NY eats

close friends know i’m a big foodie. i love eating out and checking out new places in different areas in the city. name an area, i can probably give a suggestion on where to eat.

i recently visited colorado to see the family. i met up with my aunt elaine in her office and i met all her coworkers. one of her coworkers (forgot her name, and i won’t be able to point her in a line up of one) asked me if i’ve ever been to shopsins. a quick wikipedia search and i understood their fascination. being the NY mascot, i promised them that i’ll check out the place and give a detailed report.

below are my e-mails:

Here I am, Saturday, in the Essex Market.
So this joint is really small, it has about 8 tables (each table seats 2 people), plus 3 seats on the bar.
It’s 9:45, they opened 15 minutes ago, the place is packed (packed, HA! If I bring my brothers and sister here, it’s packed) and there is a wait already. The line is ten people deep.
By the way, my room is bigger than this place.

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The store is in the very end of the market, and in the last picture I sent, you can see a cheese store on the left. It smells. And half the cheese look fuzzy. The other half, green.

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I’m still in line. Been waiting for about ten minutes.
I looked at their menu and decided to have the Junior. I wanted to order my usual breakfast of two eggs, bacon, potatoes and fries, but I can’t seem to find it in the menu (can you?). Being scared to be yelled at, I decided to pick from their menu instead.

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The menu is really colorful. I wanted to steal one but after sizing up the server, I figured he can take me if things go bad.
I was able to cut the line and sit on the bar. I noticed that mostly sitting on the tables are tourists. All NYers are eating by themselves. You tell the tourists apart from the locals by the look on their faces – all the tourists are smiling.

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Food looks good. I had mac n cheese (it’s magically delicious!).
I’ll get back at you, I’m eating…

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Burp. That was good.

I sat next to some sort of a movie-maker. I’m gonna guess she comes here often because everyone was talking to her. Talking about her father, who sounds like he’s a director, also about editing and writing a movie she’s working on.

At one point, a guy in a pink shirt sat down and waited for a while then decided to leave, and he looked pissed and said under his breathe “service here sucks”. Apparently that was a mistake, my server ran out of the kitchen and yelled back: “You don’t wait for service – you ASK for service. This is how you do it ‘Here’s five bucks, blow me’.” You think that’s funny, it’s better if you hear it like I did, his words echoed in the market. He then added to everyone in the diner that if you want to be taken seriously, don’t wear pink. And as if on cue, a woman in a pink shirt walked in.

There you go, as promised, I delivered and ate in Shopsin’s. What’s my next assignment?