"Before opening Native Noodles, in Washington Heights, in February, Amy Pryke, who moved from Singapore to New York ten years ago, as an N.Y.U. freshman, was relatively unfamiliar with Dominican food. These days, she told me recently, 'I’m obsessed with avena'—Spanish for 'oatmeal.' 'They have a particular way of doing it, with cinnamon and milk—just go into any Dominican bodega here and say ‘avena’ and that’s what you’ll get.' In general, she said, 'it’s a lot of really hearty comfort food,' not so different from the dishes she serves herself, inspired by the hawker-stall classics of her home town; both emphasize seafood, especially shrimp." - Hannah Goldfield
Photographs by Justin J. Wee for The New Yorker
