Picnics

In more bucolic parts of the country, warm weather means picnics. This is not necessarily the case in New York City, where the average diner would be 10 times more likely to plop him/herself down at an outdoor cafe than load up with goodies and find a patch of public space for a leisurely feast. Though it requires more effort, the latter endeavor is infinitely more rewarding-I dare you to find a single person who thinks a streetside meal at a crowded brunch spot more memorable. For inspiration, here are a few New York City spots for roughing it, culinary style.

BROOKLYN

Red Hook Recreational Center & Pool

155 Bay St. (betw. Clinton & Henry Sts.) Red Hook

718-722-3211

For food lovers, the soccer and baseball games in play at the Red Hook Recreation Center are beside the point. What lures us is the L-shaped consortium of more than a dozen huddled tents that border the sporting field, representing a veritable United Nations of South and Central American street foods. And little costs over $3.

Expect charred corn on the cob, gussied up with a torrent of fresh lime juice and other choice condiments like mayonnaise, grated cheese, salt and paprika. If you like, paprika and lime will also grace the colorful chunks of cucumber, jicama, watermelon, coconut and mango packed no-frills and tight in Ziplock baggies.

Two nearby stations feature nimble-handed ladies forming pupusas, Salvadoran corn cakes containing cheese or cheese-and-meat centers that seem to have melted into their doughy casings by the time they're scooped off the griddle. Despite their blistered, browned exteriors, the crisp patties are so tender you can cut them with a plastic fork. For the most sublime taste of corn, ask for a tamale from the Ecuadorian vendor. Served with a wad of thick sour cream, the dense bricks of sweet corn are simply cake-like.

The tent with the phenomenal quesadillas holds the mother of all assembly lines. It starts off with the Mexican woman who flattens a fresh hunk of tortilla dough in a heavy iron. Beside her, a man grills ruddy chorizo and breaks up a browning mound of raw beef strips. He slaps the ready meat onto the tortilla and hands it to a third person, who moves the quesadilla along a row of fixings, building it to completion with cilantro-heavy salsa fresca, crumbled queso blanco, thin sour cream, and bootleg hot sauce. Take a seat among mommies, daddies, grandmas and kids at one of the scattered picnic tables and dig in.

Prospect Park

Luscious Foods

59 5th Ave. (betw. Bergen St. & St. Mark's Ave.) Park Slope

718-398-5800

This new shop on Park Slope's hyped Fifth Avenue is ostensibly another bourgeois prepared-foods haunt, but to dismiss it out of hand would be foolish. Outside of the hefty sandwiches, fresh salads and hot entrée selections, this colorful, streamlined shop offers a small but choice selection of salumi, cheeses and olives that conjures your foodie friend's carefully stocked fridge. Share a picnic platter for two-say, the Provence, furnished with pate de campagne, cheese, olives and cornichons-for a measly $11. Opened by a Brooklyn caterer and her marketing-maven friend, the two plan to step up their picnic offerings to more substantial baskets once summer kicks in.

THE BRONX

The natives I consulted for this story recommended against picnicking in the Bronx. Anywhere. I found the advice dubious. People in the Bronx picnic, too, don't they? I ventured up to Arthur Avenue, the city's true little Italy, on a Saturday afternoon and found two spots suitable for outdoor snacking.

You're in good company if you grab a bench on the periphery of the basketball and handball courts on Arthur Ave. and E. 188th St. On a recent Saturday afternoon, games were in full play, children on the playground were wreaking havoc and townies had set up plastic chairs and a smoking grill on the sidewalk across the street.

Tony & Tina's Pizza

2483 Arthur Ave. (betw. Fordham Rd. & E. 189th St.) Bronx continued on P37

718-733-8094

A few blocks up, I found my favorite food on the avenue. Oddly enough, it was not Italian, but Albanian. The only external clue to the true ethnic identity of the misleadingly named Tony & Tina's Pizza was the neon sign in the window for bureks, the flaky pies that are customary in Balkan cuisines as well as those of Greece and Israel. The already blah-looking pizzas at T & T's shrank into oblivion beside the doughy bureks, whose fillings of curdy white cheese, spinach and scallion, and ground lamb were marooned amid the pastry's pattern of ripples and flakes.

Arthur Avenue Bakery

2409 Arthur Ave. (betw. E. 187th & E. 188th Sts.)

718-365-8860

Couple a wedge or two of these remarkably nongreasy slices with some sweets from nearby Arthur Avenue Bakery, located just across the street from the courts. I found they offered the avenue's best, least-commercial-tasting baked goods. The chewy almond horseshoe, a U-shaped snake of a pastry crusted over with almond slices, tasted magnificently of almond paste and was excellent for dipping into the $2 cappuccino. Try that and a cannoli, piped on the spot with chocolate-flecked ricotta cream.

D'Aurio Murphy Triangle

(Adams & Crescent Sts.)

Mike's Deli at Arthur Avenue Market

2344 Arthur Ave. (E. 186th St.)

718-295-5033

Down the avenue is the D'Aurio Murphy Triangle, a concrete wedge equipped with some fine trappings for a picnic-mainly, the stone chess tables that seem to have been designed for the sole purpose of spreading open the wrapper of an unwieldy hero sandwich. Luckily, thinly sliced deli meats (and loudmouthed testosterone-heavy counter help) and are not hard to come by on the avenue. Two blocks away, Mike's Deli in the Arthur Avenue Retail Market is the most generous on both counts. Flaccid ribbons of prosciutto and virgin-white house mozzarella fell in a seemingly unending flurry onto an overwhelmed torpedo-shaped roll, resulting in an absurdly heavy hero. "You got to hold this with two hands, young lady," advised my hulking sandwich maker. "Are you sharing this with someone? You shouldn't be eating it alone."

When I asked Mike's employees about the nearby park, they discouraged me from eating there, although upon (brief) examination it looked all right to me. Here, the consensus seemed to be "picnic at your own risk." MANHATTAN

Sarah D. Roosevelt Park

Chrystie & Houston Sts.

Picnic NYC

187 Chrystie St. (betw. Stanton & Rivington Sts.)

212-420-0028

Make an effort to locate this hidden-away prepared-food/coffee shop, which opened last summer just across the street from Sarah Delano Roosevelt Park. Part of the LES microcosm that includes Freeman's restaurant, the Box theater and the artist's studios at 195 Chrystie, Picnic has morphed into the neighborhood gourmet shop. (At least until Whole Foods arrives on the block.)

Attention to detail is what makes Picnic stand out from the myriad prepared-food boutiques popping up around the city. Reasonable prices don't hurt, either-a picnic basket for two costs about $20 (no need to advance order) and exhibits some of the most charming presentation I've encountered in a while. A gingham-paper-lined strawberry crate cradles a hot pressed sandwich (parmesan green apple with ham, for instance), a few loose berries, a fudgy brownie, and the complementary fruit water-a fragrant refreshment of fruit-infused water with a few floating pansies. Plop two of those and a thermos of blood orange iced tea or pink lemonade in a galvanized metal basket and you're good to go.

For lower-maintenance picks, go for the wholesome, ungarnished snacks-a handful of cherries, hunks of cheese and hard-boiled eggs wrapped individually like candies-welcome alternatives to the kishke-clogging muffins and scones of rival coffee shops. Lug your goods directly across the street to the park. Once a place for scoring dope and other such activities, it has since been rehabilitated and offers a few shade-giving trees, basketball courts and a rotating roster of public art.

Seward Park

Essex & Canal Sts.

Dumpling House

118 Eldridge St. (betw. Grand & Broome Sts.)

212-625-8008

Unless you actually order the $1.50 sesame pancake with beef or tuna, based on the menu's tepid nondescription you would never guess what you were in for. This "pancake" is in fact a pizza-sized triangle of crisp, bubbly sesame-crusted bread, sliced open to accommodate fresh cilantro, marinated julienned carrots and a squirt of tangy sauce finished with either delicate slices of beef or a generous serving of American-style tuna salad. Then there are also the made-to-order pork and chive dumplings (superior to the blander vegetable variety) at five for $1. Pair your entrée with the hot-hot house kimchee and cool your palate with a chilled bottle of sweetened soy milk, also made on premises. Walk your grub the few blocks to Seward Park, named for the man responsible for the U.S. acquisition of Alaska, a desirable place to be in Manhattan's August heat. Kick back and keep your distance from ecstatic tots splashing in the spray showers.

Central Park/Riverside Park

Chicken Stop

584 Amsterdam Ave. (betw. 88th & 89th Sts.)

212-787-2525

A true Manhattan oddity if there ever was one, this Russian-owned fried chicken joint offers peppery, crusty, fried poultry alongside galupsee (stuffed cabbage), kasha with mushrooms and hot borscht. If you are fonder of the traditional soul-food fixins, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes with gravy and an insubstantial dinner roll are the closest you'll get. The fried chicken is so gratifying that it's worth sacrificing a biscuit and collards for Chicken Stop's six-piece bucket. Neighborhood types also extol the virtues of the more health-conscious option of whole or half roasted thyme chicken. There's not much by way of dessert besides prepackaged pudding, but do investigate the puzzling sign advertising "Chocolate covered Russian cheesecake, $.1" The latter is a hidden treasure, a Soviet treat called glazerovoney ztirky, a thin layer of dark chocolate over a baton of dense, cream-cheesy confection. Not a natural accompaniment to fried chicken, but a wonderfully odd surprise.

El Malecon

764 Amsterdam Ave. (betw. 97th & 98th Sts.), 212-864-5648

This excellent Dominican diner delivers the ultimate in Upper-Upper West Side comfort food. The whole rotisserie chickens are better than Flor de Mayo's (no matter what people say). Kick in some black beans, rice, tostones (fried green plantains), a couple of fruit shakes (try the passion fruit or banana) and a slice of the bizcocho, a Dominican layer cake with a fruit paste filling and frothy meringue frosting, and you're good to go. It's hard to believe that an indulgent meal like this one would fall under the $20 mark. Believe it.

QUEENS

Socrates Sculpture Park

32-01 Vernon Blvd. (B'way) Astoria

718-956-1819

On a recent visit to the Socrates Sculpture Park on the Queens waterfront, artists were still in the process of installing their creations. The vision of a little black girl on roller skates frozen in motion, an eerie bucolic grouping of bone-white farm animals and an oversize shiny red balloon trapped in the branches of a tree are only surpassed by the eye candy of the wrap-around Manhattan view. Settle down with a blanket and some local eats for the outdoor international cinema, every Wednesday night in the summer from July 6 to August 31.

Tikka Boti

31-06 21st St. (31st Ave.) Astoria

718-204-8777

To get to Tikka Boti, the best nearby takeout option, you'll first have to pass a McDonald's and White Castle-do not succumb to the satanic murmurings of fast food. This spanking clean, 24/7 Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi taxi stand offers a spicy, filling, and far more rewarding takeout option. The steaming piles of South Asian grub beckoning from their chafing dishes are appetizing and cheap-a $7 plate of lamb stew, dal, chickpeas and fragrant basmati rice could easily serve two. All the usual trapping of this cuisine-aloo paratha, naan, kebab, samosas-plus more adventurous options-steamed goat, brain masala-round out the offerings. For a minimum order of $15, Tikka Boti can deliver straight to the park.

Family Market

29-15 B'way (betw. 29th & 30th Sts.) Astoria

718-956-7925

If you get off on the reliably cute anime-style packaging of Japanese snack foods and their sundry contents, drop by Family Market. A convenient stop on the way from the Broadway N and W to Socrates Sculpture Park, this well-stocked Japanese supermarket sells goodies suitable for the Western palate-cookies, chocolates and chips-plus the thrilling curiosities-cellophane-packed splayed dried fish, whole dehydrated minature crabs-that make such visits infinitely rewarding. If you're seeking something more substantial, a decent prepared-food selection features small packets of chicken teriyaki, fried pork cutlets and seaweed salad, all for under $3.