Lately it seems like everyone’s moving to the Bowery. Now Hecho en Dumbo, whose owners shuttered their Brooklyn location last fall, is open for business on the newly-chic stretch above Houston Street. And by “newly,” I’m talking about what’s happened just over the last five years: John Varvatos moved into CBGBs, luxury hotels soared over nearby tenements, condos trampled the Liz Christy community garden, and the new Whole Foods and Think Coffee usurped the men’s shelter as neighborhood hubs. Let’s not even speak of that weird Cooper Union building. Hecho, with its artfully-repurposed Hershey’s Ice Cream sign, seems almost undercover compared to its neighbors.

The possibility of dining on good tacos in my neighborhood (a long-cherished, oft-dashed hope) compelled me to drag a friend into the thick of Hecho en Dumbo’s Saturday night rush. We put our names down for a table, and nursed margaritas ($10 each) near the ear-splittingly noisy bar. The crowd around us was young and frighteningly pretty, accessorized with dagger heels and Buddy Holly eyewear. After forty-five minutes I began stalking the host, who peered at his scribbled list and said “soon?”

After an hour we were seated in the dining room, a modern take on lower-east-side quaint: exposed brick, naked lightbulbs and ceiling pipe running the length of a long, windowless room. A few seats around an open kitchen in the back offered a full view of the preparations: a nice touch. Our first bite was a child-sized dollop of guacamole flanked by corn chips ($7) which came with three mild-to-moderately spicy salsas. Next I ordered queso fundido de rajas–roasted chile poblano pepper with sauteed onion smothered with oaxaca cheese and queso asadero ($10). This dish was heartily-sized, and meant to be scooped into fresh tortillas. Overall I enjoyed it, although I defy you to screw up anything that’s slathered in halfway decent cheese. My next dish was tacos de cochinita de pibil–three tiny tortillas topped with shredded berkshire pork and picked red onion ($8). They seemed rather like mouthfuls of soggy pork as opposed to proper tacos, although I suppose the meat was well-seasoned. My friend’s Burritas de Res ($8)–three small tortillas rolled around steak and caramelized onion–suffered from similar blandness. They lacked the interplay of spices and cooling sour cream that I usually enjoy with my burritos.

After just one visit I can’t say it’s not worth checking out the rest of the menu, but go on a weeknight. Waiting an hour for ok food at a trendy restaurant is for folks more patient than I. And if the cochinitas were any indication, my quest to find a delicious taco in my neighborhood will drag on. Holes-in-the-wall like Snack Dragon and Zaragoza will do only in a pinch. Pricey options like La Palapa and Mercadito are tastier, but don’t seem worth the tab. Hecho en Dumbo’s prices are actually not bad, provided you have the appetite of a small child. I recommend the queso fundido to help fill up.

Hecho en Dumbo
354 Bowery between Great Jones and E 4th St.
Brunch: every day 10:30am-4pm
Dinner: Monday-Thu 5:30pm-12am, Fri-Sat 5:30pm-2am, Sun 5:30pm-11pm

If you drink good beer, Drop Off Service is worth your time. If you happen to be a reasonably-attractive lady who drinks good beer, there’s probably somebody here who wants to talk to you. I’m not promising unicorns and rainbows, but it may not be a particularly off-putting experience either. Someone may try to sell you a glow-in-the-dark toy, invite you to his Bushwick-tastic gallery, ask you about the finer points of hobbit fashion, perform feats like clicking his heels together in mid-air (harder than it looks, if you’re not a leprechaun), or apologize for his overly-sniffy French Bulldog. A dog is an ideal entrée if you enjoy random conversations, but don’t relish starting them, and at this bar canine wing-men are welcome, as long as they’re well-behaved. Another rare sighting in Manhattan watering holes–a solitary reader squinting at a book–is also a regular here. In fact if it weren’t for the variety of its patrons, Drop Off Service would feel friendly enough to exist a river removed from Manhattan. The fact that it has an impressive beer list, and a generous happy hour, lasting from 3pm-8pm (1pm-8pm on weekends), is the basis of its appeal. Many of the draft beers are $3 during the popular 3-8 shift, including Yuengling, Magic Hat, Fuller’s London Pride, and Six Point’s Sweet Action Ale. A pint of Stone Brewing Company’s Arrogant Bastard Ale is a steal at $4, there’s usually a cask ale for $5, and Delerium Tremens–a Belgian ale that hovers at about 9% ABV–will run you a reasonable $7.

If you get hungry, not to worry. Tuck Shop meat pies are available, or even better, run next door to Zaragoza for some tacos ($2.50-$3.00), and bring them back to the bar to fuel another round. These are not gourmet foodstuffs–Zaragoza is a hole-in-the-wall Mexican grocery with a microwave and few hot trays, and it can be hit or miss depending on what’s available that day. The other night, the amount of hot sauce on my spicy pork taco hurt my face, while a tamale ($2.00) was rather enjoyable. But $6 for a taco and a pint of Sweet Action, plus some free entertainment? Sure, I’ll be right over.

Drop Off Service
211 Ave. A between 13th St. and 14th St.
Mon-Fri 3pm-4am, Sat-Sun 1pm-4am

Zaragoza
215 Avenue A between 13th St. and 14th St.
Mon-Thu 9:30am-12am, Fri-Sat 9:30am-4am, Sun 10:30pm-12am

Six Manhattan chefs from six different well-regarded restaurants, each given a different liquor, and tasked to come up with a cocktail and a dish to accompany it. Add dozens of hungry foodies. Stir. Result? A hell of a fun night and a for-the-ages hangover the next day. This event, held on Jan 25th and coordinated by the Edible Magazines network (Edible Manhattan is my favorite food magazine right now–unlike Saveur, it’s locally focused, and the features are more digestible than those in ploddingly academic Gastronomica), was a follow-up to their Good Beer party in July. The tickets were $40, but since this included an all-you-can-handle cocktail throwdown with a magazine subscription to boot, I figured it would be well worth it as long as I ate and drank everything in sight.

The chefs set up tables around the perimeter of Almond Restaurant and guests freely wandered from station to station, eating and imbibing as much as they saw fit. We attempted small bites first: a celery root and apple terrine accompanied by an Orange Blossom (orange bitters, St. Germain, sparkling wine) was our first stop. Coming from Gramercy Tavern, it was a bit of a letdown. Moving right along, Ilili’s smoked venison carpaccio with hummus, apple, and cinnamon chile oil served with a Sidon Rose (vodka, green apple, rose syrup) was my first taste of venison, and a pleasant one. The next dish, Resto’s fennel and juniper lamb bacon with beet and caramelized yogurt, was my favorite of the small bites (although I went easy on the gin, green chartreuse, lemon, and peach Lambic concoction served with it, since gin is my nemesis).

The next two dishes were the highlights of the evening. First we braved the long line for a roasted sweet corn tamale topped with two succulent white shrimp, chipotle butter and avocado pico de gallo, paired with a powerfully tart and boozy La Sombrilla Roja (mezcal, campari, lemon, lime and grapefruit). Rocking Horse Cafe contributed this pairing, and I’m eager to try the restaurant based on it. This was followed by Il Buco’s persimmon, hazlenut and fennel salad, served with the il Buco sour (bourbon, persimmon, lemon, thyme, and Sagrentino Passito). I’d never eaten a persimmon before, which really upped the ante on a disarmingly simple salad. Il Buco is also now high on my list of restaurants to try. My favorite cocktail of the evening came next, the J.M. Ginger (rum, pear puree, ginger syrup, red wine sorbet, and a ginger-sugar rim). This was served with a crepinette of lamb neck, with celery root puree and kumquat-basil marmalade, from Almond.

After seconds of the tamales and J.M. Gingers, we sampled a tray of Roni-Sue chocolates but my stamina was fading by the time we passed the coffee and brandy pairing. After scooping up some free Edible magazines, we swung by the Heartland Brewery table to sample a hopped-up and super-malty Mr. Atlas Pale Ale and a chocolatey, pitch-black Sumatra Porter. This to my mind makes a better dessert than a wedge of pie, but perhaps it was fortunate that we were near the door, because it occurred to us to roll out of there before we could do too much more damage to ourselves. My guess is that the amount I ate and drank would have cost at least three times the price of the ticket in a restaurant, so all-in-all it was a bargain, despite a dearth of seating. I am never, ever mixing that many liquors together again, but I’m totally checking out the next Edible event.

Edible Manhattan
Good Spirits at Almond pairings
Almond Restaurant
12 East 22nd St. between Broadway and Park Ave.

Dining-out disappointments on this scale only happen once in a blue moon so Snackish has returned from vacation to share the tale of her spotty dinner at The Spotted Pig. I’d been eager to to try this place for a long time. It is the gastropub of gastropubs in New York City–starred by Michelin, revered by Yelpers, and favored by the Times. Celebrities knock elbows with plebians in its small confines and its kitchen, bolstered by a well-regarded chef, supposedly justifies the sceneyness. I even have a couple of first-hand accounts from friends who said they liked it.

So Saturday night my associate and I finally landed at the Pig. After not-unbearable half-hour wait (they don’t accept reservations, you must walk in and put your name on the list) we were seated at the coldest table in the house, near the door. (Lest you think I’m a bloodless wimp, a bearded dude sitting next to us wore his coat and hat throughout the evening). But my need for food was greater than my need for warmth so I ordered a pint of highly-enjoyable Sixpoint Righteous Rye cask ale to combat the draft. Appetizers arrived in the form of perfectly-paprikaed deviled eggs ($3) and a plate of “devils on horseback”–pear-stuffed prunes wrapped in sticky candied bacon, speared with toothpicks ($7). They tasted better then they looked but were powerfully sweet, salty, and not entirely pleasant. My next course was the sheep’s milk ricotta gnudi in brown butter sauce with fried sage ($15). The sheep’s milk added an interesting bite to these tender dumplings, and I enjoyed the crispy sage, but yet again the dish was overwhelmingly salty. Next came more beer and an epically-proportioned burger under a heap of paper-shaving thin “shoestring” fries. Someone had tried, unsuccessfully, to make the fries substantive by adding a copious amount of rosemary. The burger all but disappeared under the funk of the Roquefort cheese which stubbornly adhered to the bun. I suspect it was a good-enough burger, but it was hard to taste anything but cheese, and for $17, I expected to be in burger heaven.

(Rosemary fries comin’ atcha. Run!)

At this point our server wandered off and we spent several minutes getting drunker and chatting with a couple next to us, who were similarly underwhelmed. By the time the she re-appeared, the sting of how much this meal would cost was sufficiently diffused for us to order dessert. I had a scotch and the creme caramel–a fine take on creme brulee ($8)–while my associate wound up with a stale-tasting walnut tart (perplexingly, the server recommended it but it was the worst thing we had all night).

Aside from the tart, I can’t say any one thing about the meal was terrible. But the combination of the wait, bad seating, strange seasoning, sluggish service, and just-beyond-reasonable prices is enough to keep me from going back. In retrospect the burger, perhaps, was not the thing to get (but judging by the steady stream of burgers floating by on servers’ upraised hands while we waited, it seemed to be a house specialty). I can say that the space had a convivial upscale-pub atmosphere and seemed to be full of pretty and interesting people. If you’re lucky enough to grab a seat upstairs you’ll probably stay warm, and on an off night I could see it being pleasant to cozy up to the bar for a pint of Righteous Rye and some deviled eggs. But I suspect that the Spotted Pig’s off nights are as few and far between as my epic dining disappointments.

The Spotted Pig
314 West 11th St. at Greenwich St.
Brunch: 11am-3pm (weekends), Lunch: 12-3pm, Dinner: 5:30pm-2am
Bar Menu: 3pm-5pm

If you missed out on Oktoberfest, not to worry–Chelsea Brewing company is currently holding their biannual cask ale festival, featuring nearly 40 beers. For more on the joys of sipping warm, flat-ish, flavorful ale made the way they used to do it in the old days read my post from last year’s festival.

The scene last night was pretty mellow, with most patrons tuned into the Yankees game and a few die-hard beer fans clustered on the outdoor patio overlooking the dock. A sheet of tokens ($20) buys a few 8oz sample-sized beers ($6-$8 apiece). Standouts included Chelsea 1000 Gyle Imperial Mild, a powerful orange-amber barleywine clocking in at 11.5% ABV; Corner Jackhammer Old Ale, a dark, malty brew; and Saint Somewhere Saison Du Chene, a rich, fruity-peppery Belgian-style. The festival runs through Sunday, so there’s still time to drink up–otherwise the next festival will be in March.

(the scene from the patio at Chelsea Brewery)

A tip–if you’re sitting outdoors, make sure your paper sheet of tokens is secured at all times. An errant wind gust can easily whisk it into the river and drown your $20 investment.

Chelsea Brewing Company
Chelsea Piers 18th St. and West Side Highway