Many of our adventures in food thus far were rather lackluster, with the exception of Katz’s sublime pastrami on rye on our first day in town. Our third day in, however, helped to rectify some mistakes in our culinary adventures.
We started our day with brunch at Russ and Daughters Cafe, a fine restaurant indeed located at Orchard and Delancey. (This area of town ceases with a numbered grid of streets and avenues, but we’re roughly three blocks south of 1st Street, and Orchard lines up roughly with 1st avenue. All of this places us just south of the East Village.)
Their menu consists of a marvelously diverse selection of salmon, sturgeon, herring, and other whitefish, another equally diverse selection of caviar and roe, as well as other options like eggs and matzo balls.
In a word, simply divine stuff! I opted for a plate called the Lower Sunny Side which was sunny side up eggs, smoked salmon, and potato latkes. Everything was all perfectly seasoned, the salmon was delectably scrumptious, and the potato latkes (the Jewish equivalent of potato pancakes), were satisfyingly crispy. Do make sure you can visit Russ and Daughters, if you can, as brunch here was definitely a highlight of our trip.
Following this, we made our way a little farther south to catch the Staten Island Ferry in order to catch glimpses of the New York cityscape from the Upper Bay (the mouth of the Hudson River) as well as views of the Statue of Liberty. You could say that taking the Staten Island Ferry is the poor person’s way to experience these views, as the Staten Island Ferry is free to ride. The ferry provides stunning views of the city in its entirety, something that’s quite difficult to do when actually in the city (unlike smaller cities like Minneapolis, where all you need to do is go to Uptown to view the entirety of Downtown), and you get somewhat close (but not close enough) to enjoy views of the statue (or “the lady,” as we called her while we were there).
It was quite disappointing not going into the statue itself. We hadn’t realized until it was too late that tickets into the crown sell out quite far in advance, and we didn’t want to go to the lady if we couldn’t get into the crown. So, we settled for some less-than-spectacular views of the icon from the ferry, with the idea that one day we shall come back later better prepared. So, do make sure to plan far enough in advance to get into the crown, as I feel that (while it was exciting seeing the statue), the views from the ferry just didn’t have the same exhilarating satisfaction of seeing it up close and inside.
(Also, on a side note: the ferry crosses briefly into New Jersey waters [the statue itself is actually in New Jersey, interestingly enough], and so if you’re like me and want to some day visit all 50 states but don’t really have a desire to go to such substandard states as New Jersey, just ride the ferry to check off that state from your list.)
(Another quick side note: Staten Island is dull and boring and I don’t have much to say about it so we left back to Manhattan very quickly.)
Following our adventures on the ferry, it was already time for dinner, so we made our way to Momofuku on 1st Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets. Along with pastrami on rye and bagels, ramen is another classic New York dish to enjoy. (Our adventures in pizza and hot dogs will come a bit later on our trip…)
Minneapolis doesn’t really have good ramen, the stuff at Moto-I here in Minneapolis is just a saline bowl of salt. (Although I’m quite looking forward to see how Matthew Kazama’s new ramen shop will stack up when it opens.) The ramen in New York, in general, is in another league entirely, as it currently stands. At Momofuku, I opted for a bowl of ramen with pork belly, pork shoulder, and poached egg, and it was delectable! The pork was mystifyingly tender, the broth was delicately seasoned filled with layers of aromas, and the noodles were just perfectly wavy and lengthy. Momofuku has an open kitchen, and we got to sit at the bar to watch all of the action happen. The manager in charge was very passionate about her job as she reminded her cooks, “Are you tasting the broth before you send it out??” and “Why are all these bowls sitting out?? Put them away!!” and “Clean up right away as soon as you’re done with what you’re making!!” Everyone diligently followed her suggestions, and the whole operation ran with precision and care.
Following our dinner, we made our way to the Bank Street Theatre in the Greenwich Village and Meatpacking District area to enjoy the Labyrinth Theatre Company’s Empanada Loca by Aaron Mark and featuring Daphne Rubin-Vega as the sole performer on stage. Rubin-Vega is an accomplished actress, a recipient and nominee for several prestigious awards, and she originated major roles in RENT and Anna in the Tropics.
Rubin-Vega’s performance as Dolores in Empanada Loca was absolutely stunning. It takes place deep below New York in the city’s dark and dingy sewers where all she has is an old massage table and a bottle that collects water from a leaky pipe. She sips from the bottle a couple times through the show, as for 90 minutes or so, it’s all her regaling to an unseen listener a story about how she ended up where she did.
After we learn about how Dolores started drinking at age 9 when her police office mother was killed by gunshot, how she studied for two years at Hunter College to be a city planner, how she dropped out after meeting a man called Dominic who was a drug dealer, and then how she started a new career as a massage therapist, we learn that she created a partnership with a man called Luis who owned a restaurant, and in an obviously Sweeney Todd-ish way, Dolores’s guests to her massage table end up as meat in Luis’s empanadas. (This isn’t really a spoiler, as the subtitle to the play makes it clear that the show is a riff on the legend.)
(Loca, by the way, means “mad” in Spanish, and empanadas are, of course, stuffed pastries.)
Everything in the show comes together marvelously, from the eerie lighting, the sound of subway trains overhead, the realistic set design, to Rubin-Vega’s performance. I want to call her performance a tour de force, but I hate it when people say that, just like I hate it when people call anyone a genius. But, it really was an attractively sublime performance as Rubin-Vega nonchalantly describes the gritty details of all the deaths she witnessed in her life, all the hardships she endured, but also all the successes she’s had (such as it is, dispatching unwilling massage victims to Luis’s empanadas).
Following the show, we made our way on foot to the Stonewall Inn, the bar that marks a major watershed moment in the gay rights movement, but it’s really nothing spectacular. It’s your standard gay bar with overpriced drinks, unwelcoming and judging gay men, and I think there were pool tables as well, but I can’t remember.
We quickly made our way from there to admire Washington Square Park which bore a strikingly uncanny resemblance to the northeast corner of Hyde Park in London by the Marble Arch and Speakers’ Corner, then to cocktails at a bar called the Up and Up before getting in line to attend our first night of standup comedy at the Comedy Cellar, as made famous in Louis C.K.’s television series, Louis.
The venue is just as cramped and tiny and dark and questionable as it appears on Louis’s show, but all in a wonderful endearing way, and the show featured on the microphone Jon Fisch, Mike Vecchione, Kevin Brennan, Sherrod Small, Michelle Wolf, Kurt Metzger, and Paul Mecurio.
I have a weird relationship with standup. I’ve only until this show seen it on video, and I adore comedians like Eddie Izzard and Kristen Schaal, but there are lots of other comedians that I just don’t think are very funny, and I find myself watching them tell jokes that don’t make me laugh while the whole audience on the video cracks up.
However, being in the presence of these comedians actually did make me laugh, but I have to wonder if I would laugh if I actually saw them on video, which then made me wonder if I actually did like these comedians.
That said (and since I’ve been slow to post these and it’s now nearly almost an entire month since I saw the show), I do remember Michelle Wolf’s performance quite vividly. Perhaps it was her giant hair, but I do remember her bit was the one that made me laugh the most. She did a hilarious impression of her Jewish mother that I remember quite clearly, and she had a delivery that was matter-of-fact but not deadpan. I do prefer comics when they’re more understated and less “silly walks” and all that, and Wolf was right up my alley.
To round the evening off, we made our way down the street to Ben’s Pizzeria, the exact same pizzeria that we see Louis eat at in all the opening credits to his show. And what pizza it was! You really can’t get pizza like that anywhere else! (Maybe Chicago? I don’t know.) But it really was the best slice of pizza I ever had, and we undoubtedly knew in that moment that we would have to have more while we were here.
So there you have it! We definitely made up for lost time dining at substandard places during our first two days with all the sinful gluttony we allowed ourselves for our third day in. And how appropriate that our uptick in better cuisine lined up with a play about sinful empanadas, if you take the meaning.
I am going to try to post these a little more quickly, as I’m worried how much longer my memory can hold in all the details. I’ve got four more NYC posts to go, and at this rate I’ll finish by Christmas, and I want to avoid that.
Stray Observations (a la AVClub):
- Greenwich Village was the most European of all the areas of the city we explored. Apart from the streets being all perpendicular and parallel to each other, they were nevertheless all tiny and narrow and surrounded by old (or new, if you’re comparing to even older cities) buildings. It was kinda rather like a posher and quieter version of the East Village.
- Go to the Stonewall Inn if you want, but it was really boring. The historical importance of this place cannot be overstated, but don’t go in expecting to see a great mecca of a gay paradise. It’s just a bar where something terribly important happened to have happened.
- Now that I’ve discussed three of the plays we saw so far, I can’t help but be reminded that Minneapolis really does have a quite good theatre scene in its own right. We may not have the stars, but we certainly have the talent. Shows like Empanada Loca and Fondly, Collette Richland would be fine and welcome additions to our vibrant theatre community.