Edible Tulip

New York City Weekend: The Spotted Pig and John James Audubon

I am recently back from a long weekend in New York City. I had some interesting nosh while there which I'll get to in a moment.

But first, first I must reflect, and point out, how fucking galvanized I am by this early arrival, or touch down at the very least, of spring: I have missed your warm embrace, your heady air, your howling dawn winds as you blow into town and give me pressure headaches. I like the bitterness of winter, the harsh way the cold rips into your body and only a hot bath can rid your bones of its presence, but I can never push it off the frozen ground fast enough enough away from me. Winter is the guy on the bar stool who oozes everything you know you must step away from but who draws you in because he's just simply some lucious screw up whose recklessness and aloofness you must endure in order to every be ready to embrace a relationship of warmth and ease. So that the next time, when spring does indeed come around, you don't take it for granted, no, instead you twirl and stomp and splatter yourself in it, and you ceremoniously unzip your jacket and fling wide its lapels, and you gulp down its rawness like a scotch taken neat and you flail around in your own mini-storm of glee under dark overhead clouds cracked open with streams of sun and a horizon encrusted in orange fog.

So, New York City. I love this place but wow was I surprised at how much energy it took for me to continually be present and enjoy it rather than let my mind wander to all sorts of fleeting thoughts "hmm, wonder how the dog is doing at the farm", "I guess the ice is slipping under a sheet of water on the Bay shore", "I miss my own bed", "I miss walking the small town streets in total silence",... clearly, as I age, I become less and less of a good traveler, and more of a granny/miser missing my routines in sleep, in food, in fields of view, jeez, I even missed the smells of home -- the stark lack of scent that -30 degree temperatures provide and the almost deliciously rancid smell of the earth during its first thaw. So I'd be in a fancy store sniffing $35 bars of soap perfumed to emulate grass or eucalyptus or lilacs and I'd be standing there thinking god, I could just fly home and smell the real thing. I kept suppressing these negative flashes because they were leaking the moments away and I was there TO HAVE A GOOD TIME, so have a good time already I'd remind myself. I walked through Central Park and thought "where are the birds, why are there no swans swimming on the enormous ponds and lakes?" Missing duck bills and swan posturings, I took in the exhibition Audubon's Aviary at the New York Historical Society , the City's oldest museum and research library. It's situated on Central Park West about where Turtle Pond is located. The New York Historical Society's collection includes all 435 of John James Audubon's known extant watercolors preparatory for the 435 plates in The Birds of America. Bird song emanates from speakers and its an enchanting experience to walk alongside these enormous stunning colourful interpretations of bird life.
 
Credit: John James Audubon (1785-1851) Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber), Havell plate no. 397, ca. 1837.

New York Eateries I Visited (All prices listed are in US $)

I'll list and comment and link to places I ate at, and a few that I wanted to try, but never made it to.

Milos Estiatorio. 125 West 55th Street (between 6th and 7th avenues) This is a tour de force of a Greek restaurant located in what appears to be a merchant bank building. It has a contemporary, airy feel with soaring ceilings and floor to ceiling windows; it would be like eating in the lobby of the T.D. Bank in downtown Toronto. It is affiliated with the Milos restaurants in Montreal, Canada and Athens, Greece. Their philosophy is to source the best and freshest fish possible from around the world and to utilize small, organic family farms for produce, honey, yoghurt, cheeses, etc. This does come with a price. A girlfriend of mine who lives in NYC but has Greek heritage and visits Greece annually feels that Milos almost exploits the simplicity of Greek food for huge costs, taking the standard meal of salad, cheese, and fresh fish and charging big money. A small starter plate of calamari will set you back $21.75. Grilled organic salmon is $42. A green salad (mine was ridiculously doused in creamy dressing making it inedible) is $18. I can see the allure of the place but it was not my style -- too investment banker-vibe: lots of men in suits, women with visible cleavage, a sparse atmospheric environment opposed to a cosy warm one, and food that I wished I had bought at the market taken home and cooked myself.

Le Coloniale Vietnamese. 149 East 57th Street, between Lexington and 3rd Avenue. If you look at the website, the interior of this charming restaurant does not actually look like that, it's much more of a 1960s golf club feeling, a bit bland and the sneaking suspicion that a few cockroaches might be nestled under your seat on the stuffed banquette. That said, the food was quite good, the Maitre'd was lovely, and the upstairs lounge was bustling with more of the 1920s southeast Asian colonial feel that the restaurant aspires to. The food is a fusion of Thai and Vietnamese flavours. They have great rolls like Bo Bia Chay made with chayote, jicama, shiitake and a complex peanut and basil sauce, or Cha Gio Vit made with duck, taro and mint. For main courses there a ton of options to choose from like scallops over vermicelli, or jumbo shrimp curries with sticky rice, or sea bass in banana leaf. Reasonable prices, good food, so-so ambiance, would be perfect for large family get-togethers and in fact that's who I saw there at 9 p.m. at night, young couples with toddler children enjoying a restaurant that wasn't pretentious and that didn't rush you through your meal.

The Spotted Pig. 314 W. 11th Street at Greenwich Street. Ever since the 2 coolest New Yorkers I know raved about this place more than five years ago, before it had hit the mainstream radar, I've been dying to go. It has consistently great press, rave reviews, stellar write ups. Why? Because it works. And we all know so many restaurants, watering holes, local pubs, family run joints that DO NOT WORK even when we wished they would. The Spotted Pig is total bonhomie with little pig relics stuck around the quirky decor, tight packed tables, loud conversations filling the room, a friendly chatty bartender, friendly chatty wait staff, and a kitchen helmed by a chef named April who hails from The River Cafe in London, UK where Jamie Oliver got his start. She creates a sophisticated british/pub menu but really there are three main things I've heard talked about over and over again with respect to their menu: the gnudi ("nude" ravioli) served on browned butter with crispy sage leaves, their burger stuffed with roquefort cheese, and their shoestring fries which are as skinny as spaghettini and layered with tons of rosemary sprigs. I think a great afternoon in a really shitty month of year, say November, or early March, would be spent at The Spotted Pig eating a plate piled high with those fries and drinking Guinness or a flute of Prosecco.

Xunta Tapas Bar. 1st Avenue between 10th & 11th Streets, East Village. A boisterous underground slightly divey bar with casual dining on stools at round tables. There's fish netting entwined with blue Christmas bulbs as the decor. Our cute (Peruvian?) waiter was super laid back but the food came in prompt rounds and someone always sidled quickly up to the table if a drink glass was nearing empty. The sangria took a few sips to get used to, they offer white/rose/red sangria, but after that I couldn't stop myself, I was in a sangria haze. The food was mixed. Some tapas were really tasty (sauted pork sausage with red wine and onions; grilled sardines; and the white asparagus) and some were really medi-ocre (calamari; grilled spicy Spanish sausage which was basically a bland hot dog weiner splayed on a plate; sauted spinach which should have been called 101 garlic cloves). It was one of my favourite spots in NY because it felt like I could sit there forever with a group of friends drinking beer and sangria and wine and ordering small plates to soak up our alcohol and just chill on the stools round after round after round. In a big rich city like New York I think it's important to find a place to tuck into that makes you feel like yourself, that validates your tastes and your comforts.

There was a lovely Mexican restaurant near Soho that I didn't catch the name of. The food was really scrumptious and authentic and the place had that too many ivy plants and cacti vibe with terracotta tiles and friendly waiters with huge toothy smiles. I think it was just steps from the Canal Street subway exit.

The one place I was sad not to visit was Prune Restaurant in the East Village.

Bicycle Basket Lunch - Pho Hung Spring Rolls

Such a yummy picnic lunch to pick up on your travels through chinatown in Toronto. Pho Hung on Spadina on the outskirts of Kensington Market has a selection of small packageable goodies to pack into a bag or place horizontally in a bicycle basket. It was late morning when I swung into the busy restaurant and there were lots of people seated in the exterior room where the windows can be rolled down for breezy days or pulled up tight with the blinds at half mast on hot summer days. They seemed to be slurping down soups and noodles and various pork dishes in great delight. I was looking for something refreshing to have a snack before I started out on my organized Tree Tour of Toronto and I only had 1/2 an hour to eat so I ordered the large vegetarian cold spring rolls to go. 3 minutes later and $6.95 broker I left. I found a park somewhere south of Queen Street and east of Spadina to sit at a picnic table and dip my perfectly wrapped lightly mint and coriander flavoured spring rolls in a delicious tamarind sauce. Of course, 2 hours later I was ravenous but it got me through 2 exquisite roof top garden tours and a bike ride home.

Is that a WORM in my quesadilla? My Mexican Adventure

During my trip to the spa, Rio Caliente, we took a day trip to Guadalajara to go to the local Mercado and also to visit Tlaquepaque, a suburb of the main centre of Guadalajara, and a virtual haven for folk art and dining. It's a small town feel with long corridors of cobbled roads blocked off to traffic and behind each structural facade lies a courtyard full of artisanal works. The roads lead to the central square with a bandstand, a cathedral, and verdant grounds full of wrought iron decorative park benches. The shops for the most part carried high end items - crystal, large pieces of exquisitely made furniture and furnishings, 4 foot candles - but you could find smaller crafts to take home as souvenirs: I came away with two carved and painted dangling skeletons (in honour of Day of the Day) and three pressed tin decorative mirrors to hang on a wall.

The area is also known for its sidewalk cafes. I was with a group who chose to return to the restaurant they had visited the year before. We entered into the cavernous and colourful restaurant entrance and walked across a sunlit courtyard past the large fountain and iron table and chairs to a shady area under a bamboo woven roof where we sat around a large table. I've been anxious to find good Mexican, here in Toronto, there in Mexico, and I'm sad to report I'm still looking. The food was fairly awful. At the spa, I had been eating fruits, vegetables, and a few grains, for a week. When I saw the menu here at the restaurant I chose the Enchillada Verde thinking it would be a cheese enchillada in a green sauce. Nope. It was a plate full of chicken stuffed into corn tortillas and covered in melted cheese. Not only would I be blocked up for a week if I dared to eat any of it I feared I would throw up from the smell of that chicken. I cut into one of the rolls hoping to see something green and leafy inside but it was just grey meat and lots of it and the smell that emanated was like a dog who had crawled under a porch the summer before to die and noone found him until the spring thaw. I'm quite certain it was not chicken in those enchilladas. I had one bite and that was enough. Someone down at the other end of the offered to share her quesadillas. They were a starter and her main had arrived and so she passed down the two squares that were left on her plate. I took one bite. One measly bite. All I wanted was a simple bite of melted cheese topped with some fresh salsa to get me through the afternoon so I could return to the spa and eat more sprouts and papaya. I took the bite and looked at the quesadilla as I chewed. There sitting perfectly like it was taking a nap in a hammock was this damn larvae.

It's bigger and grosser in person. You can see the sections of its body and all its fine hairs. You can also see sets of about 18 pairs of legs. This was a detox week at the spa. Good food and no alcohol. The cheese, the chicken and the worm did me in. I leaned over and shouted down to the only woman in the group who had ordered alcohol. She had a marguerita. It was happy hour. One equals two. Everyone at the table quickly whisked that second glass of cold tequila down my way.

Rashnaa - Sri Lankan Restaurant

This restaurant suffered a horrendous fire a few years back and when they re-opened after being closed for a 6 month renovation their business never really revived entirely. Since I think their food and their service is outstanding I try to visit whenever I crave Sri Lankan spice and a good old Cheetah beer. I also try to spread the word about them.

Rashnaa means tasty in Sanskrit. The food is inspired by Sri Lankan/South Indian traditional tamil dishes which means not only tasty but SPICY.

There were two of us and we ate heartily and there were still leftovers. There are a range of vegetable curries ($4.95 each) that come in round silver bowls (3's enough for 2 people): Eggplant, potato, carrot, spinach, dhal, beets, okra, leeks, soya, cauliflower, beans, Indian Squash, chick peas. We ordered a large serving of Pilau rice ($3.95) with currants and cashews and peas that comes seasoned with aromatic herbs and spices. And our main meat dish was Chicken Devil ($8.95): strips of boneless chicken, sauteed with onion, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, and fresh herbs in a hot chili sauce.

There are also lots of Dosa dishes, Vermicelli platters, and Rice/Curry entrees both vegetarian and meat oriented. They tend to, unlike the Persian restaurants I like which favour lamb, prefer beef and chicken for their carnivorous creations but there are also shrimp and whole fish dishes.

The restaurant decor/ambiance is low key and humble. The food is marvelous. It's located on one of Toronto's best kept street secrets: Wellesley Street just west of Parliament. At this time of year, late spring, the eccentric funk of Cabbagetown is in full array in the frontal scapes of the various Victorian cottages that line the street.

Afterward, hop the fence and wander through the shadows of the Necropolis - one of Toronto's oldest and most historic cemeteries across from Riverdale Farm.

Grapefruit Moon Restaurant (or I ate a BLT!)

Grapefruit Moon occupies a corner storefront in an otherwise non-descript block on Bathurst Street north of Bloor and south of Dupont. I'd been there nearly a decade ago meeting an old friend late at night for red wine and midnight reminiscing but I haven't been back since, so, yesterday, when my brother suggested the spot as a place where we could eat a late lunch with my visiting mother (mostly out of convenience since it's merely a block from his house), we concurred.

It blurs the line between diner and cosy restaurant with bar stools lining the kitchen counter and little tables (about 7 of them) set up against the opposite wall with two tables in both window nooks. It's dimly lit even at 3 in the afternoon suitable for the hungover musician/artist/boho/grad student scene it seems to attract. The three of us sat at a formica table by the window and I tried to ignore the refuse from the morning eaters on the floor beside me (ham bits, avocado chunks and large pieces of tomato in dressing). The brunch menu offers various egg dishes and several sandwiches with sides of salad and home fries. I decided to start myself off with a caesar and lo and behold "Caesar Boy" was in the house! My order brought a very talkative excitable young man over to the table doing the pointed gun hand gesture and winking at me. He had a pen with an enormous pink feather in it behind one ear. And he asked if I'd heard about him. Well, no, in fact I hadn't. He seemed to think his caesar sensibilities had earned him a reputation in this town. 5 minutes later he appeared with a glass rimmed in a dense mixture of salt and pepper, filled with a red thick clamato with visible amounts of horseradish floating gleefully, a lemon wedge and a lime wedge, a hanging monkey with two hot pepper rounds on it, some ice and a straw. It was spicy and a touch sweet and a great compliment to my toasted BLT and home fry/salad lunch.

Mom also had the BLT on rye and my brother ordered "the Hoser" (peameal ham on toasted multigrain) but got a sandwich of avocado and tomato while a woman ordering take-out in turn took out the hoser.

Julie's Cuban

There's nothing like eating a few peppery corn fritters dipped in whipped sour cream on a Saturday night at midnight in September in 25 C degree weather while sitting beside a spiral of tropical flowers. It was Toronto's way of WELCOMING me back. I'm certain.

My life as a river rat is officially over. Last week, I packed up the cabin, traumatized my cats by taking away their daily mole killing spree and re-urbanizing them, and traumatized myself by re-entering a vibrant bright loud big city life.

In a way it feels good to be back - back in my cosy apartment, back in my eclectic Korean/Greek/Eritrean/Serbian neighbourhood, back in the hum of living amongst millions of people. But I'm also still nostalgic for the sweet lulls of summer. I like peace and I like quiet. This summer, apart from cooking for crowds, was full of both. Now I'm having to adjust by falling forward with the seasons and the movement of the city. It might take a little bit of time and I might need to go out and eat A LOT of ethnic food to make the transition easier. Eating soothes the soul and tempers the restless spirit.

Julie's Cuban is nestled in the midst of Victorian row houses on Dovercourt Road (between Queen and Dundas). By day, when it's closed, the little yellow building can easily be overlooked. At night however the small patio is jam packed with tables and umbrellas and mojitos and sangria pitchers and little white flickering strings of lights and table lanterns and Sylvie, the co-proprietor, who can usually be spotted weaving through the oasis of dusk in summer under massive maple trees greeting guests.

Inside it’s all about the pink and blue Caribbean paint vibe, the retro black and white Cuban tourist posters, the shelves of books, memorabilia, propoganda and board games. It's a cross between a late night elegant tacqueria in a colonial town in Mexico and a back alley tapas joint in Spain. It's cosy, full of random people (old, young, couples, singles, groups, families, first dates, loquacious lovers), a great neighbourhood spot to have a drink or a late night snack, and a perfect place to sit in the garden and drink wine and eat on your first weekend back in the city.