The Mysteries of the Universe, As Seen Through a Meatball

Spain Restaurant and Bar

I have a love affair with side streets, especially NYC side streets. There is immediately an aura of mystery that surrounds a restaurant, gallery or store set back from the main drag, a little off the beaten path. You get a sense of treasures yet to be discovered.

So it was this past Saturday when I wandered into Spain (the restaurant – that would have been one hell of a detour), a charming little grotto just off 6^th Avenue in the West Village, for some pre-evening libations. It was nearly eleven, and most of the eateries on the street had closed or were closing for the night. I expected to be turned away, but was warmly welcomed to the small horseshoe-shaped wooden bar by the owner, who had a Campari in front of me almost before I had my coat off. I texted Jason and Charles to let them know where I was, and took in the ambiance. The walls are warm brown brick, sepia-toned pictures line the walls, and the waiters wear red jackets and ties – it all feels delightfully old-world. A table of what looked like students was yelling and carrying on, pounding the table and shrieking with laughter. The waitstaff looked on serenely, or watched football on a flat-screen TV mounted over the bar.

Charles arrived and looked around, his mouth set in a little half-pout, half-smirk he gets when mocking some decision I’ve made. “Huh.”

“What? It’s cute.” He sat down, gave me the side-eye and ordered a Corona. I resolved to remain optimistic, although I was beginning to doubt my instinct as well. For one thing, the restaurant is much more brightly lit than I was accustomed to on a Saturday night, the upside being that it is nice to actually see your friends’ faces once in a while.

Jason walked in shortly thereafter. “This is the place you picked?”

“I’m SORRY there aren’t half-naked men dancing on boxes!” I snapped, to the waiters’ bemusement. They also didn’t take cash, prompting Charles to leave in search of an ATM (actually I suggested he go after his third disparaging remark). But these boys are cheap dinner whores, and were won over as soon as the free appetizers started coming out. A plate of light and crispy pan-fried potatoes hit the table first, followed by a luscious egg-and-potato frittata and a plate of saucy meatballs. Wine and beers are also only $4 apiece. We chatted for an hour and a half, spurred on by quick refills, and enjoyed our goodies under the approving eye of our manager friend. I also made them both apologize for doubting me. Spain’s card reads “Paella – Our Specialty.” I’m completely in love.

Just before we left I took a trip to the ladies’ room and on the way back spied a small private room across from the kitchen, with a table set for four. It must be an omen – I’ve been wanting to get Charles, Jason, Chris and myself together for ages now, as our lives and schedules seek to pull us in ever more disparate directions. What more perfect place could there be than a back room in a friendly little restaurant, with a door and thick, soundblocking walls, serving up family-style paella and $4 wine? I’m often convinced, as I walk the world, with its storehouse of secrets and surprises down every side street, that I’m not the only one moving my feet.

Spain Restaurant and Bar, 113 West 13^th Street (off 6^th Avenue); take the F, V, 2 or 3 to 14^th Street. 212-929-9580. Cash only.

A Birthday Surprise

The Tribeca Tavern

The Tribeca Tavern was one of life’s small and affecting gifts, the kind you can still come across in New York City, although they are becoming fewer and more far between. It was an overcast February afternoon in 2003, my twenty-seventh birthday, and for lack of anything better to do that day I decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I had begrudgingly moved to Brooklyn two years earlier (an understatement if ever there was one), missing terribly my best friend at the time, who had moved to Berlin, and feeling like a bit of an outcast in the city I’d called home for so long. Solitude was becoming a constant in my life, so I figured I might as well get some exercise in the bargain. I’d been doing a lot of walking around Brooklyn, normally from my apartment in Crown Heights to the foot of the bridge, which was about a three-and-a-half-mile trek, but never seemed to get up the gumption to make it across. Perhaps the events of 9/11 were still too fresh in my mind, or maybe I was just exhausted by the time I reached the bridge (I was still pretty hefty and out of shape then – 3 ½ miles is a lot of wear and tear on the hooves when you’re not used to it). That particular day I had the radio on as I walked, some easy-listening station that provided a pleasantly non-thinky backdrop to the city scenery, and just as I reached the foot of the bridge, Bon Jovi’s song “It’s My Life,” came on.

This is for the ones who stood their ground
For Tommy and Gina who never backed down
Tomorrow’s getting harder make no mistake
Luck ain’t even lucky
Got to make your own breaks

It’s my life
And it’s now or never
I ain’t gonna live forever
I just want to live while I’m alive
It’s my life
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I’m alive
‘Cause it’s my life

In retrospect it does seem like such an insignificant thing, walking the bridge, something so many people do every day, but trust me, it wasn’t. We were just about to go to war. People were still so goddamned scared and confused. I was so goddamned scared and confused. The Brooklyn Bridge is high, and a juicy target for a bombing. But I thought, whatever misguided reasons those soldiers are going to war for, they certainly aren’t going so I can stand at the foot of this bridge like a chickenshit. So I took a small breath and kept going myself. And it was beautiful, overcast day, droplets of rain and all. It was quiet up there, and the swishing sounds of tires across the damp pavement became soothing and hypnotic after a while. The American flags at the top of the bridge were whipping fiercely in the wind, and I concentrated on them, and let them ferry me across. It’s the small things, the meaningful moments that add up in this life, I think, and give you the strength to pull off the major victories.

I was feeling rather euphoric by the time I got to the other side, and decided a drink was in order (naturally). Unfortunately, bars in Tribeca seem to be mostly divided into two camps – nose-in-the-air joints that blithely charge $16 for a martini, or real buckets of blood with crime scene tape on the front door. I had to hike to North Moore Street, only a couple of blocks from the Hudson, before I saw the comforting, old-school sign advertising the Tribeca Tavern. By then it was starting to rain in earnest, and I gratefully ducked inside.

The bar is much longer than it looks from the front – it actually stretches all the way to the other side of the street. In addition to the long wood-paneled bar, there’s a pool table and plenty of dining space, a jukebox and a comfy, intimate corner with benches and plush chairs. When I walked in that day, I was the sole customer: Sal, the manager, was calmly wiping glasses, with one eye on the Knicks game, and seemed delighted to have some company. He mixed a perfect martini for me, in the traditional longstemmed glass (they have since graduated to stemless ones, which bother me in some fundamental way I can’t really articulate), and played a couple of tunes on the jukebox that made me smile. Just then, an older gentleman, who I assumed was the owner, emerged from the kitchen with a piping hot vegetable pizza (a Tavern trademark) cut it expertly into wedges and despite my half-hearted protestations, dished one up for me. We sat munching and chatting as the rain poured outside – when I told them it was my birthday, I was handed a second slice of pizza. It turned out to be a pretty great day.

The place hasn’t changed much since then, although Sal, with whom I shared quite a few pizzas, sadly passed away a couple of years ago. I dropped by with my friend Charles this past September 11^th to do some drinking and reminiscing, and found the mood inside lively and light. Besides the top-flight pizzas, their bar food is tasty and rib-sticking, hugely portioned and reasonably priced. Charles went for the grilled chicken sandwich, which was dwarfed by a mountain of french fries, and I had a vegetable quesadilla without cheese, (as I’ve recently decided to go vegan for three months) which surprisingly turned out to be just as good as the adorable and attentive waiter said it would be, despite my initial skepticism. We laughed a lot, enjoyed the evening, lived our lives and refused to get too pensive – the Tavern put us at ease. In the ever-changing Tribeca landscape, it still stands its ground, a comforting oasis dispensing small and appreciated kindnesses, and occupying one very major place in my heart.

The Tribeca Tavern, 247 W Broadway (between Beach St & Moore St); 1 to Franklin Street, A, C, or E to Canal-Church Sts, or J, M, Z, N, Q, R, W, 6 to Canal Street; 212- 941-7671

GG Must-Have: Ceviche

Casa Havana

The real estate in Chelsea is so pricey these days, it was a re-occurring wonder to me that Casa Havana has stayed in business for this long. I’ve passed it a hundred times on my way to some chichi 8^th Avenue restaurant or gay bar, but last week I needed to kill some time waiting for Chris and thought I’d drop in for a glass of wine (to supplement the three I’d already had). From the outside Casa Havana looks like a dumpy storefront where they shove sandwiches at you through a hole in the window. I was totally shocked to find a full-service diner with a long front counter (full disclosure – I LOVE long front counters. I think it was all the time I spent in Woolworth’s as a small child), a jukebox and a tucked-away little garden in the back that seats ten. I was already sold and I hadn’t even tried anything. Fortunately the adorable servers, recognizing a tipsy easy mark when they saw one, knew just what I needed, and set me up with a glass of excellent Spanish rioja and some homemade ceviche, which has got to be one of the best-kept secrets in NYC.

For the bargain-basement price of $4.95, you get a candy-dish-shaped bowl brimming with over a dozen full-size shrimp “cooked” in a tart bath of ripe tomato chunks, lime, cilantro, onion and a couple other ingredients I couldn’t identify, but which made my tastebuds absolutely sit up and beg. It was seriously superb; I almost drank the broth right out of the bowl. Although ceviche always evokes summer for me, the counter boys assured me that this dish was served year-round (and themselves of a regular customer).

Casa Havana serves old-school Cuban fare, the kind that will put a smile on your lips, fat on your booty, and raise your cholesterol ten points. I resolved to come back in October to try the Cuban sandwich, as well as their roast pork platter (which is always my barometer for the quality of a Cuban restaurant. If your pork isn’t tender, juicy and marbled with thick striations of fat, it’s likely nothing else on the menu is worth trying).

Awww yeah.

They also have a full breakfast menu, and everything is more than reasonably priced. There’s even a rudimentary hard-liquor bar behind the counter that looked to be fairly new, judging from the amused reaction of a regular spotting it for the first time. The conversations flew thick and fast as customers streamed in to pick up their dinners and exchanged cheerful jokes and salutations with the waiters. I was delighted. Such a breath of fresh air on that overdone avenue. Fancy eateries have their place, as we know, but some tricked-out ceviche, a whiskey soda and salsa music on the jukebox gets me in the mood just as well.

Casa Havana, 190 8^th Avenue between 19^th and 20^th Street; C or E to 23^rd Street; 212-243-9421. Cash only.

GG At Home: Beer Can Chicken

This recipe is apparently an oldie but goodie, a staple of tailgate parties and backyard BBQs for many years. Chris’ boyfriend Mathew and I have both wanted to try this for some time, so last Sunday we decided to give it a go.

Chris lives in South Park Slope near a somewhat questionable Associated grocery store – we were initially unsure we would find all the ingredients (including the chicken) there, but they came through in the clutch. Beer can chicken is laughably easy to make – basically smother a chicken in spices and a little olive oil and shove a half-empty can of beer up its ass. I think the secret is to use really crappy foreign beer (Mathew also got fancy and tucked whole stems of rosemary and thyme into the cans before we violated the chickens with them).

The upended chickens went on the grill and all seemed fine until I noticed an alarming amount of smoke wafting over the balcony and filling the apartment. I lifted the grill lid and found the chickens to be basically on fire. “Um, Jason,” I called nervously into the kitchen, “these aren’t supposed to be engulfed like this, are they?” We determined that it was just the fat from the chicken skin providing fuel for the briquettes and, sure enough, the birds eventually got drippy enough to douse most of the flames and provide beautiful smoking action on the plump carcasses.

When the wing bones moved easily, we decided they were done, and transferred them to a Pyrex platter, where Jason took over carving duties. We have a time-honored tradition among my happy foodie band of cooking and then demolishing an entire Perdue roaster in one sitting. All I can say in this case is it was a damn good thing we’d made two, or someone would have lost a finger.

Whoa. Who knew that beer plus steam plus smoke plus herbs could do THAT? This was hands down the most delicious chicken I’ve ever had the pleasure of tucking into. The skin had melted into that sticky glazed consistency that you find on barbecued ribs, tasting sweetly of smoke and not at all charred. The meat itself was falling off the bones and unbelievably tender – it was as though the bird had morphed into some other fantastic, exotically flavored beast that bore no resemblance to its humble earlier incarnation. We ate ourselves silly, complementing our de-feathered friend with braised green beans with garlic and tomato, and potato wedges with chunks of bacon and rosemary. Damn, that shiz was good. I’d make that in the dead of winter (or make Chris do it, a la Bill Cosby in his parka).

You can make beer can chicken in the oven too, but I recommend doing it on a grill if at all possible – there’s something about the combo of the steam and smoke that’s impossible to duplicate, flavor-wise. For the uninitiated, here’s a how-to video:

Forks? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Forks!

Massawa

I am generally not afraid of carbs as a rule, but do recognize that I have a tendency to retain them in unflattering places on my body when consumed in excess. Therefore, although I adore Ethiopian cuisine, I tend to shy away from it because of the warm, delicious piles of injera, the spongy, slightly tart bread that come with your meal and are used in place of a fork to scoop up your food. Carb heaven! (or hell, depending on how well your pants are fitting that day). But my dear friend Bari was turning 25, and her boyfriend Ben made reservations at Massawa, an adorable little Ethiopian-Eritrean restaurant tucked into the corner of 121^st and Amsterdam, so I decided to shelve the diet for the day and indulge a little bit.

The restaurant is on two levels, with a main dining room upstairs, and an intimate downstairs with sofas and stools arranged around a main table, giving the impression of a cozy nest. Wisely, we were placed downstairs and given the green light to get loud as hell. We started the meal with scallion-studded bean dip (accompanied by pita bread, which I thought was kind of odd, but then figured they save the injera for the big show) and meat and veggie-filled sambusas (a little like fried dumplings or samosas) which were addictively crispy and light. The wait for dinner was just long enough to get our palates raring to go, but not so long that we got crabby – the waitress was extremely attentive and made sure we were well-supplied with drinks in the interim. Even the temperature was just right; a powerful fan set up in the back kept us cool and comfortable. Air conditioning wouldn’t really have felt right in the space.

When the main courses come out, it’s rather daunting. There was so much food they had to put it on two separate platters. We went for a mix of traditional (beef with tomatoes, braised chicken, lamb) and some more eclectic selections (beef with pumpkin, okra curry) The proteins were laid out beautifully and ringed with fresh regional salads and bean dishes for color and taste contrast. Two more plates of injera, looking like folded beige hand towels, arrived alongside the enormous platters to be used for scooping and dunking. (I did actually ask for a fork to try to cut down on my carb intake and got a little good-natured static about it from the waitress, but had the last laugh when one of the platters got wedged into the decorative centerpiece in the middle of the table and my fork was used to pry it out. HA!)

Is it wrong to just stick my whole face in here?

We plainly, simply, ate ourselves sick – everything was just so damn tasty. Cheap date Bari was glowy and giggly after one mango martini, which were made with fresh mango nectar and taste incredibly ripe and intoxicating. Unfortunately the bartender seemed non-plussed by my Absolut martini order – I kept getting a warm glass of vodka with no lemon twist – but then I figured when in Ethiopia, and drank it anyways. (I KNOW they probably don’t have Absolut in Ethiopia – poor attempt at joke/underplaying my latent alcoholism)

Although we hadn’t ordered dessert, Ben had let the waiters know in advance that it was her birthday, and after dinner, out came three dishes of coconut and chocolate sorbet, each topped with a candle, the coconut in shells and the chocolate in what I swear was a cacao pod. Now that’s a stylish presentation! The chocolate sorbet in particular was exquisite, so rich and dark you could have swapped it out for ice cream and never known the difference. It was a light, perfect end to the meal.

Despite the fact that Massawa is a little annoying to find, the food makes it completely and utterly worth it. $20 apiece covered everything and we were on our way. Bari and the others headed back to her place for birthday champagne, and I tripped off to my second assignation in Hell’s Kitchen, dinner pleasantly sloshing around in my belly and visions of bedding down under a blanket of injera dancing in my head.

Massawa, 1239 Amsterdam Avenue (at 121^st Street); 1 or C to 116^th Street and then hoof it or take a cab; www.massawanyc.com; 212-663-0505

Free Wine! (Need I Say More?)

Cottage Restaurant

For my money the absolute best part of Sunday brunch is the free beverages that usually come with it as an enticement. In my experience though the freebies are usually confined strictly to brunch, so imagine my delight when our friends Tim and Justin turned us on to The Cottage, a Chinese restaurant on the upper West Side that provides unlimited carafes of complimentary wine with dinner! I almost trampled Jason to get in the door of the place. As you might have guessed, there was a small wait for a table, but nothing too onerous – we wisely asked to be placed in the corner.

According to T & J, The Cottage apparently had a pretty rapid reversal of fortune once word spread about its free wine special, and revamped its entire space. It’s pretty bare-bones for a Chinese restaurant, which I liked – there were none of the faux-Oriental trappings you find at some city restaurants, little pots of bamboo on the tables and grinning Buddhas, yadda yadda. The décor is extremely simple and straightforward – people are not here for an authentic Chinese experience – whatever that might mean in New York City – they are here to get sloshed on free wine (which is straight from the box. Economical AND eco-friendly!).

The waiters are efficient to the point of abruptness. Slap slap slap slap slap – four glasses and a carafe before we even got seated. Down to business, man, I like this place already. The steamed dumplings are extremely tasty, as was the lemon chicken, and the portions are pretty huge. I took particular pleasure in picking thick slices of garlic out of Jason’s spicy beef – there was enough in the dish to render an entire horde of vampires sterile and clawing for escape. Of course with all the wine coming, we got loud and had to promise to quiet down or be cut off. What do they expect?! For four the bill was a ridiculous $52 and we each had at least five glasses of wine apiece. We left tipsy and gleeful, exchanged exuberant hugs and kisses goodbye, and then piled into a taxi heading downtown and almost got into a wreck in front of Fordham University. Just a typical Sunday night. Can we have more places like this in the city please?!? Oh wait, that’s my job to find them for you! Fear not, I am on the case.

The Cottage, 360 Amsterdam Avenue at 77^th Streett (take the 1 to 79^th Street); 212-595-7450

Beefeater Martini: $6. Tunes on the Jukebox: $2. A Little Perspective: Priceless.

Kasteli Cafe

I did a double take walking past the Kasteli Café (why it is called a café I am not sure because it doesn’t sell any food, but whatever) on 8^th Avenue last night – it was about 8:30 and I had been pounding martinis and bitching about men with my friend Jason for a couple of hours, so I wasn’t operating on all cylinders, but something about the place looked oddly familiar. There was a good, if murky, memory attached, so I went in. Two older gentlemen were chatting animatedly at the bar, and the young lady behind it came over at once with a smile and asked what I wanted to order.

“Beefeater Martini, up with a twist,” I said, trying (and failing) not to slur. She mixed it fast, set it in front of me and quoted me, as stated above, the laughable price of $6. OK, granted there were three people in the place and it looked like it was about to close, but still, score! It was also about 10% vermouth, which is sacrilege to any true martini drinker, but served in a respectably sized glass and not at all watered down. When you’ve inhaled as many martinis as I have over the past nine or so years, you know damn well when an establishment has watered down their alcohol, which in my opinion is about the most disgusting thing they do.

I sipped and looked around, trying to remember. It was summertime, maybe late afternoon, and I had gone in why? Was I alone? Had I met someone? Something about a bus…and oh Jesus, there it was. There he was. I was 28, riding the M7 up 8^th Avenue, and he was standing in front of the bar, dressed in army fatigues and looking like he was waiting for something. My hand completely detached from my brain, flew up and slapped the yellow tape-bell to stop the bus, because right then I didn’t think I could go on living if I didn’t find out who this vision was. We had a wonderful afternoon, talking about his life in the Army and how great New York was. Maybe we made out a little. I gave him my number, never expecting him to call, but he did, late that night, sounding very drunk and almost close to tears. He told me that I was beautiful, an amazing and special spirit and he just thought I should know that.

I wonder if he’s still alive. And if he is, whether he would end up like the gentleman I spent the rest of that evening with, an Army man himself, who came home from Vietnam with all his limbs intact, but also with a serious case of PTSD and to a life that didn’t quite know what to do with him anymore. He lives in a single-resident-occupancy building on 24^th between 7^th and 8^th, some of the pricest real estate in the city that the landlord is angling to sell and turn into condos. We played some music on the jukebox and danced a little bit, and after that I mostly let him talk, which it was clear he desperately needed to do. He’s extremely funny and salty, still enormously optimistic about life, and simply couldn’t believe I was spending all this time listening to his old war stories. “You have such a beautiful spirit,” he kept saying. So they tell me.

I thought about how the experiences that have shaped me with respect to the opposite sex tend to take place in bars, both good and bad, surprising and disappointing. I remembered the bartender who asked for a blowjob behind the bar after closing time, which I probably would have done had his equipment not been so unremarkable AND if he hadn’t poked me in the eye with it to boot), the time I got so smashed on dirty martinis that I made out with a fifty-eight-year-old Irishman, and kept giggling every time he said something dirty because I couldn’t stop thinking of the Lucky Charms leprechaun, and the two sailors I met at a Village dive and later lost my virginity to in my friend’s hotel room, just to name a few. Spending time with a man I had no intention of doing anything with other than talking was a lovely and unexpected departure for me. It reminded me of a time when I didn’t feel so let down by men, and by myself. The breeze wafted in from outside, we rested our arms on the long polished bar and escaped life together for a little while.

Kasteli Cafe, 372 8th Avenue (take A, C, E to 34th Street or 1 to 28th Street and walk one block west); 212-564-7515

One Man’s Stink is Another’s Ambrosia

Murray’s Cheeses

While I am not necessarily appreciative of all the qualities I inherited from my wonderful grandmother (shoulders like a linebacker and a propensity for peculiarly-shaped moles among them), I am deeply grateful she passed on her almost obsessive love of cheese. Grandma’s tastes were fairly simple – store-brand cheddar suited her just fine, two pieces or so a day. However, I am a bougie snob and compulsive overeater, so I have been known to devour an entire block of goat feta or wheel of Camembert without coming up for air, the same way another person (a much less disgusting person) might eat an apple. It’s absolutely my undoing. In fact, I love cheese so much I consider it a personal affront when other people do not share my enthusiasm for it. People like Chris A. (whose last name will remain unposted to protect his anonymity. Also it’s kinda long), my dear friend who on several occasions actually turned up his nose at my cheese offerings. Since our group spends at least three nights a week dining together, this situation needed to be remedied immediately, so I bought him a course at Murray’s Cheeses for Christmas 2007, which turned out to be not only a delightful way to spend an evening, but a new place to volunteer AND eat cheese for free! Like, where do I sign???

Just stepping into Murray’s is like heaven for me; this is what God’s locker room must smell like. The staff is always helpful and pleasant to a fault, and the crack team of cheese whizzes running their Education Department are infectiously passionate about what they do. Our course was The Politics of Cheese, where we learned about laws governing the usage of raw milk in French cheesemaking and what legally constitutes a true Camembert, among other fascinating cheese facts, all while getting good and buzzed on the red and white wines liberally provided by our server. At the end of the class I sought out the program coordinator, Taylor Cocalis, to tell her what a great time I had and how much I loved Murray’s. She immediately suggested I sign up for their volunteer list, which I promptly did, and got to attend a free class (and nibble more than my share of exquisitely addictive Marcona almonds) simply in exchange for setting up and cleaning up for a similar class. Talk about helping yourself by helping others!

Murray’s schedule of classes changes bimonthly, and they have every possible course you can think of, from the straight Cheese 101 Basics to their Meet the Cheesemaker series, to a day-long course on making your own cheese at home. $50 gets you a standard 90-minute course (some are of course a bit more expensive), with a plateful of six or seven different cheeses, breads, dried fruits and nuts, and several refills on your wineglass. It’s extremely filling, so you’re not even thinking about dinner afterwards, and we actually learned a lot. They also keep the store open a little past business hours so you can take a bit of the course home with you. Chris even screwed up his courage and went back to pick up some selections for a party his boyfriend was having later that week. By all accounts, he did good. Plus there is much less facemaking when confronted with cheese these days. So my work here is done.

Murray’s Cheeses, 254 Bleecker St. (between 6th & 7th Ave.), New York, NY 10014
888.MY.CHEEZ or (212) 243.3289; http://www.murrayscheese.com; take the 1 to Christopher Street or the A, C, E, B, D, F, V to West 4^th Street

GG Must-Have: Green Tea Soft Serve

BAMN!

In the early 80s there was a Japanese noodle house and restaurant around the corner from my house, long since defunct, called Dosanko. My mother, in her endless quest to broaden my culinary horizons (and thank the Lord she did this OUTSIDE the home. I love my mother dearly, but when I’m asked if she was a good cook when I was growing up, I respond, “She’s an academic.”), made it a semi-monthly practice to have dinner there. I could pretty much take or leave the cuisine (seven-year-olds back then generally didn’t get jazzed about noodles unless covered in tomato sauce; who knows what exotic Thai-Burmese-Malaysian concoctions today’s urban youths enjoy), but one day I asked for the green tea ice cream for dessert, and an obsession was born that remains to this day.

Ice cream, when paired with green tea, becomes something fruity, floral and elevated. It’s exotic but not off-putting, incredibly refreshing and really sings on the tongue when it’s made correctly. Unfortunately it’s not the easiest flavor to find outside of Japanese restaurants.

Enter BAMN!, the city’s first modern automat. This cute little storefront on St. Mark’s Place is noteworthy in and of itself for re-introducing the automat to New York City, in a jazzy pink and fuschia update. You make change at the machine in the corner, and for eight or twelve quarters apiece you can enjoy a number of hot, tasty little mini-meals, from macaroni and cheese bites to veggie empanadas. But it was the green tea soft-serve that really grabbed me, mostly because the flavor choices are usually vanilla (which they also have) or chocolate, both of which I find boring as hell. One bite and I was seven again – the taste was somehow different from all the other times I’ve had it, and surprised my palate in that same hey-now-what’s-THIS??? way. I was regretfully nibbling the bottom of the cone by the time I got to the end of the block, and remembering when it was okay to have ice cream every day.

The plan is to visit BAMN! many times in these droopy, dopey dog-days of summer for a quick trip down memory lane. Since I’m not building a time machine anytime soon, I’m happy to spend $3 instead.

BAMN!; 37 St. Mark’s Place; take the 6 to Astor Place or the R, W to 8^th Street and walk east. www.bamnfood.com

Which is Scarier: Rats, Russian Mobsters or Horseradish-Infused Vodka?

Russian Vodka Room

On my way into the Washington Mutual at 56^th and 8^th Avenue, I was confronted with the biggest, ugliest rat I’ve ever seen in my life. It glared at me balefully before scuttling into a hole next to the floor vent, clearly not convinced that it should have been the one making a quick exit. It’s not like I haven’t seen a rat in NYC before, but there was something about its presence in the otherwise sterile atmosphere of a bank that sent me scuttling down the street to the Russian Vodka Room for a calming martini.

My friends and I started coming here three years ago after the family Christmas party to nibble appetizers and dish on all the crazy neighbors and random acquaintances my mother feels compelled to invite. It’s dimly lit, decorated in early British Airport Bar, and the perfect pit stop for the die-hard tippler to inhale a drink or ten and contemplate the lazy twirl of the universe. I haven’t seen anyone who screams “mobster” yet, but am convinced that they frequent the place on a regular basis – it just looks like too much of a gleeful cliche for them NOT to. The gravlax, blini and potato pancakes are all top-notch, but my guess is that all the appetizers (including pricey beluga and sevruga caviar) more than pass muster – they all pair perfectly with vodka, or whatever your poison happens to be. There’s also a world-weary gentleman behind a piano banging out a tune every now and then.

The RVR carries its own delicious vodka infusions, from wild blueberry to garlic and dill, to horseradish. I selected the horseradish for my martini, which washes your brain clean with its first sharp, peppery kick (next time I’m in there I’m suggesting they do a wasabi) and then settles down to work on your stomach. Ahhh. The waitress saw by my goofy grin that all was well at the end of the bar, and tipped me a wink before moving on. Troubles? Fughettaboutit! (Yeah, I don’t know any Russian). This is the kind of place that almost demands you get roaringly, hopelessly sloshed, carted out by long-suffering friends, and oblivious to the fact that you share real estate with hissing rodents.

Russian Vodka Room, 265 West 52nd Street (off 8th Avenue; take the C or E to West 50th Street), www.russianvodkaroom.com