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.