Why I love New York: on a Friday afternoon, I dined with a Slovene in a likable little place called Cemi Café, owned by ethnic Albanians from Montenegro. The friendly line cook was from Ecuador. The meat was seasoned with a spice blend from Croatia. The beer was from The Netherlands. And our server was from Kazakhstan. Nice!

tasty cevapi (grilled sausage), which does not taste at all like ammonia

During our meal, my Slovene friend told me about a night he spent partying with some people from Iceland. They drank a licorice-flavored liquor called Black Death, and they ate… drum roll please… putrefied shark. Awesome!

Apparently, a certain type of North Atlantic shark has no urinary tract, so it basically secretes uric acid (the active ingredient in piss) into its own blood stream. The flesh of the shark is therefore entirely unfit for human consumption. Unless, of course, you let it rot in the ground for a season or two. And then it reeks of ammonia but is somehow edible, despite tasting like a fermented, cheesy bottle of Windex.

tasty cheesy burek, which tastes nothing like cheesy, fermented Windex

My Slovene friend is an impressive guy: in a party filled with Icelanders, he was the only person who managed to eat the rotten shark flesh, called hakarl (which, perhaps not coincidentally, seems to sound a lot like “hot carl”). Somehow, he choked down five pieces. Nice job, Slovene!

Even more impressive: he met his wife while waiting in line at the Brooklyn Museum when he lost a contact lens. She helped him look for it, they started chatting, and now they’re married. Dude deserves serious points for picking up a woman with a lost contact lens—which turned out to be stuck inside his eyelid, but he managed to get her to crawl around on the floor, anyway. And then he ate hot carl hakarl at a party, and she didn’t dump him. Major stud points right there.

aren't you glad that the salad is topped with feta, not putrefied shark?

Our Montenegrin (yes, that’s spelled correctly—Montenegrin, not Montenegran… weird, right?) meal was pretty good, but not nearly as interesting as the Slovene’s tales of hot carl hakarl. We ate a cheese burek (pastry made with phyllo dough, similar to a Greek spanikopita) with an pleasantly doughy crust; a shepherd salad with feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions; some crusty, slightly stale white bread; and tons of grilled veal, chicken, and cevapi (sausage), seasoned with vegeta, a lovable Croatian seasoning mix. Our meal tasted like a burek, a salad, bread, and grilled meats. The grilled meats were not the best I’ve ever had. They weren’t the worst, either.

But at least they didn’t taste like putrefied shark. Not even close.

seasoned with vegeta, not shark piss

Cemi Cafe
61 Church Avenue, Brooklyn
Subway: Church Avenue (F, G trains)

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six small plates; ponytailed angels, evil clowns, and over-energized two-year-olds not pictured

When I lay my porky little head to rest every night, I almost always dream about food. (Sometimes I wake up after chewing on my cheek.  My fiancé laughs at me.) In my favorite food dream, I walk into a restaurant and desperately want to try everything on the menu, but I only have one stomach, and I can’t order everything. I start to get anxious. And then the wonderful angel in my dream—who, oddly enough, sometimes looks like a Greek waitress with a ponytail and very sensible shoes—brings me 16 small little plates of food. What a glorious dream.

(And sometimes, I dream about evil clowns. Those dreams aren’t nice. And sometimes, my fiancé apparently has really amusing dreams, and she talks and laughs in her sleep. A few nights ago, I heard her mumble “I’m marrying a total pig. Heeheehee!” I am not making this up.  Not all of it, anyway).

a bowl of tahini, some garlic-potato spread, and a bizarrely large Greek salad... yes, my fiance is marrying a total pig

So then I went to Astoria’s Zenon Taverna, owned by a family of Greek Cypriot immigrants. The menu is unbelievably huge, and I went to the restaurant with only one very petite female friend, who (unfortunately) has the appetite of a hummingbird, not a truck driver. She brought her two-year-old son, who is mostly interested in grabbing random things and throwing them across the room; he wasn’t going really going to help us plumb the depths of Zenon Taverna’s offerings.

So crap, we were kinda screwed: barely two stomachs, and a huge menu, filled with Greek and Cypriot food. Sad story.

And then I saw the best thing ever: for $19.95 per person, we could order the Cypriot Meze Platter (Kypriaki Mezedes), which consists of 16 small plates of appetizers—enough to have extra food for a two-year-old to throw on the floor. Dude, it was like a dream come true, complete with a ponytailed waitress wearing sensible shoes! (Though it’s a funny thing: there was never a screaming two-year-old in my dream. Hmph.)

woulda been just as satisfying as stuffed pigeon... if only I had an irrational hatred of quail

In the first wave of food, the ponytailed angel waitress brought us a basket of bread and eight bowls of cold appetizers: melitzanosalada (eggplant and feta pate), tarama (red caviar blended with mashed potatoes), a surprisingly large Greek salad, a garlic-and-potato spread (scordalia), a squid-and-shrimp salad in an oily brine, tahini (sesame) dip, tzatziki (yogurt and cucumber) sauce, and a wonderfully simple marinated beet salad.

The best cold items were arguably the simplest. The tahini was easily the best I’d ever tasted—there was a delicious, toasted flavor to it, and it seemed far fresher than the typical tahini found in Mediterranean restaurants or street-meat stands. The tzatziki was magical: the perfect blend of yogurt, fresh cucumbers, and dill, with enough garlic to keep you honest. It was easily the best tzatziki I’d ever eaten—and that’s saying a lot, considering that I’m the grandson of a Greek restaurant owner.

pork souvlaki, which I happily stuffed in my porky face

The ridiculous part is that we probably could have stopped eating after the first eight plates, all of which were surprisingly large–even after accounting for the fact that some of the food was hurled to the ground by a triumphant two-year-old. But the food kept coming: fried calamari, roasted quail (yes, it does taste like chicken; no, it did not bring the same vengeful satisfaction as eating a stuffed pigeon), Cypriot sausage, roasted pork kabobs (souvlaki), delicious fried pork-and-parsley meatballs, another batch of grilled meatballs, barbecued slabs of sheep and goat cheese (halioumi), and smoked pork loin. All of it was spectacular, but the barbecued cheese was particularly special: firm and salty, with a delicious charred flavor to it.

Zenon Taverna was busy as hell on a Sunday night, and I suspect that the place rarely sees a quiet evening. I’m still convinced that it would be one of the very best places in NYC to spend a four-hour meal—bring a bunch of friends, order a few rounds of retsina (Greek white wine laced with pine tar… yummy!) or Keo (Cypriot beer, far tastier than retsina), and sit around for an entire afternoon. Sounds like a dream meal… and it’s probably way better than staying home and dreaming about evil clowns.

This Cypriot food excursion was sponsored by the incomparable Norm and Susan P. of Lansing, New York.  Thank you, Norm and Susan! In your honor, Norm, I used the phrase “best _____ ever!” as many times as I could in this post.  

The best barbecued slabs of goat and sheep cheese ever! (The smoked pork loin and Cypriot sausage were pretty badass, too.)

Zenon Taverna 
34-10 31st Avenue, Astoria, Queens
Subway: Broadway (N, Q trains)

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salt herring: real food for real people

I almost laughed my ass off before I managed to get through the door at the New York Estonian House, a members-only social club in Midtown.  I had called earlier in the day, and the friendly club manager agreed to let us sample the club’s Estonian cuisine.  As we approached the club, the bartender and chef—who were enjoying a cigarette outside—recognized us immediately:  “You’re the gourmets!  Welcome!”

I looked around, slightly confused.  Us?  Gourmets?  Nope.  Just two dudes who appreciate random, home-cooked ethnic food, especially if the food involves salt herring and craploads of booze.

Right from the start of our meal, the bartender—an incredibly warm Estonian named Urve—took us under her wing, and made damned sure that we had a fun night.  Or maybe she was trying to make sure that we wouldn’t remember anything the next day.  Not sure which.  Either way, it was pretty awesome.

remember: we're "gourmets"

There were only three items on the handwritten menu that night:  vegetable and meat soup ($5),  beef stroganoff with potatoes ($10), and herring with potatoes ($7).  We ordered one of each, of course.

And then the alcohol started.  Urve told us that they had several different Estonian beers:  Viru (a tasty lager) and two different kinds of Saku, including a dark, sweet, strong ale (6.7% alcohol, far stronger than a Budweiser).  We ordered a large bottle of each, of course.

As soon as she saw the herring arrive at our table, Urve yelled at us from behind the bar:  “Wait, you can’t eat that without having a shot of vodka first!”  We smiled and shrugged while she poured us two shots of Saaga, an excellent Estonian vodka.  She even taught us how to say “cheers” in Estonian:  terviseks, but I think it came out sounding more like “pervy sex” when we slaughtered the pronunciation.  And that was before we really started slurring.

you know you wanna sniff my flammable breath

Most Americans would insist that the herring and potato dish looked mildly frightening:  boiled potatoes, salt herring, and sliced onions, drowning in sour cream.  Not necessarily cute, but it tasted damned good.  Salt herring is thoroughly underrated—it’s basically a saltier and less-gooey version of pickled herring, which no longer makes me yak.  And it goes wonderfully with boiled potatoes and sour cream.  (And no, that isn’t the vodka talking:  I’m mostly recovered from the hangover as I write this.)  The soup—a brothy mix of vegetables, beef, and dill—was also excellent, especially when accompanied by the dark rye bread that is an obligatory part of any Estonian meal.

what the soup looked like before I started seeing double

The two of us ate slowly, vaguely stupefied by the fact that we were actually enjoying salt herring.  We finished the soup and herring before we even touched the stroganoff.  As we finally reached for the plate of stroganoff, Urve yelled at us again from behind the bar:  “Wait!  That’s getting cold!  Don’t eat it, I’ll get you a new one!”  Slightly embarrassed, we insisted that we didn’t mind eating it cold, and said that we really didn’t want the kitchen staff to go through the trouble of making us a new plate.

But Urve was having none of it:  “Trust me, I know.  I’m older than you.”  How can you argue with that, especially when your tongue is getting fat from too much vodka and Estonian ale?

I'm just proud that I didn't knock anything over by accident--woulda been a shame to ruin that tasty rye bread

Before we knew it, the friendly kitchen staff had whisked away our plate of lukewarm stroganoff, and brought us a new one.  Absolutely unbelievably nice of them to do that—we were the dumbasses who ordered three meals at once, and we were the dumbasses proceeded to eat ridiculously slowly.  The cold food would’ve been our fault, Estonian House, not yours.  You’re far too kind.  And now we’re slurring a little bit.

As we finished our meals (the stroganoff—served with another mound of tasty yellow potatoes—was also outstanding… nearly as good as Mom used to make, but somewhat less creamy), we drank more beer, and had friendly chats with Aarne the cook and Urve the amazing bartender.  At Urve’s suggestion, we chased our meal with glasses of Vana Tallinn, an Estonian after-dinner liqueur that reminded me of a good Greek brandy, but a little bit sweeter, and with a stronger vanilla flavor.  We signed the guest books.  We started to wobble in our chairs.

oh crap, now I really am seeing double

Before we left, Urve had one more cultural treat for us:  she pointed to the floor of the club, which featured a tile inlay (or at least it looked like a tile inlay at that point in the night) of a blue barn swallow, the national bird of Estonia.  She said—with a completely straight face—that it was an Estonian tradition for us to pose like a barn swallow in flight before leaving the club.

At that point, we were willing to do whatever Urve said.  I balanced on one leg, and stretched my beak and tail feathers as far as I could in opposite directions.  And I didn’t fall down.

At least not until I got outside.  You could have lit my breath on fire, and the flames might have smelled like salt herring and sour cream.  Estonia is awesome!

I'm sure I totally looked exactly like this

New York Estonian House (members only)
243 East 34th Street, Manhattan
Subway: 34th Street (6 train)

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yeah, I tried the door on the side of the church... but maybe this actually meant "for a hot time, walk eight blocks to the Tacos Morelos truck instead"

I really like eating international church and mosque food.  I ate an amazing meal last week at an incredibly friendly Norwegian church, and I enjoyed one of the best meals of my life in a parking lot behind an Indonesian mosque in Astoria.  So when I found out that there was a Lithuanian festival in a church in Williamsburg, I was pretty excited.  This was going to be awesome!

So I went to Williamsburg and… thud.

Supposedly, the Lithuanian festival was scheduled until 4:00.  I arrived a few minutes after 3:00, and didn’t see any signs of life anywhere near the church—just a single, small, handwritten sign in Lithuanian, which didn’t help me too much.  Eventually, I ran across a priest and an elderly lady on the stairs of the church.   I smiled and waited patiently to ask them about the festival… and they steadfastly ignored me for an uncomfortably long time.

Eventually, the priest deigned to glance at me, and I politely inquired about the food.  “Sorry, all gone,” he said, and walked away.  As he walked away, I saw a $20 bill flutter under a parked car.  I grabbed it, politely called for his attention, and asked if he’d lost the money.

“Hm.  That’s weird,” he said, pocketing the cash.  He didn’t look at me or thank me.

Um… yeah.  You’re welcome, Father!

Lithuanian baked goodies, of varying Lithuanianness

Despite the unfriendly start, I had a funny feeling that there was some food left somewhere, so I loitered around the church until a much friendlier lady tottered down the front stairs.  We struck up a pleasant conversation about the festival and Lithuanian cuisine, and I asked if there was any food left at all.  She said that there might be some baked goods or kugela left in the basement, and invited me inside the church.

I went downstairs, and was eventually greeted by a pair of friendlier Lithuanian parishioners, who pointed me toward the bakery table.  I took one of everything that was left:  a piece of babka (lightly sweetened bread with a swirl of blueberry jam), a tasty crumb cake with raisins, a piece of lemon cake, some sort of fruit turnover dusted with powdered sugar, some stale raisin bread, and—oddly enough—a brownie.  I jokingly asked if brownies were Lithuanian.  The answer:  “Yes!  They are Lithuanian because they were homemade!”  The friendly Lithuanian lady explained that many of the other items were legitimately Lithuanian, and then she proceeded to overcharge me slightly for the baked goods.  Whatever.

finally, a sign from the heavens... or at least a sign from some nice Mexican dudes who make tasty food

So there you have it.  I ate Lithuanian food, baked by real Lithuanians.  I did not, however, eat the jaundiced hotdogs that were sitting on an unattended table by the stairwell, rotting away in their sad little buns.  I also did not eat the bloated, jaundiced hotdogs that were floating in an unplugged crock pot on the other end of that same table.  Nobody offered them to me, anyway.  I paid the nice Lithuanian lady, and left.

But I was sad:  that was easily the lamest international food experience I’d had in a long time.  No food blessings for me at the Lithuanian church.

spiritual healing, with onions and grated cheese

To ease my pain, I trekked over to the Tacos Morelos truck on the corner of North 7^th and Bedford, which serves my favorite Mexican food in NYC.  I drowned my sorrows in a ridiculously tasty tlacoyo ($4 with meat, $2.50 without):  a lovably thick torpedo of grilled cornmeal, topped with refried beans, cheese, onions, sour cream, chicken, guacamole, and one of the best Mexican-style hot sauces I’ve encountered in NYC.

I felt somewhat spiritually healed after eating the tlacoyo, but there was still a little hole in my soul from being denied the pleasure of a full Lithuanian church lunch.  So I trekked a few blocks further east, in the direction of the ferry home to Midtown, and ran across the Brooklyn flea market.  The Vaquero family (of Red Hook ball fields fame) was selling their usual array of fruit, juices, and corn, so I finished cheering myself up with a nice cob of grilled corn ($3), rolled in butter, cheese, and chile powder, just like they make in Mexico.

I’d finally received my high-calorie blessing for the day.  Too bad the blessings were bestowed farther away from the Lithuanian church than I’d expected.  Viva México!

much better than a jaundiced hotdog

Tacos Morelos
usually parked at Bedford Ave. & North 7th Street, Brooklyn
Subway: Bedford Ave. (L train)

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picked herring can be pretty friendly, too

Two things I thought I knew when I first moved to New York two years ago: New Yorkers are mean, and picked herring is gross.

Clearly, I’m not terribly smart, or at least not quite open-minded enough.

Based pretty much on internet rumors, I decided to check out the Norwegian Seaman’s Church in Midtown East, which is rumored to have an occasional buffet lunch on random Wednesdays. Most of their website is in Norwegian, but I thought I understood the term “Norsk BuffetLunsj,” and that made me feel sort of smart-ish.

When I dropped by the church to make sure that “Norsk BuffetLunsj” really meant “Norwegian buffet lunch,” I was greeted by the two most genuinely warm people I’ve met in my time in Manhattan. One was a lovely young brunette named Laura, who grinned broadly, welcomed me, shook my hand, and introduced herself as soon as I inquired about the Norwegian lunch. The other was a smiley gentleman with Asian features, who looked like he was completely incapable of wiping the relaxed, happy grin off of his face. It’s odd: you couldn’t help but be happy around the two friendly Norwegians. That’s pretty cool, especially on the mean indifferent streets of Midtown.

admit it: you know you really wanted to see a closeup shot of a gooey piece of pickled herring

Lunch at the Norwegian Seaman’s Church put a smile on my face, too. For $25, you can eat as much as you want, including all-you-can-eat pickled herring, canned mackerel, and fish-and-pea jello. And all three of those items are far more enticing than they sound.

All four of my loyal readers probably remember the story about my first battle with picked herring as a kid: I yakked, rather unpleasantly. I was pretty much terrified of the stuff after that, and didn’t touch it again until I went to a faux-Scandinavian restaurant in NYC, where I felt obligated to try it again. I didn’t yak that time, but I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic, either. Then I ate it again at the Swedish Midsummer Festival last year, and I didn’t yak that time either… but I was still lukewarm on the whole concept of pickled fish.

And now, I think I love it. Two different flavors of pickled herring were on the buffet table: one in a sugary mustard sauce, another in a thick, sweet, vinegary brine, with a few chunks of peppercorns floating in it. I actually ate a second helping of the vinegary version… which means that oh holy crap, I’ve been converted.

fun... like pickled herring

The rest of the buffet was every bit as tasty and fun as the pickled herring. They offered a fantastic array of well-behaved salads (a standard green salad, an outstanding cucumber salad loaded with dill, a gently mayonnaise-y chicken salad, a salad made from raisins and shredded carrots), several cheeses, a varied stack of crackers and fresh bread (including a delicious, nutty whole wheat loaf), some beautifully arrayed slices of cured ham and roast beef, some roasted potatoes and carrots, and some fresh figs.

Fresh figs are fantastic, but the real fun was fishy: a flat can of mackerel cured in oil, two absolutely delicious varieties of gravlaks (smoked salmon—the tastier of the two varieties was crusted with dill and black pepper), and baked wild Atlantic salmon (which lacks the pinkish hue of the Pacific salmon that we usually eat in the U.S.). Even the thoroughly artful deviled eggs were topped with a chunk of anchovy and a cute little sprig of dill.

hey, there's shrimp in my jello

But for pure novelty value, my favorite dish was the gelatinous cake of peas, beans, fish, shrimp, and boiled eggs, which had apparently been shaped in a bundt cake pan. It looked phenomenally unattractive to my non-Norwegian eyes (my initial thought was something like “oh s#!t, there’s shrimp and fish and canned peas and green beans and eggs in the jello!”), but I had to try it… and it was surprisingly good. The “jello” wasn’t quite as gelatinous as it looked, and mostly behaved like a thick, mildly salty salad dressing. Imagine a gooey version of a French nicoise salad, and you’ll be close… although the French arguably do a better job of making their fish-and-bean salad look attractive to an international audience.

Dessert was outstanding, too: fresh fruit, waffles with jam, and blot kaker, a wonderfully non-sugary blend of sponge cake, fresh raspberries, and fresh whipped cream. Coffee and apple juice were included with the meal, and so were friendly conversations with the priest and several parishioners who were involved in preparing and serving the food.

It’s a funny thing about life in a kitchenless apartment in Midtown Manhattan: we get used to speedy meals, warmed in the microwave or purchased from unfriendly people at the corner store or pizza shop. That just seems normal to me now. So it’s pretty rad whenever I get to eat some home-cooked (or church-cooked) treats offered by ridiculously friendly people. Thank you, Norwegians: you made cold, lame Midtown seem like a much warmer and fishier place.

not fishy

Norwegian Seaman’s Church
317 East 52nd Street, Manhattan
Subway: 51st Street (6 train) or 53rd-Lexington (E, M trains)

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