Oh, Shang (Thompson LES).  I would’ve linked, but your website is down.  Your food, so delicious.  Your service, so atrocious.  I waited 20 minutes for a table in a half-empty restaurant, only to be called forward, then asked to wait 15 more minutes while they prepped a table.  It was Valentine’s day (’11), I had the special, a delightful steak garnished with peppers that made my eyes water (in a good way).  It was a great deal, $25 for a prix fixe that included a little bubbly, a nice dessert.  But then a tragic soft-indie-rock band started soundchecking in the middle of dinner…  Not too romantic.

Spicy Steak at Shang, Thompson LES

Spicy Steak at Shang, Thompson LES

In a later visit, I watched as horrified dinner patrons scurried away (some abandoning tables) from blasting urban club music while a D/E-list hip hop producer, hangers-on and a gaggle of chickenheads drank free liquor (some “healthy” infused tequila shit that tasted like cough syrup) to the dismay of the tragically overstaffed bartenders (all 2 of them).  The sushi chefs had actually taken seats on the balcony because no one was actually ordering food.  I wept a single tear for the establishment.  Because the decor and the food really had the potential to be quite sexy.  However, this restaurant’s demise is proof positive that it really takes more than just that.  It’s ambiance, vibe, warmth, hospitality, people, attitudes that make the place.

I hope the chef lands someplace great, it’ll be worth a visit in calmer pastures.

I am a real sucker for an expertly concocted, deliciously dangerous cocktail.  The kind that dances around your tastebuds and might cause a sudden eyebrow raise or a guttural purr.  The kind you sip, savor, then swallow… and realize, depending on whether or not you ate before starting in, that you may not be prepared to finish because you’re already drunk.  Angel’s Share is my favorite place to get these kinds of cocktails, because they never, ever disappoint.  It also happens to be, among the “secret” “she-she” speakeasy cocktail bars, the oldest and most affordable.  Their drinks are also my baseline of comparison for whether or not a cocktail is worth its two shakes.  Why drink this, when you can drink this or even this?

However, no self-respecting restaurant with great food is going to ignore the drinks that accompany it, and one of my favorite boozy pastimes is to sidle up to a restaurant bar and snack while imbibing.  The older I get, the more I prefer a dimly lit restaurant with conversational ambiance to screaming over music that I usually hate in a crowded, standing-room-only bar.  Macondo, the dressed-down sibling of the fantastic Rayuela, is always a favorite, especially if you can snag an outdoor bar seat on a nice day.

I don’t remember which two cocktails these are exactly, because the drinks did their duty well…  But I do know that over my five years in New York, I’ve tried them all.  And most of the seasonal tacos (Hello, Short Rib!), and the skirt steak as well.  It has never let me down, and is always worth the wait.

Try something with a smoked salt rim.

Reunion – Day 5

Sunday was July 4 itself and my gracious hosts brought me out to the sticks to their family home for dinner.  Lucky for me, they ground their own approximation of the Pat LaFrieda burger mix and made St. Louis gooey butter cake to bring for dessert.  I pretty much ate only that the entire day.

That night at Essence festival was my very reason for attending.  Mary J. Blige was headlining, with none other than Jill Scott opening for her.  Two of the most incredible voices of our times.  Jill tore the house down and Mary built it right back up.  Jill channeling Isaac Hayes or George Clinton with crazy pychedlic 70s fashions and silhouetted go-go dancers, with a marvelous Afro, dancing and laughing and being her all around radiant self.  And being at a Mary J. Blige concert is like being in church.  Laughing, crying, celebrating, and most importantly singing along every single word.  The entire audience – all 50,000 concertgoers – clings to and sings every single word, probably just like they do in their cars, showers, or anywhere else.  I didn’t take any pictures.  I was literally caught up in the rapture of the moment. (Except when I was elbowing chicks in the VIP for the chicken satay.)  It didn’t disappoint!

When I’m on my way from home each day from work, I have a very standard routine.  Flexible, but with a forthright goal: get home from work as quickly as possible.  That usually means taking the express train, but most times I get on the first thing moving; local to get a seat, walk a shorter distance to my apartment, or grab a bite on the way home.  Tonight around 8:00pm, I quickly found a seat, nestled in with my journal and pen, and began to reflect on a pleasant recent conversation with my 85-year-old, sharp-as-a-tack grandfather.

I’m thinking hard, struggling to remember in detail the things he told me, because these are cherished words not to be taken lightly as he’s makes a successful recovery from liver cancer.  So I barely notice when a somewhat elderly gentleman sits at the opposite end of my L of seats with a giant suitcase.  I’m slightly annoyed that he appears to be singing, although at first it sounded a tad like Ol’ Dirty Bastard (you know, “Shame on a n*gga…“) and a snicker escaped my lips.  So I glance up to try to play it off, and realize that it’s a homeless black man.  Guilt poured over my head like hot oil and I buried my head back into my journal and played dumb.  Tried to finish my journal entry.

But by then, I couldn’t even concentrate anymore, the homeless man was so fascinating.  Clearly out of his mind.  Stark images recalled from Barry Michael Cooper‘s essay “Requiem for the Zooted” made me speculate whether or not he was the modern day legacy of that tumultuous NYC combo of the 70’s.  PCP + Thorazine + Jail – Family + Mental Hospital = Him.  My heart became wrenched and immediately I was struck by his humanity and refusing to recoil.  He was telling an elaborate story, partially to his suitcase and partially to the wall between us.  Cussing and exclaiming and growling and purring and hissing and… more frustrating than any of it, mumbling.  So I started to try to write down what I thought I could hear, thinking that he deserved someone to listen, even if he wasn’t aware it was going on.

“Yooooooo, son! Shiiiiiit my shit is FULL, son!!”
“Tell y’all to come to bed w/me son”
“Yo, erytime I loot, I go to sleep right after.”
“Yo, I’ll F*cking…” mumble mumble

He was definitely a son of the streets, although his slang placed him as a young adult squarely in the 80s.  I was alternately emotionally devastated and wanting to reach out to him, and quite tickled as he sounded exactly like ODB.  And he mumbled on, increasingly animated by his own story/conversation.  (It was clear that in his mind he had some sort of narrative structure.)  To the point where he started rocking back and forth in the seat, near toppling when the breaks to the train slammed, fumbling with a cup in his suitcase…  getting louder and angrier.  By this point his musings were no longer amusing, and several folks originally sitting near us had moved to another part of the car.  I feverishly continued writing, until he screamed “F*CK” again and two voices of my own started screaming at each other:

“You know, maybe you should move too.”
“But what if you actually *attract* his attention by moving? He doesn’t quite “see” you right now…”
“Yeah well, if he decides to jump up and “see” someone or even DO something to someone you’re also first in proximity, first in line.”
“Well we’re almost… Okay there are four stops left.  Surely he’s going to move.”

And he’s steadily getting louder and louder, more animated and frenzied… at a controlled pace though, as if he could snap at any moment and go for my jugular.  My heart feels like it’s about to jump out of my chest.

“You dumb b!tch!  THIS is how people get stabbed by the crazy person on the train.  Because they don’t move when they see ‘DANGER’.  You know, I’m telling you this one last time.”
“You’re being f*cking irrational and dramatic right now.  He. Is. Not. Going. To. Stab. You. Period.”
“Worse yet what if he tries to bite you or something. Or rub his. Ew. Just go!!!”
“Oh now you’re just.  This is ridiculous.”
“This *is* ridiculous.”

Just that second I heard the Ding of the subway train doors opening two stops before mine and I calmly exited the train (without attracting any undue attention, of course).

“F*ckit, I’ll walk. But it’s just because it’s nice outside, not because that poor man was going to kill you.”
“Whatever.  Let that gambling go!  Live to see another day!”

Another ridiculous day in the NYC life.

Did I mention that I walked from Harlem to 59th St. this glorious morning down Central Park West?  While munching on the most amazing Granny Smith apple turnover from Patisserie Des Ambassades?  Chewy, honey-glazed goodness with skin-on apples, dusted with cinnamon-sugar.  Delicious cold-brewed iced coffee (or at least it tastes like it!).

I love this town.

La Frieda Burger + Fries @ Black Market, East Village

La Frieda Burger + Fries @ Black Market, East Village

I used to spend many a late night at the Tiki Bar in the basement of Niagara right next to Black Market…  As well as in the Pizza Shop next door that now houses Black Market.  I was worried that they’d gone all “grown up” at first, but then I had the burger. Delicious, although that’s the least I’d expect from a LaFrieda patty.  Not necessarily as “hypeworthy” as folks exclaimed in the beginning, but I’ll take it, especially to line my stomach before those delicious cocktails at Lovers of Today…  I’ll be back for oysters.  I appreciate these guys, all in all the upgrades seem only to contribute to that most elusive of nightlife goals…  to get the singleton laid.

Saturday I had the pleasure of entertaining a dear friend who’d never visited New Orleans before.  Doing double duty, I offered to let her tag along as I visited my old homes and haunts that I’d avoided for so many years after the storm.  There was also a restaurant that I wanted to visit that is way out past the burbs, that has a peculiar local appeal.

I grew up in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, an area that stretched from Fauburg Marigny all the way past the Industrial Canal (near the first levee breach) and beyond toward Chalmette (commonly referred to as the “asscrack” of the city due to the proliferation of gun-toting KKK recruits and white welfare queens in that area…  I digress).  My grandparents lived on the corner Louisa Street and Derbigny Avenue, square in the middle of the 9th Ward, off of Franklin Avenue and in what was once a middle class enclave for up-and-coming black professionals in the mid-20th century.  They were proud homeowners who had a constant stream of extended family and neighbors coming in and out of the kitchen.  During the 80s (*Disclaimer: when I was born) when things got “really bad” due to crack and subsequent crime hitting the streets of New Orleans, they remained in spite of most younger families moving to a more modern suburb, New Orleans East, also known (and disputed) as the “Upper 9th Ward” as it was northeast of my grandparents’ neighborhood and Chalmette.

My mother continued in the family tradition, building her own home from the ground up as well, albeit in New Orleans East: near Eastover, the ill-fated Jazzland theme park, and other normal suburban families and attractions.  Plenty of strip malls, bowling alleys, chain restaurants, etc.  While I was happy to grow up in a charming home, I was always terribly bored by the monotony, and as soon as I was able to began hanging out “downtown”, a place that my grandmother avoided purposefully and my mother visited only at my urging.  “That’s for *those* people” they’d say, meaning white people and tourists.  But I could think of no better thing than to explore the city as a tourist in my hometown!

As soon as I could, I moved onto Tulane‘s charming campus dormitories, and shortly thereafter to a drafty old home on Carrollton Avenue, where the streetcar still runs.  Later, after a short stint in Los Angeles, I moved further down Carrollton Avenue to Palmyra Street in Mid-City, near Canal Street and nearby a lost culinary legend of greasy goodness…  Manuel’s Hot Tamales.  But more on that later.  I said all of this to say that I wanted to go to two places during my driving tour: New Orleans East and Mid-City.

The first thing that people ask me when I tell them I’m from NOLA these days is, “How is it?”  And no one is ever quite prepared for my response, which is always the same:  “The touristy areas, they’re fine, back to normal…  But the more residential areas, not so much.”  Yes, five and a half years later, there are still some blocks you can drive down that have no residents returned, spray paint still on the doors marking where emergency rescuers found residents in need of help, or help that came too late.  There has been very little concerted effort to reorganize the city, or rather, too many conflicting stakeholders wrangling for the city’s future bureaucratically, while exhausted residents burn through their hard earned savings.  So I wanted to see who, of my neighbors, had returned and if my old favorite spots were still there.  We’d sold my family home (after 6 feet of water flooded it) to a developer who’d renovated it quite nicely, so although I missed my home, that wasn’t the main attraction.

It was We Never Close.

On a desolate strip of Chef Menteur Highway aka Highway 90… past truck stops and strip clubs and hooker, I mean hourly motels… past malls of auto parts and dollar trinkets and churches and skating rinks, was a joyous place in a former McDonald’s (didn’t really bother to change much except the sign) called We Never Close.  That is the open and shut to it.  They serve pretty much anything you can think of deep fried and slathered on a french bread loaf w/mayo.  We opted for a soft shell crab po-boy and a hot sausage po-boy.

On the way back, we tried to take the Lakeshore Drive back to mid-city which is a delightful drive, but unfortunately the Lakefront was still closed to the public.  Yes, five years later.

The other important stop in Mid-City, after seeing the locked gate to my old apartment, was Pandora’s for snowballs.  Not snow-cones, people.  One of those might crack your tooth.  A snowball is a syrupy concoction made of the most finely shaven ice you’ve ever had – think a Colorado powdery ski slope after a nice blizzard – topped in things like blood orange or wild blueberry flavored syrup, with condensed milk, whipped cream, cherries, gummy bears, pretty much anything you can think of.  The perfect remedy for a ridiculously hot and humid day as it was that day.

I slurped away and quietly questioned my decision to leave such a comforting place.

Later that night, I’d wanted to check out another old haunt, Port of Call, a legendary burger and pizza shack that was the demise of my short-lived vegetarianism.  But a local buddy of mine insisted that I try a new place called Yo-Mama’s.  Impressive, but they didn’t have the amazing loaded baked potatoes or Huma Humas that are Port of Call’s staple.  Yes, it’s much cleaner and probably more likely to pass an inspection than Port of Call, but if you’re worried about cleanliness…  I just don’t know what to tell you.  I will say that I barely finished this burger and was almost satisfied.  Can’t find the pic, but…  my pics aren’t that great anyway! So, imagine…  The Yelp photo is pretty impressive.

 

Catching up?  Here are the first installments for you…  Reunion – Day 1 / Reunion – Day 2 / Reunion – Day 3

San Diego is a quaint, not-so-little place.  Forever in the shadow of its bigger and more glamorous neighbor, Los Angeles, it constantly seeks to prove itself as more fun, more laid back, and just as worthy of a settlement for young adults and families as ever.  And it largely succeeds.  For those Californians that are not internet or entertainment industry-obsessed, San Diego is the perfect place to have a military, bioscience or technology career in a diverse seaside surfing town with globally influenced food, superb weather, and an active nightlife.

My first stop in San Diego this trip was Santana’s, the fast-mexican drive through with the drool-worthy carne asada fries.  Any time of day or night back in NYC, I crave this monstrosity at the mere mention of nachos or fries.  As such, I made it a priority.  You’ll see why here:

Photo: Carne Asada Fries

A pile of deliciousness

I can never usually finish.  But I certainly tried!

After a disappointing stay at the Bristol Hotel last year, I decided to upgrade and stay at Se San Diego.  Although it’s definitely not New York service (hurried snob that I am), I had a pleasant stay in a well appointed room and was totally worth it for the easy access to chef Anthony Calamari’s wonderful creations!

At my one big dinner at Suite and Tender, I went for the olive tapennade and the caprese salad w/white balsamic vinaigrette…  and ended up choosing the short ribs w/pecorino chive red potatoes and the steak au poivre with bacon-honey brussel sprouts over the mustard brined roast chicken (next time!).

A good dinner is like a good tumble in the sack…  it’ll put you right to sleep!  Needless to say, I slept like a baby.

I had the great pleasure of visiting San Diego the week of St. Patrick’s day this year, and thoroughly enjoyed the Gaslamp District’s festive attack of the holiday.  They do the same thing during Mardi Gras each year: close off the restaurant/bar streets, get a massive DJ act, and let the college kids go nuts.  What I didn’t do, however, is take any photos.  Because you’ve seen Spring Break before.  I was just trying to cut through the crowd and get back to my hotel unsplattered by green-tinted beer or puke.  But I did escape to a gayborhood bar to enjoy a few green-tinted cocktails and the slider sampler at Lei Lounge before retiring.

I’m a bit sad that I couldn’t get down to La Jolla to visit Nine-Ten during this trip…  As the food there was absolutely delightful!  One more reason to return…

I’ve been in Harlem in the same apartment for 4.5 years now…  right in the center of all the exciting new places that have recently opened (Bad Horse Pizza, Chocolat, Biergarten, 5 and Diamond), and close as well to the tried and true – and mostly delicious – places that have been here as long as I have or longer (Nectar Winebar, Billie’s Black, Melba’s, 67 Orange, etc.)

But my favorite place to eat in my neighborhood, day or night (because they stay open til 4am – yes, 4am – most nights), is Patisserie des Ambassades.  It’s a French-Senegalese bakery and grill, open 7am to 4am, an experience (like many things in Harlem) and one you can neither rush nor partake in if you’re in any particular hurry.  But everything, and I do mean everything because I’ve had just about everything except certain off the menu traditional dishes that I’ve been lax in ordering, is DELICIOUS.  Mouthwatering, omg-what-spice-is-that, make you wanna slap your mama delicious.  The omelets are divine (cremeuse my favorite) and only served on weekend brunch.  The lamb chops and lamb shank are particularly outstanding if they get good cuts in, and even if not they’re pretty good, and for about $14 you get enough to feed you for at least a meal plus decent leftovers.  The whole grilled tilapia has a tomato-onion relish on it that have tried and failed so many times to recreate.

Bread Counter at Patisserie des Ambassades

Bread Counter at Patisserie des Ambassades

They also have the best bread in Harlem, $2 for a long french loaf.  It usually sells out by dinner time every day.  The vast selection of well-appointed pastries, cheesecakes, tartes, cupcakes, tiramisus, and cake-lets will make you drool.  I’m also discovering a “VIP” prix fixe menu from their website that I’m pretty upset I never knew existed (it’s not handed out in the restaurant).

But most nights when I’m stumbling home from a night of carousing, I get a burger.  I know, tres Americain 🙁 but it’s just so damn good.  It’s a hearty thick patty sliced in half with a fried egg put between the two slices of meat, dressed with ketchup and their homemade spicy mayo, all on a perfect brioche bun.  Lettuce, tomato, and their sinus-searing homemade hot sauce optional.  I usually opt for all three.

Burger from Patisserie des Ambassades, Harlem NYC

Best damn burger in Harlem

Let it be said that I have only finished this entire burger once.  And that was after skipping a meal at some point in the 24 hours prior, possibly due to illness.

I will be revisiting the VIP menu here now that it’s outdoor-seating weather.  Stay tuned!

Have you ever danced in the streets until 6:00 AM on the third day of a 72 hour binge of sleepless excess?  Have you ever gorged to the point of nausea, walked it down for a few hours and then – impossibly – eaten and drank again?  Have you ever spent days reposing in bed, postponing every thought of responsibility and care while you lazily nibble a lover’s affections?  Pushed the limits of your physical and emotional ability to feel and reveled in the frailty of the overextended nerve ending?

The dank humidity hanging from the lush gardens of New Orleans creates a mystical aura of slow, confident calm…  invincibility at times.  It is a place where time slips away unnoticed because you can see, hear and taste each minute in the bud of a magnolia flower, the cadence of a marching band, the juices of a crawfish head.  Subsequently there is a sense of detachment, in the moment, from the consequences of one’s actions that can be gleefully entertaining at best, and woefully tragic at worst.

While growing up as a local, there was always a mysterious allure to the nighttime that called for me even as my staunchly religious family resisted most of the secular traditions the city reveled in.  My great-grandfather was a jazz musician, a trumpet or trombone player if I remember correctly, and was perpetually partially-employed.  Great-grandmother was a shrew of a woman who never held her tongue and lashed with both words and physical objects, turning to religion as a respite from the hardships which came from a “sinful” life of pursuing a career in art or music.  While my grandmother and her brother were mostly obedient and pursued stable careers in teaching and public service, my grand-aunt took up the family mantle and plunged headlong into nightlife entertainment.

Listen: LaVergne Smith – Stormy Weather

My grand-aunt LaVergne Smith – the New Orleans Nightingale – was a celebrated pianist and songstress on Bourbon Street for many years, for whom my grandmother sewed costumes and in general disapproved of her lifestyle choices.  She recorded a number of albums with Savoy Records in the 50s and enjoyed a successful career until it was largely derailed by alcoholism and abusive relationships.  I never got a chance to meet her as she passed away shortly after I was born due to complications from years of alcohol abuse.  However, I was told that she held me once before she died…  and I’m sure that she imparted into me not only a fever for showbusiness that took me years to shake as well as an affinity for “the sauce”, but a curiosity for all of the things that the nighttime streets of NOLA could offer up.

And so, after spending my adolescence training to become a professional dancer and safely ensconced in a religious bubble of spiritual pursuit, even to the point of preparing for ordination, I moved onto campus at university and plunged headlong myself into challenging my own spiritual, emotional, and physical boundaries as I attempted to navigate my identity as a young adult.  I shaved my head, “lost my mind” many times over (abandoning a pre-ND biochemistry major for Dance and Women’s Studies), and indulged in experiences that challenged every notion I had of what was right and proper.  Eventually I became involved in nightlife promotion and made a career of going out, throwing parties, and the wasting of brain cells until such a point when I cried out for divine intervention, because the fruitless frenzy I’d whipped my life into had begun to take its toll.  That’s when Hurricane Katrina happened, and snapped everything back into perspective.

Moving to New York, I was exposed to a level of purpose and responsibility that I’d never known, and it was invigorating.  This is a place of limitless possibility, if only you can get through the first year without being “thrown off the horse”.  It was at this point in time that my entrepreneurial thirsts were rekindled, and managed to find gainful – a.k.a. salaried with benefits – employment while attending evening classes to get my MBA.  The luck of my opportunity was that I was able to work in marketing and business development for a hospitality technology company, meaning that I was able to get paid to research and stalk the owners of the hottest new restaurants and bars in NYC in hopes of selling them very expensive software before they opened the doors.  Not only was I getting paid to eat and drink my way through the city, but I was also developing an encyclopedic knowledge of where to eat and party in NYC.  After 3.5 years there, I’ve moved on to various and sundry things that are still unfolding in the most exciting ways, but my personal obsession with restaurants and nightlife persists in a way that has led me to writing this blog.

All that said, I’m 28 years old, skipping along on my merry way around the Capitol of the World, having the time of my life…  tag along!

Having lived in New Orleans all my life, it was shameful that 2010 marked the first Essence Music Festival that I’d ever attended.  To add insult to injury, I know many people who work for or at the Festival, some for many years, but had always taken the typical stance of a local to any sort of convention that originated from outside New Orleans, which was apathy.  (My family even avoided Carnival in many ways, but that is another post for another time…)

So Friday was all about recuperating from my hangover enough to party at EMF that night for the first time, as I had 10th row seats to see my longtime childhood idol, Janet Jackson.  I had one extra ticket, and decided it would be fun if I brought my little cousin, Desmond (15) who had never been to a concert before in his young life!  But first, I had to refuel and make some rounds…  So off to Zara’s Grocery I went for an oyster po-boy!

Zara’s Little Giant Supermarket has been on Prytania St. for at least 30 years, if not longer…  It’s a neighborhood, family-owned deli and grocery that I can’t remember ever actually buying groceries at, but who needs to cook when the deli counter there serves up the most delicious sandwiches you’ve ever had?!  This bread, this flaky, crusty, slightly chewy yet always soft bread that will turn rock hard when stale (yet perfect for breadcrumbs and bread pudding)…  this is what French bread is.  Throw on some perfectly bite sized oysters fried to golden perfection, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and hot sauce…  and this is what a true New Orleans po-boy is.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I enjoy “bourgoisie” versions of the po-boy both here and in NYC often, but there’s nothing like the real thing…

Oyster Po-Boy from Zara's Little Giant Supermarket, New Orleans, LA

Oyster Po-Boy from Zara's Little Giant Supermarket

Later, I snacked at the festival.  Don’t eat at the Superdome!  Stick to things that come in bottles, and save your appetite for grub elsewhere.  But here are some great shots of Janet for your viewing enjoyment!  I choked and tried to cover my little cousin’s eyes during the “Discipline” segment.

You’ll also be glad to know that I’ve gotten a much better cameraphone since then!

© 2011 Bon-Manger Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha