Lèse Majesté

Foodie adventures continued

Film, theater, and art were not my only pursuits on this trip to New York. I also went looking for a number of street food vendors I've been following online for quite a while. I found a couple of them...

The Schnitzel Truck has been making news lately as one of the more assertive new players in the growing vendor wars in the city. I was able to catch them on a day they were serving veal schnitzel, and oh my, this takes street food to a whole new level. Huge slab of freshly cooked schnitzel, Austrian potato salad, and braised sauerkraut. I took it a couple blocks to Madison Square Park where I sat out on a lovely day and ate my lunch in the park. Had to fight off some very aggressive squirrels who were determined to share it. This gentleman was sharing my bench. Note the furball who is about to jump on his shoulder to try to get to his food:

 

Another truck I've been trying to find and finally tracked down was Street Sweets. I found them a couple blocks from MoMA after I went to the museum's members' preview of the new Monet Water Lilies exhibit. They had just finished baking a most delicious treat. It was a sandwich cookie made with two flattened coconut macaroons, filled with Nutella. Oh. My. Gawd.

The one vendor I was still unable to meet up with was the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. What a concept. Can you imagine the reaction it would get just about anywhere else in the country? ("Think of the children!") You gotta love a guy who offers free ice cream to anyone who will come perform a particular opera song at the cart. What was the specified tune? Glitter and Be Gay from Bernstein's Candide, of course. This entry was caught on video:

The gal can sing! Can you imagine walking down the sidewalk and stumbling upon that performance? Where else in the world would that happen? I love the reactions from the passersby.

BTW, just to wander off topic a bit, this reminded me of my favorite performance of that song by the amazing Kristin Chenoweth:

Complete with Patti LuPone chewing the scenery at the beginning!

Foodie adventures in NYC

A few days ago I hopped the R train out to Bay Ridge in Brooklyn to visit Robicelli's Gourmet Market. I've been reading about the place for months, as it is becoming a legend in the New York cupcake world. Their creations are unbelievable in their creativity. I was hoping to try an Iona, an olive oil and pear cake with blue cheese icing and candied walnuts. OMFG. Unfortunately, they were out of stock.

But I had a great time nonetheless. First I had a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich. Three kinds of cheese grilled in ciabatta, with a delicious addition of Berkshire bacon inside. Matt Robicelli, who owns the place with his wife Allison, sliced the bacon off a full slab and grilled it before constructing the sandwich. As I've said before, bacon is the new black, and Matt clearly adheres to that philosophy in his cooking and baking. In fact, he memorialized it on his forearm:

 

(That photo is from the excellent blog Porkchop Express which has a detailed profile of the Robicellis and their market - go read it.)

We chatted throughout my meal and I was surprised to learn he was a St. Paul boy (with family roots in Iowa farming). His dad had been a tenor with the Minnesota Opera before moving to New York to seek out fame and fortune. Matt had been an EMT until he was injured on 9/11 while evacuating people from Tower 7, and after rehab from that he studied pastry at the French Culinary Institute. After working in a bunch of New York kitchens he and his wife decided to open the store.

Getting back to bacon...since I struck out on the Iona, I had one their best-known creations for dessert. That is the Elvis cupcake, conceived from the King's well-known love of grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches. The Elvis is made of banana cake, peanut buttercream frosting, and crowning touch: carmelized pieces of bacon on top. Yes, it sounds strange. But oh so good. I would be in trouble if I lived anywhere near this place.

Matt spins off wild ideas for cupcakes as you talk with him. He has one in mind now for an upcoming event that I can't wait to see them accomplish. When we spoke it was just a concept, though: chicken and waffles. He isn't sure how to realize it yet. An eggy cake, since waffles are typically eggy, will probably be the start. But the rest remains to be realized.

The rest of the trip

Theater didn't completely occupy me on this most recent trip to New York. The city was enjoying a burst of summer weather, so it seemed like a good opportunity to wander about outdoors, which also saved money...

 After the matinee Saturday, my friend and I went to dinner at one of my favorite places, Brasserie Les Halles on Park Ave. That's Anthony Bourdain's old stomping ground.  Then we walked it off by strolling across the Brooklyn Bridge and back at sunset. A beautiful time to see the city from that perspective:

Sunday was even warmer. A walk through Central Park before the matinee probably brought more sun exposure than was healthy, but it was a perfect day for people watching. Found out later that a new record high of 92 was set in the park. After the show, it was still nearly sweltering, so we cooled off by riding the Staten Island Ferry for a round trip. The sea breeze was definitely cooling - the water hasn't warmed up all that much yet.

I had Monday to myself. I had all kinds of plans, but when I saw it was another gorgeous day after sleeping in way late, I tossed them aside and went out to Coney Island. I don't eat hot dogs as a rule, but every couple years I'll make an exception for the original Nathan's there. A chili cheese dog, bacon cheese fries, and a soda...I rationalized that I was walking my butt off the whole time I was in NY. And then spent a nice time just sitting out on the boardwalk. I don't know what's going on with the amusement park there, but a lot of it seems to have been razed.

Later on I went back to the Redhead for dinner. That's a little neighborhood place I visited maybe a year ago and had good time. It's on 13th between 1st and 2nd Aves  in the East Village. I had a good meal, starting with some bacon peanut brittle. I had the chicken described in this review. Sadly, no biscuits for me either. The starch on this plate was a strange goat cheese and spring onion french toast.

I'd swear Neil Simon was at the bar about four feet away from me. He looked like him. And when he came it, everyone was greeting him and making a fuss. They called him Doc, and the bartender was talking theater stuff with him.

Then I went to a screening of An Englishman in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival. It was its North American premiere. The story is basically a mildly dramatized version of the last years of Quentin Crisp's life. John Hurt had played him in The Naked Civil Servant years ago and reprised the role. Nice little flick. The director and all the lead actors were there for a Q&A afterwards: John Hurt, Swoosie Kurtz, Cynthia Nixon, Denis O'Hare, and Jonathan Tucker.

It was an interesting audience. Crisp's great-niece introduced herself and praised the movie. Someone else asked Nixon whether the woman she played (Penny Arcade) had really just walked into Crisp's apartment as portrayed. She didn't know. The next questioner said, "I can answer that. I'm Philiip Steele." That's the guy that Dennis O'Hare played, the magazine editor who befriended and cared for Crisp in the years in question. They hadn't met and apparently no one knew Steele was there.

Tuesday was theater stuff, as previously noted. I had most of Wednesday to occupy myself. Had a fun day before heading home. There's a Belgian waffle truck that tweets its location every day on Twitter. I had been hoping to catch up with it the whole time I was there, and they set up for the day a couple blocks from MoMA on Wednesday. Perfect! So I had a waffle with fresh strawberries on top for breakfast, then continued on to the museum. Took a bit of negotiation to get in, though. I had my laptop in my daypack. Well, they won't allow packs in the galleries, but they also won't accept laptops at the checkroom. Catch-22. We finally arrived at a compromise which required me to check the pack but carry the laptop around with me.

I hit several special exhibits. One was around printing of photographs, comparing various technologies for reproduction with original prints. Really interesting. A second was drawings for theater - sketches for planning of scenery, etc. Some big names were represented, including Marc Chagall. The last was an architectural themed display of drawings and scale models of a number of big projects showing how they fit into their environments.

Then I grabbed lunch at another rather famous street cart a block away from MoMA at 54th and 5th Ave. This cart, Hallo Berlin, won the first Vendy Award in 2005. Lots of yummy German food, focusing on a wide selection of wursts. They have a daily dictator special where you get no choice, or a democratic one where you can choose your own sausages. I had the dictator, which in this case was a "bowl" of a sliced frank and bratwurst, smothered in fried potatoes, red cabbage, slaw, and some sauces. It came with a crusty roll and a cup of hearty soup for $9.00. It was enough food for a whole day, actually. Certainly got me through the rest of the day, including the delayed flight home.

Aircraft maintenance you can trust

Gotta love this sight on the Airbus A320 on which I flew home from Portland yesterday:

Yep, that's duct tape holding up the luggage bin door. Right above the emergency exits too - can you imagine if it fell off and blocked the exits at the wrong time? And just to make it more fun, I snapped this while we were waiting for mechanics after the first takeoff attempt was abandoned, leading to a return to the gate. That turned out to be caused by low oil levels in the drive unit for a generator on one of the engines, discovered as we were accelerating down the runway for takeoff.  Eventually they added more oil and we departed an hour late.

Gives you confidence in the maintenance department, doesn't it?

I don't wanna go home

So I'm not.

What the heck. I'm already in the Caribbean so it won't cost me anything to get here. The Cocolobo is really affordably priced. I'm working the job search from here thanks to the internet. If the opportunity came up, I could do a phone interview thanks to Skype. And it's freezing at home. So I'm staying another week to enjoy a few more of these:

The end of the road

After visiting the brewery, I continued east towards Port Royal. The road soon turned to dirt and rocks, and it called for a 4WD rather than the tiny Suzuki Alta I had rented for the day:

But what the heck. That's what rentals are for, right? Abuse? So I continued on another 15 km until I reached Camp Bay. It may not be the end of the road, quite yet, but it was for me. With my legs threaded around everything in the cramped driver seat, continuing on with a manual transmission was just too painful. I could barely get the stick shift into first or second gear, seeing as how my right leg wanted to occupy the same space.

Fortunately there was a convenient rest stop awaiting me, since I hadn't had lunch and I was getting pretty thirsty. La Sirena, the siren of Camp Bay:

 

I slipped past the sleeping dogs at the foot of the gangplank and walked out to check it out. Yet another ex-pat American had settled in to run this fine establishment, accompanied by his very young assistant Carmela. You'll find her in his arm as he prepared by lunch, a serving of conch ceviche and crackers. Sharp eyes may note that my beer is a Red Stripe - how could I possibly drink one of the Miller local products right after what I had just heard?

 

After some relaxing conversation, I turned back towards West End. I was seriously concerned about running out of gas on that 15 km stretch as the fuel gauge had suddenly dropped from maybe an eighth of a tank to the red zone. Made it to a gas station, though. After buying a few gallons (at a price equivalent to about $2.85 a gallon), I went into the expansive but largely empty convenience store to get a soda. They must have thought I was quite a threat, as I was shadowed by a security guard carrying both a machete and an automatic pistol.

The rest of the drive back was a real thrill as I navigated what appeared to be island rush hour. Major craziness on the road, and potholes galore to dodge. The most interesting passage came close West End where all of the traffic was detoured around construction. Through a gas station. Literally - you had to drive past the pumps in one lane of traffic moving both directions. Again, security was heavy. This time the guards were walking around with pistol-grip shotguns. Good grief.

(As usual, you can click on any of the thumbnail photos to see a larger one.)

On the internet no one knows you're a dog

Except the cybercafe, apparently:

Another victim of Big Brewing

What's the last thing you'd expect to find on an island off the coast of Honduras in the Caribbean? How about a Czech brewery? The innkeepers here at Cocolobo told me there was a local brewer on Roatan, but his beer was hard to find. Aha! A challenge. So yesterday when I rented a car to explore the island, I went looking for the brewery. I found it. Three months too late.

The Bay Islands Brewery sits high atop a hill, next to a couple of telecommunications towers. There is a sign on the road announcing its presence and the fact that it is for sale:

 

I drove up the driveway, ignoring the do not enter sign, hoping they might have a tasting room. The facilities are imposing - a huge stone fortress surrounded by worksheds and guarded by an orange brewery cat:

   

The owner came up to greet me as his worker stayed in the background. The worker looked like John Belushi playing a Mexican bandito, only with a much larger gut. Which was in full display as he appeared to be wearing only underpants. I eventually figured out they were just very dingy Speedos. Still, not a sight for those with a weak stomach. I didn't dare try to photograph either of them.

I ended up having quite a chat with the owner/founder, Jiri Maska. Sadly, the first thing he told me was that there was no more beer. He had distributed his product only in kegs to selected establishments around the island. But he had put out of business by the national big name in beer, Cervecería Hondureña, S.A. They had gone to every one of his customers and offered them large cash payments for exclusivity, ranging up to $50,000, he said. Put him  right out of business, at least for the moment. I've had three of their four beers. They're essentially the same as typical American piss-water beers. Which isn't surprising, as they're owned by Miller. They'll do as a safe cold beverage on a hot day, compared to the tap water here, but that's about all they have to recommend them.

Maska isn't giving up, though. He said, "I'm from the Czech Republic. We had a communist dictator. We got through that, and I'll get through this." He has a bunch of plans. One is to bottle his beer so he can distribute it to a lot more small retailers to beat the monopoly efforts of Miller. Another is to make a local line of sodas and bottle them as well. He has a Honduran trademark for the name Cola Loca and already has it painted on his delivery truck.

The facility was quite an undertaking. He built it to withstand tropical storms and last for generations. He found the rock on a hillside on the island and asked the owner if he could buy some. The owner said sure, but he had no power for tools. So Maska hired a gang of four guys to quarry the rock by hand with pick and shovel. He said he's not looking to sell it. But the sign is there in case some insanely rich person gets off a cruise ship and wants to make him an offer he can't refuse.

And then there are his engineering plans. Another of his challenges was reliable electrical supply to run the operation, since his lager needed chilling for weeks before selling it. The utility on the island has been notoriously unreliable (although not while I'm here) as well as seriously expensive. So he has been trying to make his operation independent of it. He has a row of solar panels as well as wind turbines:

Only one of the turbines is currently functional. A hurricane knocked them all down and he has restored only one of them so far. His big plan, though, is to get into hydrogen. He'll produce it himself, presumably using the wind and solar, and then run generators with the hydrogen.

Pretty ambitious efforts, no doubt. But he did manage to get the first (and perhaps only) microbrewery license in Honduras. He used open fermentation and had a capacity to produce 2000 liters a day when he was operational. Hope he's successful so I can back some day and try his brew.

Winter arrives in the Caribbean

What a difference a day makes. Wednesday and Thursday were getting awfully hot and muggy by my standards. That's one reason why the sail was so pleasant - got out in a stiff breeze and went swimming for a while in the middle of it. Captain Dusty told us the weather was about to change, though, with a cold front rolling in the next day. That's why so many boats were pulling up anchor and moving around to the other side of the island.

Sure enough, the wind shifted and it began to cool down overnight Friday. Saturday I awoke to overcast skies. By mid morning it began to rain now and then. There were some occasional drenching showers that were a sight to see. By Saturday the effect of the constant wind on the sea was obvious as breakers began to roll up on the shore with some good size waves crashing. And it got comparatively cold. Saturday I felt like I was freezing, which was ridiculous - the temperature was still something like 78 F, with a dewpoint of about 73. But the wind was gusting up into the 20s and it felt simultaneously chilly and muggy. A strange combination. But it forced me to put jeans on eventually.

All a matter of perspective, I guess. Friday evening Rory and Claire, the innkeepers, threw a bash for guests and some of their local friends. BBQ chicken and beef and a lot of sides. I got to talking with a couple who had moved here from north of Toronto, where they know cold (even if not Minnesota cold...). I told them I had been sweltering the previous two days. They complained that it had been too cold for them. Mind you, that was daytime temps in the 80s with dewpoints up in the mid 70s. Cold...

The lowest of the low

To say I dislike Coldplay is an understatement of astronomical scale. I loathe them. I despise them. The affected caterwauling that passes for singing from Chris Martin is like a dental drill spinning up and spinning down next to my ear. Hell, in my ear. Those who know my musical tastes from way back when will be surprised to hear that I detest the sound of his voice even more than Robert Plant's. That is saying a hell of a lot.

Which is why it pains me to report that there is something even worse. And that is the sound of post-Superbowl drunks attempting to sing along to Coldplay in a karaoke bar. Not that I would go near the inside of one. But this hell house is open to the outdoors on the main (dirt-covered) street of West End here in Roatan.

It was enough to drive me to drinking. To IV narcotic use, perhaps, had any been handy...