Taxi Gourmet – Fasten your seat belt and let the food quest begin…

A tango dancer knows when it’s time to leave the milonga the same way a taxi driver knows when it’s time to go back to the garage. Before the last tango, the dancer suffers from a strange mix of anticipation and fatigue. Before the final fare of the shift, the …

No, I’m not going to write another top 10 list. But this was too rich a year not to dish out some highlights. 2010 was the year I got a license to drive a New York cab, the year I realized how closely Buenos Aires was following me (empanada crawl, …

After he’d performed a tango to “Quejas de Bandoneón” for what must have been the thousandth time, I asked my tango teacher if he ever got tired of dancing to the same song. “Never,” he said, “Every dance is different. The orchestra is different. My mood is different, my partner’s, …

Photo courtesy zurika.com New York is pissed off about Christmas. I don’t care how spectacular the giant snowflake hanging over 57th St. is, how ornate the 5th Avenue window displays are, how grand the tree at Rockefeller Center or how many lights bejewel every street from Park Avenue to Queens …

7 days + 1 hungry Canadian pastry chef + 1 food-obsessed New York cabbie + 2 skinny wallets + 5 boroughs of spectacular restaurants = a New York taxi driver’s food tour. Want to take a shortcut to everything we tasted this past week? Check out this food map! * …

7 days + 1 hungry Canadian pastry chef + 1 food-obsessed New York cabbie + 2 skinny wallets + 5 boroughs of spectacular restaurants = a New York taxi driver’s food tour. The delicious marathon with my food-loving friend from Canada continues. Here’s what I made her taste during days …

Banana pudding. Pineapple upside-down cake. Fried chicken and waffles. [The best?!] Collard greens in the city. Mac and cheese. Scottish ale. Stewed pork and spicy lamb cumin noodles. Day 2 of the New York City food tour with my food-obsessed friend from Canada tasted pretty good. Here’s our feast in …

My friend Carolynn from Vancouver is spending a week in New York City: I want her to taste some of the best things cabbies have recommended during my taxi adventures, and I want her to try my favorite stuff from my Gotham restaurant reconnaissance. Here’s our food report from Day …

7 days + 1 hungry Canadian pastry chef + 1 food-obsessed New York cabbie + 2 skinny wallets + 5 boroughs of spectacular restaurants = a New York taxi driver’s food tour. Carolynn is coming to New York. I realize you might not know who she is, so let me …

Pascuale Freni started driving a taxi in the 1970s, when the Bronx was burning, when the mafia owned the curbs in the Garment District, when “we were used to body counts” that drove a million people from New York City. According to Pascuale, hacking was one of the most dangerous …