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(This venue is closed.) I didn't find anything I loved at dinner tonight. Perhaps my favorite appetizer was ca bam (shown; $6), seared monkfish with peanuts and basil served on toasted sesame rice crackers, but I've had better elsewhere. Of the entrées, duck with ginger sauce ($14) was pretty good. Dishes at Cyclo (See-cloh) tended to be overly sweet, and most of our group thought that the portions, especially for appetizers, were small.
Cyclo
203 First Ave. (12th-13th Sts.)
212-673-3957
To discuss My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, my book discussion group met for dinner at this small Turkish restaurant. The bare walls held the sound and made conversation a little difficult, but mainly because Taksim was filled with plenty of animated conversation; they seem to do a good delivery business, too. Of the appetizers we shared, I especially liked the simply dressed white bean salad, the excellent falafel, and the cacik (Jah-jik), the yogurt with cucumber, garlic, and mint that we scooped up with Taksim's pillowy warm bread.
My lamb casserole ($10.50), with potatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, and a healthy pinch of dill, was on the gamy side — Kevin, who ordered the lamb shank, suggested mutton — the rice was dry, and it wasn't a huge helping; OK, though. The tartness of my Aroma brand visne nectari (sour cherry juice; 250 ml.; $1.50) accompanied it very well. A firm baked rice pudding ($4) was good; I would've liked even more of that slightly burned crust on top.
Taksim
1030 Second Ave. (54th-55th Sts.)
212-421-3004
(This venue is closed.) Beef brisket on challah with mustard ($3, at least at the Atlantic Antic) was dry, and the bread was too sweet for my taste.
Nosh Delicatessen
214 Atlantic Ave. (at Court St.), Brooklyn
718-596-2EAT
Here the focus is on the sweets and savories in one long row of display cases. The filling in my spinach pie ($2) was good, but the wrapper was less like a pastry and more like a bread. I've had plenty of great desserts here on other occasions, though; must come back soon.
Damascus Bread and Pastry Shop
195 Atlantic Ave. (Clinton-Court Sts.), Brooklyn
719-625-7070
Most days this is just what you might picture for a Middle Eastern market — a carefully selected array of bulk products like spices, nuts, dried fruit, grains, and beans that gently intrudes into the aisles; more goods stacked on the counter, on shelves, and wherever else there's room. For the Antic, this grocery also showed off its catering moves; too bad a picture can't show how the juices sizzle each time they spin the shwarma.
Oriental Pastry & Grocery Co.
170 Atlantic Ave. (Clinton-Court Sts.), Brooklyn
718-875-7687
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Walked the Atlantic Antic this afternoon with my friends Sue, Kathi, Gil, and Jim. Since we'd just entered at one end of the festival, I started off light with a grilled sardine ($2), juiced with a squeeze of lemon. Sue got the paella; very moist, from the couple of tastes I managed.
La Mancha
135 Atlantic Ave. (Henry-Clinton Sts.), Brooklyn
718-797-1975
This small Thai-Malaysian restaurant nods toward Indonesia, too; they list gado-gado among the appetizers, and a stack of Indonesian newspapers nestled in the alcove up front. Slightly kitschy décor; '70s tunes on the sound system. Fried radish cake with egg, bean sprouts, and chives in dark soy sauce ($6) turned out not to be the chopped and scrambled mix called "carrot cake" in Singapore — think radish "steak fries" — but was still good Malaysian home cookin'. Though I passed today, they'll mix up a durian shake, too.
Coco
82-69 Broadway, Queens
718-565-2030
Excellent variety, especially in seafood, as well as meats and baked goods. On a visit to the Chinatown branch, under the Manhattan Bridge, I picked I pack of pumpkin pancakes (150 g.; $1.99). They're a prepackaged, crunchy version of the griddle cakes from that cart on Canal St.; a little squashy, not too sweet.
On another occasion, I gave a try to Mariza brand durian jam (350 g.; $2.99), from Indonesia. By smell and taste, I recognized the "king of fruits," but only as a shadow of his true self.
New York Supermarket
75 East Broadway
(one of several locations)
212-374-4088
It's filled with oceans and oceans of packaged foods from all across East Asia; the produce and fresh seafood have a more local provenance.
(This venue is closed.) Dour-tempered Korean corner market and grocery.
(This venue is closed.) Apholo makes its mark by shipping "balikbayan" boxes (Care Packages intended to remedy homesickness more than hunger) to and from the Philippines. It also stocks this sari-sari (convenience store) with a small but select offering of incoming goods.
Chunks of sweet and tangy BBQ fried dough (95 g.; $1.35) are so airy that they're almost all flavor, no substance; even so, you might need two beers to wash 'em all down. Lots more to try, though, in this small but personable market.
Chung Wah Hong Market
55 Beach St., Boston
For breakfast on the first day of my first visit to Singapore, at a coffee shop in International Plaza, I had two pastries: one filled with kaya, or coconut jam, and one with curry beef. Although Eldo's small but lively breakfast crowd seemed to have their own favorites, I can vouch for their version of the curry beef puff (85 cents) — very flaky, with plenty of filling.
Eldo Cake House
36-38 Harrison Ave., Boston
617-350-7977
This Vietnamese-Chinese bakery also gives a nod to local favorites, should you want a rectangular slab of Boston cream pie. I chose a café & trung cake (coffee mooncake and egg; $5), which secreted two yolks within a dense beany paste (mung beans, perhaps) that had the barest trace of coffee flavor.
Mei Sum Bakery
36 Beach St., Boston
617-357-4050
This banh mi shop also sells banh no nuong ($2), a moist, rich quarter-pie baked from rice flour, beans, coconut, and sugar. Sweet, but not too sweet.
New Saigon Sandwich
696 Washington St., Boston
617-542-6296
Aisles and aisles of snacks and canned goods here, but only a passable selection of fresh seafood and produce compared with many New York markets.
Preserved waxberries (150 g.; $1.29), after I opened the bag, revealed themselves as bayberries by a different name, but the "green ecology limitless magnificence" offered by the "Guangdong Farmer's Grange Food Industry Co. Ltd." delivered something that tasted a little more like fruit.
That said, I still don't think these will ever be a favorite of mine.
Black sesame "cake" (100 g.; 79 cents) is a Taiwanese confection that's closer to a brittle. Despite attempts at disguising itself with protective coloration (actually an unfortunate choice of background by your photographer), it turned out to be very dry, with a toasted flavor that seemed to have stayed in the toaster too long.
C-Mart Supermarket
686-692 Washington St., Boston
(one of two locations)
617-988-8118
Dispiriting kosher deli grocery, rambling for its small size, where I wandered for several minutes without spotting much of interest. I settled on Kenny's Root Beer Twists (6 oz.; $1.69), a licorice-like product with little flavor.
Supersol
526 Amsterdam Ave. (85th-86th Sts.)
(one of several locations)
212-875-1731
This simply decorated sibling to Teodora and Bianca also features dishes from the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. Freshly made tagliatelle with broccoli rabe and sausage, dressed with garlic and olive oil (special; $14) was quite pretty, and yet the bitterness of the broccoli rabe was a welcome companion to the egg noodles. Sausage and garlic blended in well, too. Crust on the bread was a little too giving, though it was well-pocketed within. Only real disappointment: The recital of specials failed to mention prices, and tonight mine came to much more than the usual fresh tagliatelle with cabbage, shrimps, and pecorino ($9.50).
Celeste
502 Amsterdam Ave. (84th-85th Sts.)
212-874-4559
At our Sunday-night get-togethers at my friend Tom's, our mid-evening dinner break likely as not involves takeout from this Spanish-Chinese eatery. Fast delivery, inoffensive, filling food, and few outright missteps are Flor De Mayo's chief virtues; I don't recall that I've ever set foot inside before tonight.
An ocapa ($4.75) hides two fat slices of boiled potato under a grainy, peppery sauce — almost a paste — made of nuts, cheese, and "huacatay," which may be a type of mint. Sliced egg puts in its usual appearance, too. The sauce comes on hot and heavy, especially if you use the lettuce underneath and the bread for the table to scoop up the remainder.
For delivery on an earlier occasion, I ordered a papa rellena ($1.80), a bland but filling ground-beef-stuffed potato; arroz verde ($1.80), supposedly cilantro-flavored rice with carrots, peas, and (a little) corn; and tallarin verde ($5.25), thin spaghetti in a green sauce that didn't taste much like either basil or the spinach puree that would have given it color.
At another get-together I tried the arroz con pollo Dominicano (chicken with rice, Dominican style; $7.50). (Tom, I should mention, composed the music for an award-winning documentary of Lucille Ball, and arroz con pollo, albeit Cuban style, was a favorite meal of Ricky Ricardo's.) Nice, bright, traffic-signal colors — green peas, yellow rice, one large slab of red pepper — but bland as all get-out without three or four packets of that hot Chinese yellow mustard.
Flor De Mayo
484 Amsterdam Ave. (83rd-84th Sts.)
(one of two locations)
212-787-3388
Thank you!
