Nueva York

Breaking news: Red Hook vendors are legal!

[Posted by Carolina] Just read a note from César Fuentes, the representative for the food vendors at the Red Hook ball fields, announcing that the Parks Department has issued the group a six-year permit to operate the wonder-filled outdoors food court that's been operating on the spot for decades. My angst-filled posts covering last year's brouhaha are here and here.

After facing numerous hurdles related to Dept. of Health regulations (having to do with proper food handling, storage, the usual), several of the vendors took classes to get certified, and Parks asked them to submit an RFP (proposal) that had to be completed on a tight deadline. According to César, the group "described our history, our hopes & our plea to continue our commitment to our patrons & visitors- To provide some of the most delicious & authentic Latin food experience around." Here, here.

"Over the past fifteen years, the vendors have been at the vanguard of the Red Hook Renaissance, and now they have another six years to continue their delectable work. I look forward to visiting the ball fields again soon and supporting this Brooklyn treasure," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, who has been a real helpful defender of the vendors (we hear a few foodies on his staff really pushed him on this -- this is the passion these vendors inspire).

Don't mark your calendar yet -- each vendor who continues at the spot must meet DoH standards around equipment for food storage, cleaning, etc. We'll keep you posted.

Long live deliciousness! Not THAT is the best sign of spring.

[photos of corn on a stick and pickled onions by me and Anthony Inswasty, taken last year]

Oxymoron Weekend: Carnaval in NY

[Posted by Seth] Carnival starts starts tomorrow (or really tonight) in Brazil (and most other places except the Dominican Republic, who had the bright idea of having it every weekend in February, nice work Dominicans), and New York will have its share of Carnival-Lite events to celebrate. The mood can get a little un-Carnavalesque, alas, since you can count on any Brazilians that go to be a bit depressed they are not back home, in Rio or places like these.

Here is the list of events the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce compiled.

Piola
January 31st, 10 PM
Live band
Price: $20 RSVP, includes 1st drink and T-Shirt
Tel: 212-777-7781
Address: 48 E 12th Street, New York, New York

Churrascaria Riodizio Tribeca
February 1st and February 2nd
Brazilian Band and samba performers
Price: $64,94, including rodizio and complimentary
drink
Tel: 212-925-6969 for reservations
Address: 221 West Broadway, New York, NY

Churrascaria Riodizio Long Island
February 1st and February 2nd
Live samba and entertainment
Price: $10 entertainment fee per Adult
Tel: 516-621-4646
Address: 388 Willis Ave., Roslyn Heights, NY

S.O.B?s
Bloco Abre-Alas and DJ
February 2nd , 7 PM
Price: $20, ladies free from 10-11 PM
Tel: 212-243-4940
Address: 204 Varick Street, New York, NY

Porcao Churrascaria
February 6 and 7, 6-8 PM
Live Band and performers
Price: no cover charge, one free caipirinha
Tel: 212-252-7080
Address: 360 Park Ave. South at 26th Street

Lafayette Grill & Bar
Friday, February 8, 7 PM
Free samba lesson, live music
Price: $5 cover charge
Tel: 212-732-5600
Address: 54 Franklin Street, New York, NY
 
Alma NYC
February 15, 10 PM
DJ accompanied by live samba
Price: $5 from 10 ? 11pm, $10 all night with RSVP to

JoannJimenez@almanyc.com, $15 at the Door
Address: 218 Sullivan Street, New York, New York

[photo from municipal government of Sao Luiz do Paraitinga, via The New York Times]

Sign Language II

[Posted by Seth]

Weird rule for El Jardín del Paraíso community garden on 4th Street between Avenues C and D in Manhattan: everyone can bring roosters, except for those with exceptional eyesight.

Sign Language

[Posted by Seth] There are all kinds of service interruptions on the 7 train these days, and the MTA is doing their valiant and imperfect best to keep their multilingual riders informed. Official government Spanish in NYC is a language all its own, usually comprehensible but never really sounding quite like real Spanish. Still, when I break my leg I don't really care whether it says "sala de urgencias" or "sala de emergencia," as long as the ambulance driver understands where to go.

And yes, sometimes a little Spanglish is called for. Take this flawed sign (left, click to enlarge) from the Roosevelt Avenue stop. The Spanish is not a direct translation from the English, but nothing wrong with that. More dubious to me is the translation of "shuttle buses" as "autobuses de transbordador."

If you beg to differ, please write in, but "transbordador" is a terrible word to use on this sign. I would have written "servicio de autobuses shuttle." Spanglish, plain and simple.  Why?  Because who the heck thinks of a New York shuttle bus as an "autobus transbordador"? And even if you're from a place that uses the term transbordador, it is most commonly used as "space shuttle" or "ferry".

The great oracle of usage, Google, agrees with me. A search of Spanish pages for "autobuses shuttle" yields 117 hits; "autobuses de transbordador" yields just 1 -- and that's from the Peking Olympics site, www.2008.com. 

But the MTA employee who wrote this out gets an absolute A for effort. I hope he's promoted to lower Manhattan, where he can make signs directing customers to the Transbordador de la Isla de Staten.

In other 75th and Roosevelt sign news, check out this one that went up in the last few days, apparently signalling the arrival of a new restaurant called "Green Plantains" in part of what used to be Chibcha. From the name, very promising. I'm hoping for a tostones, maduros and mofongo combination platter.

[Photos: Seth Kugel]

A Reminder of How (Culinarily) Lucky We Are

[Posted by Seth] We at Nueva York are always talking about how New York is the best Latin city in the world, since there's nowhere else where you can find more diverse Latin American populations...L.A. is predominantly Mexican, Miami is really Cuban, and it goes without saying that Buenos Aires is overly Argentinian, Bogotá is quite Colombian, etc.

A perfect example came on my recent weekend in Mexico. I ended up going to the Brasil Steak House in Puerto Vallarta. Now, of course I didn't expect it to be all that good, and the truth is it was definitely worth the 190 pesos for men/160 pesos for women (something like $18/$15) for the typical all-you-can-eat, carve-the-meat-at-your-table service. That said...

It would be almost a joke to compare it with churrascarias in NYC, which match up pretty well with churrascarias in Brazil.  Not perfectly, mind you, since not every ingredient is precisely as fresh, but they are pretty close replicas, down to the sushi on the salad bar and the ever-replenishing side dishes.   

The Mexican version was, at best, a good effort: the service was friendly and attentive, the meat, while often overcooked, was at least hot, etc. etc. But here's what was missing:

--on the table: the fried bananas were every bit as good and tender and sweet as in Brazil, but missing were: pão de queijo or something similar, vinagrete, fried yuca and, particularly frightening, any sort of beans and the all-important farofa.  In their place were several (tasty) salads, and three sauces for the meat (one jalapeño, one chimichurri, one something else) that were a nice touch.

--the salad bar: did not exist. Those salads on the table were supposed to replace them.

--the meat: no chicken hearts, no sausage (at least at the time I was there), and a picanha that had a peculiar marinade or rub or something and was definitely overcooked.

--and finally...the cachaça.  I ordered a caipirinha but asked beforehand for the guy to check what brand(s) they had.  Let me tell you, that "(s)" was unnecessary: the guy told me the cachaça supply had entirely run out. I doubt it was ever there.  Outrageous! 

I would recommend the place to anyone going to Puerto Vallarta, still, because it was well-run, fun and totally satisfying.  Which is more than I can say for some of the Mexican food I had. How weird is it that you would come home from Mexico thinking "I could really use some good Mexican food on Roosevelt Avenue."

***

P.S. for those interested in language details: it was cute to see key churrascaria vocabulary rendered in Spanish. For example: caipiriña for caipirinha, rodicio for rodízio.

La Kalle: the new La Mega

[Posted by Seth] The re-transformation of La Kalle from a Hurban station back into tropical territory it covered when it was Caliente 105.9 (and La Mega 97.9 continues to dominate) is just about complete. They're all about merengue and bachata and salsa and reggaeton, more or less in that order, not about reggaeton and reggaeton and reggaeton and hip hop, which were their priorities before. They're even extending the Pachatazo show on Saturdays to FIVE hours of bachata, which makes my hips hurt just to think about. 

Whether there is five hours of extant bachata worth playing is another question for another time. But the bachata world does continue to expand: just this weekend host El Pachá played an Argentine bachata, complete with ll's pronounced "zh". ("El mundo se esta acabando, los argentinos están haciendo bachatas," was more or less how he introduced it.) Amor 93.1 played a bachata by Puerto Rican old-timer Jose Feliciano.

  But the big news on La Kalle is the "Second Coming" (as billboards have it) of LUIS JIMENEZ, longtime host of El Vacilón de la Mañana on La Mega. Despite the many complaints you may have about that show, he's a talented guy with an amazingly quick wit, kind of like a dirty-talking Spanish-speaking Stephen Colbert. He had to stay out of the New York market for a year, so his show is already on the air in several other cities, and debuts here on Thursday. (You can watch this video promotion of the "El Show de Luis Jiménez," but I don't recommend it: life is short and there are much better ways of spending 31 seconds.)

La Mega's response to Jiménez's return?  They are bringing his old sidekick from El Vacilon, the inane Moonshadow. That is like Per Se offering its 15-course tasting menu for free, and McDonald's chopping 10 cents off a Happy Meal to compete. I haven't listed to Spanish morning radio since Jiménez went off the air, but at least Thursday, NPR's morning edition will be short one listener.

[Images from americanchronicle.com and univision.com]

The downside of a Caribbean vacation

[Posted by Carolina] Not that I expect anyone to feel sorry for me, but I'm sorry I'm missing a couple of great multiculti music events this coming weekend.

Saturday Jan. 12 is the Mondo Mundo Music Festival at Hiro Ballroom at the Maritime Hotel, with Burkina Electric (a psychedelic take on Burkina Faso's rumba rock), Zemog El Gallo Bueno ("mutant salsa" and -- full disclosure -- a good friend), Jose Conde y Ola Fresca (who was cut from my list of best Latin indie releases of 2007 for space -- sorry, José) and Budos Band (Afrobeat from... yup, Staten Island). Sounds like a good mongrel music time. Get tix here.

Sunday Jan. 13 is one of my favorite yearly events, globalFEST, which started five years ago at Joe's Pub and now takes place at the larger Webster Hall. "Eclectic" doesn't begin to cover the range of groups here. There's Hungarian gypsy ska-funk from Little Cow, desert rock blues from Toumast (no, they're not Tinariwen), traditional musics turned inside out by Lo Còr de la Plana from Marseilles and Dulsori from S. Korea, maracatu & NOLA second line by Brooklyn's Nation Beat, mbalax by Fallou Dieng & Le DLC, "newgrass" by Crooked Still and Argentinian accordionist Chango Spasiuk, who I was lucky enough to see at the 2006 International Accordion Festival in San Antonio.

And that's not even everyone on the bill. There's also local Mexi-rockers Pistolera, French gypsy jazz Samarabalouf, Italian gravelly-voiced singer Vinicio Capossela and Dominican son maestro Puerto Plata (who at 85, just released a first, excellent record and was the reason Pitchfork discovered bachata).

Uf! That's a whole lotta tunes. Go listen to a couple on my behalf.

[José Conde pix via MySpace; Puerto Plata pix from iASO]

New Brazilian Bakery in Astoria Opens Monday

[Posted by Seth] A headline like this one should be as much a non-event as "New Starbucks Opens in Manhattan," but perplexingly, Brazilian bakeries are trailing way behind Brazilian restaurants (Malagueta, Barril Grill, Favela) and by-the-pound lunch spots (Copacabana, Brazilianville Grill) in the city's main Brazilian neighborhood.*

In fact, Chocolate Spoon Coffee House (37-03 31st Street) is being built on the unhallowed grounds of at least two failed Brazilian bakeries, including with Pão Nosso (which appeared in our book). The space was been vacant for the better part of last year but the new spot will open Monday.

From the name, you can tell they're not broadcasting their Brazilianness, and in fact the place looks like a pretty normal cafe (espresso, pastries, etc.), that happens to have a Brazilian specialities on the menu.  If the hors d'oeuvres passed around at their opening party this evening are any indication, those specialties should beat out Pão Nosso's mediocre fare hands down.

At the event, bilingual servers doled out (in order of photos, click to enlarge) empadinhas, risoles, salpicão (n.b. not the same as Colombian salpicón), quibes (i.e. quipes) and what they claim is an original: pão de queijo dipped in chocolate. I cannot confirm this, as, much to my chagrin, I have not been to every bakery in Brazil. But they were delicious.

They will also carry traditional Brazilian sandwiches like the mixto quente (grilled ham and cheese).

*Except around Christmas and New Year's, when an influx of visitors shifts the city's main Brazilian neighborhood to the tourists triangle formed by Rockefeller Center, Times Square and Macy's... 

Time Out Nueva York Shout Out

[Posted by Carolina] For Time Out's year-end roundup, Around Town editor Dan Avery remembered some of the wisdom we shared with him back when he wrote a most flattering profile of Carolina for Nueva York's Sept. 2006 release.

In "The Best (and Worst) of 2007," under "worst scapegoating of culinary lifesavers," he wrote,

Last year, Nueva York author Carolina Gonzalez introduced us to the savory pupusas and crunchy flautas available at Red Hook’s ball fields. But if vendors can’t meet the stricter heath standards imposed by the city, they may be banned next summer. Heck, we’d trust them over the West Village’s rat-infested KFC/Taco Bell franchise any day.

Thanks for remembering us, Dan, and thanks for reminding us to keep up the good fight on behalf of the Red Hook Park vendors. We received a Feliz Navidad note from vendor representative Cesar Fuentes, who's gotten very organized to safeguard the fate of the vendors. To keep up with vendor news, check in with the group's spare MySpace page.

The Latest on Travel to Cuba

[Posted by Seth] Just a brief non-Nueva York related note on Marc Lacey's piece in today's Times about the amount of United States government resources going to enforcing the travel ban to Cuba...

For those considering travelling illegally to Cuba, which of course I have never done and would not suggest, the key words are toward the bottom of the piece:

Most of the Americans who visit Cuba each year do not go directly from Miami but use third countries like Canada, Mexico, Jamaica or the Bahamas. Catching them is difficult but not impossible. In some cases, American immigration officials simply observe them getting off flights from Havana at foreign airports where the United States has a presence, officials say...

The Treasury Department relies on warning letters and informal settlements for lower fines than on formal administrative hearings. On top of that, officials said they have recently begun focusing more of their resources on other programs and less on Cuba enforcement.

At the time I wrote this article a few years ago, the Bush administration was cracking down, and getting tougher about fines and prosecutions. So this is good news. But still, don't make the classic mistake of getting off the plane in Toronto in the midst of winter in shorts and a tank top, sporting your new tan and cigar-darkened teeth, and then tell U.S. customs officials you were visiting your Canadian grandma.

[Photo of dominoes game in Havana not taken by Seth Kugel, though if it were the trip would probably have been legal since he would have been there for journalistic purposes.]