Reben Luncheonette

Elusive singer Will Travis can be found at the counter of the Reben Luncheonette nearly every weekday.

This tiny and welcoming lunch counter, located at 229 Havemeyer Street, near Broadway and the Marcy Ave JMZ stop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, is a bustling Dominican place with inexpensive breakfast and lunch, and famous for the pale orange Morir Sonando drink, which Frankie Latina, who snapped the photo of the camera-shy Will Travis, noted, tasted like an Orange Julius. "You taste it, if you don't like it, don't pay" says an old, hand-painted sign advertising the drink, the name of which can be translated as: "To die dreaming." You won't find too many products that use death as a marketing tool. "Our mattress is so comfortable you'll die in your sleep!" "We deliver our subs so fast that you'll have a heart attack and drop dead!" Maybe this is why Will Travis likes the Reben Luncheonette so much. But then, he's been known to alter the course of a tour bus to hit a diary bar where they make that drink that is a mixture of orange slush and vanilla ice cream. (Though Travis actually prefers grape, and when available, blue raspberry.) At any rate, Morir Sonando can also be translated as: "To die in a dream" which avid Will Travis fanatics will recognize as a line from his considerable oeuvre. Some believe that if you die in a dream, you will actually die. While this may or may not be true, you must consider that all of what we think of as our existence is only a dream, and the brief visits we are able to make to what we think of as "life" are breakfasts and luncheons at places like the Reben Luncheonette.

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** (two stars)

—Ray Speen

Nuevo Leon

Corner of Graham Ave and Seigel Street, Brooklyn, NY

Nuevo Leon has a big sign over the door on the corner of a building, along with a lot of red neon, and looks very welcoming. Once you step inside you are sadly disappointed, as the interior has been remodeled in the fast food style, with hard booths and tables, boring colors, old details removed, and way too much space. But still it's a diner-- a diner with a Mexican name, run by Chinese guys, breakfast lunch and dinner, a Chinese restaurant place mat on the table, Red Devil hot sauce and ketchup.

The menu looked like a Chinese restaurant menu someone bought nostalgically on eBay-- hard red cover with printed pages inside-- it said something about the "Grand Golden Lion"-- yet, this was the menu. It was pretty much Chinese food along with Spanish and American food-- and everything was in both Spanish and English! They brought me a cup of coffee in a classic diner ceramic cup. I felt like I was in a Tom Waits song!

The menu had some interesting things like soupy rice, fried sliced king fish, and pounded fried plantain, as well as all the normal Chinese restaurant choices. It was breakfast-time, so I ordered a banana omelet. It was a tortilla style or Spanish omelette-- with bananas, and very good! It seemed kind of exotic. The whole experience felt kind of curious and exotic.

Oh, the best part of the whole experience was when I told the guy taking my order that I didn't want toast, that I couldn't eat wheat, and he practically yelled out, "What happened?!"--as if I had just described a tragic accident. And then I explained that it was hereditary, that I was allergic, and he said, "Oh, I know, me too! I can't eat wheat either!"

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* (one star)

--Ray Speen