The stand is in action only when school's out for summer.
In addition to a familiar selection of produce, arrayed against the back of a repurposed mini school bus, the Dominican proprietor mixes batidos and offers up drinking coconuts. (The coconuts are hacked open on the end of a post which stands upright in a gray plastic trash can — presumably, one that the school custodian was no longer putting to use.) He also serves excellent mabi (shown at bottom; $2) prepared by some unnamed party, somewhere in the Bronx. A few versions of the root-beer-like beverage, made from the bark of a certain Caribbean tree, are uncarbonated. This one, by contrast, was still fermenting away: Through the translucent plastic sides of a half-dozen jugs, I watched strings of tiny bubbles rise to the top, where a pinhole had been cut in each cap to release excess pressure.
At Dominican and Puerto Rican stands, the beverage may be spelled mabi or mavi, with or without an accent on the "I"; the pronunciation is pretty much the same. The drink called mauby, served at eateries with roots elsewhere in the Caribbean, employs the same ingredients but is typically much less sweet, to the point of astringency.
Papo Frutas
Audubon Ave. near the southwest corner with West 173rd St.
Morning till early evening, May through September
