Eat & DrinkNew York

Punjabi – Taxi Drivers Know Best

Updated: Mar 13, 2009 00:22
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Unlike many of you, I went to the Sunday Show after party for the open Absinthe bar where the fire eater, go-go dancer, and juggler stood out through the thin crowd. Despite the potential for something awesome, expectations weren’t met (nothing caught on fire!) until I ordered an Absinthe and indeed paid nothing. But, after six my stomach hurt and my head still sat squarely on my shoulders.      
 
The night U-turned when I went to Punjabi, an Indian/Pakistani spot with the best PR a cheap basement bodega could ask for: consistent patronage by South Asian cabbies.  Plates of rice or rotti with choice of two veggies were $2, but now the price is $3 and the plates are actually bowls.  Somosas cost a dollar and they have the latest Pakastani cds on and the wall, ready for purchase.  This place is full of ambiance, just not manufactured ambiance.  If it is cold eat at the stand up bar. If is warm, join the gang on the sidewalk. They obviously have their shit together because they have a row of 8 microwaves over the 6 chafers holding the food and you bus your bowls to the trashcan outside the door.   
 
Punjabi is at 114 1st Street, but think Houston between 1st and 2nd Ave.  
 

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Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Stuart Schuffman, aka Broke-Ass Stuart, is a travel writer, poet, TV host, activist, and general shit-stirrer. His website BrokeAssStuart.com is one of the most influential arts & culture sites in the San Francisco Bay Area and his freelance writing has been featured in Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, The Bold Italic, Geek.com and too many other outlets to remember. His weekly column, Broke-Ass City, appears every other Thursday in the San Francisco Examiner. Stuart’s writing has been translated into four languages. In 2011 Stuart created and hosted the travel show Young, Broke, and Beautiful on IFC and in 2015 he ran for Mayor of San Francisco and got nearly 20k votes.

He's been called "an Underground legend": SF Chronicle, "an SF cult hero":SF Bay Guardian, and "the chief of cheap": Time Out New York.