This is the last weekend my very good friends Collen and Danielle will be living in New York City. Collen is a friend of mine from college who moved to New York a few years ago. He started dating Danielle shortly after he got here, and now they are the proud parents of little Lucy. After a year and a half of Collen staying at home with the baby and Danielle working full time, they decided it’s time for a change. Raising a child in the city is extremely hard and they aren’t the first friends of mine who have left for more of a suburban lifestyle. They are however, two of the closest, and I’m going to miss them immensely.
To celebrate their last weekend here, I fought through a cold and headed out to Long Island City to have dinner at El Ay Si. A wonderful restaurant in Collen and Danielle’s neighborhood that I’ve been to twice and that they had never even noticed. I had talked this place up a few times. I was there once for a brunch and once using a Groupon. Groupons, Scoutmobs and Living Socials are the best way to explore the city.
The Groupon for El Ay Si was for 1 appetizer, 2 entrees and 2 deserts. We opted for the meatball appetizer, but I was extremely curious about the jalepeno sweet corn fritters. Luckily, so was Danielle this time around. Served with honey, these corn fritters were much breadier than they were corny. Little puffs of goodness, they might as well have been hush puppies with some corn and jalepenos built in. The best part about them was that they were served with honey! I had never considered honey as a dipping sauce, but this was an absolutely perfect compliment to the fried puffs with a little bite. Sweet and spicy, all wrapped into one.
For my entree, I opted for the pulled pork tacos with sauteed onion and pineapple. This is exactly what I got last time, but it was so good, and they gave me so many choices of hot sauce that I had to do it again. The meat is so flavorful, and topped with the hot sauce you get another nice bite of sweet and spicy. The perfect combination of tastes.
The salad is nothing special, without the dressing, they might as well be toppings to the tacos.
On the way into the restaurant, we spotted a little city guide. After flipping through and seeing what other restaurants were in the area that I need to explore, I noticed a coupon for a free desert at El Ay Si! Although we were all fairly stuffed from our dinners, we couldn’t pass it up and decided to order the fried oreos. Fried oreos are a staple of the street fairs in New York City, but rarely do I find them in restaurants. This was a total treat. The biggest difference was a lack of powdered sugar, but El Ay Si gives you something better. A tiny ramekin of ice cream. Just enough to top your oreo with. The ice cream brings a nice relief to the hotness of the fried oreo, and is almost like dipping the oreo into a big glass of milk. So amazing and delicious. And with 5 of them, it makes sense to get this as a desert to split between 4 people.
It was an amazing and wonderful end to the last few years with Collen and Danielle. They will be missed immensely and I’m sad to see them go, but hopefully they’ll be back in a year or so and we’ll spend more nights together exploring the city together.
