(This venue is closed.) Vegetable momo, one of the "delicious Nepalese specialties" — an alternative to the soups, salads, burgers, wraps, and all-day breakfast still on offer — just a short trek from the Great Hill of northeastern Central Park.
Park West Cafe & Deli
477 Central Park West (at 108th St.), Manhattan
212-663-5690
www.ParkWCafe.com
Homemade, maybe once or twice a year, when sufficient quantities of the fluffy key ingredient are close at hand in Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Fauzia's cart was a fixture near the Bronx courthouses till late last year, when Columbia entreated her to set up beside the construction site of the school's Manhattanville campus. New to the neighborhood, from the rotating menu: a Jamaican-ish grilled lamb platter.
Fauzia's Heavenly Delights
Cart on Broadway near the northwest corner with 131st St., Manhattan
718-930-5711
www.FauziasHeavenlyDelights
Weekday lunch only
From the owners of Com Tam Ninh Kieu, in the Bronx, this new restaurant brings many lesser-seen Vietnamese dishes to Manhattan's West Side. Shown: bánh chưng chiên, crispy sticky rice cakes; bún chả, featuring pork skewers, fried spring rolls, and betel-leaf-wrapped patties; bánh cuốn Hà Nội, steamed rice rolls with a side of housemade meatloaf; and phá láu, braised offal with French bread. More bread — an extra supply of odds and ends — helped me swab out my bowl.
Bánh Vietnamese Shop House
942 Amsterdam Ave. (106th-107th Sts.), Manhattan
917-639-3151
www.Instagram.com/BanhNYC
For the time being, soft-open on weekends only; see current hours online
The aromatic, tart-sweet, richly flavored Esopus Spitzenburg originated in the late 1700s in upstate Esopus, New York, supposedly in the orchard of a settler named Spitzenburg. (Spellings vary.) Thomas Jefferson favored this apple enough to plant the trees at Monticello in the early 1800s. Several decades later, in "Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story Of Wall-street," Herman Melville's narrator observed: "Copying law papers being proverbially dry, husky sort of business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very often with Spitzenbergs to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the Custom House and Post Office."
The tree itself, unfortunately, is known as a shy bearer, and many commercial orchards forsook it long ago for more-fruitful varieties; it's no longer to be found at the "numerous stalls" of Melville's New York. Locally, though perhaps only for a few market days, Samascott is your best bet.
Also shown, below: a particularly sun-splashed Spitzenburg from a previous harvest; a Cox's orange pippin, another of Samascott's less common apple cultivars; hardy kiwis. Like their larger namesakes, these natives of northern China, Korea, Siberia and possibly Japan are the edible berries of a woody vine. By contrast, however, apart from the stems these fuzzless, grape-size fruits can be eaten whole.
Samascott Orchards
5 Sunset Ave., Kinderhook, New York
518-758-7224
www.Samascott.com
At the Columbia Greenmarket, Broadway between 114th and 116th Sts., Manhattan
www.GrowNYC.org/greenmarket/manhattan/columbia-su
Thursday and Sunday
Consider a knife and fork: Even when not overloaded with meatball, pepperoni, and sausage, V&T's pizza crusts can be droopy. If you're eating with just your hands, either you'll need to maneuver yourself underneath the first bite or two of each slice, or you'll need to use your off-hand to cradle the sagging tip. However you approach it, be careful: As you can see from the leavings below, the pizza tends to be oily, too.
Also shown: more meatballs; garlic bread; salad.
V&T Restaurant & Pizzeria
1024 Amsterdam Ave. (110th-111th Sts.)
212-663-1708
www.VTRestaurantPizzeria.com
Abandoned book (not rescued by me), Morningside Heights, Manhattan
The postal code "Brooklyn 21," on the maker's mark of (L&M) Ellanam Adjustable Forms, dates this "stand-in hostess" to sometime between the early 1940s and the early 1960s. Still serving.
Elysian Fields Cafe
1207 Amsterdam Ave. (119th-120th Sts.), Manhattan
917-388-2191
www.ElysianFields Cafe.com
Orange chicken — free, thanks to a postcard widely mailed in the neighborhood; eaten with a fork, since that's what was in the bag. Perhaps the recipe is in the public domain, like the fortunes.
Panda Express
2852 Broadway (110th-111th Sts.), Manhattan
(one of many locations)
212-678-0139
www.PandaExpress.com.
... and I wear a mask, hand-chalked artwork (after Milton Glaser, 2020) outside Mel's Burger Bar
2850 Broadway (110th-111th Sts.), Manhattan
212-865-7100
www.MelsBurgerBar.com
Thank you!
