Temple Emanu-El
East 65th St & 5th Avenue, Upper East Side
Cafe Mingala
1393 2nd Avenue, Upper East Side
Greetings to the world of food lovers and good Jewish boys and girls. I'm back on the blog circuit after a couple years. Well, the last pursuit was travels through western and central Europe. Now living in New York City, we have the most cosmopolitan of anything so of course I stumble on the blog United Nations Of Food and I am sold. A guy whose mission is to eat food from (virtually) every country in the world without leaving this city. Sounds good to me being without a car and being able to take a bus and/or subway to any location. So what do I want to do? Expand my worldly horizons and eat at these places! There is essentially no food that I dislike (as a rule I do not eat pork nor shellfish but will eat swordfish and chicken parm). And I decided to combine this with my interest to visit synagogues in New York City as never before had I attended any services at any shuls in the city. Using my favorite service of the week, Friday night's Kabbalat Shabbat, I started in the 2nd week of November 2012. Deciding I wanted to go to a Shabbos service on Friday 11/9, I reached out to my good friend Meryl who I thought (correctly) would also want to go. The first synagogue I chose to visit is Congregation Emanuel on the Upper East Side. It is basically the powerhouse shul, the oldest Reform synagogue, where heads of state like Bloomberg and Madoff are/were members, where High Holiday seats go for tens of thousands of dollars. It is either the largest synagogue in the world or 2nd behind the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary (also Reform).Having grown up in Conservative Judaism, I've always thought Reform Judaism as utilizing too much English, etc. Then again, my only experience with Reform was Temple Emanu-El in Westfield, NJ where I went to a couple Bar Mitzvahs. Guitars and other instruments on Shabbat is foreign to me as well because instrumentation is not generally included on Shabbos in Conservative synagogues. Cantor Frank used to play guitar during musical Kabbalat services when I was still in Hebrew School. The service would be scheduled for earlier than usual and the instrumentation would be done by the time it was time for Barchu and Maariv. So lets get to it. Emanuel in NYC is a massive structure across the street from Central Park on 5th Ave. you walk in and are greeted mostly by non-Jewish ushers. There was no coat room to note and I think they were handing out siddurim and yarmulkes maybe. So we walk in and it absolutely cavernous, it is definitely resembling a large cathedral and does quite rival St Pats and St Thomas down the street a few blocks. I can't believe the space inside the rows just keep going. I know it's a big deal kind of place because my dad had told me that in the past he would sometimes listen to WQXR the classical station on 96.3 which would broadcast the Friday night service live. But when the City of NY bought the station it went from private to public so the broadcast would be a conflict of church and state, so they resorted to an online web feed only. Even sitting in the mid to front area along the center aisle I felt like we were miles away from the bima. The whole time it felt very rigid, like we were there to observe only. And that did prove to be the case sure enough. Even though there were so many seats, it did not seem all that crowded. And I also noticed much to my surprise several men not wearing yarmulkes. I was wearing jeans that day and I did not feel out of place at all, it was very varied throughout. I think because it is such a well-known house of worship that the service may have had several tourists who wanted to witness a Jewish prayer service firsthand. I also noticed around the bima which was very distant and high that there was no middle area such that Meryl and I could not figure out where they would put out the Torah to be read. I surmised that it is activated by a switch and rises out of the floor when they need it. If you had come a bit early before 6:00, you could catch the organ recital which is nice but I could also not figure out where the organ player was located. I thought perhaps there was a pit full of musicians in front of and below the bima but it was not exposed like at Broadway show. Anyway, the rabbi(s) came out, gave some words on the top of the steps of the bima and proceeded to these pulpits on the side that really reminded me of a church. They were so impersonal and removed from the community in the pews. Then the strangest thing was the choir. We seriously thought it was a recording, the way it was so on cue and clear, but then we also surmised that they may be hidden behind a curtain somewhere like the phantom organ player. During the prayers that I recognized melodies of I would try to join in but felt that the choir was so overpowering and almost no one else was singing, it was a performance only we were there to observe only. Finally the service ended and everyone gathered for kiddush and motzi in the lobby. So classy that they serve a choice of red and white wine and in real glasses nonetheless! And they didn't have salt for the challah. So afterwards we had no plans and it was still early like 7:30pm and I didn't want to go back to Queens straightaway so I decided let's go have dinner somewhere nearby so since it was cold, we stepped into a Duane Reade so I could use my phone because I decided to look up restaurants from the United Nations Of Food blog and fortunately one restaurant of unique origin was just a few blocks away on 2nd ave and 72nd st. We stepped into Cafe Mingala, home to NYC's only Burmese restaurant and it was a narrow casual room with booths and side-by-side tables slammed against each other. There couldn't be more seating than for 30-40 people. Service was quite slow so we looked at the menu and tried to figure out what to order, there seemed to be only 2 servers and also alternating as a host, there was not really any place to stand and wait so it was a bit awkward. The smell in the place was amazing and made me jealous that Meryl lives not far from the place and could order take-out or delivery. Not ever having tried the type of food before, I wanted to make sure I ordered the right things so once again I consulted the blog for ideas. There was great talk about a type of fish stew called Mohinga which is apparently one of the national dishes of Burma so I decided that would be my meal though it was...oh let me mention another great aspect of this place, the prices are very friendly, this fish soup was less than $10. Another thing I had seen was good was the Pickled Green Tea Leaf Salad, as described on the menu as "marinated green tea leaves mixed with sesame seeds, toasted garlic, tomato, lettuce, cabbage, peanuts & lemon twist." And delicious it was. Very healthy seeming all the food in this place. And then in the light fares/pasta section, is the Festival Noodles Fish Soup which is the Mohinga, described on the menu as "thin rice noodles with minced fish, lemon grass, boiled eggs, lemon & coriander in a delicious fish broth." And again delicious it was. This fish stew is perhaps my favorite food of anything these days. The taste is just inimitable. Meryl decided to stay on the safer side and order a chicken dish. Ordering the mango chicken, she also ended up raving about the food at Cafe Mingala, the dish described on the menu as "mango & veg sauteed with spicy coconut sauce " and with just the nicest bit of spicy kick. So far it is among the top of the picks of restaurants and I miss Mohinga, but will hopefully have it again soon, I hope it is as good as I remember. Word to the wise is do not go there if you're on a schedule, We definitely ended up spending at least 2 hours there, first it took forever to order and in the end forever to get the check to our table. The table next to us of 5 girls was griping that they had come in a little after us and still had not received their main courses just appetizer. We told them it was well worth the wait and they would forget it as soon as the food came. We hope they agreed with us. So you might be wondering why the name of this blog is Shuls and Shpayz. Well Shuls is obvious and then I looked up Yiddish words for 'food' and apparently one is 'shpayz' (
Temple Emanu-El, Upper East Side
Pickled Green Tea Leaf Salad
Mango Chicken
Mohinga (Festival Noodles Fish Soup)
