The Mango Lassie

As regular readers of this blog know, I am not a big fan of going out to brunch. It costs too much; the lines are too long; and most of the food available could be made at home without much effort. But when you have to go to brunch, you have to go to brunch. When those times arise, I like to find places that defy my list of brunch negatives. One such place is Café Cortadito, a Cuban restaurant on the Lower East Side. I did a search for good downtown brunches, and the name came up. At $11.95 per person the price was right, at least relative to the rest of the overpriced New York brunches. So Empanada Boy and I arranged to meet our friends Baconhater and Halo-Halo there before they left the city to return to Cambridge.

Baconhater and Halo-Halo arrived before we did, and just to be sneaky, they sent me a text saying the lines were out the door. When we arrived at the pleasant, airy little cafe, they were seated at one of two populated tables drinking cafe con leche. We ordered some coffee, sangria and tropical fruit juice mimosas and got down to the business of ordering. While we waited for our food, the server brought excellent buttered toast triangles, which would later serve as the perfect egg-yolk mops.

Café Cortadito has about ten items on its brunch menu, all of which looked appealing in some way. EB ended up ordering Holguin: poached eggs over seared ham atop a croissant, finished with Creole sauce. This was the Cuban take on the breakfast sandwich, and it was a tasty take indeed. When punctured, the eggs ran over the whole thing and made it necessary to eat with a fork and knife. Halo-Halo ordered a delicious Cuban omelet made with potatoes and embedded with smoky, salty bits of chorizo. A piece of seared ham and two sausages balanced out the meat to potatoes ratio.

Baconhater got an exquisite dish called Camaguey. Made with fresh mango and papaya (both a little too green), plantain chips and grilled shrimp, the dish was colorful and light as a breath of tropical spring air. The shrimp was nicely cooked, but the downsides were the under-ripe fruit and the lack of sauce or cohesive seasoning over the dish. If even one of the fruits had been riper and more succulent, this dish would have been more successful. Camaguey had all the pieces, but didn’t live up to its potential.

My dish was Mazorca de Maiz Dulce Estilo Cortadito. A mouthful, both in name and in essence, it consisted of two fried eggs alongside sweet corn on the cob and a small green salad. The dish was simple and tasty, with corn that was actually sweet and perfectly fried eggs, but I would have appreciated a stronger sauce or some spices to jazz it up. The ingredients in my dish may have been a little too simple to justify the $11.95, no matter how cheap the restaurant was relative to its brunch neighbors. All in all, though, Café Cortadito fit my criteria for a worthy brunch place: The food was mostly flavorful and different from anything I would typically make at home. Which is not to say I couldn’t replicate these dishes— I’ll be working on my potato-chorizo omelet the next time I want something new to make for brunch at home.

Café Cortadito
210 E. 3rd St.
New York, NY 10009
212.614.3080

After not having eaten a burger for months, I have somehow spent the last few months eating what must be near a whole heifer’s worth of them. As I discussed in my post on Flipster’s and Five Guys, some of these have been better than others. Most recently, I dined at Corner Burger in Park Slope, only to follow it up a week or so later with a visit to Corner Bistro in Greenwich Village. These two spots merit comparison only because they are both burger joints and because they both have the word corner in their names—reason enough in my book.

I’ll start out by saying that while the burger at Corner Bistro had its drawbacks, Corner Burger’s was pretty much a flop. Of course, that doesn’t reflect at all on the company we had there: Empanada Boy and I went to Corner Burger with my colleague Chopped Salad and his lovely wife Vinaigrette. Chopped Salad had heard that the burgers were good, so I proposed that we meet there to give them a try. I was also intrigued when I learned that the restaurant recently started serving poutine, the gravy-and-cheese-curd-topped French fries of Montreal. Chopped Salad and Vinaigrette weren’t sure about poutine, but EB and I wanted to try it. I ordered the classic poutine ($6.50) instead of a burger. It wasn’t a great first impression for this culturally iconic dish. I could see how poutine would be amazing if the fries were hot, thin and crispy and the gravy more inspired, but the dish had none of these qualities. The cheese curds were squeaky, though, an attribute which I have learned to appreciate now that I have family in Wisconsin.

The burgers ($6.50) at looked far better than they tasted. EB ordered the one above with Swiss cheese and mushrooms. As I have said before, I consider cheese and other toppings undesirable because they obscure the taste of the meat. In this case, the meat needed obscuring. The burger arrived on the rare side of medium-rare, which would have been perfectly acceptable if the meat had been seasoned. It hadn’t been. We found ourselves biting into rare, bland meat, which proved a very disappointing combination, even despite the cheese and mushrooms. Chopped Salad and Vinaigrette ordered burgers too and were similarly disappointed. The curly fries may have been the only saving grace. We were among the only patrons there when we sat down and the only ones there when we left. We now understand why Park Slopers are staying away.

EB and I visited Corner Bistro with our friends Porky Braiser and Sweet Tooth who were visiting from Chicago. We were planning to get drinks at Little Branch in the Village, so we looked for some good cheap chow in the general vicinity to eat beforehand. A dark, old-timey and decidedly unbistro-like bar, Corner Bistro fit the bill. We waited for a seat in a pretty long line that snaked through the bar area. The wait wasn’t so bad, though, because we were throwing back $2.50 mugs of McSorley’s. In a city where it typically costs $6 or $7 for a pint, that alone is reason to visit. Soon we got a seat at a tiny cramped wooden booth. We had a good view of the Heinz ketchup bottles lined up near the kitchen window like soldiers awaiting deployment.

I ordered the basic burger ($4), while Sweet Tooth got a cheeseburger ($4.75). Porky and EB naturally ordered the Bistro Burger, made with cheese and bacon, but still a steal at only $5. And we got three orders of French fries. The fries were nothing special. They weren’t hand-cut and weren’t quite as crispy or hot as we like them. Clearly people come here for the burgers. The patties were juicy, tasty and well-cooked. That is what matters most in a burger, and that’s what Corner Bistro does well. Where it falls short is in its buns (whimpy, airy and easily destroyed by the meat juice) and in its toppings (flavorless American cheese, faded iceberg lettuce). In general, I found I could overlook these drawbacks because of the quality of the meat, the no-nonsense atmosphere and the excellent prices.

I’ll go back to Corner Bistro, especially when I’m looking for a real New York experience. I don’t think I’ll go back to Corner Burger. It may well close before I get a chance to. But first, I think I’ll take a hiatus from burgers and let my arteries unclog for a bit. There will always be more to try once I have a hankering again.

Corner Burger
381 5th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.360.4622

Corner Bistro
331 W. 4th St.
New York, NY 10014
212.242.9502

I realized the other day that, apart from the moniker of my husband and trusty sidekick, Empanada Boy, empanadas have never actually been featured on this site. So when EB’s friend Foiegrasman suggested we meet up for a late dinner in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, I decided to remedy the situation with a visit Empanada Mama. As the name suggests, this is a restaurant with half of its menu devoted to dough-pocketed goodness— some more traditional than others. We met Foiegrasman and his boyfriend Veal Balls (an explanation of the name follows shortly) at the restaurant at 9:30 pm, but still had to wait about 35 minutes before we got a table for four. In the meantime, we drank $7 tinis, margaritas and glasses of vinho verde— all remarkably well-priced for New York City.

We were pretty hungry by the time we sat down and proceeded to order, yuca fries, plaintain chips and guacamole, veal and rice balls and loads of empanadas (around $2.50 to $3 each). Foiegrasman even threw in an arepa for good measure. The chips and fries were the first to arrive. As it turned out, we probably didn’t need to order both. Needless to say, we devoured them anyway. The plantain chips were thinly sliced lengthwise so as to show the shape and structure of the fruit’s profile. They were crispy, slightly sweet and slightly salty. We asked for the spicy guacamole, and it did have a kick (though not a very overpowering one). The yuca chips were like french fries, but with much more of their own innate flavor. Their exteriors were perfectly fried, and they proved pretty addictive.

After chowing down on the nontraditional chips, our meatballs arrived. These were made with veal and rice and were coated in a savory mushroom sauce. They had been recommended in other reviews I read, and our waitress singled them out, so I was expecting greatness. The meat balls were juicy and filled with flavor. (Veal Balls was so taken with them that he chose to christen himself after them—at least for the purpose of this blog.) I was less wild about the mushroom sauce because I found the flavor so strong it overwhelmed the meat. Still, the dish as a whole was unlike any I’ve tried before.

The final course was the pièce de résistance: the empanadas. In total, we tried seven different varieties with two made from corn flour (traditional Colombian style) and the rest from wheat flour. We didn’t much care for the corn flour ones, one filled with chorizo and the other shredded chicken, not because we didn’t like the shell but because the meat inside was dry and bland. The wheat flour empanadas didn’t have that problem. Among them were: the Brasil (ground beef, olives, sauteed onions, potatoes); the Reggaeton (Caribbean style roast pork, seasoned yellow rice and pigeon peas); chicken and broccoli teriyaki; the Viagra (seafood stew with shrimp, scallops and imitation crab); and the Cuban (slow roasted pork, ham, mozzarella, sofrito sauce). My hands-down favorite, and EB’s too, was the Reggaeton. It was the most flavorful and had the most interesting textural contrasts. It probably also reminded us of the jibaritos we used to eat in Chicago. My next favorite was probably the Cuban, which had a lot going on and was made decidedly more delicious by the creamy cheese. The spicy red sauce and the milder, creamier, green sauce on the table also livened up the breadiness of the crusts. The spinach and cheese arepa that Foiegrasman ordered was notably different from the ones I tried at Caracas Arepa Bar. Where those had an almost pita-like consistency, the corn-flour shell of this one was spongy and pleasantly chewy.

We spared no room in our stomachs for them, but Empanada Mama also has dessert empanadas, which are supposed to be tasty. Next time I want to treat my Empanada Boy to something sweet, I’ll know where to take him.

Empanada Mama
763 9th Ave. (at 51st St.)
New York, NY 10019
212.698.9008

My search for a great Midtown meal continued a few weeks ago when Empanada Boy and I were looking for a place to eat before the ballet. Many of the places near Lincoln Center are overpriced or just plain too expensive. But I remembered reading about Szechuan Gourmet in a 2008 two-star review by Frank Bruni in The New York Times. Bruni singled it out as a true example of ultra-spicy, pepper-infused Szechuan cooking outside the expected confines of Chinatown and Flushing. The restaurant has two, Midtown locations, but I wanted to try the original on 39th Street. EB and I met there after work.

Before I get into what we ordered, it’s worth emphasizing that this food is spicy. And when I say spicy, I mean burning your esophagus, numbing your lips, spicy. But the food can also be sweet or distinctively seasoned in a way that lets you taste and enjoy the complexities before the burn begins. The key ingredient in this heat is the Szechuan peppercorn, the outer pod of which is toasted and scattered throughout this restaurant’s menu.

EB and I started with mild, but delicious, appetizer of tender sliced pork belly with a fantastic chili-garlic soy sauce. The succulent flavors of this dish were just layered on: fat, sweetness, saltiness and a bite of scallion here and there.

As is turned out, we were glad we tasted this dish first because the dishes we ordered got progressively dominant in flavor. The next plate our server set down in front of us bore a mound of crispy lamb pieces, coated in a cumin-heavy spice powder. The dusty shell broke away upon biting to reveal tasty morsels of gamy lamb. The heat in this dish came from dried peppers that were scattered throughout. Everything was manageable until I bit into one of those babies. The burn lasted for a while so I didn’t end up eating many of them, and the bold spicing of the meat stood up well to the heat. My one complaint with this dish was that it was very dry. It’s not that the meat was overdone, but rather that there was no sauce or juices to it. I am assuming this is typical of the dish, but I found myself wanting liquids to sop up.

Our final dish was the ma po tofu, which is labeled with four stars (extra spicy) on the menu. Large, ethereally light, cubes of tofu are presented swimming in a pool of fragrant, slightly sweet, sauce. And then it hits you. The heat creeps across your lips and across your tongue, down your throat and into your stomach. The burn is both painful and pleasant. The sweetness of the sauce and the infusion of scallions comes through the heat, creating a symphony of components. We left feeling like we had eaten twice as much as our stomach muscles contracted with the heat of those chilies. Needless to say, it was a battle my stomach would be willing to fight again.

Szechuan Gourmet
21 W. 39th St.
New York, NY 10018
212.921.0233

Szechuan Gourmet 56
242 West 56th Street
New York, NY 10019
212.265.2226

I mostly bring my lunch to work. It’s cheaper and often better-tasting than the lame chains that populate Midtown Manhattan. But there are a few Midtown options that get me out and willing to pay the price. One of these is NYC Cravings, a Taiwanese food cart that parks right next door to my office (48th and 6th Ave.) every Monday. I read about the cart when it first opened, but only learned recently from my food-loving, part Taiwanese editor, Noodles, that it was parked mere steps away.

Nearly every Monday at around 11 am, a line of office workers cues up to wait for steaming, hefty portions of Taiwanese-style fried chicken, pork chops and fish cake, served over rice with pickled vegetables and pork sauce (all $7). The cart also serves pork dumplings ($3), chicken wings ($6) and zongzi ($4), which the menu describes as Chinese tamales. The line can be long, which is difficult to endure in the cold of winter. Luckily, my colleagues and I tend to eat later. When Salt Man and I went out to try our luck at about 2 pm a few weeks ago, there was one lone patron (who had regretfully come out without his coat) standing ahead of us.

Having already tried the pork chops and finding himself with too much food on another visit, Salt Man wisely offered to share with me. We ordered the crispy Taiwanese-style fried chicken and brought it back up to the warmth of our office to eat. The chicken was moist and tender with a pleasantly crispy, but not heavily bready, skin. The sauce was salty and rich, playing nicely off the tangy pickled cabbage. Fluffy steamed white rice let us soak up all the juices. This is one flavorful lunch, especially by Midtown standards.

Half a portion was just the right amount for me that day, but Salt Man admitted to still feeling hungry. I guess three-quarters of a portion would be enough to fill most people up. My only regret is that I wasn’t able to sample the pork chops or fish balls. I’m also fascinated by that Chinese tamale concept. Luckily, NYC Cravings seems set to keep showing up near my building every Monday, undoubtedly drawing long lines of lunch-goers every week. You can be sure that the next time I forget my lunch, that’s where I’ll be.

NYC Cravings
48th St. Between 6th and 7th Avenues
Other locations include: 24th between Park and Madison on Tuesdays and 53rd between Park and Lexington on Thursdays.

For all other days, check http://twitter.com/nyccravings.

“What is an arepa?” So asks the rhetorical question on the website of Caracas Arepa Bar. If you click on the link you learn they are “dense, yet-spongy corn flour rounds,” “pita-like pockets” “cake-swaddled melange” and “like a Latin Sloppy Joe,” among many other descriptors. But, as I found out recently the best way to really understand what they are is to try them yourself. I met up with my friend Onion there a few weeks ago to do that.

I learned about the restaurant from Sweet Tea, one of my colleagues, who is Venezuelan-American. I asked her if there are any good Venezuelan restaurants in New York City. She didn’t know of many, she said, but there was one great one I had to try. That place was Caracas Arepa Bar, which has outposts in Manhattan’s East Village and in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The Manhattan location is small and nearly always crowded, there happened to be a table for two waiting for us when we arrived. (It was also pretty dark inside, hence the poor quality of my photos.) Onion and I scanned the menu of arepas and liked the looks of too many of them to narrow it down. So we ordered, a curiara (Spanish word used in Venezuela for “dugout canoe”) filled with three varieties. The one we ordered, called La Popular, included two halves each of: La De Pabellón, with shredded beef, black beans, white salty cheese and sweet plantains; La Reina Pepiada, with chunky chicken and avocado mix salad; and La Mulata, with grilled white cheese with jalapeños, sautéed red peppers, fried sweet plantains and black beans.

Our server convinced us we needed an appetizer too, so we ordered tequeños—little fried dough sticks filled with melted, stretchy cheese. Those came with a slightly spicy dipping sauce, and they were satisfying (if a little too bland) in the guilty way jalapeño poppers and cheese fries can be, especially when eaten between swigs from our bottles of Negra Modelo.

As it turned out, we probably didn’t need an appetizer. Our arepas arrived in a wooden serving dish that was indeed reminiscent of a dugout canoe, but this one probably would have sunk to the bottom of the river because it was so filled with food. The arepas were chewy corn pockets that made for easy finger food. The only problem with this kind of finger food is once you start eating one, you can’t put it down for fear of it falling apart completely. Instead, I end up eating everything a bit too quickly.

My favorite arepa was the beef one. The salty cheese was like the crumbly Mexican cheese cotija, and it accented the slightly sweet beef and the plantains nicely. The chicken one was my least favorite; the meat was a little dry and the avocado lacked kick to counterbalance its fatty richness. (I added some of that hot sauce I’d put on the tequeños for some extra flavor.) The cheese and jalapeño one was more interesting, having great texture, heat and sweetness.

All-in-all, three halves of an arepa amounts to plenty of food for one person and enough variety to keep even the most indecisive eaters happy. If you still don’t know what an arepa is after reading this post, I suggest you go out and try one yourself.

Caracas Arepa Bar
93 1/2 E. 7th St.
New York, NY 10009
212.529.2314

Much has been said about the lack of good-tasting, inexpensive, food in Midtown Mahanttan, and for the most part, I agree. But I had been eager to try Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien since reading about its top-quality burgers last summer. Empanada Boy and I got the perfect opportunity to try it before a Carnegie Hall concert a few weeks ago.

To get to Burger Joint, you walk inside the lobby of Le Parker Meridien, one of Manhattan’s chic hotels. You look around, unsure of where you’re going, until a hotel porter clad in a dark suit wordlessly points you down a black-curtained corridor. You know you’re on the right track when you see the steaming burger neon sign hanging on the wall ahead of you. Then, suddenly, you’re in a small, funkily decorated, wood-paneled room, crowded with booths, tables and a counter, behind which a cook stood flipping burgers and frying French fries.

The line at the counter was fairly long when we walked in, but it moved pretty quickly. We ordered two medium-rare burgers, two orders of fries and a pitcher of Sam Adams (not a bad deal compared with the by-the-glass price). Besides one or two other drinks, there is virtually nothing else on the menu. It is not called Burger Joint for nothing. The guy behind the counter handed EB the pitcher. Unfortunately, every table was full. We stood menacingly near one of the booths making it clear we wanted them to hurry up and eat so we could have their seats. That happened just in time for the arrival of our food.

The burger didn’t look that impressive on arrival. The bun was a bit smashed, and the iceberg lettuce seemed sad. The fries looked tasty, so I started with one of those. Indeed, they were perfectly crispy and salted on the outside with a pleasantly soft interior. I dipped them in mustard and noted that the restaurant only serves Dijon. A wise choice, if you ask me. Then it was time to try the burger, which came topped with tomato, pickles and a specially seasoned mayonnaise.

When I bit into the burger, I was pleased to find it juicy and flavorful and cooked, as requested, to medium rare. (There are much fancier restaurants that can’t seem to get this final detail right.) The lettuce was flavorless, but provided crunch and, despite being smashed, the bun still tasted better than many I’ve tried. The pitcher of beer may have been a bit overkill, especially before a concert, but we almost managed to finish it off. Next time, I hope to try the milkshake on Burger Joint’s menu. I imagine it will be as pure an expression of the classic ideal as the burger and fries manage to be.

Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien
119 W. 56th St.
New York, NY 10019
212.708.7414

If we were stranded on a desert island where baguettes grew on trees and La Tur—a soft Piedmontese blend of cow, goat and sheep milk cheese—could be netted in the waters, Empanada Boy and I might just live happily ever after. This was only one of the four amazing cheeses we sampled last week at a tasting and cave tour we attended at Murray’s Cheese, in Greenwich Village. Murray’s, whose earliest incarnation dates back to 1940, is a gastronomic temple oozing with fine cheeses. It is one of the few cheese mongers in the U.S. that stores and ages its own cheeses in temperature-and-humidity-controlled caves below the street level. When the Columbia University Alumni Arts League advertised a cheese tasting and tour there, we eagerly signed on.

La Tur, described quite accurately in the tasting notes as being “like ice cream served from a warm scoop; decadent and melting from the outside in,” was definitely our favorite, but the other cheeses were among the most complex, delicious and thought-provoking I’ve tried. Our second cheese, called Beekman 1802 Blaak, is the first cheese attempt from the Beekman 1802 farm, based in Sharon Springs, NY. (The farm was founded in 1802.) The texture of the cheese was slightly chalky with a surprisingly subtle goat’s milk flavor. It didn’t quite pack the punch I was hoping for, but I suspect that was because it followed La Tur.

We paired these first two cheeses with 2006 La Segreta Bianco from Planeta, a winery in Sicily. It’s a carefree blend of Chardonnay, Fiano, Grecanico, Sauvignon and Viognier. The second half of the tasting was paired with 1999 Domini Douro, a blend of Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz (Portuguese Tempranillo) from the Douro region of Portugal. Portuguese wine is still coming into its own, so it’s possible to get a bottle this old for under $12. This one had plums, blackberries and vanilla with soft tannins—pretty complex for the money.

Our next cheese, the Brebis, came from the Basque country and the Bearn region of the French Pyrenees. It was aged for four-to-six months (in an old railroad tunnel, no less) and had a beautiful, smooth and creamy texture with sweet, nutty notes. We saw numerous cheeses like this in one of the caves down in the basement on our tour. A cheese like this would probably have to have its rind washed in water or a saline solution every so often and be turned lovingly and cradled a few times each day. I’m telling you, these cheeses get a lot of pampering!

The final cheese in the tasting was the Cabot Clothbound Cheddar from Vermont. It was dry, crumbly and tasted strongly of the fresh cut grass the cows that made it had undoubtedly been eating. There was also a great balance between saltiness and sweetness in this one, helping it stand up to the robust wine. This baby was aged (and coddled) for a year to enable all the proper molds could grow—it’s good to be a cheese at Murray’s!

We discovered exactly how good it was once we donned our hairnets and followed one of the cave managers down into the depths of the store. There were four caves and a walk-in refrigerator. We toured through the three where the most action was happening. The first was filled with soft, ripe blue cheeses and was calibrated to let the proper molds grow. The second housed primarily hard cheeses with washed rinds and all different colors of mold (humidity: 93%). The final cave, which also had high humidity, was home to the rounds that aged for even longer like Gruyere and Parmesan.

The smell was strong throughout all three rooms, but what we were smelling was not the wonderful scent of stinky cheese I had expected. Instead, we smelled tremendous wafts of ammonia being released by the cheeses as they aged. My nose hairs trembled under the sheer power of it! If we were not already convinced enough, the smell reminded all of us that the cheeses we were visiting and consuming were, in many ways living, breathing, creatures. And like all living creatures, our trip to Murray’s reminded us, cheeses should be treated with appropriate respect.

Murray’s Cheese
254 Bleecker St.
New York, NY 10014
888.MY.CHEEZ or 212.243.3289

Empanada Boy had a previous stint in New York City, a while before we met. At that time, he was a poor, single, college student working on two degrees and doing his best to fend for himself in the big, bad city. He eventually ended up moving to Park Slope in Brooklyn, but his first apartment was on the Upper West Side. Despite his relative poverty, he was a typical New Yorker and college student in that he rarely cooked for himself. Instead, he quickly identified the cheap, filling and delicious eateries in the immediate vicinity of his apartment. One of them was Alibaba a glatt kosher Yemenite-Israeli-run falafel restaurant, housed in a tiny nook of a space on Amsterdam and 85th Street. EB liked Alibaba so much that he was still singing its praises as the best falafel he’d tried when we moved here last year. Needless to say, I had to see what this place was all about.

As I’ve already mentioned, one of the most salient features of Alibaba is the restaurant’s tiny footprint. There is just enough room for a table with six seats and space for customers to walk up to the counter to order. Behind that counter, the kitchen seems even smaller. When the weather is warm enough the staff opens the front floor-to-ceiling window out onto the street. But even when it’s nice, the majority of customers gets delivery or take out. We sat down after ordering, and I got a good look at the restaurant’s crowded walls. A tiny sink offers a place to wash hands or fill up a plastic cup. Above it hang Jewish and Israeli posters, reviews from magazines and newspapers and lanterns that look like the were purchased in the shuk in Jerusalem.

As the guy behind the counter made our falafel, we got to fill up paper containers at the brightly colored salad bar to the right of the front counter. Beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted eggplants, curried carrots and cabbage were among the many delicious looking items to choose from. We filled our containers to the brim and started eating the crisp, fresh and flavorful offerings while we waited for our sandwiches.

We both got falafel (though we have since returned and tried schwarma) with everything on it. EB got his in the homemade lafah, a large, round, fluffy flatbread. The sauces were delicious— the hummus garlicky, the tahini tangy and the hot sauce remarkably spicy. Roasted eggplant, tomatoes and lettuce added depth, freshness and crunch. And the falafel balls themselves were infused with peppercorns, caraway, saffron, cardamom and turmeric. The top ones were crisp and light, just as I like them. As I got to the bottom, the falafel balls were a bit mushier than I would have preferred, but the flavor was all there. These are falafel balls with the tastes of Israeli fried right into them.

The next time I make it to Alibaba’s I’d like to try some of their other specialties like the bourekas, kebabs or melawah (lightly fried dough with crushed tomatoes and a hard-boiled egg). But I can’t promise that I won’t cave to temptation and simply order the falafel again. As the college-aged Empanada Boy discovered, it’s pretty hard to resist.

Alibaba
515 Amsterdam Ave.
New York, NY 10024
212.787.6008

“I am not feeling good about this,” said my colleague, Chopped Salad, as a group of us stood on the northwest corner of Bryant Park, watching the cars and bicyclists go by. The minutes passed, but none of them brought our hook-up.

We were waiting for a stealthily arranged drop-off, a weekly rendezvous with an apparently addictive substance. My colleague Sweet Tea had put in the orders and organized the outing to the appointed spot.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “He’s never not come.”

“If a window opens and food comes out, I’m hitting the deck,” Chopped Salad said nervously.

Our guy made us wait a bit, but after about 10 minutes, a bicycle pulled up at the curb. The rider was holding a white plastic bag from which a savory smell wafted. We quickly handed over the cash and went to sit down at the tables in the park. The moment of truth had arrived. Sweet Tea reached into the bag and pulled out a white takeout container. “This looks like Spicy Chicken with Basil,” she said, and handed me the box.

When Chopped Salad got his Chicken with Broccoli, he was finally at ease:

“There’s something about the light hitting the soy sauce,” he said philosophically when he opened his box.

This was not an illicit drug deal. It was a delivery of Chinese food from Home on 8th, a restaurant located on 8th Avenue, between 29th and 30th streets. Sweet Tea tried the place a while back and liked it so much that she decided she had to have it delivered once a week for lunch. The only problem was that our office is on 47th and 6th Avenue, well outside the delivery range of this establishment. Home on 8th does not deliver beyond Bryant Park in our direction— hence the meeting place. That’s right. Sweet Tea was able to sweet-talk this restaurant into delivering to her on a street corner at the furthest limit of its publicized range. The delivery has become a weekly tradition, but this was my (and Chopped Salad’s) first time trying it. There were six others along with us, most of whom were Chinese Tuesday veterans. I hoped it would live up to its reputation.

It was obvious from looking at the colorful, vegetable-laden food that the place uses better ingredients than your average greasy Chinese place. My dish, the chicken with basil (shown here), was no exception. The sauce was flavorful, but not as spicy as advertised. The sauce also didn’t achieve the earthy and slightly funky umami flavor I’ve gotten from the best authentic Chinese sauces I’ve tried.

To be fair, I likely didn’t order the best dish on the menu, which goes on for pages. In fact, the Kung Pao chicken (see top photo), which Sweet Tea and another colleague always order, had a much spicier, more lively sauce. They say it’s the best dish, and they are definitely the experts. The one thing I’m not so sure about, though, is my colleagues’ choice to order with fake chicken (ficken?) instead of real meat. They’re not vegetarians; they apparently just like the soy-based meat substitute. I tried a piece, and it definitely wasn’t bad, but real chicken has more flavor and a better texture to my mind.

The only really major critique came with the dish my colleague Salt Man ordered. He asked for chicken with Chinese broccoli, thinking it would be the same as Chopped Salad’s dish apart from the kind of broccoli. As it turned out, what Salt Man got had almost no sauce and was the whitest, plainest and blandest dish we ordered. He decanted some of our sauces onto his rice, but I could tell he was disappointed. Now we know what not to order.

Finally, thrown into the bag were a number of very crunchy, very fresh spring rolls—a great showcase for the high quality ingredients Home on 8th uses. All-in-all, I could see why the place stood out to Sweet Tea, especially in the sea of bad restaurants that is Midtown Manhattan. I don’t know if I can afford (both monetarily and waistline-wise) to eat this every Tuesday, but I love the tradition and plan to participate as much as possible. After all, how many times in my life will I get the opportunity to become a member of a totally shady underground Chinese food ring?

Home on 8th
391 8th Ave
New York, NY 10001
212.947.1420