Descend into the Maelstrom

New York City is amazing to behold. Since the 1600’s it has served as the biggest gateway into America from every other part of the world. This is borne out in the most delicious way, when it comes to food. Below I have outlined just a few of my favorite New York dishes in what I expect will be the first in a series of food criticisms. Keep in mind, I do not praise other people’s food lightly, because I consider myself an excellent cook, and 99% of the dishes I have ever eaten at an NYC restaurant, I feel that I can make better for myself in the comfort of my own kitchen. Yes I’m cocky, but it’s also a bit of a curse: my shrimp ceviche crushes anything that’s commercially available, my eggplant parmigiana is far superior to anything you could find in Little Italy or the five boroughs surrounding it, and don’t even get me started on any sort of Indian curry. To fully enjoy these things, I have to go through the long effort to make them myself. Don’t feel bad for me or anything.

Keep in mind that the best food in New York isn’t available at the ultra-pricey $200 per head New York eateries, which never fail to serve you tiny and unfulfillingly bland portions of food prepared by the minions of the celebrity chef who is usually off drinking somewhere, milking his fame to pick up impressionable young girls at a nearby bar (”OMG I saw that guy on Food Network in July!”). Plus, you never go wrong with the following mantra: if your food is being prepared by illegal immigrants toiling at some hole in the wall, it is going to taste pretty damn good, by law. It’s either make good food or get kicked out of the country. And who wants to wear a suit to a night out for really good food? If you have to dress up with a jacket from the restaurant’s wardrobe, there’s a guarantee that the food can’t be all that much fun to eat.

Not so with the following all-star lineup of New York dishes:

If the Gods above were to sit down to a meal, they would order this as their appetizer. As long as they weren’t vegetarians. The pork chop on shrimp toast at the top-notch Vietnamese pho house, Pho Bang right on Mott Street near where Chinatown hugs Little Italy serves up this unbelievable dish, a complex orchestra of flavors, in groups of 8 for less than a dollar each. The premise is simple: take a small, well-marinated piece of grilled pork chop, in the signature sweet and spicy flavor that the Vietnamese do so well (Lord, they know what to do with a pig!), place that on a broad rice noodle, and then place that atop an inch-and-a-half wide shrimp chip. Sprinkle it with tiny pieces of dried garlic and onion and crushed peanuts. Serve with fresh mint, fresh lettuce, two types of hot sauce, fish sauce laced with carrot and shallots, and hoisin sauce. Voila- the Gods are ready to eat! It’s a bit interactive- you take the lettuce, wrap it around the pork/noodle/toast, throw a leaf or two of mint on there, and flavor it to taste with the thick sauces; then dip the whole thing in the watery fish sauce. For that minimum of crispy, crunchy, tingly, and soft effort the tastiest appetizer in New York ensues. Side note: the grandest irony is that I don’t go there for the pho, which is a typical breakfast noodle soup with different beef parts that boil for many hours, with bean sprouts and other goodies thrown in with the cow intestines, stomach, and tongue. All my Asian friends swear by it- I just don’t like the concept. Luckily there are other good entrees to eat- but you come running for the flavor burst from the pork chop on shrimp chip. And you leave each time wondering how you paid so little for such good food.

It is appropriate that 69th Street in Queens serves up a mean 6-inch lamb or chicken kabab (sorry, that joke was just a little out of line). Go to Sunshine at Northern Boulevard, a friendly little Pakistani hole in the wall that makes ridiculous kebabs for less than a few bucks each, and you can chase it with fresh naan bread from the clay tandoor oven and some rice. Be sure to bring your Urdu translation book. Squeeze that lemon wedge on there- you’ll be glad you did- and take advantage of the raw onion slices and yogurt raita too, and make yourself a nice sandwich. Just don’t go on a date afterward. While kebab houses are a dime a dozen in this town, I’ve found this place to be consistently the best among many I’ve tried, during my workaday lunch breaks with my Pakistani colleague who has been to them all.

The question of which steak is the best in New York has caused families to break apart, about 6,000 divorces and nearly started another international war. I’ve been lucky to feast on some of the best cuts of meat at the unanimously high-rated steakhouses: Peter Luger’s in Brooklyn, Christo’s in Queens for the Greek touch, and the Strip House on 12th Street where it was chased down by a ridiculously delicious red wine made by the folks at Rothschild. However those of you who know about my Brazil trip will probably have been told repeatedly that the steak they eat down there is at least several notches above any of those, but it’s worth noting that the expensive Churrascaria Plataformas in Midtown or Tribeca do not even come close to matching up to the real McCoy. I would stake my claim, and even raise the stakes by declaring the best steak value in New York City is the lowly skirt steak with chimichurri sauce available at the South American joint, Boca Chica on 1st and 1st for less than $20. This cute little spot will cook it for you medium-rare, as it should be, and slice it up on a large combo plate with rice, a rich black bean stew, a cabbage and red radish salad with just the right amount of dressing, and the famed South American chimichurri sauce, a green and sour chunky salsa with a predominantly parsley kick. Pour it all over the place. Try and surmise how the massive plate is scraped clean in 4.23 minutes, on average.

I hope you enjoyed my food blog. Yes it’s true I was obsessed by the politics for a bit too long, and none of you below the age of 37 read any of it anyway. Speaking of politics, I should give a shout out to my friend, Nick Pai, a foodie and chef in his own right, who introduced me to both Pho Bang and Boca Chica. We may be polar opposites when it comes to politics, but we have sat down together at the tables of deliciousness on many an occasion. How’s that for reaching across the aisle?

Buon Appetit for now—-