Descend into the Maelstrom

To follow up on my last food blog about New York’s tastiest morsels, full of flavorful red meat, I’m going to expound here on the best vegetarian food I’ve eaten in over 7 years of wandering around this great city.

Just because you’re eating something vegetarian doesn’t mean you have to deny your body of protein.  That’s where falafel comes in.  Falafel is generally a deep-fried elliptical ball of crushed chickpea mashed with delicious seasonings, and it seems to be the only thing that both Israelis and Arabs seem to agree on.   That’s how you know it’s special.  Ubiquitous amongst both cultures, it’s usually served with rice or pita bread.  In New York you’ll usually find it in a sandwich preparation with white tahini (sesame) sauce, onions, tomatos, lettuce, and parsley.  It’s a cheap meal, always within a few dollars, and can be found within short order in every neighbordhood in New York at Israeli or Middle Eastern establishments.  I believe the crown amongst these goes to Mamoun’s, a world-famous store usually featuring lines out the door past four in the morning.  As a kid living in Saudi Arabia I still remember the vendors who fried these on the sidewalk in large vats of oil, and served them fresh on the spot.  Usually they were gone before my family made it home, which was just three blocks away.  Mamoun’s wins out for the quality, freshness, and perfect seasoning you get every single time, day or night for $2.50.  And it can now be found in both the East and West Village areas.  If you haven’t devoured a falafel sandwich, haul yourself down there like yesterday.

A few doors down from the original Mamoun’s on McDougal Street is the Indian sandwich shop known as the Kati Roll Company, which competes nightly with Mamoun’s for the length of the line going out the door. Here you can buy the achari paneer kati roll, which features grilled cubes of paneer, or hardened Indian cottage cheese, topped with fresh chilis, onions, lemon juice, and spices rolled up in a grease-toasted flatbread known by various names, including paratha.  When you bite into one of these I guarantee your saliva will drip all over the paneer.   The cheese doesn’t melt, so it stands up to the barbecue process, and it’s cholesterol-laden enough to satiate even the meat-eaters amongst us.  As an added bonus, this is easy to make at home too after a quick visit to any Indian grocery store.  Slabs of paneer can be found in the frozen section.  Defrost it and throw it on the pan, cut into cubes and we’re ready to go to town.

Of course, New York is also famous for its unique style of pizza.  The most famed sit-down pizzerias in New York, such as Lombardi’s, Grimaldi’s, John’s, and others specialize in the gourmet coal or brick oven-fired pies that have been feeding New Yorkers since the 1800’s at very reasonable prices.  You cannot go wrong at any of these joints, with any pie on the menu.  Just about all of them have their roots in one single shop in Manhattan, but vicious family feuds mixed with ego issues (”Ayyyyyy, I said 227 degrees not 229 degrees in that f***ing oven Luigi!!!”) caused them to break off into splinter groups.  Now you can get a slice of pizza on just about every street corner of all five boroughs.  Although no two people seem to agree on this, I think the best amongst all the budget chains is easily Famiglia. Within the first bite of a plain cheese thin-crust pie from this place in the fall of 2001, I was in love.  This simple concoction of dough, a sweetish tomato sauce, and shredded mozzarella cheese is the one dish that I always take out-of-towners to taste.  My preferred store is on 50th and Broadway, not too far from the bright lights of Times Square, my old ‘hood.  Toppings really are not necessary- the basic pie has all the flavor you could want- although a little garlic powder and crushed red pepper takes things to the next level.  Chase it with a $1 order of garlic knots.  I think the secret here is the sauce, made of vine-ripened tomatoes picked by discerning old women with nothing better to do in Southern Italy, and water from some secret source that helps shape both the sauce and the dough.

I would be amiss not to include a dessert item on our vegetarian tour.  A chain called Beard Papa’s, all the rage in Japan, has been happily transplanted to Manhattan several years ago.  Like all of today’s features, this one too is exceedingly simple: a fluffy hollow pastry filled with luscious creams of various flavors.  The regular cream puff is heavenly, but you also can’t go wrong with coffee-flavored and green-tea flavored cream infusions.  If you’re really hungry, get all three.

And there we have it: without leaving Manhattan you can travel to the shores of the Red Sea, the stalls of Delhi, the vibrant markets of Sicily, or the back alleys of Tokyo.  All the while stuffing your face with tasty vegetarian food.  Most major cities of the world can boast the confluence of cultures, but no other place can match the consistenly high quality of flavors within easy reach of one another.  We haven’t even scratched the surface yet, so tune in next time.