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Dave Lee 112 days ago
Every third week or so, the food section of the New York Times feels embarrassed about phoning it in and cribs a lead from Chowhound or Serious Eats. Feeling locked up from all this rain, I decided to follow in their footsteps and pay a visit to Corona's Nixtamal, which has been grinding up some buzz by virtue of its being one of the few joints in the City to offer up fare made with fresh masa. Put (overly) simply, masa is the dough that you get after you take ground corn soaked in a slaked lime bath to remove the husks (the concoction is called nixtamal). You'll find the dried stuff all over town, but I was surprised to learn that you couldn't just go out and buy the fresh stuff. Fans of Mexican food swear by the difference between the two, so I had to give it a try. We tried three tamales (verde, chipotle, and mole; $2.50 each), an order of fish tacos ($6 for three), and the chips and guacamole ($6). I thought about trying the pozole as well ($5), but ...Dave Lee 128 days ago
Since I left my beloved Harlem, I've come to learn that the M&G Diner has closed, that Will Oldham played at the Apollo Theatre, and that now-middled-aged Sonic Youth came to Washington Heights. It seems inevitable that a beer garden will open up on 122nd Street and sell growlers to skinny kids in $200 jeans. It's a relief, then, to see Mitchell's Fish & Chips still going strong in now-tony Prospect Heights. But don't let the name fool you: You want the fried chicken. A quarter bird, with two sides, is a whopping seven bucks if you opt for the dark meat. I found the meat to be crisp and very lightly floured (but well-seasoned), and the meat to be moist and tender. I wouldn't put it up to the level as a piping-hot bird straight from the cast-iron pan at Charles' Southern Kitchen, but it's a much better value if you don't require more than 900 calories in your meal; if you're a fan of Ruthie's, you'll probably find Mitchell's in a similar ...
Dave Lee 311 days ago
As I set foot into Oriental Express, I had a feeling I was about to make either a grave mistake, or a sweet discovery. Luckily, it turned out to be the latter. Nearly unmarked, and sporting a dingy basement entrance and an outdated moniker, Oriental Express has all the trappings of a secret waiting to be discovered. It also bears all the trappings of an illicit massage parlor or underground gambling hall. Which is why I was relieved to find, even at 3 p.m., a steady flow of hungry customers--from Financial District not-quite-so-fat-anymore cats to immigrant laborers--enjoying their choosings from $5.50 steam table (although you're better off ordering from the counter--the self-serve option didn't look very appetizing). And while it didn't have my favorite hallmark of an authentic Chinese joint--the patron smoking casually in the corner--it came pretty close in the way of the owner chatting up a regular about buying tax-free cigarettes from Georgia. In a nutshell, that's ...
Dave Lee 393 days ago
Having recently moved out of Harlem, I found that I've been missing all sorts of things I didn't expect to miss, from the creepy old guy outside the retirement home that always says "Hey, baby" to every single girl who walks by (and, once, in what must have been an incredibly surreal moment, even for him, to me at 5 in the morning on a 25-degree day while I was in a suit and dragging a carry-on bag) to the rickety laundromat where, being Korean, I was routinely mistaken for the owner. I did, however, know that I would miss some of my favorite Senegalese bites. Luckily, I found Joloff in nearby Clinton Hill, a comfortable little joint that bills itself as Senegalese home-cooked goodness. We tried the thiebou jeun ($10) and the thiou tofu ($9), both of which were instant hits. The thiebou jeun (you might have seen variations in the spelling) is a bluefish/tomato/vegetable stew, served over something they call "Joloff rice," which, I'm convinced, is ...
Dave Lee 489 days ago
On our way back from the nerdiest trip, ever, we hopped off the Long Island Rail Road station at Woodside and made our way towards Jackson Heights, where I wanted to return after an anticlimactic outing the night before to a run-of-the-mill buffet at Indian Taj (not necessarily bad, but not a place I would make a one-hour train ride for). On the other had, I've never been disappointed with the fare at Maharaja Quality Sweets and Snacks, a little vegetarian chat shop just off the bustle of 74 th Street. On my past trips there, I've been especially partial to the samosa chat ($5), a nice combination of crunch samosa skin, tangy yogurt, soothing mint, and wicked hot pepper. This time around, we opted for the malai kofta ($8.50), which was richly nutty, and the navrattan korma ($8.50), which came in a cream sauce that was a little thinner than I had hoped for. The poori ($1.50 each), a very thin, two-layered wheat dough that is fried so that it puffs up, was ...
