Things I’ll miss in New York #1: El Rincon del Sabor
Yes, I know: Mexican food is better in L.A. Don’t even start, because a) E.R.D.S. serves Ecuadoran food, and b) my love for it isn’t about the taste or quality of the caldo gallega. I love it because it’s four flights up a cast-iron staircase in a regular old office building on Jeweler’s Row - but because it’s Jeweler’s Row, visiting a regular old office building means taking a trip to 1932. Every tiny room or suite has another jewelry-ancillary business going on, from medieval-seeming smith-type operations to a little guy behind a desk yelling into a phone in Yiddish (on my way up the stairs) and Dutch (on my way down). Going to El Rincon (where only Spanish is spoken and the wood-paneled interior is as cozy as a rec room) is my only access to that world. Plus the food is pretty good.
