New in New York: Potatopia is a Paradise of Potato Possibilities

By Mitch Broder

If, like me, you can’t enjoy a potato without a choice of 10 aiolis, then you grasp the importance to total potato gratification of Potatopia.

Well, actually, that’s not like me. I really don’t want any aiolis. And if I did, I probably wouldn’t want them anywhere near my potato. I would want sour cream, or maybe cheese. But Potatopia has those, too, which means that it seeks to gratify everyone, which makes it truly a Potato Utopia.

Potatopia is a new idea that, in New York, you’d think is an old one: a restaurant that serves only meals featuring potatoes. It offers 10 different forms of potatoes, 16 different toppings, six different “proteins,” and 15 different sauces, including, indeed, 10 different aiolis.

I got 100 on my eighth-grade math midterm, but I still can’t begin to calculate how many different potato-meal options those choices can yield. But I’m pretty sure that you could get a different one every day for the rest of your life and die in old age regretting all the potato combinations you missed.

Your potato choices include Baked Potato, Baked Sweet Potato, Smashed Potato, Mashed Pie, Skin Chip, Shoestring, and Curly. Your topping choices include Broccoli, Sweet Pepper, Cilantro, Red Onion, Cheddar Cheese, Asiago Cheese, Pepperjack Cheese, and Specialty Cheese.

The proteins are Chicken, Sausage, Bacon, Shrimp, Steak, and Egg. And the sauces — besides Sour Cream, Melted Cheddar, Ketchup, and BBQ — include Mustard Aioli, Ranch Aioli, Curry Aioli, Chipotle Aioli, Truffle Aioli, Savory Bacon Aioli, and Roasted Pepper Aioli.

All these choices are on the menu under “Build Your Own/Follow Steps 1 - 4.” As I have previously expressed here, I tend to get ruffled by Steps. But for the Step-averse, there is “Signature Meals/Leave It To The Potato Experts.” The Potato Experts offer seven Step-free selections.

These include Frequent Friers, comprising “Shoestring, House Salt & Pepper, Parmesan Cheese, Parsley, Garlic with Parmo Aioli,” and Smashed Hit — pictured here — combining “Smashed Potato, House Salt & Pepper, Cheddar Cheese, Asiago Cheese, Scallion, Red Onion, Garlic, Cilantro with Roasted Pepper Aioli.”

There have long been guys in the city with potato carts. But to make all the stuff in Potatopia, a guy’d need a potato Winnebago. That’s the point of Potatopia: It’s not a baked-potato joint. It’s closer to an unprecedented spudian smorgasbord.

Not unprecedented, though. Potatopia had an out-of-town tryout. Its first store opened two years ago in, inventively, Edison, New Jersey. But its founder, Allen Dikker, acknowledges that he opened it with the goal of opening his second store in New York.

He anointed potatoes, he says, because “everything else is out there.” In a city with restaurants like OatMeals, that’s more or less true. He conducted aioli experiments at home to assemble his roster of sauces. Not surprisingly, he’s now at work on an all-potato cookbook.

Before the grand opening.

Potatopia’s top potato is the Smashed Hit, though there is interest in the most complex choice, which has 16 ingredients, four of which are cheeses. It’s called the Comatoser. The store has been open for just a few weeks, but Allen says that more are already on the way. He’s understandably feeling his oats.

Still, he also acknowledges that I’m far from the only person who is perturbed by the profusion of potato possibilities. As the store manager, Albert Sierra, told me: “In the beginning, people find it a little intimidating. But by the second or third time, they get used to it.”

Weigh your options at Potatopia, 378 Sixth Avenue, between Waverly Place and West Eighth Street, New York City.

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Old Yet New in New York: Papaya King Crowns the East Village

By Mitch Broder

They snap downtown just the way they snap uptown.

That’s all that matters. Papaya King East Village is a success.

Yes, the hot dogs that gave a second career to tropical fruit drinks have ventured from East 86^th Street to St. Mark’s Place. Thus, Papaya King has a second location for the first time in decades. And the dogs traveled well. Here, too, they’re one of the best bites of New York.

The new store is three times as big as the old, and it has a concrete porch. It takes some time to acclimate to all that luxury.  But the hot dogs are the same, which is to say perfectly tasty and snappy, as are the buns, which is to say perfectly fluffy and crunchy.

As is the papaya drink, which is to say perfectly creamy and frothy. It’s unlike any other fruit drink you know. It’s mysterious. And best left that way.

Papaya King, born on that uptown corner in 1932, has had other branches, but they disappeared despite the perfection. The original location was bought by a group of investors three years ago. The new store is their first attempt to build on history.

“It’s a good match for the brand,” says Blake Gower, the group’s head of development. “It’s a quintessential New York experience on a quintessential New York street.” He’s especially proud of the porch: “It’s one of the key design elements. It kind of makes this place feel like it’s always been here.”

Blake wanted to have a place that looked new to people who like new things and old to people who like old things, and he got as close as you could expect. The classic neon sign, for instance, is new and yet manages to say Old New York in the middle of the city’s body-piercing corridor.

Inside, the walls preserve a Papaya King tradition: little signs designed to enlighten you about frankfurters and fruit. But here they’re tailored to the neighborhood, as in: “Right across the street from where you’re standing was the legendary Five Spot Jazz Club. All the greats played there. Bet they wished for franks after shows.”

Blake dug even further back to come up with the bamboo counter and the thatched grill awning laden with artificial fruit. They recall Papaya King’s origin as a stand called Hawaiian Tropical Drinks, where just fruit juice was sold, sometimes by a man crowned by a pith helmet.

The porch has wooden chairs that make you feel like you’re at the old homestead, until you notice the view of the St. Mark’s Hotel, the St. Marks Ale House, and Karaoke St. Marks (and you get a snootful of smoldering sandalwood from the nearby incense stand).

It’s a unique blend. But it could be what the neighborhood needs, since Papaya King could be what every neighborhood needs. Among nearby competitors is Japadog. But Japadog has hot dogs with bonito flakes. Papaya King has two hot dogs and a fruit drink for five bucks.

It has toppings, too, though not bonito flakes. But try a couple of these dogs straight.

As the longtime slogan promises: “Our Franks are Tastier than Filet Mignon.”

Eat royally at Papaya King, at 3 St. Mark’s Place, between Cooper Square and Astor Place, in New York City.

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New in New York: Another French Roll Rocks at Baguette Bar

By Mitch Broder

I can’t promise you a Houska House or a Pumpernickel Pub, but I can follow my report on Croissanteria with one on Baguette Bar.

And considering that the city is full of places like Popover Café, it could soon very well have a restaurant named for every bread and roll.

For now, Baguette Bar is the apparently the newest, undoubtedly the tiniest, and surely the most focused. It serves meat-and-vegetable sandwiches on toasted baguettes. If you don’t want your meat and vegetables on a toasted baguette, you’ll most likely have to take them in a pile.

The meats are pretty much limited to corned beef, pastrami, salami, and turkey. The vegetables include corn (the cereal) and avocado (the fruit). On a standard sandwich you get one meat, two vegetables, and one sauce. Ketchup Mayo is a sauce. Ketchup is still a sauce.

The bar is about to roll out its Signature Sandwiches, which are based on five of its most successful combinations.

The New Yorker is pastrami, lettuce, red onions, pickles, and honey mustard. The Pirojok is corned beef, roasted red peppers, jalapenos, and spicy honey mustard. Lettuce does not count as a vegetable. Pickles and onions do. Pirojok means pie, even though it’s a sandwich.

The categorization may be challenging, but the concept is simple. The appeal of the simplicity is nicely explained by a comment on Yelp: “Cool New place downtown and its open super late! Perfect for when you’re really drunk and need something to eat…”

Just weeks ago the Baguette Bar space was a storeroom for Pink Elephant, the glittery new club whose entrance is around the corner on West Eighth Street. The club’s owner set up his brother, Ben Nahmani, and Ben’s friend Zachi Ozery as baguette baristas.

The idea came from places that sell comparable food in Israel. The furnishings came from a nearby defunct delicatessen. The location is the MacDougal Street corner of the regenerating West Eighth Street, just across from the appealingly simple Sticky’s Finger Joint.

The sandwiches, besides being panini-style, are also kosher-style, which means that the corned beef and pastrami are better than what you get at the diner. And they’re toasted not once but twice, the second time with an olive-oil glaze that Zachi says makes for “a much more nice taste.”

“Now,” he says, “I want people to recognize this product, and we’ll be able to open more.”

I’ll let you know when they do.

I’ll also let you know about the Brioche Boîte and the Sourdough Saloon.

Belly up to Baguette Bar, 179 MacDougal Street, near West Eighth Street, in New York City.

New in New York: Two Buddies Are On a Roll at Croissanteria

By Mitch Broder

As long as you’re going to open a humble neighborhood bakery, you might as well make it a global destination for crescent rolls.

It’s unusual logic. But Selmo Ribeiro and David Simon wanted something unusual. And so far, their humble bakery and global destination are doing well.

Having determined that they wanted to launch some sort of restaurant, they went on to determine that Alphabet City could use a homey café. They then determined that — at least locally — the croissant was a short-changed pastry. With that determination, they launched Croissanteria.

It’s a plucky alternative to the nearby Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. It has tiled walls, ceiling fans, an antique mirror, and an antique bench. It’s comfortable. It has what any good bakery-café should have. With the addition of croissants that Parisians have said rival the ones in Paris.

They include almond croissants, chocolate croissants, and almond-and-chocolate croissants, not to mention apricot croissants, and just plain croissants. Those varieties come in full-size or mini, but you have to go full-size if you want the peanut-butter-and-jelly or Nutella-and-banana croissants.

Croissanteria makes gourmet sandwiches, and they all come on croissants. They include French Ham, Italian Tuna, and Smokey Turkey. The Prosciutto di Parma has “Buffalo Mozzarella, Sliced Prosciutto, Tomato, Basil, EVOO, & Cracked Pepper.” You wouldn’t think that all of that could fit in a croissant.

Selmo and David gave me a couple of croissants, though without Nutella, Buffalo Mozzarella, peanut butter, or EVOO. They were perfect — soft and fluffy, with a thin crispy crust and a buttery flavor. And without any of that pesky croissant greasiness.

These were croissants that virtually any neighborhood could use. And not at all what you’d expect from guys with backgrounds in hamburgers and smoked fish.

David worked for his father’s Catskill Artisan Smokehouse — known as Catsmo — which sells smoked salmon and caviar to places around the city. Selmo founded the Nah Nah Bah café and lounge, a burger joint on the beach in Lagos, Portugal.

The guys had met at Northeastern University, where they were roommates. “The one thing we really had in common,” Selmo says, “was that we liked going out to eat.” He adds: “We always spoke about opening something together having to do with food.”

David first went to Catsmo and Selmo went to Lagos. But they stayed in touch, and Selmo came to New York every year. They decided to open a bakery, but with a twist, Selmo says: “If you’re in New York, the more niche you go in what you offer, the better you can make it.”

They’re happy with their success as a global destination. But they seem happiest with their success as a humble neighborhood bakery. “We’ve gotten such a friendly reception from the neighbors and the neighborhood,” David says. “We focus on this, and try to make the place special.”

One day, Selmo says, they had to close for a plumbing repair. One of the regulars emailed him, in fear that they wouldn’t come back.

“I don’t know how he got my personal email,” he says. “But those are the small things that are just awesome. Really, really awesome.”

Get flaky at Croissanteria, 68 Avenue A, between Fourth and Fifth streets, in New York City.

Old New York: The Broadway Restaurant is Still Just the Ticket

By Mitch Broder

The menu says “Photos Are For Suggestion Only,” which explains why the Broadway Restaurant does not look like the Parthenon. But it is a temple — a temple of New York short-order cookery. It’s the perfect place to nestle while awaiting a dawdling New York spring.

It’s one of the last of the bygone Manhattan coffee shops, the kind with pastrami and eggs for breakfast and meat loaf parmigiana for dinner. The kind where the pastrami and eggs is $6.65 including potatoes and toast, and the meat loaf parmigiana is $12.95 including potatoes, vegetables, and soup.

It’s a place to find a sumptuous five-dollar burger, and to chase it with an intriguing five-dollar “Milk Shake with an Egg.” It’s a place where your waitress calls you “honey” and sounds like she means it. It’s a genuinely homey place. There are so few left.

I felt at home when I came in alone and saw the signs that said “Seating of 2 Or More in Booths,” and the waitress promptly seated me in a booth. I felt at home when the waitress took the time to help me choose my short order. I felt loved when she called me “honey.” I felt married when she called me “dear.”

I had the burger, which beats ones that cost three times as much, though I postponed the Milk Shake with an Egg so I’d still have it to look forward to. And I was not alone, after all. I dined with Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, and Sophia Loren, who smiled at me from the wall. It was the perfect lunch.

My waitress was Ann Taylor, who told me how, when the prices go up, she changes them on the menu signs with red nail polish. “Stuff goes up for like a nickel,” she says. “It’s so much work for a nickel.” But she knows it’s worth it. The signs are among the things that make the place homey.

They date to around 1970, which is when Broadway opened, says Angelo Arsenis, who bought the place in 1980. He chose to keep the signs. He had to keep the wagon-wheel lights. “I tried to change the lamps,” he explains. “People complained. I put ’em back up.”

Most important, he kept the horseshoe counter, which evokes an old-time doughnut shop, which is what Broadway reportedly used to be. Customers say that in the sixties it was part of the Twin Donut chain. Back then, doughnut shops were supposed to be pleasant.

Angelo figured that a coffee shop also ought to be pleasant. And he figured that his ought to be homey — not only for you, but for him.

“This is my house. This is my second house,” he says. “When I leave my house and come here, I feel like I’m in my house.”

Settle into Broadway Restaurant & Coffee Shop, 2664 Broadway, between 101^st and 102^nd streets, in New York City.

  

New in New York: At Baconery, Everyone's Taken With Bacon

By Mitch Broder

Wesley Klein’s plans for his bakery became clear to me when I asked him if he thought there was anything at all that doesn’t go well with bacon, and he said no.

“It works with everything,” he said. He named his place Baconery, and he meant it. Today he puts bacon in a few foods. Tomorrow he may put it in all foods.

So go now, while the menu is manageable, and decide for yourself how clever he was to open the city’s first all-bacon bakery. The response has been promising, he says: “People come in with their expectations too high and go out saying it was even better than they expected.”

Their choices include bacon cookies, bacon brownies, bacon blondies, bacon muffins, bacon croissants, and bacon pecan pie. Also bacon lollipops, bacon caramels, bacon marshmallow bars, chocolate-covered bacon, and gluten-free bacon macaroons.

If they really want to pig out, they can precede (or follow) the sweets with one (or more) of the bakery’s six bacon sandwiches. They range from the Miss Piggy (Grilled Bacon & Cheese) to the Porky Pig (Bacon, Egg, Lettuce, Cheese, Tomato, Avocado, Cucumber, Mayo). There's also a Wilbur.

Wesley’s idea was to address our need for sweet combined with salty. He got the idea while sopping up pancake syrup with a slab of bacon. He consulted with chefs, established his main ingredient’s versatility, launched Baconery online, and a year later opened the store.

He started small, but he went whole hog. It’s a hard-core bacon store. There are bacon slices on the walls. There are bacon rugs on the floor. There are bacon-colored sofas accented with bacon-print pillows, behind red-and-white-striped tables and baconian wood-topped stools.

Besides the food, he sells T-shirts that say things like “Feel Like Bacon Love,” along with items like bacon-themed platters and wallets, and actual gourmet bacon. And he has posted “The Rules of Bacon,” of which Number Four is: “Even the pigs like bacon. That’s a fact.”

It’s a curious obsession, especially curious since Wesley is Jewish, which he says only proves that Baconery welcomes customers of all faiths. And you can glimpse the obsessive future with a glimpse at the selections currently served from 6 to 8 p.m. as “Snack of the Night.”

Sunday’s snack, for example, is the Ultimate Bacon Mashed Potato Bowl. Wednesday’s is the Nutella Bacon Strawberry Crepe. Monday’s is Bacon Wrapped Pineapples; Tuesday’s is Bacon Wrapped Jalapeños. And Friday’s is apparently what it’s all leading to: Bacon Wrapped Bacon.

Get bacon for granted at Baconery, 911 Columbus Avenue, between 104^th and 105^th streets, in New York City.

Old New York: Christmas is Served, at Rolf's German Restaurant

By Mitch Broder

The angels appeared to be tooting, but there was no way I could have heard them, what with all those other people chattering away on our branch.

Still, I couldn’t help liking my afternoon in the tree, even if I couldn’t help expecting an icicle to fall and puncture my head.

Anyone who will listen knows that I get sick of the holiday season around the time that the first bag of candy corn arrives at Duane Reade. I blame this on years of working at newspapers where every story written after Labor Day began: “Christmas came early for...”

I used to look forward to going to, say, Rockefeller Center. Now I almost look forward to not going to it. But Bob Maisano said his place is different. He said I must come see it. And he was right. Christmas came early for me, at Rolf’s German Restaurant.

Rolf’s is not a restaurant with a Christmas tree. Rolf’s is a Christmas tree with a restaurant. It is a place packed with ornaments, lights, fake pine, fake ice, and fake snow, such that you don’t feel like you’re around a tree; you feel like one’s around you.

The dominant feature are the ball ornaments, in clusters of red and gold. Also the icicle ornaments, aiming squarely at your head. Also the tiny lights, of which Bob says there are 85,000. Every feature is dominant. Everything glistens or glitters or glows.

Walk around, if you can, and you’ll pick out the dolls and the sleighs and the tooting and fiddling angels, and maybe the three Santas swigging Merlot. And none of it’s junk. That is, none of it’s cheap. Bob says that the thousands of pieces are mostly nineteenth-century German antiques.

Last year, I chatted with Bob on a sultry summer’s day, when the crowd at Rolf’s, besides me, consisted of Bob. When it’s hot, people withdraw from jaeger schnitzel and smoked bratwurst. That’s why Rolf’s needed Christmas. That’s why Christmas there lasts for three months.

It wasn’t like that in 1968, when Rolf Hoffman opened the place. Back then, the patrons were satisfied with glowering waitresses in dirndls. It was Ben House who decided to fortify the holiday décor when he and Bob took over, after Rolf died in 1981.

Ben started off cheap. Bob says his taste ran to dollar-store silver garlands and animated polar bears swigging martinis. “You wouldn’t know if it was a restaurant or a store that sold Christmas decorations,” Bob says. “He loved Christmas decorations. … It seemed like the business was secondary to that.”

Ben died in 1996, and Christmas fell to Bob. He bypassed the dollar stores in favor of New England antique barns. He added stuff each year, and his tree became a destination. “If we didn’t have this Christmas here,” he says, “we wouldn’t have this business here.”

Rolf’s perked me up, at least until I hear “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” And perking people up, Bob says, justifies the six weeks of installation.

“Maybe they had a bad time somewhere. Maybe they had a bad day at work. And at least they walked in here and had a moment of happiness.”

Find happiness at Rolf’s German Restaurant, at 281 Third Avenue, between 22^nd and 23^rd streets, in New York City.