While the texture may be vaguely similar – crunchy on the outside and succulent in the middle – the people behind the pastrami at the new general store on Avenue A bought mainly a sense of adventure from their previous pavlova business in Sydney. This new spot – Harry & Ida’s – transports you to a stylish old-worldliness, where Jewish grandparents would have been stoking the smoker in the back shed and the smell of polished wood and dried fish competed generously with bunches of herbs and freshly caught eel. It is not exactly the kind of place you would expect to find in the middle of New York City. But when the latest commercial activity in Times Square sees body painted topless women posing for (paid) photographs along with Superman and Spongebob, finding a snake bite kit in the East Village doesn’t seem that strange…