A couple of years ago, I ranted about the utterly heinous Pistilli conversion over by Astoria Park. Due to the suckitude of Yahoo, all the brilliant comments are now lost, but at least I don’t feel alone in my loathing of Pistilli and its distinctly horrible aesthetics.
But bitchery always has a price. Now there’s a Pistilli project going up on the very next block from me.
A little while back, I mentioned the blog New York Knife & Fork.
My suspicions about its overall uselessness were confirmed when she reviewed the joint right around the corner from my house, a Bosnian restaurant called Pasha.
Call me old-fashioned, but I think that a restaurant reviewer (especially a self-proclaimed one) should adhere to a certain code of ethics. Specifically, when confronted with a cuisine you know fuck-all about, you have a few options:
I’m still a little bitter over the loss of the French bakery on Broadway. But I can understand it. Astoria is not a French neighborhood. And for some reason, its residents seem impervious to the use of butter and sugar in the right proportions.
But a Craiglist ad suggests that the (I thought) successful Laziza, which rocks the house with Mid East pastries, is up for sale.
Oh, that is just the fucking coolest. I need more theme cakes in my life. (Scroll through the photostream to see more pics.)
The funny thing is, I was just at the Brooklyn Kitchen, for a pig-butchering demo (more on that in a bit), and I saw that very same pirate-ship cake mold. “Rad!” I thought. And then, “Agh–dangerously close to Williams-Sonoma.” And I turned away.
I recently came across (OK, no, Peter forwarded me the links) two blogs doing reviews of Astoria restaurants.
Every Restaurant in Astoria seems like the more promising, if only because its authors recognize the sheer foolishness of their endeavor: “like Sisyphus, but with gyros,” as they put it. I like their moxie, and their attitude comes through loud and clear in their review of Sparrow, which pretty accurately gets at the hipster/no-hipster dilemma of Astoria.
We went to the St. Francis of Asisi crab feast in Baltimore again. It was fantastic. They had a new caterer this year, which may be why the crabs seemed plumper and the side dishes were tastier. Zim Zemelman and his orchestra were replaced by some new dame, but the monsignor still played the trombone, and the guy with the big moustache spun the wheel of fortune (Peter won big at the liquor wheel!). And of course there was a crazy lady stuffing crabs in her purse–there’s always one.
Since last week was Blog Black Hole Week, I’m only now catching up….
There was an article, “The Anti-Restaurants,” on bad-ass supper clubs in the New York Times last week.
Initially I was miffed that Tamara and I didn’t get our due for five long years of culinary cool (we were roasting whole lambs on spits when those boar-butchering brats were in diapers!). As usual, as the media usually tells it, all the action is in Brooklyn. Whatev.
But then I got to the very end of the story, and read this:
As she was packing her knives, Ms. Lombard, the professional caterer, gave the dinner a grade of C-. She came as a friend and unpaid helper to learn molecular gastronomy techniques but instead wound up doing everything from washing dishes to taking out the trash. “When this last course comes out,” she said toward the end of her 12-hour shift, “I’m going to go to McDonald’s and get a Big Mac with extra pickles.”
So, basically, Brooklyn’s underground supper-club scene is totally freakin’ rad…but the food sucks? Interesting premise.
Now I’m relieved Sunday Night Dinner (Sometimes on Saturday, or Friday, or Even Wednesday) was not mentioned at all. Not the greatest company, you know? Because SNDSSFEW does A++++ food, goddamnit, and we don’t make Jell-O out of pot liquor (see earlier in the story for this particularly vile idea).
Just sign me,
Keepin’ It Real in Queens
When I first moved to Astoria in 1998 (ten years ago right about now, in fact), I was biking around, exploring way up in the northern end of the neighborhood.
Up in this mostly industrial area, I found a weird block that felt almost like I was back in Indiana, where I’d just come from. At the start of the block, there were sidewalks and warehouses. Then the sidewalks fell away, the street got narrower, and the trees met overhead. The street went up a little hill, and all of the sudden I felt like I was in the country.
At the top of the hill was a big, tumble-down house, surrounded with an overgrown yard. Dogs barked behind a scraggly fence. But the house was huge and gorgeous, well past its prime–the kind of deeply flawed thing you fall in love with and spend the rest of your life regretting.
Then I biked on, back down the hill, and the sidewalks returned, and the city fabric stitched right up behind me. I felt like I’d passed through a little hole into a fantasy world for a second–or at least a spooky young-adult novel.
I spent the next few years imagining myself living in this house, on this country-in-the-city block.
And then I found out the place wasn’t just any old house–it was the Steinway Mansion. (Yes, the Steinways. The piano factory is still here, and you can take tours.) I knew the place was big–but I didn’t know it was a gen-yoo-ine mansion!
The Steinway Mansion is no longer owned by the Steinway family, but by a man of Armenian descent whose father bought it in the early 20th century. The current owner has spent most of his life and money trying to keep the place up.
I admit that when I first read about this, I sent the owner a letter, asking if I could come take a look around. That was in 2005. Still no answer.
But now, I read, the Steinway Mansion is for sale! I guess I can just pretend I have $4 million to throw down, and take a tour of the 25 rooms with the agent.
I was going to say the brokers could spot a poser from a mile away, but then I looked at the listing. I don’t think these brokers are used to dealing with such big-ticket items.
One tip-off: for $4 million, can’t you at least get your photos rotated properly?
Peter suggested that maybe that’s how the rooms really are. And those photos are actual size. No wonder it didn’t look like much of a mansion when I first biked by.
Spare change, anybody? I’ve got a really good credit score, so I can probably get by with a pretty low down payment…
No, really.
And for once, I didn’t say it. John Vinocur did, in a lovely essay in the International Herald-Tribune.
The only part I’m not so keen on, predictably, is his suggestion to drive a car. And he even admits you can’t get all the way to the beach in a car, because of the parking regulations–so why even start? Though if you were to ride a bike instead, you might not want to bother switching to a horse midway through the trip, as he directs you to.
Wonderful story in the NYT about the president of the Greater Astoria Historical Society. He’s a doorman! Who knew? And he rides his bike to work. We even own some of his books.