Margot

(This venue is closed.) Hit the heights.

"It doesn't look like jack," wrote Junot Diaz in "He'll Take El Alto," a Gourmet article about Dominican cuisine in upper Manhattan. I'd passed by Margot dozens of times with little more than a glance, but after reading the best novel I've come across this year — The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao — I remembered his words. For Dominican food, Diaz maintained, "no one in the tristate area does better standards" than Margot.

Diaz particularly mentioned concon (cone-Cone), the burned rice from the bottom of the pan that adds crunchy texture to dishes like stewed beef (lunch special; $7). It's similar to the soccarat in a Spanish paella or the overcooked bits of rice in a Korean bibimbop; the word can refer to caramelized sweets, too.

Although concon doesn't appear on the menu (at least not my menu; I was fortunate to have an English-speaking server), you can ask for it just like rice or beans — or in this case, half rice, half concon, and a fully satisfying homestyle meal. Indeed, "the basement" on Margot's awning (click on the photo below, or any other photo on this site, for a better look) refers back some 20 years, when "homey" described the setting as well as the food. Today, if you're looking for a brief, wondrous introduction to Dominican comida casera, you won't find a better starting point than Margot.

Margot
3822 Broadway (159th-160th Sts.), Manhattan
212-781-8494