East Village Eats And Elsewhere: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  March 16, 2016]

Well, mostly East Village eats, with a a couple of sideways trips.  My diary seems to suggest I was ill this week ten years ago, but there are no details.

Didn't stop me getting out, anyway.  Not much does.

The first dinner outside the neighborhood followed a concert of fado featuring Cristina Branco at the Skirball Center in Greenwich Village.  We hit the recently opened Maremma, Cesare Casella's rather curious Italian cowboy restaurant.  Western paraphernalia, big Tuscan steaks, and although we just needed a post-theater supper, it looks like we sampled three pasta dishes.

Appetizers, the rich "Sloppy Giuseppe" and polenta with seafood and tomato sauce.  Then granelli with dill sauce, and two other pastas, one with wild boar ragù, the other with ground pork.  Fado must work up an appetite: I can hardly believe chocolate cake with hazelnut ice cream made an appearance too.

The next night I cooked a long meal for guests: a lentil purée with goat cheese and balsamico; braised squid in its ink with parsley; blood sausage lasagne; and a selection of Spanish cheeses. People brought various wines, and the one I actually noted was a 2000 Domaine de Rosier Côte-Rôtie.

The second side trip also followed an event--a talk by Robert Caro on his latest, but certainly not last, LBJ volume. Supper was a snack of potato croquettes with black truffle mayo, and a couple of cocktails, at Tocqueville, off Union Square.

Locally, I ate at Banjara, the sadly vanished inexpensive Indian on First Avenue, better than the "curry row" competition.  The great chicken liver appetizer, of course, then a chicken biryani.  Crif Dogs made an appearance in the calendar, as did the underwhelming Mexican, Mary Ann's (guac, carnitas).

We also made it back down to Alias on Clinton for a repeat of the cauliflower, mushroom and egg dish, then a rather salty burger helped out by some Aussie shiraz. They were serving a hyper-local sundae sourced from Il Laboratorio Gelato on Ludlow.

At least I had some excuse for that sustenance: a very long walk around the South Bronx--maybe the most over-looked neighborhood in the city when it comes to sight-seeing. The Eichler mansion; Crotona Park with the "rolling stone"; the Roosevelt Apartments; the Bronx Museum; and Joyce Kilmer Park, with the Heintz memorial and the Heine Lorelei fountain.  It will soon be time to head up to Yankee Stadium again.