Hanukkah, the chosen people's answer to Christmas, kicks off tonight at sundown. Which means its time to grab your gelt, keep your candles dry, try to remember how to play with your dreidel and, if you are lucky, eat a whole lot of fried food in the next eight days. Don't want to celebrate the holiday alone? You've got options. Many options.
To start, anyday for the next week you can skip past the Rockefeller christmas tree and head up Fifth Avenue to 59th Street where the world's largest menorah will be lit nightly at 5:30 p.m. Go on Sunday night and there will also be live music and free potato latkes. That's just the tip of the events iceberg, you can find many more celebrations of all kinds here. And then there is always Major League Dreidel...
Just want those delicious, delicious fried potato pancakes? Many restaurants across the city are offering latkes on their menu for the holiday including Brooklyn's Mile End (three for $10), the Upper West Side's Telepan (with applesauce and sour cream for $10, with smoked salmon for $16) and Hell's Kitchen's Toloache (where they put a Mexican spin on them and include a zucchini latke in their trio, $13). Not to mention old-school options like Katz's ($9) or Sammy's Roumanian ($8.95).
At least once this week though we'll probably be making our own latkes—just not broccoli latkes.
