Robot Journal : Surpise Parties. Barbeque vs. Mexican. Farewell Springfield.

8/4/2008

Farewell Springfield
Since 1990, Sunday nights have been dedicated to watching the Simpsons. Or, it was before we got one of those DVR things. I have since gotten a little lazy about it (oh, the DVR recorded it – I’ll watch it later) and probably have missed most of the new episodes over the past two years.
Last night we watched an episode. It was the one with the special drink that Moe made Homer that erased his memory of the last twenty-four hours.
Homer travels around in a bubble. And jumps off a bridge. And there is a surprise party.

Holy crap that was a horrible episode.

Speaking of surprise parties

Our pal “John Ball” celebrated his birthday this past weekend and his lovely wife put together a surprise party at the park near the Williamsburg Bridge on the Lower East Side. Not sure if you noticed, but Sunday was positively perfect in regards to weather. You should have been here.

Mrs. John Ball, being clever and all, catered the affair with about 1,000 pounds of food from Blue Smoke – the barbeque place on 27th street near Park. So, we had corn bread (very good), deviled eggs (very very good), brisket (pretty good), and shredded pork (evily very very good).
I had two large plates and could have gone for a third plate, but kind of wanted to spend a quiet evening at home instead of a quiet evening at home complaining and moaning that I ate too much.
But, damn. The shredded pork was good. Even better with their official “Carolina” barbeque sauce – that was until Mrs. Robot noticed something on the bottle…

State: Fail
Blue Smoke, purveyor of tasty shredded pork and devilish good deviled eggs, doesn’t check the copy on their bottles that well.
That is Virginia. Not North Carolina.

A young man and barbeque
I was born in NC, but avoided barbeque as a kid. No idea why.
When I moved to NYC, I re-discovered pork, and have realized that I missed out on a lot of barbeque in my youth. Alas.

Mexican Loveliness
Last weekend we had lunch at the Fresh & Fast Deli on Hoyt Street in Brooklyn where they make a mean torta. This past Saturday we ate at Zocalo. It’s on Broadway, under the elevated JMZ train right near the Marcy stop in Williamsburg.
Dinner was awesome (and $40).
I had tacos and a tamale. The tamale was chicken and mole sauce. Delicious.
The tacos were chicken and spicy pork. Delicious.
Oh, and we split some chicken flautas. Delicious.
On top of it all, we had very good, dare I say ‘highend’, margaritas.

Best of all, no melted cheese to be seen (the flatus had crumbly cheese on it, though).
Sidenote: melted cheese has become my barometer for Mexican food. Melted cheese on everything? I tend not to like it.

Where does Zocalo fall on my NYC Mexican food personal list?
Red Hook 2007 Soccer Field good? No.
Hecho en Dumbo good? Yes.
Although not as fancy as Hecho en Dumbo.

They have a nice sized dining room upstairs that I think would make a good place for a big birthday party dinner.

Arts
Before dinner we went to an art opening. This guy Mrs. Robot knows.
It was spookyily fascinating.

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