COFFEE and ???: Coronavirus Coffee in New York

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Coronavirus Coffee in New York

It's not my usual Coffee. Getting a coffee from a neighborhood Korean Deli and drinking out on the street, usually in one of my nearby little local parks in Greenwich Village and Soho, in the great city of New York. No it's not my usual coffee, which for the past 37 years is daily at one of my favorite local cafes, and never ever at Starbucks, no fucking way. It's got to be at nice small independent cafe, no chain joints for me. I did have my daily espresso ro cappuccino for exactly 30 years at my beloved Caffe Dante on Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village, and yes oddly enough, it was for exactly 30 years, from June of 1985 when I came back from my first trip to Italy, to the sad day in 2015 when my pal Mario Flotta (from Avelino, Italy) sold the 100 year old Italian Caffe to some Australian guy who bought the name along with the lease and whatever else it entailed to take over the place, and then proceeded to turn my beloved caffe into a expensive high-priced trendite cocktail lounge, which it has been for the past 4 years.

Yes I started going to Caffe Dante soon after I came back from Italy in the Summer of 1985. I myself am of Italian (Sicilian) ancestry and I made my first of many trips back to the mother-land, Italy and fell in love with the many rituals and authentic ways of Italian coffee, Italian Food and Wine and the whole Italian lifestyle and I was looking for the most authentic places (restaurants, shops, and caffes) to get pasta, espresso, cappuccino, gelato, Prosciutto, Parmigano, and such, and when it came the most authentic espresso and an Italian Caffe to get it at, Caffe Dante on Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village was the undisputed champ. So I started going to Caffe Dante for espresso and cappuccino, and it would turn out that I went there almost every single day for my Italian Coffee fix for exactly 30 years, until Mario sold the place and I could no longer go. The about 1992 my girlfriend Dante (yes her name was Dante) discovered a new place on Sullivan Street in Soho called Once Upon a Tart, and I started going there as well, but of course, not stopping to go to Dante which I went to every single day. Yous see the thing is that, on days that I don't work, I will make at least 2 and sometimes 3 cafe stops in a single day, and though I'd have my first coffe of the day at Dante, after I went back home, had my lunch and then went back out for my second cup, it was usually to the Tart as anyone who was a regular would call it, and I was one. In fact, I was a regular from the day they opened in 1992, until the day they sadly closed, quite incidentally in 2015 as well. So I lost 2 cafes in one dreadful year.

I had already started going to have coffee once a week, usually on Sunday to the lounge inside the Marlton Hotel on West 8th Street in Greenwich Village, and I was doing this for about 3 or 4 years in that dreadful year of 2015 when I lost my two favorite cafes. So Caffe Dante and Once Upon a Tart both happen to come upon bad times, and they just weren't making enough money by the time 2015 rolled around, and they both ended up closing shop. So my two beloved cafes both closed, now what was I to do. I'm a cafe freak, and I gotta have my coffee and it has to be at a nice relaxing, comfortable cafe where they don't play and shitty crap rap music or anything like that. They've got to have good coffee, a nice ambiance, friendly service, and it can't be a chain place like Starbucks, "no fucking way!"

Porto Rico Coffee Importers and Roasters

Since 1906

Best Place to Buy ground or whole roast coffee beans in all of New York.

My Beloved CAFFE DANTE

Macdougal Street

New York, NY

Me and Mario Flotta

The Day That DANTE Closed

2015

The Day that The TART Closed

Me (L) with Jerome, the Owner of ONCE UPON a TART

Chris Nominee and John Kenny

Sullivan Street

Soho, NY

2015

CORONAVIRUS COOKING RECIPES

The BADASS COOKBOOK

CHILI - SOUPS - PASTA

MEATLOAF - TACOS - BURRITOS

FRIED CHICKEN & More ..

Amazon.com

Bleecker Farms / Korean Market

One of the places where I get my Coffee these days,

during the Coronavirus Flu Pandemic of 2020

My Coffee from Bleecker Farms

Bleecker Street

Greenwich Village, New York

DISINFECTANT & TOILET PAPER

ITALIAN RECIPES for CORONAVIRUS COOKING

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LED ZEPPELIN "RAMBLE ON" and Why Is Nobody Making Any GOOD MUSIC These DAYS???

Ramble On, Song of the Week!!! Without-A-Doubt one of Rocks All-Time Rockingest Rock Songs Ever, "Ramble On." This song Rocks like you can't believe! back in the Day when there was an abundance of Great Music being made by Hundreds of Great Artists, The 60's and 70's !!! Can someone tell us why there is "Barely Any Good Music" being made at all these Days!!! Just a bunch of a lot of Crap! Probably because the younger generation has such awful taste? Or is it just an Abundance of Lackluster Performers, or a Combination of both? I doubt seriously if there will be more than a handful of Musical Artist from the last 15 years or so who will Stand The Test of Time and be Loved 40, 50, 60, and 70 years down the road as artist like, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, led Zepplin, Elvis, Dianna Ross, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Stevie Wonder and on and on are doing and will do. The music of this Day and Age is quite literally Crap.

Someone please Kill Hip Hop the way you Killed Disco (which is Superior Music to Hip Hop Rap) so long ago. How much more of this Shit do we have to endure! Are there any Good Musical Artists out there at all? Please step forward and do your thing!!!

Daniel Bellino Zwicke

CORNER BISTRO Voted # 1 and New Yorks "BEST CHEESEBURGER"

Happy to see Corner Bistro's Burger can still make it to # 1 Best of New York list these days. I've been eating Cheeseburgers there since 1984. Yes 26 Years of Bistro Burgers. Back then, the Burger at the Corner Bistro was for Year-After-Year thee perennial favorite, # 1, Top, Best Burger in New York, rated by the Top and most Powerful food Authorities of the day, New York Magazine, The NY Times, Cue Magazine, The Post, The Village Voice, GQ, Bob Lape on 7's Eyewitness News, The Daily News, so on and so forth. Nine out of ten people, newspapers, and news agency's, The Bistro Burger was always "Tops," # 1. It no longer is. And it was tops for some 30 years. Quite a run. Sadly the quality of the Burger has gone down a bit, and there are numerous chemistry better, tastier Burgers in town. Shake Shack get my Vote for the Top, New York's best Burger, with Bills Bar and Burger and Peter Luger not far behind. But the Shake Shack Burger has all the proper elements that come together and make for perfect chemistry of, dear I say, "The Perfect Burger." Well if not the perfect Burger, New York's Best, or at least amongst the Best, everyone has their opinion. Some not as qualified as others. As I've been eating the East Coast's Best Burgers since childhood, and being a former Chef Culinary Professional, I have greater qualifications than most.
The Shake Shack Burgers elements that make it so good, are: Top Quality Beef, Just the right size and thickness, not too thin nor too thick, which unfortunately many think makes a burger is better, the thicker it is. Not so. A 6 oz., 3/4" Burger is Best and it has to be cooked on a Flat-Top Grill cooking in its own fat to qualify amongst the best. Cooking on a grated grill, just won't do. You'll often get terribly overcooked hard spots, losing all important beef fat for the burger to cook in. You'll need a good hamburger bun, toasted preferred, not too fancy, and a major No-No is the use of an English Muffin. Though i Love them for breakfast, English Muffins are a terrible choice, pairing to a Burger. the Burger has to be properly cooked
And one of thee most important rules to a great Burger, it can't cost more than $6.50, and about $4.50 is even better. The Shake Shake burger meets all these requirements, even exceeding them.
Back to the Bistro Burger. For nostalgias sake and Price to value ratio, combined with the great old New York Bar ambiance, The Bistro Burger always makes it on my Top 10 List. As the Post states, to be able to get a great burger for just $6.50 with Beers at $2.75 in one of New York's few remaining Bohemian Bars, and in Greenwich Village? A combination that just can't be beat.
by Daniel Bellino Zwicke

"The SCENE" in The Lobby of The ACE HOTEL, New York

Yes, Makin the Scene at the Ace Hotel. Got my Coffee, "Stumptown" of Course, my Laptop, iPod Tkouch with Camera, my Cel, money in my pockets, I'm all set.
The "Scene" in the Lobby of The Ace Hotel, New York, 29th Street between Broadway and 5th Avenue. Great Lobby, the equivalent of the Alogonquin Hotel Lobby when it was front and center, New York's Literary Hotel in the days of Dolly Parker and days of yor.
Yes the "SCENE" in the Lobby of the Ace Hotel. It Rocks. Supposedly this is thee Rock-N-Roll Hotel, Home Base, Seattle.
This place is filled everyday, from Dawn to Dusk, with Writers, wound be writers, Screen Writers, Playrights, Web and Mobile Delepoers, tourists, and dear I say "Rock Stars." Don't know. All I can say is I've delt with quite a few Rock Stars in my days as Maitre'd Manager at the Once "Hottest Celebrity Spot in Town," Da Silvano's.... Yes it was, until Graydon Carter (who Frequented Da Silvano 5 or 6 Times a week) opened the
"Waverly Inn" and stole a Most of Silvan's immense Celebrity Crowd. Everyone went there: Movie Stars, Rock Stars, the Fashion Set (Designers & Models), the Movers and Shakers in Publishing, the Magazine Business, and on and on!
David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Gwyneth Palthrow, Calvin Klein, Uma Thurma,and Richard Gere, to name just a few. Everyone went there.
Anyway ....

by . Daniel Bellino Zwicke ....