"MidnightSnack" news and stories

Cafeteria rocks.

Cafeteria is a restaurant in New York's fabulous Chelsea area. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Cafeteria caters not only to its trendy local neighborhood, but to the nearby Meatpacking District where people party till all hours, and to the rest of the night owls (and jet-lagged) in the city.

P-Diddy is reportedly a fan, and celebrity spottings are not uncommon. Most importantly, the food is great. Sometimes you need meatloaf (pictured) at 6am. And that can be hard to find.

According to manager Lori Kistner, the two must-try items on the menu are the Meatloaf and Mac and Cheese. They offer three Mac and Cheese varieties: Original, Gouda & Bacon, and Truffle Oil. And don't miss the desserts. Deep fried Oreos? Breakfast of champions!

See all three, as well as some other delicious-looking items and an interior shot in the gallery below. Cafeteria is located at 119 Seventh Avenue on the corner of 17th Street in Manhattan.

Source

Before you get turned off by this edition of Midnight Snack allow me to explain the headline. Years ago I used to eat these wonderful tacos at a Mexican deli in Hell's Kitchen. After working my way through all the humdrum varieties (carnitas, bifteck, al pastor, cecina, etc.), I spied pancita de chivo written on the blackboard.

I asked what kind of meat it was before trying a taco. When the lady told me they were goat belly, I gladly ordered one up, after all I'd never met chivo that was anything less than cravable. When I saw that the tortilla contained blood pudding and god knows whatever other bits of goat innards I wasn't entirely turned off. In fact, my interest was piqued since I enjoy a good black pudding every now and then. When I tasted it, everything changed, for this was no mere blood pudding. It was subltly spiced with cinnamon and hot peppers and utterly delicious.

Fast forward to yesterday when I saw pansa negro de chivo on the specials menu at one of my favorite Mexican spots. When I ordered it, I wasn't entirely sure whether it would be the same meat I'd had in tacos. As it turned out it was. About five tacos worth of goat gutty goodness were sided with some of the best Mexican rice I've ever had. Usually this lackluster rice has a technicolor orange hue and remains uneaten, but not this version. It had just enough achiote to color it and was studded through with bits of fresh carrots and peas, and kept company by some great stewed beans. The whole affair was topped with four or five pickled jalapeños that had been sliced lengthwise.

As you might have guessed from the topic of this post the whole platter proved to be too much for me. Of course when you get it packed up, dump in a bowl and then nuke it, the result looks nowhere near as good as it did in the restaurant. But I can assure you, it hits the spot at midnight with an ice cold Tecate. Let's just hope I don't have any nightmares about chupacabras.

I've gotta warn everyone, this edition of Midnight Snack is a tad odd. I raided the fridge and my junk food cupboard. The base for this nosh is Tao Kae Noi, strips of crispy nori seaweed with a light chili pepper flavor. Just to calm your fears, rest assured that the pink stuff is not strawberry mousse, and the red stuff is not bits of cherry.

The pink rosettes are smoked salmon pate. I guess the seaweed just wasn't fishy enough for me. I tried a few pieces with just the pate at first. The smokiness and creaminess provided a pleasing counterpoint to the crisp fried seaweed. After eating a few pieces, I felt it needed something more and not just visually. After wracking my brain, I hit upon it a dollop of Sriracha sauce.

Aha, I exclaimed to myself as I bit into one I had created the perfect snack food. For you see, after all my fussing around I concocted something that tasted like an extra-spicy barbecue potato chip.

This time around I decided to get ambitious with Midnight Snack, or as ambitious as I get when a case of the late-night munchies hits. Earlier in the week I'd purchased a nice hunk of Roquefort cheese, some Polish bacon and a loaf of hearty Russian bread, that, I kid you not, is named "Healing Rye Bread." I've been happily noshing on those all week. Today I grabbed a couple of Fuji apples at the market.

Now I'd love to say that I planned to combine these ingredients in advance, but that's simply not true. Hunger is the mother of invention: And in this case that invention is a savory little thing I like to call the BAC. No, not blood alcohol content, but bacon, apple and cheese. It's essentially a grown-up grilled cheese.


Charlemagne's favorite cheese and the humble apple wait to meet their pal Mr. Bacon. In retrospect, I may have been a bit heavy-handed with the cheese. But the combination of the salty Roquefort, meaty bacon and the sweet apples woke up my sleepy palate.

Ingredients:

• 2 slices Russian rye or other whole-grain bread
  
• 5-7 slices of bacon
  
• Half an apple, Fuji or otherwise, sliced
  
• 2-3 slices of Roquefort or other blue cheese
  

Recipe

• Slice apple and cheese.
  
• Place each on a respective slice of bread.
  
• Cook and drain bacon.
  
• Place bacon on top of cheese, layer apples on top, close sandwich.
  
• Place sandwich in pan and cook until both sides are golden brown.
  

Note: If you must, drain the bacon grease before cooking the sandwich. This is a step that I decided to skip. After all, I used "Healing Rye Bread."

A while back I wrote about snacking on Korean "Fried Chicken," a junk food that has as much to do with fried chicken as Pocky does with Belgian chocolate. After reading about yang-nyum tong dak, or actual Korean fried chicken, I set out to try some. I'd heard of this legendary beer snack and had been meaning to sample some for years, but most places were a little too out of the way. That is until Unidentified Flying Chickens landed practically in my backyard. This hip ultramodern space knows its bird. I ordered up six hot and six soy-garlic wings and was amazed by the delicate crunchy skin.

By now you're wondering what all this has to do with a Midnight Snack. Good question. It's simple. About 12 hours after lunch, I put UFC's chicken to the ultimate test: eating it cold. Not only was it still crunchy, I think the sauce might have had even more of a chance to flavorize those alien chicken wings.
(Unidentified Flying Chickens, 71-22 Roosevelt Ave., Jackson Heights, N.Y., (718) 205-6662)