I’ll be heading into Manhattan tomorrow to visit the Bernarducci Meisel Gallery and, I hope, reach some sort of closure as far as those Sharon Moody paintings are concerned. But while in town for the day, a guy’s got to eat, right? And if this guy’s got to eat in Manhattan, it’s going to be at Shopsins as often as possible.

I’ve told you before how much I love the place—because of rather than spite of all those one-star Yelp reviews that say things such as: “Incredibly rude. Incredibly ignorant. Incredibly sexist. Incredibly disgusting. Being called a c***sucker multiple times and told to ‘go f*** myself’ while I’m photographing on assignment for a very well regarded city food magazine at the cheese shop next door by a foul-mouthed old man and his idiot son is not my idea of a hip Lower East Side foodie experience.”

Hey, they’ve never given me any trouble.

Anyway … I was checking out the insane menu in preparation for tomorrow’s brunch, and saw the following image on their eclectic homepage:

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When I dashed early Friday morning from the Renaissance Woodbridge where Irene was attending the annual conference of the New Jersey Romance Writers and headed for the Metropark New Jersey Transit station, what was uppermost in my mind wasn’t how much fun I’d have catching up with friends, or the restaurants I’d hit, or the sights I’d see while wandering Manhattan. No, what I couldn’t stop thinking about was a mission I had to complete, a mission the details of which I dared not share until it was completed.

What can I say? I guess I was being superstitious about the task and didn’t want to jinx it.

Many of you thought, when I hinted at my mysterious goal for the day on Twitter and Facebook, that I was in town to interview for a new job or freelance gig, but it wasn’t anything like that. Instead, one of the things I needed to do while I was in town was deliver the package in the photo below, and until I put it in the hands of its intended recipient, I was going to be extremely nervous.

Any guesses, before you look below and see the contents revealed, what was inside? (Those of you who were following along at the time are, of course, exempt.)

But before I could be relieved of my burden, I had a brunch date with my boss Craig Engler at (where else?) Shopsins, which has my favorite restaurant menu ever. After walking down from Penn Station to the Essex Street Market to meet him at around 10:15, I had a Happy Breakfast Tray made up of bread pudding French toast, raspberry pancakes, and cheddar corn cakes. Everything was, of course, excellent. As far as I’m concerned, a visit to New York isn’t a visit to New York without a visit to Shopsins. (more…)

Once I made my mind up that I’d be attending last weekend’s Stoker Awards banquet, I decided to bookend the event with two unrelated lunches—one on Thursday with the Junior High School drama teacher who changed my life, the other on Sunday with Mirthful Marie Severin, with whom I worked a lifetime ago in the Marvel Comics Bullpen. But I ended up spontaneously having another lunch that had absolutely nothing to do with the Stokers, and for that I blame Jeff Strand.

Jeff had joined me in Austin at the Salt Lick as I attempted to recreate an episode of Man v. Food, and is now hooked on the show, so he joined me again—this time with his wife Lynne Hansen and friend Sally Bosco—as I worked my through a Long Island Man v. Food quest, visiting Ciao Baby and the International Delight Cafe. And during dinner Friday night, we swapped stories of our favorite restaurants, which of course led me to talking about Shopsins. That’s Shopsins of the infamous rules and the dizzying, ever-changing menu, where I’ve eaten (among other things) brisket in cherry gravy and slutty cakes (that is, pumpkin, peanut butter, and pistachio pancakes).

Surprisingly, I began to fall in love with Shopsins not by eating there, but from the documentary I Like Killing Flies, which I watched on a whim on IFC. And as soon as I saw it, I thought, this sounds like my kind of place.

Here are a couple of clips from the documentary that’ll give you an idea of the tone of the restaurant and the personality of owner Kenny Shopsin.

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