"Xilonen, the Aztec goddess of sustenance and maize, is often depicted with ears of corn in each hand. The other day, my stance was not dissimilar as I sat at a table outside her namesake Greenpoint café, opened, last December, by the chef Justin Bazdarich and his partner Chris Walton, as a sort of spinoff of Oxomoco, their inventive Mexican restaurant nearby. Between bites of a glorious masa pancake—its texture a harmonious balance of fluff and grit, a scoop of salted butter sliding tantalizingly down the slight dome of its bronzed and bubbled surface—I took refreshing sips of atole, a drink, usually porridge-thick and served warm, made from sweetened and spiced masa and milk; here it’s strained and chilled into something more like horchata." - Hannah Goldfield
