New York Day 3 - Klezmer Brunch at the City Winery, New Green Bo, Prune and everything we did in between

Ever since Ezra dropped out of yeshiva, he has been a completely non-practicing Jew. He doesn't keep kosher, doesn't keep shabbos, doesn't fast on Yom Kippur, nothing. Despite all this, he still strongly identifies with his Jewish identity, but wants to express it in a way that doesn't involve joining Hillel, similar to how I strongly identify with my Chinese identity, but want to express it in a way that doesn't involve only hanging out with Asians, listening to Chinese pop music, driving a Civic, etc. etc. While for me this has become an exercise of writing and speaking Chinese, celebrating Chinese holidays, and eating/learning how to prepare Chinese food, Ezra's outlet is klezmer music (listening to it as well as playing it on his accordion), writing for Jewish publications, celebrating the occasional Jewish holiday, and buying his shiksa of a girlfriend Jewish cookbooks.


Highest number of eggs in a cake recipe: 15

So anyway, when finding things for us to do in New York, Ezra's mind naturally gravitated toward klezmer shows, and after a bit of searching, he was eventually led to the Klezmer Brunch at the City Winery.

The City Winery is actually a pretty cool restaurant in Greenwich Village. It's a huge space, taking up half the block, with tons of tables, a basement with a glassed-in barrel storage area, and a small stage for musicians. In addition to hosting the Klezmer Brunch every Sunday, they hold a plethora of musical events, as well as wine-related events like winemaking lessons and wine tasting seminars.

We arrived early since we didn't have tickets and we were afraid the event would be sold out. Fortunately, there was a lot of space available, so we had no trouble securing a spot. Tip: Although service starts at 10, the music doesn't start until 11 so don't worry about getting there right on time.


I got a simple bagels and lox, which came with cream cheese, red onions, tomato, and capers with a salad on the side. Delicious. Ezra got an omelette that had something and a very flavourful Spanish chorizo with roasted potatoes and a salad on the side. We also splurged on a pot of "Fu Man Chu" tea, a blend of Pu Erh teas. Ezra was impressed with the service, but perhaps more so by the fact that we got a huge bottle of water at our table, and they poured it for us from time to time. He strangely didn't ask them for any ketchup because instead of serving it by the bottle as well, they gave little dishes, one of his pet peeves.

Oh, and the music was great. Both Alicia Svigals (the violinist) and Marilyn Lerner (the pianist) were very talented, playing some traditional stuff as well as stuff that they'd written or rearranged. It was a lot of fun and a more positive experience than the last Klezmer show that I went to, where I cried, because everyone around me seemed to be friends with each other and I felt so left out of the loop!

While we were at the City Winery, Cara felt remorse at having stood us up at dinner on Friday so messaged me to suggest that we meet her in Chinatown. When we got there, however, something had come up with her work (on a Sunday!) So we were left to explore on our own.


We were starting to feel hungry again, so since I was the Chinese one, Ezra gave me the task of choosing where we wanted to go for food. But there was so much to choose from! Did we want to go to a big fancy restaurant for dim sum or a smaller place for noodles? What about an HK-style café? As we wandered up and down the streets, Ezra pointed to a place covered in newspaper reviews for a restaurant that appeared to specialize in soup dumplings. That was when the memory of The Amateur Gourmet's encounter with this restaurant came back to me. It was New Green Bo!

Despite the fact that it was 3 pm, the tiny restaurant was almost full and the waiters had no qualms about seating us at one of their large tables with a some strangers. We sat with a European couple (Ezra noted that the guy looked like Rasputin) and a Chinese mother-daughter pair who did not speak Chinese and later moved to a smaller table that freed up. I successfully ordered in Mandarin, getting us some corn soup (Ezra likes this more than is probably normal), Shanghai fried noodles (this is where it came out that Ezra does not like noodles in soup), and the famous soup dumplings.


We started off with the soup, which was good, and had reasonably-sized pieces of chicken. The Shanghai fried noodles were tasty, filled with pork, shrimp, and pieces of cabbage without being too greasy.


The soup dumplings were good, but could've been better if we didn't let them cool for so long. By the time we got to the last ones, what used to be "soup" just tasted like "grease". Gross. Tip: If you're ordering a lot of things, eat them first, or order them after you're done your other food. The key is to get it while it's hot, so it tastes soupy, not greasy.

The best thing about the place was that our bill came out to about $16, so I paid it.

At this point, Cara finally joined us and proceeded to be quite possibly the worst tour guide ever ("Well, here's another important looking building.") as we headed toward the Financial District. We would've gotten lost if it weren't for Ezra's navigating skills, but we survived.

We popped into Century 21, where Cara and I spent more time chatting than shopping, and Ezra bought a hat to replace the one he'd lost. I'd made his hat to match mine, which is too big for me (because I didn't check the gauge), so it's kind of a cloud with a silver lining because now I can make two hats that fit properly :D

Century 21 is actually right next to Ground Zero, which still hasn't seen any real development for the past eight years. They were originally going to just make a memorial, then realized, "Hey, we can make good money off this land!" So now they're putting office towers in again.



Other sights:

At this point, it was getting dark fast and nearing the time that we needed to start thinking about dinner. I had talked about wanting to go to Momofuku, and Cara was like, "Well, I think it's near here."
I got excited for a second, then double-checked and asked, "Which one?"
"The noodle bar."
"Oh, Ezra doesn't like noodles in soup."

Cara racked her brain for a moment, then said, "How about Prune?"
I immediately agreed to try the Amateur Gourmet perennial favourite.

We cabbed down to 1st and 1st, catching glimpses of Katz's Deli and Russ and Daughters along the way. Prune is a surprisingly small restaurant so I panicked a little that we didn't make reservations, but there was a tiny 4-person table available, like it was waiting for us to come.

The space was had a very rustic feel to it, with paint cracking everywhere and black marks on all of the mirrors. I loved how jars of garnishes like lemons, limes, pickles, and other pickled things were just sitting right at the bar. Awesome. I wasn't feeling particularly hungry (or wealthy), so didn't try one of their interesting starters, like octopus, roasted marrow bones, or fried sweetbreads, and settled on the Seared Duck Breast with Broccoli Rabe. Ezra and Cara were both interested in the lamb chop at first, but after asking the waitress what a capon was (She simply said, "rooster" but Wikipedia goes into a little more detail...), they both settled on the Roasted Capon with Garlic Crouton. Ever the saleswoman, the waitress noted that only my dish came with a side, so Ezra went for the Slow Cooked Cabbage with Garlic and Anchovy, while Cara chose the Roasted Spaghetti Squash with piquillo peppers and fried Sicilian pistachios.

(Now you must excuse me because both photos I took there were blurry.)


We were given a bucket of papadums to nibble on while we waited, which seemed excessive at first, but was actually kind of reasonable because the service was a little slow. Mmm papadums...

Finally our food came and I got a little nervous because Ezra has had negative experiences with seared duck breast at a fancy restaurant before. (It came out red and bloody.) Fortunately, mine was well done and reminded me a little bit of Chinese BBQ duck.


The broccoli rabe was great too... it reminded me of Chinese broccoli, but more tender with a pronounced bitter taste.

Ezra and Cara seemed to enjoy their capons, which were very juicy, and their garlic crouton, which was like a giant piece of garlic bread that soaked up all the chicken juices. Cara's even had fresh garlic on it that had turned blue - I only remembered so much that it's some sort of chemical reaction, but the garlic was still safe to eat. Thoughts?

The sides were also excellent - Ezra's cabbage was very buttery and he liked it a lot (but honestly, is there any cabbage-based dish that he does not like?) and Cara's spaghetti squash tasted almost Chinese to me, likely because of the peppers. I usually had my spaghetti squash dressed like spaghetti or plain with butter, so this was a welcome twist.

We were too full for dessert, but humoured the waitress by letting her give us the dessert menu anyway. I was craving something rich and chocolate-y, and the menu that night (trifle, meringue, etc.) didn't really appeal to me. Our cheque came with a few chunks of dark chocolate, which was the perfect end note.

Ezra headed back to the hostel to catch up on some current events for his exam at CUNY the next day, while I checked out Cara's loft (which she shares with three others) in Chelsea before heading back to join him.

City Winery
155 Varick St
New York NY 10013
(212) 608-0555


New Green Bo
66 Bayard St
New York NY 10013
(212) 625-2359


Prune
54 E 1st St
New York NY 10003
(212) 677-6221