Served with it were the oatmeal cookies Carlos made yesterday, still delicious, with light-as-air whipped cream on the top. I'm not normally a fan of lashings of cream, but that didn't stop me from devouring all three of them.
I eventually left the flat somewhat after 11, and caught the train out to Brooklyn. I had been recommended to go to Kingston Ave (a couple of stops past the Brooklyn Museum) to get real Jewish food. It was fascinating!
Here in Harlem, Spanish is clearly the second (if not primary) language, and almost all signs are in both English and Spanish, including the aisle signs in supermarkets. The faces are mostly black and Latino, with white faces like mine fairly rare. In Kingston Ave, most of the faces are
After wandering up and back, I chose a bakery/lunch place that had a substantial queue inside (figuring that was a good sign). While waiting I chose something in the display cabinet that looked interesting. At the register I discovered it was a spinach and potato knish, and it was fabulous! Excellent flavour and texture, somewhat greasy as it should be, and dirt cheap ($2).
From the minimart, I'd hoped to get some gefiltefish, but couldn't find/identify any, so I bought a little pottle of "white fish salad", which from the descriptions I got of gefiltefish may not be too many miles away from it. It was also quite good - a mix of coarsely minced white fish (species unknown) and mayonnaise. (From the bakery mentioned just above, many of the sandwich fillings on offer were things mixed with mayonnaise.)
I enquired at the other bakery I found on Kingston Ave about challah, and was told they only made it on Friday, and no, she didn't know where else I could get it. Apropos of nothing, this was where I probably got the most disinterested service I've had anywhere. I stood in front of the shop attendant, the only potential customer (there were two other gentlemen there, but who were near the window, deep in quiet conversation), for a good two minutes, as she transferred muffins from one tray to another. When she had finished that and still made no move to acknowledge me, I then politely asked her my question. I doubt she could have been any more dismissive in her response. It is the first time I have been made to feel like an unwelcome outsider here.
Between those two, I didn't need anything more until dinner time. I spent the next four and a half hours wandering about the Brooklyn Museum (stopping for a cuppa tea, of course). I then returned to Manhattan, choosing to get off downtown (having only spent a few hours there yesterday). While still not particularly hungry, I figured I could splurge on a nice restaurant, and have somewhere to sit down for a bit too. Wandering in Tribeca, I found aa Argentinian restaurant, Noustria Argentina on Greenwich St (diagonally across from Greenwich park), that looked promising and took a seat.
I then more fully reviewed the menu more fully and decided that nothing really grabbed me. However, I chose a glass of sparkling wine (they brought sparkling water first up), and a serve of empanadas (choose two from a choice of four). I chose the spinach and the "hand cut beef" (I can't remember what the other two were now). They were very good. The spinach was clearly leaf spinach, not chopped ex-frozen, the cheese with it was unfamiliar, pale and thick. The meat one had all sorts of interesting other things in them. The pureed tomato was less spectacular. It had clearly been made from supermarket tomatoes - pale colour, bland almost tasteless flavour, with a little seasoning. Made with real, flavourful tomatoes it could have been wonderful. There was also some bread with herbed butter - the bread was a section of a slightly dry baguette, but the butter was okay. All up, not worth the $20 plus tax and tip - the location wasn't all that, and the service certainly wasn't.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about it was the stream of people who thought it was worth going to, many of whom were carrying film cameras or sound equipment, with accreditation-type passes suspended around their necks. It took me a little too long to register that the Tribeca Film Festival is on at the moment, and these people were no doubt affiliated with that in some way or other.
The other thing I really noticed was the absence of non-white faces. There were a few blacks and even fewer Latinos, and those that were there seemed to be mainly either highly yuppified or service people (dog walkers, nannies, cabbies). Interesting contrast with other parts of town. (I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful, more that the contrast to other areas were stark.) Anyway.
I had thought I might use the last few hours of my NYPass and 'do' the Empire State Building. However by the time I got to the relevant station, it was already 7pm, and my chances of getting to the top before dark were minimal, and I already had a bunch of photos of the city at night. So I went shopping instead, and came away with a couple of dresses, one a pretty summer dress, another one that I could easily wear to work in summer or winter (with a shirt underneath) - $33 each from Daffy's. Daffy's, like TJ Maxx and Filene's Basement and Century 21 and a whole heap of others all seem like variants of Dimmeys in varying states of array/disarray. All selling what appear to be remaindered higher end clothes at around half the price, and a fair amount of work to find something suitable.
In the end, my fatigue got the better of me, and I headed homewards. Despite being comfortably full, I knew this might be my last chance to try grits, so I went into Amy Ruth's on 116th, for some food.
After perusing the menu (you can see a very non-user-friendly version at their website), I went for the short ribs (the Al Roker, IIRC) with sides of cheesy grits and collard greens (other than okra, those were the two options I was least familiar with).
The complimentary side of bread was in fact a side of biscuit, or at least I presume that's what they'd call it. It was nothing like a scone, Carlos' or otherwise. It had a texture more like cake, open and crumbly. Very crumbly. Trying to smear some butter on it and pick it up was an exercise in futility. It was good, if a little dry (which made it a bit gluggy/sticky in the mouth). Because it was so crumbly, it wasn't terribly good for sopping up the leftover gravy from the ribs, but that didn't stop me trying - it just meant I needed my knife and fork to gather up the gravy-soaked crumbs.
Grits is a porridge-like suspension of coarse-milled white maize. Perhaps the closest I've had is sloppy polenta (where I've added too much water and not allowed it to set). It has a fine mealy texture, viscous without being gluggy, and lightly flavoured. Cheesy grits is the same, but with a sprinkling of bright orange grated processed cheese on top. It was surprisingly good, and I demolished the lot.
Collard greens I don't like quite so much. They remind me of the spinach/nettles type thing you get at good Greek restaurants (I'm thinking Vasillis & Yiannis on Johnston St). These greens are slightly tough, somewhat bitter, and cooked in something that added a little sweetness. I didn't particularly like either the flavour or the texture, but still ate most of them.
The ribs were not the barbeque ribs I had expected, doused in a sticky sauce (but in hindsight, there was a BBQ ribs option on the menu). Rather they were cross-cut ribs (hence 'short', I guess), slow cooked so the meat was melt-in-you-mouth tender, and slathered in a slightly salty but very flavourful gravy.
The whole lot, including my tea (they don't serve alcohol here), came to only a smidgen more than my Greenwich Village entree (not terribly surprising, I guess). My plate was empty and I was full. Good lord, I was full.
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