C&B Cafe
Once you step onto the sidewalk, and the first gust of wind blisters your skin, the Sun doesn’t seem so warm anymore. Walk fast. Facing the south end of Tompkins Square Park, and sandwiched between a dry cleaner and a pre-war apartment building, C&B Cafe is a tight space - but most of the heat emitted from bodies or burners is thrown out through a front door never in situ. The kitchen commands the entryway to the right, partitioned by a glass shield, leaving little standing room. With eager patrons backed tight against the opposite wall, there’s only enough room for a narrow thoroughfare between them. There usually isn’t a line, and if there is, you’ll be quickly joining the eight or nine people you just squeezed past. They’re waiting, and so will you. These things take time.
Your coffee comes out first. The C stands for coffee, and it’s really great. No matter what you order, be it the slow drip coffee or a green tea, it’s just right. A jazz record plays on the turntable next to the pickup counter. Or maybe it’s some old Tompkins Square punk, or Jamaican rocksteady. Whatever’s playing, it’s too loud. Enjoy that stellar cup of coffee, it might be a while. Go eye the six tables in the back, they’ll be taken. If the day’s in your favor, and you arrive to find one empty, seat yourself. Your server (read: cashier) will make sure your order finds its home.
If you can’t find a seat straightaway, stand back and admire the kitchen. On the flattop, a chicken breast and a cast iron press will be reenacting the myth of Titan. Finished with its punishment, the chicken becomes a brightly acidic chicken sandwich with compactly shingled avocado on homemade sourdough. Most of the eight burners will be occupied. Draw your eyes to the team of single portion cast iron and nonstick skillets, each cradling potatoes, or eggs, swept so gently as to resemble the calm sea. Later they’ll leave their individual pans, meeting in the Chicken & Egg bowl, along with a mix of slow roasted, dark and white meat chicken and watercress. Blessed with lemon juice, the chicken, eggs, potatoes, and greens are presented in perfect form. Be indiscriminate with the hot sauce: the heat will clear your head. A house made habanero variety is in the works.
Butterphobes beware: you’ll find no safe haven here. Salt also maintains an indefinite residency at C&B. Among the bowls, priced between $12 - $15, there is a humble, citrine yellow vegetable curry and a plate of vibrant, stewed white beans. Enjoy them with eggs, or a slow cooked, then seared crisp, pork belly. Breakfast sandwiches are wildly popular, especially for to-go orders. At around $10, they’re considerably more expensive than what you can get on the corner, but they quickly prove themselves. The ciabatta rolls for the breakfast sandwiches and the burger (served with fries after 6pm Tuesday-Saturday) are made in-house. Admirable, but I can’t help but think an outsourced product might be an improvement. There’s a chew to the buns that inhibits decisive bite, breaking up what should be a fluid eating experience. These are breakfast sandwiches, I shouldn’t have to think about it. Even so, they’re durable, and stand up to the eggs, cheese, chorizo, and merguez (a spiced Turkish beef sausage) they’re meant to protect. Both the chorizo and merguez are made in-house, and better testaments to C&B’s versatility.
Reflecting owner Ali Sahin’s roots, there are a number of Turkish items on the menu. If you crave nothing more than dairy, try the Çılbır, a garlicky and spicy dish of not much more than yogurt, a poached egg, and bread. Alongside traditional breakfast foods, C&B serves Tunisian Lablabi, a cumin-packed chickpea stew, again with a poached egg. They serve Iranian tadig (the golden, fried, crust formed at the bottom of a pot of rice) with their version of khoresh bademjan - an eggplant and vegetable stew that maintains a diversity of textures. It’s clear that the tadig isn’t freshly prepared - it’s a tad plastic, and certainly is no where near the best I’ve had - but the inclusion should be lauded, especially from such a small kitchen.
Outside the kitchen, you can find Sahin, a long-time East Village resident, talking with customers, comparing motorcycles with other riders, or at a sake bar down the street with friends at 2am. Although C&B has only been open three years, there’s stability in each dish. It’s not a diner, like Odessa across the park or Joe Junior’s on 14th, but it has those same neighborhood roots. With each plate, neighbors become regulars and regulars become friends.
The East Village has changed rapidly in the past ten years. Earlier this month, after two dozen years on St. Marks, beloved Irish pub St. Dymphna’s shuttered its doors. The best case scenario, for whatever new tenant that can afford the storefront’s brazen rent, is anything other than a chain. High hopes. In October of last year, neighborhood staple Cafe Orlin, on St. Marks and 2nd Avenue, had its last breakfast service. Thirty six years of eggs. Next year, C&B Cafe will expand from its hearth, no longer happy to be contained, to take over the space vacated by Cafe Orlin. And we’ll be waiting.