EATS
Mehanata Bulgarian Bar
113 Ludlow St, 212-625-0981
Music the way I like it! Come on, honey, shake your Balkans for me! This bar (you can eat, but why?) feels like a party even on nights when Eugene Hutz forsakes the turntables for his day job in Gogol Bordello.
Momofuku
163 First Ave (212)475-7899
It took me three bites to figure out what all the fuss is about, but then, I'm always the last to know. Go at lunch to escape the ramen-crazed dinner crush.
Totonno Pizzeria Napolitano
1524 Neptune Ave, Brooklyn, 718-372-8606
The rumors are true. Totonno's pizza is just as good as its service is surly! The narrow wood benches are murder on the heiner, but that's just part of the fun, especially when you're out on the sidewalk wishing someone would move their ass so your party can be seated. The kids prefer our crappy $2 slice joint, but that's just because their adult tongues haven't come in yet.
The Good Fork
391 Van Brunt St, Brooklyn, 718-643-6636
Our friends, Ben and Sohui, not only put on a pirate play in their backyard, they made their own restaurant right down to warping the plywood for the curved ceiling, staffed it with friends, and damned if the dang thing wasn't splashed all over the pages of Bon Appetit a year later. Speaking of pirates, if you're on the fence about hauling it all the way to Red Hook, taste my unauthorized version of the fennel slaw that came with my crab cakes.
Great New York Noodle Town
28 1/2 Bowery, 212-349-0923
If you're the type whose appetite may be negatively impacted by the forceful decapitation of an already dead duck, sit with your back to the window, where all manner of tasty cadavers hang from hooks, waiting to enliven your five-dollar entree. Remember back in East Village Inky #33, when the kids and I saw a skinny guy trundling along Bayard with two giant pig carcasses on his back? Where do you think he was headed? The basement of Great New York Noodle Town.
*
Natural Tofu
34 West 32nd St, 2nd Floor, 212-736-9002
Looking to rid yourself of that pesky pink stuff lining the roof of your mouth? Dig into a steaming crock of Daenge Jang Jigae or Vegetarian Soon Tofu before it's had a minute or two to cool. Wear low-slung pants because they're also going to hit you with a half-dozen Korean palate-teasers, an orange, and possibly an egg. Sit by the window and pity the fools who aren't you!
New Green Bo
66 Bayard St, 212-625-2359
Whenever there's a wait, I amuse myself by imagining the editors of Gourmet and Vogue actually eating at New Green Bo. Their rhapsodic pull quotes, taped to the windows atelier-style, are right on the nosey, but still, I'd love to see Anna Wintour perched on a tippy, restaurant supply chair, squirting scalding dumpling juice onto the dingy honeydew-colored walls with the rest of the proles. You may be expected to share a table, Benihana style, but rest assured no crowd-pleasing, shrimp-flipping, condiment juggling antics will follow. The staff maintains a strict Eat And Get Out attitude.
*
Congee Village
100 Allen St, 212-941-1818
East of the West Village and South of the East Village, you'll find Congee Village, a savory porridge enclave, identifiable only by the giant, flashing neon signs screaming CONGEE VILLAGE!!! It always puts me in a festive, feasting mood. Let's start with the pepper shrimp. Take a trip downstairs, even if you aren't feeling the need to relieve yourself. A visit to the Ladies will position you to sneak a peek at those "ornate" party rooms, sort of like Versailles with TVs and Lazy Susans. Aw man, we should've had our pirated college reunion here instead of that place with the dead fish floating belly-up in murky aquariums.
Doyers Restaurant
11 Doyers St, 212-513-1527
Don't feel intimidated by the hundreds of unfamiliar-sounding Vietnamese dishes on the menu. You'll have the shrimp paste grilled in sugar cane. And not that it matters, but if you want to look like you know what you're doing, tear off a portion of the rubber-y grilled paste, sprinkle with sauce, add a few leaves of mint and roll it all up in a bit of that lettuce that arrived on a plastic platter. Who'd you think it was for? Harvey? Not to worry, though. They've seen plenty of gringos here, and no one's going to look at you funny unless you do something really foolish, like order a glass of the house wine.
*
New Wonton Garden
56 Mott St, 212-966-4886
A bubbling iron cauldon is just what the doctor ordered on a blustery night, when the windows are all fogged up, and the waiters are looking even more disgruntled than usual to be sporting their ludicrous Hawaiian shirt uniforms.
Vegetarian Dim Sum House
24 Pell St, 212-577-7176
No worries here that you'll accidentally end up with a plate of steamed chicken feets! So grab a pencil and check off half the boxes on that order sheet! Treasure balls? Check! Monk dumplings? Check! $2 mango pudding in a plastic cup? Double check!
*
Menchanko-Tei
131 East 45th Street, 212-986-6805
also: 43-45 West 55th Street, 212-247-1585
Slurp some piping hot noodles elbow-to-elbow with lunching salarymen. Especially welcome if you have business in the interesting-restaurant-challenged vicinity of Grand Central.
The Half King
505 West 23rd Street, 212-462-4300
Every time my buddy, Rolf Potts comes to town, he graciously allows me to pretend that I'm a travel writer, thus earning me a place at the big wooden brunch table with his legitimate travel writer pals like David Farley and Tony Perrottet! Whoo, all that literary name dropping wore me out so bad, I need me some Huevos Rancheros with cornbread! It gives me the strength I need to mention that the Half-King is somewhat-less-than-half-owned by Sebastian Junger.
*
Cevabdzinica Sarajevo
37-18 34th Ave, 718-752-9528
A well-timed trip to Southeast Asia left me jonesing for mangosteen, and now, a sojourn in Bosnia has put the cevapci monkey on my back. Just for the record, that monkey's made out of greasy grilled lamb sausage, and it's starting to calm down, now that it knows my cravings can be satisfied with a quick trip to Astoria.
Café Reggio
119 MacDougal St, 212-475-9557
Before you go to this dark, old-style café, rent Next Stop Greenwich Village. If you're lucky, you can sit at the table where a very young Christopher Walken gets his much deserved comeuppance. Make sure you go to the bathroom.
Decibel Sake Bar
240 E. 9th St, 212-979-2733
When I was but a tot, my paternal grandmother created a magical kingdom in my honor out of what I now realize amounted to just a couple of sizable bushes. Decibel reminds me of "Plumpkins Hollow," except with sake and really long lines to get in. Also, it's in a miniscule East Village basement. I don't drink in the shrubbery no more.
Tiengarden Vegan Restaurant
170 Allen St, 212-388-1364
Back when Greg and I were doing late night theater on the Ludlow St (which had just been "discovered" by the New York Times) this was the only healthy option for those on a late-night-downtown-take-a-bow-then-carry-the-props-to-the-
basement-while-the-even-later-late-night-show's-hostile-personnel-stares-at-you-in-
contempt-actor's budget. And now, it's a bastion of compassion and 'tude-free hospitality south of Houston.
*
Dim Sum Go Go
5 E Broadway (btwn. Catherine St and Chatham Sq), 212-732-0797
Right off the bat, you're going to want to F you up some Chinese parsley dumplings (if you're one of those freaks who gets skeeved out by cilantro, try the snow pea leaf dumplings). If you sit in the second-story window, you can see the cheap Chinatown buses lumbering off to DC and Boston. Don't order the "go go hamburgers in steamed buns" for your picky eater — they're close cousins to the "Australian pizza" I was served once in Bali — memorably strange but entirely unappetizing, even for someone who eats almost everything.
* (kids who share Inky's palate may refuse so much as a courtesy bite, but they are welcome.)
Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches
—150 E. Second St, 212-388-1088
—New second location! 311 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-855-8838
One of the gnarliest realities of reclaiming my aquarium-tarian status a few years back, was going cold turkey on Vietnamese sandwiches, which were even dearer to my heart than Cubanos, both of them bursting with mysterious but delicious meats. I didn't hold out much hope for Nicky's vegetarian version, and indeed, the first bite tasted disappointingly of that seldom-satisfying substitute, Portabello mushrooms. The second and all subsequent mouthfuls, however, were pure Proustian rush, made even tastier by the knowledge that the only creature who had to take a bolt to the cap for my eating pleasure was a fungus.
Smith's Bar & Restaurant
701 8th Ave. 212-246-3268
I always feel better about paying a babysitter half the week's grocery budget in order to accompany Greg to a Broadway musical that's going to turn me into a raving bitch by about the second number, if I can take the edge off before showtime with a beer at this dive conveniently situated within spitting distance of Times Square.
Mandoo Bar
2 W. 32nd St. (At Fifth Ave), 212-279-3075
(also 71 University Pl., btwn. 10th & 11th Sts., 212-358-0500)
I can never change printers because the guys who print The East Village Inky are just a couple of blocks away from this Korean dumpling house. On a cold day, nothing beats the vegetarian green ones floating in a generously-mushroomed broth ... especially if you're coming from a good scrubbing courtesy of one of the nice ladies at Yi-Pak spa down the street.
Shopsin's
(Address Updated) Essex St Market, Stall 16, 120 Essex St.
The proudly cantankerous owner, one of those New York characters who knows it and works it (got to live up to the profile Calvin Trillin did in the New Yorker) makes me so nervous, I worry that I'm going to get indigestion, but my horrid fascination with him and his incredibly diplomatic waitress daughter keeps me coming back whenever I'm in the hood. Plus, the food's good — there are literally hundreds of menu items, which can be mixed and matched and vegan-ized in umpteendillion different combinations — and the seltzer's free. I wouldn't want to find out what happens if you fail to observe the Turn Off Your Cell Phone rule.
Ruben's Empanadas
64 Fulton St, 212-962-5330
Hooray for the gayest empanada stand in Lower Manhattan, if not the whole world! Last time I was there, they had installed a flat-screen TV that was playing back-to-back ABBA videos which more than compensated for the fact that one of my empanadas was a bit dry. Choose the ones that sound like they'll contain a lot of sauce and revel in costumes so crazy they out-Cher'ed Cher.
Beard Papa's
740 Broadway (at Astor Pl), 212-353-8888
also 2167 Broadway (between 76th & 77th St, 212-799-3770
New York no longer lacks for the ancient Japanese art of piping cream puff filling into pie crust dough. You may want to save the bag featuring an old man fisherman mascot with ten times the appeal of Hello Kitty, but eat your cream puffs right away because they've got the shelf life of a snowflake.
*
Taro Sushi
446 Dean St (btwn Fifth Ave and Flatbush), 718-398-0872
The fact that this tiny little fish bar tucked behind Triangle Sports seems like nothing special is what makes this place so special. The fish has barely had its passport stamped on its one-way flight from Tokyo's Tsukiji Market before it's coming around the counter with your name on it. Also, Milo, age 4, recently shocked the holy living shabu-shabu out of me here by demonstrating that he can eat soba noodles with chopsticks.
Nice One Bakery
47 Bayard St, 212-791-9365
Okay, maybe all coconut buns are pretty much created equal, but I have special affection for the ones here, because it's our traditional heiner-warming station following the lion dances every Chinese New Year. And also, the coconut buns ARE really good.
Ciao For Now
504 E 12th St, 212-677-2616
Wowie! Not only was I bowled over to discover on my first visit that this little café's got a copy of The Big Rumpus on their community shelf, they let Inky go behind the counter to use their cute little johnny when the urge to poo came on her like a freight train at one of those East Village al fresco birthday parties in the playground at 12th and B. The proprietors may not be the first couple in the East Village to name their baby Django, but they've got fine coffee and delicious baked goods and we here at East Village Inky Enterprises wish them all the best!
*
Alma
187 Columbia St, Brooklyn, 718-643-5400
Fine Mexican grub with a second story sunset view that vindicates the residents of Red Hook, Brooklyn, who for once find themselves conveniently located. All sorts of hipsters and neighborhood folk want to see the remains of the day slipping behind the industrial cranes that line this side of the East River, so be prepared to wait. If they have a scallop special, have that and pace yourself because margaritas are ten bucks. My brother in law wants to know how the hell they wash those rough stone mortars in which the guacamole is served.
Hell's Kitchen
679 Ninth Ave, 212-977-1588
In my experience, most Broadway musicals benefit from a nice stiff margarita downed shortly before show time. If you'd like a good meal too, a fancy Mexican one that looks all gourmet on the plate and will run you about 20 bucks or more (not including libations and tip), go to this noisy, stylish room with cool lighting fixtures and none of the milling hordes. If you're going pre or post theater, reserve or you'll sit at the bar, if at all.
Baluchi's
104 Second Ave, 212-780-6000
and another fourteen other locations!
This Indian restaurant has outposts all over the city and Brooklyn, which I suppose makes this recommendation as hip and insider as a little boite known as T.G.I.Friday's. In my defense, let me say, Balucci's earns their ubiquity with delicious food, a 50% off lunch menu and best of all, a 12.95 appetizer and entrée with all the trimmings deal that's enough to feed Greg and me both when we order one for carry-out. Plus, if you'd looked out Little MoMo's kitchen window and seen what goes on backstage on the East Village's 6th Street Indian Restaurant row, you would never want to dine there again, no matter how much tinsel and twinkling lights they cram in there.
*
Curry in a Hurry
119 Lexington Avenue, 212-683-0900
Order a big old masala dosa downstairs, then haul it to the upper dining room where there are cheesy, endearing paintings on the walls, a chutney bar and large windows through which you can have a New York moment, watching the yellow cabs zoom along Lexington Avenue. (Greg gets mad when I call it 'Lex'.) Scare the kids with the case of fluorescent milk sweets by telling them that one of them is named Barfi.
*
Sucelt Coffee Shop
200 W 14th St, 212-242-0593
A sunny Dominican hole in the wall with great tamales, even for vegetarians (though regarding that, close quarters mean everybody bunks near some meat). At certain times of the day, you can sit at the counter and watch streams of pregnant women toddling to their appointments at the Elizabeth Seton Childbearing Center.
*
Triple 8 Palace
88 East Broadway, 212-941-8886
Take at least 4 friends to this enormous dim sum hall on your birthday - you'll enjoy it all the more if one of them speaks Chinese and another is so squeamish she'll swoon when the waiter rolls up with a cart full of severed chicken legs served up on monkey dishes.
* (you may want to pack the peanut butter and jelly)
The Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
65 Bayard, 212-608-4170
Order a green tea, lychee or durian cone for your stroll around Chinatown. Let the little wiener stick with chocolate.
*
The Cowgirl Hall of Fame
519 Hudson, 212-633-1133
Hey, pardner, saddle on up to this theme-y West Village joint where the food's purty good and you can drink a margarita while the kids make with crayons on the paper placemats and call your attention to the many horse pictures on the wall by shouting "Ho'! Ho'! Ho'!" Don't be offended when they seat you in the baby ghetto.
*
Mama Buddha
576 Hudson, 212-924-2762
A NY oddity! A clean, well-lit, inexpensive restaurant with lots of space and waitresses so child-friendly it's almost an annoyance! Brown rice, old fashioned Sassy seats and free oranges and fortune cookies to conclude your meal!
*
La Caridad
2199 Broadway, 212-874-2780
Back when I lived in Chicago, I thought 'Cuban Chinese' was something Tom Waits made up for a lyric! I recommend sticking to the Cuban end of the menu - specifically the fried pork chops with tons of raw garlic - served by surly Chinese waiters in a no-frills setting pulsing with the anxieties of the many people waiting in line for your table. Go early.
Pat-Pong
93 E. 7th St, 212-505-6454
The main waitress at this upscale (for me - don't worry, nothing costs more than 15 bucks) and delicious little Thai place is so affectionately solicitous of Inky that I can't shake the feeling that she started out as a bar girl in Bangkok's red light district - the infamous (and depressing) Patpong Road. Go right when they open if you're taking the kids, because you don't want to repulse the other customers who pack the joint later on.
Saint's Alp Teahouse
3rd Avenue between 9th and 10th Street
and another location: 51 Mott St, 212-766-9889
The Japanese club kids can't get enough of that sweet tapioca pearl tea and neither can Inky. There are lots of little bakeries that serve this in Chinatown, but this place boasts tiny tables, chairs and teapots for the pleasure of her royal tiny heinie, soon to be plenty jacked up on the copious amounts of sugar in every drink and snack available here.
*
Sapporo East
245 E 10th St, 212-260-1330
Go on a cold night, huddle in the entry way with the masses awaiting open tables and reward yourself with a steaming bowl of special udon, the kind of comfort food that doesn't make you feel uncomfortable an hour after you've gorged yourself. Loud and homey!
Shiki Kitchen
135 First Avenue, 212-614-1605
I don't know if they're still running the $1/piece sushi special that I so enjoyed when I lived around the corner, but it looks like someone's got something better than side work to do when business is slow: the place is plastered with amusing paper cut-outs of animals and people and I don't know what all, to quote my grandmother who made it from cradle to grave without ever sampling Japanese food, let alone chirashi, my favorite, raw fish blanketing a big bowl of sushi rice.
Nino's
131 St. Marks Pl, 212-979-8688
I believe this conveniently located pizza-by-the-slice place has jacked up the prices since I reported on their enormous $1 cups of soft serve chocolate ice cream in The East Village Inky #1, so bring an extra 35 cents, and don't plan to eat it across the street in the Tompkins Square Playground unless you bring 25 extra plastic spoons and the inclination to share.
East Village Thai
32 E. 7th St, 212-673-4610
Food's great and there are 3 tables!
Kate's Joint
58 Avenue B, 212-777-7059
With all this pork chop raw fish chicken foot talk, I figured I'd better throw a bone to my vegan friends — eat here and you'll be so punk rawk, you won't have to fish 20 expired bagels out of a dumpster on principle! Tofu sausage and scramble that's actually palatable!
Banh Mi So 1
369 Broome St, 212-219-8341
This streetside stall in a humble Chinese mall on the Bowery sells Vietnamese sandwiches just like I used to buy at Bale in Chicago and also when I was doing time in 'Nam (when I was in the shit, the tourist shit). 2 bucks apiece! Whoo!
Brawta Café
347 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-855-5515
Upscale (again, for me) Jamaican food served by sexy waitresses under a crazy painting of a breastfeeding mother and child! Might one recommend the shrimp roti, even if one's husband is allergic to shrimp and behaves in a resentful manner when one orders something he can't share?
Boerum Hill Food Company
134 Smith St, Brooklyn, 718-222-0140
I'm indebted to the staff for letting me write The Big Rumpus, so perhaps you could order a lot of their delicious food instead of just a large cappuccino and three hours hogging an outlet for your laptop. There's a basket of books and old Happy Meal toys for the kids! If you want to shell out some lettuce for fine dining, try their brother restaurant a few doors down, Saul.
*
Café LULUc
214 Smith St, Brooklyn, 718-625-3815
For some reason, this inviting French bistro has proved a successful place to take Inky and Milo, perhaps because we can pinion them in a booth and let them sip steamed milk out of coffee cups while we stare at ourselves in the mirror on the back wall, pretending that we live in Paris.
*
Superfine
126 Front St, Brooklyn, 718-243-9005
How is it that a place with industrial cement ramps leading to multiple levels ringed by easy-to-slip-through metal metal fence rails is one of the most child-friendly places in town, specifically in hipster D.U.M.B.O. (that stands for "Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass")? Good Southwestern eats, great waitstaff, bluegrass Sunday brunches, a basket of blocks and a beat-up plastic toddler bike to ride down those ramps must have something to do with it!
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