Hot Pockets
No one likes a horn-tooter, but it's not like many folks follow the New York Post's food coverage, let alone their Tempo section. So, allow me to trumpet away. Here's my piece from today on crazy flavored empanadas.
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Aug 18
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El Rincon Familiar
A girlfriend of an acquaintance recommended this place to my boyfriend. If anyone, she would know Tex-Mex since she grew up in the Lone Star State. I wasnt so wowed. I wanted gooey, greasy, cheese-laden fare, and this felt almost like spa food. Everything was clean, dry, fat-free and flavorless. My chicken enchiladas had no taste. The meat was too lean, Ive never understood the appeal of chicken breasts (though I use them extensively at home, we have the giant Costco bag in the freezer, but thats exactly why I dont want to eat chicken breasts at restaurants). The refried beans tasted dull and almost healthy. Not a lick of oil slicked the plate. It was all very Park Slope (despite being in that no man's land that's technically Sunset Park) and so not what I'd had in mind. I'd just as well stick with Mezcals for this sort of Americanized border food.
El Rincon Familiar * 651 Fifth Ave., Brooklyn, NY
Sweetwater
1/2
Williamsburg so rarely has its act together food-and-service-wise. You might get one, youre not likely to get both, and you just might get neither. I dont know if my standards have risen with my age, but my tolerance for cramped ill-thought-out seating, same table entrees spaced twenty minutes apart, and so-so dishes, isnt what it used to be.
I liked the idea of eating in a restaurant called Sweetwater that used to be the bar Sweetwater, at least for the sake of novelty. Not being wowed by any of the cooked offerings, I opted for a charcuterie platter and frisee salad. I guess thats French, though I wouldnt say this is a French restaurant. My food was perfectly fine, but James had a different feeling about his fish that almost never arrived.
I was more irked by the person seated haphazardly behind me. I was properly seated, squarely at a table. His chair had no proper place and had been added onto the corner of a table diagonal to me. The backs of our chairs were just shy of touching, which created blockage for anyone trying to get through the restaurant. I'm not the restaurant designer, it wasnt my idea, yet I managed to garner dirty looks all evening from patrons insistent on squeezing past. Perhaps this wouldnt have gotten under my skin so much if earlier, on the subway ride home this fat guido hadnt been shouting at me “Sweetie! Sweetie! Move ovah” from the complete other end of the row like it was my responsibility to give his ass space. I take these things personally.
Vibe matters, and it overshadowed my dining experience. I so rarely eat in Williamsburg anymore anyway that Sweetwater wouldnt warrant a return visit.
Sweetwater * 105 N. Sixth St., Brooklyn, NY
Rangoon Run
Ok, I just went outside for the first time today (well, technically I was in the hall earlier for about 15 min. barefooted and wet-haired answering census bureau questions about crime) to get Chinese take out (I’m too cheap to have it delivered. I’ve always had a thrifty streak but I fear it’s getting worse. The other day at work they had all these pastries and fresh fruit set up in a common area as a reward for everyone moving offices [my office wasn’t moving] so of course I had to get some. But the truly miserly librarian-ish behavior came out after the food was all gone. I actually went out and saw all the plastic cutlery that hadn’t been used, grabbed a bunch and stashed it in my drawer. Jesus. And when I recently visited the swanky bathroom at Yumcha for my birthday dinner I was completely wowed by the almost cotton towel quality of their nicely folded paper towels and crammed a handful in my purse because I figured they’d make better subway sweat mops than the Kleenex I’d been using that sticks to my face and that I’m unaware of until hours later when I look in a mirror).
I don’t do the ubiquitous NYC hole-in-the-wall Chinese thing very often, but when I do I’m always shocked at the insane amount of food. Even as a penny-pincher and glutton, I’m a little appalled. No wonder they’re so popular. All I really wanted were crab rangoon, a mild guilty pleasure that I only seem to eat when I’m alone. But I figured I’d get one of those combos too to not look like a total freak (that’s the other reason I didn’t do delivery—the 10 for $3.25 rangoons don’t meet the minimum).
String beans and pork seemed mildly healthy, at least there would be some vegetables and nothing else breaded and/or fried. I picked the $7 dinner for one, which ended up also including a shitload of fried rice (the default, I was fine with plain white), fried wontons, wonton soup, sweet and sour spareribs and “chicken fingers.” Oh, and a can of soda, which I turned down because I’m not pop person. But they were all “it’s free,” which I realized, and then felt bad for saying no and got a ginger ale. Easily dinner for three, or two hungry people. I don’t know whether I should be impressed with how much food I got for around ten bucks or disturbed. Self-imposed portion control, I guess (for the record, I only ate half the rangoons and all the spareribs). So, I might be a pathetic Sat. night Chinese take out food orderer, but I draw the line at watching Ghost Dad on the PAX Network. Who knew it was directed by Sidney Poitier?
I think rangoons are best enjoyed with Thai sweet chile sauce, but dammit if I wasn’t out. I improvised using rooster sauce mixed with one of those orange duck sauce plastic packets. Nice emergency substitution.
Drunk Noodles
This afternoon at work, pad thai noodles seemed like a good dinner idea. I had most of the ingredients, I’d only have to stop by the store for cilantro, bean sprouts and tofu. But as five o’clock neared, drinks took precedence. I rarely go out with coworkers, and never in midtown, but what the heck, I had the next day off.
But being midtown–we were checking out the newly opened Chemist Club around the block (this was formerly Britney Spears’s short lived Nyla, if you recall)–I could really only swing two drinks. And that’s the weird part. $22 and two pinot noirs (Willamette Valley, of course) later, I was drunk. Whenever I set out on a night of serious drinking I can down 5-6 cocktails before feeling properly punchy. There’s something about weeknights, imbibing when it’s still light out, being in the company of work mates instead of friend friends, I don’t know, that seems to accelerate the effects of alcohol.
Shopping for even three ingredients had lost its appeal on the way home. I walked in the door, starving and a little loopy, and it was only 7:30pm. More drinks seemed in order, so I dug up some hard cider left over from my birthday party a few weekends before. Now food seemed dire, but pad thai wasn’t going to work right anymore.
However, I did have most of the ingredients for pad kee mao, a.k.a. drunken noodles. Perfect. I would do a bastardized hybrid that might bother me any other night because I’m a rule follower, but when you’re hungry, desperate, and well, drunk, rules can be bent. I threw together the following in an attempt to approximate something mildly authentic while using up leftovers.
And besides, drunken noodles are named as such, not because they contain any alcohol, but because they are crazy spicy and a good companion for beer. What could be better on an unexpectedly tipsy Thursday night?
Drunk Noodles
1/2 lb. rice noodles (thick is better, but any will do)
1/2 lb. large shrimp (luckily they were already shelled, I didn’t bother to devein, but did slice them in half)
15 thai chiles, chopped
1 head of garlic, chopped
2 tbs. peanut oil
1/2 cup red onion (should’ve used shallots, and did have some, but they’re a pain to peel and all my energy had already done to prepping the garlic)
2 tbs. oyster sauce
1 tsp. sugar
2 tbs. fish sauce
1 tbs. green peppercorns (if they’re in brine like mine, rinse well and drain)
2 big handfuls of spinach (this is very wrong, but I didn’t have basil like you should for drunken noodles or cilantro like for pad thai. I did have a bunch of spinach that was going to go bad if I didn’t use it pronto, and who couldn’t use more iron in their diet?)
1 tbs. chile radish (for pad thai you can use salted radish, which I didn’t have on hand, but chile radish is awesome if you love that hot preserved flavor that isn’t really Thai at all. I put chile radish in places it doesn’t belong all the time)
Soak rice noodles in warm water for 30 minutes or so.
While noodles soak, pound garlic and chiles in mortar and pestle to a nice pulp. Cilantro stems should also be in this mix, but I didn’t have any.
Heat wok on high, add oil, then the garlic-chile puree. Toss in the red onions/shallots too. Cook for a little less than a minute.
Add shrimp (you can use all sorts of seafood, but I happened to have frozen shrimp). Cook until shrimp turns pink, then sprinkle the oyster sauce, fish sauce and sugar.
Mix in noodles. Cook for about a minute. Try to get out the clumps.
Add green peppercorns, chile radish and spinach, and try not to be annoyed that the nice holy basil and scent and flavor is lacking.
Makes about four servings, less if you are very hungry.
Very roughly adapted from Dancing Shrimp, by Kasma Loha-Unchit. Simon & Schuster (2000)
Sidewalk Score
Despite not being terribly collectible, I persist in collecting that late ‘60s/early ‘70s Time Life Foods of the World series. I’m certain that these books are gathering dust in corners of thrift stores and crannies of basements around the nation. But NYC is no second-hand paradise, no matter what natives will boast. I rely on my mom to send any (there are picture-filled hardbacks and accompanying spiral-bound recipe soft covers) she scores out west my way. She’s inexplicably started an Amazon.com hobby-business selling used books, not a bad Portland proposition since the city’s roaming with cast offs at prices you’d never find here.
I was walking home from work, just a block away on 3rd Pl. when I noticed a hearty, manly roast beef photograph staring up from the sidewalk at me. What the heck? It was the British Isles volume, one I was lacking. Now all the secrets of Yorkshire pudding, toad-in-the-hole and cockaleekie, illustrated in creepy-cool still life, are all mine.
Haggis fanfare
