We’re back on Main Street in Catskill, where all the cool kids are. Only this time we’re eating tacos with our hands and slurping house-made ramen noodles at a communal table in the long, skinny, pastel-hued Mermaid Cafe. It’s a second business for Michelle Williams, operator of Bittersweet, an ice cream shop in an even smaller space next door. Currently closed for the season, cafe staff still serves Jane’s Ice Cream but nips through an adjoining door for every scoop.
Mermaid Cafe is not just for the roving foodies attracted by the first pho in town. A menu of ramen and achingly creative “special” tacos, plus all-day, every-day hours, has broad appeal. There’s the Swipe Right (for all you Tinder fans) loaded with sage-anise pork butt, red-cabbage slaw and Mean Greene Hot Sauce, or Cupid’s Arrow, which marries curried chicken and Hawaiian Punch hot sauce, and we take a collective shine to the Bruncher, packing smoked salmon, avocado and hard-boiled eggs in the platonic ideal of a breakfast taco.
We recognize a bartender from HiLo across the street and a store owner grabbing ramen to go. Families cramming a long table deploy the cafe’s crayons and coloring books to appease fidgety children. Williams, the mother of a young daughter, evidently knows what‘s up. And a station of self-pour ginger-turmeric-chrysanthemum tea — one cup free with each dine-in order — goes a long way to stifle hunger pangs as we wait, and stainless-steel cups keep it piping hot. If it’s coffee you’re after, buy it by the brewed cup or by the bean from local roasters CampNow and Roughhouse. Soon enough you’ll be able to enjoy local craft beer, and a brief wine list curated by Solo Vino, the natural-wine shop next door.
Mermaid is the given name that Williams just couldn’t shake, even as she searched for something cooler. It fits. Recurring sea-maiden motifs underscore the eco-friendly philosophy powering daily operations: Everything, from the metal cups, chopsticks and tiffin bowls, to compostable napkins and cardboard to-go containers, keeps plastic out of the ocean. In seafoam green and pale sun yellow, the cafe is part arts, part crafts, a manifestation of a dream and a vibe reinforced by Joni Mitchell album covers decoupaged to barstool seats, rippled lampshades that double as wannabe coral or anemone, and a bejeweled mermaid diorama by artist Rodney Alan Greenblat installed in a nook vacated by a soda machine. Despite its diminutive dimensions, the Mermaid’s staff handles near-constant traffic from their vantage in an elevated open kitchen at one end. It acts as a control center, theater and stage.
The communal table is ideal for a shared spread: To the special tacos, we add five standard tacos in crisp corn and soft flour tortillas — beef lit with cumin, mild yellow curry chicken, shredded sage pork and battered tilapia — each fold piled with queso fresca, sliced spinach and herb greens, and the paper-lined tray scattered in lime wedges. Only the stewy roasted root vegetable confuses us with its uncalibrated bittersweet cinnamon. But we’re rejoicing in the taco mix-and-match, freed from the typical restriction of one filling per order elsewhere. Pick any three for a tenner and change, and you’re rewarded with complimentary house salsa and tortilla chips still warm from the fryer.
Warm, hand-cut sweet potato fries laced in the powerful, lung-polluting garlic of the “heavy metal sauce” breathe steam on a metal serving tray; a flaky quesadilla is oozing cheese and fringed in shredded pork. House-made toasted rye noodles resemble a skein of wool under flavorful, miso-seaweed broth while an entire nori sheet draped like a towel on the beach holds sliced lotus root, scallions and sweet corn, an unexpected partner for a jammy soft-boiled egg. The slow-simmered Atticus Farm pork bone broth is heart-warming and lightly milky but missing the fragrance of pho and not creamy with fat and collagen — leftovers don’t coagulate in the fridge.
But authenticity isn’t the point here. It’s ramen, tacos and pho for the people from a Catskill creative, an ice-cream- and former flower-shop owner with an eye for color and taste for local flavor, cultivated by her aunt’s organic farm. The tortillas are bought, but Atticus, Story, Sugar Hill and Kinderhook farms trip easily off Williams’ tongue as she lists her suppliers and credits her desire for an eco- and child-friendly space among chief concerns. Whatever you do, don’t leave without her tres leches cake. Beautifully soaked and not cloyingly sweet, it’s a slab as large as your hand. Some come in to chat; like everyone else, we’re just here for the food.
Dinner for two of a taco trio, two ramen bowls and fresh-cut sweet potato chips will cost around $50 with tax and tip. Both a taco trio or ramen bowl is just over $10.
Mermaid Cafe
374 Main St.
Catskill
Phone: 518-217-8811
Web: facebook.com/pg/The-Mermaid-Cafe-
Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily
Food: Farm to table tacos, ramen and pho.
Drink: Herbal tea, coffee, soft drinks. Wine and beer coming soon.
Ambiance: Colorful, eco- and child-friendly friendly cafe. Small dimensions, communal table.
Noise level: 2
Good for: Breakfast coffee, lunch, dinner, solo dining, take out, families, small groups.
Noise rating: 1- quiet; 2 – comfortable/conversational; 3 – loud; 4 – disruptive.
Price range: Inexpensive, Moderate, Somewhat Expensive, Very Expensive
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