nosh nook #66 - monday, june 15, 2009

restaurateur fed his whimsy, and diners, with huge menu (link)
06.14.09 - the washington post - by joe holley

here in new york, there's this place, shopsins, that's somewhat of a new york legend. at one point, someone even made a film about it--i like killing flies. run by one kenny shopsin, it's known for both its insanely long menu & quirky, insanely-tempered owner. it existed for years as a diner in greenwich village until they were priced out of the neighborhood & eventually landed in their current space, a stall in the essex market. it's the sort of joint where you'd be as likely to be shamed & kicked out for using your cell phone as you would be to get a buddhaboy (a sandwich with brussel sprouts, haricot vert, puff rice & gruyere).

in gaithersburg, md, there's a similar place called roy's place, a restaurant which was run by owner roy passin for 54 years until he passed on a month ago today. as joe holley reports, roy's place has a "20-page menu featuring 206 sandwich combinations, almost all of them created and whimsically named by roy passin himself." the list includes such items as the "the forever ambler, or the importance of being ernest," "the joel t. siegel" & "the pretty kitty in love with claude dog." although there's no way he could be as crazy as kenny shopsin, roy was also known as someone who was "random and creative" while also being "loud and profane."

patton oswalt has this one bit about crazy chefs called "great food is prepared by psychos." in it, he talks about how he used to worship insane musicians, but now worships insane four-star chefs, folks who imbue the experience of their restaurants with nutty, OCD characteristics like "every day our kobe-rubbed beef is read the book are you my mother? by a guatemalan child."  the crazy long menus of roy passin & kenny shopsin fall into this same category of quirks...& people want that quirkiness in a restaurant.  if they didn't, we could just slap up mcdonald's after mcdonald's & just call it a day.

#25 - kids these days.

the other night, i was on the phone with a good friend who lives on the other side of the country & we got to talking about how we always see kids these days round our respective cities guzzling red bulls & monster energy drinks & whatnot, leading us to believe that they either have no energy & need the drinks to function properly or that they are seriously amp'd all the time, which actually explains a lot of behavior i encounter on the subways. those kids are all full of sugar & guarana & roots & junk.

there's this triad of kids i've seen multiple times on the train. they have a boom box & they dance & clap & spin & flip the tiny one in the air & he kicks the ceiling when he hits the top of his arc, which usually brings at least one gasp & the attention of pretty much everyone in the car. those kids are probably sooooooooooo high on energy drinks & funding their habits by performing on the train. it explains a lot, actually.

when we were kids, we didn't have energy drinks & we were off doing sports & running around our suburban yards & going on scouting excursions just fine thank you. sure, now that i'm all grown up & perpetually tired from late nights & long days, i take in a lot of caffeine myself, occasionally in energy drink form, but i'm an adult, who can obviously handle my caffeine intake.

these are kids we're talking about though. where is the regulatory system/religious group who should obviously step in & speak out against such consumption? we're in an election season, people!

#25 - kids these days.
snack: smuckers uncrustables peanut butter & strawberry jam sandwich
drink: sparks

so it's saturday late afternoon/early evening & i'm feeling a bit run down from an early wakeup & the rare doing of things before noon & realizing i could go down one of two roads at this point. i could settle down for a couple hour nap & still have the evening ahead of me when i awake or i could guzzle the sparks that i bought on a whim the other night & ride the alcoholic energy drink snake. i chose the road paved with sparks, figuring that if i crash & burn once the caffeine & malt liquor has worked its way out of my system hours from now, so be it.

for me, sparks is a beverage that i often feel should not be. i liken the taste of a sparks to that of an orange willy wonka bottle cap, meaning that its flavor is fruity with a chalky, tooth-decay-enveloping aftertaste.

shortly after i moved to nyc, sparks was introduced to the city, specifically to hipsters & often in brooklyn. it was one of the first markets sparks was available in, i assume. i was going to a boatload of concerts at the time & quite often, there was free sparks available, to give hipsters a little shake to their step. now i think they just do coke instead.

anywho, if you drink more than one, you will probably get sick. one evening after work, i saw ted leo during cmj at the now defunct rothko. i didn't have time to grab dinner & was likely broke & so took advantage of the free sparks on hand. by the end of ted leo's set & my second sparks, i was 95% sure that some part of my stomach had eaten a less fortunate other part of my stomach. for a brief moment, i felt like i could identify with kurt cobain. luckily, tonight, i am older & wiser & only have one on hand.

along with the sparks, i'm snacking on a smuckers uncrustables peanut butter & strawberry jam sandwich. it tastes fine. it's basically what you'd get if yo moms made up a bunch of sandwiches one night all crispin glover style & then stored them in the freezer for you, rationing them out to you one at a time, asking you if you'd like a pb&j and when you say "yes," telling you to wait 30-60 minutes so she can thaw one out. maybe yo moms has a court order preventing her from using knives. if so, these smuckers joints are right up your alley.