NY Popover; Bar K

On 9th Ave., I stopped to watch the shenanigans of two black-and-white tabbies through the kitty-festooned window of Westside Animal Rescue. The woman next to me said, "Don't you just want to take them all home?" God no.

Still, the matching tabbies are amusing. Not hungry enough for a proper dinner, as the remnants of the dreaded vomit virus that everyone has were still rattling around in me, up 9th I popped in for a popover at the new New York Popover. Just a few stools in a brightly lit storefront done up in brick, with pressed tin ceiling and blue and yellow tiled floor. Solicitous service and drinkable coffee.

The menu lists all manner of fillings. Among them ratatouille, chili, goat cheese, pbj and creme anglaise. They also have juices, smoothies and espresso drinks. The counter guy said if you take them home, you can rewarm the popovers 15 seconds in the microwave or three minutes in the oven. Had my very browned and large specimen with fontina, served in a basket with a plastic knife and unwieldy spork. It was hot and ready right away, and they didn't skimp on the cheese, which was in that pleasantly gooey state between solid and melted. This popover was sweet, webby and I just about gobbled it up despite residual queasiness.

But it didn't quite seem the same as the popovers of my youth. I recall being mad for their puffed-out wholesomeness. I used to make them when I was a kid, since they're so simple to do. Was nostalgic reminiscence of warm baked goods I'd created myself on cold Saratoga County Sunday afternoons clouding my remembrance? Or were my kid-crafted ones actually better? I open a dog-eared cookbook. Two caveats: grease and flour tins well, especially the sides, and fill tins to the level indicated by your recipe rather than pouring the number it should yield. I don't put sugar in mine. They actually puff and pop. I try them with chestnut spread, topped with heated grated raclette and also with a bit of Morello cherry compote with brandy, from Amish Market. All of these make me happy, but I find that the popovers are best with just a shaving of sweet butter so as not to mask their delicate eggy flavor.

The verdict is I like mine better than the boughten ones. You'll just have to try for yourself.

New York Popover, 789 9th Ave. (53rd St.), 646-746-0312.

Bar K

On Christopher St., three short-skirted and high-booted chicks approach me and ask how to get to Greenwich Village. I always get lost in the Village myself. A pretty samaritan points my way to Bar K, where posters instructive in the ways of tree bark dot the walls.

The chalkboard assignment on the blackboard is directing me to order Susie Mae's pickled okra martini ($8), but I opt for a vanilla one instead ($7). The pigtailed bartender wants to know is it okay, as she's never made one before. It's a little rough, but sufficiently vanilla-y. And I appreciate that she's put no powdery stuff on the rim that might interfere with my lipgloss.

My bartender asks a heavily old-school tatted bartender if he's ever picked up a customer. He says only once, and it had been a big mistake, as he could always be found behind the bar. The bar is zinc with matching chairs. Clear vinyl tufts filled with hay line walls, and photos of grass top your table. Lamps fashioned of Georgia O'Keeffe-ish skulls watch you eat in the orange-painted room. Copacetic soundtracks of 40s swing or lounge freshen this little place for young people and the like-minded.

My date is late, so I don't have to share the creamy dip of spinach and young mild scallion ($6.50) I order to tame that martini. It's served with fried chips of potato, sweet potato and beet. The chips are delicate, not crispy, but the flavor is fine, especially the sweet little curds of blood-purple beet. I wait almost an hour and my date doesn't show. I've been stood up once before, but that wasn't a firm date, just a tentative plan. He was an alt-band guitarist my friends didn't like. My classic-rock keyboardist pal Mark said, "He buys his clothes at the flea market." My blues-band drummer pal Joe didn't like that when we walked into one of the standerupper's shows, he turned to play to me in an unfair use of charisma.

He collected stuff like old Elvis pictures and albums. He had a record player. On getting in touch with me he'd said, "I have two words for you: 'Call Waiting.'" One time when I was sitting in a green room with him, his bandmates wanted to leave us alone. There was a big round table with maybe 100 dead soldiers on it. The band was mad at the club's manager, so they overturned the table before ducking out. I remember they introduced me to an editor for YM, which, since we were in New Jersey, everyone thought was a big deal.

Well, we had talked about seeing a matinee that my friend Martha had directed and that morning he didn't answer his phone and never returned my many messages. I left a lot of messages because it was inconceivable to me at that time that someone would stand me up. My friend Itty liked to say I had a "superiority complex." I should have known, though, as I'd had reason to believe he was in negotiations with his old girlfriend. My pal Nick offered to have his cousin Vito drop in on the guy to have a few words with him. "Where's he live, Lane? Tell me where he lives." I felt the transgression didn't quite warrant a visit from Vito.

But the perpetrator of this latest standing-up did actually show "two minutes" after I'd gone, left messages full of very effective sweet talk on my machine and dropped by, roses in hand, next day.

That night I bring someone more reliable to Bar K for dinner: Mother. She comments that she'd never want to be a bartender as we see a paunchy middle-aged barfly talk nonstop at the young barkeep. Then the only other older person in the place breaks a glass within five minutes of entry. We think there should be an age limit here (excepting us).

My mom always seemed younger than her years. When I changed high schools, my new girlfriends just assumed my mom must be my stepmother, but, being polite, they didn't want to bring it up. My mom says Bar K's cute menu of "small" and "middle" plates bearing "city western cuisine" reminds her of New Orleans. She starts keening, "We have to goooo..." I ask did she hear music there. She says she went during a state of emergency, but even so, the place is such that you can't not hear music there.

A blood-orange frozen Sauza margarita ($8) is finely blended with no crunchy ice shards. It's a juicy, sweet, big fun drink. Which I need as I'd been stuck in my building's elevator for 15 minutes on the way over. "...So the next time it lurched I quick pushed the floor it was about to pass and it released me." "You're so smart." A fan.

She wants to know, "How can I print your stuff out?"

"I told you, click 'Printer Version.'"

"But that gives me Adam Heimlich's stuff."

"Maybe you and Adam Heimlich's mother can trade printouts."

They're out of both red wines offered by the glass, but substitute a woody California Lyeff cabernet sauvignon '99 ($6). Two sticks of nicely browned corn bread are set out. They contain just the right amount of hot stuff to delight, but these specimens are stale.

When conversation turns to current events, my mom recalls that Al Goldstein "is a really nice guy." An appetizer of smoked salmon ($8.50) with flakes of cilantro and pepper sprinkled over is surprisingly tongue-pleasing. The hotness against the mellow supple fish makes for a great combination. In the center sits a satisfying, thick, savory Southern hominy cake topped with sour cream and a small dollop of black roe. The accompanying pickled okra tastes much better than that sounds.

The waitress tries to intimidate me by saying my choice of achiote (annatto seed-spiced) chicken and dumplings ($14.50) comes in a "really big white bowl." Hey, I'm not a-skeered, bring it on. The cream-based stew holds big hunks of boneless white meat chicken (I'd prefer these a shade less cooked), still-alive carrot spears, celery and onion. Several cilantro dumplings soak it all in; they're light as a feather and their outsides have a bit of sog. I prefer the leaden, impenetrable sinker variety myself, but my mom says, "These are like home." Okay, so I couldn't finish it, but I enjoyed trying.

Jumbo shrimp ($15.95) come with a pickle-y tartar sauce (designated on the menu as "sour cream remoulade") that is packing some heat, laid over mesclun and served with sweet potato griddlecakes, shreds of sweet potato running throughout. My mom says these are the best shrimp she's ever had. They have a scampi flavor without the grease, and come with a wedge of lime. A side of creamy light-crusted corn pudding ($4.50) is the perfect foil for the spicy entrees. "Your grandmother used to make this but I forgot how." (Folks, write down those recipes.)

The coffee here is fine. The service could be quicker at a couple of points, but we're in no hurry. A nearby lone diner cleans his loaded-up plate.

Mexican chocolate bread pudding ($6.50) has a blobby consistency, no choco punch and is painted with gelatinous, goopy, supposedly strawberry rhubarb "coulis." It does come with a good amount of fresh sweetened whipped cream. We poke at it a bit. It's time for recriminations.

"When I was three, you only said two things to me the whole year: 'Don't be fresh,' and 'Don't whine.'"

"I'm sure I said more than that." The woman was a broken record.

"No. On my third birthday you did say, 'Grandma's coming over,' but that was just the one time."

My mom won't put up with any crap; my dad used to say his Rottweiler knew her only as "She Who Must Be Obeyed." On occasion I'm fresh. But I never whine.

Bar K, 255 W. 10th St. (Hudson St.), 633-1133.