Today I finally realized another foodie/travel dream: Eating at Shopsins in NYC. I haven't been able to make it there on my last 2 visits to the city. It's located on the Lower East Side in the Essex St. Market, so I was happy to be able to round up DM and DH who were also willing to make the trek.
There are plenty of articles and reviews of this very New York eatery. Mr. Shopsin has even written his own book detailing his food philosophy. There are rules of the road, here: wait in line along the wall for a table-the place seats fewer than 20-everyone must order a meal, no more than 4 in a group, everyone has to order something different. (that last one may not really be a rule).
The menu is a dense two sided legal sized sheet of paper. Pancakes, Eggs, Sandwiches, Soups, Sides, Salads, and more. Food from many cultures and combined in interesting ways leads to entertaining reading.
And leads to difficulty in choosing what to order. I downloaded the menu ahead of time so we could "digest" it before arriving. Even then,decisions were difficult.
Luckily we had time in line to think about things: we waited about 40 minutes for a table, with 2 parties ahead of us. Food came out in about 30 more minutes. We noticed that food was coming out of the kitchen one dish at a time, often with long waits for others at the same table to get their food. At one point, the cook called out to a woman telling her to "eat while your food is hot, don't wait for them to get theirs," because she was obviously being polite and waiting for her table mates to receive their food. The cook repeated that "just because we're being jerkoffs you shouldn't wait, don't let yours get cold." So that's another rule: when your food comes, you eat.
We ended up with:
The Gulf Pride Sandwich: bbq shrimp, avocado, garlic spread on toasted bread.
The Symphony: Pumpkin cheese french toast with grilled onions and maple bacon and fried eggs.
The Mo'Jemima: Poached Eggs (3) with maple bacon stuffed mac and cheese pancakes.
Served with maple syrup and hot sauce.
We enjoyed our meal and got a kick out of being in the space
Our waiter was very friendly and we never felt rushed. From where we sat we couldn't even see the line so we never had that feeling of being vulture prey. We paid our bill with the Square credit card technology:very simple and easy.
All in all, a fun food outing. Not cheap (avg meal about $20 pp), but definitely a cool vibe...
