Starting 2025 with a lazy one. Blogging is kinda like sex. The more you do it, the better it gets, until you get to the age where the more you do it, the worse it gets (I heard). Hormones often dictate how often we blog and the quality of the posts. Am I in the mood to write a short post about Carnitas Ramirez (spoiler alert: Best tacos in Manhattan, maybe in NYC), another large(ish) post on Piedmont, or just binge-watch Yellowstone. On this lazy Sunday, I have a compromise. A post/reblog.
Ocean View Cafe is like some of these misleading Aruba hotel ads. Is it really ocean view, or even partial ocean view? The cafe is close, but quite far from the ocean. It’s more like Babushka and elevated train tracks view. I never bothered to ask any of the workers or the owner why its called as such in the decades that I’ve gone there. To be honest, I usually keep my conversations to the minimum (“two bags of frozen Pelmeni please”), and I never actually had a conversation with the owner. I’ve also never seen him smile or even talk to anyone. A “made man”?
Maybe we should ask Nicholas Cage. He is more intimately familiar with Ocean View Cafe since filming Lord of War there. You still see his pictures on one side of the wall, although I recall pictures on the other side as well at some point. Nicholas Cage Cafe would have been more appropriate than Ocean View.
Other than less Cage pictures, not much has changed in all these decades other than the neighborhood itself. Brighton Beach is less Russian, and more Uzbek, Georgian, Armenian, etc. Ocean View is one of the last of the true Russian/Ukrainian diners, although I dont recall ever a place quite like it in Brighton Beach. Its Veselka without the hoopla and lines.
After attending the annual Jan 1st Polar Bear Plunge in Coney Island, Borscht and Pelmeni at Ocean View Cafe felt like the obvious choice. Well, more like Borscht for them, Kharcho (The Georgian better tasting cousin) for me. Although, this is just about the only place on the planet where I’d have Borscht. This time we also tried a fine Chicken Tabaka, another Georgian classic. A slow cooked crispy, juicy, butterflied chicken. Along with potato Pierogies/Varenikiy, and fried potatoes with mushrooms.
Ok, enough with the blogging. Here’s a reblog of one of my favorite NYC posts. Back to Yellowstone and Hockey…
Eating With Ziggy 