Best of Manhattan 2001:Eats & Drinks

"An orgasm in your mouth"?

We’re not even going to touch that one. Suffice it to say, however, that that little analogy was pointed out to the editors. Here’s their 2001 Tomoe review:

When you actually get there, though, the space is a very pleasant surprise–open, airy, casually elegant and moderne, with evening’s last light (or, in winter, twinkling city lights) blasting through expansive window views north to 21st-floor midtown Manhattan. You can’t even see the bustle of 42nd St. from up there. It’s downright peaceful. You feel the preshow Broadway jitters sinking away from you as you stroll toward your table (which is nicely placed for plenty of elbow room and privacy).

The food is classic Forgione: high-class American with a few sort-of-Asian hints, mildly inventive without startling you with its genius, served in American portions. Forgione leans toward fish and seafood–roasted oysters, softshells, a clever salmon pizza, big fishes like striped sea bass. But the kitchen also knows when to turn a black-and-blue steak. Sensible wine list. Simple desserts like key lime pie or sorbet, light enough for a pretheater crowd. As always at a Forgione establishment, the young waitstaff is well trained, flawlessly polite–and largely minority, a nice added touch.

With its understated class and uplifted location, Above seems blithely unaware that it’s on the 42nd St. strip. And as the name suggests, it floats well above most of the tourist shovel-food joints in the area. The only concession it makes to its location is the brisk and efficient way the staff gets you out in time for your 8 o’clock curtain.

Anyway, we were sitting there, recovering from the night before, when two Hasidic men in their early 20s walk in. They’re decked out in Sabbath finery–white socks, satin robes, big round fur hat, the works. They go right over to the long wooden bar and started asking the bartender, a tall, tattooed lass wearing a tanktop, about the game–baseball, we guess, since we heard her explain that it was football on one tv, the U.S. Open on the other. After some more conversation the two belly up to the bar and settle in. They take off their hats and one of them dangles his stockinged feet out of his black shoes as the bartender brings them two bottles of–what else?–Budweiser.

You could almost see the wheels turning in the minds of the braintrust up at Picholine, which is the overrated Upper West Side restaurant of which Artisanal is the spinoff. Fingers scratching pates, deep philosophical musings: how can we push an already absurdly precious foodie culture in a new direction? How can we do a few things more? What remains? Thus, a restaurant that fetishizes deeply special cheeses, to assume its position in the pantheon of silliness next to the eateries that already fetishize wine, beef, fashion models, desserts, overworked pizza pies, lesbians and guys with jobs in media.

None of which would be as much of a problem if the establishment weren’t less pleasant than it should be at these prices. Talk about obnoxious advance publicity–we were hearing about the place last winter. And yet there we were, like sheep, on a hot night not long after Artisanal’s spring opening, eating improved bistro food not noticeably superior to that at Balthazar or 10 other places, while dodging errant elbows from patrons who were waiting for tables, weaving through the aisles, scanning the humid air for illustrious faces. All the while, a ripe stench emanated from the cheese counter. Yeah, we know–it’s the funky foodie stench of artisanal fromage. Well, to hell with it.

Plus, the guy at the maitre d’s station was a bit of a dick. Plus you need a signal flare to attract a waiter. Plus, if you like cheese–which you probably should–we can name a handful of other restaurants where you can learn about, and eat, cheese in something other than a panicked, humid, stinking, overdetermined 125-decibel murk, din, hurlyburly, mosh and brawl.

Il Mattone, a perennial winner in "Best of" annuals, is another story altogether. We prefer the thin-crust pizzas, well-done, either plain or topped with excellent sausage, pepperoni or onions. There’s also the hungry-guy special, a Sicilian number that can feed four. A pie with a Caesar salad is fine dinner. When we want variety, it’s a switch to the Napoli sandwich, an enormous concoction stuffed with prosciutto, sopressata, capocolla, mozzarella, tomatoes and olives. Another good bet is the fusilli Calabria, a sensibly sized portion of pasta with plum tomato sauce, sweet sausage and mushrooms.

Best yet, instead of the often gruff or impersonal clerks who take orders at restaurants, the Il Mattone staff is friendly, even when harried. When you’re greeted with a "Hey guy, what’s shakin’?" it might seem kind of jocular to the effete, but it’s vintage New York bonhomie that’s a mini-opera to our ears.

Actually, we doubt Grossinger’s served herring in cream anywhere near as good as Blue Ribbon’s. You’ve got your heavy bowl filled with onion pieces and big, soft, sweet slabs of good herring, and it’s all held together by dollops of sour cream so that you’re eating a soulfully and pungently fragrant bowl of peasant food that goes down easy and pads the gut in a satisfying way. You’ve also got your beer near to hand, and hopefully some friends around you–here with you at this smart, casual, excellent restaurant. Or maybe you’re alone, sitting all sleek at the bar, dreaming of the timeless glamour and sophistication of the Catskills in days of yore.

But in the case of Barrio, whose appellation is presumably a nod to the former L.E.S. slum that it has recently come to inhabit, the name manages not only to confound, but to pander and insult as well. For starters, we doubt there’s anything about Stanton’s bodegaville era that Barrio’s proprietors (or the bohemian gentry who patronize it) would ever care to see replicated in their dining experience. Dogshit stew, perhaps? Baking diaper chowder? A DJ to distract you with obstreperous, bone-rattling crack-merengue while monster rats make off with your seared tuna and taro roots? It’d be quite another thing if Barrio actually served Mexican or Dominican food or Hispanic anything food: high-end pan-Latino, beans ’n’ rice, whatever. But we can only gather that the name is a sort of cute homage whose meaning must somehow point to the physical space.

Is Barrio’s interior some kind of loving evocation of regions Chicano? Of the dusty, forlorn, dilapidated quarters of say, East Los Angeles, or Mexico City? Not that we can tell. Take the dining area, accented mainly by a tin ceiling, abundant brasswork and exposed brick. It most recalls the vast interiors of middlebrow yuppie chow halls from the early 90s, Ernie’s and that kind of thing. The tiki lounge on the second floor is robust with extravagant Polynesian/Thai furniture. No, the only Hispanic architectural nod in the entire place is the rather cartoonish pyramid structure that sits atop the kitchen and upon which rest some artifacts vaguely suggestive of pre-Columbian Oaxaca: quite fitting if the descendants of Zapotec should one day descend the misty cliffs of Monte Alban and hobble up to New York City for an evening of pan-Euro fusion.

In the end the only thing Barrio, this odd farrago of unremarkable cuisine and mixed architectural metaphors, really pays homage to is cluelessness.

Toward the last stool, amongst the 90-pound record geeks and 6-foot-7 bikers, you notice a young lad in a state of extreme repose–laid out flat on the floor, his feet propped up against the bottom rail and his eyes rolled back in his head–sleeping it off? Pushing through the nonchalant loiterers, you bend down, grab his shoulders and yell (name has been changed from something beginning with "C" and ending in "L"), "Pete? Pete is that you?"

After a few good shakes he comes around long enough to ask for a pint glass from the barman. So he can puke in it.

"Pete! Pete, look, I’m not going to ask for an empty glass so you can…sweet Mary Mother of Christ, Pete! The purse! Watch the purse!"

And with that, an 8:15 p.m. Thai dinner is at your feet, practically good enough to return to the buffet table. Twenty minutes later Pete is outside having his picture taken by Jon Weiss with a 250-pound African-American bride–not his own, blushing and still in her veil–like a champ. And that is what they call a New York City moment. In Iowa they call it pathetic, incontinent and possibly vagrancy, but not here.

But it’s not only the food. What we like about this place is the handsome, monochromatic concrete-floored ambience, which we find reassuring. There’s none of that crappy tikki-tacky Asian decor that always bums us out when we encounter it in Thai joints–Joya vibes like a regular restaurant that just happens to serve good Thai food, rather than like an orientalist theme park. There’s a wonderful little garden out back when the weather’s nice, cool art on the walls, the usual well-dressed young semi-bohemian clientele and what appears to be a relatively fecund pick-up scene at the bar up front.

But here’s the thing: show up here on a weekday morning, right after the place opens, and a different, and appealing, reality unfolds around you. The tables are mostly empty, so you can spread out while you drink your very good coffee, peer out the window at the quiet and leafy street and ease yourself into the new day. Here’s a bunch of regulars, coming in for takeout coffee, for a happy word with the waitress and to throw their coins on the counter and grab the newspapers off the rack on their way out. At the next table down, there’s a cop in uniform, eating breakfast and talking about the Mets with the guy working the griddle across the room. In other words, you’re watching a community come to life and conduct itself in a way that transcends the diner’s twee ambience. And especially when the autumn light’s right, and the sun’s coming up over Prospect Park, it’s a beautiful thing.

The food’s all right, too. The coffee, like we said, is great, and Mary’s Favorite Oatmeal? Come to think of it, it’s good.

We’ve mostly been to the Fried Dumpling on Chinatown’s desolate Mosco St., but the original on the Lower East Side is even better. As long as you’re not too picky about fried foods, this is the place to go when funds are wanting. It’s so cheap, we wonder why there’s never a line of homeless people outside.

Kang Suh is just about the only restaurant in Koreatown with both a decent sushi bar and real charcoal (never gas) table barbecues. We love grilling our own shrimp, but the shortribs marinated in soy sauce tend to go over even better. (Be careful not to put utensils that touched raw meat in your mouth!) You can do no better than Kang Suh’s steamy miso and seaweed broths on a cold winter night. And their bibimbop in a hot stone pot is so bold in its gooey, crusty deliciousness that you’ll wonder why upscale Korean joints bother pretending that their cuisine isn’t soul food.

Are these touches actually there? They are. That we enjoy them while not really noticing them is exactly what makes us so partial to Louis: like the most sublime of jazz harmonies there’s no single element here calling out for attention. No competition from superior bartenders either, or an overloud sound system, DJs, cellphones or loud talkers. Even on Wednesdays, when there’s live jazz (the place is named for Louis Armstrong), you can still have a conversation, still hear yourself think. Because of this you’ll find a lot of twosomes–couples or friends–coming in to nibble on cheese plates, sampling the grape (the list is short, accessible, but still capable of pleasing most palates) and talking, a primary activity this place is quite automatically conducive to. We hope Louis continues to be the generous, understated place it’s established itself as.

No. If we want to meet for a drink around 57th St., we’ll go upscale with it, and drop by the Russian Tea Room. Why not? There’s a beautiful, sizable bar right inside the door, the stools are comfortable enough that you can sleep on them and any establishment on the planet that presumes to serve Russian cuisine is obligated to know its way around cold, hard spirits. So pleasant is it to have a drink here amidst the Tea Room’s famous red and green and aureate splendor, in fact, that we’ve put a little effort into wondering why we didn’t think of this years ago. Like many diners in New York, we’ve got a sentimental attachment to the Tea Room, but we’re almost perversely hoping that the disappointing reviews the restaurant’s attracted since its recent reopening persist. If the notices get better, the place’ll get more crowded–foodies will start flocking, in addition to the elderly loyalists and the tourists from the sticks–and it will become that much more difficult to belly on up and acquire a Stoli on the rocks.

To erase that horrid sight and smell from our mind, we went to Mexican Radio for some real nachos. They’re great–nice, crunchy tortilla chips (sometimes red, blue and yellow all at once) with solid black or pinto beans nestled on top, accessorized by chewy muenster cheese, some potent fresh sauce and–here’s the best part–pickled jalapeno rings. The rings add good texture along with the heat, and the whole plate sets off that little mariachi band that lives in our head, resting calmly until just such fantastic nacho occasions arise.

So we feel as though we have erred upon the Fort Greene yacht club when we reach an orderly arrangement of plastic tables and chairs under umbrellas on a boardwalk platform–a sort of Latino Baby-O’s.

We order everything on the menu: the chicken sandwich, the cheeseburger, the chicken fingers and the shrimp basket. Our waitress (heart-of-gold cholita: black lycra skull cap over blonde hair, French manicure, tight bluejeans, eyebrow piercing) carries the order to the grill and returns with a handful of salt packets and ketchup in a plastic squeeze bottle. "I love these things," says Chudling, "because you can individually ketchup each fry." When our orders arrive on styrofoam plates with plastic utensils he does precisely that. We all do. The fries are good, apparently freshly cut. The chicken sandwich is another story: three breaded, deep-fried, heavily salted chicken fingers on a standard fast-food white bread bun upon a leaf of lettuce and an anemic slice of tomato. The shrimp are large, disappointing, frozen, flavorless things–but come with the same good fries.

The comedian leaves the stage and the p.a. pumps out a few classic disco tunes before switching to salsa. It’s close to 11. We cash out at $20 apiece–not bad for a killer view with fries.

Okay, so we’re being disingenuous. We actually were aware of Casimir’s garden, and that it was precisely within it that, when the weather was fine, you could find the many, many Bastiens, Thierrys, Françoises, Amelies and Pierres of this world we live in, lolling in attitudes of exquisite dissolution, dribbling the ashes from their Gauloises on their cashmere v-neck Helmut Langs.

More power to them. But our thinking, when we walk into Casimir for brunch, is that if they’re out there, then we’re alone in here, which we’ve found kind of nice. Imagine it: wake up on a Sunday morning, slouch over to Casimir, cursing the summer sun, and when you get there with your newspapers, the whole big beautiful bistro premises are (mostly) yours and yours alone, and you can spread out in one of the banquettes, revivify yourself with eggs and a bloody mary, and have absolutely no experience of the chattering, the waiting, the low-level hysteria, that generally attends Manhattan brunching. On sunny summer days at Casimir, they do you a favor, if you’re smart enough to notice it: they keep humanity away from you, segregated out in back (where most of it, after all, should be). That’s a nice thing.

Nowadays, as former landmarks like the Cammareri Bros. Bakery (where Cher met Nicolas Cage) become slick West Coast-style bruncheterias, the old standbys are increasingly hard to come by. But on a good old Italian block of Union St. on the eastern fringe of the neighborhood, the guys at Latticini Barese are serving up some of the finest Italian sandwiches in town. While every ingredient shines alone (and is available separately), the careful placement of the freshest mozzarella, high-quality prosciutto, roasted red peppers and fancy balsamic vinegar onto crusty, chewy Italian bread is magical.

Tears well up as we think back to those good old days. We reckon that eating enough of these Latticini Barese sandwiches may very well bring the Dodgers back home to Brooklyn.

Our waiter circles the table and pours from the pitcher, spooning those pieces of orange and apple and whatever else into our glass and splashing huge amounts of wine into our mother’s glass, so that we finish the meal with our daily recommended dose of vitamin C and our mother is giggling in her charming inebriation. She’s telling us stories about the first time she was drunk and the first time she was stoned and we know this is a good time to listen and nod and say nothing.

Out on the street–after she’s managed to pay the bill and wave goodbye to the waiter–she’s laughing hysterically and pushing us gently for no apparent reason, but we’re getting on smashingly. Back at our apartment, she’ll giggle up the stairs and take a nap.

Le Zie’s regional specialty, Venetian, doesn’t always go over with us, even in Venice, and in New York "Venetian" can sometimes mean just "bad Italian seafood." Not at Le Zie. Though it’s a largish menu for a smallish kitchen, and there’s always a long list of additional specials, we’ve ranged all over their offerings in the last two years with very rare disappointments. Lately, we recommend the lobster risotto, the spaghetti bottarga, the giant salt-baked whole red snapper and the best macaroni and cheese in town.

And we’re loving the squid ink taglialini. We first had squid ink pasta not in Venice but in Sicily. It was as black as printer’s ink and very pungent, almost gamy, if you can say that of a seafood. Lots of Americans, even New Yorkers, would probably be scared of it. Le Zie wisely offers a lighter, more laidback squid ink sauce, with taglialini slipping around in it like pasta eels, and a few mussels and baby shrimp tossed in, more or less as garnish to the main event, the sauce itself. With a glass of the house Salice Salentino, it’s a dish that fills both your stomach and your senses. Waiter, un po di piu, per favore!

The door policy is the only wrench in the works. Abaya’s staff will ask, "How did you hear about this place?" when you try to enter; don’t freak, it isn’t a spy trick. Owner Frank is simply trying to collect some marketing information. So say where you heard about the best new spot in New York and you’ll be let in, gingerly.

Staff is super-nice to a man, though they do have beverage transport problems. Our coffee cup went away at one point, never to return. Wine shows up after entrees arrive. A tanned once-broker told us, "Pastis, that’s a great scene." Scene schmene, it’s all about the fries. They come with mayo. Light golden batonettes of exterior crunch encasing soft potato within. Stop talking to those foreign hipsters and eat your fries before they get cold. And have faith–you and your coffee may someday be reunited.

For entertainment we laugh at the locals drunkenly consuming their food and talking loudly about something irrelevant like how drunk they are. Sometimes there’s a homeless man looking inside with his face pressed to the glass or a tipsy couple trying to give each other piggyback rides. And on more than one occasion the counter guy has told us that we drink too much–then asked us out on a date that doesn’t involve drinking.

Palace makes for a head-shaking kind of stop-off, captured best by their sign out front: Palace Fried Chicken–We ain’t just chicken. No, we thought, they’re not.

Fork-to-head, we opt for Roc, the Italian offshoot of the Upper East Side’s Elio’s, although comparing the two is futile: aside from sharing a Thursday night special of spaghetti and meatballs, Roc is the Monitor to Elio’s Merrimack.

Seafood is Roc’s forte, whether it’s the shellfish soup, swordfish, lightly fried calamari, shrimp with asparagus, crabcakes (in season), tuna carpaccio, marinated salmon or a simple bowl of pasta with a white clam sauce. We skip the lambchops, but the steak is incongruously the equal of any slice of cow that the nearby City Hall offers. Veal prepared in different ways, depending on the chef’s mood, chicken and sausage with green peppers or eggplant, delicious broccoli rabe and sauteed spinach and any number of pasta and risotto specials are just a smattering of what you’ll find on the menu.

We prefer to have supper early, maybe half past six, when a quiet crowd from the neighborhood fills the dining room; a bit later, the restaurant is SRO and, because of the acoustics, somewhat loud. Which, if you’re in a boisterous group, fits the bill since no one can hear your conversation. One evening last spring we reunited with several high school classmates and by the time the entrees arrived, and nostalgia trumped updates on family and careers ("Did you really ball Debbie back in 11th grade?"), the din from our own corner, liberally punctuated by language that would make Bill Clinton or LBJ blush, was deafening. But since an office party of 12 was yakking and drinking like it was New Year’s Eve, our indiscretions went unnoticed.

When out-of-town friends ask for restaurant recommendations Roc is number one on our list; we’ve yet to hear anything but "thank you" for the suggestion.

As the years went by, we told ourselves that someday we’d grow out of "slumming it," and would never end up like the drunks who seemed to live there 24-7. We were never going to be one of those bitter musicians who got fucked over by the industry, never going to spend our rent money on booze. We were above all that. We hadn’t given up on life and we still gave a damn.

Surprise.

Now we look at the young kids coming into the place telling us their hopes and ambitions and nod knowingly to the older timers. They’ll be joining us soon enough.

Usually these are individuals one interacts with only in compromising, substance-abusing and generally "enhanced" or "intensified" situations. And often just the once. Yet the peanut gallery is never too good to stop what they’re doing, acknowledge your presence and shout, "Hey! You gotta cigarette?"

The management is older, wiser (see the–loaded?–revolver next to the cash register) and friendly. If you get bored, there’s the pool table, or the lotto machine (usually a big hit with out-of-towners). But chances are, you won’t get bored.

We never did cut out the smoked salmon. So we’re at AQ, and that supple orange flesh is glistening at us from the refrigerator case. We’ll have that, uh, salmon on the bread thing there, we say.

Gravlax pizza, we’re corrected.

The flags of Scandinavia stand sentinel, and wiry modern classical is piped in softly. Small shopping bags of asters on the tabletops. There is an adjoining gift shop that sells art glass, silver doodads and Finnish slippers.

Coffee and the "pizza" comes in under $9. It’s a big serving with salad, a coffee cup full of Ruffles and a pool of pink mayonnaise flecked with the teensiest bits of hot red peppers that makes some good dipping for the chips. An anised slaw is found atop the house-cured gravlax. Beneath it are chunks of tomatoes and avocado. All mounded on a tomato and cheese focaccia. The salad contains mixed greens, tomatoes in a smoky-heat marinade, corn niblets and capers. We will order it again.

AQ also offers a salmon lasagna ($9). The pasta sheets are crisped on the top outer fringes and alternated with salmon and a "parmesan roasted garlic" bechamel. On the plate are dribbles of dill pesto, a garnish of chopped tomato and more plump capers. Ribbons of smoked salmon in a sour cream dressing are piled on top. We would have thought a bechamel-layered dish with sour cream dressing would be too unctuous, but the composition of the dish really works. The garlic and the dill cut the creaminess.

How do we know? A friend told us.

Fact is, we think most everything at Rancho Alegre is pretty darn good. The menu can be a bit overwhelming (we won’t even try to describe it here–you’ll see), but it’s reasonably inexpensive, and the chips and salsa are complimentary.

Thing is, though, is that we’ve been in there when it was quiet, and we’ve been treated royally by the small staff. Once more than a couple tables are filled, watch out–there’ve been occasions when the service has driven us out of the place before we’ve even placed our order. If too many tables are active, the staff tends to panic and turn hostile. Especially if they decide they don’t like the looks of you for some reason. That happens, they can turn just plain rotten.

To avoid this, try getting there right when they open–because an hour after that, they’re inevitably packed. The food just might be worth it, though.

Yes, the framed picture behind the bar is him, and he’s also got his own postcard (!), which he seems happy to dole out when they’re handy. Where’d he pick up the moves?

"I was working at a post office in San Francisco, and one day I was, you know, sorting the mail, and I realized…hey! This is a lot like dancing!"

The bar features even more excellent people-watching (our favorite is the Tommy Lee lookalike who always pulls up in an old Mercedes talking on a cellphone, and parks like a dying man on the way to the cure). There’s also the occasional Coyote Ugly moment, though not nearly as well-executed as you’d see at Hogs (more the quiet girl in school who may not have much sexual experience, but she really, really wants to try). However, ladies, the barmaids are young, attractive and all-American (though unlike at the Village Idiot, not just out of prison). So hold onto your boys. Or girls. Or both.

Actually, it’s somewhat inaccurate to call this place a neighborhood restaurant, since it’s good enough to draw patrons from other parts of Brooklyn. And besides, when you think "neighborhood restaurant," you tend to think of one of those unspeakable places that serves glutinous eggs Benedict to aging wives on Montague St. But whatever. It’s poached eggs we came to discuss, and specifically the poached eggs in red wine and mushroom sauce that Max & Moritz will serve you if you ask them to.

We like this dish because it’s as close to real food as you’ll find within the confines of the kandy-koated institution known as brunch. There’s nothing sugar-frosted or batter-dipped or mint-garnished about it. What you’ve got, rather, is two eggs over two English muffins, swimming in a rich burgundy-colored sauce that would be equally appropriate over a pot roast. This belongs to that minority of brunch dishes that don’t make you feel like a child or someone who might once have hung around a fern bar.

Mezzaluna has the look of your average small Italian restaurant–flea-market wooden chairs and tables, bright colors splashed on the walls, the whole atmosphere just a little too quaint. We make our way toward our table as non-Italian busboys holler "Buon giorno!" at us. Although none of the entrees grab our attention, the prices do. One of the girls, apparently having read the concern on our face, mentions casually, "Don’t worry about what you get or how much it costs. We’ll order for you." Pointing to another girl she adds, "She’s paying today because she’s borrowing her mother’s plastic."

This seems somehow wrong to us, but before we could say anything, the waiter is taking the orders: seven entrees of penne with mozzarella, two cheese pizzas and seven Diet Cokes. Wow.

Mezza’s packing up with tailored schoolgirl uniforms and Prada wallets. We know most of them, but everybody pretends not to know the girls they go to school with. The pizza arrives first and doesn’t amount to much more than your average brick-oven pizza. The penne is decent, but the portions are remarkably small considering that they cost 15 bucks each. There isn’t enough mozzarella on our penne, so one girl orders a bowl of mini mozzarella balls to enhance it. Naturally, we let our friend with the plastic take care of the $233 tab, which, even if Mom is paying, is a little much for one 15-year-old girl. We leave when the Chanel lip glosses come out of the Gucci bags.

Real clam houses are all but extinct in Manhattan. The remaining few are holdouts in the fast-evaporating old Little Italy: Vincent’s Clam Bar on Mott St., Umberto’s and our pick for the best of the lot, Little Charlie’s Clam Bar.

Little Charlie’s has been doing business on an ugly industrial-looking stretch of Kenmare St. since 1926. So far, the restaurant remains untouched by the frilly redecoration that has force-dressed the rest of the neighborhood and turned Little Italy into the odiously renamed precinct of pretension "Nolita." The place is spacious, decorated in Eisenhower-era Nautical Goombah: red lacquered sharks levitate above red-check tablecloths. The menu hasn’t changed since the days when La Guardia meant mayor, not airport. Sit down wherever you like and prepare for a plate of clams that a reincarnated Uncle Don, dead since 1978, would remember from his first date after the war. Cold, quivering things arrive on a white china platter, cosseted by a bed of ice and escorted by nothing more profound than a ketchup and horseradish cocktail sauce. The meat is firm, salty and succulent. They fill the mouth with a pleasant brine just before they slide down. The contrast between the tongue-delighting soft flesh and the porcelain-like shell scratching against your tooth makes eating a dozen littlenecks off the halfshell an oral, quasi-erotic delight. Wash them down with an equally cold beer and you’ve found New York nirvana.

Lucky for you, though, our resident Chicago-philes have located a small chunk of their beloved city believed to have been airlifted and dropped off at a major intersection in Bayside, Queens. At Fontana’s Famous, the gyro is enormous, delicious and inexpensive; the grease-soaked red-and-yellow walls a stage for rowdy gyro-guy dialog ("One yeeros sandweech! Two yeero plate! Souvlaki, fries, chizburger fries!"); and not one, but two elephantine mounds of lamb and beef flesh guarded by two elephantine men with swords, who will never cut off a single shred of meat unless it is well done and lightly charred. Topped with a cup of tzatziki (the garlicky yogurt/cucumber sauce), two tomato wedges, raw onion, fresh parsley and a dash of paprika, this sandwich is the real thing. If only John Belushi were behind the counter...

But there’s still one great place to get a sullen start to your morning, and it’s hidden away in what many people wrongly claim to be a sanitized Times Square. First of all, anyone who needs some early-morning nookie would be amazed at the number of hookers still prowling 8th Ave. in the morning hours. There’s this one fat redhead who walks around in skimpy lingerie, and that’s an image that’ll really shock a person into consciousness. Start your day like that–as a witness or a customer–and you’ll want to follow up with a dark and drunken breakfast at Smith’s Bar and Restaurant.

Enter through the door on the right and you’ll find yourself in a typical restaurant setting that’s still nicely underlit. They’re serving food out of the back, and it’ll eventually become a nice lunch place with some well-reputed sandwiches. To start your day like your hardworking forefathers, though, enter through the left. That’s where Smith’s puts the Bar in its Bar and Restaurant.

The bar at Smith’s is open every weekday at 8 a.m., and it’s only a few steps away from the breakfast setup they’ve thrown together in the front corner. The lighting is low, the fixtures are dark wood and there’s a nice selection of humanity sitting in appropriate silence lined up along the bar. The breakfast selection is standard stuff, but the bar is open for anything. Grab some bacon, eggs and potatoes for $5.25, and then pay a reasonable price for a fairly strong adult beverage. Skip the bloody marys and the mimosas and throw back some brown liquor to fit in among your fellow scum. There’s always a mix of alcoholic older guys, barfly dames who are probably 10 years younger than they look and a nice selection of Teamster types hanging out toward the front of the bar. They can get kind of loud, so keep to the back.

The breakfast is fine, and the booze is always good. Ignore the holding pen with tables for normal breakfast folks who walked through the wrong entrance. These people are idiots. Even if you’re just having coffee, you should do it while leaning on a bar and looking down the length of it at some fine miserable living. It’s worth going out of your way for the daily theater of watching the lumpen businessmen (many of them out-of-towners who found the nearest open bar) trying to pick up those feminine alkies. Will he be able to get the bedraggled dame back to his hotel in time to still make that 10 a.m. conference? It’s a cliffhanger every time.

Over the years friends have raved about lots of other Ballato dishes–liver ’n’ onions and all the veal dishes especially–and the wine list is wonderful, but when the waiter comes for our order, and asks if we’ll be having the usual, we say yes. Unadventurous? No, just smart.

But Brooklyn has by now achieved the bourgeois bohemian critical mass that generates a viable dining scene, and the evidence of it is everywhere. In the bellowing toddlers perpetually underfoot in the neighborhoods. In the proliferation of clipjoints peddling antiques. In the fact that even the old white working-class drunks up in Windsor Terrace have conceded the fight, and don’t bother calling you "faggot" anymore. And in the thriving dining scenes of Smith St. and 5th Ave.–but especially of the latter, where the scene’s quality is the more obvious for the almost weird way so many good restaurants are located so close to one other.

At 5th and Carroll St., for example, you’ve got the excellent Italian al di la, as well as–exactly across the street–Mike and Tony’s, in the barroom of which we like to consume alcohol while al di la prepares our table. Then, not even a full block down the street, you’ve got Cucina. Next, between Garfield Pl. and 1st St., there’s Vaux Bistro, as well as Blue Ribbon Brooklyn, arguably the best thing to happen to the act of eating in Brooklyn this year.

And that’s not even to mention more tangential establishments. Like the comfortable tavern Great Lakes, located on the corner of 1st St. just to the south of the Blue Ribbon, or that nice bar called the Loki Lounge on the corner of 2nd St. Meanwhile, walk half a dozen blocks south and you’ll encounter, between 6th and 7th Sts., Coco Roco, king of all Peruvian chicken joints.

It was quiet in the afternoons, but as night wore on, it became filled with failed bluebloods from the neighborhood, the once-successful, small-dog-owning types. It also, for some reason, attracted a lot of celebrities, from Taylor Mead to Mike Piazza to Tony Randall to John Turturro, who stopped in for a drink one night with producer Harvey Weinstein. There were a few others we couldn’t name then or now, but we were told they were major Hollywood studio bigs.

Yeah, well.

And that little problem helps explain why we decided to find ourselves another bar.

Because along with major Hollywood players come half-talented "singers" and "actors," all of them knowing it’s Their Time to Be Discovered, all of them stinking to high heaven of the worst kind of desperation. They never actually approached the producers and executives, these little failures. No, they all tried the same damn trick. They all thought they’d make the producers approach them, see? And they did this by sitting at a far corner of the bar–as far away as possible from the producer in question (just to be able to relish that walk across the floor when it happened, we figure), and they sang. Or they "performed." Loudly enough to be heard across the bar.

There was one guy, Jesus, why he wasn’t killed we’ll never know. Late-30s, skinny, a little too well-dressed, a little too loud. You know the type. He’d sit at the end of the bar, tell the people around him in a projected voice how he was an actor, but was in between roles at present. Then he’d begin to sing.

Show tunes.

To make things worse, he was one of those creepy types who’d pick out someone near him and stare meaningfully into their eyes as he sang.

It only took witnessing this routine two or three times to know we had no intention of sitting through it again. We also get the impression that a few major Hollywood types left the bar thinking exactly the same thing.

One morning, though, while riding over to Park Slope, we noticed Bergen Bagel on the corner of Bergen St. and Flatbush Ave. We parked our bike near the patrons eating outside and entered the unfamiliar shop. Inside, the store was long and narrow with five or six tables lining one of the walls; two coolers full of sodas, various juices and energy drinks lined the back wall. Then we saw several employees loading out trays full of freshly baked muffins, black and white cookies–and bagels. Couldn’t complain about the selection: everything, cinnamon & raisin, onion, garlic, egg, plain, poppy, sesame, whole wheat and salt. The cream cheese choices were abundant as well, including plain spreads in vegetable, scallion, olive, walnut & raisin, sun-dried tomato, lox and fat-free varieties. For the lactose intolerant Bergen Bagel pleases with plain or vegetable tofu, sun-dried tomato tofu, lox with tofu. For the heartier breakfastgoer, they offer meat-based spreads like chicken salad, tuna, baked salmon, shrimp and whitefish salad. Now every weekend, after a late night out, we head to Bergen Bagel because the service is always good and we don’t have to deal with the residents of Park Slope. Plus the guys behind the counter have a sense of humor.

So, a bit fed up, but still quite devoted to their excellent martinis and incredible papaya salad (worthy of its own "Best of" category), we’ve taken to eating at the bar. And we’re glad to report how delightful it’s been: instant seat, same excellent high-end Thai-French fusion delivered a little faster than usual through the cordial and impeccable ministrations of Benjamin, the Elephant’s French/Guadeloupean hybrid. Benjamin pours the Ricard generously (note to pastis tipplers: requests for Pernod go unanswered!) and he’s beloved of just about every beautiful girl who comes into the place, a fact that does not bother us even a little bit.

When our mood requires it, eating at the bar here can also be done in cozy anonymity, the backlit bar’s creamy, amber lighting bathing the room in a warm, rosy-ish luminescence and conducive to a kind of languorous, spectator mode of dining wherein we sit and pick slowly at our food while predicting a couple’s end-of-date success, observing lips and gestures, all the while noting the rhythm and mechanics of this tiny Thai industry with its churning little kitchen.

Run by the folks who owned Motor City, another kickass bar located in another wonderful neighborhood, Ludlow St., the Ding Dong Lounge attracts a big local crowd. On any given weekend night, you’re bound to meet Mr. or Ms. Right-On! So if it’s an uptown Saturday night for you, check out the place. You won’t be sorry, and maybe you’ll get lucky.

We were wrong.

The more we looked, the more it became obvious that there was a dog turd on the floor.

So what do you do? Do you call attention to it? Say, "Hey, look–there’s poop on the floor"? That’d be like shouting "fire" in a crowded movie house. Besides, we didn’t want to cause trouble for these people. It’s just that there was, well...some poop on the floor.

We all know how common it is for people to bring their dogs into bars around the city, and that’s fine. We like dogs. But we’ve never seen someone let their dog take a squat in the middle of everything, and then just leave it there. That’s just plain rude. Didn’t they notice? Didn’t anybody else? Didn’t someone see fit to tap the owner on the shoulder and say "Hey, your dog, there–he’s takin’ a big dump"?

We’ll never understand people. But there it was, in a tavern we really like. Just sitting there.

Funny thing was, as the afternoon wore on, other people came in, sat at the bar, sat at the tables, walked all around the poop. They must’ve noticed–they were sitting right there. But there was nothing. No reaction at all. The final straw, and the thing that convinced us that maybe it wasn’t such a big deal after all, came shortly before we left. A fellow walked in and, as he was going to take a seat at the bar, he not only stepped in the pile of shit, he slid through it. And even he didn’t say anything!

(For the record, we have been back several times since, and have seen no more poop.)

Over the past year, our affection for Manhattan Hero–renowned for its hearty servings of hot rice and beans–has only grown. Whenever we need some serious sustenance, we head down 7th Ave., willing to brave the long lines to get our fix. Sometimes, one of their fabulous ham and cheese sandwiches, tuna salad wraps or roast beef and turkey clubs–impeccably prepared by our pals–is just what we need. We’ve enjoyed their superb roast chicken, next to a pile of mashed potatoes, too. On a cold winter day, we suggest you take the plunge and experience the pleasure derived from Manhattan Hero’s "Banana Boat." How do they make this amazing concoction? Take one fried banana, add a layer of ground beef, top that with some gooey, fresh mozzarella cheese and smother it with marinara sauce. Now there’s a meal that’ll get you through all the day and night. Still, it’s usually a heaping portion of white rice and black beans, complemented by some plantains and fresh steamed vegetables, or maybe a pile of concrete-heavy, awesome garlicky yucca, that gets us every time.

That’s why we’re so happy about Il Gelatone. We’ll have to wait until our next trip to Italy to make sure, but early response indicates that this new Murray Hill parlor stocks the real thing. You wouldn’t believe how much flavor and how much pleasure their little treats bring. The nut flavors seem particularly hard to get right outside the Mediterranean, but in repeated trials Il Gelatone’s pistachio and hazelnut gelatos induced appropriate rapture. Like we said, more rigorous testing is necessary.