Category Archives: End of the Line

Lunch at the End of the Line: Bonnaroo Edition

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Andrew at Solar CafeThere is a lot of good food at the annual Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tennessee. Much of it, along with dozens of good bands giving it their all, can be found in the central area of the festival, but for a perennial favorite of my brother-in-law Andrew (of Andrew Leahey and the Homestead), we were going to have to venture out into the great beyond. We were headed to the end of the line, and we were on the hunt for a mean tofu scramble.

A little background here: because both Andrew and my husband write about the festival for various publications, I have become an exceedingly spoiled Bonnaroo-goer over the past few years. They had once again managed to land us in “guest” camping, which boasted benefits like free showers and actual trees to shade our tents from the broiling Tennessee heat. (“Oh, no! This weekend, we’re like the one percent!” Andrew said, with a tiny bit of genuine class guilt.) But to get a taste of a particular dish that Andrew and his wife, Emily, had come to crave in Bonnaroos past, we needed to wander into the melee of the general camping area, where the great ninety-nine percent were partying in every conceivable fashion.

It is almost impossible to describe the verve, conviviality and downright filthiness of general camping. “I bet the best food is somewhere out here,” Andrew proclaimed with authority. Continue reading →

Lunch at the End of the Line: Melting Pot Edition

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mural in AstoriaA lot of people think of Astoria, Queens as being synonymous with good Greek food. But the truth is that, like a lot of New York City, Astoria is a little bit of everything. Queens’s status as the most diverse county in the nation is on display no matter which way you turn. Take, for example, the block I walked around when I first stepped off the Q line: a Chinese acupuncture place across the street from the Thai restaurant that was next to the Spanish café that was just a few steps from the Cuban bakery (Havana Express) where I stopped to get coffee and biscotti. And that was all before I even set foot on Ditmars Boulevard, where everything about Astoria becomes squared.

It’s hard not to stand on Ditmars without thinking the word “bustling,” so I decided that the Bay Ridge strategy of taking a lunch spot survey would work well here. For an hour, I zigzagged around the surrounding residential blocks, soliciting lunch recommendations. While my methods were hardly scientific, I did speak to a lot of people: white people, brown people, Greek people, Italian people, grumpy people, talkative people, dog-walking people, frat boy-looking people, tattooed hipster people, and lots of elderly people.

Their responses, of course, were no less diverse. Continue reading →

Lunch at the End of the Line: Woodlawn Odyssey

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flying colors of katonahThe dead people of Woodlawn are a lot easier to find than the living and eating ones. Step off the end of the 5 line and the mammoth cemetery is right in front of you, shrouding most everything else from view.

I knew nothing of Woodlawn, but I thought I should make some trips away from the more southerly subway ends with which I am more familiar. So I plucked Woodlawn pretty much at random from the Bronx possibilities and took care not to look too much at a map—that seemed like cheating. Surveying the vast empty expanse of the cemetery on one side and Van Cortlandt Park on the other, however, I was having second thoughts. I had a vague memory that civilization lay somewhere to the northwest, on a street that started with a K. I struck out in that direction.

I like walking, but walking with the nagging possibility that you are going the wrong way is not so fun. I decided that if I kept the cemetery always on my right, like Captain Vancouver hugging the Pacific Northwest coast, I couldn’t get too lost. But there really weren’t many landmarks save for a giant sign reminding me that I could get special “under construction” pricing on mausoleum crypt space. Continue reading →

Lunch at the End of the Line: An Oasis in Bay Ridge

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An Oasis in Bay RidgeAfter last week’s ocean of loneliness, I thought that perhaps it was time to admit some basic facts about human nature—strangers in New York do not seem to want to eat lunch with me and asking them fills me with dread. As I headed to Bay Ridge, the end of the R line, I decided upon yet another strategy. I would canvass the streets, asking people what their favorite lunch spot was, and when a consensus emerged, I would go there.

This new plan filled me with fresh optimism and brazenness, and I immediately got a few recommendations for a couple of Irish restaurants on 3rd Avenue (O’Sullivan’s and Chadwick’s). And then I happened upon John, a sad-eyed Syrian man who considered my question long and hard.

“What country are you from?” he asked.

“Um, America,” I replied.

“No, no, I mean, what kind of food do you eat?” He eyed my dark hair and made a tentative guess. “You like Italian food?” Continue reading →

Lunch at the End of the Line: Ocean of Loneliness Edition

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Ocean of LonelinessIn the interest of honesty, let me say that I was not in the best of moods when I arrived at the end of the B line in Brighton Beach, and I desperately needed a cup of coffee. But though I found a steaming vat of pierogis inside of a minute, a coffee shop was oddly difficult to locate. I started to feel keenly how little I knew about Russian food in general and this neighborhood in particular. Don’t the Russians drink coffee? Or tea or something? What are they doing with all those samovars in the Chekov stories?

Coffeeless, I ate half of a poppy seed pastry and felt a little better, so I headed to the boardwalk to put my new strategy into action. Since last week’s anxious canvassing of Flushing’s sidewalks did not do the trick, I had decided to advertise with a sign my intention of taking a stranger to lunch (see below). This lower impact approach would be perfect, I thought, and have the hungry hordes flocking to me in no time. Continue reading →

Lunch at the End of the Line: Stir-Fried Bed Linen Edition

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A free lunch really does exist, and I was walking the streets of Flushing, Queens recently, trying to hand it out. But I was having trouble finding any takers.

Allow me to explain. For our Friday series, Lunch at the End of the Line, I’m planning to ride one of the MTA subway trains to an unfamiliar stop and then offer to take a stranger to his or her favorite restaurant. As long as the place they have in mind is within walking distance of the train station and I, a longtime vegetarian, won’t go hungry there, I’ll pay for my lunch and up to ten dollars toward theirs.

But the good people off the Flushing-Main Street stop of the 7 train seemed skeptical. They were full of restaurant suggestions (including Szechwan Garden, a purportedly great place for spicy pork, and Nan Xiang, an excellent dumpling joint that I’ve actually been to before), but when I asked if they would accompany me, they began to avoid my eyes and find excuses. Continue reading →