Gimme Shelter

Neighborhood nostalgia: East Village, circa 1979, Fruit Exchange corner of 1st Ave + E 7th St.
Courtesy Michael Sean Edwards.

I've been lax on posting.

To be honest, my obsessive pursuit of great neighborhood eats recently took a back seat to the worst activity known to New Yorkers: the apartment search. It's all consuming and soul destroying. Especially today when the rental inventory is next to nil and the prices are sky high. I came this close to leaving my beloved East Village, where "value for money" and "apartments" don't appear in the same sentence. Even though it's always been my home while living in New York for the past 5 years.

But after a month of brokers, tears, lack of appetite, and sleepless nights, on the day I literally put in an application on a Gramercy apartment, wondering how in the world can I continue an EV food blog when I don't even live here, my phone rang. Management office. Brand new listing. Not on the market yet. There it was. In the heart of the hood. Near the police station. Around the corner from Empellon Cocina and The Toucan and the Lion, coincidentally top of my list of hottest must trys.

In the end, my stomach won out. It's time to feast again. The old neighborhood is waiting.