thanks again for the great time, hellodali! we had a really good time meeting everyone and trying out all the food! as for devon-a-thon II, do you think it would be possible to postpone until after september 16, as cjchaps & i will be coming back from vacation at that time and we would hate to miss it!

Wow! Awesome!!!

The 'A-thon' was wonderfully orchestrated, the places were all on my must visit list and the food was better than I expected.

Devon is a little out of my normal stomping grounds (Oak Park) and when my bride had a CPR class to take at Wilson and Broadway at 9 this was a must do for me.

I did miss King Sweets and La Unica when I got the pick-up call and we were able to return to visit Ghareeb Nawaz and Khan BBQ. We did not have any room left for the last scheduled stop at HaShalom.

It was as always a great time to stroll along and enjoy the day with our fellow LTHers.

Thanks for putting it all together! Count me in on the next.

threadkiller wrote:- The dinginess of La Unica.

JeffB wrote:As someone who's been a regular at La Unica for 15 years, and the presenter of the GNR, I'm puzzled by this.

I'm a fan of La Unica, was there just last week for garbanzo bean soup and a Cuban sandwich, and find the lack of 'polish' at La U charming as opposed to dingy. In fact La U has a snappy new menu sign upping the posh factor by at least 9.7%.

Sorry to have missed Saturday's Devon-a-thon, seems a good time was had by all. Commendable organization by Hellodali seems to be a contributing factor. Nice job!

Enjoy,
Gary

A thin line exists between dingy and charming, and La Unica has its feet planted firmly on each side. But there is no doubt that their Cuban sandwich is distinguished, as is their flan.

JeffB wrote:Crowded ass-to-elbow bodega, yes, but I've never seen anything that looked out of line, hygiene-wise. Maybe you caught them on a bad day, or maybe I have a higher tolerance for small, crowded ethnic markets than you. If I remember, you would never eat at Ginza Fish, either . I can sort of see where you're coming from, actually...

You know, it wasn't dingy as in excessivly dirty, but more the kind of worn out that comes from indifference. Compare the market of La Unica to Patel Brothers. Heck, maybe it was just the light bulbs.

I would definitely go back and eat at La Unica again, as the food was excellent.

Understood. Knowing that hygiene problems can really put a place behind, if not under, I thought it was worth clearing this up. Studied indifference makes La Unica somewhat more authentic. Patel Bros. is the retail face of a huge, well-oiled (with ghee) machine. Each place is great, I agree. Thanks.

Patel Bros. in Jackson Heights in New York has much more of a La Unica feel, or more specifically it is more crowded and disorganized. I had not been to Patel Bros. on Devon before and was impressed by how "spiffy" it was.

Patel on Devon makes Ikea look dingy. If the other stores aren't this nice, this one must be managed by the relative with OCD.

Sometimes chaos is nice, too.

milic13 wrote:thanks again for the great time, hellodali! we had a really good time meeting everyone and trying out all the food! as for devon-a-thon II, do you think it would be possible to postpone until after september 16, as cjchaps & i will be coming back from vacation at that time and we would hate to miss it!

I'll be out on vacation that week too, so if this could be moved to the 22nd or something...

By the way, am I the only one who thought Ghareeb Nawaz was the dingy one? La Unica looked fine to me. I even liked the flan and I don't usually dig flan. I'll definitely be back to eat a full meal. I picked up a nice array of drinks there to increase my bottle cap collection and soon learned that malt drinks, also labeled as "Non-Alcoholic Cereal Beverages", taste about as good as they sound.

Pie Lady wrote:
By the way, am I the only one who thought Ghareeb Nawaz was the dingy one?

I suspect it wasn't mentioned because we didn't actually eat there. A few of us walked in, but most, still full to the gills from our previous stop, just stood outside and thought about whether or not they wanted to eat again so soon. So that may be why no comment was made. But yes, I agree, I thought it was a little dingy looking. Not dingy enough to keep me away, but not as bright and inviting the other places we went.

Cynthia wrote:

Pie Lady wrote:
By the way, am I the only one who thought Ghareeb Nawaz was the dingy one?

I suspect it wasn't mentioned because we didn't actually eat there. A few of us walked in, but most, still full to the gills from our previous stop, just stood outside and thought about whether or not they wanted to eat again so soon. So that may be why no comment was made. But yes, I agree, I thought it was a little dingy looking. Not dingy enough to keep me away, but not as bright and inviting the other places we went.

I took a break from the a-thon and caught up with some of the group here. I did stop to eat and the gyro parahtah was very good! Tender, flavorful and plentiful.

There were a few other diners in the place and their food looked great as well.

Can't wait to go back.