Photo from burritoblog.com

I went to Cosmic Cantina, looking for some tasty Mexican food and was not disappointed. Initially surprised to find that you order and seat yourself (the outside had looked like a traditional restaurant), I sat down and looked at the rather complicated menu.

The menu is set up in categories - tortillas, vegetables, salsas, etc. You pick the array of things you want and order. Everything on the menu is completely organic. I ordered a quesadilla with cheese, mushroom, and avocado. They made it pretty quickly and called my name when it was ready. The tortilla was home-made, the vegetables fresh, and everything was delicious!

I’d definitely go there again, though I might choose a different seat. I sat at the tall tables with stools and ended up with a back ache that night!

Rego Park, Queens
quick facts:
location: Central Queens bordered by Elmhurst and Forest Hills
subway stop: 63rd Drive, Rego Park [V and G lines]
Brief history: Basically farmland until the 1920s, when the REal GOod Construction Company purchased the land and built 575 eight-room homes; apartment buildings followed. Until 1962, there was a Long Island Railroad station in Rego Park.

I decided to start this series closest to home, where I live. When I say “I live in Rego Park”, I get one of two responses:
1) Where’s that? or 2) Oh, isn’t that where the mall is?…….Actually the Queens Center Mall is in Elmhurst, just over the LIE. Rego Park is becoming a shopping mall of sorts, with a little mall on the Boulevard [Sears, Marshalls, Circuit City, Bed Bath and Beyond, Old Navy], and another one to come in 2009 [Home Depot, Kohl's, Century 21].

Bukhara-on-the-Boulevard? Rego-stan? Forest Hills’ poorer cousin? Shopping mecca? If you judge Rego Park by its hub — the corner of 63rd Drive and Queens Blvd., you’re missing something. Venture down 63rd Drive toward 99th Street, up to 108th Street, and further down to 67th Avenue, and notice a scene which looks like it could have come out of Anatevka or “Borat”. Stores have signs in Cyrillic Russian lettering, and in winter, many heads are covered with big fur hats, and in all weather, “babushkas”. Rego Park is the center of immigrants from what is now Uzbekistan, a former Soviet Republic, and specifically from the areas of Bukhara,Samarkand, and Tashkent. These are not the Russians of Brighton Beach. These are people of Central Asia. If you walk on the north side of Queens Boulevard up 63rd Drive past Citibank, CVS, and Dress Barn, you enter another world. Walk down the long block toward 98th Street. and stop in the delis with the signs in Russian — one is mid-block, and the other on the corner. You will see an amazing array of smoked fish, cheeses, pickles, fresh yogurts, sweets, breads, and pastry. Continue on just past 99th Street and stop into Tandoori Bukharian Bakery. Eat a samsa - the Central Asian version of the Indian samosa. If you walk to 108th Street, otherwise known as “Bukharian Broadway”, you run into even more of these Central Asian delicacy shops. The fresh yogurt is amazing, and the sweets are like nothing you have tasted before.

But Rego Park is also getting an influx of young American families, and young professionals who are sick of paying rents $3,000 a month for an apartment the size of a walk-in closet, or who are sick of paying rent at all, and want to own a co-op for less than $500,000. There is now a Starbucks at the corner of 67th and Queens Boulevard, and a new vegan place with Soho-like decor and soft couches across the boulevard [Tierra Sana]. But the old standbys are still popular — London Lennies [seafood] on Woodhaven Blvd, Ben’s Best serving up kosher deli for over 50 years, and Knish Nosh [knishes and other Jewish dishes. Other places that don't disappoint are Avellinos [Italian] near the 64th Street entrance to the subway, Tung Shing Palace, [Chinese] one block east from Avellinos, and the Shalimar Diner on 63rd Rd. across from the library.

An email pops in today from Reaghan Roper at MWW Group. It is a press release. This was in response to my post about FreshDirect. One of criticism was that FreshDirect was selective in which neighborhoods it delivers to.

And the press release continues to say

Leading Online Grocer Now Delivering to Residents in Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Red Hook and More

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz Welcomes FreshDirect Delivery

LONG ISLAND CITY, NY – April 17, 2008 – FreshDirect, one of the nation’s leading online gourmet grocers and prepared food purveyors, announced today its plans to heed growing customer demand and expand its delivery services to reach the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bedford Stuyvesant (“Bed Stuy”), Crown Heights, Red Hook and more. The new delivery areas are now open for delivery service, giving residents a whole new way to shop for the best in fresh produce, competitively priced groceries, and mouthwatering prepared food.

Communities in these neighborhoods can now choose from FreshDirect’s extensive product offering, featuring fresh foods and groceries, bulk items, local and organic produce and chef-prepared 4-Minute and Ready-to-Cook Meals. These neighborhoods add to a growing number of Brooklyn communities currently serviced by FreshDirect. In addition to Brooklyn, FreshDirect successfully operates throughout Manhattan and Queens as well as select areas in Staten Island, Westchester, Nassau County, and New Jersey.

It took a long long time for FreshDirect to correct its “social” injustice. Well better late than never. Welcome FD to BS….

PS….here you can see pics [1] [2] of Marty Markowitz sucking up to FD officials.

Woo hoo! There’s something new in Rego Park, and it’s not an Uzbeki club, Russian-language video/cellphone/drugstore/optician combo! Not that I have anything against our newest immigrants, but not since Starbucks opened here, have I seen any business catering to the ever-growing number of young and middle-aged professionals who are moving to Central Queens to own co-ops, priced out of Manhattan and sick of paying rent.

Tierra Sana is a vegan, funkily-furnished eatery with a juice and smoothie bar that looks as if it could be in the Flatiron. It’s only weakness during my visit, was spotty service, which they are going to have to iron out if they want to reman afloat. It’s a huge space, and rents along that part of Queens Blvd. are sky-high, so they have to serve up a lot of panini, smoothies, wraps, and veggie juice.

But I am committed to trying to become a regular customer, to lend my support. The felafel panini I had on my visit was just the nutritious lunch I needed. And I would just as soon let Tierra Sana juice me up a carrot-apple mix if it means avoiding cleaning out my own juicer. And the friendliness of the staff made up for a little disorganization; you could tell that they care to please.

So I was riding the subway a little late in the evening with my fiance, when a stylish-looking couple sat down in the same car. After they chatted for a minute, the woman opened her purse, pulled out a full-sized container of Glade air-freshener, and sprayed the subway car.  Can’t say I’ve seen that before…

I don’t know if this is the case, but I’d like to imagine that this woman just carries air-freshener around everywhere and sprays it whenever she smells an offensive odor - public restrooms, crowded elevators, garbage cans. That’s one way to keep the city smelling fresh.

So we had our Metroblogs meetup recently as you may have already read. I’d just like to talk a bit in detail about my dish of food…it looks good, doesn’t it?

There are a few things in material life better than a hearty meal prepared with love & care. The latter portion of it playing a big role in what makes food actually “good.”

I personally have a lot of dietary restrictions when dining out but tonight I was treated to something unusual; a meal prepared to my diet with love, attention and even a personal visit from the chef.

It was at Counter - a vegetarian/vegan restaurant with a pricey menu and fully loaded bar that & variety that attracts omnivores and fruitatarians like yours truly alike.
Read more

The Bush crowd has now pissed off a major member of the “right wing” by editing out the sections of a congressionally commissioned report on surface transportation it didn’t like which strongly advocated light rail. Contempt of Congress??

The edited section seems to touch a lot nerves by linking the issue to national security.

“To these well-known factors pointing toward greater reliance on mass transit, a highly important new consideration must be added: national security. Americans’ dependence on automobiles fueled largely with imported oil is the Achilles’ heel of our current foreign and national security policy. Rising oil prices threaten the prosperity of our economy, with dependence on oil imported from unstable regions adding the risks of actual fuel cutoffs, limited foreign policy options, and wars over oil sources and supplies. The Energy Information Administration reported that 71 million barrels of petroleum were imported from the Persian Gulf region in June of 2007, 18 percent of all petroleum imports. According to the same source, spot oil prices were $81.51 per barrel on September 18, 2007, over $50 dollars more than the $27.26 per barrel spot oil price just four years earlier.

In the face of the Global War on Terrorism, providing Americans with mobility that is not dependent on foreign oil may be second in importance only to securing our homeland against direct terrorist attack. Just as the Cold War brought about the National Defense Interstate Highway Act, so we think it probable that the future will require a National Defense Public Transportation Act. Current and near-future national transportation policy should take this likelihood fully into account.”

It also brought up history that people like to bury

“Most of those cities once had electric railways. They lost them, not to the fair market, but to massive government intervention in favor of highways and cars. As early as 1921, government was pouring $1.4 billion into highways. In contrast, the vast majority of electric railways were privately owned, received no government assistance and had to pay taxes. Further, their fares were often controlled by local governments, which did not allow them to rise despite inflation. As a result, by 1919 one-third of the country’s streetcar companies were bankrupt. After World War II, many local governments completed the destruction of their community’s electric railways by pressuring transit companies to convert to buses. Bus conversion in turn led many former transit riders to drive instead.”

What a relief. Now that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have seen fit to cross picket lines and return to their West Side studios (and subsequently the airwaves), I feel that I too can, at long last, return to blogging. You see, as Jon Stewart suggests in the above clip, I now resolve to grow and rock a substantial unibrow as a symbol of solidarity with my screenwriting bruthas. (A computer monitor’s a screen after all…)

Ok, so maybe I’ve just been a little lazy. And also sick. And out of town for the holidays.

But here I am, fresh-faced (except for that brow) and ready for another year in the big apple. Happy 2008 NYC! Anyone else make any bizarre resolutions, involving facial hair or otherwise?

Photo from nymag.com

I went out to brunch with my bridesmaids after our dress-shopping adventure. I wanted to take them somewhere close to the store (in the Lower East Side), that served both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes, and with tasty breakfast cocktails (without which no brunch is complete, in my oppinion). After research, I chose a place that fit all this criteria - Little Giant.

This restaurant has two disadvantages for brunch: 1. They don’t take reservations and 2. They only accept cash. I was concerned about both, but neither proved a problem. We arrived a little after 12 and got a table right away. The interior is clean and chic, yet cozy. Their menu includes only what is fresh and in season, and they’ll make any dish vegetarian (if possible). I had baked eggs and toast, along with a grape bellini and a mimosa. Everything was delicious and we all enjoyed the meal. I will certainly be back - the cocktails alone are worth it.

In spaces where there were 5 families will now be 100. I am talking about the trend in my Rego Park/Forest Hills neighborhood where parking lots and private single- and two-family homes are being knocked down for large residential buildings. Right across the street from where I live, there used to be a row of six one-family homes. Several months ago I noticed the houses were all empty. A couple of months ago, the houses came down. Now, there is a sign indicating that “luxury condos” are going up in that space. Just a few years ago, someone built a monstrosity of a condo building ON TOP OF a row of stores.

Around the corner, another group of private homes gave way to a new mid-rise. And a few blocks from there, an Associated supermarket lost half of its parking lot to the construction of a super-luxe amenities-laden complex. By the artist’s rendering on the sign [mind you they have a separate sales office in a store-front on Austin Street, Forest Hills' main shopping street]. This last one has me scratching my head, because I can’t imagine who would buy into a building like this in a neighborhood dominated by Russian-language signs, Orthodox synagogues, and older women pushing shopping carts, and wearing house-dresses, head-scarves, and bedroom slippers.

But what really concerns me is 100 families in a space previously inhabited by 5 or 6. I am only hoping that the wiring and the plumbing will accommodate it all, without a major calamity. I am also picturing the supermarket aisles swelling with people, and the fights for parking spots, and battles between the Fresh Direct and FEDEX trucks, the Access-a-Ride vans and the old-timers with the Florida license plates.