Zarela is buzzing with an uncommon energy.  Bright paper flags hanging from the low stucco ceiling make the place feel like a party.  The margarita machine is hard at work, filling glasses with a luscious green slush that is lovingly chronicled with smartphone cameras.  Half a dozen tables are all occupied, and upstairs another dozen, busy with families of upper east siders.  A small crowd stands waiting to be seated, so you decide to eat at the bar.  Pulling up a stool, you're pleased to find the tile-top littered with baskets of chips and salsa.  You order a beer and some pork.

Cochinita pibil, the bartender pronounces with a funny accent as she sets down a bowl of rusty red stew— pork shoulder and sour oranges in a thin, smokey sauce.  The tortillas are small; it's not clear how these four coins of corn could suffice for such a portion.  So you eat it with a spoon like some awkward but delicious soup.  A glossy green rectangle of banana leaf slowly reveals itself in the bottom of the dish, as if the chef had hidden there some inscrutable photo.  The relish is sweet and then spicy, and you signal for another beer.

Your neighbor to the left asks where you're going after this, which is a bit forward.  Wait, she's asking where you'll go for Mexican after this place closes.  She pokes at her queso fundido and starts explaining her online dating company.  "People are looking for a lifetime partner and great sex," she says easily, with the confidence of a happily divorced baby boomer.  "Do you want to try my margarita?  What are you writing?"  When you say you're reviewing the place, the young couple on your right breaks in with a coincidence: they have a restaurant blog, too.  She is very pretty, and he is discouragingly friendly, and you're sad to understand that they are married.  You discuss hamburgers and he cites cross streets fluently.  She gives a good tip on fried chicken in K-Town.  You exchange web addresses.  Someone taps your shoulder and you turn to find one more stranger.  She is smiling as she whispers that people can see your buttcrack through the front window.  You laugh aloud and pull up your jeans.

Brunch at the Loading Dock is quiet.  There's a silver food cart sticking from the side of the building, the same model you'd see dishing out lamb over rice on some avenue.  Inside is empty except for one person standing at the counter, and a chef vaguely visible in the kitchen-cart.  Without smiling, the counter guy asks what you'd like so you pick up a menu.  This front room is flimsy, just a wooden floor with plastic walls looking onto a loading dock, and the kitchen hanging off the side.  Someone opens a door into the dining room.  "Want to sit in there?" the guy asks and you step into a vast gallery space.  Tables are set with hot sauce and salt, and there are seats for forty people, but every one is vacant.  The walls are high and white and lit like a museum.  Art is everywhere: fuzzy black and white photos, a blob of sculpture, cartoony drawings of hipster hairdos.  Two sherbert-colored canaries are nibbling seeds in a big cage.  Charmed, but not wanting to sit alone, you reconsider the front room and install yourself there at the coffee table by an antiquey wood stove.

It's the first real fire you've seen in a long time, and you're hypnotized by its consuming glow and by the murmur of conversation behind you.  Two men in puffy coats have come in to order take-out.  They talk about getting older and being called 'Sir.'  They leave with their food as your quesadilla arrives, a golden half-disc cut into wedges.  The cheese is oozing hot and the salsa is cold and spicy.  Black beans stick to your fingers.  It is four dollars of perfection.

The counter guy crosses the room to poke the flames and puts on another log.  You say how nice it is to warm your shins like this and he tells you how he used to light fires in his backyard.  Someone else comes in, not to eat but just to talk, and they stand at the counter discussing the artistic process and their next jobs maybe.  There's no beer so you order coffee but can't find the sugar.  Sit with your nose in your cup and stare at an oil painting of dogs.