My own New York imaginary contains a signification portion given over to eating. A good Marxist, I generally work towards eliminating the middle class of restaurants from my itinerary, preferring the low and the high. Examples: once a week I visit Zaragoza Grocery, a Mexican deli, really, where a rotating selection of tacos prepared by the proprietor’s wife puts all four hundred other East Village taco spots to shame. Shame! All of Zaragoza’s tacos are exellent, but if they have the tongue, the goat, or the lamb, thank the lord. As with much that is sublime, there are few components: just a braised meat, some onion, cilantro, salsa and a lime wedge on two tortillas. The service evinces a strong desire to see you enjoy your eating. That infectious stance, combined with stupendous food, is all I want from a place. On the higher side, I nominate the “Cuban” sandwich at Schiller’s Liquor Bar, which is quite inauthentic but still fantastic, containing local cheese, ham, and Gus’s pickles, and served with french fries that prove Keith’s effortless superiority in the competition between the brothers McNally. The careful thought and algorithmic craft put into making sure a kitchen unfailingly delivers perfectly peanut-oil fried, sea-salt seasoned frites demonstrates that you’re in a place where someone cares, cares to realize a place that ranks the importance of profit motives beneath (albeit slightly) the love of a world of good things to eat.
