What they won’t cook for work.

Tags

bushwick, eats, food, greco, knickerbocker, mangos, pichos, street

Mangos and fried macaroni

I usually tell people that the last place I want to be… is a poor American neighborhood. There is nothing worse than a poor black, or white American neighborhood; there is no industry and it’s fucking depressing.

Bushwick, on the other hand, is overflowing with latino immigrants, who will do anything for work. This is where I live, and I have to admit… I have become spoiled. On Knickerbocker from Myrtle all the way down to the Maria Hernandez park, there are street venders at least every fifteen feet, pushing any number of products, but ninety percent if it is food.

You got tamale ladies who come out round 6:30 in the am, selling tamales freshly made in their own home (I assume). They usually sell three or four different flavors, Verde, Roja, Mole and Dulce, and for a drink the sell horchata, which come the winter, is extremely popular. The customers run the gamut from families on their way to work or church, or you have vaqueros still drunk from the night before. Verde (green sauce), Roja (red sauce) and Mole (a sweet dark sauce) are all severed with chicken. For me it’s a toss up between Verde or Roja, I usually get one of each ($1.25 each) and eat which ever one has the right consistency of spice and texture. Its not consistent, which I am ok with. I never liked Mole, and Dulce… I find to be a bit confusing… it’s a sweet flavor mixed with cheese, not really my thing.

Depending on how you like em is when you buy em, I prefer mine as soft as possible, so the earlier the better, the longer the morning churns on, the harder and dryer they get.

Come one in the afternoon the tamale venders have all packed up and everyone else who sets up, is there till sundown. The are a couple of empanada carts cranking out fresh beef or chicken empanada’s. There are ladies who sell mango’s, along with fried macaroni and even elotes. Elotes are steamed corn which always sounds nice, until I see how they serve the corn. First they smother them in mayonnaise, then mexican cheese, and finally dusted with paprika. Let me be the first to say, that it’s disgusting. As for fried macaroni (pasta frito), I, after 5 years in this neighborhood, have still yet to go there, but the mango’s are always fine. That’s what I crave in the heat, chilled mangos and Perrier. The mango lady around the corner knows I like mine on ice and will leave a pack or two there for me.

Further down Knickerbocker you have fruit trucks which sell some nice fruit, that I have found have the shortest shelf-life… eat asap. This isn’t fruit from the white folks neighborhood, it’s po-folks fruit. There are carts making frituras (on the streets no doubt), fresh jugos (juices) like lime, or mellon (watermelon), and pinchos.

mmmm Pinchos!!!

I love pinchos, this is my shit right here, and apparently…I’m not the only one. Pinchos are basically a kabob of either chicken or pork. I naturally want to eat pork, but due to the fact that these are made on a shopping cart… I will play it safe with chicken. A choice my colon appreciates very much. This is usually served with BBQ sauce, but the lady I go to also has a red sauce she makes which is banging.

There are roughly four or five ice cream trucks (fuck that), a couple italian ice carts (Marino’s is legit, Tropical is shit), and then you have the shaved ice dude… with a big block of ice shaving by hand and mixed with fruit flavored syrup. The fact that it’s ice, I find refreshing, however syrup… is something I prefer to use sparingly. I ask for just a splash of whatever flavored syrup(solomente poco). Occasionally I just get the ice by itself… works for me.

And when you finally get to the park, there is this one lady who sells the weirdest trashiest thing. It’s french fries with a hot dog with she cuts up and serves in a bowl.

I got it once, don’t think I will ever get it again. I mean there is a Sabrett stand right on Knickerbocker, and he’s got sausages. I’m set, and yet somehow, I’m not fat.

my go-to woman for pinchos

Julia Child has been there for me

Tags

6th street, child, greco, julia, san francisco, tu lag

God I miss this place. I don’t give a shit how many people got food poisoning there, nor do I care about the MSG they use if you order the marinade, and I really don’t care how many times they have have been shut down for health code violations. The spring rolls win every time. Crispy noodle, prawns and bean curd, Bun Bo Xiao, or my standard when loaded off percocets, tofu salad.

somebody saved this issue

 

The Islands won’t come to you, but you can go to Flatbush.

Tags

adetimirin, aziz, best, chicken, flatbush, frosty, greco, iphone 5, jamaican, jerk, peppas, roti, wendys, west indian

Lily told me I needed to work on a remix for Skrillex/Damian Marley. So after a couple of hours cranking away, Aziz and Des stop by to pick up Des’s brother’s computer which I repaired. We get to talking about this and that, my birthday passed on the 6th, Aziz was coming up on the 12th and he was having his annual “Virgo Affair” on the 14th.

Was I gonna go, or would I just say I was gonna go… and then find something more interesting? I mean, who the fuck wants to go to Manhattan on a weekend and fight every degenerate in the street, out screaming bloody murder with their repressed friends. Get to the bar, filled full of bridge and tunnel assholes because lets be honest, people who live in Manhattan don’t go to the village or SOHO, and definitely not on a weekend. Fifteen dollar drinks, lame empty conversation with people you’ve never met and god forbid you actually meet someone you want to talk to… you can’t hear a word they say because every bar keeps the music on blast. Only someone who truly hates their life submits themselves to such an ordeal.

Either way, the conversation moves to what Aziz & Desire are up to now. Des is hungray! RAWR mothafucka, get out the way. They have plans to get Roti out on Flatbush from a spot called Ali’s, just a couple blocks way from Peppa’s jerk chicken. Not only do I ask to tag along, I ask to have him drive me home.

First stop is Ali’s, we each get a curry goat roti and Des gets a second one, curry shrimp. Aziz wanted boneless curry chicken, but seeing how they had none, he just decided to get some Jerk from Peppa’s. I figured I might as well buy some for breakfast the next morning.

Peppa’s never disappoints. Everyone comes here, I was talking to the owner once, he said Japanese tourists are all over the place. I remember going to see a friend who worked at a bar a few blocks away where they too served jerked chicken. She told me not to order it and that the jerk salmon was much better. I then asked if she had tried Peppas up the street to which she replied no, but all her coworkers talk about Peppa’s. If everyone where you work talks about someone else’s restaurant, that’s not a good sign.

I bought a six dollar order of jerk, and Aziz got a nine dollar for him and Des. Before we could head out of there, Aziz wanted a macaroni pie from this west indian spot, and then to Wendy’s for a Frosty to cleanse the palette. Damn son.

We get back to his place, he rolls a blunt, and we eat. My curry goat roti was bomb, but I really felt that even though it wasn’t a problem for me to dig thru the bones, it felt a bit tedious. Desire had the curry shrimp, and the shrimp were cleaned and shelled. Thats what I’m getting next time.

When we finish Aziz lights the blunt and we pass it back and forth. Doing this is such a rarity for me, it always makes me rather spacey. Yes I know thats the point. Anyway, Aziz puts on a commercial for the new iPhone 5 and I’m so over that hunk of shit.

I’m over the hype, I’m over the company, the operating system, the complete bozo employees at the apple store. I’m over the fact that Apple is the new Microsoft, Steve’s Jobs public feud with Adobe, or Samsung, or Google. I’m over the shitty service I had with AT&T, and now that I’ve switched to Verizon, it’s gotten even worse. I’m over how the iPhone constantly asks if you want to give out your coordinates. I’m REALLY fucking over how it will automatically capitalize any word that is the name of corporation or brand, yet it refuses to remember that fuck is a word I use quite liberally. If I mistype whilst writing fuck, lets say fick, or fivk, it does nothing.

And other than the fact that I found it humorous that I have Siri address me as daddy, or that I had her (how do I know Siri isn’t a really fem sounding dude) make a reminder for nine in the morning on september 6th, 2025, I’m still over it. Watch, Apple is gonna remember my “reminder” long after I forget it, and when that morning comes, in 2025, some fucking robot will be at my door to deliver it to me. Other than the juvenile fuckery I pull with it, I only seems to turn me off.

People ask me bout the iPhone, and that it looks so nice and how it is. I always say the same thing… it’s the nicest piece of shit out there, and thats the truth. The reception, is a joke, Siri has the mind of a retarded two year old, and sorry I don’t talk to retarded machines. It’s a machine and I don’t have to feel compassion nor a sense obligation to look past its poor performance.

I toss it around, I refuse to get a case for it, and that seems to bother people. You should be careful with it. BZZZZ, WRONG, guess again dumbass. It’s a machine, and while people might look at it as a marvel, I’m not impressed. It’s just stuff, and my stuff doesn’t own me, I own my stuff.

Whats fucked up more is this commercial Aziz put on. The ad sort freaked me out: just an instrumental version of a Kanye West with this vibe like it knew that you needed it., and in the background of the song a sample repeatly saying “I can’t stop”. I’m sure Siri won’t just ask questions, she’ll give commands like “don’t put me down Daddy (“she” calls me daddy)… just hold me for another five minutes.”

I’m waiting for the day you can custom order the persona of your phone. Alpha males will want some subservient phone preferably with an asian accent. Bottom boys will want some total dom agro phone to bark orders at them. Hood rat chics will want some smooth talking phone to make up excuses whenever the call is dropped:”nah baby, that wasn’t me, that was your service provider, they be slipping”. The possibilities will be shamelessly endless.

When I get home I realize I need to work on this remix yet I’m still buzzed from that joint. I cannot produce on this shit, so I’ll wait it out, cause I ain’t sleeping either.

Looks legit…. is legit.

Don’t fuck with Snozberries Bitch

Tags

chocolate, dreams, factory, greco, makers, music, snozberries, willie, wonka

An open letter to “Verde” aka: the slop house round the corner

Tags

bleecker, bushwick, coal, greco, irving, j, oven, restaurants, verde

“not total garbage…but not far off either.”

That was how I started a review on the Pizza shop around the corner. I signed up for an account at “yelp” of all places just to write the review.

The Pizza shop is called Verde, and it is located right round the corner from me on Irving and Bleecker. The shop is owned by Charlie Verde. Charlie is a Sicilian who is from Ozone Park. Charlie’s is married to a woman whose father left her a few buildings in Bushwick.

Charlie is pretty much now manages the buildings his wife inherited, and before this place was a restaurant, is was home for his now defunct real estate business. Charlie (like most Italian’s) thinks he’s a authority on Italian Cooking so he decides that he is gonna open a restaurant. Whilst doing construction on the restaurant, he finds a wall in the basement that isn’t supposed to be there. So he removes the wall and discovers an old coal burning oven from 100 years ago. So Charlie fully restores the oven, and you know, its vision of beauty I tell you. It’s so beautiful that it’s almost criminal that all the food that comes out of it is garbage.

Its the most beautiful oven for miles, and the guy manning it, can’t cook. Well thats life for you; filled full of moments of irony just like this restaurant. Interesting decor that I am pretty sure he lifted from Saraghina (Halsey and Lewis).

Now I am not giving my opinion of this place based upon having only eaten there once, nor is it of my low opinion of Charlie. First off Charlie isn’t evil or anything. As for the food, I have eaten at Verde enough times to think that I have given the place a chance. (at least 6). Not only that I brought people I know to Verde, thinking they might not agree with me and actually like the food…I was wrong. I had American Italians, off the boat Italians, Germans, Turks, my Mom (Italian from Brooklyn)…and the feelings were pretty much the same.

The pizza (which should be his signature dish) is not good at all. Crust was not like any I had encountered before, kind of thick and cardboard-ish. The sauce, was very bland. Tomatoes, and paste, thats it.

The prices didn’t make sense for a guy who doesn’t have a landlord seeing how he owns the building. I ordered the caponata 3 or 4 times and every time it came out different. This is a fundamental issue with the restaurant: consistency. Will they have olive oil for the bread? Not always. Will they always have fresh cracked pepper? No. Little things that add up.

All in all, I felt if Charlie spent as much time respecting the craft of cooking, as he did walking around talking shit, they might actually have a line outside.

What they do have is all the new white people in the neighborhood going there keeping it alive. Charlie also owns the building across the street in which the Bodega is in, aka mi casa segundo. After thirty years Charlie offered to renew the lease for only half the store and for more than they pay now. Pretty much a passive eviction in my opinion. They took him to court but they really have no rights in this case, so they are gone in three weeks. Willow weep for me.

Anywho, I looked at the “Verde”Yelp rating the other day, and noticed that 14 reviews had been “filtered”. Yelp explains filtering as a system of trying to keep all reviews accurate. However as a business that gets negative press on Yelp you can pay them to filter it for you. That sounds like extortion, hardly a service a business needs.

My review had been filtered, but there was one that wasn’t:

Hey Verde, FUCK YOU. I live around the corner from you on Bleecker St and at the moment you are throwing a stupid fucking party and blasting off rounds and rounds of fire crackers effectively waking us and our new born over and over again. And despite several noise complaints to our WORTHLESS police dept you are still at it more than ever and it’s nearing midnight. Thanks for your thoughtful consideration of the neighborhood. 

This was written by a user named “Jessica C”. My upstairs neighbor moved out a week ago, her name was Jessica Chang. This had to be the same person. Also the Jessica Chang who bitched about the Mexican parties on the weekend, who bitch about my cigarette smoking in my own apartment. The same person who when we had a block party last year, she came outside covering her ears… are you fucking serious? She asked the landlord to have someone talk to the neighbor about the volume of his music.

I checked out her account on Yelp and it was just one star reviews with her bitching about whatever miserable experience she had. This is also the same person who is covered in Tattoos and piercings.

Tattoo’s used to mean something; it meant outlaw, outside the system, rebel, loose, wild and free. For her it was obviously just an outfit, because she was pretty miserable always complaining about the neighborhood.

So here we have two people changing the neighborhood already at odds with each other. The end is near.

I know what I’m doing

Tags

food, greco, health, niquae, poisoning, restaurants

I love meat. It’s true, ever since I tried to stop eating meat, thats when I found it completely irresistible. When it comes to beef, I have no shame for my love of beef, steak, chili, or just good old fashioned hamburgers.

Whats more is I always love my beef cooked rare, I’m not sure how I came to this conclusion. I think it started with the observation of this cultures obsession with a fear of germs, and diseases, and how everything has to be sanitized, and cleaned beyond belief, and cooked so much that it has lost its flavor, and worse yet its as tough as leather.

A hundred years ago nobody gave a shit about these things: germs, bacteria, salmonella, it was all good, bring it on. But not today, its just a culture of neurotic pussies, scrubbing their hands every five minutes, shampooing their hair till it falls out and cooking the flavor out of all the food they eat.

Take a fucking chance people, whats the worst that can happen…????

Take the other day. I went to a bar with my friend for dinner. Think it was that Irish pub on fourteenth st just off eighth ave. My friend ordered a BLT and I ordered a cheeseburger, rare (how else?)

I was asked if was sure of the temp of the meat. I simply stood my ground and said “I know what I’m doing”. When the food came out I examined the burger and noticed the cheese was cheap and the meat looked like it had been cooked medium-rare or even medium.

However once I took a bite there was no mistaking, this bitch was bloody as hell, just the way i like it, and i began to rip into it like a savage. My friend shook her head in disbelieve as juice dripped all over the plate. What do you want me to say? Thats where all the fucking flavor is, why would I not want something as important as flavor?

At least thats what I am used to telling myself, but little did I know there was more than just flavor in this burger, for the next morning I was bouncing off the walls ready to take on the world. I was a force of nature to be reckoned with, I might as well have had on a cape on… until I walked out of the house. It wasn’t longer than a couple of seconds after walking off the stoop that I had hit a wall, and heard a record scratch. I began to feel something sort of like someone had turned on a faucet, in my bowels.

I wasn’t sure what was happening, or even did I suspect why, but I knew one thing for sure: I had to turn around and go spend some quality time with my toilet.

The 1st hour or was no biggie, I thought that maybe I had been a little “backed-up” and in need of relieving but as the afternoon progressed, my condition went from not-so-good, to a plummeting downward spiral that seemed to excel as time went on.

Before I knew it I found it hard to walk, and was soon bedridden throwing the rest of my day into limbo. Would I be able to see any of my customers, stop by the bank, or even get time to masterbate? These are the questions Mr. President.

Instead I found myself frantically dialing my friends for help. I was a mess, the house reeked of body oder, I wasn’t sure if I was going to shit out my vital organs or pass out in my own puke, and it was right then when things began to look like they might get a little out of control.

My vision became blurred, the room spun like a disco ball and I had no choice but to collapse on my bed and pass out. I think I slept, I’m not sure yet. All I know is when I awoke, it was dark outside. I could have been sleeping for a week. Just then my stomach rumbles and a wave of heat washes over me.

SO…..MUCH….HEAT……I take off my shirt, and now I am freezing, so I lay on my side in the fetal position praying for comfort. but it doesn’t come

I hope the pains in my stomach will stop…but they don’t

Instead, it feels as though someone has turned a pot of chili on high, and now its beginning to spill out, and don’t know which end its going to come out; my mouth or my asshole. All I do know is somehow, someway, I need to get myself to the bathroom.

So I stumble through the house, in the buff, and sit on the toilet and let mother nature do her business. I’m not sure what came out of me, but it made the ganges river look like evian water. I swear there was a struggle in the bathroom, as I sat on the toilet with a trash can in front of me, shock waves of heat hit me from all angles. As the pain in me gully peaked I fell off the toilet and collapsed on the kitchen floor (bathroom is immediately next to the kitchen)

So there I was, squirming naked on the tiled floor, flopping around like a fish out of water, sweating uncontrollably, moaning in pain, just wanting it all to stop. I had no control, no choice, but to sit there and ride this out; and eventually it passes.

How long had I been there? Ten minutes, longer? That level of pain makes one minute seem like twenty. Finally I told myself to get up and clean myself off in the shower. Somehow I got back to bed, wrapping myself up in a blanket to sleep.

Several hours later there is a banging at the door. One of the friends I called during the middle of all the commotion had come to check up on me. They had been drinking but was still able to pull it together to nurse me back to health. They make me eat rice to settle my stomach, drink gatoraid to keep me hydrated and gave my midol for my fever.

The next morning things had settled. I was weak but I was alive, and I began to get my appetite back. My friend asked me what I wanted to eat. I look up, and with a smirk say “how bout a cheese burger?”.

A week later my friend made a T-Shirt for me. It had a picture on it with a caption above it which stated “I know what I’m doing”: famous last words.

no matter what happens, I’ll always have this t-shirt to remind me of my own flawless judgement.

 

 

Who doesn’t like Tacos?

Tags

brooklyn, bushwick, greco, myrtle, tacos, wyckoff

For my first two or three years in this neighborhood, I got my breakfast sandwich with fresh OJ (hang-over remedy) from the El Paisa over on Myrtle and Irving. Their green sauce is/was (haven’t been there in a while) slammin. Every Mexican joint around here makes their own salsa; and I have had three that were outstanding. When I say “outstanding”, I mean it went with everything and all of a sudden everything tasted bland without it.

I told the owners they should bottle it. They always asked if I wanted ketchup, hell no, I want the green sauce baby. Stuff was so good I would put it on my Cheerios. Then I wondered why I never tried any of their Mexican food. They had Tacos, Tortas, Tamales, the whole “nine”. Then I remembered why I never bothered. I already have a spot for Tamales… down the street at the cart on Myrtle and Knickerbocker, and for Tacos I went to the cart over on Myrtle and Wyckoff.

However, these jank street carts can’t hold a candle to the real McCoy. At least that’s what I thought. But to be real, the Tamale cart has them shits on lock-down. El Paisa’s were simply too dry, and their Tacos, were bland in comparison to the cart over on Myrtle/Wyckoff. Sad fucking truth is…that the little taco cart that never closed, open for business 24/7; that little sum-bitch had every restaurant in the neighborhood beat.

I’ll admit that I think El Paisa has them beat on green sauce, but the cart’s tacos are fine without salsa. The green sauce at the cart isn’t necessarily there for flavor, more so for heat.

A close second (and I’m sure people will wanna debate me on this) is the Tortilla plant over on Starr street right across from Sydney, the junk shop jew.

One thing I noticed about this cart is that I think they have franchises. I noticed one identical right outside the Jackson Heights/Roosevelt ave subway station in Queens. I remember going to see clients there and the carts had the same sign, pictures, and the tacos were just as good.

I get it, having carts are cheaper than having to pay some shitty landlord’s overhead just to have a restaurant. Lets be honest, tables and chairs are over-rated. What about all that extra space you have to clean up, plus with a restaurant usually comes a lot more rodents and they are a lot harder to reach. Where with a cart, you just pull the fucker up to a car wash and hose it down…right?

It’s good for the customer too. No waiting for some waiter, to drag his feet and fuck up your order only to still expect a fifteen percent tip. Just walk up, place your order, eat, pay, and throw him a dollar if you feel so inclined; either way it doesn’t make a difference.

However, if you can, make it in spanish. I mean, plenty of white and black folks who don’t speak a lick of Spanish order in English and everything seems to go smooth enough I guess. Actually it’s usually worse if they try to break out any Spanish. They just butcher the language with “yo care-o, dose tacos with pollo”…it’s fucking brutal on the ears.

Not me son, I walk right up and do that shit hundred percent in Spanish, even with a little spice. They usually just think I’m from Argentina, and every now and then I am called “wero”.

My order is usually two tacos… one carnitas (fried pork), and one cessina (salted beef). I’ve noticed that if ever I bring friends, carnitas is the one flavor everyone agrees is official. Tacos usually come served on two corn tortillas, which I find to be a bit much. Immediately upon being served, I separate the bottom tortilla. This must be done immediately for if you don’t, the heat from the tortillas will begin to meld them together, usually causing them to rip and tear if you attempt after any substancial amount of time (substantial being anything after two or three minutes).

Once achieved then you’re set, squeeze some lime all over, add a little hot sauce and then there you are. Standing next to a trash can, outside of a subway station as people shuffle past you, whilst you stuff your face. You can’t eat them too slow now since taking away that second tortilla.

Ya see, once you pile one fried pork, sauteed onions, cilantro, guacamole, lime juice and hot sauce, that one lone tortilla can only support it all for so long. If you are too leisurely in pacing yourself, then that fucker starts to fall apart, and there goes your taco. I mean I could just leave on that second tortilla and avoid all of this, but I don’t like the ratio of tortilla to everything else… so this is the sacrifice I must make… eating with swiftness. I can live with that.

It’s like a game of beat the clock. Me standing there: a grown man, in the middle of all that foot traffic, huffing up exhaust from every car standing idle, (this is the corner of a six-way intersection) with lime juice running down my hand, and repeatedly wiping away a smudge of green sauce from the corner of my mouth…and why would I want it any other way. It’s a little messy… but it’s my fucking reality; and with so few choices left in the world, I can’t help but exaggerate the little meaningless ones I still have.

Friday Fuckery…brought to via a Campbells soup testimony

Tags

campbell's, church, god, good, greco, soup, testify

I had no idea that the goodness of god could be measured in soup flavors.

I’m not even sure what this woman is bang’n on about.

All I know is this tone deaf bitch is a beast.

Halal Guys on 53rd and 6th ave

Tags

53rd st, 6th ave, chicken, greco, halal food, halal guys, lamb, rice

Ground zero for halal food

I received a phone call just minutes before wrapping up in Jackson Heights. The guy couldnt get online so I told him I would sort everything out for $60.

It sounds basic, like a router that he forgot the password to. Upon arriving at 9:30, I realize that his computer is fucked, has no data on it what-so-ever, and tell him for an additional 60, I can get everything up and running better than ever. He agrees and now here we are 2 and a half hours later….sorted. I ask him if he is going to drive me to the train station to which he replies he will drop me off anywhere on the way to manhattan.

“whats in Manhattan?”

“going to get a bite to eat, there is this food cart, have you heard of Bilal?”

“You’re gonna drive all the way from Long Island into Manhattan at midnight on a Friday to eat from a food cart? This has got to be some food cart”

Apparently there is a Halal food stand (chicken and lamb on rice) at fifty third and sixth ave run by a guy named Bilal, which is rivaled by none other. I tell him I will join him, and thats the cue, we are off.

In the car we debate movies and Avatar came up. I told him I had no intentions of seeing it, and that if there wasn’t going to be a decent script and/or decent actors, I had no idea how they expected me to sit thru three hours of that hog shit without having some desirable actress take off her top. Then we debated who we would like to see topless. He chimed in with Charlize Theron. I told him it’s just because he was Haitian that he found her attractive. He wasn’t sure what I was getting at.

“It’s because she’s white, you know how it goes. Visually we scrutinize our own race way more than others.”

He laughed, agreed then asked if what I wanted to see was a video vixen. Of course I did, but they always wound topless enough. Hmmm let me honestly try and think of someone in Hollywood I wanted to see naked. Jesus, I couldn’t think of anyone… Then it hit me: Jessica Biel. He smiled big, we had found a middle ground.

About twenty minutes later we are heading west down fifty third street passing fifth ave till we come to a long que of people in front of a halal lamb/chicken stand. we double park, get out and que up. So apparently I have missed this phenomena, but Bilal, has stand at both the South-East and South-West corner of fifty third and sixth ave, and both stands have a que that stretches halfway up the block. The wait time was about twenty minutes, I grab a combo on rice, went back to the car and decided to sample the hyped up fare.

I put too much hot sauce on mine. Jesus christ I put so much on I was hiccuping uncontrollably. But I couldnt stop eating it was so good. I reminds me of the Pancho Villa Taqueria on 16th street in San Francisco. They had this green sauce which was just out of control hot, but it was so good, you just couldnt stop eating it. So word to the wise, Bilal is just another spot added to an ever growing list of spots to eat at here in the city, and as far as I am concerned, you can never have too many options.

So my client drops me off at the 8th ave L train stop, its after 1am and the night still isnt over. I climb down and walk through the A train station, Hey..is that Alyssa Byrd? Well I’ll be damn. I make my way onto a train and find myself a seat in the corner. I sit down and know that within a few minutes i will begin my final descent homeward bound. Just then some drunk hipster stumbles into the car and looks around for a seat. I am in the corner in a 2-seater with a space next to me, however i am sitting in the center, just sort of staring off. The dude looks at me for a sec and then approaches me and without a word waves his arm back and forth signaling for me to move to the side. Ok now i know this dumbass is drunk and all, but I know he didnt just shoo me to the side. So of course, I don’t move and instead just say to him “what?”

He mumbles something inaudible and I say

“What did you say?”

“I’m sorry can you please scoot over”

Ok thats more like it, yeah sure I’ll move over but this train ride hasnt even begun and it doesnt take long before more riff-raff comes along. Three dudes in the center of the car all laughing out loud, and in the middle, the tallest one holds out his ball cap announcing “ladies and gentlemen, I’m collecting money for my basket ball team, I don’t fucking dance, or have any candy to sell, but i am still collecting money for my basketball team.”

Just then the subdued dead drunk next to me rises and yells across the car, “I’ve got drinks if you want some?”

The 3 guys walk over and the guy next to me breaks out a silver flask. One of the guys questions the drunk next “dude are you sure you can spare any?”

The drunk simply reaches into this pocket and pulls out a second flask and boats

“what? do think i dont come prepared” as the train begins to move.

“awesome brother, what did you say you name was?”

Jesus, I thought they knew each other, but apparently its just a bunch of fucked up kids in the city. As a way of reciprocating the tallest of the 3 guys who was earlier begging for change breaks out a small bag of cocaine “eh man you want some ayo?”

Dipping his key chain into the bag and pulling a bump out at which the drunk happily indulges himself while the other guys are drinking from his flask. Just then another guy break out a little vile and exclaims “how bout some K?” I shit you not….this was all happening right in my fucking face, and what the fuck am i gonna do, i just laughed. I thought it was kind of nice to see complete strangers being so generous with their drugs.

The drunk wouldnt touch the K, but the guy who had the coke had no problem sticking his key right in the vile for a bump. Luckily for me they got off two stops later at union square, laughing and talking about absolutely nothing.

So yea, I like the whole lamb & chicken with rice. My brother told he won’t eat it, something about this article that says it’s two thousand calories right there. Well, you don’t have to eat the entire thing. I for one never finish my plate, the portions are too god damn big, and this is just New York. It only gets bigger once you leave the five boroughs. You should have seen the massive sizes they brought out when I visited Houston last month, the food should have come with a snorkel.

I went back to fifty third and sixth ave the other day. Not only did the Halal guys have three carts on three different corners, they all had lines, and they had a forth car for just drinks.

always a line

Last time I came here I went to grab some additional hot sauce, and when I put it down the bottle shot up a tiny squirt that went right into my eye. Say it isn’t fucking so. So I had access to only one eye now and I was gonna suck this up. I just sat down immediately across from the cart and proceeded to tear up in the eye that was currently rendered useless. So there I was, just sitting on the bench with one eye closed like some tramp, my right eye sealed shut straining like I’m in pain, shoveling food into my mouth and laughing to myself at my own predicament. It was not an easy heal and I knew this, so I just got comfortable.

So today I was back, and my brothers voice was in my head saying “2000 calories” over and over. Whatever, I’m here, so I’m eating. It honestly didn’t take me long to bottom out, the portion is huge, and like most meals I just throw the rest away. Sorry I honestly feel no obligation to finish my plate, everything in this country is priced to move in bulk. But thats another rant.

Fuck You! of the week goes to: High Fructose Corn Syrup…and Plastic.

Tags

corn, elotes, greco, mexicans, pacific, plastic, trash

Corn is bullshit as a sweetener and this is what I don’t get…we have cane sugar, why process corn to replace sugar? Is there a a shortage I don’t know about? Whatever entity that owns all this corn, they’ve got be really fucking powerful, and loaded beyond all belief, because they have convinced they U.S. government to subsidize the shit out of their product.

Corn is grits, corn is polenta, corn is tamales, corn on the cob, corn tortilla chips. It’s used to distill whiskey, corn oil, glue, and even used in penicillin. On my block, the Mexicans make Elotes, which is corn on the cob, covered with mayonaise, cheese and paprika. Once again, proof that you don’t have to be white to get your “white trash” on.

But as a sugar replacement, it sucks. If I get a soda it has to have pure cane sugar, and has to be in a glass bottle. The carbonation is another issue. Plastic bottles hold carbonation for only six months while glass holds carbonation for roughly five years. To compensate for this they usually over-carbonate soda in plastic containers. Glass sodas usually taste smoother whilst drinks in plastic usually taste abrasively over-carbonated.

Not to mention the waste generated from plastic. It’s apparently enough to form a giant pile of plastic shit floating around in the Pacific Ocean, because plastic simply refuses to break down. It’s called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and it is roughly twice the size of Texas. I once saw a news reporter travel to an island that was in the path of the current from which this trash pile traveled. They had just arrived at the island not even a couple of days after a cleanup, and the beach was covered in trash. At one point the reporter noticed the color of the sand was changing due the amount of plastic to which an expert he was with corrected him. It wasn’t colored sand he was holding… it was plastic. The reporter then commented that the beach was in effect turning plastic. The expert just confirmed this.

Just a couple of years ago they confirmed another trash pile found in the Atlantic Ocean. Well of course, where do they think all this plastic goes when they dump it in the ocean? To some wormhole to a parallel universe?

The U.S. as well as Europe exports its trash to China, it’s our number two export to China. One third of our trash is packaging, and a majority of packaging is plastic. Not to mention bottled drinks, hell when you start to add it all up, it shines a light on just how meaningless of a question it is when they ask you if you want paper or plastic at the supermarket. Does it matter if I use a paper bag; everything in the paper bag is wrapped in plastic.

I realize I am drifting away from my original point here, but fuck it, I’ve already started, so lets just go hard.

I’m sure in the past month most of you have seen pictures of Mars as taken by the NASA rover, Curiosity. So it’s real, we’re on Mars, but it’s not inhabitable yet because it’s too cold. It’s too cold because the atmosphere is too thin, however scientist have an idea. Terraforming.

While only hypothetical, terraforming is the process of creating an thicker atmosphere by use of greenhouse gasses. Basically the idea is based off of our own “global warming” here on planet Earth. We have trash here that causes our atmosphere to grow, hence making the planet hotter. Why not replicate that on Mars.

So here’s the plan, Get Bill Gates and Richard Branson to scoop up all the trash floating in the ocean, all the nuclear waste dumped off the Ivory Coast and anywhere else they can find, not to mention all the debris from the oil spills off the coast of Nigeria, Gulf of Mexico from Deepwater Horizon, whatever still hasn’t been clean up from the Exxon Valdez, anything else I’ve missed (I’m sure there is plenty) and ship it to Mars. You clean up our planet, is if it isn’t already too late, and make Mars inhabitable all at the same time.

Its a win win, for everyone, and then since we, the good ol U.S. of EH, did it all, we can charge admission to Red Rock son.

Oh yea…and fuck high fructose corn syrup.