I took a red-eye shuttle from the Santa Barbara Airbus terminal and had a half-scenic bus ride down from heaven to hell (LAX). I daydreamed in a daze about the ethereality of the town I was leaving behind and flicked through digital notes about a city I last visited several years ago. I woke up at Astoria Seafood.
I knew nothing about Astoria other than that the neighbourhood my cousins stayed in had several trains under 15 minutes into Manhattan, I imagined going into the office and having a cartoonish boston creme latte or something American like that, sending four emails, and walking past Macy’s and through Central Park, like the ‘year-in-new-york’ every third culture yuppie is told to promise to themselves. I wondered what the current ‘Its’ of town was, and it was ‘PopUp Bagels’ - a 20-minute queue where your order is taken standing outdoors and then thrown at you once inside. It was a brilliant bagel, especially with the pound of maple butter on the side. I lampooned SB and AJ that they lived in a bad mix-up of South and East London with the slickness of just about having an Empire State Building view. Between the biryani shops and Bengali butchers with sign-fronts in Spanish, outside of a Qawah House, I was reminded I’m by Flushing, the most ethnically diverse neighbourhood in the world.
Astoria Seafood had the buzz of Picadilly Circus on a cool summer evening at sunset, ostensibly Grecian or Arabic music playing; infinite crustaceans and brusque but highly efficient service bringing 7 types of seafood for 40$ (not available at Piccadilly Circus).
Taking Seafood to new levels
In Williamsburg, I queued seemingly too long for a Paulie Gee’s slice and had a mozz-something or the other, thinking about a reservation at Rolo’s in the evening, all the way out in Ridgewood. Pierce Abernathy said something about the two-ply lasagna and miffed that I was missing his supper clubs, I was determined to have one tastefully trendy experience. Unfortunately, it ended up being a fable in not trusting reel recommendations, bad service, forgettable mains, and most of all - the pork lasagna ended up being a no-go. The moodiness of the restaurant made up for it a little.
At Happier Grocery, after a needless lunch in the Sant Ambroeus covid-patio, I had an LA afternoon again. The eggs in death-metal cartons, the water in death-metal cans, the exposed back-kitchen shelving, the ‘everything-herb’ oil, the ‘light-greens’ juice - I oscillated between glee and disgust, wondering when the overpaid creator-finance bubble would burst. The blank-street lifestyle was alive and well in a white-pillared townhouse in TriBeCa.
Manhattan was in perfect form, in search of the famous dosa which I’ve never despite several trips, I walked through Washington Square Park and saw young lovers, Tisch graduations, skateboarders having a fight. I planned a visit to Kalyustan’s after remembering Feroz suggest it. I saw the New Yorker cover about Lucy Letby and moped around avoiding levain and a bit upset that Happy Bones had closed; not that it would’ve been any good anyway.
