Guilty Pleasures with a Twist: Florentina New York Nosh Week

In case you haven't figured it out, New York City is really "New Nosh City" for Florentina and her relatives. Wednesday's food tourism eventually spilled over into Thursday, moving from one guilty pleasure to another. For a few brief moments, Florentina and cousins thought about how each tasty bite might take us a step higher to the pinnacle of Mount Cholesterol, but after reminding ourselves this was a vacation for them, we gave that up. In this posting I'll be covering twists on my favorite guilty pleasures: candy, pizza, and sushi. (Sushi isn't actually a guilty pleasure, but these days it's as ubiquitous as pizza, if not more so for its lowfat content. N.B.: Florentina dislikes the American tendency to count calories and cholesterol counts, but we cousins are more adult than we used to be, and perhaps more American now, too.)

Two pounds of candies from around Asia.
Look for the pale yellow bits; they're durian flavored. 

For the candy category, we have this offering from Mott Street in Chinatown: the Aji Ichiban store near the Church of the Transfiguration. This is where Mott Street takes a sharp turn to the left. I don't quite remember what was there when I was a kid, but when this awesome store opened up a few years ago, I was more than excited. Not only can you get all sorts of sweets, but you can also get little dried fish snacks and rice crackers with seaweed. Cousin Mona was excited to try everything, and they always have samples available. In this two pound bag of candy, I picked up four durian candies; you will see them as the pale yellow candies on the right side of this picture. I have one left, after Joey's Dad had one on the street, and Florentina's mom took two of them. (Arrgh -- the whole kitchen smelled like rotten broccoli while she chewed it!) Don't be fooled by those pale yellow candies masquerading as salt water taffy, to those Americans out there looking at the picture.

From www.Kanpai Sunset.com.
If I had ordered this,
I would have made sure to have the
whole thing filled with temaki rolls.

This part goes out to my sushi buddy, Lori. For sushi, Joey's Dad and I limped back to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn after a whole day of hanging out in Manhattan. The walk through the arms and armor display in the Met may have taken it out of all of us. We had some sushi at a place around the block and discovered that they did a great job with the salmon skin temaki roll. I adore the salmon skin handroll because it combines two of my favorite things: sushi and a cone (of nori) holding it together. For this piece of awesomeness, the sushi chef has to crisp up a piece of salmon skin to complement the sushi rice.

Light Pizzas. Left: seasoned beef and egg on pita.
Right: Labne cheese, mint, tomatoes and olives on pita.
Sorry! I had originally said the green stuff was basil
in the earlier version of this post.

For pizza, my cousins went to DiFara Pizza in Brooklyn, a famous place that draws crowds. This was a good bookend to their trip to Pepe's Pizza in New Haven, CT on the previous Friday afternoon. While they all had some traditional pizza, Joey's Dad and I tried a new twist on the pizza at Man'ouChe Restaurant on Fifth Avenue (between 77th and 78th Streets) in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. These pretty pitas are called manakeesh and are surprisingly filling. The pita on the right is like a fresh salad on a pita. Definitely lacking the pale orangey grease spot on the paper underneath both of these pitas, unlike a real pizza like the kind my cousins had. But it hit the spot to get some refreshing Lebanese food after some of the heavier lifting of the previous day.

No, no diet in the near future for Florentina. (The words "diet," and "calorie"are akin to nonsense syllables in any of Florentina's languages in use.) Florentina's next major adventure involves visiting Houston at the end of next week. As it's not a known quantity, I hope to see what makes it an interesting destination.

Happy Rosh Hashanah: Florentina New York Nosh Week

After dim sum on Wednesday, the cousins and Joey's Dad moseyed from Chinatown to Houston Street, via the Bowery. The Bowery is rather different now from what I remembered as a child. If you've ever seen the book Flophouse: Life on the Bowery by David Isay, Stacy Abrahamson, and Harvey Wang (2001)  then you have seen some of the rooming houses and the men who lived in them, frequently visible streetside whenever my parents drove through the Bowery to get to Chinatown. Nowadays we have a new art museum right near the Bowery Mission. However, the more interesting industrial parts are still visible: the row of lighting stores, the cash register store, and the restaurant supply stores. Cousins Mona and Oliver were really intrigued by these stores because they don't often see such things where they live in California; here they are right in the city. The city used to be where we always went to get anything we needed for cheaper. Some people seem to have forgotten that now.

Pastrami Palace.

Picnic lunch (www.katzsdelicatessen.com)

(from russanddaughters.com)

But I'll bet the folks at Russ and Daughters as well as Katz's Delicatessen still remember those old days. When I was that kid in the backseat of the car, driving down the Bowery, trying not to make eye contact with some of those tired-looking men lounging streetside, I always looked forward to seeing these two storefronts. I was always especially impressed by Russ who loved his daughters so much that they were added to the company name and the store's neon sign. Cousin Oliver ran into Russ and Daughters and ran back out with a small portion of smoked salmon for all of us to have a taste. 

(www.centralparknyc.org)

At Katz's Deli, we got pastrami sandwiches to go. We were going to picnic at Central Park before visiting the Met. It was the best pastrami sandwich ever, and we watched the toy boats lazily sail across the pond at the model sailboat pond.  You can rent a boat and test your ability to tack the tiny vessel. It's kind of nice to be dead in the water when you're not actually in the water. Cousin Oliver was very tempted to rent a boat, but decided we had to move onwards to the Met for the arms and armor display.

Dim Sum and Phoenix Talons: Florentina New York Nosh Week

Wednesday was a major day of noshing through New York City. The day began with dim sum in Manhattan's Chinatown. For those readers who have rarely had this pleasure, you want to pick a restaurant that is super busy. I know this runs counter to what some diners would prefer, but in this case, more people = more dim sum dishes = fresher stuff. We were at Kam Fong on Elizabeth Street this morning, and ended up at a table of nine people. All of them are related to me in some fashion, and all of them love dim sum. It is the way for relatives to see each other and have a good time. Dim sum with a large table is a way to show togetherness. Some people forget this fundamental function of dim sum and ruin it for everyone else, but we are not interested in those freaks today. Today we had a spread that would send a vegetarian running for a cave.

On my left were my mother's cousin, my aunt from California, mother's other cousin, and my parents. On my right were Joey's Dad, my two cousins from California, and my brother. My cousins Oliver and Mona were eager to meet Joey's Dad, and they were curious as to his culinary adventurousness. Oliver had laughed about testing him with chicken feet, otherwise known as "phoenix talons" or something romantic like that. My cousins knew that Joey's Dad was a capable candidate because of my story about his consumption of a durian milkshake. Durian is not a fruit to be messed with, as my cousin Mona once described it as tasting like garbage.

We had many different plates of dumplings, and two versions of chicken feet. For those who want to know what the two different versions were, let me know and I'll talk more about it on another blog. Dim Sum is a minor food orgy spread over multiple stomachs, if you arrange things properly. In a matter of seconds, the large round table in front of you can be filled with little plates, courtesy of one's very eager Dad.

Before Dad.

After Dad.

As you can see, there are all sorts of things in little steamers, and the pots of tea are always ready to refill the little teacups. Usually we will also find glasses of water, but we went all traditional this morning because it was a little bit on the early side (9:30am) for the wait staff to pay much attention to us. Lots of older folks will go for a little tea and dim sum in the morning, almost like a stop off at the diner or cafe. It's a good place to get a shot of protein and caffeine. In this morning's dim sum, we had only one item that had any significant vegetable matter: the bamboo shoots wrapped in bean curd sheets. Even that little dish had a touch of pork in it. This protein and caffeine filled morning gave us cousins the boost to keep going to the next stops, as you'll see next.

Gray's Papaya: The King of Hot Dogs

El Señor is just gonna laugh his head off about this one. Hot dogs are probably easy to find where he is, and in fact, bratwursts are probably more popular. This week, it's Florentina New York Nosh Week. Today was Gray's Papaya on 72nd and Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Not only was it a fast food excursion, it was also a Florentina sprint day through NYC public transit, namely the subway system. Coming from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, combined with a detour in Grand Central Station because of a mistimed email from my sister asking to meet there beforehand, this trip took an hour and five different subways: R, N, 5, S, and the last and most awesome, 2 train. The 2 train got me from Grand Central Station to W 72nd Street in a matter of minutes as an express. If you were in Grand Central Station at around noon today, you would have seen me sprinting through the terminal. If I had not made that detour for my sister, I still would have needed to take three different subway lines to get up there.

 
The paper versions of fruits hanging above these besotted fast foodies represent the fruit flavors for various cold drinks to go with your hot dog or two. My sister made sure to order the Recession Special ($4.95) of two hot dogs with your choice of toppings, and a drink. She got me a papaya drink, as requested. The different colored signs also tell you what kinds of drink flavors are available, as if the paper decorations don't grab your attention. Understandably, the hot dogs will take a lot of your attention because they are the star of the show here.

When I was a kid in New York City, I just loved getting a hot dog from the streetside carts. Sure, they're probably terrible for you, but it was a rare treat. Gray's Papaya gives you the same thrill but in a more hygienic fashion, as well as some friendly faces behind the counter. My hot dog with ketchup, mustard, and sauerkraut really hit the spot. In fact, I realized tonight that it was pretty much the only thing I ate for most of the day, with half of the papaya drink. I'm sure tomorrow will be a better day for my nutritional intake.