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FORK PLAY: January 16, 2008
Cuba Mon Amor, Catch de Fish, Price Creep.
Dear Friends and Family,
Here we are in the photo with our stylish headlamps reading the menu at Amor Cubano. What sweet people. As soon as two of us switched on our high beams,  a waiter came over with a small flashlight. So much kinder than the young woman in the midnight dim of 15 East who said, "Oh, are you having a hard time reading the menu?" And giggled.
I had high hopes for this new spot at 2018 Third Avenue and 111th Street in East Harlem. (212 886 1220). Who could resist lechon that's "made with amor" and a secret orange mojo, as the menu claims. (The pig is actually almost good.) No one mentioned live music when we called ahead - it hits us on the sidewalk - but we can handle that. After all, it's Saturday night. We can't resist dancing too. The handsome young woman welcoming us never stops smiling. She swivels her hips and mops up a spill at the same time. There's a man rolling cigars next to the band. Great if you're Cuban and homesick. At eleven he's passing out free cigars to everyone. The sangria - white wine with pineapple juice, red wine with guava - is jelly bean sweet, but the mojito is grownup.
Mama's in the kitchen - Maricela Calcines Naranjo, mother and Cuban housewife who escaped in the Mariel Boat Lift. That's charming too. She trained the team at the stove - alas, just another reminder that Mom's cooking is sometimes more about memory than greatness.
I wasn't going to write about Amor Cubano, but my friends insisted. It's a great date-night place, inexpensive, they argue. It transports you to another time and place. That's true. You can come for a drink and the music, share a couple of decent empanadas and mound of Jorgito's savory fried garbanzos with smoked, ham, bacon and tomato. That's safe. Otherwise the paella was the only standout at our table. And after all, there's more to life than cuisinary epiphany..especially on this website.
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Catch de Fish
The name caught my eye. Catch de Fish. Whimsically Caribbean, I thought. Well, it is whimsical but it turns out to be potluck fusion Thai with a whimsically organized menu, unrealistically sweet people, but not enough of them..swanning about, not quite covering a handful of tables all that promptly. I especially like our roomy banquette in the window with its motley parade of passersby, running, cartwheeling, kissing, ignoring the rain or surrendering to it.
Straight sober (no one warned us about a lack of liquor license), so wrapped in conversation we aren't all that dithered over a certain neglect, we actually like most of what arrives from the kitchen,  eventually, and not in the order we envisioned in our non-whimsical way. Moist and meaty ribs, six of them for just $12. Surprisingly good salads - spicy crab with avocado, green papaya and long bean, or a toss of shredded mango, sweet pepper, shallot and mint that comes with my perfectly cooked Chilean sea bass. That's "catch de green" in the photo - clams, mussels, shrimp and a scallop with "angle" hair pasta.
Maybe the service seems just hatched but lamb chops with crushed sesame and chocolate sauce on linguini suggest elevated ambition. I might have been warned when the waitress says I can't have them rare as they are already cooked. What day, I wonder. Commissary key lime pie - accessorized as if for the red carpet with floats of whipped cream and raspberry squiggles on the plate - satisfies the need for something sweet.
Surprisingly there is no charge for the nasty lamb chops. How professional. This is my advice: Don't jump in a cab unless you're doing a doctoral paper on the sophistication of innocence. But yes, go, if you've got an easy walk to 147 Third Ave. on the corner of 15th (212 477-7799) And bring a bottle.
***
Let's Pretend We're in Barcelona and Do a Tapas Crawl
No way I can resist an invitation to do a tapas crawl. Memories of zig-zag routes taken in Sevilla, Madrid and Barcelona bring back the excitement of hiking the urban tapas circuit - where certain bars might have just one specialty, skewered pinchos, tortillas, layered crostini. I remember palaces of hanging hams and citadels of crisp fried sea creatures, sometimes unrecognizable, unknowable, delicious. With New York City currently breaking out in tapas, many new and Spanish, authentic or tweaked by Spain-infused Americans, a night of itinerant tapas tasting - actually two crawls on two nights - turns out to be a total lark. Check out what we ate at our favorite stops in BITE:My Journal. If the idea of a tapas crawl makes you long for Spain, you'll want to check out my Barcelona Hot List.
Headed for a winter break? Go to our website Travel Desk for our Insatiable Reporter's new Hot Tips for Dining in Miami, Hot Addresses in Bologna (with a day trip to Padua and a detour in Umbria) and My own Black Book for Buenos Aires.
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You're Not Fooling Me
No wonder the guys at the Federal Reserve are confused. Prices are up and spending is down. I see the creep in the most annoying places. My essential Eli's Health Crisps were $2.99 at Fairway when I first got addicted. Now they're $4.99. This is not Eli's neighborhood, guys, it's the upper West Side. And happy New Year. The $29.00 three course dinner that has thrilled my pals at Fairway Café is now $31.00. Yes, the food is good or very good and it's still a pretty buy, but those little $2 jumps add up. Since the latest taxi cab grab, it now costs me $40 round trip to get to places I would go once a week if they'd ever built that Second Avenue subway. And how about Jujyfruits? Used to be 75 cents at the newsstand. Now I try to pass them by at 85. If I collect all the change in the bottom of all my purses and tote bags, I could stop complaining for a week or two. But as I was born to be a critic, you my friends would find the silence strange.
***
Photographs by Steven Richter cannot be reproduced without permission.
Gael Greene copyright pending 2008
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