After-Sandy quick note

In all honesty, I haven’t been in the mood to update the blog. Hurricane Sandy just barely brushed by my neighborhood, and the damage on the streets around my house you’ll see in the following pictures. Some crushed cars and some beautiful old trees uprooted, but no loss of life and no damaged homes as far as I know.

There’s still a ridiculous gas shortage going on in the city, and there are thousands of people still without electricity. Many thousands more have no homes to return to, so it’s still heartbreaking.

Here’s to hoping that the scars will heal soon.

Cathedral of Saint John the Divine – exterior

This will be a short 3-part series about this fantastic cathedral. Might not be the grandest (it is the fourth largest Christian church in the world though), might not be the most important, might not be finished (it’s nicknamed St. John the unfinished), but it’s certainly grand, beautiful, interesting, controversial and definitely worth the time to visit.

You can read details and history on Wikipedia so I won’t bore you. But do see my pictures and try to make sense of the symbolistic of the columns outside. And I’d love to hear your interpretation.

Next Friday – Oct. 26th, it will host another Halloween Extravaganza like the one I wrote about in my first post on this blog.
Tickets are available on the Cathedral website.*

*I have absolutely no affiliation with the Cathedral; I just want you to have a bit of (different kind of) fun

The Tango Lesson

There is respite in this crazy busy, beautifully intense city.

For example, running errands you’re sidetracked by tango music nearby. You are intrigued and you cross the street like in a trance, and this is what you find: a tango lesson/practice. On the Union Square plaza, a lesson for beginners. Upstairs in the Pavilion, the more advanced are entranced by music.

You forget what you were supposed to do, where you’re supposed to be, just pull the camera out of the bag and try to capture what tango is in fleeting moments: the faces, the feet… Hoping that a bit of it’s intensity gets recorded.

And a less than 3 minutes movie. Enjoy! hopefully as much as I did being there.

Street performers

And talking about street performances, here’s a sampling of what you can encounter on the streets of NYC, on any random day .

Parked! food trucks event ’12

When has a year passed by already? Another year, another Parked! event.
A few new trucks on the road, adding to the number of participants. The lines weren’t so bad this time, some of the trucks had no customers actually. Are people getting tired of street food, or they’re just too familiar with their offerings already?
Also, some of the area restaurants had some presence with small tables and few offerings.

Anyway, snapped just a few pics this time, and mostly of the menus.
I had a delicious Connecticut style lobster roll from Red Hook lobster and a first time gelato from Amorino (verdict: good, but I wasn’t that impressed). The L’innimitabile (really?) hazelnut was almost too sweet but with good hazelnut flavor. Stracciatella was nothing special, as for the Caramello (salted caramel) not that caramel-ly. And it all melted in a mess before it was handed to me – it was warm outside but not that warm and we were in the shade anyway. I find that unacceptable.

The friend that accompanied me got a Phil’s cheesesteak which I never tried before but kept reading about it that’s the closest you’ll come to a Philly one in NYC. My friend said it’s good, but then again he never went to Philadelphia for a Pat’s or Geno’s. By the looks only, I find Phil’s unappealing – the meat is almost ground, the onions are few and wrong – nothing like Geno’s for example.

Same as last year, performances by young artists on the waterfront stage – a short movie after the pictures. Not sure of the band name, but I know the stilt-walker is Anya Sapozhnikova.

New York Easter Parade ’12

Parked! event – part III (and last)

Part I and Part II

Rickshaw Dumpling Truck started as a physical store (now they have two) and the truck was only natural to follow.

Wafels & Dinges is one of the oldest “new wave” trucks on the streets of NYC (if I’m not mistaken I think they started in 2005?) and they’ve been a success since the beginning.

Sigmund Pretzel started with a physical store at 29 Ave. B and soon their cart has become a traveling presence at diverse food events in the city.

Wooly’s Ice is yet another shaved ice dessert cart with a physical store at 79 Elizabeth St.

Grillo’s Pickles sells at Whole Foods across 5 states in Northeast, from N.Y. to Maine. The cart is based in Boston, MA.

Mimi & Coco teriyaki balls are a spin on the classic Japanese takoyaki. Their version comes stuffed with shrimp, potato or sausage and get brushed with teriyaki sauce, hence the name or their product.

And although the lines were long, a good time was had by all.

Parked! event – part II

In case your missed it, see part I here.

The Cupcake Crew is about ten months old and comes from Brooklyn, rolling on the streets of Manhattan. It has a strong following, as proved by the solid line. Maple bacon cupcake, anyone?

The Frying Dutchmen sell fries, both potato and sweet potato, and a myriad of sauces (they take suggestions for new ones). On Sunday they also had chicken tenders and chicken wings and the crowds loved it.

Kimchi Taco is another yet-to-be-one-year-old truck and they will soon open a brick & mortar restaurant in Brooklyn. They sell Korean tacos (Korean BBQ topped with a family recipe kimchi ), vegetarian tacos (tofu-edemame-falafel) and kimchi cheesesteaks, and their line of fans was probably the longest.

Fojol Bros. of Merlindia (or Benethiopia? as the truck is inscribed, a bit confusing that we’re not clear where they’re from) – for real came from D.C. and they entitled themselves “a traveling culinary carnival”. The menu seems to be inspired by Ethiopian food.

Mexicue is another truck founded by Brooklynites in 2010 (soon to have a twin) with a physical store at 345 Seventh Avenue in Midtown West (soon to have a twin on LES). They sell “re-invented” tacos and sliders and it’s pretty obvious that they have a huge fan base.

Parked! food truck event at South Street Seaport

The Parked! event brought together more than 30 food trucks that are on the beat on the streets of NYC daily. A trend that started a few years back, nowadays creates a bit of controversy: they sell fresh, excellent food at reasonable prices – thus creating quite a drop in revenues for the regular hot dog/pretzel/grilled kabobs cart vendors. Restaurants and chain lunch places are complaining, too. It didn’t take long for the police to start ticketing the new trucks on the block (if parking is a bitch in Manhattan generally speaking, is even more so for trucks that have to adhere to very restrictive rules), or even ban them in the last few weeks.

Here I’ll show you some of the street-food trucks that you’ll find around the city; most of them are really well-known and have a cult-following – twitter is a great tool to find out where your favorite truck is parked, and when. In a couple of instances we’ll see vendors that don’t sell from a truck but from a cart or table and I’m guessing that they were invited at the event because their popularity. I’ll keep it short as so not to bore you, but if you’re interested in details please click the links provided for each company.

The lines for most of the trucks were tens of people deep, to what we estimated it would be at least a half an hour wait. I tried to take pictures of the menus and when possible, of the product. Click on the picture for a larger size.

The next Parked! truck fest will take place on Governors Island on Sept. 5th

Schnitzel & Things launched in 2009. Early 2011 they opened a brick & mortar shop at 723 3rd Ave. (between 45th & 46th streets). See the website for menu, daily location and the schedule of the truck. At the Parked! event they were sold out by 5 pm.

The (barely) one year old Kelvin Natural Slush has half an hour lines for the “not your 7-11” slush – flavors like basil (sold out at around 5 pm) and mint, as well as fruit puree slush, made this truck a very popular one from day 1.

The Shaved Ice Shop doesn’t have a truck – they sell at Hester Street fair and other street food markets (see website for locations and dates). Inspired by the Taiwanese street treat, they bring new toppings as granola and charred marshmallows with caramelized corn.

Taim Falafel has been famous for quite a few years as having the best falafel in NYC, since they opened at 222 Waverly Pl. in the Village. Now they also have a truck and tour Manhattan at lunch hour tp the delight of their many, many fans.

The Cinnamon Snail
heads from New Jersey and sells vegan organic treats. Don’t we all want to be beings of pure light and to serve all creatures simultaneously and eternally? 🙂
If you don’t, many others do – and they lined up to empty their shelves.

More to come…

South Street Seaport – Pier 17

A beautiful August Saturday at South Street Seaport where the Parked! event has happened today. More details and many pictures a.s.a.p. For now, just a few pictures of boats, people, Anais Mitchell and a gentle sunset.