Cheap Beer In New York City?!

In honor of the fact that another Friday is upon us and that there no doubt plenty of people taking a detour on the way home to get absolutely sloshed, I proudly present McSorley's, where you can still get two beers for 5 American dollars (cash only).

15 East Seventh Street
(Third Avenue)
New York, N.Y. 10003

Like any good old ale house, McSorley's and its patrons do not have a record of when the place actually opened; the sign says 1854, however, and I'm sticking with that.  When rioting Irish-Americans pretty much burnt many parts of lower Manhattan to the ground during the draft riots of July 1863, they were careful to keep their watering hole and veritable community center largely intact.  The place has stood and gathered dust ever since, one of the few physical things in New York that has passively resisted change by simply not changing.  Its a lovely experience, and for just five dollars, you can get a light and a dark (or two of each), the only beer they serve.  Perhaps it was the awareness of being in what is pretty much the closest thing to the heart of Irish (North) American history, but that beer tasted pretty damn good the first and every time since that I have had it.

The walls are covered in various pictures and paintings, many of them with as much dust on them as the rest of the place.

And of course, the floor is covered in sawdust.

Those pictures though, some of them give hints that there have been visitors here beyond what the management claims.  One particular New Yorker who first showed me the place insists that the Kennedy brothers came here for a victory drink after Jack won the presidency.  I have a pretty good feeling that Mr. Roosevelt the first came here now and then during his policeman days; there's no proof, but it just seems to fit his character.  While his sort was much more from the other side of town, and though he personally loathed populist politics, well, he was also no stuck-up rich snob.  In many ways, McSorley's was the beating heart of old New York.  Take what I say with a grain of salt, of course, because I've only been a frequent visitor and temporary resident in the city.  The best way to experience the place, as usual, is to come see it.   They have food.  I've never had it.  It's probably good stuff, though I usually wander around the neighborhood later and find rare odd-ball things like Khyber Pass, an Afghan restaurant just around the corner.  There is nothing like having Afghan cuisine served to you by a Russian waitress...

Oh, and did I mention that there are restrooms on the premises?  The gents have urinals that you pretty much can't miss, no matter how many lights and darks you have had.  The first time I saw them I nearly burst out laughing.  Like the urinals, the other best free part about McSorley's is that it is really off the beaten path while still largely accessible.  Most tourists don't head anywhere near here, which is not to say there is nothing to see here.  The cheapest attraction in New York City is just walking around and enjoying the experience, and there is no shortage of great shops, restaurants, art, music, and pieces of history to be found in East Village.  It's also probably one of the best places, aside from Harlem, to see how average Manhattan people exist (at least until rezoning and gentrification really get underway).   

Destination Food In Your Backyard

I was going to continue with the food posts today, covering a delightful Buffalo treasure known as the hot wing, but I searched in vain for a decent picture of the Anchor Bar, home of the "Buffalo Wing".  I've mostly gone at night, and the best I had were some very fuzzy images of their sign.  It's a wonderful place, one of many reasons to go to western New York, and I really recommend their cheese garlic bread to be enjoyed alongside their wings.   Then I realized that, in addition to not having any good pictures of anything, I was pretty much devoting a week to fast food.  While such worship is part of the American religion, this felt wrong.  People from around the world have taken a peek at this blog, and if I really want to talk about North American food, I figured I should probably talk more about Native American food, as well as more traditional fare of us newcomers from abroad.  The problem is, outside of pre-Columbian Mexican cuisine, Ojibwe and Algonquin fare, and a half bad look at how we improved on the eternal boil that is British food, I lack the proper experience to share more on such matters.

Worse, I have not done a lot of destination dining as far as such things go, or at least I've never organized my thoughts much on the places I have been.  Instead of heading head first into a food week, then, I'm going to take us to such places as a lowcountry boil when I get to them, that is to say getting to the stomach once I have visited the landscape and the history.  In the meantime, I'm going to issue a challenge to my readers: find out what sort of regional cuisine you have, and start with the First Born.  They've been here a lot longer than us colonial types, and as a result have used the ingredients on hand a lot more.  I'll start!

Here in southeastern Michigan, in addition to having access to passably decent maple syrup, and trading access to some of the best stuff in our own northern lower peninsula, we've also long since had a variety of fruits, from plums, paw paws, blueberries, and persimmons to later introductions of apples and berries; the climate here is excellent for temperate fruit trees, as we get much in the way of winter chill without excessive cold.  This part of Michigan was historically part of the Sauk and Fox nations, which after the Black Hawk War.  They were later joined by the Wendat (Huron) people, who were most likely also here and in neighboring southern Ontario centuries before their arrival in exile after their near destruction in 1649 (long story).  All of these people were excellent farmers, growing squash, beans, and corn (the three sisters), like many people in North America.   They were also expert fishers, Michigan being absolutely permeated by waterways.  Tomorrow being Friday, I'll talk about a particularly wonderful catch then, one less common so far south as Lake Erie and Lake Saint Clair.

I've barely scratched the surface on local food, not even touching the contributions of many later peoples such as the Polish, and yet we've already found quite the buffet set up for us, a vegetarian and fishy one at that.  Fear not, meat eaters, there were also plenty of ungulates around to be hunted, and the deer have yet to catch on that this is not really a wilderness anymore.  That said, find out what's in your backyard; even if it is a cuisine that has evolved from far away places and through millennia of development, the truth remains that fresh and local is making a comeback, probably because it tastes just a bit more real.  There's a reason to be mindful of history and geography, after all, as a sense of continuity is helpful for figuring out perspective.   

Gyros In The Mojave

If you thought the end of the last post was either a crazy, desperate attempt at making junk food sentimentally patriotic, or just crazy silliness, then you are well prepared for something truly insane that will be shared today: The Mad Greek.  This is a restaurant that has all the charms of what one would expect from a Greek-American eatery that does its best to compete with the house in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Click on the image for a higher resolution version, or even save this and let your computer zoom it in for you on your image viewer.

Sadly, I don't have too many more pictures of the place, or at least none that I find readily accessible.   This one gives the glamor shot though, complete with as many Olympian statues as one can handle.  Inside, the place feels like a tourist visitor center, had one just landed at the airport at Athens.  They are pretty much a fantastic road trip stopping point, offering good air conditioning in one of the hottest places in California (Death Valley and only about a thousand and change feet of elevation lies northward, and the road to get there, California 127, actually is the left turn at this pictured intersection) as well as free public restrooms and... until 2014, the best gyros I have had in the United States of America.  The Fleetwood in Ann Arbor, Michigan, recently trumped this, but as I have not been back to Baker, California, where this wonderful pit stop is, since 2010... well...  Let's just say I want to go back.  Baker pretty much being almost as dead center into the Mojave as one can get, I think I have a pretty good excuse.

But again, the food.  The gyros are massive.  This is one of those times where I was so into the food that I failed to take any actual pictures of it, but trust me when I say that you will not need fries or even a drink to feel full.  The meat is excellent, the veggies are better, but what really makes this one stand out is the sauce.  They must put ambrosia in it or something, because it tastes amazing.  So what does it all mean, and why would I turn the blog into something resembling a lousy junk food review?  Well, the Mad Greek, like Baker itself, is something that pretty much only exists because of the American notion of transit.  When the railroad left, modern roads like I-15 moved in, and what you have is a crazy restaurant in a small crazy town in the middle of sand flats which were once lakes and rivers.  On the negative side, it is also a distraction, a man-made oasis that makes people remember their creature comforts and forget how truly awesome the North American deserts are.  Instead of enjoying traveling past ancient volcanic features and through Joshua Tree (Yucca Brevifolia) forests, the modern driver is convinced to speed through the place as fast as possible until one sees signs of "civilization", however crazy and fun they might be.

In fact, you'll have no problem at all trying to get to the Mad Greek, as the billboards are everywhere, starting mostly in Vegas heading south.

This is actually right outside of Baker, and you can see what amazing beauty lies all around Baker.  Those green larger bushes are Creosote (Larrea Tridentata), lovely little things that are probably also incredibly ancient.  They smell amazing, especially after a rain, one of the reasons to go visit the desert for its own sake. 

Instead of the wonders of the desert, one finds comfort in a rest stop or even a road sign and is immediately drawn to something garish like said billboard.  I say this because such was the reaction of many of the other patrons in the gyro palace, happy that they had been rescued from the "monotony" and "lifelessness" of the place they had to drive to get between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.  Don't get me wrong, the sauce and even shakes are worth the drive, but they are pretty much a minor bonus feature to the privilege of being in a land the 'Aha Makhav (Mojave) have long considered a pretty amazing home.  If you find yourself passing through Baker, stop on by for a gyro or a salad (and get some iced tea with some amazing fresh lemons), but also consider taking a few minutes to drive up 127 or back up the nearby Cima dome to enjoy the various easy access vistas this destination dining can lead you to. 

Philadelphia: City Of Brotherly Sandwich

Part of the fun experience of traveling is to find lodging and food that is local flavor.  Its nice to see the mundane as an evolution from ages of cultural development, and how particular regions and even cities and towns have produced both high and low culture with their own touches as a result.  Sometimes it can be hard to find something that is not overly "tourist", but sometimes you have to sit back, laugh at the kitsch, and dive right in.

Philadelphia, like any destination city, is full of things drawing tourists into the bright, sparkling lights.  It manages to do this in a way that very much blends in with the normal reality of the city, however, and even though some places feel like a museum packed into a modern mess of skyscrapers and freeways, she does so out of concern for the past while moving on with the future.  "Out with the old, in with the new" does not apply here.  That's a tangent for a different time, but the lesson holds strong in the living example of finding a place to eat the local flavor.  When I was last there in 2014, I had a choice between going to some re-invented gastro pub that was a recreation of some colonial era tavern, or... Pat's King of Steaks.

This was not a hard decision to make.  What might have been hard was choosing to go there, or to Geno's, right across the street.

But, being a traditionalist, as Pat's claims they started the whole thing, and far more attracted to the particular smells coming out of Pat's (not to mention the faster moving line), I went for it.

Despite what some reviews might say, Pat's gives you a pretty impressive sandwich.  That, some fries, and a coke (9-10 bucks total) was more than enough to sate me for some time, and it was a pretty active day walking around much of the historic core of the city.  The steak was definitely better than what is offered for the sandwich in most other places, the cheese was pretty delightful (but honestly, as much as it sounds gross, traditionally I would have been better off going with cheese-whiz than with American, at least according to my traveling companion, as it melts and fills the thing so much better), and the bread was pretty good.  The most refreshing feature, however, was seeing the options in a nice grill from which one could self serve.  There were peppers, more onions, etc. piled together with condiments.  You can see one of the wee green peppers behind my sandwich.  Normally I'm not much of a pepper guy, but... amazing little things.  Grilled to perfection.

All in all, a pretty enjoyable experience, with a caveat: Know what you want (use the website for instruction) when you order, or else they kick you to the back of the line.  They serve people fast, and don't like to mess it up.  Seating is somewhat limited, but the tables were moving pretty fast, like the service.  In terms of accessibility, the steak shops are off the beaten path, decently south of the historic core.  Some people have said that the neighborhoods are scary, which I suppose is true if you have lived in a cave outside of some no name town in North Dakota your whole life.  As a reward for braving the non-tourist actual city, you get to see a small slice of how the normal folk live.  My take?  Pretty clean, pretty open and airy, fairly laid-back compared to New York or Washington. 

Passyunk ave and Wharton st., looking south, right across from Pat's.

Really, the neighborhood is one of families and working people, ethnically diverse and with typical urban east coast atmosphere.  We went at lunch time and the place had quite a few suits milling about.  Multiple bus lines are in the area, and if you drive, you just need to sneak a few blocks away and find a parallel parking spot.  Tip: try it off of the main eating hours for easier access.  Otherwise, be prepared to find a space in this:

South along 10th street, beside Capitolo Park/Playground, a block walk from Pat's.

Now, as for the sandwich itself, I would say that the Philly is a pretty average street food for something from an east coast city.  You get the sandwich, something European if not downright traditionally English, then you get the American spin on it turning it into something huge and more than just a snack, and then you get really good meat, lots of it, and on a superior bun, representing the Italian blessing on most east coast street and deli cuisine.  It's a democratic sandwich that has evolved in a city born of liberty, that has survived total transformation by government and high finance, and ended up as a place where you can get relatively greasy, cooked with gusto, here-enjoy-this eating.  You had suits next to tourists next to construction workers, and no one gave off any attitude or got in anyone's way. 

Next: Greek food... in the desert?!

Sunday Afternoon Post: Poutine

I decided to make this first of bad-for-you destination food posts on our perennial heart-stopper, monsieur poutine, short and sweet.  I have written about him before:

http://americanvoyages.blogspot.com/2012/07/poutine-mes-amis-poutine.html

Alas, then I did not have a picture to share.  I warned the timid readers out there before that it might look disgusting, and to quite a few people it does.  Voila!

Come closer.  It won't bite. 

Yep, that's the real deal, from Riverview Snack Shack in Mattawa, Ontario.  Coincidentally, they have the best hamburgers in the world there as well, but I can save that for a more detailed post.  Today, just enjoy the thick gravy, melted curds, and amazing fries sitting together in French Canada's answer to the query "and what shall your street food be?"  In our next post, the gravy train goes to visit Philadelphia, home of the cheese steak sandwich. 

Real Maple Syrup: Finale

Not too much today, just a little bit on the actual goods themselves.  Much of it speaks for itself, and the best way to now truly get to know maple syrup is to try some!  Despite my warnings as to what constitutes good, holy, and amazing syrup, give your local producers a shot first, or at least as close as you can get, because nothing compares with the taste of home, or at the very least, familiarity.  If you have trees of your own and the previous year was of average to generous precipitation, consider tapping one yourself once you learn the basics!  The sap, the most basic product, is very much edible and pretty much one of the best "flavored waters" you can get from mother nature, at least where they grow (I'm still learning to like coconut water).  It's pretty pure stuff, at least if the land on which your maple grows is.  As normal, never tap or consume anything wild unless you know what you've got.

As far as the syrup goes, keep in mind that you may sometimes find varieties ranging from really thick and dark stuff (awesome for baking and cooking) to medium (your average, good for pancakes syrup, what most default options will be) to light (which is nice to drizzle on desserts).   One recommendation I cannot help but make, regardless of "grade", is source simplicity: keep it from one place.  Unless your source is so far south or west that the syrup needs a boost from elsewhere, let your syrup be the child of a single sugar bush.  If they only have blends available, maybe... just move on.  There is usually no reason for a Quebec or Vermont maker to draw on blends from outside their territory, so if you see such a thing, definitely go running or stick with their single source stuff.  That goes for wine, too.  Sure, that blend of grapes might be tasty, but you're a sinner for drinking it.  I'm not a snob, or anything, just a picky traditionalist.

Anyway!

The syrup can provide a candy like treat in and of itself, when drizzled on snow.  This is best after it is freshly boiled up, and sugar makers love to give out free samples if you happen to visit them at this time of chilly bliss.  This is obviously usually done far enough north where snow persists well into March and even April, depending on harvest and production time.  In Quebec, this culinary art is practically a required event for citizens and visitors alike.  This can also be done even with the raw syrup, which I have only done once, on the Seneca nation reservation south of Buffalo, NY.  While the syrup gives you something more of the consistency of candy/taffy, the sap gives you a veritable snow cone, be it a very watery one.  Experiment!  Make ice-cream!

Oh, don't forget the actual sugar.  It works just as well if not better than cane or beet sugar.  I have never tried it in tea or coffee, but I am sure it would work fine.  The best part, though?  The candies!

They are not for everyone, but give them a chance.  They taste amazing.  Let them melt in your mouth!  If you feel unpatriotic about the maple leaf shape, have no fear, I have even seen Ethan Allen-shaped candies, and even various native hero candies.  Speaking of which, if you get the chance, find such a native hero.  Sometimes tradition tastes really good. 

Coming up next, a slew of posts on various other destination foods, domestic and imported!   

Poutine, mes amis, poutine!

This felt worthy of a second post today:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012207220450

God bless Sylvia Rector for bringing the world this news!

Poutine has made its way into Michigan (finally), and hopefully decent gravy will be seen more often because of it.

For my readers who do not know what this lovely dish is, Poutine is cheese curds, french fries, and gravy.  Now, let me break that down a bit more...

Cheese curds are cheese curds, not a bag of shredded cheeses.  They should ideally be made of cheddar or something as close as possible, and they should be white or something off white, not yellow, not orange.  This may seem to be fighting over minutiae and purely an aesthetic issue, but it is not.  Trust me on this one.  I'm Franco-Ontarian.  Now this might sound nationalistic, but you Americans (outside of Wisconsin) do not know how to make these things.  There are exceptions, sometimes even from chains like Culver's, a Mid/Nearwestern fast food place that serves them deep fried.  I swear, Culver's must have been started by an Englishman... they deep fry things that should never be deep fried, and you know what?  The world is a greater place because of them!

French Fries are french fries, made from scratch, not thawed out of a bag and certainly not anything other than good old fashioned french fries.  Shoestrings, waffles, etc. need not apply.  We are talking chips here, or frites, depending on the particular formula of Canadian you consist of.  Again with the nationalism, you complain!  Well, we are talking about a Canadian dish here.  Anyway, think pub fries.  McDonald's need not apply in this situation, as good as the little salty potato things are the rest of the time.

GRAVY!  The United States of America is nearly incapable of making good gravy!  Americans misidentify it all the time!  You shudder when I mention that it could be good with french fries, and I know not why, because you like it with mashed potatoes (even if the kind you serve with it is tolerable at best).  Gravy, from beef stock, needs to be reasonably thick when you pour it out, akin to the consistency of maple syrup (and don't even get me started on that topic).  People who can do gravy right in the United States mainly live in Michigan's upper peninsula and often consume their version with their wonderful pasties.

Gross, you say?  No more than Chili Fries and Coney Dogs.  Again, trust me here, one bite and you will forget all about how it looks.  Two bites and you might need a defibrillator, but one bite and you will have a nice preview of the heaven you will soon find yourself in.  Yes, yes, it is exceptionally bad for you.

Where did it come from?  As is the case with the origin of most cocktails and comfort foods, everyone claims to be the source of this amazing dish.  What most can agree on with certainty is that Poutine is a French-Canadian thing.  The Quebecois claim, along with most anything culturally French-Canadian, that it is theirs.  I personally think that it developed over time, owing to the unique combination of ingredients that account for slightly different tastes, in the many domestic and restaurant kitchens of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa River valleys.  It probably spread so well because it was served in little road side burger booths that catered to summer cottagers, and before then and during the winter, inns that wanted to present travelers with the comforting taste of home.  It is a very powerful food for Franco-Ontarians, a remnant of a culture that has long been under a process of assimilation into the rest of Ontarian society.  For a Franco-Ontarian living in the United States, it is like manna from heaven.  Comfort food indeed.

Where can you get it?  Tons of places over in Canada, and if my American readers are willing to brave the frontier, they can find it almost right off the bridge at Harvey's (note: Harvey's, not a misspelling of Hardee's).  For a fast food chain, they make the stuff almost as if they invented it.

My favorite place in the world to get it, and a wonderful example of one of those roadside burger stands at that, is at Riverview Burgers in Mattawa, Ontario, at the corner of Valois drive (Highway 17) and Ottawa street, right on the Ottawa River.  As if it were the cultural epicenter of the wonderful world of Poutine (and yes, I will always capitalize the word), you can enjoy it with a peameal bacon burger while you gaze across la fleuve to Quebec under the Canadian, Ontarian, Quebecois, and Franco-Ontarian flags which are lined along the road, and yes, they serve pink cream soda as well.

How about here?  Well, check out the article for some ideas, but with the exception of the Brooklyn Street Local restaurant, most of the varieties on display are, well, varieties, and not the real deal.  I know American cuisine basically transforms most cultural dishes into uniquely American versions, but there are also many of you that enjoy "authentic" tastes!  I'm not saying don't touch the stuff, but at least start with the original.  Sylvia Rector has excellent taste and sure knows food well, so actually, by all means, try the other kinds.  Just... try the original first.

Where can you get the real deal then?  Mikey's Burgers and Fries!  Co-founded by a homesick Canadian, Mikey's offers a mozzarella-based Poutine as a side dish or single entree.  I was told they use mozzarella curds because the regular stuff is hard to find south of the border here, and they want it fresh, not shipped from Wisconsin.  To be honest, as this was the first place I found it in my current land of residence, that small deficiency did not matter, and I dug into it with passionate gusto.  I have to say, between finding this place back two months ago and reading Sylvia's article tonight in the paper, well, I have hopes for the future of a blessed Detroit-Windsor hub of world culture.

Again, thanks to Sylvia Rector and the fine people at the Detroit Free Press.