In 2006, popular Sunnyside joint Pio Pio Riko opened a location on Greenpoint’s Manhattan Avenue.  Like the original, this Peruvian restaurant and steak house specializes in pollo a la brasa, i.e., spit-roasted chicken; the front of the restaurant prominently displays racks of rotisserie chicken slowly rotating behind a glass-doored oven.

Pio Pio Riko’s menu features poultry, steak and seafood, including such Peruvian staples such as ceviche and plantains.  Tonight, though, we were here just for the chicken.

We munched on handfuls of the complimentary cancha (salted, toasted kernels of maize) from a bowl set on the red and white topped tables — one of several conspicuous displays of Peruvian pride.  In the background, the flat-screen television played — of all things — Showgirls.

The plate of quarter-chicken with white rice and red beans was a terrific value at under $5: all crisp skin and tender, moist meat, chunks of which we dipped greedily into the irresistibly creamy, spicy house ají sauce.  (Bonus plátano maduro courtesy of B’s plate.)

Pio Pio Riko is not related to the well-loved Pio Pio in Jackson Heights, the Upper East Side, the Bronx, the Upper West Side… or any of the seven Pio Pio branches throughout the city.  RM once remarked (with only slight exaggeration) that all Peruvian chicken places are called “pío pío” — the Spanish interpretation of a chirping chick sound.  Cuter and catchier than “coc co co coc” — Spanish for “cluck cluck” — or “kikirikí kikirikí,” which is Spanish for “cock-a-doodle-doo.”

As a few of you may have noticed, I have been on hiatus this past month.

After a musical Memorial Day weekend in the Pacific Northwest, I spent two glorious weeks in Hawaii, followed in rapid succession by a wedding, and jaunts to Orange County, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Locally, there was much work to do launching my community supported agriculture group’s season, a visit to Public Farm One at P.S. 1, a night of Shakespeare in the Park, a slew of birthday celebrations, a pair of sublime sushi dinners, and the Siren Music Festival in Coney Island. More, too, but you know I don’t include everything on this blog…

Oh, you wanted to see pictures, and perhaps a video or two? (Follow the links to the full flickr sets.)

P.F. 1 (Public Farm One) at P.S. 1:

San Francisco shores:

Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco:

Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, San Francisco:

de Young Museum & Japanese Tea Garden, San Francisco:

Conservatory of Flowers, San Francisco:

Coney Island, New York:

…and many more photos from O’ahu: Kualoa Ranch, Diamond Head, The Polynesian Cultural Center, and at Pearl Harbor, the Battleship Missouri and the USS Arizona Memorial.

I will be up in New York’s Finger Lakes region this weekend for the annual 50-mile garage sale along Route 90 — remember last August’s Highway 127 Sale through the rural South? — perhaps with some stops along the Cayuga Wine Trail, after which I hope to be able to buckle back down to the business of blogging as my summer tan lines slowly fade into memory.

The wares seem not much different from what one would find at the markets in Hell’s Kitchen or on Columbus Avenue) – though with greater emphasis on hipster-friendly crafts — but the food offerings are much improved over what one would come across on my side of the river: Salvatore Bklyn ricotta and cannoli; Blue Marble Ice Cream; Wafels & Dinges; pies from LaCrosta Pie Co.; Kumquat Cupcakery (distributing free miniature cupcakes this afternoon)…

Expected later this month: Brooklyn-made products like Brownstone Beans and Wheelhouse Pickles and CSA-favorite and immigrant-supporting breads from Hot Bread Kitchen. 

Check out The New York Times feature on the eats at Brooklyn Flea, which also notes the highly anticipated arrival of the food vendors from the Red Hook ball fields.

LC suggested Saint Germain, a très French bistro on Third Avenue, which had received some good word of mouth from the locals. The location has been home to a series of French bistros, beginning in 1999 with Le ZaZou, to Provence en Boite (which relocated to Smith Street in Carroll Gardens) before hitting upon its current incarnation. The cozy restaurant is a popular brunch spot — no wonder: the prix fixe is an excellent value, offering choice of entrée, coffee or tea, plus orange juice or Lorina sparkling pink lemonade, and a fancy dessert, all for $16.95. Our party of four waited about twenty minutes for a table, which gave us plenty of time to consider the myriad pastry options in the glass display case up front, and to ponder what exactly goes into Saint Germain’s specialty “Brigitte Bardot” cocktail. (Answer: lemon vodka, triple sec, and that sparkling pink lemonade. What, no St-Germain?)

For better or worse, our experience felt truly Parisian: beyond leisurely, the service ranged from benignly neglectful to maddeningly slow. After making our selections from the brunch menu (the usual egg dishes, croque monsieur, crêpes, French toast, croissanwiches), we waited another twenty minutes for someone to take our order. The entrées, when they came, were quite good, though I would have enjoyed my Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict more with the cup of coffee I ordered… which did not come despite two requests. (Each time we asked for our drinks, the waitress would cheerily respond, “Sure!” and continue merrily along, unfazed.)

When at last we got our coffees and teas with dessert (pictured below, my apple pastry and HH’s chocolate mousse dome), they came poured into too-hot-to-handle glass tumblers. No explanation or apology given, but we deduced that the kitchen must have run out of their usual white cups, though I noticed about half a dozen used ones sitting on yet-to-be-cleared tables around us.

On the bright side, the slow service gave us plenty of time to catch up. Back on the sunny streets after our two hour brunch, we noticed an inordinate amount of bright green gear on the livelier than usual crowds spilling out of the Irish pubs. When we passed a group of kilted bagpipers, we knew something was up.

It seems we’d just missed the Bay Ridge St. Patrick’s Day Parade, a procession which began at St. Patrick’s R.C. Church (not Cathedral) and proceeded along (Brooklyn’s) Fifth Avenue to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica. Beleaguered Kings County DA Charles “Joe” Hynes served as Grand Marshal for the post-St. Patrick’s Day tradition, which began in 1994.

Next up: Bay Ridge’s 17th of May Norwegian Day Parade, which will be held this year on Sunday, May 18.

Back at DK’s home, after reruns of “Mythbusters” and the “Hawaii” episode of the Travel Channel’s 1,000 Places To See Before You Die, we amused ourselves with a spontaneous digital cable version of “Name That Tune.” The years may pass, but some songs are just seared in our memories.

Elsewhere in BK… Flickr preview: Greenpoint weekend (April 12-13, 2008)

The name of the restaurant is Noodle Pudding — and it’s no secret to Brooklyn Heights residents, who pack the place regularly. Contrary to what the name might suggest, it is not a Jewish deli, but a trattoria. The dimly lit dining room was warmly appointed with mahogany accents, glowing chandeliers, artwork-laden ocher and exposed brick walls. Solid, inexpensive Italian fare with pastas in the $9-13 range, meat entrées topping out around $22 for the Osso Buco. In 2006, the New Yorker deemed Noodle Pudding “the epitome of a decent neighborhood restaurant.”

According to CF, who dines here on a near-weekly basis, the restaurant’s specials are consistently good. Her favorite among them is the pasta with wild boar ragù (also a specialty of The Violent Femmes’ Brian Ritchie as I recall) — this endorsement coming from a vegetarian. That particular dish wasn’t on the menu tonight, so I was not tempted to break Lent. (Five more days until Easter…!) I can, however, recommend my Strozza Preti Alla Sicilian (pasta with eggplant, tomato and ricotta), which was fresh and simply prepared, accompanied by a very reasonably priced glass of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo — my favorite everyday wine of late. (Pair it with pizza!)

About that confounding name: according to The Rough Guide to New York City Restaurants, Noodle Pudding is so called because the proprietor, Antonio Migliaccio, is known to his Jewish friends as “Mr. Kugel,” which is the rough Italian-to-Yiddish translation of his surname. So many of Migliaccio’s friends ribbed him over his choice of restaurant name that he decided to forgo a sign in front. ”Honestly,” he said, ”I got embarrassed.“

The dessert offerings included a bread pudding ($5), but oddly enough, not a single noodle pudding.

Tile mural inside the Clark Street subway station via the entrance of the Hotel St. George, once the largest hotel in New York City:

Anticipation has been high for the stateside transfer after the lavish praised heaped upon this production by the usually reticent British critics: The Evening Standard’s Nicholas de Jongh pronounced it the “Macbeth of a lifetime“; The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer called it the “best Macbeth” he had ever seen – this from a man who presumably has seen a lot of Shakespeare.

What could I possibly add to all the rave reviews? Anthony Ward’s stark, grey-washed set generates a fitting level of eerie foreboding throughout as it multi-purposes as war hospital, a kitchen and a morgue. The visual projections on the back walls ranged from documentary footage of Stalin’s marching armies to dark, dripping blood, adding to the unsettling atmosphere. There were so many moments and performances to admire: Kate Fleetwood’s fiercely sexy take on Lady Macbeth… the innovative staging of Act III’s banquet scene: first as viewed through the guilt-crazed eyes of Macbeth, and then replayed after intermission from the perspective of his guests… the “weyard sisters” making their first appearance as preternatural field nurses, rap-chanting their “Double, double toil and trouble” spell amid zapping lights and booms of thunder (well, that may have been a little gimmicky)… the unbearably drawn-out, horror-stricken silence that follows when exiled future king Macduff (Michael Feast) is told the news of his butchered wife and children…

And of course, it hardly needs to be said that Stewart was sublime as Macbeth, making even the simple act of making and eating a sandwich completely menacing. And yet, for all his unchecked ambition and grand, brutal scheming, when he delivers the famous “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” soliloquy in Act V, it is with the world-weariness of a soldier ready to head home.

This production deserves a wide audience, which it may get if speculation of a Broadway transfer proves true. If that happens, I would make but one suggestion: pipe in Alexander Courage’s Star Trek fight theme music during the final Macduff-Macbeth showdown. Hey, it worked brilliantly in The Cable Guy.