New York's Alright, If You Like Saxophones
March 23-28, 2018
Kirb honestly entertained the idea of eating only pizza for the entire week he was in New York, and when he showed up hungry in Greenpoint after a long flight and several trains, the first thing he did was walk into a place called Italy Pizza. He placed his order and waited for the slices to be heated up. Suddenly, an older man in a "Brooklyn" sweatshirt burst through the door and breathlessly yelled in the most stereotypical New York accent, "Ehhhhhhh the pizza's are'a flyin' out the door! Gimme a grandma slice in a box and don't heat it up!" There were several people in line waiting to order. They stared at the loud man impatiently. Welcome to New York City.
The cheese slice at Italy Pizza had a crispy crust that made it seem slightly overcooked, and the sauce was undersalted. 3/5 stars for the slice, 5/5 stars for the pizzeria experience thanks to the hilariously obnoxious New Yorker.
Kirb's good friend Carrie had moved to New York from Seattle several years before and now lived in a Polish neighborhood in Greenpoint that was a 20 minute walk in any direction to public transit. It was also essentially a food desert, with little in terms of restaurants in close proximity except for bodegas, which all claimed to be delis but were really just corner stores that would make you a subpar turkey sandwich. When it was time to eat again that evening, Kirb wandered the streets near her house looking for anything appetizing, eventually stumbling upon another pizza place called Nina's next to the freeway. Their slice had an excellent chewy crust and was exactly what Kirb is looking for when he wants some "shitty American pizza," a specifically satisfying type of pizza that doesn't really exist in Europe. Carrie had no idea the place even existed and was glad to learn of it. 4/5 stars.
On the 20-minute walk from the subway to Carrie's house Kirb walked by a toilet, a sofa, a kitchen table and chair, and an old television abandoned on the sidewalk. Once assembled, he would have almost everything he needed to begin a comfortable life on the streets of Brooklyn. It became clear quickly that the jokes on TV about New York being dirty were based in real fact.
That night Carrie's boyfriend Naideau was playing a show at a loft space in Bushwick called 538 Johnson that is infamous in the New York punk scene for it's large, rowdy shows. As we entered, the shotgun hallway leading down the massive loft space was packed with people chain smoking and drinking cheap beer. The show area was in a large warehouse space at the beginning of the hallway, where people were already staking out spots in lofted areas that dotted the perimeter. A little further down the hall was a room that had been completely converted into a half pipe. At the end of the hall were some decrepit stairs leading down to a landing with no exit. This was the public toilet. Guys urinated freely off the edge of the stairwell; girls walked to the bottom stair or shallowly onto the landing to do their business. It was disgusting, and exactly the sort of crusty Bushwick punk shit Kirb was hoping to experience firsthand.
This was a show for straightforward hardcore punk. Nandas was like being transported back to the early 80s to see Germs – fast, direct punk songs with little nuance. Naideau's band Warthog headlined with a heavy, pummeling set for the packed-out crowd. One of Carrie's roommates also had a room at the loft space, and offered to let her and Naideau sleep in it since their car was there and she had to wake up to work a record fair early the next morning. The room had a giant hole in the wall and people were partying on the other side of the hole all night. Kirb drank beer and whiskey on the roof with his friends Ian and Robin, both of whom used to live in Seattle, until the wee hours of the morning. When it was time to head home, Ian and Robin were going in the opposite direction in an Uber. Having already spent $32 on a weeklong transit pass that was useless in this part of town, Kirb decided to save some money and walk back to Carrie's. He trudged through a dark, desolate industrial area in the middle of the cold night for what felt like an hour and thoroughly regretted his decision not to pay for a cab.
One of the main reasons Kirb chose to come to New York was that he knew more people who had moved there than any other city. He'd been to New York once on a middle school trip, where he'd done typical tourist activities like going to the top of the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty and to a Broadway play. For this trip, he was mostly interested in seeing what everyday life was like for his friends who had moved there. New York had a specific, almost stereotypical draw that snared an inordinate amount of people, and Kirb was curious to see if it would snare him too. If anything was going to win him over, it was probably going to be the fact that you can find exceptional versions of virtually every great cuisine of the world in New York, not to mention the specific foods New York does better than anywhere else.
Neukölln, the neighborhood where Kirb lives, is quite dirty. There is always trash on the ground, and there are areas by the ring-Bahn that are virtually a public dump. As he made his way through Bed Stuy to meet up with his friend Ryan, Kirb was amazed at how covered in garbage the streets were. Every street in Bed Stuy was as dirty as the dirtiest street in Neukölln. Garbage bags were ripped open and strewn everywhere. You literally couldn't walk five feet without passing a pile of loose trash. No matter where you walked, the trash followed. The scale of it was instantly depressing. He wondered why anyone would want to live like this.
Though the surrounding streets were squalid, Ryan and his girlfriend Emily's apartment was beautiful, filled with plants and lots of natural light and a fluffy cat named Jermajesty. Having lived in New York for several years now, Ryan had plenty of suggestions for food and activities for the day, so Kirb let him take the lead and show him around. His tour included brunch at a hip spot called Moloko that served a breakfast burrito so big Kirb couldn't finish it (this is rare), an excellent comic store called Desert Island, and a scenic ride on the Williamsburg ferry to Brooklyn Bridge Park, which Ryan insisted had the most beautiful soccer pitch in America. Situated directly on the waterfront like an infinity pool with a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline, it very well could be the most scenic field in the country. Ryan invited Kirb to join in on the pick up soccer game he hosts every weekend, but after his punk loft antics the night before Kirb was happy to just lay in the sun and listen to a podcast about Dungeons & Dragons for a few hours while Ryan ran around.
New York is perhaps the world leader at pretension, and Tørst was easily the most pretentious beer bar Kirb had ever been to. Because of, or in spite of this, it was completely packed with people trying to get in on their 21 taps of small-batch weird beers like the "Super Size Hilma," a "Double dry-hopped double IPA brewed with vanilla, crispy fries, and burger buns." Over the course of the hour or so we were there, we were given newly printed menus as fresh micro beers replaced the kegs that ran dry. The majority of the menu wasn't as strange as the burger beer, and most of it was quite tasty, but at $10 per 5-ounce pour of "wild ale" it had better be. Afterwards Ryan and Emily had a hankering for khao soi, so we headed to Sripraphai, a beloved Queens Thai restaurant that had recently expanded to a massive, ornately decorated new spot in Williamsburg. We all got the same order and the spicy noodles were delicious.
There are corner stores masquerading as delis on virtually every corner in Brooklyn, and each one offers the same cheap breakfast sandwich that most lifelong New Yorkers swear by. The "bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll" is exactly as it sounds, and considering how everything in New York is overpriced by virtually every other city's standards, it's incredible that such an affordable and delicious breakfast offering is available so universally. Five bucks gets you a hot, greasy breakfast bomb and a large cup of coffee. Kirb sampled several of the offerings from the bodegas in Carrie's neighborhood with varying quality, though all were worth eating for the price. This was a New York tradition Kirb could fully get behind.
Though he could have happily subsisted on cheap pizza and bodega breakfast sandwiches for the week, there were a few food destinations on Kirb's list, and the top priority was a bowl of ramen at Momofuku. Kirb and Mazz are both big fans of David Chang, and while Kirb was in New York eating his food, Mazz was doing the same in Las Vegas. Momofuku Noodle Bar was unsurprisingly packed with a line out the door, but as Kirb was dining alone it didn't take him long to score a solo spot at the bar. It was truly a beautiful looking bowl of ramen, and it tasted excellent, but when something has been built up in your mind as exceptional it's hard for it not to seem a little disappointing when the $23 soup experience is simply good and not earth-shattering.
Kirb's Momofuku destination meal was followed by a housewarming party for Ian, who had moved with his girlfriend Mira into the apartment directly underneath Robin in Bed Stuy. Robin had been making beef bao buns from scratch and preparing savory congee for the party all afternoon, and eating this delicious, lovingly hand-crafted Asian meal with old friends was infinitely more satisfying than waiting in line for an overpriced bowl of celebrity ramen.
When friends had to work, Kirb set off to explore the city by himself. After an immensely satisfying previous week exploring New Orleans by himself while Mazz was at her conference, attempting to do the same thing again in New York turned out to be a bit of a letdown. He'd start the day with a specific destination recommended by friends, and then take off on foot or by public transit to see the surrounding area. But unlike New Orleans, which is compact and walkable, Brooklyn and Manhattan are massive, and it wasn't uncommon for Kirb to wander for hours without finding more than a single thing or two that piqued his interest.
New York seemingly has anything you could ever want, but it's all spread out, and for someone who simply wants to explore and soak in the city, there's a lot of nothing in-between the somethings. It was easy to spend extended periods of time leisurely browsing the massive isles at Strand Books, or drinking Stumptown coffee and loading up on whole beans to take back to Berlin. The bagel and cream cheese at Russ and Daughters, highly recommended by some locals Kirb met at a house party, was absolutely perfect, but the two hours aimlessly strolling past drug stores and banks in midtown that followed were surprisingly dull. Chalk it up to poor planning, or maybe misguided expectations, but several days spent exploring New York on foot led to zero interesting or memorable discoveries.
Carrie was excited to take Kirb out to Queens to her favorite Sichuan restaurant Little Pepper, and Ryan and Emily agreed to come along. Conventional New York wisdom says that the best international cuisines exist off the beaten path, which usually turns out to be Queens. Kirb loves Sichuanese cuisine, and it's something he can't actively find a proper version of in Berlin. Our one experience at a Sichuan restaurant there was unsatisfying, as even though we pleaded to the waitress that we were not German and that we liked our food truly spicy the way it's supposed to be served, we were given dishes tailored for the bland, lifeless Northern European palate. Truly great Sichuanese cuisine is loaded with both hot peppers and mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorn, which dulls the receptors in the mouth, allowing you to intake massive amounts of spice. We ordered scallion fried rice, hot chicken, dry fried garlic green beans, and Sichuan boiled fish – all of Kirb's favorite dishes. Though all the food tasted great, we fear we were unfortunately profiled as four lily-mouthed white folk and given food with virtually no heat or numbing pepper as a result. We wanted all the heat, and were given none. Little Pepper, indeed. Sichuanese Cuisine on 12th and Jackson in Seattle remains Kirb's absolute favorite Chinese food and he misses it dearly.
At Ryan and Emily's apartment, Emily was borderline obsessed with finishing a jigsaw puzzle of a cat in some tulips she had been working on for several days, while Ryan was borderline obsessed with dressing up his actual cat Jermajesty in a little sombrero while the sleepy animal attempted to nap in the sun. With the Asian food offerings of the city now sufficiently explored, Kirb wanted to get back on his pizza game, so Ryan took him to his favorite cheap spot in the city, Best Pizza in Williamsburg. Though the pepperoni slice was a bit bland and crispy (3.5/5 stars), the white slice with ricotta, caramelized onions, Meyer lemon, and sesame was spectacular and perfectly cooked. 4.5/5 stars.
We spent the afternoon wandering around Williamsburg looking at stores, like the boutique shop that only sold collectible buttons from the 80s for upwards of hundreds of dollars, or the second hand store with worn out Nu-Metal t-shirts scavenged from Goodwills for $50 a pop. We met up with another friend from back West, Carly, who used to manage the greatest band no one had ever heard of, Dog Shredder. When wandering through Williamsburg became tiresome and futile, we ended up at the Levee, a dive bar with actual cheap drinks and free cheesy poofs and Twizzlers. Ryan and Emily eventually had to go take care of chores, but Carly had just quit her job and Kirb was tired of pretending like he cared about exploring New York anymore, so the rest of the afternoon was spent day drinking, catching up, and reminiscing of the good old days in Seattle and Bellingham.
Best Pizza was Ryan's favorite cheap pizza in New York, but his favorite fancy pizza was at a place called Paulie Gee's. This pizzeria was quite popular, so you had to show up, put your name on the list, and then go drink at the nearby bars for an hour or two, occasionally showing back up at the pizza place to see if you were close to getting in. The owner, Paulie, is a little old man who walks around the restaurant asking everyone how they like the pizza, but he never stopped by our table. Though the dough and sauce were classic Neapolitan-style, the toppings at Paulie Gee's had a modern twist, like the Hellboy pizza with soppressata picante and sweet and spicy honey infused with chiles. Quick-fired in a super hot oven for only a minute or two, the dough was incredibly soft and chewy, and the combination of sweet, salty, and savory toppings was perfectly balanced. 4.5/5 stars.
Kirb was ecstatic to find when he got back to Berlin that a new Neapolitan-style pizzeria called Zola had opened in Kreuzberg with ingredients imported from Naples and a virtually identical crust to Paulie Gee's, but at a fraction of the price. It is now Kirb and Mazz's favorite pizza in Berlin. Don't tell Luca at La Focacceria across the street from our house. 5/5 stars.
In his final day in New York, the two remaining items on Kirb's list before getting on a plane to Europe were eating a big Jewish sandwich and finally experiencing a little culture. Kirb chose to get his big Jewish sandwich at Mile End Deli, which is actually a Montreal-style Jewish deli and not a traditional New York one like Katz's, but the end game is the same. Though he initially planned on going to Katz's Deli, Carrie specifically told Kirb not to bother with it, insisting it's an overpriced tourist trap with long lines, and to instead just go to Mile End. He was glad that he did. Sitting at the deli counter eating a sloppy Reuben and drinking refillable Stumptown drip coffee is one of the rare things that makes Kirb feel truly patriotic for America.
For culture, Kirb chose to go to the Brooklyn Museum, as they were hosting a huge David Bowie exhibit. You were given headphones as you entered, and each area of the exhibit was wired to change the audio to match the displays as you walked by. As you made your way through, videos spanning Bowie's career played on the walls, with show posters, lyric sheets, and virtually every iconic outfit he ever wore up on display. Kirb asked the attendant before he entered how long it would take to see the exhibit, and she told him the average person spent two hours. Kirb spent nearly four hours inside, and had to wrap up the last bit quickly to start making his way to the airport.
Google maps had shown Kirb a way to get to JFK without having to take the AirTrain, which cost $5 more on top of his regular pass. The train to East New York went by fast enough, and with a few US dollars left in his pocket he decided there was time for one last slice of pizza at a spot called Caterinas just outside the station. It was chewy, well seasoned, and cheap: A fine final slice in America. 4/5 stars.
The bus to JFK was long and slow, and even though he had taken off from the Museum 3 hours before his flight, Kirb started to get anxious that he hadn't given himself enough time. When he got to the airport, the security line snaked unimaginably long through a building that seemed as wide as a football field. There were drug dogs sniffing everyone who passed by, and even though they had signs on them that said DO NOT PET, Kirb caught a TSA agent petting one of them and cursed her for being above the law. After nearly two hours in security, Kirb was genuinely afraid of missing his flight, so obviously he was stopped for extra inspection because of the Stumptown coffee in his bag. He sprinted to his gate, which was already boarding, and made it to his seat covered in sweat mere minutes before the doors closed and the plane took off. The AirTrain might have been worth the extra $5.
It makes sense that so many people fall in love with New York City. It's big and grand and has wonderful food and culture. But it's also dirty, sprawling, expensive, and impersonal. Something about New York drew in a lot of Kirb's friends, but whatever that was, it didn't draw in Kirb. The best part of being in New York for him was being with those friends, spending time with people who had moved away, and seeing what their lives were like in the big city. A week there was enough. Whatever it is they love about the place, they can keep it.