Planetary pork chops with bountiful beans.

One food-related downside to the effects of ‘gentrification’ is that you never know whose conversation you’ll be forced to listen to while chowing down.  Take today’s example – while attempting to make a dent in my pork chops at La Taza De Oro (96 8th Av), I was regaled by a group of frat-ish fellows, one of whom was OH-SO-PROUD that he had played asshole that one time and refused to get up from his presidential chair to chunder.  The part that was really rude, particularly in a restaurant environment, was when he explained that his cohorts merely pulled him up a trash can.  Naturally, as he later related, his friends are the kind of people who would take to him with a magic marker after he passed out, and he was the kind of person who would chuckle and think it was great.  As for me, I’d like to slap his mother.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have turned around and told him off, because most of the rest of my trip to La Taza De Oro was much better.  Sietsema, whose list carries this restaurant at number 41, talked up the fried pork chop sided with beans ($7.75), and I ordered exactly that, with beans of the red variety.  As promised, the beans were perfect.  Stewed to the perfect consistency of soft, without disintegrating, these beans (served on a separate plate with rice, which was decent) were excellent.

As to the chops…yes, I said ‘chops.’  Because, a few minutes after I ordered, the plate arrived in front of me with TWO big bone-in pork rib chops.  I mean, I made a pretty good dent, but I’m sort of afflicted by the crust-eating fat mother’s aversion to letting food go to waste.  Even without the beans and rice (and several pieces of buttered bread), this could have fed two people.  As to the consistency of the pork, the fatty portions of the cut were the best – flavorful and juicy, with the fat cooked enough to be edible and have some texture.  The inner portion of the chop, which I believe is the tenderloin, was probably slightly overcooked, but still very good.  This ain’t no shake and bake, for sure.

The only other unfortunate part of the trip was that it took a good ten minutes to flag someone down to make the order.  This would have bothered me less had I not been trying to make an efficient, hour-long trip to Chelsea from Houston St. in the West Village.  La Taza De Oro – perhaps not the most efficient lunch counter I’ve ever encountered, nor the place to avoid brahs’ drinking stories, but they have damn good legumes served with a tasty chunk of meat for very little cash.  For that, I’ll brave the wilds of Chelsea again!