Good Things Near and Far Part I—From Lebanese Flatbread to an LA Taco to Puerto Rican Roast Pork to Brisket on a Brioche!

“Cocktail” manousheh - Manousheh is the trademark Lebanese flatbread and the name of an under-the-radar, good inexpensive restaurant where you can get the Lebanese version of a great grilled cheese sandwich. When I was teaching ESL at Henry Street, I’d walk to the Manousheh on Grand Street, an attractive restaurant with sleek blond wood tables and chairs and affable Lebanese men taking orders, sprinkling the zaatar spice mix on the large circlular flatbreads and shoving them in the wood fired oven. What was great for me, leaving my class at around 2:30 PM, was that Manousheh has a generous ½ price “happy hour” between 3 and 5PM. All alcohol, all vegetarian manousheh and platters are 50% off. That means my go-to snack, a “cocktail” manousheh, is only $4.00! This one is half zaatar (thyme/sumac/sesame spice mix), and half jibneh, which is a choice of akkawi, kashkawan or halloum cheese (I can never remember which one I have!). I also tried the muhammara platter ($4.50 at ½ price), another deal: a garlicky roasted red pepper dip, sweetened with pomegranate molasses comes with a big, pillowy, pocketed flatbread, carrot sticks, tiny green olives and grape tomatoes. I made wraps with torn pieces of soft manousheh, generous daubs of dip and plump tiny tomatoes. Yum, and you feel healthy and virtuous, too, no matter what you eat here. Note: olives are not pitted; be careful!

Soft Shell Crab  at Simón Mariscos Chingones – We went to Los Angeles at the beginning of June to see good friends, Andrew and Tanya, and also to hike with them among the oldest trees in the world, the bristlecone pines in the white mountains. When we arrived, Los Angeles was already in “June Gloom,” something I hadn’t taken seriously when we planned our trip. I thought Angelinos cast the whole month as gloomy just because they’re spoiled for sunlight and get piqued when a few June clouds roll in…No, as the meteorologist Chef told us, the constant chill and cloud is due to the presence of the “marine layer,” the thick bank of clouds just above the surface of the cool Pacific waters and under the sub-tropical high pressure system (see what vacation with a meteorologist is like!). In any case, on our first night in our friend’s Silverlake home, I bundled up in my winter sweater just to sit on their deck looking out on the twinkling lights of LA. Earlier we had sat outside Coffee Memes  on Sunset Boulevard. I was enjoying a sparkling water + fermented apricot concoction (Maesil tea/$5.5) when I spied the brilliant purple of Simon Mariscos Chingones food truck on the corner. Our friends said this truck was renowned to be good, so I could not resist ordering a soft shell crab taco ($7.00). I remember when I discovered the glory of soft-shell crabs in my twenties. The idea that you could eat a whole crab, shell and all, was fantastical.  I loved eating them in a soft roll, the fried, crusty claws hanging out, just as they dangled from the small purple tortilla taco at Simón, served with slivers of pineapple, colorful pickled red onion and a spicy mayo sauce. As soon as I finished it, I wanted another one.

Tanya’s epic bread went well with our Trader Joe’s smoked trout and TJ sardines

Trader Joe’s Smoked Trout ($7-8/one tin) on Tanya’s bread– It took us four hours to drive from LA to Lone Pine, our starting point for trekking out among the bristlies. On our way the Chef got very excited as we saw the marine layer coming in from the West and weaving in and out of mountain gaps like freshly carded wool. We stopped at Red Rock Canyon State Park  to eat a picnic lunch surrounded by the spectacular layered orange and bisque cliffs. The sun was merciless, and I felt the truth of the Golden State’s extremes. In two days we were chilled and then baked. I liked Tanya’s picnic style: she spread a little cloth over the bare table and gave us each a lovely cloth napkin. Then she took a number of Trader Joe’s items from a serious cooler: tins of TJ’s smoked trout and sardines, Manchego cheese, fresh figs, a bag of small tasty peppers, strawberries and grapes, and thick slabs of her sourdough bread. Tanya has used the same sourdough starter for possibly over a decade. Her bread is epic (see pic), made with organic stoneground red fife flour from Illinois. It was a great vehicle for Trader Joe’s smoked trout filets. It’s interesting to put yourself in someone else’s hands for your next meal. Because we’d just flown in from NYC the day before, our friends procured the picnic goods for the road and for hikes. The chef’s and my picnic go-tos are brie and apple on ciabatta bread, a bag of Kettle cooked “dirty” salt and pepper potato chips, and a few squares of good chocolate. I liked being treated to A&T’s “go-tos,” and in packing for a family trip to the Laurentian mountains later in June, I brought up the tins. But I long for Tanya’s flour dusted substantial loaf.

Angel Jimenez, replenishing the roast pork!

Lechonera La Piraña - Roast pork in Motthaven, Bronx – OK This snack attack can’t really be classified as a snack, because of the size and price. Also, New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells has said more than I can ever say about this roast pork truck which “packs more joy into two days than most restaurants do into a week,” but sometimes, you read a 3-star NYT review of some far flung outpost where a man in a trailer hacks pieces of a roast pork off the bone with a machete…and you want to know if this experience is one that normal, non-restaurant reviewing people can have. The Chef and I, along with Julie and her boyfriend waited an hour in the sun as the line inched slowly towards the trailer where Angel Jimenez presides over the succulent roast pork.  A few words about the scene. Puerto Rican flags are flying, and a fellow has hooked up a large amp playing salsa music. A table in front of the trailer has an odd collection of wares including men’s shaving accoutrements, household items and bottles of homemade spicy pepper oil in rum bottles.  Just as we were next to enter the trailer, we saw “La Piraña” rush out of the back with his machete and a large silver tray. Time to replenish the pork, and what an operation this is! I followed behind with my iphone camera on as Jimenez crossed the street and disappeared for a while into the basement of an apartment building. When he surfaced, he rushed over with oven mitts to what looked like a small black dumpster on Wales Avenue. Lo and behold, it was an oven. I watched agog as he pulled out a tray in which parts of the beloved pig were neatly arranged, cooked to perfection. When he saw me practically drooling he handed me a still hot piece of pork crackling. Oh dios mio!!! Once we were inside his trailer kitchen, which I’m afraid would not get an a high health department grade, he handed around cracklings to each of us. Not only did we come away with four heaping portions of roast pork, gandules (pigeon peas) and rice ($18),* but pictures of each of us with a grinning La Piraña, machete hovering menacingly in front of our chests (he’s quite the “ham” and likes to “rib” his customers, yuk yuk!). We took our bountiful meal to a local playground, and we had enough for a big lunch the next day!

 Comfort Kitchen - Brisket sandwich on Brioche – After I had one bite of my brisket sandwich, I told the Chef and Julie: “Oh My F***ing God, this is the BEST sandwich I have ever had…recently.” We were in Saratoga Springs, our halfway point in the 6ish hour long drive to Montreal, where our son Angus lives.  For the nine years we’ve visited our son in Montreal (he’s now a permanent resident of Canada 🇨🇦) we’ve stopped at Comfort Kitchen. This low key restaurant has been consistently excellent and hides its light in the back of the bottom floor of a sparse mini mall. You come in off of lively Broadway and must pass the fussy chocolate shops and galleries of bad horse paintings that Saratoga has in such ample supply. It’s a relief to enter the small plain room with a few wooden tables and an outdoor patio for warm weather. The menu offers soup and sandwiches. What could be more comforting—plus Hudson Valley beers (for the Chef) at only $5.00 a can. The Chef got a Cuban (slow roasted pork, swiss cheese, aple maple mustard, garlic pickles in a pressed hoagie roll) and Julie got the fried chicken sandwich (Misty Knoll Farm buttermilk brined chicken, spicy mayo, B&B pickles & lettuce). I had the special, a brisket sandwich on a yellow brioche roll. The 1/2” thick brisket slices, tender and almost jelly-like, were perfectly complemented by creamy coleslaw, pickles and onions. All sandwiches were $15 and come with either a salad or sweet potato chips (get the salad, a better deal!).

 *We have the feeling that the price is not set. I think Jimenez decides what he thinks you can pay!

Stay tuned for the snack attack we had that night in Montreal’s South Asian neighborhood!...