Day 5 Ella Cafe, Odessa, Oasis

This was the day we planned on going to the Natural History Museum but first we had to have breakfast/lunch. We ran into the same dietary obstacles as the night before only this time I was very cranky from lack of sleep and food.

After a long very unpleasant search up and down Bedford ave. we finally settled on a new agey overly modern place called Ella Cafe. I got a ordered the tomato soup with meatballs and a small green salad. Both of these where entirely bland and to add insult to injury the meatballs where strangely rubbery. I suppose places that advertise themselves as organic and healthy are just as suspect here as they are back home.

That night we had planned on having a dinner meeting to work on our Cultures of Wonder project. We needed a place we could sit and drink at for a long time. Where better for such a meeting than the legendary East Village Russian diner Odessa?

Between the four of us I think we ate close to fifteen pounds of food. I ordered the Odessa combination plate which came with a kielbasa sausage, a giant pile of sour kraut, a huge potato pancake and four perogies which I gave to Kirstin. I also ordered a bowl of borsht.

I know that of the two major Russian restaurants in the area Veselka is considered the better. I can’t really remember the difference from when I lived here but I can’t see how any home style Russian food could be better than what I ate that night. To a certain degree Russian food is simple enough that there really isn’t too much space for flare or nuance. At the end of the day a kielbasa is a kielbasa and a potato pancake is just a really good patty of hash browns. Still living on the west coast and not spending a lot of time in the Richmond district I’ve truly missed this type of food. This was a meal to rival any I’ve eaten in all my culinary adventures.

Later that night we headed back to Oasis. Once again I got the grilled lamb plate and ate the whole thing. I think there’s a good chance I ate more meet in a twenty four hour period this day than I ever have in my entire life.


Lamb Kabob from Oasis

Day 2 Oasis, Nyonya

Lunch was at Oasis, a small middle eastern place in Williamsburg right by the Bedford stop. I'd been there last time I was in New York with my friend Erin Melina Stamos. We went at three a.m. and I remember I kept asking her on the way over "are you sure they'll be open?". I'd been away from New York too long.

Erin's raves on our cab ride over that night a few months ago were mostly about Oasis' amazing pickles which were one of the highlights of the Shish Kabob plate I ordered. The cabbage salad, babaganoush and hot sauce were pretty memorable as well. There grilled lamb was as good as grilled lamb can be, which is pretty good. My one complaint would be that, since I'm gluten intolerant, I had to order the plate instead of the pita which was twice the price at $10.

We had dinner with the aforementioned Erin at Nyonya, a Malaysian place in Chinatown. Erin had been raving about it to me over the phone. I'd been pretty excited about Indonesian food recently and been looking for an opportunity to explore their neighboring country's cuisine. When we arrived, the countless reviews on the wall and the constant (but short) wait for a table seemed to back up Erin's claims.

We ordered four dishes to share between us. A roti bread thing with dipping sauce, a plate of traditional pickles, a whole fish with mango and "shrimps with lady fingers (okra)". The roti I couldn't eat because it had wheat but the dipping sauce with chicken chunks had a nice creamy curry texture I was familiar with from Indonesian cuisine. The pickles too were similar to the turmeric-infused ones I'd fallen in love with at my favorite Indonesian place back home. However these were a little sweeter and thicker with sesame seeds and cabbage added to the traditional carrots and persian cucumbers.

The fish was a delightful crispy fried creation topped with spiced apple and mango. You would not believe how well we did extracting the meat and crispy skin from that thing. The last dish, the "lady fingers" was too overwhelmed with shrimp paste for me to eat all that much of it (although Erin Says it's usually much milder). The taste of fermented seafood is something I've found a little too pungent for my western palate to take in large doses.

To add to this, the dishes I saw pass us on there way to other tables were of such a large variety I could easily see myself returning here countless times and never ordering the same thing. I will be back.

Not Breakfast

I always wake up ready for breakfast. I love cereal, eggs over medium, scones, mimosas, toast with jam, mochas, fruit, home fries, omelets, you name it. Well, okay, not bacon or sausage obviously. Something about meat kind of grosses me out - especially the texture. That's why I don't like substitute meat products either. The more they taste and feel like meat the less I'm into them. There's always a debate when we get up in the morning about where we're going to get food. I'm all about brunch places, but there is usually nothing Damian can eat there since he isn't able to eat gluten, lactose, or eggs. So yesterday I decided I would hold off on my inevitable insistence that we try the brunch place across the street from where we're staying. Instead we headed to Oasis, a middle eastern place right near the Bedford subway station, and I scanned the section titled "Vegetarian" in the menu above the counter. For having a whole section of veggie items, my options consisted mostly of sides like dolmas and yogurt with cucumbers, so I opted for the spanakopita. That was the closest thing I could find to something I might want as the first thing in my stomach for the day. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, if it's the first thing I'm going to eat, I want it to be breakfasty. Damian's pile of meat, pickled cabbbage, and baba ganoush looked really great. I think that's why people go there - it's not the spanakopita. Of course the spanakopita was already doomed in my book since it wasn't a crispy belgian waffle with fresh strawberries and home-made whipped cream.


Later on we went out for Malaysian food at Nyonya. Damian enticed me with promises of mangos. I loved the pickles, which were heavy with sauce but still fresh feeling (in a way that only pickled veggies can feel fresh). The shrimp with okra was doused in shrimp sauce, which I found funny. Shrimp with shrimp sauce. The roti was nice and the lychee drink was satisfying especially because they didn't skimp on lychees. The highlight, though, was the whole mango fish which was well worth the time it took to pull the bits of fish off the bone. I think there was not a speck of white meat or crunchy skin left by the time I let the waiter take it away. A nice ending for a day that did not begin with breakfast.

Malaysian pickles: