Chilltown Bears

Carlos in the garden at Taqueria Downtown

Right on the corner of Grove & Grand Streets you’ll find Taqueria Downtown, our favorite local haunt for Mexican food.  It has everything we look for in a haunt — it’s nearby, you can wear what you want, the food is tasty, and it’s cheap.

The menu isn’t huge, but the portions are! You’ll find tacos, enchiladas, flautas, burritas, quesadillas, and brunch on the weekend– no guacamole though!  They have soft drinks which include some funky imported ones, but it’s BYOB if you’re looking for something stronger.

The friendly staff takes your order as you walk in and you pay at that time.  Take your drinks and order-number-on-a-stick to your table and the food is brought out to you.  Your choices include indoor seating as well as outdoor — a cute garden out back with tables and picnic benches, as well as a few sidewalk tables up front.  Taqueria Downtown has take-out and delivers too if you’re not planning on venturing out.

There’s nothing foo-foo about this place.  In a word, the place is chill – a good thing to be in Chilltown. Is it the best Mexican food we’ve ever had, Ay Yay-Yay-Yay? No, but we give it two and a half Yay‘s. It’s a comfortable neighborhood spot to take your honey and friends to when you don’t feel like cooking or spending lots of money.  We hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we do. CARLOS

I joined a client and some of his staff yesterday at Bar Stuzzichini, a trendy Italian bar/restaurant in Manhattan’s Flatiron District for a business lunch.  I love eating Italian in NYC, be it on Mulberry Street in Little Italy or up on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, I’ve *never* been disappointed with flavor and have never left hungry.  Bar Stuzzichini was no exception when it came to flavor– everything was delicious.

I ordered their version of tapas called Stuzzichini Misti and chose three items for $14 – polpette (meatballs), arancini (rice balls), and caponata (a tomato-eggplant spread for bread.)  When it arrived, it consisted of 6 teeny meatballs, 3 rice balls the size of gum balls, and two tiny bread slices with a thin spread of caponata. They couldn’t be serious.  I thought of sweeping for hidden cameras.  When no one popped out from under the table, I realized this was my lunch.

Getting ready to leave I was wondering where to go for the rest of my lunch.  The waiter brought the dessert menu though, and I was like, whew, that’s better!  I ordered the sfogiatelle – a pastry which I was really looking forward to.  It came, delicious again, but 1/4 the size of any earlier sfogliatelle I’ve ever eaten. Sigh.

We exited the restaurant, said our goodbyes, and I then found a Zaro’s just a block south.  Yeah! CARLOS

No, no, no, not RETARD, its RETARD, with a French accent, like in Je suis arrivé avec 45 minutes de retard au rendez-vous. I was 45 minutes late for my noon lunch with my friend Dan at A.O.C., a great French bistro on Bleecker Street at the corner of Grove in Greenwich Village.  I’m usually punctual for basically everything, but this morning getting ready to go shower I fell asleep on the couch watching People’s Court. The last thing I remember was Judge Marilyn Milian telling some guy with a bowtie that he had made a real “arroz con mango” out of things. Read more »