Goodies First

Jan 20

La Vuelta

I’ll admit to Long Island City dining ignorance. I don’t feel too bad because there’s not a whole lot of it to be informed about. I suspect that will change as condos continue popping up in the area and new residents bring higher standards.

But I recently started reviewing restaurants for Latina.com. (Hey, why not? I just hope it’s not a conflict to post my own takes here. I mean, these aren’t terribly useful and tend to be more about me than anything. What I’m paid to do is short, sweet and service oriented. Totally different beasts.) I need to represent diversity in neighborhood, culinary style and price range. It’s going to be tricky covering ten a month (that’s a lot of rice and beans, papi) because I’m accustomed to eating Asian (I know, that’s about as broad as Latin American) whenever possible and I started watching my damn points last week (yes, Weight Watchers. It’s laughable, I realize. But heck, if I even managed to shed a measly half-pound a week, that’ll be 26 gone by Christmas. I’m a turtle not a hare.) and lord knows I can’t turn down free food.

I get the sense that La Vuelta does a brisk lunch and happy hour business and is trying to expand their reach. They recently started opening on Saturdays and will add Sundays next month. When we arrived around 8:30pm on a Saturday there were only two other tables occupied. It’s not surprising since the block is less than bustling.

The food is all over the place (geographically, not haphazardly) with Argentinean skirt steak, cubanos, empanadas, nachos, and the like. We tried empanaditas, four tiny cheese filled pastries with salsa and two larger pork style crescents with bbq sauce. Not bad. James had said skirt steak, which came with mashed potatoes and chimmichurri. I went for grilled shrimp with coconut rice and a jalapeno-pineapple mojo (don’t tell anyone, but I’m not crazy about a lot of Western rice dishes. Biryani and nasi lemak: uh-huh. Paella and risotto: eh). They weren’t able to make the advertised pisco sours (no pisco) but caipirinhas and rioja sufficed.

Everything was well seasoned and the service nice as can be, but it’s definitely a neighborhood restaurant. And L.I.C. could surely use a few more.

La Vuelta *10-43 44th Dr., Long Island City, NY

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Jan 19

Palo Santo

1/2 No matter what, I can never remember the name of this restaurant. I know it’s on Union Street, that the chef used to cook at Williamsburg’s La Brunette (a restaurant I always meant to try but never got around to before it closed) and that it consists of two Spanish words. And then I’m stuck so I have to sort through all Latin American listings in Park slope on Citisearch or New York (ok, not the latter—I just tested it and it’s nowhere to be found) to find it. Palo Santo, okay, I’m forcing it into my memory.

It’s a curious place, stuck in the middle of a brownstone row and decorated in a woody willy-nilly fashion. There’s a warm, crafty vibe, enhanced by the front room’s fireplace. Reggae was the music of choice on my visit. I never went though a Bob Marley phase, but at least it's slightly more tolerable than Andean pan pipes or Gypsy Kings. Some commenter somewhere I can’t recall described the interior as looking like a ‘70s health food eatery and that’s not completely false, though I suspect they’re trying for more sophistication than that. Thankfully, sprouts are nowhere to be seen.

The menu changes daily and I forgot to take note of the chickpea strewn slaw that our shrimp a la plancha were served on. I’m not sure if it was the citrus used or an exotic herb that snuck in (the chef makes use of many esoteric items) but there was an overall bitter, acidic flavor that didn’t agree with me. That was the only miss, though. I forgot to change the setting on my camera after taking photos off the TV so everything ended up a dark, dull faux sepia toned mess.

My duck mole was flavorful without being overwhelmingly rich as a fatty bird and dark sauce potentially could be. It came with a little corn cake topped with black beans that contained something crunchy. I want to say it was a fried skin of some sort but I don’t recall that being part of the description. I did ask about the two foreign-to-me herbs that enhanced the beans. They were Mexican papalo and pepicha, and no, I can't quite describe them beyond dubbing them forceful and distinct. You wouldn't want a mouthful.

James had seafood asapado, a soupy rice, which was kind of like a cross between risotto and bouillabaisse. We shared a hot from the oven banana chocolate dessert that was topped with melting cream. It beat another tired molten cake, that’s for sure. I refuse to eat those piping hot soft-centered sweets out of principle. I feel the same way about the oozing pucks as I do about rampant bad ‘80s music. There’s just no excuse in 2007.

I’ve heard that if you sit at the bar you can order a $45 tasting menu that isn’t set in stone. I guess that’s an omakase. That doesn’t sound unreasonable, yet I would’ve preferred that the dishes cost a few dollars less apiece. The prices were slightly high (entrees $20+) for a casual weeknight dinner (though it looks like they have a more moderately priced menu during the day), and when you could easily spend $100 for two (which I didn’t) cash only seems silly.

Palo Santo * 652 Union St., Brooklyn, NY

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Jan 18

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With a (back)Side of Bacon, Please

I was captivated by the photo used to illustrate today’s New York Times review of Porchetta. (I have no idea why I knew from a glance that the guy in the center is a writer/blog fixture because I don’t enjoy that sort of information. That’s what NYC will do to you.) What I was really trying to understand why they chose to use a picture featuring a girl with pants off her ass and an exposed thong. This restaurant is just a short walk from my apartment and has been on my mental to-try list for a few months, but now I’ve completely re-thought the whole thing. If I wanted copious amounts of human flesh with my meal, I’d go to recently opened Hawaiian Tropic Zone.

Backfat's nothing. It's the backside I'm concerned about.

Also, the irritatingly erudite (no, I didn’t have to look that one up) Times once again caught me with a vocab stumper: chilblains. What the hell? And the writer who used it was once my boss for like five months. Clearly, I learned nothing from that stint.

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Jan 13

Skylark Diner

It used to be Bergen County for New Jersey excursions, but lately the communities along the Middlesex and Union county borders have won me over. Edison is as suburban as anything but there’s a substantial Indian and Chinese community that makes food shopping and dining more interesting while hitting the biggies like Costco, Target and Trader Joe’s.

We were looking for a Sally Beauty Supply so I could pick up some bottles of professional hair color (it’s cheaper than buying consumer boxed dyes and I was specifically looking for the Miss Clairol Gray Busters line, which you can’t get at your corner Duane Reade) and a few blocks before our intended address we impulsively pulled into a mini mall, lured by the A&W/Long John Silver’s combo store advertised on the sign. I then remembered that we’d eaten Indian food in this strip before, ages ago before I even knew what Edison was. There was still an Indian place, but the name has since changed from Delhi Gardens to Hyderabadi something-or-another.

Still hungry, we noticed a gleaming, tricked out modern diner across the street. Skylark. I’d actually heard about this relatively new eatery, but didn’t realize this was where it was located. It was worth a try. I might’ve called it an upscale diner but that was before I saw the last episode of Top Chef. There were no tempura vegetables & mozzarella with cornichon aioli, but they did have crispy shrimp tempura with spicy citrus aioli.

They also ask if you want bottled or tap water, which is a bit too much. However, the emphasis on wine and cocktails didn’t put me off. It was too early for a martini, but all of the many color coded iterations using scary things like Midori and chocolate sauce were only $7. Maybe I’m just Manhattan-ized but that seemed like a good deal (minus the Razzmatazz liqueur).

I was a little freaked out when they brought complimentary bruschetta to the table. It just seemed like an odd thing, and initially I was concerned that we’d gotten someone else’s starter. To be honest I’ve never understood the appeal of chopped tomatoes on bread. Let me clarify, pa amb tomaquet is surprisingly good in its simplicity and I’m sure “real” bruschetta with garden grown produce is similarly bewitching. But supermarket tomatoes in the middle of winter not so much. But I like free, so no complaints.

I really loosened up with the appetizer. Melon is my enemy but I was willing to try the chicken and tasso ham egg rolls with a jicama watermelon slaw and bourbon bbq sauce. The crunchy pink cubes didn’t really bother me as much as I’d feared and it was a tasty, albeit slightly overwrought dish.

Even though it was 4pm, we hadn’t eaten anything yet so it was a toss-up between breakfast and lunch food. I chose the best of both worlds, my old Portland fixation, the monte cristo. As I’ve recently pointed out, it’s treated more like a breakfast food in NYC. I was pleased to see that this specimen was listed with other sandwiches and came with fries. But it did come with a little metal pitcher of warmed maple syrup. In the NW you’d just get jelly. This version came on cinnamon-swirled french toast. Classy. The sliced turkey was on the dry side but as a whole the sandwich was satisfying. I ate it with a knife and fork because it seemed wrong to drizzle or dip into syrup when eating with your hands. The fries were also better than decent and came covered in a spice blend that’s more typical of curly fries (why are curly fries frequently spiced, anyway?).

The one thing I’ll say for New Jersey is that they keep it nice and Jersey for you. Yes, they were pumping in the dreaded ‘80s music but it was all rock: Bon Jovi, Journey and more. At one point it struck me how jarring a random dirty guitar solo stood out amidst the retro-contemporary décor. Around 5pm, it started getting dark and smooth jazz came on. I got scared for a second like it was now officially moody dinner time, but then the power chords came back on after the brief interlude. Phew.

Skylark Diner * Rt. 1 N. & Wooding Ave., Edison, NJ

More: route 1

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Jan 12

Something Fishy

There have been a lot of rings and food near misses in the past few days. During a commercial break, out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a woman pulling a ring out of cooked salmon. Score. Thank goodness for technology allowing me to rewind “live” TV. It was an eBay commercial where a fish ate a ring fashioned from the words IT. Later, a woman finds the ring while eating dinner. No proposal, just randomness.

Last night I was thwarted again when Salma Hayek’s character on Ugly Betty was trying to get Daniel Meade to propose to her in 60 days (unbeknownst to him) and he said he had a surprise for her. It was a glass of yogurt and granola containing heart-shaped slices of papaya. I was holding my breath as Sophia rooted around the glass looking for a ring. I so wanted it to be there for my sake. But no, sometimes yogurt is just yogurt. She did get her engagement ring later in the episode.

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Jan 12

Cat Fat Fever

Ok, I love cat crap but I’m no pet blogger. Yet I couldn’t help but be sucked in by a news teaser last night about a stray fat cat who was found stuck in a doggie door. He looked enormous and crazy so I had to learn more. Goliath, as he’d been dubbed, clearly hadn’t been doing without during his six months on the street. His original owner, who lost the cat while in the hospital for a lung transplant, (don't miss the heartwarming tidbit about how the feline would lie on his stomach and play with his oxygen tubes) was reunited after seeing Hercules (his real name) on TV.

The best part of the whole saga, which I later discovered, was where the cat lived: Gresham, Oregon (my hometown). I should’ve known. I’m not sure if this is a tale of NW kindness to the homeless (I’ve always been amazed at the number of panhandlers in Portland vs. NYC and the tolerance level. There’s not a lot of sympathy here—maybe that’s why they all flock to Oregon) or about Gresham generating fatness.

I was baffled that Hercules only weighed twenty pounds. James keeps insisting that my ever-growing feline must weigh twenty pounds and I refuse to believe him. I don’t know what to do with her. We leave the same food out for all of our cats, yet James’s two remain average sized. Why can’t Sukey control her portions?

I really fear that there must be a correlation between owners and pets weights. And the last thing I need is another diabetic cat. James is always trying to capture Sukey in unflattering poses so he can take photos, which while amusing, is mildly cruel. She looks ok when she’s sitting up but when she’s lying on her side she looks like a tubcat in training. At least chubby cats don’t seem to have poor self-esteem.

I bought a scale last week because I’m trying to be more diligent, and last night we got Sukey’s measurements: 21 pounds. What the hell? She was only 7 pounds when I got her (granted, she was still kitten-ish and malnourished). I can’t fathom that she’s bigger than Hercules. This somehow reflects on me. It’s a good thing I’m not a human parent or else my kids would get sent home with bad BMI report cards.

spring 2004

winter 2006

By the way, if you thought I was exaggerating about James’s mom always sending him home with atrocities from Marshalls, just witness these beauties that showed up post-Christmas. Meow.

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Jan 12

What are Words For?

Vocab I really should’ve taken those Reader’s Digest Word Power quizzes (The New Yorker’s got nothing on RD when it comes to hilarious cartoons) I’d entertain myself with while at my grandparent’s house more seriously. It’s starting to dawn on me how vocabularily deficient I am. This first struck me last year when that cat Molly got stuck in the wall of a West Village shop and the New York Times’s account used the phrase, “During the ordeal, the media hubbub grew apace, and cat agnostics grumbled about folderol.” Folderol? WTF? Is that sort of wordsmithery really necessary? And no, I didn’t know that folderol meant trifle or nonsense. I went to public school, duh.

The 2007 me is starting to look up words if I’m not 100% sure what they mean. It’s not terribly difficult since I’m usually reading on the computer and it’s not all that hard to type (or bookmark) www.m-w.com. So far I’ve looked up recalcitrant and I was correct, it’s akin to obstinate. Yesterday, I double-checked picayune and I was pretty right on, though I was thinking more tiny than trivial.

I was feeling fairly adept, and then I was slammed by ukase. I had no inkling. Apparently, it’s an edict or decree. I don’t even think I can or want to use that in a sentence. It sounds a little like urine and ketosis.

I know that my grammar is anything but ace. I mean, I only started using paragraphs last year (here, I mean, in the real world I’ve always used them). But every so often I have shameful realizations. Today it hit me that I’ve been writing hoards for eons when I mean hordes. I found five instances of the vocab crime on this site and changed them pronto, none of that pesky slash through business. 2007 is going to be a busy year at this rate.

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Jan 10

Civic Lesson

I swear I don’t love beating dead horses (even though I’m mildly equine averse) but just a few minutes ago I heard Go! Team blaring from the living room TV while in my bedroom. Lordy, what could they possibly be selling? I guessed car, it’s often autos. It was Honda Civic. Frankly, I’m surprised their bouncy, upbeat sound hadn’t been used in a commercial yet (ah…apparently, Nike and McDonald’s attempted it). I’m totally beyond the whole indie sellout label. Who cares as long as curtails ‘80s worship.

I expect that sort of thing from a car ad, but sports elude me. Sunday afternoon I was trying to tune out some NFL pre-game show but I couldn’t ignore the background music during a montage. You know how you know a song but out of context you don’t always identify it immediately. They were using Voxtrot’s “Missing Pieces.” Yeah, I guess they’re popular. I can’t gauge what’s mainstream anymore, though from flipping through radio stations in the car I can definitely say Voxtrot is not playing in NYC. I hate to admit that even the National Football League knows better than to blast Nu Shooz.

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Jan 9

Where’s the (99-Cent) Beef?

The two closest work food options are making me angry. I don’t expect greatness, but I wouldn’t mind a little cheapness.

Wendys Last year around this time I was on a Wendy’s salad kick. That petered out, which is unfortunate since now there’s a Wendy’s in the concourse below my office building. I really felt like junk food last week and half the staff was still out for the holidays so I didn’t feel so self-conscious about smelly food. I thought I’d order value menu small fries and a jr. bacon cheeseburger. Cheap and not too gluttonous.

Now, I swear the Wendy’s near my old job had a 99-cent menu and I know for a fact there are ads currently running that are hyping up the 99-cent menu (heck, 99 is in the URL). So why did my jr. bacon cheeseburger on the value menu cost $1.99? Baked potatoes, chili, frosty–none of it was 99 cents. What kind of Rockefeller Center bullshit is this?

I know they used to (and probably still do) have tiny print at the bottom of fast food commercials where they’d say “prices higher in Alaska and Hawaii” and I’d feel bad for the statehood latecomers, but last time I checked NYC was still part of the continental United States. Ok, the website does say, “prices available at participating Wendy’s.” What’s the point of a promotion of no one participates?

Au Bon Pain has been causing similar pain. One of their only redeeming qualities was the 50% off baked goods after 4pm deal, which isn’t followed in the branch that’s in the ground floor of this same building. We get some sort of discount with our work IDs (which I only figured out a few weeks ago when I saw someone flashing their badge) but that’s not the same as a half off brownie. Whatever, I’m supposed to be cutting sweet junk out of my diet as of today, anyway.

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Jan 5

Jewel-Encrusted Crustacean

I Do(nut), which might seem cryptic at first glance, is the latest to join the ranks of my pointless but must-be-pointed-out categories a la No Fat Dudes and Vomit Watch. It’s documenting absolutely useless crap like this that keeps me sane (seriously, it’s very soothing). The crap in question is when a man (and it’s almost always a man) proposes using food as a vehicle for the diamond (and it’s almost always a diamond) ring. Does this happen in real life? I would just pretend like I didn’t see the gem and put the offending piece of food in my mouth like nothing was up.

I’m no chick flick lover, but apparently James is, he’ll watch the worst schlock and watch it repeatedly. If I’ve seen a film, I don’t want to see it again for at least five years, even if it was amazing. I used to get irritated by his TV viewing habits but I’ve learned to relax and go zen even if it’s the fifth time Batman Begins comes on or something I have zero interest in like Glory appears on screen.

So, the other night he put on In Her Shoes about thirty minutes into the movie and just left it there. It seemed that Toni Collette was fat because she was wearing a heavy coat and her pretty, partying sister, Cameron Diaz called her fat. And then like thirty minutes later she’s thin because she’s not wearing the coat anymore and she finds love and a Jewish lawyer asks her to marry him in a Philadelphia Jamaican jerk shop using a plate of rice and beans topped with shrimp.

The photo’s a little pixilated but that’s an engagement ring gracing the front-facing prawn. Is there anything dreamier than a jewel-encrusted crustacean?

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La Vuelta

Palo Santo

With a (back)Side of Bacon, Please

Skylark Diner

Something Fishy

Cat Fat Fever

What are Words For?

Civic Lesson

Where’s the (99-Cent) Beef?

Jewel-Encrusted Crustacean

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