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Fish at Fish

2006-10-15 @ 10:34 am — rc

Fish at 280 Bleecker street is a simple but charming fish restaurant, which by the way offers great happy hour prices from 12 to 7 pm with PBR for only $1.50 and tab beers for only $3.00. Their menu ranges from Chilean sea bass, sword fish, red snapper to Chatham cod fish. On the unfinished brown stone walls of the interior hangs a collection of sea resort paraphernalia, like crab traps, direction signs of red painted capitals on a small dry wooden board, spelling the name of a long forgotten or imaginary fish restaurant, pieces of net, and classic beer advertisements, surrounding the dark tables and chairs along the bar and fish display window, where fresh fish is cooled on packs of crushed ice that covers half of the glass sides. On our table a polished set of metal forks and knifes rest on the white cotton napkin along which side runs one azure blue stripe, in the white porcelain shine and the crystal reflection of my beerglass flickers the white wax candle. I ordered Spinney Greek steamers, steamed in PBR and jalepenos for starters and grilled Chilean sea bass. The meals are good in their simplicity and you should stick to the sea menu, but it is a good place for a discussion over dinner with affordable drinks in an authentic atmosphere.328

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Enid’s firsts

2006-09-25 @ 9:07 pm — rc

The heavy dresser behind the bar counter at Enid’s conveniently serves as the liquor stands, holding the almost antique looking cashier and many drinking glasses. As looks the whole of Enid’s as a conveniently improvised cafe, where the eclectic collection of chairs and tables is a perfectly natural motley crew of furniture. So may it be forgiven, that the music being played is as odd of a mix from seventies to nineties pop to alternative guiter rock.

The cafe is located in the middle of Greenpoint, the Polish neighborhood, and across the street from the Polish National Home, Warsaw.

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http://www.enids.net/

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A diaspora under the midtown stars

2006-09-11 @ 9:38 am — rc

A jerk threw Catherine’s head backward, while her eyes opened wide and her hands fell forward to correct her balance. ‘Oh my god, I keep stepping in these holes,’ she added apologetically peering down at her heels. She pulled her heels out of the rubber mats that were spread across the roof top of the penthouse as apartments on the highest floor are called in this section of town. ‘You should have worn flats,’ Sarah giggled, kicking her black velvet slipper up. Sarah was a short girl with straw blond hair over her shoulders, and who studied for her MBA Masters.

‘You know my family are from Russia, or at least my grandfather moved to Belarus at the beginning of the war, because my family is Jewish, searching a debtor in Canada, but then ended up staying in Montreal, then moving to America later on.’
‘Good move.’
‘Well that’s an understatement, he would have been dead like the other half of my family.’
‘So, you’re Russian then?’
‘Well, my mother’s family actually comes from Germany, my grandmother used to tell me how they went to Baden-Baden, you know the spa resort…’
‘Yes, of course…’

‘Although, my family is from everywhere, you know we were able to trace down our family until the 15th century. They were traders who lived in Venice, Morocco, all over Europe. I was in Prague last year, and my mother told me I should go to the Jewish cemetary and look for the biggest stone.’
‘Ah, I went to see it, but you had to pay an entrance fee, so I only peered through the spiles.’
‘Well, I was with four friends and looked for the biggest stone, and it was actually pretty silly, cause I don’t speak or read Hebrew any more, so we couldn’t read the grave’s epithets. But it was nice, to pay our respect we places some pebbles on the top. But then we saw another stone, and we were like ‘hey I think that one is even bigger’ so we placed another stone at the other one too…’
‘So how many pebbles did you end up placing?’
‘Four, but I thought, hey, it is a sign of paying your respect, so in the worst case, we paid our respect to three other dead men.’

I looked at the stars, at the table full of half empty wine bottles, rose, white and red, plastic cups and Pinot Noir/Burgundy glassware. The city streets aligned with yellow streetlights reflected the dim lights of the sky with a surreal brightness. This city was a brilliant home under the stars for Sarah’s tales, this night absorbed her tales without objection.

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