Upper West Side
America! America! I’m back and I’m yours. I’d like to report
that my intake valve survived the long flight and I managed to down two
terrific meals on this, my first day back. Because of the six-hour time lag, I
started to get peckish for dinner right around lunchtime so I went for a stroll
through the streets of the Culinary Wasteland to check out the possibilities.
The first thing I noticed was that Canteen 82 was shuttered. This is a local
disaster – a black eye on the already bruised reputation of the Upper West
Side as a restaurant neighborhood. Canteen 82 was great Chinese. It was
fresh, the family was nice and helpful; it wasn’t too loud; it got a nice
recommendation from the Times – but to no avail. Dead and gone. I was
also hoping to get lunch there, some of their ambrosial pork soup dumplings.
Never again. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in Italy. In Italy the
restaurants stay where they are, where they have been since Julius Caesar
ate there. They don’t open and close the way they do around here, like an
actress’s thighs.
But … there’s always a silver lining if your heart is pure. I left
Columbus Avenue, where the rents are punishing and made my way to
tawdry old Amsterdam and into the splendid Land, the Thai restaurant on
Amsterdam between 81st and 82nd Streets. I had their lunch special and read
the Village Voice. Ah, home sweet home.
The lunch special at Land is eight bucks. You heard me – eight bucks
– and it’s sensational. You get two courses and a lot of choices in both. I
think my Shrimp Pad Thai today was the best I’ve ever tasted. I told the
server I like it a bit hot and the kitchen nailed it — the mix of noodles and
veg, shrimp and chiles, played on my taste buds like a gypsy violin.
Pot Pie
Tonight we had a dinner at home with our kids and some friends who are here from Rome. Alison — my daughter, my chef – cooked her justly famous chicken pot pie – all thigh meat, roasted in mayonnaise and pulled into tasty slivers, a slowly sautéed mirepoix, cremini mushrooms tossed with soy sauce and tomato, fresh peas thrown in at the end — and topped with a home-made biscuit crumble.
Red Velvet Cupcakes
.
It’s … well it’s high-end comfort food, which is great stuff on a wintry evening. For dessert, she made her red-velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting to top off an All-American meal for our Italian guests.
.
.
Always looking for good Pad Thai – who knew it was in my old neighborhood at Land? Thanks for the recommendation…will try it, post haste. Welcome home!
PS: I loved 88 Noodle (Chinese), at 88th & Columbus. It, too, closed…such a loss!
you made me hungry for some delicious thai, i am not sure i will find in campello. but actually you are wrong, the restaurants do change, well the bars at least. they have finished the remodel of the bar on the corner of the flaminia veccchia, nice new decor, and handsome barista, but i think they had a budget cut so they kept the awning that read “road cafe”…big news from the rapidly changing scene in the spoleto valley!
Mike,
Your books are my favorite and now your blog is wonderful! I hang on every word and wish there was more—-maybe a new book coming?
Any chance your daughter, Alison, would consider giving up her recipes for the chicken pot pie and red velvet cupcakes? I am having some great friends over for dinner and would love to make both of these!
Thank you for making my day always better.
Jeri
(Los Angeles—86 degrees tomorrow here!)
Mike: Sounds like leaving wet Umbria didn’t dampen your appetite one bite. The Pad Thai sounds great!
Loved the comment from Lex Ulibarri about the new place on Flaminia vecchia…
Hola from Machu Picchu!Have you tried RECIPE. Amsterdam in the low 80s. VG.
@Juliet – Yes, we’ve eaten there a few times. It’s wonderful and owned by the same people that have Land – next door.
@Jeri – I’m forwarding your request to Alison. Also check her website: http://www.awonderlandoffood.com
@Lex and David – I don’t know – it sounds like it’s all about the new barista
@Wynne – There’s anew Thai place on Amsterdam called Spice – we’ll check it out
Hey Mikie, welcome home.
We are just returning to DC today, having eaten in Philadelphia this weekend at TINTO at 114 south 20th street. [tintorestaurant.com] After your comments about eating off each others plates, I cringe to say it is Spanish, with an emphasis on tapas. Not a vast wine list, but good representation of those regional spanish wines good with a northern and Basque cuisine. As strongly invested in pork as anything in the East of Umbria!
we didn’t exactly eat off of everyone else’s plate, but we did share. .. . Philadelphia also seems hit by the Economy, with several iconic and high style places gone, yet still remaining are many good BYO bistros so character-defining in that town.
I’m on bread and water for the next two days.
oooh, if I hadn’t just had Drunken Noodles at My Thai I would be even more envious. And Keener’s with Neal in Chiang Mai eating the best mangos right now. But losing a favorite, ‘ambrosial pork dumpling’ is too sad.
I’m still trying to find a good Chinese restaurant in Marin with an amazing duck noodle soup. Challenging. So far ‘great’ and ‘Chinese in Marin’ may be two words that don’t jive well. Novato even worse….can you help with a recipe from that world?
Happy holidays to you and Jill!