He Ate Well

Real Italian Gelato

Marco Polo Italian Ice Cream, 1447 Taraval St, San Francisco, 415-731-2833

After a five year absence, I returned last week to the Marco Polo gelato shop. Okay, after five years I returned to San Francisco, but I can't visit that city without stopping for gelato at Marco Polo. Why? Despite the name, despite the stickers of Italian flags on the wall and posters of the old country, the shop reflects its neighborhood, called the Sunset, a community of immigrants from across Asia. So the flavors speak to their tastes: Durian, jack fruit, sour sop, sesame, black sesame, lychee, guava, taro, coconut, red bean and green tea. There are some more traditional ones, too, like vanilla bean (real bean), pistachio and arcobaleno, but that's not the focus. When I met the owner a few years back, a Chinese immigrant, he told me he studied traditional Italian techniques and has been making serious gelato for over two decades. Like traditional Italian gelato he uses real ingredients and makes it by hand. So that's why I keep coming back. Last week I ordered a cone of durian gelato. It had the stink and tang of the real thing. Delicious.

Restaurant: En on My Mind...

En Japanese Brasserie, 435 Hudson Street at Leroy, 212-647-9196

As my SUV pushed through a Petri dish called House Causeway Road in Delhi, India, past cars, buses, scooters, motorcycles, bicycles and green and yellow 3-wheeled taxis called tuk-tuks, past lorries -- trucks -- adorned with elaborate paintings of gods and signs that read "I love India" and "Horn Please," past a blue concrete building called "Sulabh Toilet Complex," past two woman dressed in golden saris picking their way across this four lane road, past humpbacked holy cows ambling along the shoulder, past a carriage drawn by three white stallions, past a man astride a massive bull elephant -- my conversation with fellow passengers turned, improbably, to Japanese food.

Jersey City: Dosa Dreams

Dosa Hut, 777 Newark Avenue, Jersey City. (201) 420-6660

The closest I ever got to India -- so far -- was an Indian restaurant in Singapore that my friend Rajesh took me to as a consolation. We wanted to head last-minute to his hometown of Bangalore for two days to see his folks, but the flights were all booked. He knew I was disappointed so he figured a good Southern Indian meal would cheer me up. We went to his favorite place in Singapore (darn, I forgot the name) and dug our right hands into dish after spicy, sublime dish. Not Bangalore, but it did the trick.

I thought of that joint when I walked into Dosa Hut on Newark Avenue. Similar spare decor, in this case, pale yellow walls, fifteen yellow formica tables and bright fluorescent lights. Similar sign at the front advertising the menu; here, thirty different dosas -- from Masala to the exotic Cheese Palak Masala, Pondicherry and Spring. Similar sounds in the place, too, quiet conversation in a rainbow of Indian dialects and in English with a heavy Subcontinent lilt.

The menu also offered Idli, Vada, Uttapam and something called Chaval Ka Chamatkar, described as "rice delights." I picked Rava Masala Dosa, a crepe made from cream of wheat and rice flour and stuffed with yellow-colored, curried potatoes and onions. It came with a ferociously spicy tomato chutney and a more reasonable coconut chutney, both full of fresh flavor. There were plastic forks and knives available, but I noticed the other diners eating the Indian way, with their right hands. Just like at that place in Singapore. I did the same.

Jersey City: "The Number One Indian Ice Cream In The World"

Bombay Cafe Kwality Ice Cream, 771-773 Newark Ave., Jersey City. Phone 201-656-5566

I stepped into a Newark Avenue ice cream shop called Bombay Cafe Kwality Ice Cream to check out the flavors in the case. Some were familiar. Some had names like Thandai, Fresh Chikoo, Kesar Pista, Gulkand, Kulfi Falooda and Chew and Raisin. Not so familiar.

I asked the owner, a trim Indian man with a moustache, to "give me a taste of something I've never tried before." He obliged. He handed me samples of every one of his flavors, even things like chocolate and strawberry. One after the other in quick order. Soon I juggled nineteen tiny plastic tasting spoons in my now sticky hands. In his mind, I guess, his ice cream was so good it was like I never tasted ice cream before. In my mind, he was close to being right.

Restaurant: East Coast Napa

Little Giant, 85 Orchard Street, corner of Broome, Lower East Side. 212-226-5047

When my friends Kristin and Clark and my sister Miriam and I huddled together over the menu at Little Giant we never got to the main courses. Maybe next time. But this time we decided to work our way through the little dishes that help make this little restaurant such a pleasure.

Little Giant is the kind of place that used to blossom in Manhattan: the dream of two young chefs on a shoestring, a corner spot with an open kitchen; a commitment to Farmers Market ingredients; an eclectic menu; seasonal, simple, honest cooking. This is usually a Brooklyn or Queens dream now, thanks, I figure, to real estate prices. But somehow Julie and Tasha, the two chef/owners, pulled it off.

Bar: Bier Ist Gut

Loreley Restaurant and Biergarten, 7 Rivington Street, NYC, 212-253-7077, www.loreleynyc.com

I met my friend Kentaro the other night for a drink at Loreley, a German beer house. We pushed our way to the busy bar and here's what we saw: A dozen German beers on tap -- pilsner, bock, weisse and lager -- each served in its own special glass; a machine to make Jagermeister "colder than ice;" and -- my favorite -- a gallon-sized stein that looked like a cylindrical, modernist flower vase. We watched a birthday boy chug the whole gallon to cheers and applause and cake -- and then race to the john and throw up. Ah, to be 21 again...

Restaurant: Fire and Pain (and Ecstasy)

Spicy & Tasty, 39-07 Prince Street, 1H, Flushing, Queens, 718-359-1601

The first thing that hits you when you walk into Spicy & Tasty in Flushing, Queens, is the smell -- the thick, nostril-puckering aroma of Sichuan peppercorns. This isn't your local take-out "Sichuan" cooking. This, folks, is the real thing.

I visited Sichuan Province in China once. I remember returning to my hotel after dinner thinking how hot the room was. But it wasn't the hotel -- it was me. My head felt like a burning blowtorch. That was "ma-la" -- hot and spicy -- in action, the tag teaming duo of red peppers and Sichuan peppercorns. Sichuan is a damn, foggy, overcast place -- there's a saying there (there's always a saying in China) that dogs howl when they see the sun poke out from the clouds. Ma-la takes the chill out of your bones.

But it's more than that.

Barcelona: Casa Leopoldo

Warning lights flickered bright red on my inner "eats meter" the moment my host, the owner of Casa Leopoldo, a Barcelona institution since the twenties, offered me filet of Turbot for lunch. Grilled fish, very Catalan - but also very any other culture along the Mediterranean coast.

Nope, I came here for the real goods, the cooking you can only find in Catalonia - utterly surprising surf and turf dishes that paired, say, lobster with rabbit; rabo de buay, Catalan-style oxtail stew; esqueixada - the "x" pronounced "shh" like Portuguese - flavorful salt cod and fresh tomato salad.

Barcelona: Bar Tomas

Barcelona was once a walled city with villages within a horse ride's distance. But the city swallowed up these hamlets after it tore down the old walls a hundred-plus years ago and expanded outward. Serria, once a village, now a neighborhood, is a clutch of narrow streets and a square, once the village's, anchored by an old church. On one of these lanes, a car width-wide, but closed to cars, sits Bar Tomas.

Restaurant: Thai Rules

Sripraphai, 64-13 39th Ave., Queens, between 64th and 65th Sts. 718-899-9599. Best Thai restaurant in New York.

For weeks in a row, maybe eight, maybe more, I'm not sure, my friend Hiroko and her boyfriend Rick took their Saturday dinner at Sripraphai. I bumped into them there one of those evenings and got curious when I noticed how chummy Hiroko was with her waitress. She came clean like the first night of a twelve-step program: She and Rick were working through the long menu meal by meal by meal.

I understood her addiction. This Thai restaurant -- on a beat-up block of bleak, low-slung apartments and storefronts in Woodside, Queens -- does that to you.

So I devised my own -- slightly different -- plan to get through Sripraphai's seductive menu.