Shuls & Shpayz: boriqua (HA!) morena (HA!) DOMINICANO (HA!) colombiano (HA!) boriqua (HA!) morena (HA!) cubano (HA!) mexicano (HA!)

Congregation B'nai Jeshurun

257 West 88th Street, Upper West Side

El Malecon II

764 Amsterdam Avenue, Upper West Side

In episode number 4 of our somewhat-weekly excursions, we venture to the Upper West Side for a service with supposedly more flare and some good Caribbean cooking from the DR. Congregation Bnai Jeshurun, like most in the UWS, is one of the larger ones in the city. It is not affiliated with any movement, but appears to follow Conservative traditions mostly. Dominican stronghold in NYC is mostly known to be in Washington Heights, one notable example being slugger Manny Ramirez. But I digress, upon trying to locate excellent Dominican food, I came upon a restaurant known as El Malecon. While there are synagogues up in Wash Heights, mostly because Yeshiva University is in the neighborhood, we did not want to schlep all the way up to the 170s. Fortunately, they decided to open a sister restaurant in the more accessible UWS at Amsterdam and 97th, duly named El Malecon II. So with our destinations in mind, we made our way over to BJ. Meryl had read on their website before we went that the two last rows of seats in the room are meant to be reserved for young professionals, which sounded good to us as trying to find a Friday night service with a younger crowd than the places we had gone in previous weeks. Upon entering, it was packed, and we were lucky to snag a couple seats in the center at the very back. It seemed to be a sort of convertible room, as there were no pews or traditional rows but actually folding chairs positions in a large crescent. It was the first time I could ever remember being at a Shabbat evening service with a full house. That was when I knew we had to be in the right place. It turned out that BJ is a much more informal place than I ever would have suspected. I could hardly remember seeing anyone dressed in shirts and ties, let alone suits. I'd say the vast majority were in a little bit more cleaned up than street clothes, what you might wear to a summer Friday night service outside, untucked shirts and jeans, a number of sweaters. We also have a strange sort of prejudice or inclination about the formality of different denominations' services and environments in places of worship. And I will admit that I am partially guilty of this as well, for example as I wore jeans to the Temple Emanuel in November, but as you previously read, that's more like a performance and not a community event, with all the tourists and such. I will also a quote a certain unnamed member of our praying posse who, in one week of having last-minute debates about what type of service to go to, claimed she wanted to know for certain because she based her clothing on it, if we were going to go to the Reform service instead of Conservative, she'd change from a skirt to pants. So yes, a long and circuitous way of saying it's a very inviting and relatively informal setting at Bnai Jeshurun. And as I mentioned before, although not a member of USCJ, they use Siddur Sim Shalom just like we used growing up at TBEMC. So it's always nice to have something familiar. And beginning with Yedid Nefesh but unfortunately not singing all verses out loud. Here, they had a small acoustic accompaniment as well, that was not overpowering and a nice complement to the praying. I don't recall if there was a choir, in fact the congregation altogether seemed quite on key. And not until after the fact did I realize that the cantor is actually the guy at the electric keyboard coming in with the piano parts, the rabbis at the podium. It's also a very interesting interior because the upstairs balcony has old-style wooden pews and the ceiling is illuminated in a deep, dark blue which is reminiscent of a planetarium and also has an industrial-style look to it that somewhat resembles a K'nex project as well. All in all, the service was pleasant, and probably the highlight of it was the dancing that goes along with L'kha Dodi. For the first few verses, it's a more reserved tune, and this one lady is really passionate, looking like she's shuckling and flailing her arms towards the ceiling, and then once we turn the page in the siddur, the tune switches up and a good amount of people get up out of their seats and start running through the aisles hand-in-hand, which lends a great element to the atmosphere, but of course with such a packed house and not much free space, the dancing lines became clogged quite quickly so the dance turned into more of a retarded march of sorts. After the service ended, there was no communal kiddush because they do motzi on the bima, so we all shuffled out back onto 88th Street. As we walked back out towards Broadway and eventually over to Amsterdam, we remarked to each other about how much we enjoyed the service after going to 3 others, it was the first service that we branded the coveted "we'd-go-back". On our way to El Malecon II, Neal looked up the synagogue on his phone and realized that it was the subject of some scathing news articles in the recent weeks, and its clergy had received a lot of attention over their viewpoints about Palestine's recent admission to the UN as a non-member observer state, which was right in time with the Gaza conflict going on at the time. Basically, the rabbis had sent a letter to the congregation which was perceived by some as being too supportive towards the Palestinans. You can read all about the drama with the NY Times here . Getting to the restaurant, it was very non-pretentious and with plenty of available tables. Most of the clientele was Latino but we did not feel out of place. We walked in and were soon gestured to pick any table. So we sit towards the wall and our server came to give us menus. I knew that the rotisserie chickens were definitely the highlight of the cuisine, so I was definitely going to order one. Neal decided he would have the chicken too (how is it not fitting to be eating chicken on a Friday night after going to Shabbat services!). First we were going to order each a half-chicken, which were very fairly priced at $8 each but then we got smart and chose to order 1 whole chicken to split for only $12, as the menu noted: Pollo Entero "estilo malecon", or a whole chicken "Malecon style". Although I had heard good things also about the Asopado, or soupy rice, it would have to wait until another time. Still, since plantains are a large part of several Latin American cuisines, I needed to order a side of them, and we also ordered sides of the yellow rice to eat with the chicken. We had no idea how huge the portions would be, we could definitely have settled to share 1 rice side among the 3 of us. Meryl ordered mofongo, the famous Puerto Rican dish based on mashed plantains stuffed with meat, not too surprising to find at a Dominican restaurant, considering the islands are not much more than 100 miles apart in the Caribbean. With platanos maduros, arroz amarillo, and pollo muy bueno, we were more than satisfied with El Malecon II. And a good rebound it finally was to have some delicious and accessible food after some questionable experiences in recent weeks with German and Lao food.