Worldly in a Weekend

A friend coming to visit always implies that you will be out doing more, drinking more, eating more, and just generally out and about more—most assuredly pretending that you lead a far more exciting life that you actually do. For this weekend, I played the role of the worldly eater, duly impressing my friend (as well as myself) with how may different cuisines we could fit into a weekend. Dim Sum in Chinatown, French cheese and wine in central park, Ethopian food in Morningside Heights, Creole cuisine midtown, and New York bagels for breakfast daily. Feel free to skim the highlights below….

We walked only a few blocks from my dorm to fulfill our dreams of a meal eaten completely with our hands. As soon as our utensil free meal at the Ethiopian restaurant, Massawa, came out of the kitchen, we were in heaven. Its as simple as 1,2,3—first you take the injera spongy flat bread, then you use it to scoop up a variety of tebsi (beef cubes with pepper and onions), pureed chickpeas, okra, lamb with berbere spice, and anything else the chef decides to pile on your plate. Lastly, you stuff it (leisurely, of course) in your mouth, breathing a sigh of relief at the unpretentious and flavorful sustenance you are slowly chewing.

The trip to Chinatown was painless enough; we even managed to procure a purse or two out of the walking-a-mile-the-wrong-way-to-the-restaurant ordeal. When we finally arrived at the Golden Bridge dim sum compound (you will soon come to understand why I call it such) we sat in a airport-like waiting room, ticket in had (we were number 64), anxiously waiting to be seated in the hotel ballroom of a restaurant. Minutes later, the lady over the speaker called 33…then 64. Out of order? Yes. Did we complain? No. After settling in with our cup of tea, we were ready to start hailing carts. Cha Siu Sou, a flaky pastry with BBQ pork inside found its way to our table first, followed by Jin Deui, which is a clear, sweet and chewy dough filled with something possibly resembling chicken and shrimp, then deep fried and rolled in sesame seeds. How could that be bad? In fact, how could any of these fried, doughy, sweet yet savory, seasame coated bites be bad? Answer: they couldn't. We licked our fingers for a renegade piece of dough or a drop of sweet soy. Nowhere near full, we moved on to the rice noodles—one batch of plain noodles with hoisin sauce and sesame, and another dish where the noodles are wrapped around a piece of fried dough that somewhat resembles the inside of a churro. Soaked in a sweet soy sauce, the friend dough-noodle combo is done before the next cart rolls around. Through the meal, I’ve been getting a back massage (read: poked and prodded and laughed at) by a little Chinese boy who finds me far more amusing than the food. The fact that the place is filled with Asian families whose children just can’t seem to get enough of making it as difficult as possible for us to eat does not bother me, only because I know it means that this food is good. And it is. Accordingly, we get some seconds of each as well as an order of steamed bok choy to indulge the health nut at the table, and pay the $5 per person bill so that we can head back out to the streets of downtown Manhattan. Chinatown still has another treat in store for me—I grab a fresh coconut for a few dollars and watch as the vendor lops of the top with a large knife, sticks a straw in the top, and hands me my coconut milk on the go. On a hot day in Chinatown, the sweet, cool, liquid is just what I need.

Preview of things to come (and I'm only listing these restaurants because I am in a constant state of excitement due to each one): Deliciously innovative cuisine from Wd~50 and Providence followed by a trip to Chez Panisse, the mother of all organic, local and just damn good food. Grace and Catch both come somewhere in between...all promising to make these few months the best of my life. I'll keep you posted...