I just added a new album to my cv site. This one is focused on the huge variety of food I have had around the world. Not all of the images are frankly as nice as I would like them to be, but examining the diversity of meals is fascinating to me. You can either check out the slideshow below, or click here to launch the slightly fancier version on my cv site.
Last night, I went to go meet my friend Mario (who I met in Delhi almost 2 years ago, and who now lives in NYC) and a friend of his at a gay bar that I went to once about a year ago named Suite. As we were enjoying our drinks and getting caught up, Mario informs me that right next door is a place that sells kathi rolls. What, I ask incredulously? Like Nizam’s? Slightly drunk from my second martini, I decide I must go over that very minute, and when I get inside I see that these are not kathis, these are frankies! The place is even named Roti Roll Bombay Frankie. I greedily peruse the menu and order both a chicken malai for me and a lamb boti for my friends, and head back to the bar. As I tore into my delicious frankie, I offer the lamb to my friends but they aren’t hungry, so glutton that I am I scarf down the other one as well. Maybe it was the martinis, but damn they were good. It seemed funny that these two oddly incongruous establishments should be right next to each other. In fact, there is even a small open sliding door that connects the two without even needing to go outside. And when I looked on the restaurant website, there is a link to visit the bar, apparently owned by the same people. A gay bar attached to a frankie place? Is this corner of Manhattan tailor made for me?
John, Kevin and I just had a f-ing amazing meal tonight in Brooklyn at No. 7.
My friend Elson and I went to a place last night called Angelica Grill. It is one of those places in a Brazilian tradition of all you can eat meat restaurants. Basically there is a giant salad bar where you go for heaping piles of side dishes to bring back to your table. Then you set a little rotating sign on your table to the “Yes please” (as opposed to “No thank you”) position, and wait for the meat guys to descend on you like pigeons. Every few minutes they come by to shave off a different cut of meat from a skewer, as you try to force down as much as you can without throwing up. Just about the time you are waiting to be begged to take just “one wafer thin mint“, confused as hell as to why they won’t stop coming by, you remember to set the sign to “No thank you”, and the fleishe anschluss ends. And then comes the dessert cart!
The restaurant we were in was filled with families, large groups, possible bar mitzvah parties, work parties, etc. And all of them were quite boistrous. The enormous room, which was fairly well appointed in hotel ballroom style was filled with perhaps 500 people. And a lot of these people were, how shall I put this delicately…quite a bit overweight (surprise).
It is good to know that Americans are not the only people in the world who can at times mistake quantity for quality.
The amazing lunch I had today with Newton at Paraiso Tropical: fried yucca, carne seca, seasoned rice, 2 kinds of farofa, grilled banana and starfruit, several fresh condiments and the piece de la resistance shrimp moqueca with palm kernel, coconut, cashews, and pitanga. Yum.
The native culinary options in Buenos Aires tend towards the bland (for some reason, most Argentines are highly averse to hot and spicy food of any kind). For that reason, my friend Thomas is always on the lookout for possible restaurants with a bit of picante in the menu, so we decided to try a Mexican restaurant called “Mole” that he had spotted a few times from the bus. One of the risks that one runs from spending a lot of time in places with amazing food is that their equivalents in other countries almost always pale in comparison. The best ones really attempt a fusion of influences from both countries. The food was terribly mediocre, but at least it was a touch spicier than the local fare. And anyway, the company was great and beer is always beer, so you really can’t go wrong with a few of those.
Ultimately I had a lot of fun and shared a trashy night with Thomas, Vagner and Juan Carlos. After dinner, we went to a dragshow/stripshow combo in a seedy bar that smelled of…something organic and yeasty. The drag queen (and the strippers for that matter) were particularly aggressive in confronting and/or involving the audience in the various acts. We all cringed in fear as they approached us, with beseeching expressions that said “Please don’t involve me in this. I am a good person who is kind to animals and children.” As the drag queen accosted the audience members, asking each where they were from, I was somewhat surprised by the heavy presence of Americans in the audience.
I decided that the theme for the night was “imitation”. The food was an imitation of Mexico, the drag queen an imitation of (hefty) womanhood, the “dancers” an imitation of the erotic. None of these things are quite up to their originals, but they tell a fascinating story nonetheless.
Ricky (a friend of my friend Daniel from DF) took me out last night to a parillada (Argentinian steakhouse) for an excellent, meaty dinner and conversation. This is so not a country for vegetarians. And while it isn’t the most romantic notion in the world, I couldn’t help but wonder how high the rates of heart disease and colon cancer must be here.
Just to show the gang some appreciation (and that I have a few secret talents), I made them all my famous French toast for breakfast this morning. In case you are wondering, it involves thick bread, eggs, cream, milk, cinnamon, vanilla, sugar, mascarpone, sliced almonds, butter and love. Joaquin, Ricardo, Miguel, Christian and Juan Carlos were suitably impressed. At least as far as I could tell from the translations.
The last couple days in Lima have been spent looking at places in the north of the country to travel to while feeding my face with amazing dishes such as papa rellena, tiradito (below), ceviche, arroz con pato, and ocopa.
Although we have only been in Peru a few days, I have to stop and say a word about how fantastic the food has been. It certainly helps that we are being shown places by people (Ricardo and Julio) that know and appreciate good food. Of all the amazing things I have been trying (Tacu Tacu, Chicha Morada, Yuca, Lomo Salteado, Rocotito, Pisco Sour, etc) I have to say the highlight was today’s ceviche at Pescados Capitales.
