shopsin's. We're definitely not in kansas anymore, Toto.

Now located in the Essex Street Market, Shopsin's is a compact yet formidable culinary stop in New York City: The customer is not always right, the service is located on the corner of Blunt and Sarcastic, and like the Million Dollar Homepage, the menu is a typographers Nightmare on Elm Street.

The proprietor, Kenny Shopsin, has a book called Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin. With chapters titled "The Story of Shopsin's Turkey, or Why I Hate the Health Department" and "Selling Water, or the Secret of the Restaurant Business" you can see why Shopsin's will never be the model for a nationwide chain restaurant or frankly, be able to exist outside of New York City.

If you're lucky enough to be offered one of the seats stacked on top of a table, the waiter knows well enough to leave you alone for ten minutes. I'm not kidding. Ten. Full. Minutes. You may need even more time than that to parse the massive menu. Once you've ordered and stuffed your eyes back in your head, you'll probably wait at least 20 more before your order shows up because Kenny's either sitting on his cushioned armchair (it's next to the garbage can in the image above), cooking or mise en place-ing your ingredients to cook your dish. 

Mr. Mari ordered The Bastard: eggs, cheese, corned beef potato hash, ciabatta. The shredded potato, which looked like Munchkin-sized french fries, is tossed with gorgeous homemade corned beef and sautéed onions, which is then placed on top of a couple cheesy scrambled eggs, sandwiched between sliced, chewy ciabatta bread and then speared with two patriotic, mylar-topped sticks. Awesome.

When asking my waiter whether or not I should get the half or full-sized order of Tupelo Slutty Cakes (banana, bacon, peanut butter, maple glazed pancakes), my non-plused waiter shrugged his shoulders and said, "I dunno. Sometimes skinny girls can really eat." Skinny? Give this man a big tip! The full-sized order of Tupelo Slutty Cakes was comprised of three sandwiches: two banana and bacon loaded pancakes with peanut butter heavily shmeared between them with a nice dousing of maple syrup. Holy Topeka, Batman. Dorothy could only hope she ended up here when she clicked her heels.