Is the word “cocina” Italian or Spanish? Sure, go ahead and make fun of my terrible ignorance, but my eight years of Spanish instruction, if it taught me anything, at least taught me that the Spanish word for “kitchen” is “cocina” and the Spanish verb “to fuck” is “chingar.” I mean why grow up in SoCal if not to learn cuss words in the majorative language? I’m not even going to Google that shit (that’s how much of a bad-ass I am) and am going to go out on a limb and say that “cocina” is the same in Italian as Spanish. Of course if that’s not true the rest of this review will make little to no sense–but when has that ever stopped me? Cocina is just another hole de mierda that has thrown its hat in the ring for a little slice of the midtown lunch crowd pie. I was clearly hard up the day I darkened their door. Two years of the same restaurants, day in and day out, will wear on a guy. This here was sheer desperation for something different. What I found instead was the same tile-tired and greasy sneeze guard emporium found throughout the Big Apple. And like every time my atrophied metabolism and I are backed into a corner, I chose the most fattening of all lunch treats: the chicken roll. It’s my go-to I-don’t-give-a-crap lunch of choice. It says to my ever-expanding waistline: bring it on chubster; I’m having a steak for dinner! Was it good? Really, how can chicken parmesan wrapped in pizza dough ever be bad? The question is if it was memorable. I don’t recall. [MF]
54 W 56th St.
212/262-0909
