Posts by krista

Sep 12

Livin’ la Vida Local

Groan

If I have to read about one more NYC’er living off the land, I will hurl up locally sourced bile. I wish that I could care about all this stuff (I did make it about 80% of the way through The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I don’t see Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in my future) but I can’t. And being deep into my freezer scavenger project, you know I’m not living la vida local.

The New Yorker usually scares me but I was bored enough in the airport last weekend to pick up the annual food issue (and then I was still bored). I felt like a douche brandishing some “my state is better than yours” periodical badge even though obvs New Yorker readers don’t all reside in New York.

Adam Gopnik had the requisite urban locavore article, complete with precocious quips from his author’s children. Lucky for you, “New York Local: Eating the fruits of the five boroughs” is one of the few articles freely available online.

Today I was treated to the New York version of this hot earthy trend, except Manny Howard isn’t so much sourcing as doing it himself. Good for him.

There are universals in these tales. Up-for-anything male narrators, an exasperated yet understanding wife, and if at all possible small children. (I know I’ll invoke foodie wrath but I’ve never found Calvin Trillin [as well a currently high profile, self-promoting, accurately monikered blogger that shall remain nameless—what am I? Regina Schrambling?!] as hilarious as others do [plus he stole my fantasy/idea of creating a hawker center in NYC for his New Yorker piece on Singapore. He’d put his on the Hudson River while I think the waterfront along Red Hook or Sunset Park would be better suited but I suspect both suggestions are selfishly based upon proximity to the idea generator’s home]. It’s the foiblesome guy coupled with straight-man wife that fails to grab me, kind of the Larry David wife as comedic foil M.O. except that I do like Curb Your Enthusiasm. Maybe I’m more disconcerted by so much female food writing centering around nostalgia, family and recipe-driven life lessons.)

Oh, and despite never having written for The New Yorker, as his bio points out, I'd also like to add "Alternadad" Neal Pollack to the mix. Just because.

At least the New York writer lives in Kensington and not classic brownstone Brooklyn, making me sick farming in his quaint $2 mil home. In fact, it looks like he paid $830,000 for the little eight-bedroom house in 2003. Or rather his wife did, as the title appears to be in her name, which is completely unsurprising. Someone’s got to subsidize a freelance writing career in NYC.

Ok, I wasn’t going to actually read the article, but you can’t get mildly cranky over a cover a magazine without at least skimming the text. Ok, it’s actually kind of creepy. There’s a lot of accidental animal death, so I guess you could call it the story of a Brooklyn family of bunny and duck killers. Dark comedy or not, god invokes his wrath on the city slicker by sending a rare, inexplicable tornado to destroy his fecund patch of land. Now, it all makes sense. We have Manny to blame for the freak weather incident last month.

If I have to agree with one sentiment, it’s the final sentences:

“It wasn’t just a matter of buying regionally, or seasonally, or organically—the important thing was to consume responsibly. ‘I’ll never be as wasteful,’ she said. ‘We throw away more food than we eat.’”

That’s a lesson I don’t need to learn from growing my own food, and it’s exactly why I have to eat all the crap stored in my freezers. There’ll be no waste (or bunny or duck maiming) in this household.

*Hilarious non-New Yorker cartoon lifted from CartoonStock. I wish I knew who Dave was.

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Sep 11

Sunday Night Special: Birria de Chivo

It’s fall freezer cleaning time, which means going through all the crap that’s accumulated in both of them (yes, two) since lord knows when and no, not tossing it, cooking it. Maybe I’ll get food poisoned but it looks like I won’t need to buy any proteins (ew, I hate it when chefs and whoever else use that unappetizing term) for a couple weeks. Here’s the gruesome break down:

-Pork ribs were grilled Saturday night
-Chicken wings were buffalo-ized Sunday afternoon
-Lamb roast will become mutton kolhapuri (from a mix—we also have enough dried and canned goods to last into 2008)
-Lamb chops will be barbecued yueyang style
-Beef roast will be turned into rending
-Ground beef will transform into American hard shell tacos with cheddar cheese and lettuce
-Ground pork? I’m not sure yet, maybe ma po tofu

I also found a bag of cheese curds I bought in Montreal Labor Day weekend ’06. Sad as it makes me, I’m not sure how great year-old frozen cheese is. They do sell curds in the neighborhood so my eventual poutine experiment won’t be a total bust.

[written on Sunday] But presently, I’m only concerned with the goat chunks I’m turning into birria this evening. I went with a Rick Bayless recipe, but quickly realized I had the wrong cut of meat. I have bone-in hunks made for stewing while he requires a five-pound solid mass of meat. I’m not sure how well the steaming approach will work with my tougher bits of goat.

[back to the past tense] Well, it succeeded in using up freezer meat and a bag of guajillo chiles that have been neglected for months, but didn’t quite succeed as an amazingly tasty meal. You’re supposed to skim fat from the broth but there didn’t even appear to be any broth; it all looked like orange oil. I did what I could to clean it up. The flavor was there but the meat was like jerky. I almost lost a tooth. Americans seem to hate goat meat, and this use of the gamey flesh would only succeed in scaring most people further. I’ve only eaten birria once in Chicago so I’m hardly a connoisseur, but wrong is wrong. Lesson learned: do not attempt to steam stew meat.

At least my evening was salvaged by the pretty as a pastel rainbow mithai I picked up at Dehli Palace earlier in the day. I love their box decorated with photo collage of the goods.

Clearly, there is no throwing out of food in my household, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that while James was home sick yesterday that he attempted salvaging the birria. After sitting in the refrigerator overnight, the fat had congealed enough to easily remove. That was a start, and then he stewed the whole thing within an inch of its life (after giving up on steaming, I let the meaty bones cook in the broth for about an hour the night before to no avail). And it succeeded. I had un-bad birria waiting for me when I came home from work. A squeeze of lime and a few corn tortillas enhanced the new and improved meal. I didn’t take any photos of round two, though.

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Sep 10

Habanos Cafe

A cubano at Latin American Cafeteria was first on my agenda, post-disembarkment. But it wasn’t meant to be. I’ve never experienced a two-plus hour wait for a rental car, and I’m still not sure if that was a uniquely Miami pain in the ass or a typical Labor Day weekend trauma. Not only was I starving by 4pm but also concerned that we were going to ruin our 9pm dinner appetites with hefty sandwiches (assuming we eventually got them).

Well, we followed the directions to the address I had looked up and there was no Latin American Cafeteria to be found (though we did pass one about twenty blocks before reaching our intended destination). Being exhausted, sweaty and defeated, we gave up and decided to eat at Habanos Café, the casual Cuban restaurant residing at the address. Driving back twenty blocks would've been too ennervating at this point. After taking a seat on the more formal side, which was hardly stuffy; it was simply tables and chairs rather than counter and stools, we discovered that cubanos weren’t on the menu. Argh. My first impressions of Miami were not stellar.

Fine. I was hungry enough to eat a full on meal anyway. And frankly, the food was considerably better than the frumpy décor and geriatric clientele belied. Not to say that old frumps necessarily have bad taste, but it’s hard to banish the cranky early bird special stereotypes.

For me, keeping it light involved beans, rice, yuca and roast pork, just eschewing an appetizer for good measure. The moros had to have had pork fat in them because instead of dry graininess, they were soft and dare I say succulent (ok, I don’t dare—that word drives me crazy even when it involves plants). They weren’t like filler, the way I usually treat them, but could be a meal alone. The fried yuca was different that I was accustomed to, also. Usually, the starchiness requires a glass of water nearby. These were creamy inside rather than chewy and the exterior crackingly crisp. I was only going to eat half of my lechon, but that didn’t happen either; there wasn’t a dry strip in the pile or pork.

I attempted to revive myself with a cafecito and marveled at what tasty food could be found at unremarkable restaurants. Perhaps Miami could redeem itself.

Habanos Café * 9796 SW 24th St., Miami, FL

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Sep 9

Michy’s

At least one “nice” dinner should be squeezed into a vacation, even if it’s just an extended weekend jaunt. But where in Miami? No offense to savvy residents but message boards weren’t much help. I couldn’t trust the posters’ judgment and knew I was in trouble when I glanced at the top five most booked restaurants on Open Table and three were Seasons 52, a Darden chain (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, et al.), a fact strategically absent from their website. Sure, I love me some chains but this wasn’t what I’d had in mind.

Not good, and I wasn’t about to touch a flashy clone like Nobu or Table 8 either. In fact, I wasn’t gung ho on South Beach at all. We never set foot or tire within the area, at least not that I was aware of. I did look at the ocean and walked in sand for maybe 60 seconds near a mini South American enclave, though.

I eventually settled on Michy’s, a restaurant I hadn’t initially considered because of the celebrity chef. But then I had to remind myself of how stupid that was considering that Michelle Bernstein hasn’t been on Food Network in a million years and her guest judge appearance on season two’s Top Chef hardly tarnished her image. Melting Pot was from a different era. Michelle Bernstein wouldn’t pose covered in tomato sauce or demonstrate her Latina-ness by becoming the Colombian Rachael Ray.

I think the restaurant is in what they call the design district, but it just looked like a commercial strip with lots of low rent motels advertising HBO and waterbeds like you find in downtown Las Vegas. The young, bossy M.B.A. seated next to us (I’m always seated next to an M.B.A., it seems) described the area as “gritty” to his date that he was only mildly impressing. Maybe it had something to do with his telling her what she was going to eat and insisting on doing all the ordering. I’d describe the décor more beyond being cheerily stylish and cozy but apparently they’re closing and remodeling in the middle of this month. It could be wildly different in October. Even though the restaurant was hardly a scene, it was packed and there were plenty of dresses barely covering ass cheeks and skin tanned to shades of wet clay.

Earlier, James had been grilling me about what kind of food Michy’s served and I couldn’t answer. It’s not like anything, no one ethnicity or style. New American? Small Plates? That tells you nothing other than the aesthetic. I’d hate to label the cuisine as comfort food, though that’s close; it’s the kind of food that’s good to eat, uh, ok? Rich and decadent…or maybe that’s just how I ordered.

Portions are available in full and halves and since we still had moros, yucca and lechon yet to be digested, we ordered four half sizes. Plus a shared dessert, it was right on. We, which is to say I, also chose a bottle of Albariño, which seemed to garner a strong approval from our waitress. But it also wrongly pegged James as knowing something about wine so he did the tasting and all of that and when I ordered an after dinner glass of Moscato d'Asti I was informed that it was sparkling like I was a know nothing. Ahem.

Blue cheese and jamon croquetas with fig marmalade. For some reason I thought these contained smoked duck, but that is not so according to MenuPages (restaurants with no websites stymie me). I’m relieved because I couldn’t taste any duck. The ham was just a hint. Really, these were like awesome, sophisticated mozzarella sticks. Fig jam blows marinara away for its dipping properties.

Orecchiette with duck sausage and herbed ricotta. This isn’t listed online so I could be off. I never order pasta at restaurants because it seems like a boring carby waste but this was reasonably sized and it’s kind of hard to resist game sausage.

Steak frite, a.k.a. churrasco with fries and béarnaise and au poivre dipping sauces. Yes, fries and béarnaise, not to mention steak, are heavy as heck. But all three were nearly rendered cute in this abbreviated form. A few slices of beef and a handful of fries never killed anyone. The béarnaise was much preferred over the au poivre.

Yellowtail with bok choy and shiitake broth. We stepped out of the fatty, creamy theme with this one. I think the bok choy was the only substantial vegetable we ate during this meal. The tuna was flaky and as delicate as it looked.

I wasn’t about to try the warn a.k.a. molten chocolate cake and didn’t want to do the bread pudding even though it seemed like their signature. The cuatro leches caught my attention because four is better than three, right? If I’m correct, dulce de leche is the extra dairy component. And coupled with baked Alaska? It was a must. The meringue was described as soft, which I didn’t understand until I poked it. The edges were all toasted golden but the mushroom-like mound was pliable, not chalky like those fat free meringue cookies you find at Trader Joe’s. The light egg white blob went well with the caramelly cake and pool of fruit-studded sauce. My bubbly Italian wine wasn’t so bad with it either.

Michy's * 6927 Biscayne Blvd. Miami, FL

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Sep 8

XXtra, XXtra, Read All About It

Cheetosxxtrafh Cheetos are the only chips I like (yeah, yeah, they’re not really chips in the potato sense) and it’s not like I’m presented with Cheeto-snacking opportunities on a regular basis. But there’s something about road trips that brings out my true junk-loving nature. As kids, whenever my dad (never my mom) would stop at a convenie nce store/gas station , he’d invariably come back to the car with treats not allowed during day to day life, like Hostess pudding pies (do they still make those? Er, apparently not), mini Bama pecan pies (no, I didn’t grow up in the south) and it might have only happened once but I will always remember a can of tooth pain sweet Nehi Strawberry soda. Mars bars were his candy of choice, which have been transformed into the modern Snickers with almonds.

On the longer than anticipated drive down to Key West from Miami (Google estimated three hours, but it took more like five because people drive so freaking slow, which is to say exactly the speed limit. I’ve never seen such a thing around here, and even though it’s infuriating to get mowed down by New Jersey drivers when you’re going 80 m.p.h., it’s more excruciating to be stuck on a one-lane highway doing 35) I managed to avoid gas station candy (but I was lucky enough to run into a CVS and find Great Lash Blackest Black mascara, an item I forgot to pack, mere feet from the entrance and with a dollar off coupon attached to it. You don’t know how good it feels to spend less than four bucks with zero legwork to pick up a necessity). However, we didn’t avoid fried seafood but that’s not for now.

Chicko_2

On the way back to Miami, I picked up a Chick-O-Stick, which was kind of blander than I remember and I swear, slightly cinnamon tinged. I love limited edition snacks (they also had blue cheese and buffalo flavored Doritos packed together in the same bag, which was kind of clever) so I was happy to see James pick up a 99-cent bag of XXTRA Flamin’ Cheetos at a mini mart. I hate food that claims to be hot and isn’t. Wow, their “twice as hot!” was no hyperbole. These fiery nuggets were way more heated than either of us anticipated and possibly not good driving food. They induced coughing and I was afraid James might veer off the dimly lit highway into a manatee laden swamp or something.

Five days later, last night, the bag was still in our apartment, maybe ¼ full. I started picking at the Cheetos and they were hot but not as wildly punishing as they seemed on the weekend. Had my palate toughened up or had they lost their kick?

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Sep 6

Sripraphai

I don’t usually mention Sripraphai re-visits because they’re frequent and my ordering style is repetitive. I’m only bringing this meal up because I’d never attempted take out before and was highly impressed by the thoughtful packaging.

I always come back from vacation dying for whatever food wasn’t where I just was, even if the cuisine I did eat was remarkable and even if I was only away for a few days. It’s not even like there’s tons of “real” Cuban food in NYC anyway. But the first business-lined intersection we hit after exiting the BQE from the airport en route to Sripraphai was Roosevelt and 69th, with El Sitio staring right at us across the road. No! No more Cuban food.

On Monday, our last night in Miami, I gave in decided to visit the pool. (Said pool at left, and don't worry, there's no way in hell I'm exposing myself online in a bathing suit.) At 4:30, it was well-past prime tanning time and the area wasn’t overwhelmingly crowded. Based on their reading material, a majority of the bathers and layabouts remaining were German and Eastern European. As the sun was about to set, an Asian couple showed up. The female, kind of plain and in a Louis Vuitton logoed bikini and khaki fishing hat that she kept on even in the water, her male counterpart, slightly sourpussy and portly. I knew I wasn’t in Brooklyn or else he would’ve been a skinny white dude with glasses. I enjoyed their conversation.

Hat girl: I want Cuban food for dinner.
Portly guy: No more Cuban food, it’s not good for you.
Hat girl: [sulking] I’m going to eat Cuban food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Portly guy: No.
Hat girl: Now I want ice cream.

And she got it, too. No one else in the pool area looked like food had touched their lips all afternoon. But leave it to an Asian girl to bring a substantial bowl of ice cream into the pool, squat on the shallow end stairs and chow down. Meanwhile, the only other person eating anything in the vicinity was a black woman with a bizarrely ample backside and thighs thicker than this girl’s waist, eating an apple.

That’s what’s wrong with this world. Skinny girls gobbling ice cream with abandon and hefty gals nibbling fruit. I want to know what goes on behind closed doors, you know, food anthropology. Would the ice cream eater really go on to polish off a massive plate of rice, beans and lechon? Would the fruit snacker eat salad with dressing on the side for dinner? Is there such a thing as a “good” metabolism or is a calorie a calorie? In some ways I’m hoping the former because maybe this essence could be captured and manufactured. Why are we wasting time on cancer and AIDS research when it could be medically possible to eat like a pig and remain lithe as a gazelle? Now I sound like a Cathy. Ack.

crispy watercress salad, dry and wet

So, I went overboard with my ordering at Sripraphai and got drunken noodles with chicken, crispy pork with chile and basil, duck curry with eggplant and bamboo shoots, and the crispy watercress salad that I had originally decided against because I figured the crispy bits would rapidly turn to sog by the time we got around to eating them (we’d recently eaten lunch and were picking up dinner to eat like five hours into the future). But I love the salad so much that I ran the risk. However, they package up the wet parts separately from the crunchy stuff. So smart, like a McDLT yet successful.

crispy watercress salad united as one

While waiting, I had time to peruse the shelves and refrigerated cases unimpeded because the restaurant was nearly empty, which is a rare thing. I decided on a container of four rectangular rice-based sweets that I don’t recall being combined together before, and num prek ta deng (their spelling, I always want to say nam prik). They have a slew of nam priks to choose from. I picked this one because it contained shrimp and sugar and I like my searing heat with a touch of sweetness and fishiness.

(My latest short-lived regimen has been the nam prik diet where I bring a cup of jasmine rice to work topped with a generous blob of chile paste. This lunch yesterday nearly killed me. I love insanely hot food but the proportion of paste to rice was askew and I literally burned my tongue and roof of my mouth. Of course, that didn’t stop me from finishing my painful meal.)

I was trying to think of an excuse for brining home enough food for three meals (other than sheer gluttony, of course). Well, September 4 is kind of my anniversary and that’s a good enough reason as any. Kind of, because dating anniversaries don’t seem to count and kind of because James barely acknowledges it anyway and insists that it’s somewhere in October. Yet since eight years is more substantial than many marriages (at least any that I’m acquainted with) and I’m not terribly marriage minded, it counts. (9/4/07)

Sep 1

Natori

I eat Japanese food with little frequency. That’s why when someone in the know invites me out, I can’t resist. A friend, Nao, had an impromptu birthday dinner at Natori, an unassuming two-sided restaurant on St. Marks that you might walk past without really noticing. There’s nothing flashy about it, very homey yet somehow naturally hip. But one of the chefs was friends with the birthday celebrant so we were treated to an omakase of sorts.

We, the ten eaters, put in a few requests from the menu, but much of it was a surprise. And the parade of dishes seemed never ending. By the time the chocolate cupcakes (inspired by a recipe from a drunken late-night viewing of America’s Test Kitchen after my birthday party) were presented, I was bursting at the seams.

avocado tuna semi-salad

burdock and hijiki/I was told a story about how American prisoners of war were fed gobo (burdock) and once freed complained about being made to eat bark and a Japanese soldier was executed specifically for this transgression. Burdock is tasty. I'd prefer to the sort of gruel I imagine in a P.O.W. camp.

mackerel sushi/There were people not so into mackerel. I guess it's oily and particularly fishy but that's what I like about it. I think of it as being Spanish, not so much Japanese.

alligator/It didn't taste like chicken in the least, kind of gamey and naturally spicy. Or maybe the light coating was spiced.

ginger squid/this was fairly sweet and I was pleased that the rings weren't breaded and fried. Even though I'm the one who picked this dish I feared it would be more like fried calamari.

enoki noodles

bean curd filled with rice

soft shell crab sushi/It seems like you could eat a whole plate easily, but two pieces were filling. I think it's the tempura effect.

~~takoyaki~~ okonomiyaki/I'm not sure why I'm often repulsed by mayonnaise but rarely bothered by its presence in Japanese preperations. The cheese was jumping around from the heat and made the whole octopus pancake seem alive.

mixed sushi/there were more rolls than these but I didn't take photos of everything.

steamed sea bass/I'd just eaten Chinese steamed sea bass a few week prior. I wonder if removing the head is standard? The fish almost seemed naked without it.

cupcakes!

I take pictures of food, but rarely my dining companions. Here’s a short video, if you’re into that sort of thing. I’m only peripherally captured on it, but sadly my voice dominates the audio. Sometimes I forget how strongly my voice carries. Seriously, in grade school I was always the one made to go sit in the hall when I was part of a crew of disruptively gabby girls. Despite protesting, the teachers would tell me, “but you’re the one we hear.”

Natori * 58 St. Marks Pl., New York, NY

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Aug 31

Saint Agur

Agur_3 I have not given up on my quest to taste all soft blue cheeses. Mild and squishy Saint Agur still needs to be added to the list. It’s a classy $19/lb cheese, not to be found just anywhere. I recently picked up the last sliver on display (they had more in the basement but I’m ok with the dregs) at Stinky Bklyn where I was putting a birthday gift certificate to good use.

I got side tracked by Beeler Hoch Ybrig, a gruyere-like cheese that’s super-nutty. I guess it smells, though I’m under-sensitive to strong food odors. I do know that when I attempted the wretched master cleanse, one tiny bite of this cheese induced serious regurgitation.

I’ve learned my lesson with the chunky jamon Serrano at Stinky Bklyn, so I opted for lomo embuchado instead. This cured pork, they cut on a slicer. And I swear to god, I’m not a stickler but I wonder if it’s not meant to be cut paper thin? It looks hefty in photos. All I know is that it’s like a phantom food. No matter how many see-through circles you pick up and chew, there’s no flavor. It’s caloric air.

The Vosges Barcelona Bar was much more satisfying. While I rarely salt my savory food, I love it with caramels and chocolate. Hickory smoked almonds and sea salt are a good combo, and I liked that this used milk chocolate rather than a hardcore, high cocoa percentage dark.

Whenever I’m not spending my own money, I’m inclined to experiment with foofy beverages. The unknown liquid in this instance was Bottle Green Lemongrass and Ginger Soda. I don’t normally drink soda, sweet liquids have never done much for me, but when I’m feeling wild I’ll splurge on fizzy, juicy things like Kristall (not Cristal). So, Bottle Green isn’t really a soda; it’s not even carbonated. That kind of sucked because one of my core requirements for a refreshing beverage is the presence of bubbles. If I were one for crafting fabulous cocktails, this spicy citrus water might make a good mixer.

Oh yes, back to the cheese. Keeping with my dated palate, Saint Agur was invented in the late ‘80s. I wouldn’t say it tastes grungy, though. When it’s cold the texture is thick and substantial, barely blue, more like Laughing Cow than brie, despite a 60% fat content. After warming up, the cheese develops a subtle spiciness with little aftertaste. All in all, very straightforward and clean, not funky in the least. Almost too refined for me—I’d prefer something a touch trashier.

Previously in soft blues:
Saga
Cambozola
Mountain Top Blue

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Aug 30

Pollos a la Brasa Mario

Rotisserie chicken can go in so many directions. And frequently that direction is boring (don’t even get me started on recipes that require a store-bought chicken, have you use the meat and throw away the skin). Yet, somehow on Saturday night it was decided that Latin-style chicken should be dinner.

I’m kind of partial to Peruvian renditions mainly because I like the punchy green sauce that often accompanies it. But maybe I’m just thinking of Pio Pio (I don’t think Pardo’s has it). The September Latino Gourmet has a recipe for Peruvian but they don’t make any mention of an aji salsa on the side (I’m so not crazy about the Epicurious re-design. The new recipes haven’t even been put online yet). The soy sauce in the marinade is an interesting cross-cultural addition, though. Fried rice, a.k.a. chaufa, is also a regional anomaly.

Due to a series of uninteresting circumstances, we ended up on a Jackson Heights block with three options: Casa de Pollo Peruano (too packed), Gusty Chicken (closed) and Pollos a la Brasa Mario. I’d been by the multi-level 24-hour Colombian joint with a bird mascot (maybe they all have bird mascots) a million times and had never stopped in. It was the perfect occasion.

I was always under the impression that Mario was kind of fast foodish and chicken heavy (perhaps, that’s more Frisby, the new game in town.). The formica booths and laminated picture menus imply so, but many of the entrees are substantial and over $20 (in my experience, Colombian portions are intimidatingly huge).

Sure, Rayuela has a live olive tree, but Mario has a sprawling fake orange tree and framed posters of cartoon animals eating the cuisine. My favorite was the Sylvester the Cat rip-off with an arepa and strip of chicharon. There was also a horse grilling something indiscernible.

It was Saturday night and crocks of seafood stew and teeming multi-meat platters graced many a table. But we came with a simple mission and stuck by it. Whole chicken. I wanted yuca frita, James ordered frijoles grande, which were way too grande and studded with a few bones so you knew you were in for ham-hockiness. White rice is standard but I prefer my Latin starches rooty and fried.

Marioyuca As accompaniments, you’re given a puree of green chile, thick and more scoopable than a usual salsa verde and a squirt bottle of what seemed like Thousand Island dressing minus the relish chunks. The two mixed together made a nice, visually repulsive dipping sauce for the yuca.

Mario is as good as a brightly lit rotisserie chicken restaurant might be, though it’ll likely be some time before I ever get around to a re-visit. There are so many contenders (what with all those Korean fried chickens crying for my attention) in the global poultry game that it’s impossible to stick with any one eatery or style.

Pollos a la Brasa Mario * 81-01 Roosevelt Ave., Jackson Heights, NY

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Aug 29

Paris Sandwich

1/2 I’m frequently torn between trying to learn what patience means (I already have prematurely high blood pressure and am half-convinced that a heart attack will seize me before forty) and being uncontrollably speedy and efficient. Today, I was able to put both lifestyles to the test when I became stricken with a violent craving for a banh mi around 11am.

Normally, I don’t eat until 2pm and have a hard time getting worked up over anything, especially in a five-block radius. But obtaining a banh mi became such an overwhelming mission that by 12:55 I couldn’t sit still any longer. And I didn’t care how far I had to go to find one.

I have a full hour lunch, which I rarely take advantage of, so it wasn’t as if I was in a real hurry. But because I’m always manic and huffy, I had a self-imposed sense of urgency. How fast could I get to Chinatown, order, and get back to the office? It would be a fun, sweaty little contest with myself. Never mind that I did so many leg presses and thigh squeezey things at the gym on Sunday that it still hurts to stroll with a normal gait. (I recently re-joined my gym and clearly didn't realize how out of shape I'd become even though I'd continued to exercise on my own. All I know is that when I last frequented the place I didn't have an iPod yet and there was lots of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on my mp3 device, so I'm fairly certain it was 2005.)

So, out the door at 12:55. I don’t wear a watch so I could only get so frantic on my sandwich run. Getting to Canal from Broad was a breeze. Navigating the three blocks to Paris Sandwich (there might be a closer shop to Centre St. but I’ve been meaning to try this bakery) was anything but. Between the meandering tourists, three-foot tall Chinese shufflers and thick-headed locals, it’s always perpetual gridlock.

Thankfully, Paris Sandwich’s service was crazy-fast and organized. Simple, you order in the front from a photo menu, and pick up in the back. My number #39 was squawked and I had a grilled pork and standard sandwich in less than two minutes, way before I expected them. That’s an assembly line. There was no time for dilly-dallying, scrutinizing the menu, searching for anomalies and atypical gems. I barely glanced at the refrigerated case and shelves of baked goods. I tried to ignore the sign on the door for a tomato slushy, which would normally weird me out enough for a double take, but not this time.

The north side of Canal St. is minutely more walkable, so I tried maneuvering through jewelry shop gawkers. Despite my initial annoyance at a woman in a wheelchair clogging up the already maxed out sidewalk, I lucked out on the way back. I realized that everyone willingly moved aside for her and her motorized ride, so I got right behind it like a speeding car trailing an ambulance and benefited from the temporary path she created.

I was pleased with myself until I got thwarted by the turnstile pile-up while trying to get into the subway station. I got downstairs just in time to see the J pulling out. Damn. The next M only went one stop to Chambers St. where I got stuck at 1:21pm and lost steam. I didn’t get back on track literally, until 1:31. When my mom was in town a few months ago she thought it was strange that I’d complain about waiting ten minutes for a subway since the light rail runs like every 15 minutes during rush hour, but ten minutes is a freaking long time to stand around in the dank humidity (and no one takes public transportation in Portland anyhow).

When all was said and done, the trek spanned from 12:55 to 1:45. I really thought it’d be quicker. Fifty minutes to go three stops, walk three blocks, get take out, and then do the reverse? If there had been better subway and elevator (I can only take one elevator from bank of four to get to 33, the top floor, mine) alignment, 15 minutes could easily be shaved off.

Oddly, the special banh mi contained no cucumber and next to no mayonnaise, which didn’t traumatize me because those are my least favorite components even though I hate to admit it (phew, now that’s off my chest). Some vegetables creep me out warm, lettuce and cucumbers are two. While a solid amount of cold cuts are folded inside the roll, there was a surprising lack of flavor and more cartilagey bits than I’m accustomed to. The pickled essence could’ve been stronger. And I like more of that reddish ground up mystery meat. But these are all nitpicks; the sub more than served its purpose.

I ate half of each sandwich and saved the rest for tomorrow’s lunch. The grilled pork was very sweet and saucy, more candied than the grilled pork you’d find atop a bowl of rice vermicelli.

As is often my way, I grabbed some summer rolls at the cash register (they’re always at the counter). I didn’t even have time to see which variety I snagged. They all looked brown through the translucent skins, I’m fairly certain they were all pork, no shrimp anyway. Nice and compact, the fillings stayed put and didn’t make for messy at-desk eating, though the nuoc cham was dangerously drippy.

I never got the point of a camera phone until today when I left the house camera-less. I’m not even joking when I say that I’m not even up to speed with texting and talking and walking at the same time. Forget about control over focus, lighting, sizing or any of that. What you see is as good as it gets.

Paris Sandwich * 113 Mott St., New York, NY

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