You already know how much I love solving your dining dilemmas, but these three were especially fun for me: We’ve got someone in search of macrobiotic hippie food, a visiting parent with a penchant for sesame paste, and a hungry bar-goer looking for the city’s best bar food.
Keep the questions coming, and I’ll keep bringing the answers! The more specific, the better, and I’ll take them in a few forms: via email at [email protected], as a submission in this form, and on my Instagram, where I’ll post story prompts for you. Cin cin!
Get in, we’re going to the ’70s
I desperately miss Angelica Kitchen in the East Village — where can I eat ’70s hippie food that is actually good? — Tiffany C.
You and me both, Tiffany. I’m sure I came just short of claiming squatter’s rights in the Angelica Kitchen dining room in the 2010s. That’s kind of the B-side of writing about restaurants: When I’m not fueling my body, which is a temple, with chile oil and alcohol, I have to supplement with boring-core rice bowls and steamed vegetables.
Luckily, there’s still one last location of the macrobiotic mecca Souen in the East Village. Some say it doesn’t have the same magic as the original SoHo restaurant, which opened in 1971, but I think it’s perfect as is, with a long menu of vegan curries, noodle soups and some beautifully ginger-glazed and miso-marinated fish. Of course, the most applicable dish for your quandary would be the restaurant’s macro plate, as perfectly organized as a color wheel: A rounded scoop of brown rice, sizable piles of steamed kale, wakame and beans, a few branches of broccoli, one chunk of unpeeled carrot steamed to tenderness, and a perfect triangular wedge of kabocha squash, soft as butter.
326 East 6th Street (First Avenue), East Village
Tahini hive: lock in
My dad is a tahini fiend and visiting soon. Already planning Edith’s tahini iced coffee and Seed + Mill tahini sundae, but are there any other tahini-forward meals you’d recommend? — Alice K.
This is the kind of niche question I live for. And, as a tahini fiend myself, I come prepared with two exemplary answers. I find myself recommending Rolo’s in Ridgewood, Queens, pretty often, and one dish, simply called “tahini chickpeas,” instantly comes to mind. It doesn’t look or sound like much — it’s just chickpeas bathed in garlicky tahini and olive oil — but it’s luscious far beyond the sum of its parts. Order the polenta bread, made right in front of you in the kitchen’s huge wood-fired oven, with Calabrian chile butter, swipe it through the silky tahini, and achieve father-daughter nirvana.
He’d also appreciate a meal at Eyval in Bushwick, where you can play “I Spy” with sesame paste throughout the menu. One dish should be a nonnegotiable for you two: a standout cabbage and orange salad, bejeweled with plump dates, tossed in a chile-tahini dressing.
Rolos, 8-53 Onderdonk Avenue (Cornelia Street), Ridgewood
Evyal, 25 Bogart Street (Varet Street), Bushwick
There’s a great dinner to be had at a dive
Best bar food in the city? — Sara D.
Oh, man, I’ve been waiting for this one. I’d probably have never ordered food beyond popcorn at Chinatown’s beloved karaoke joint Up Stairs. But one thing about hanging out with my Where to Eat counterpart, Luke, is that he’s always going to order food in unexpected places. That’s how I’ve ended up eating pillowy meatballs in tomato sauce, buoyant udon noodles with savory slices of beef, and even $55 lamb chops at Up Stairs while the crowd shouted along to “Mr. Brightside.” And I’ve since done it again, again and again.
59 Canal Street, Second Floor (Allen Street), Chinatown
True Detective: Grand Central Oyster Bar
What happened to the lovely basket of crackers and breadsticks that used to arrive without request at Grand Central Oyster Bar? Our first trip back there post-pandemic they were gone. Have they returned? Thanks! — Paul T.
I need no excuse to go to one of my favorite restaurants in this town, but I took this opportunity to do some sleuthing along with a shrimp cocktail and some oyster pan roast. The answer is yes they’ve returned, sort of, but now the cracker course has been pared down to only oyster crackers, and only for patrons seated at the bar. Please keep the restaurant mystery questions coming!
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