworking couple (they were open from 10-10 everyday!!) with a fabulous product have to close their doors. I hope they did it because they won the lottery and not because they couldn’t afford the rent.
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