Kin at Kefi – NYC

According to Gus, the proud, lovable patriarch of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, “There are two kinds of people. Those who are Greek and those who wish they were Greek.” And thanks to this movie’s portrayal, it’s hard not to wish you were Greek, if only just to be a part of this boisterous but generous, meddling but embracing, scolding but accepting, nagging but loving family unit.

Kefi very much embodies the setting of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The two full floors of buzzing tables replicates the feel of a full family but is quiet enough to not make you feel like it’s assaulting your ears.

My dinner started like every meal with a Greek family:

 “Are you hungry?”

“Oh no, I just ate.”

“Ok, I make you something…Eat! Eat!”

So Eat! the Selection of Spreads, a vegetarian nirvana good enough to make me forget meat. The Tzatziki was cool as a cucumber, the Taramosalata was grainy with spice, the Melintzanosalata says “screw you” to Babaganoush, and the Revithia puts hummus to shame.

Vegetarian apps are awesome, but when it comes to the entrée, there’s bound to be a little friction. “He don’t eat no meat?! Is ok, is ok, I make LAMB.” Thanks for the Sheep’s Milk Dumplings with rich lamb sausage, Aunt Voula. You really are the best cook in the family.

The Tubular Pasta with savory Greek sausage, light veggies, and fresh feta was the flavor of the Mediterranean. “Give me any word in English and I’ll tell you the root of that word in Greek.” Give me any delicious food in the world and I’ll tell you its origin in the Mediterranean.

I was getting a little overloaded with all the movie references conjured by this meal so I started looking for a main dish that captured an important aspect of myself instead. The Flat Pasta did just that. The pulled braised rabbit in this dish must have multiplied like bunnies because I think there was more rabbit than pasta. I just considered it a gift and ate it. They say to beware of Greeks bearing gifts, but I’d never look a gift horse in the mouth.

When people ask us where we come from, well, we come from our families. My family is Chinese. I am Chinese by birth and American by culture. A no-longer-rare combination of eastern tradition and western innovation, I’d like to think I at least turned out marginally better than Americanized Chinese food. Few people are prouder of my heritage than me, but Kefi made me want to ditch it all to be Greek. 

Carry On Cascabel Taqueria – NYC

Confession #1: Last night I watched an episode of a show that I thought wild horses couldn’t drag me into. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, a reality TV show about the lives of a 6 year-old pageant girl and her family. I want to tell you that someone forced me. I want to tell you that I lost a bet, the full painful terms of which I’d rather not divulge. But no, there was nothing driving me but my own curiosity. After suffering through an entire season of The Bachelor, you’d think a girl would learn…

Confession #2: Maybe you should sip on one of Cascabel’s bottomless brunch drinks which only cost a mere $12 to dampen your shock. Start with the El Capitan, a curiously strong concoction of cava and passionfruit that glows with all the radioactive promise of a blazing BAL (blood alcohol level) that you can’t actually taste.

Back to confession #2: I liked it. Dumb and drab at first glance, Honey Boo Boo and her family manage to have an endearing quality underneath all that trash. And Cascabel Taqueria became my Honey Boo Boo in NYC. The diner-style exterior allows for a wrap-around of outside dining tables, reminiscent of the wraparound porches that are more the norm than the exception in the Honey Boo Boo hometown of McIntyre, Georgia. The shape of the restaurant and its nondescript décor somehow remind me of the inside of a metal diner, and the bottomless drinks weren’t helping.

But all mockery aside, the one thing I did see when I watched this show is that Honey Boo Boo’s family is truly a family. Their devotion to each other is clear, and when she sasses her way across the stage, they cheer together. Even her sisters know her dance routines. So as much as this family will shock and appall you, they are very much like Cascabel’s Huevos Benedict, a usually traditional brunch dish that marches to the beat of its own drum. A spin-off of a run-of-the-mill midday meal, this cornbread and chorizo variation really pulls it together…like a mobile home in a trailer park with a drizzle of chipotle hollandaise sauce. The cornbread is mealy but sweet, the chorizo is fatty but sharp, and this show is a real taste of just how fun a variation of your average American family can be.

Family aside, Honey Boo Boo herself is an adorably active 6 year-old who may or may not suffer from ADHD. But she makes me laugh. Her little belly is as round as the eggs yolks on the Chilaquiles, and she flaunts it with a comical pride that makes me melt. There is something comforting about the fried tortillas that soak up all the flavor of the shredded chicken and gooey egg yolk…even though it’s served in a metal tray. Like this fun little girl, this Cascabel…tray…“always brings her A-game” as she breaks into her feisty Elvis routine. Rock on, Honey Boo Boo, rock on.

There is something deeper that makes this reality show more real. It’s raunchy and revealing and it’s ridiculous but the underlying tone is genuine. The wholesome homey comfort of a real American family isn’t lost. They love and they laugh and though we often laugh at them, sometimes we laugh with them too. As mother June Shannon reminds us, “kids don’t come with instruction manuals”, and neither should brunch. Casacabel’s food reminds us that even when the restaurant’s a little different, we can still feel that same homey, ordinary comfort with dense, flavorful Mexican classics that warm your round little belly from the inside out. 

Go Big or Go Home at Deluxe - NYC

The ideal situation: you have a massive hangover from last night’s party, you and whomever you were partying with have just gotten up and you’re both thrilled to find that you’re both health nuts. You’re in luck! You’re right next to a diner-type brunch place that serves food made with only organic ingredients. (Although if you’re really into healthy living, why on earth did you drink so much last night?)

According to Deluxe’s menu, all the food is made with organic ingredients, which makes the affordable prices especially impressive considering its location on New York City’s upper west side. I had the stuffed French toast, which I would recommend splitting. I could barely finish half of it – not because it wasn’t good, but because it was too rich. Sugary cream cheese between one inch-thick slices of French toast topped with two types of marmalade is just too much gooey fruit for one person, but I thoroughly enjoyed the half I finished. I tried a bit of an egg-white omelet too – light and fresh. The restaurant itself is a bit crowded, especially when it’s cold outside and there’s a line at the hostess stand, but it has a fun, too-nice-to-be-a-diner-but-trying feel to it. The mirror behind the bar has daily specials written on it, which I really loved for some reason. No frills here, but generous portions and a solid wholesome meal. 

Venting About Vareli - NYC

The passion fruit bellini was good, and I think my slight buzz from the very alcoholic cherries that came with it made the food more bearable…

My friend and I shared the greek yogurt with granola and the French toast. The yogurt was good, but can you really mess up yogurt? The French toast was so plain - you could barely tell it was French toast because there was so little egg coating it. Two of my friends got the Shakshouka, and both said it was very bland. One friend proceeded to drown it in salt, which, believe me, he never does, so I’m guessing the chefs forgot to salt it or something.

This place is so disappointing that I was too disappointed to honor it with a blog entry of reasonable length. Think about how disappointed I have to be to run low on words...