My friends should know I’m a changed man – still as Young and foolishly foodish as ever, only not so single-minded. What I’ve become is double-minded: I’ll still go the distance for a great strudel but I’m happier if there is also an incomparably good Kasekrainer close by. I’m hungry for the double score – the delicious discovery of not but two remarkable tastes within hopping distance of each other.

So rather than pinpoint the finest porchetta sandwich or name a caffè macchiato superior to all others I will instead obsess about the world’s best porchetta sandwich and caffè macchiato within 436 feet of each other. Oddly, they’re found not in Rome or Florence, but on East 7th Street in New York’s East Village (see map):
Porchetta is at 110 East 7th. Abraço Espresso is at 86 East 7th.

Porchetta is typically a salted whole or reassembled pig rubbed or rolled with garlic and herbs and roasted to a crisp over a wood fire. With this sandwich shop’s version I am can tell you some of how it’s made and more of how it eats. Chef-owner Sara Jenkins marbles pork loin with a green paste of sage, rosemary, wild fennel pollen and garlic, pads it in pork belly and slow-roasts the tied-up bundle. The succulent slices of roast pork that fill the thick sandwich glisten with fat and sparkle with flavor, their utter tenderness broken in the chewing by crisp shards of crackling almost too hard to gnaw. Somehow you manage, sadly polishing off the sandwich more quickly than expected. Then you walk 435 feet to…

Abraço is a tiny coffee bar cherished for its coffees and the sure-handed barista who prepares them, co-owner Jamie McCormick. (Partner Elizabeth Quijada also bakes superbly original pastries.) The fine-tuned caffè macchiato, like the other espresso-based drinks, is made from the Aficionado blend of Counter Culture Coffee.  As esteemed as that world-class North Carolina roaster is, the mop-haired McCormick’s caffeinated charisma surely has much to do with this sweet, rich espresso being so irresistible. I for one would never dream of passing by Abraço without stopping for a coffee and chat. If I was in a rush and needed to cross quickly from First to Second Avenues I’d rather walk one block up or down to a parallel street than risk insulting McCormick, not to mention my good taste.

And that would mark the first time in my life I had taken a detour to AVOID an indelible delight.