Los Vecinos Meat Market & Supermarket

Mabi I've had this somewhere before.

The spelling, I should have realized, is a variation on "mauby," a typically fermented, sometimes carbonated Caribbean soft drink prepared from the extract of a certain tree bark, with brown and white cane sugar (the nearly clear "seybano" style) or spices, "fruit extract," and brown sugar (the orange-amber "cacheo" style). Many maubys are slightly astringent, like root beer; these Taino brand versions (12 fl. oz.; $1.50 each), from the Dominican Republic, are gentler, even a little cloying. I prefer the cacheo.

When I came across the Nena La Rubia stand in Washington Heights last November, I'd forgotten all about Goya habiculelas con dulce (15.5 oz.; $1.29). The first time I heated up a canful of this Dominican treat, two years ago, I called it "nice little dessert soup," but now I note that it doesn't include sweet potato (at least not in solid form) or milk crackers, and it's thinner and less mellow than its uptown cousin. Costs more, too.

Los Vecinos Meat Market & Supermarket
987 Amsterdam Ave. (108th-109th Sts.)
212-316-1968

Comments

[Greg Strong]

Dude-
I was certain that my blog was the only place in the world that found Los Vecinos Meat Market.
These guys do a great job of slicing your meat on demand. I use them for chili beef, and they cube very reasonably priced beef, and sell most everything else I need for chili.