A Brother Interruption

Yeah I was going to post my September food next but this Saturday Owen showed up in New York so I'm going to blog about that first. He got the news Friday that his work needed him in Jersey Saturday but by the early afternoon he was done with his duties over there and made it up to 118th street and I immediately put him on another long train ride down to Trevor's house for the afternoon session of General Conference.

Trevor's house has really got it all

Then we went over to Hank's Juicy Beef for our fellow OPRF/TOPS swimmer Henry's birthday party. Henry opened up Hank's Juicy Beef to bring Chicago style Italian Beefs to New York. 

And then we crossed over the river to the Jersey Lowe's for my first film of the new season, Casablanca. The line was the biggest I'd ever seen there, wrapping around the theater and all the way back through the alley alongside the theater (I guess you need to have been there to know what that means, though)

I was very glad to share my favorite place in New York with Owen. And to finally see Casablanca. I'd never seen it! But it's true what they say, it's a terrible movie*. And also, Karrie came too.

*I only said that to see if you were paying attention. Of course it was great.

Back in the city, all the construction on the Fulton street transit hub is finally done and you can walk from the PATH to just about every train imaginable via the Oculus. 

Sunday morning Owen and I played Street Fighter and watched conference and got hungry and went out looking for tacos.

My first pick was keeping the Sabbath Day holy. Kinda wish we hadn't walked all the way past 1st avenue to find that out.

I love health food!

We wound up at El Tapatio, a great place I don't go to nearly enough. Chips and salsa, tostada, taco, sope, just what we needed.

Time passes. It's time to go downtown for a big dinner at Mission Chinese Food.

Owen the Dragon Fighter.

Owen, the about to eat at Mission Chinese.

Owen, about to order at Mission Chinese.

And here we go, our dishes for the evening:

The menu called these buckwheat noodles, but what this was was Naengmyeon I'm pretty sure.

Walked the meal off through Chinatown and on up to Union Square. But this is all Chinatown stuff.

Congratulations! You did it!

Monday Owen had an afternoon flight back to Idaho, so we had time for one more meal. We dashed out to Williamsburg for a lunch at Emmy Squared. My third visit and I finally got to try the Le Big Matt

Ham graffiti

And then we pulled off some impeccable timing getting Owen over to Oddfellows for ice cream, onto a subway back to the city, and onto a train to Newark (where Owen's plane was quite delayed, of course).

Owen was born when I was in 4th grade, so he was still real young when I left for college. During High School I'd imagine how cool it'd be to have him come visit me in college or after college, wherever I'd be living, and stay in my apartment or house and see my grown up life. So this weekend it turned out my old dream unexpectedly came true, quite a bit later than imagined, but still, how lucky for me.

September in Summary: No Food Edition

After a couple of slow months I actually ate pretty interestingly in September, so foods get their whole own post. This is my general interest September post, and it's going to be mostly pictures from walks I took.

Out and about in Chinatown and such, the Chinese grocery store had plenty of fresh Pikachus

Daytime neighborhood walk, I discover there's a public pool right by my house on the day that it closes for the fall.

This one Sunday Ned showed me the workshop room at the 66th street chapel that I had never seen before or had any idea about.

Looked up at Union Square and saw some roof trees I had never seen before

Heading to church one Sunday, finding out there's no train and I've got to take a shuttle bus

You've got miles to go before you sleep, pal

On the night of the Chelsea bomb I was with Patricia watching Alex Cameron and Angel Olsen at Webster Hall

Afterwords we went crazy on strange sodas across the street at M2M (Patricia had a cinammon soda and a little fancy ginger ale)

I had a lemon drink that met 800% of my Vitamin C needs

Another day, an evening neighborhood walk

The next day, last Saturday, Carol was in town. Ate lunch with her and Lauri but I will not show you pictures of the food now! Those are for the next post. And afters I enjoyed some sunshiney times in Washington Square Park

Sunday: Fancy breakfast at Le Coucou with Carol, the prettiest new restaurant in the city. Again: You must wait for the food photos that I know you're dying to see.

Important News: Refreshed my hat just in time for October

Met up with Carol and Madeleine at Chelsea Market for a minute before sitting around at JB's house before she caught her train out of town. Some advice: If you can find an apartment with a chandelier, take it.

Tutoring is back in business and I'm looking for a new kid to work with. Night One report: 2 kids showed up, but about a dozen tutors were there. Forward!

Night time bus on my way to do some Taco Home Teaching

Cory was in town for business the last week of September, had a good time eating (wait) and hanging with him.

Thursday morning we met up at the High Line. I love this sign. I want signs like this everywhere.

This is a statue

And THAT was September, except for the food parts.

Best Restaurants of New York: Roll n Roaster

Labor Day I celebrated the end of the summer by driving out to Roll n Roaster in Sheepshead Bay with Kim. It's a very hard place to get to without a car, so I was lucky that Kim was curious enough about my enthusiasm for getting out there to offer to drive. Or agree to drive.

This is the front of the restaurant, not the best picture as it was taken as we were driving past.

So what's Roll n Roaster and was I so intent on getting out to it? I suggest watching this old ad of theirs (which they still run on TV), I might not need to explain anything else about it once you've seen it:

Ok, I'll still explain myself: Roll n Roaster is a one of a kind fast food roast beef place that opened 45 years ago and does not seem to have changed at all since it opened its doors, or at least since they filmed that commercial. The decor today? Just like the commercial. The uniforms? Just like the commercial. The food? Just like the video. When I first moved to the city there was a Roll n Roaster across the street from Webster Hall that I ate at a couple of times, it definitely felt like the branch of a chain from yesteryear, I didn't realize it was the lone additional outpost of an absolute classic. A year or two ago I got a bug in my brain about heading out to the original Roll n Roaster and, well, like I was telling you, that dream came true on Labor Day.

We approached from the rear. Check out that signage there by the bike rack: ride your bike to Roll n Roaster and they'll give you a free bottle of water! And they've got an air pump for filling your tires, what a class act place.

And here we have the main dining room...stepping in you might experience some very strong flashbacks to getting fast food in the 80's feelings, if that's a thing you ever did. There's even something about the smell in there that's kind of vintage (that's not a jab at the sanitation level at all, everything in there is A+), like maybe they fry in a kind of oil that no one uses anymore or something. And dig these amazing beams and chandeliers! It's too good!

Another look at the menu board. Look closely, you can order a bottle of champagne for your meal, if you'd like.

They cook everything to order and they tell you you're going to have to wait, but really the wait wasn't so bad. Some things I observed while waiting:

A wall of fame, with some repetition.

At last, our haul:

Note the dill chip-cut fries and fried chicken, because I forgot to take any more pictures of them. The fries aren't spectacular, but whatever. The chicken, however, was excellently crisp and tasty. Could stand on its own merits, Roll n Roaster could drop the roast beef sandwiches and be a chicken place if they wanted to...but...

Holy Smokes this Roast Beef!

This is some perfection right here. Well-gravied and topped with sautéed onions (if you ask for them), Kim accurately described it as more of a French dip on a roll than anything. And it's delicious.

You've also got the option of having it slathered with melted cheese, but I opted for a cup of cheese on the side, so I could cheese everything as I pleased. I'd say your Roll n Roaster roast beef experience wouldn't be incomplete without the cheese, but it certainly doesn't hurt either. A much bigger star at our table: Their house buffalo sauce which, hey, is probably just Franks with butter mixed in, but the butter is in there! (I know because our cup needed a little finishing-off mixing).

Meal complete. At the time I felt beyond satisfied and disinclined from finishing off the last piece of chicken, about an hour later I was thinking "Hmmm, maybe I should've had a second sandwich?" I think that's the Roll n Roaster greatness right there, no matter how much you eat, a little while later you'll be wishing you had had more. Strongest possible recommendation for this place, that's why I gave this post the "Best Restaurants in New York" clickbait title...you'll see me using that from now on when I A) Am trying hard to get you to read my blog and B) Have a "Drop whatever you're doing and GO!" recommendation to make.

Until next time, Roll n Roaster girl!