A Proper Torta

The Mexican torta, which as my readers know is Mexico's gift to mankind, is one of the greatest sandwiches in the world, if not the very best. I contend it is greater than the hamburger because the torta is a versatile vessel. Like the taco, another food of genius, the torta can contain pretty much anything you want inside, as long as it's coherent with Mexican food flavors. You can't have a torta de sushi but you can have a torta de tamal.

Notice the thin layers in the torta de milanesa on the right.

However, you have to know how to build it. It's not a free for all.  But this is where gringos miss the point about Mexican food. It's not a mountain of beans and shredded lettuce. There is a method to our culinary genius and you just don't get it.
Recently, I had an offensive torta experience at Pinche Taquería in New York City. There are many reasons to complain about the way this place sells their tortas:

1. Tortas are flexible and versatile. So the customer should be able to order a torta of ham with cheese or with egg or with whatever we damn well please, as long as it is coherent. These people won't do that for you. You can only choose from their meats. They will not make a ham and egg torta for you. This runs against the philosophy of Mexican food.
2. If every ingredient explodes out of the torta when you bite into it, the thing has not been properly assembled. A torta is a layered affair, not a hodgepodge of anything you can find in your fridge. And someone should declare a moratorium on shredded lettuce or shredded cabbage in Mexican food in the US. I don't know where you got that from. If I order a roast chicken torta and I can barely find the chicken among the shrubbery, this is not good. By the way, that chicken was unrecognizable and cut in little chunks.
3. I find it appalling that instead of tomato slices, these people use tomato chunks.
4. I like queso Oaxaca as much as anybody, but it has no place in cubes inside a torta de pollo asado.
Even with these awful mistakes, this torta was a thousand times better than any regular deli sandwich. Because it had good beans, and mild jalapeños and avocado.
Now, there are different torta assembling techniques, but what you have to know is that you layer the ingredients, which should be kind of flat or thin. That's why cubes of things don't work. See exhibit A above.
You can make hot tortas and room temperature tortas.
Imagine that you want a ham and cheese torta. You get bolillo o telera bread (Portuguese rolls are perfect). You slice the bread in 2 halves and heat it in on a grill.

At fabulous Tortas Don Polo (there's a branch in the Mexico City airport, you lucky travelers), they heat everything in the grill; the ham, they melt the cheese, etc.

Tortas Don Polo. Since 1956. Now at the airport.

You may spread some butter and/or mayo on the bread. 
Then spread refried beans on both halves, not arctic cold from your fridge, and not whole beans like in the offending torta above.  It should be at least room temperature.
Layer some avocado slices, the ham with melted cheese, thin tomato slices, jalapeños or chipotles according to your tolerance for spice. Lettuce is optional, but if you are going for it, it better be minimal. It's only there for crunch, so no arugula (like they do at Café Habana in Soho). I've never seen a torta with shredded cabbage in my life. Some people add onion.
The cheese can actually be American cheese or Oaxaca cheese. I like American.
The key is not to put a pound of meat inside. A few thin slices will do. The idea is small layers of many flavors, as opposed to one overpowering flavor surrounded by ineffectual decoration. A good torta should be a manageable affair and an explosion of flavors and textures in your mouth, not on your shirt.

Half eaten Don Polo torta de jamón con queso.

Since I arrived in 1992, my dream is to open a tortería in New York City.
Any venture capitalists out there?

By the way, yesterday I caught a couple of minutes of that aberration on TV, America's Next Best Restaurant.  Most of the food presented was disgusting chazerai. Absolute cluelessness and horrible concepts. This program is a crime.

The Magnificent Michelada

I am reposting this recipe from the dusty archives of this blog, so that those of you who have not been acquainted with this Mexican thirst-quenching marvel may attempt it at home. Unlike Mexican Japanese Peanuts, you can make a Michelada in your kitchen without fearing for the safety of the planet.
The Michelada is not only extremely refreshing, it also allows you to drink without keeling over too fast. I spent four months in Mexico a few years ago and basically subsisted on Micheladas to keep up with the bunch of professional alcoholics I called my friends.

Limes
Ice
Salt
Mexican beer

• Squeeze limes into lime juice. Get plump, juicy, sweet limes from Mexico, not the shriveled, puny, bitter limes they serve at most bars in NY.

• Rim the edge of a beer mug or highball glass with salt. You do this by moistening the rim with a lime cut in half. If you are adventurous and love a spicy kick, rim the glass with Tajin chili powder (it has lime and salt). This is how they do it at La Esquina.

• Put ice in the salt-rimmed glass. Add fresh squeezed lime juice to taste, about up to one third of the glass according to your tolerance for puckering up.

• Add Mexican beer. The blond beers like Corona, Sol, Pacifico, or Modelo Especial work great. I love it with Negra Modelo.

Enjoy!

Poor Tourists!

New Yorkers, we love to dump on tourists. They don't know how to walk, dress or eat. Couldn't tell a tourist trap if it bit them in the ass, etc, etc.
But what happens when tourists come to see you and you have to shpatzir them around town? You become sort of a tourist yourself. Let me tell you a little story:
On Thursday I met my friend Esther and her lovely 13 year old son, Benjamin, who were visiting from Mexico. They wanted to see the Meatpacking district. We went up to the High Line, had shaved ice and a popsicle from People's Pops (note to shaved ice hipster guy: you need to get some lessons from the Mexican or Latin masters of the craft -- not enough precious Bartlett pear syrup).
As we made our way back to Soho, we are walking, yes, three deep on a narrow sidewalk in Washington St.. A middle aged lady wearing a wide brimmed hat with a bow, starring in her own private Easter Parade, is coming towards us. In situations where tourists take up the entire sidewalk, usually I command "excuse me" and barrel through. I have an invisible semi-automatic rifle pointed at them. That's all. This person could have done the same, particularly as she was not behind us, but had plenty of time to approach us from the front. Instead, she mumbled at us to get out of her way, we don't even speak English and suggested we go back to where we came from. She was actually surprised when I reared my ugly head and screamed at her to shut the fuck up and chill the fuck out, and what the fuck is wrong with her, I fucking live here, you stupid fuck, etc, (remnants of the Middle Eastern fighting spirit, perhaps). She was slightly taken aback at being addressed in such a classic New York fashion by someone she deemed to be a clueless tourist. In truth, I wanted to run after her and knock that stupid hat off her head, plus a couple of teeth. But that would have been a bit de trop. Was she originally from Arizona? I found her xenophobic sentiments quite out of character for a citizen of this town.

One of the quintessential humbling experiences of locals hosting tourists, is eating out.
How is a tourist supposed to know that going to a restaurant in New York requires planning and execution of military precision? Not only arriving at the restaurant on time (to Mexican tourists, the concept of the entire party must be there to be seated is like astrophysics: unfathomable), but also ordering within three seconds of getting the menu, and being expected to know what's a ramp, what's sous vide and what's heirloom whatevs. One feels like a benign shepherd, steering the poor innocent creatures towards more adventurous choices, discreetly rolling our eyes and begging mercy from the waiter. A couple more minutes, no, they don't have fried rice here...
This in no way reflects my experience with Esther and Benjamin, who are urbane, sophisticated and as cool as cucumbers, as are most of the tourists that come to see me, mind you.
Once in a while it helps to see New York City with the eyes of a tourist. It also helps to have the manners of a New Yorker.

Breaking News: Foot Brace Great for Restaurants

Miracle of miracles! For the first time in my life, I show up at New York restaurants and they let me take a table even when THE WHOLE PARTY isn't there yet.
This policy of NY restaurants is one of the things that drives me insane about this city.
 
- We are going to be six for brunch.  (Plenty of available tables)
- I have a table for you right now. Follow me.
- Great! (We feign coolness and utter ignorance of the cardinal rule)
- Wait. Is everybody here?
- No. Right now there's only the two of us but they are about to arrive. Any. Minute. Now.
- I can't seat you.
I lost it.
- Frankly, I don't understand this policy. We are going to sit down and order food and drinks while we wait. Why is this a problem? 
- Listen, I don't get it either - said the hostess - I'm from Portugal*. I don't understand this stupid NY custom. But I need to ask the manager.
The manager probably looked at the brace (or at my murderous mien) and let us sit down. Still, they made me guarantee the other 4 were going to show up. Not very hospitable but that's what we have to deal with in this town.
For their troubles I ordered not one, but two Bloody Marys.  It pays to be nice to the customers.

*For you people not familiar with the hospitality business in the rest of the civilized world, you arrive at a restaurant, they don't expect all of you to arrive at the exact same time because they understand human nature so they trust that your party will eventually show up and meanwhile they will make some nice money off you while you wait in comfort at your table. But this is too much to ask here. Unless you have a foot brace.

Department of Unappetizing Restaurants

This thing has just opened a block away.
Otarian. Reminds me of Alan Arkin (Yossarian, Catch-22?)
It sounds like a plastic surgery clinic but it's actually a restaurant that prides itself not on the yumminess of its food but on low carbon emissions.
Everything about it seems thoroughly clinical and unappetizing. The logo looks Orwellian. The premises look like a dental office for children. Who are they kidding?
You know what is my recipe for the lowest carbon emissions of any restaurant ever?
No restaurant at all!

                         Those tacos look lethal.

                         This makes me think of fluoride.

What fresh hell is this?

Ostrich or Emu (from New Jersey, no less) egg omelette, anyone?
This kind of ridiculous food snobbery, seen at Whole Foods on East Houston St, works my last nerve. And look at the prices! Who are we, the Flintstones?

The New York Times reports today that a lot of people hate cilantro. Apparently, it's a chemical thing. I love cilantro. If you are Mexican and hate cilantro, you are in trouble.
It also reports that some Jewish delis are becoming "sustainable" and banning salami, whatever. Gringos always tend to go too far with their puritanical enthusiasms. 
I'm all for the improvement of Jewish Deli food in New York. The old delis in NY, with the exception of the pastrami at Katz's, are overpriced and they uniformly suck. If someone can cook like my Bobe, I'm all for it. But deli food is not supposed to be precious. 

By the way, this Saturday I'm meeting my estimado Tizoc Schwartz to go on a brief tour of New York taco trucks. Can't wait to meet Tizoc and to eat taquitos with lots of cilantro.

In Other News...

Here's a digest of stuff currently running through my brain.

• Crisis? What Crisis?
Last week I somehow ended up in Times Square 3 times. I saw two Broadway shows (both meh) and took visiting friends to a Jazz gig at Iridium. To judge from the stampedes of tourists, most of them evidently American, running around Times Square like the bulls in Pamplona, I can announce to you that the economy, both national and foreign, has recovered. Otherwise, how do we explain the hordes of tourists that have descended upon our fair megalopolis? I've been living in this city for almost 20 years and I have never seen so many tourists. And so many American tourists. They are going to Broadway shows in droves, which ain't cheap, even if they're buying tickets in bulk. They are staying in overpriced hotels and they are being happily ripped off at  tourist traps. New York is expensive.
So stop the economic whining, Red Staters, cause I'm on to you. You are not so bad off, and you secretly love New York and wish with all your might you could be so cool as to live here. Alas, you are not.
I am an unapologetic New York snob, (and with good reason: I live here!) but do not misunderstand me. I do not dislike tourists. I love helping them find their way. And telling them what to order at Joe's Shanghai. And steering them away from eating in Little Italy. And trying not to strangle them when they walk 5 deep in slow motion on the street.

• Bendygate!
Don't get me wrong, but Sarah Palin reminds me of Hitler. Wait! Let me explain why. Because I'm deathly afraid of her, that's why. Because I cannot fathom how there could possibly be people who don't see her for what she is: a dangerous, ignorant arriviste, resentful, mean-spirited, provincial, petty, arrogant and hungry for power.  That there are people out there who are still drinking her Kool-Aid (with bendy straws!) is very worrisome to me. This latest fracas is a gift for those of us people of sense who can tell a psycho-hypocrite-demagogue when we see one. Turns out that her "public speaking" demands (as if what comes out of her mouth is speech) outstrip any entertainment diva's.  Suffer the little people. It is not in her interest that the "folks" who so adore her find out how craven and two-faced she is. So people have to fish out the details of her speaking contracts from the garbage, which, if you think about it, is where they rightfully belong.

Eat Lard!

I read in The New Yorker that:

In February, the city’s Department of Education amended Regulation A-812—“to improve the nutritional quality of food and beverages available for sale to students at school”—mandating that only twenty-seven snack items, all of them prepackaged and approved by the Office of School Food, could be sold during school hours. The target is childhood obesity, but the effect is that pupils hoping to fund the pep squad or the eighth-grade wilderness trip can now do so only by peddling Whole Grain Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts (No. 12 on the list) and Reduced Fat Cool Ranch Doritos (No. 7) and not, say, their mothers’ brownies or carrot muffins. Anything homemade is forbidden.

This is the height not only of idiocy, but of perverse unintended consequences. What I would like to know is how come unintended consequences always seem to benefit the evildoers? More sales for Frito-Lay, yay! As always on every new chapter of the ongoing saga "The Road To Hell is Paved With Good Intentions", the authorities, in their zeal to protect children from obesity, are contributing to their further ingestion of junk. I can assure you that anything homemade, be it fried in lard, covered with bacon, basted in butter, and smothered in cream (or all of the above, like a gratin dauphinois, oh, yum) is healthier than anything that comes in a bag sprinkled with fluorescent orange dust. But corporations always seem to have the last word. All parents can do is stage a cute little protest. If I were a parent, I would fucking sue the Dept. of Education over this.

In another example of pernicious brainwashing brought to you by your friendly neighborhood advertiser, NBC is going to institute behavior placement, in order for couch potatoes to subconsciously adopt supposedly good habits as they fester in front of the TV set. This is supposed to be for the common good, but it is actually the height of evil. (George Orwell, eat your heart out). 

Behavior placement gives marketers extra incentive to advertise at a time when digital video recorders equip viewers with an unprecedented ability to skip commercials, says Jason Kanefsky, a media buyer at Havas's MPG. "You're not forcing your way into a program in any shape or form," he says. "You're just nodding your head at a program."

Jason, I hope you have a spot reserved (right next to me) in the circle of hell allotted for marketers and advertisers. These people's confidence in our collective gullibility, stupidity and inertia knows no bounds. And for once, they may be right.

Taco NYC

I'm very happy that my purported compatriot in Aztec Jewishness, Tizoc Schwartz, found me, because I have just found him and he is performing an invaluable service for the citizens of this fair metropolis by going to and documenting every taquería, fancy and not, that exists in the five boroughs. I nominate Tizoc for the Nobel Peace Prize for making me want to schlep all the way to any of the other 4 boroughs for decent tacos. The man is an angel.  And he is now on my blogroll.

Department of Offensive Foodstuffs

The Health Department should ban this revolting thing. I found it in Dumbo, the only place in NYC where there is no decent food to be had. Grimaldi's, Schmimaldis. Pizza doesn't count. Jacques Torres doesn't count. Hecho en Dumbo, the only good place in the foodforsaken neighborhood was only open at night, and it has moved to Manhattan (YAAAAAAY). Best Mexican food in town.

Ground beef, cheddar, lettuce, tomato and RANCH DRESSING? What the hell? Where's the taco part?  This dish manages to mortally offend both Italians and Mexicans.  Let's declare joint war against American shit like this. Avanti popolo!

Poor, noble, genius taco. I'm still waiting for Americans to understand the concept.
By the way, not to cast aspersions and weaken our budding Italo-Mexican alliance, but any humble taco kicks any pizza's ass.

From the Enchilada Files: Emperador Elías

Darlings, not that I have become lazy, but this is one of my favorites, and for some happily obscure reason, even though it hails from 2006, it still gets queries once in a while.

Until recently, as you got off the J train in Marcy Ave (yes, the J, get over it) and walked towards Peter Luger on Broadway, you walked by a pretty crummy storefront where you saw the usual yummy stuff swimming in grease. As you entered, mesmerized by the very good looking roast chicken and its attendant aromas, you realized you were in some sort of Mesopotamian temple with Greek influences that happens to serve Dominican food. The decor of the place is worth the stop, even if you are a vegan. This is one greasy spoon with imperial pretensions. Hence the name.
Well, they have spiffed up the storefront with a shiny new display case, meticulously Windexed, showing yummy stuff still swimming in grease.
Luckily, they have left the Mesopotamian-Egyptian-Nero's-Rome-by-way-of-the-Flintstones decor quite intact.
There are several worthy reasons to patronize Emperador Elias:
• The roast chicken is moist and delicious, the rice and beans are great and the rest of the food looks really good too.
• The waitresses call you "mami" (or papi), "corazón" or "mi amor".
• They have mofongo, the gastronomic plutonium bomb.
• For $16 you get a whole roast chicken, a huge container of excellent rice (white or yellow), a big container of fantastic red beans (miraculously non-flatulent, I might add), a generous side order of sweet plantains, aka "maduros " and a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi. Screw Peter Luger.
Also, because everything is ready in 2 minutes but for some reason you have to wait for the maduros like three hours, the man behind the counter, who I assume is Emperor Elias Jr., gave me a freebie (Greek coffee) cup of chicken noodle soup while I waited. He also hit on me big time. I noticed he didn't offer no freebie to the guy before me.
In any case, here's our seductive repartee, conducted in Spanish, and translated for your enjoyment:

- What is the lovely girl from el DF gonna want tonight?
- How did you know I'm from el DF?
- I hear the accent, mami.
I place my order.
- And your husband, he from Mexico?, he asks, utterly certain about my marital status. I realize now that this is a ploy to make me think he respects me so much, I must be married.
In the interest of self-preservation, I answer:
- No, he's from here.
He makes a dissappointed face. Like a sad clown in a velvet painting.
- White or "moreno"? (meaning Black).
- White.
- You don't like morenos?
- I like everything, but I just happened to like him.
- And how long you been married?
- 14 years.
- How many children?
- Not a one.
- Your husband is lazy. Does he have children?
- No. None that I know of.
This makes him laugh.
- And what do you do here, mami?
- I write commercials.
- Oh, you are a very intelligent young woman.
To the waitress:
- So where are the maduros for this child from Guadalajara?
- I'm not from Guadalajara, I'm from el DF.
- Oh. They're not the same?

Emperador Elias has something called Mexican Corner on the menu. Don't go there.
Otherwise, Emperador Elias is on Broadway and Marcy. Williamsburg.

Food Issues

As I consume the Food Issue of The New Yorker, I burp out opinions.

On being a Michelin Inspector:
Something doesn't jell.
1. Why do these people always have to eat alone? If they had a dining partner, they could sample more things and they would not look totally suspicious, for what pathetic individual goes to an extravagant three star restaurant to eat three courses with wine on their own? This does not make sense to me. If I worked in the restaurant and saw a lonely diner doing this I might think they were a Michelin inspector, or a tourist from Michigan (I'll grant you that).
2. If M., the inspector in the story, has dinner with the guy who handles Michelin guides in the US, she's blown her cover, and even though perhaps she may not ever go there again, they should not have done that. Also, if the restaurant knows the Michelin guide guy, it will make sure to give these people the most amazing meal of their lives. Regular humans may not get the same treatment, which is why sometimes one goes to highly touted restaurants and one can't fathom why, since the service is snotty and the food, meh.
3. Which leads me to this final point on the subject of Jean Georges. I've had dinner there. The food was very good. Some of it perfect, some ongepatchket. Not everything worked. Still, I don't remember a single dish we ate and we were 4 people. Not one. I've had meals at other fancy places like Gotham or even A Voce that have been much more memorable.
The service at Jean Georges was good at the beginning (although I don't understand why staff at such places confuses discretion with icy, long faces) and then we were forgotten. I would not have given this restaurant three Michelin stars. Two maybe.
But who asked me, right?

On spit cakes:
I do not appreciate being told that there used to be marvelous German cafés in New York where you could stuff yourself with cake and now they are no more. I haven't decided if this breaks my heart or makes me inmeasurably angry.
It upsets me to no end that people don't go to a café to eat cake anymore. I don't either, but I like to have the option. In Mexico City, there are European style cafés with excellent cakes and cookies which also serve tortilla soup or huevos rancheros if you so desire, and they rock.
One of the few things that New York lacks in terms of food is such European style cafés, like they're a dime a dozen in Paris (and disappearing fast), and where you can have a prix fixe lunch or just inhale a Chocolat Liegeois any time of day, or have a cup of coffee and sit there for eighteen hours. I resent this. (Café Select on Lafayette tries to be like this, but not enough cakes). Also, now I want a spit cake.

On Poutine:
Calvin Trillin, a hilarious food writer. Just this description of Poutine had me in stitches: "surprisingly inoffensive". I was in Montreal and didn't dare taste the stuff. It just looks gross.

Eats me up

The NYT has a list of do's and dont's for restaurant staff.
It has prompted more than 1000 comments (some really nasty ones from disgruntled servers).
Do not get me started on restaurants in NY.
Since the crisis, I think the attitude problems have gotten a little better. Now you don't have to feel like some establishments are doing you a favor by you spending money in them. I have never understood how in a city where there is a good restaurant or more on almost every block, restaurants can afford to treat diners with attitude.
My favorite evil thing restaurants here do is:
"3. Never refuse to seat three guests because a fourth has not yet arrived".
This drives me absolutely insane. It is not welcoming.
Other stuff that drives me insane:
• No one to greet you at the door, but you can't take a table by yourself.
• Idiot hostesses or hosts (especially if they are good looking and useless, like at Coffee Shop in Union Square).
• Reserved tables for no one in particular, just for hype (see above).
• A restaurant full of empty tables and an idiot who asks you for a reservation.
• Empty tables and a line of hungry people outside.
• No smiles.
• Asking for the bill three times (Dim Sum Go Go. Great food, lousy service).
• Asking for tap water and never getting it (Yes you, Bar Pitti).
• When waiters cannot hide their frustration/disappointment/contempt if you only order tap water, or if you order from the cheap stuff.
• "Do you need change?" Who am I, Warren Buffett?
• Restaurants with bouncers.
• Bad food.

Sweet!

This piece by Paul Rudnick about his favorite candy is very funny.
He likes a lot of chazerai. 
 I disagree with him that chocolate and peanut butter don't mix. I can only eat pb with chocolate. Even though I find that American commercial chocolate is way too sweet and too cheap, this does the trick:

Instead of Raisinets and Goobers, the new fabulous are the little Nestlé Crunch Buncha Crunch balls.

And whoever invented Dibs,  Ice Cream You Can Eat In The Dark With Your Hands, deserves the Nobel Prize for Physics, Chemistry and Joy:

My addiction are rice krispies treats. And moon pies. And the Cadbury Lion Bar. My idea of heaven. Now someone just needs to make the chocolate less cloying. When I was 16, I went to England for a month and I ate like 6 of these a day.

Anything with chocolate and crunch and sweet is good for me.
The Mexican version of the Hostess cupcakes is called Pingüinos Marinela and is way better than the Hostess.  More chocolatey and creamy.

YUM.

Mexican food is about the attitude too

There is a veritable plethora of new options for more authentic Mexican food in NYC. When I arrived in 1992, there was a dearth. Most Mexican places had infamous offerings like nachos and slushy margaritas, and having a guacamole mashed at your table with one measly avocado at Rosa Mexicano would set you back an astronomical $9.
Today there are hip taquerías and tequila bars and what not, and the food has improved tremendously in some quarters, but there are certain things that Americans don't get about Mexican food and they drive me crazy.
Where do I start?
Here's a good example. I go to aptly named Pinche Taquería in Noho. They have pretty good tortas.
They have ham and egg burritos, so I ask if they can make me a ham and egg torta. The answer is NO. Why not, I ask, It's the same concept. Nope. They finally ask the cook and he relents. The order taker (a human bastion of imbecility) tells me, "ok, but this is the last time."
Besides the fact they should consider themselves lucky I don't carry weapons, the genius of Mexican food is its versatility. How you can't get this from just looking at it, is beyond me. Mexican food is a generous and acommodating cuisine. Pretty much any filling can be put in a taco that can be put in a torta, a sope, etc. The m.o. is common sense. So refusing to put the filling of one in another is a cardinal sin. You are not getting the generosity of spirit that comes when a Mexican feeds you.
But don't confuse this with putting the rice and beans, which are meant to be sides, inside a burrito the size of a Sherman tank. This is not Mexican food either. 
Another example. Yesterday my friend Alex celebrated his birthday at the new Taquería and Tequilería Los Feliz, on Ludlow St. We were in the space downstairs, a place so dark one could barely see in front of one's nose. The decor of the place has been celebrated elsewhere. Looked like a dungeon to me. There were playing horrible rock music at ear splitting levels. And you could not see your food. Not the most welcoming place.
But I took a picture of my tacos de barbacoa, and imagine my surprise to discover that they actually looked beautiful. What is the point of serving tacos (in a cardboard container) on top of a verdant banana leaf, with a slice of orange powdered with chili, if you can't see it? You will never have a taco in Mexico under anything else than blitzkrieg lighting. I understand here we are too cool for school, but if you are serving Mexican the combination of colors and textures is as much part of the experience as the first heavenly bite. Another pet peeve: nobody bothered mincing the cilantro, so one feels like a cow grazing, and I bet that most people think the stalks of cilantro are for decoration and they push it aside. In real tacos the cilantro is finely chopped so you can eat it, and it adds a fantastic kick to the food. Don't be lazy, is what I'm saying.
On the other hand, the tomato that should be sliced in the torta, is chopped, and falls off the sandwich at every bite. This makes no sense.

I order a shot of tequila. You would think that for a place that labels itself a tequilería, these people would know from shot glasses. You'd be mistaken.

I pay 10 bucks for a little grappa glass of Gran Centenario Plata with a stem that holds half of what fits into a tequila shot glass. I rest my case.

The Vendy Awards

There are culinary awards for our proliferating food vending trucks in NYC.
I have only tried the huaraches at Red Hook. But now that I know, I'll make sure to try the rest.

I also nominate:
• Van Leuuwen Ice Cream truck. Daytime: Greene and Spring St. Best Ice Cream in NY. Period.
• The Dessert Truck. Nighttime: Third Ave and 8th St.

Remember Ice Cream?

...When it wasn't either gelato or guar gum? If you want to taste what pure ice cream should be, you can find it at the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck. I hope I'm spelling this right. I'm not Flemish.
During the day the van is on Greene and Prince in Soho. At night it's in front of the Saigon Grill at University Place. The sweet guy who serves the ice cream tells me they have 2 other trucks in Brooklyn, one of them in Williamsburg (undeserved, if you ask me).
$3.75 will get you a nicely sized small cup with two scoops or a cone. A small price to pay for such good stuff.
This is "artisanal" ice cream made with cream, milk, eggs and quality ingredients from small, wholesome providers. It seems to have no air, no guar gum or carrageenan, no coloring. I think it's what ice cream should be when they don't futz around too much with it, as they tend to do.
It's creamy but light, flavorful but subtle. The flavors are simple: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, pistacchio, gianduja, (hazelnut and choc), mint chip (not for me), espresso, ginger, and currants and cream, which is always sold out. I think they also have an Earl Grey flavor.
Plus, it's the only ice cream I've ever had that doesn't make me burp or bloat up like the Hindenburg.
A sure sign of its magnificence.
As long as they don't sell out to The Man...

A Salt and Battery

I love Mayor Bloomberg, except for his meshugene health crusades that threaten to end with yummy NY food as we know it. Now he has decided to curtail the use of salt in restaurants. Enough already.
If this mandate goes only for chain fast food places, he may have a point. My few and unfortunate forays into such establishments do prove that some places threaten to turn us all into Lot's wife.
But if he touches Chinatown, I will instigate an armed revolt.
What's with the obsession with overseeing our collective health like an overbearing, puritanical mother? He reminds me of Alex Portnoy's mom, who demanded to check her son's caca to see what chazerai he had eaten (I think I laughed for five days straight when I read Portnoy's Complaint. I laughed so hard I cried, I almost ruptured my spleen, I almost died laughing).
For an unbridled capitalist, who is so much about free enterprise, and a Republican, if I am not mistaken, Bloomie sure butts in too much into our own private affairs with food. Maybe instead of nitpicking like a maniac on food content, if he is so damn worried about our health, he could institute social medicine programs for all in New York City. Or at least more phys ed at schools. Free yoga in the parks. Ban cars and force everybody to bike.
Let him eat without salt and fat -- but why ruin it for the rest of us?
Somewhere around the 70's some genius decided that salt was bad for you; now another genius has decided that it's not so bad after all. I ain't no rocket scientist but I've always known salt is very good for me. I have excellent blood pressure despite the fact that I sprinkle it liberally on everything. Life without salt is insipid, and according to the new genius, mildly depressing.
Hey, I'll bring my own salt shaker if I have to.