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(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on gatherings in past years.)
Nokedli resemble mian geda, the pasta nubbins that are translated on some Chinese menus as blotch. Nowadays both nokedli and geda are generally made using one of various mechanical devices; a quantity of dough is pushed through holes into boiling water.
On a sunny afternoon earlier this week I tucked away my first Halal Guys combo — chicken and beef gyro, over rice — since some long-past Street Meat Palooza. In recent years I'd been dissuaded by a line of customers that often stretched from Sixth Ave. far down 53rd St., but this day, pigeons outnumbered people. Sunset, I hope, brought a flock of customers ready to break the Ramadan fast.
The Halal Guys
West 53rd St. near the southwest corner with Sixth Ave., Manhattan
347-527-1505
(one of numerous locations, many of them brick-and-mortar)
www.TheHalalGuys.com
In blustery Riverside Park, my Italian combo wouldn't sit still for the customary pose, cutaway view leaning atop crust view. On reflection, I now see that hunger (hence haste) also led me to grab it upside-down. Does this affect the sandwich-eating experience?
Giacomo Fine Foods
269 W 72nd St. (Broadway-West End Ave.), Manhattan
347-330-7694
www.Facebook.com/GiacomoFineFoods
We have 95% grain alcohol, a sign seemingly directed toward the production of homemade sanitizer. The brand name, unfortunately, is an ill fit.
Broadway Cellar
2746 Broadway (105th-106th Sts.), Manhattan
212-932-7772
www.BroadwayCellar.com
(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on celebrations in past years.)
White, golden brown, empurpled and black, the colors of the sticky rice were so captivating that I overlooked the colors of the mangos. Even though I returned to the vendor's table several minutes later to identify the crunchy bits spooned over my dessert — not sesame seeds, but the less prosaic touch of toasted mung beans — the fruits still didn't register. I'd asked simply for "mango with sticky rice"; mine was yellow-skinned, even more richly colored within, ripe, and sweet. Perhaps this was the default.
Perhaps, however, I could've gone green. At a Colombian bakery not far from this Thai street festival, I once encountered mango biche (Bee-chay), prepared from an unripe, tart fruit. If this is an option, someday I hope to have a second bite at the mango.
Also shown: a two-part Thai dessert best shared with your buddies. Not for the bulk of the pandan sticky rice, and not for the richness of the coconut milk, but for what lurks within. When everyone gives off a whiff of durian, no one has good cause to give side-eye.
For more photos, see my collection on Flickr.
Songkran celebration on Woodside Ave.
Woodside Ave. between 75th and 77th Sts., Elmhurst, Queens
(The 2020 celebration has been cancelled)
(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on a past celebration.)
To latecomers, the leavings.
Continue reading "Khmer New Year celebration at Watt Samakki Dhammikaram" »
(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on the celebration in a previous year.)
Dates, which often break the Ramadan fast, crowded onto a plate at a past year's event alongside roast lamb, roast chicken, kufta (beef kufta, I believe), rice, salad, and olives. Also shown from this annual event, first held in 2006: a cheese-filled pastry, paired with potent Arabic coffee; last call at the serving line.
Annual iftar feast outside Balady Foods
7128 Fifth Ave. (71st-72nd Sts.), Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
718-567-2252
www.BaladyMarket.com
(The 2020 celebration, as best as I can determine, has been cancelled)
"Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three." To go (and shown below): a Boston creme donut, the holy hand grenade of Covid diets.
Dunkin'
4030 Broadway (169th-170th Sts.), Manhattan
212-923-2222
(one of many locations)
www.DunkinDonuts.com
Was this a negative-calorie Cubano especial? On one side of the balance: pork, pork leg, smoked ham, swiss, garlic, pickles, and pressed bread. On the other: the exertions of an eight-mile walk, round-trip, over hilly terrain from Morningside Heights to Washington Heights and back. Asterisk: a donut afterward.
H/T Robert Sietsema
Floridita
4162 Broadway (176th-177th Sts.), Manhattan
212-928-0653
Also at 3856 Tenth Ave. (206th-207th Sts.)
212-567-4848
www.FloriditaNYC.com
Until the early 20th century, grocery stores weren't self-service. Customers would submit shopping lists to a clerk, who would gather the goods. When Buckley's first opened its doors — the typefaces suggest the 1920s, or perhaps the early 1930s — "self service" must still have been novel enough to be called out by name.
What might a "hands free" market look like today?
Buckley's Self-Service Market
251 Nassau Ave. (Monitor St.-Kingsland Ave.), Greenpoint, Brooklyn
718-383-0838
Thank you!
