04.30.06
Posted in Chic, Fruits and Veggies, Manhattan, On The Open Road, West Village at 2:51 pm by Administrator
I picked up a fifty-something blond woman in Chelsea, and we drove in silence across the 59th Street Bridge toward LaGuardia Airport. I had been listening to a Dylan mix tape when she got in, and once Tombstone Blues was over, I popped in a Springsteen tape.“Who is this?” she asked. “This is The Boss . . . and before that we were listening to Dylan,” I told her, happy to break the silence. “Oh, I know that was Dylan, I used to live with him,” she said with a smirk. That is the type of comment I don’t just let go. She was a little reluctant to talk about it, but I threatened to pull the cab over if she didn’t give up the story.
It turns out she lived with Bob Dylan in The Village during the Gaslight coffee house era of early 60’s. She admitted, without a hint of shame in her voice (good for her), that she’d been a Playboy bunny at the now long-defunct Playboy Club. Dylan took a liking to her, and they had about a six month fling.
Other old New Yorkers have told me, and she confirmed, that housing was much more fluid back then. People moved in an out of apartments all the time. Living together was not nearly as big a deal then as it is today. I wanted to know if he sang to her, and she responded very abruptly “no.”
She also went on a few dates with Woody Allen around the same time. She must have been one hell of a bunny. The real kick in the ass was, not only did Dylan not sing to her, Woody Allen never told her jokes. What was the point?
Anyway, she told me about getting a $10 tip from Peggy Lee while she was the coat check girl at the Playboy Club, and how much that meant to her. So when we got through the traffic to LaGuardia, she couldn’t very well stiff me, and she forked over a $25 tip.
That fare was a couple of years ago now. Just like she always remembered Peggy Lee, I remembered her. She had told me that she had a gallery in Santa Fe (that is where she had been heading that day), so during my road trip a couple months ago, I looked her up. She remembered me as soon as I walked into her gallery. We had a laugh, and she showed me some of her art.
(The femme fatale and me in front of her giant gold grenade in Santa Fe)
Because I asked, she told me where to find a good green chili cheese burger in Santa Fe, and where to find some great food back in her old stomping grounds: The Village. I took the day off today, so I decided to finally take her advice and go with my girlfriend to Jane, even though it is a little out of my price range.
(The best cook in New York sits down to a chic Village meal)
The passion fruit limeade sparkler with a bottle of sugar water to dribble in for customized sweetness didn’t sound like it would be my style, but I LOVED it. The lemonade, which IS my style, was watery. When the food arrived, I was unimpressed. It looked bland. But once I got it in my mouth I was astounded.
The California Vegetable sandwich with goat cheese, plenty of avocado, sprouts, tomato, cucumber on multigrain bread might have been the tastiest sandwich I’ve ever had that no cognizant being had to die for. And the Grilled Chicken Salad with roasted corn, bacon, bleu cheese, plenty more avocado, tomato, and romaine in an aromtic shallots and sherry lemon vinaigrette tasted better with each bite, and the first bite was delicious.
The atmosphere at Jane is chic, but we sat in the window and focussed our attention on the usual parade of pedestrians walking by, many of whom were tripping over an inperceptable step in front of the restaurant. I’m glad I took the day off, because on a beautiful spring day, no one would have gotten into my cab, and this meal was a treat. Had Jane been been around back when Woody Allen and Bob Dylan walked these streets with their Jew-fros and blonde arm candy, The Village would have been a different place.
Jane, Houston btwn Thompson and LaGuardia, The Village, Manhattan
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04.29.06
Posted in All-U-Can-Eat, Japanese, Manhattan, Seafood, Sushi, West Village at 8:47 am by Administrator
Never trust a junkie. I’d say that’s generally good advice. But the price of gas has gone through the roof, taking money straight out of my pocket, so l’ve been in the market for a less expensive sushi joint. Last night I had a guy in my cab who was clearly strung out on something, mostly not making much sense, but he did make one intriguing comment. He was telling me his sad life story when he said, “About ten years ago I had to give up my $200 a week coke habit because I picked up a $300 a week sushi habit.”
He had also apparently picked up a heroin or oxycotin habit since then. But I wondered where he got his sushi fix now that he clearly was spending the bulk of his money on drugs again. He admitted that he rarely ever goes for sushi anymore because he doesn’t have any spare cash. But this was a clever junkie. He told me he gets more than enough sushi at all-u-can-eat nights at Funayama on Greenwich Avenue.
I used to take my private car all the way down to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn to get all-u-can-eat sushi at one of the many competing Japanese spots along 86th Street and Bath Avenue. It was as cheap as $18 tax and tip included, but the sushi was merely average, and now that gas is more than $3 a gallon and the price of sushi went up a buck or two at all those places, it hardly seems worth it. So I took the junkie’s advice and stopped for an extended pit stop at Funayama on Greenwich Avenue.
Every Monday and Thursday nights Funayama serves all-u-can-eat sushi for $23.10 (I did not get a straight answer out of anyone there as to why the ten cents) which comes out to about $30 with tax and tip. I didn’t have time to really get my money’s worth the way I used to in Bensonhurst where I once ate fifty pieces of sushi spread out over a three hour period when a meal with a couple friends degenerated into an eating competition. But I did my best last night:
Just as they are at Yama (the restaurant Funayama spun off from), the negeri pieces are cut huge. And the oversized hand rolls compliment the massive pieces perfectly. The white tuna was not good, but nothing had to be spit out which is more than I could say for the first all-u-can-eat sushi I had in the Village about 8 years ago which had a 10 to 1 ratio of edible to inedible pieces. They charge you $3 for pieces you don’t eat so I had to pocket a couple pieces, but that’s all part of the cat and mouse game that goes on at all-u-can-eat sushi places. Once in Bensonhurst I had to hide an entire dragon roll in my miso soup.
All in all, Funayama was a pleasure. The negeri was fresh and moist, the seaweed and shrimp tempura maki came warm. And I spent the rest of the night in the cab gleefully stuffed. It probably doesn’t sound like much to you, but Funayma wins the prize for best restaurant recommendation by a junkie, and to a cabbie who has met more than his fair share of junkies, that’s saying something.
Funayama, Greenwhich Avenue btwn West 10th and Charles
Check out http://www.famousfatdave.com for a chuckle or to book an eating tour
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04.28.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Cannoli, Dave's Faves, Italian, On The Open Road, Sweets at 4:17 am by Administrator
Picture it: Sicily, 1650. The people of Palermo are celebrating Martedi Grasso, the Catholic celebration of Fat Tuesday. The streets are jammed with revelers indulging in sweets to enliven the merriment of the Carnevale. Cannoli are being exchanged like beads at the modern day New Orleans Mardi Gras. One Sicilian man, whose name is lost to history, is moved to poetry:
Beddi Cannola di Carnalivari
Megghiu vuccuni a la munnu ‘un ci nn’è:
Sú biniditti spisi li dinari;
Ogni cannolu è scettru d’orgni Re.
Arrivunu li donni a disistari;
Lu cannolu è la virga di Moisè
Cui nun ni mancia, si fazza ammazzari,
Cu li disprezza è un gran curnutu affè! |
Beautiful are the Cannoli of Carnevale,
No tastier morsel in the world:
Blessed is the money used to buy them;
Cannoli are the scepters of all Kings.
Women even desist [from pregnancy]
For the cannolo, which is Moses’s Staff:
He who won’t eat them should let himself be killed;
He who doesn’t like them is a cuckold, Olè! |
That is pride. The Sicilians, a proud people, take particular pride in their cannoli.
A few centuries later, in suburban Maryland, my new high school sweetheart is the daughter of a Sicilian immigrant. She is also a vegan. Her father, Tony, is overjoyed that his daughter’s new boyfriend would gladly eat anything and everything. He takes to cooking me spaghetti with clam sauce and rice balls filled with peas and ground beef while his daughter subsists on baked beans and tofutti cuties. Before long, Tony makes his ritualistic trip up I-95 to Vaccaro’s Italian Pastry Shop in Baltimore’s Little Italy. Upon his return I find Tony in the kitchen with a glowing expression on his face, a whopping spoonful of sweet ricotta in one hand, and a delicate fried wafer in the other. It is time for my cannoli education.
(The Albemarle Street location as seen on vaccaropastry.com)
Tony inserts the ricotta into the waiting shell before my eyes, sprinkles it with powdered sugar, and triumphantly serves me dessert at eleven in the morning. Before I swallow my first bite, I know I have found the first true love of my young life. The look of almost giddy anticipation on Tony’s face prompts me to speak with my mouth still full. “So good,” I moan, flakes of shell flying from my lips. A big slap on the back, a few more bites, and I am the son Tony never had.
Still, Tony feels a responsibility to teach me the true Sicilian way. He carefully explains to me exactly why my first cannolo tasted so good. The ricotta must always be stored in a cool, dry place. The shells must be made with Marsala wine. And the two must never, ever meet until just before the cannoli are to be enjoyed, lest the shells lose their crunch and the ricotta grows warm and runny.
My love of cannoli flourished, so Tony began making extra trips to Baltimore to be sure he was stocked up for my frequent visits. Much like the “cutter” in Breaking Away, I began thinking I was Italian, although every member of my family is of Eatern European Jewish descent. Tony soon dubbed me “The Cannoli Kid,” and I took to the moniker with a Sicilian’s pride.
Years passed and, while my relationship with Tony’s daughter did not withstand the test of time, my love affair with the cannoli was beginning to blossom. Mostlly as a result of my mounting indentity crisis, I found myself studying in Florence, Italy during my junior year of college. Once I arrived, I didn’t waste any time reaching my adopted motherland.
I skipped orientation week and took the overnight train to the toe of the boot. My new apartment in Florence had seemed alien and unwelcoming, but when I got off the ferry in the port town of Messina, I felt like I had come home. The people expressed that familiar sort of warmth I’d come to love back in Maryland. The distinctly Mediterranean weather agreed with my constitution, and the food was the best I’d ever eaten. Like Tony had done for me years earlier, I considered it my responsibility to introduce my classmates back in Florence to the glories of real Sicilian cannoli.
I made sure to eat cannoli with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the way I do with lobster when I am in Maine, or pickles on the Lower East Side. I followed my belly to the tiny hilltop town of Corleone. Yes, The Godfather was filmed there, and a cinematic pilgrimage was part of the reason for my visit. But more importantly, Corleone is located in the heart of Sicily’s sheep country. The people of Corleone, therefore, make superior ricotta for their connoli.
After wandering around the town for a few hours fielding an array of confused looks from the Corleonese, I met Eustachio in a piazza. We exchanged niceties in my broken Italian, and I asked something to the effect of, “Where could I find a tasty cannolo around here?” His eyes lit up.
(The piazza in which I met my destiny)
Eustachio whisked me across a couple cobblestoned blocks of Corleone, announcing to friends he passed the excitement that was about to ensue. By the time we reached the cool, dry basement of a poorly stocked grocery store that his uncle owned, I was surrounded by a least half a dozen eager Sicilian men. Eustachio did the honors of building my cannolo before my eyes, just as Tony taught me years earlier. I felt the anticipation in the air as I took my first bite. It was even better than the first time back in Tony’s kitchen. My knees actually went weak, and I shouted, “Que buono!” A joyous cheer went up all around me, and I was showered with brotherly shoulder smacks and bear hugs. I felt as though I had just gotten married.
Eustachio arranged for his uncle to supply me twenty shells and a gallon jar full of ricotta at an unnecessarily discounted price. He imposed the strict condition that I do everything possible to keep the ricotta cool during the sixteen hour journey back to Florence. He even drove me to the train station in Palermo with the air conditioning on full blast. The rest was up to me.
Back in Messina, I had to wait two hours for the train to be dismantled and loaded onto a ferry to the mainland. Under the blazing Mediterranean sun, I sprinted to a nearby focacceria. My Italian was not good enough to explain my situation, even though I had picked up the thick Sicilian accent nature had intended for me. The proprietor refused to even look at the contents of my wrinkled paper bag, and he seemed to think I was some American drug fiend who needed a place to hide his stash.
I started to grow desperate, pacing the floor, gesticulating wildly with my hands, and repeating “mingia,” the word for fuck in the Sicilian dialect. These were things the proud Sicilian standing before me could comprehend, so he finally inspected my mysterious bag. I understood him say something about “cannoli” and “why didn’t you say so” as he hurriedly shoved my jar in his soda case. The ricotta was saved, and when I returned to Florence, I bestowed the precious cannoli upon my classmates. I felt like Tony must have when he gave me the sacred gift.
Since I moved to New York, I’ve scoured the five boroughs for cannoli that rivaled the ones I first had back in Maryland or the ones I found everywhere in Sicily. But even institutions like Veniero’s Pastry Shop on 11th Street and Fortunato Brothers in Williamsburg refused to hand-pipe their ricotta. Sicilians had immigrated to New York City in large numbers more than a century ago. But no matter where I looked or who I consulted for advice, I could not find a cannolo that would satisfy Tony, Eustachio, or me. Had New York’s Sicilian population lost its sense of pride in the crown jewel of their ancestral cuisine?
Last week, I picked up an old man with warm, smiling eyes in my cab. I took him from Grand Central Station out to Cypress Avenue on the border between Brooklyn and Queens. As we passed a modest storefront at Stanhope Street, he spoke to me unsolicited in a familiar accent. “This place here has great cannoli.”
Within minutes of dropping him off in Ridgewood, I was seated on the sidewalk beneath the “Euro Cafe” awning. I ordered two cannoli from a woman with that same familiar accent. I watched her at the counter, squeezing cool ricotta into a fresh shell that smelled of Marsala wine. Before swallowing the first bite, my taste-buds transported me back to Tony’s kitchen, then to Corleone, and finally to Martedi Grasso.
Euro Cafe, Cypress Ave btwn Stanhope and Himrod, Brooklyn
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04.27.06
Posted in Brooklyn, La Pizza, Manhattan, Williamsburg at 3:44 am by Administrator
I was so glad to find out last night that I am not the only one in New York City who has “WRITE AN ANGRY LETTER TO LOMBARDI’S PIZZA” on my to do list. I picked up a woman in Park Slope who told me she was going to Allen and Stanton. It was midnight, and she had to leave her friends at the bar so she could head home and go back to work. But first she wanted to stop for a slice to sober up. “Rosario’s?” I asked, judging from her destination. “Yeah, how’d you know?” she said. “Well I’d hope you aren’t going to Ray’s.”
(An L.E.S institution)
We comiserated with each other about how bad Ray’s is. She said she had warned a friend of hers last week not to go in, but the guy was desperately drunk so he bought a slice anyway, even though Rosario’s is only a block away. She said he didn’t even eat half of it before he threw it out. Pizza can get really bad. I’ve found that saying, “sex is like pizza: even if it’s not so great it’s still pretty good” to be untrue on both counts.
As we crossed the Manhattan Bridge we reminisced about the old Rosario’s with the great arches of paper cup stacks leaning out across the sidewalk on Houston, and we both mournfully remembered defiantly signing a petition a few years back to keep Ray’s out. But Ray’s did move in, and so Sal, by far the most beloved pizzaiolo of the Lower East Side, had to move his store off the main thoroughfare. He left his old ovens behind, and his pizza, though still great, suffered.
Joe’s of Carmine Street has not fared as well. It was always one of my favorites, and my fare declared it was her very favorite slice in the entire city. But since Joe’s moved from the corner of Bleeker Street to make room for Abitino’s Pizza (with the truly offensive motto of “The only pizza worth eating” and the even more offensive habit of blasting Fox News loud enough to hear it in Father Demo Square), Joe’s slice has dropped to just about one notch better than mediocre.
(The fresh mozz slice at Joe’s these days, still pretty good) But our blood really began boiling when the topic of Lombardi’s Coal Oven Pizza came up. I thought I was the only one who noticed that they no longer have a crust. For exactly a century (1905 to 2005), Lombardi’s, America’s first pizzeria, made their pies with puffy, chewy crust around the edges. Lifelong friends, tight-knit families, mothers and daughters would bicker over who’d get the piece with the big bubble.
(Me, my friend Nanda, and evidence of a crusty pie just a year ago)
I thought their expansion last year was good news, because I wouldn’t have to wait as long for a table anymore. But last time I went, I noticed there was no beautifully charred crust with which to grip my dream pizza. I asked the waiter, and he told me they now put the dough through a machine to make the pie rather than kneading it by hand. I responded with flabergasted and angry gestures and exclamations until the waiter told me, “hey buddy, all I do is drop the pizza on the table.” It’s an economy of scale I suppose.
I was infuriated. How dare they? Popular religions have been started in less than a century. I had loved my pepperoni and red onion pizza like a son, and now I’ve been stabbed in the back. My fare an I agreed to write our angry letters, and eat at the newly opened (in comparison with Lombardi’s) Una Pizza Napolitana on 12th Street. I’ve been to Napoli, and I ate more than a dozen pizzas during my three days there (you can order little snack size pies from street vendors between meals at the revered institiutions like Brandy’s). And I can tell you, Una Pizza Napolitana is the real deal, though it is exorbitantly expensive. Had I eaten it in Napoli, I would have thought it was in the top five. My fare made the point that the Lombardi’s crust betrayal might not hurt Lombardi’s this year, or next year, but soon and for the rest of its life. In another century or so, no one will even notice that Una Pizza Napolitana isn’t as old as Lombardi’s.
A couple hours later, I hopped out of the cab on Bedford Street and North 7th in Brooklyn not because I was hungry but because I was whistful. Anna Maria’s hasn’t changed a bit since I first tasted their heaping garlic pesto slice five years ago. The place is always packed with ridiculously drunken hipsters, and the pizza guys have always been fun-loving, hard-working Mexicans.
(One of the hardest working men in New York)
They do seem to close earlier than before, but that might be my overdeveloped sense of nostalgia acting up. Anna Maria’s is a unique New York slice. People might call it California style because of all the toppings, but no one in Santa Monica would be caught dead eating a slice that looks like this:
Anna Maria’s serves up nothing but heafty, tasty pizza. With my massive veggie slice still settling into my belly, I cruised around looking for one more fare to finish off my night. Someone out there must know where to find the perfect slice. Anna Maria’s, North 7th Street and Bedford, Williamsburg Brooklyn
Una Pizza Napolitana, East 12th Street btwn 1st and 2nd Ave, East Village, Manhattan
Lombardi’s Pizza, Spring btwn Mulberry and Mott, Little Italy, Manhattan
Joe’s, Carmine btwn Bleeker and 6th Ave, West Village, Manhattan
Rosario’s, corner of Stanton and Orchard, Lower East Side, Manhattan
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04.26.06
Posted in Bronx, Latino, Melrose at 6:45 am by Administrator
I have one best friend at my taxi garage, and I can’t pronounce his name. I can’t even begin to try to spell it. It begins with a combination sound we don’t have in the Western world. He is from Madagascar, and we made fast friends because neither of us are of the usual New York cabbie ilk. I am the only Jew at our garage, he is the only Madagascarian.
The pecking order starts with the Poles because my Greenpoint garage is owned by a Pole. After them come the Indians because the night dispatcher’s name is Cha Cha and he hails from Bombay and looks out for his own. Then, you get a cab if you work six days a week no matter where you from. And if there are any cabs left over when they’ve all gone out, Cha Cha dispatches to Madagascarians and then to Jews. I often get sent home after waiting for over an hour because “NO CARS, GO HOME, DRIVE DAY SHIFT, YOU’RE TOO NICE TO DRIVE AT NIGHT.” It’s understandable. That’s the way it goes. But I can do without the sass.
Today at the garage, as my friend and I shared an abondoned New York Post, we began talking about our favorite rice and beans joints in the city after we spotted a story about the Bush Administration crackdown on American tourism to Cuba. I’m a Margon man, he’s an El Valle man. Margon, some of the only cheap, authentic food in all of midtown, has kept me full and happy since long before I got my hack license. El Valle is in the heart of the South Bronx and therefore, my friend argued, is even cheaper, and has more character.
It is true, I admit, that whereas Margon is more than half full of briefcase-totting midtown commuters who don’t know an ox tail from a hole in the ground, El Valle is always 100% Spanish-speaking. It is particularly popular with Latino cabbies which is how I heard about it.
Once, when I was the only one at the lunch counter, a three piece mariachi band walked through the door in full “Ayyyyyyy Yiiiiiiiii Ya Ya YIIII,” played for a few minutes, and walked out with some roasted chicken gratis. You don’t get much more character than that in a rice and beans joint. I just happen to think the roasted chicken at Margon falls off the bone easier, the rice at Margon is fluffier, and the beans at Margon are somehow wetter. That is not to say that a meal at El Valle isn’t good, it is phenomenal. But given the choice, I’d take Margon.
Alas, I was not given the choice today because the parking situation on 46th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues left me no choice. The first time I found myself above 96th Street on the east side I locked my doors and hit the off duty light (as I do anyway when I’m above 96th Street on the east side even when I’m not foraging for my lunch). I wasn’t particularly close to The Bronx, but I love the thrill I get when I cross the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Boogie Down Bronx.
(the forbidding approach to the Willis Ave Bridge to The Bronx)
Rather than face the meter maid in midtown, I pulled up to the meterless curb in front of El Valle on Melrose Avenue. But I had come in the middle of a rush. So I bellied up to the bar as soon as I saw an opening and fixed my gaze upon a woman who would have been my mother had I been born in the Dominican Republic. But she was ignoring me. . . I thought. Maybe I was wrong, and I hadn’t noticed that the lady she was helping had gotten there before me. But I was sure she was ignoring me when I saw a construction worker walk in from outside and right up to the counter next to me. She called him “papi” and took his order. It was about time to drop some knowledge on her, and let her know I wasn’t some schmuck to be triffled with. After four years of public school Spanish and four months of living in Madrid for an internship, I wasn’t exactly sure how to say “excuse me.”
(maybe these are some schmucks to triffle with)
But the moment I caught her eye I confidently told her, “Quiero solomente uno plato por favor, con arroz amarillo, frijoles, maduros, y pollo.” She looked at me like I was talking Chinese. I thought I’d gotten it perfect. Within minutes all of El Valle was in on the joke. I got impromptu Spanish lessons from a couple of different sources at once, and, even though I didn’t repeat myself, I did get exactly what I ordered. It wouldn’t fit on one plato however and my bizarro universe mamma threatened not to give me the chicken because I had only indicated that I wanted uno plato. Meekly, I said, “si, pero quiero un poco mas.” She let me in on the fact that was just sassing me the whole time when she called me “papi” and gave me a priceless look after I learned the word for smile from a kindly woman at the lunch counter (something like “sonreal”).
(all I had to do was ask for a sonreal, and I got a beaut)
The meal hit the spot. My Madagascarian friend was right, El Valle had more character. Sometimes, a large part of the pleasure of a good meals comes as a result of an authentic atmosphere and a cultural exchange. But if I wanted to to get sassed because I look different, I could have gotten that back at my taxi garage in Brooklyn.
El Valle, Melrose Ave at 155th Street, Melrose, The Bronx
Margon, 46th Street btwn 6th and 7th Ave, Midtown, Manhattan (closed Sundays)
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04.25.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens, La Pizza, Meats, Middle Eastern, On The Open Road, Sandwiches at 3:36 am by Administrator
On a day when one of my favorite town’s in the world was bombed, I was in the mood for shawarma. I made a trip to the Middle East last year with an organization called Birthright Israel meant to send Jews from all over the world to their “homeland” for free. There at the Western Wall or the Dead Sea, we were supposed to find our true Jewish souls.
Things didn’t go exactly as planned. We dubbed our experience “Birthwrong Israel” after the trip degenerated into a debaucherous hash fest including one nice Jewish girl from New Jersey falling in love with a Palestinian and another getting caught on video in a menage a cinq with Israeli soldiers still strapped with their Uzis.
As for me, my Talmudic transgression began just after the official trip ended. Having noticed that the shawarma tasted progressively better the further south I travelled in the country, I left the group at Ben Gurion airport and made my way to the southern Israeli port of Eilat on my own. During my twenty four hour stint in that port town, I ate turkey shawarma at the same stand on three seperate occasions, and it tasted better each time. It was the best shawarma I’d had in Israel, so when I learned the stand was run by Israeli Arabs, I made up my mind to cross the border into Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.
After a few days wandering around on the beaches chatting with friendly Bedoin, I made my way to the serene tourist town of Dahab. It was snorkling heaven, scuba heaven, and, as expected, shawarma heaven. I spent two of the best weeks of my life there, spending my days in a scuba certifcation class, spending halcyon evenings chowing down on shawarma and gazing across the Red Sea at the Arabian desert’s craggy hills as they turned strawberry-red in the setting sun.
Before I got to the Sinai, massive bombings destroyed the Taba Hilton on the northern tip of the peninsula and a small resort north of Dahab, and since I left, more bombings devastated the famous resort of Sharm El Sheik on the southern tip of the peninsula. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when Lakshmi Singh informed me of the triple bombing in Dahab today as I discharged a passenger in East Harlem. I was surprised though. And so I felt like shawarma.
I’ve been told multiple times by my fares to eat at Zaytoon’s when I drop them off in Carroll Gardens. So today, when I heard the news, I took a break and headed down the FDR, across the Brooklyn Bridge, and onto Smith Street with my cab empty. The shawarma was therapeutic.
The friendly Palestinians at Zaytoon’s make their own pita in the window and their own hummus in the back. And their shawarma is sliced thick off spit, making Zaytoons’ cut the Katz Delicattesen of New York’s shawarma scene. Before the news from Dahab, I’d been in the mood for a slice, so I also ordered a sun-dried tomato “pitza.” I think mostly because the fresh-baked pita and breads are their forte, the pitza was good enough to make me forget about the Patsy’s of 118th Street slice on which I had planned.
The shawarma, even though I think it might be the best in the entire city, didn’t make me forget about Dahab.
Zaytoons, 283 Smith Street, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Check out http://www.famousfatdave.com for a chuckle or to book an eating tour
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04.24.06
Posted in Fruits and Veggies, Korean, Manhattan, Pickles, West Village at 12:43 am by Administrator
Osama is a flaming homosexual vegan dancer from the Panshir Valley. I found him just after sunset at the corner of Roebling and Metropolitan. He was staggering drunk, wearing a black and white checkered headdress around his neck, and frantically hailing me. He told me he was heading back to The Village to meet “one of my lovers,” and boy did he have a chip on his shoulder.
The traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge afforded me time to learn many (but I’m sure not all) of the trials and tribulations one goes through when his is born a flamer in Afganistan in the early 60s and lives with the name Osama in New York in the 00s. His mother wore mini-skirts when she visited Kabul with him during his youth. He was adamant that he was not a terrorist, though I had not accused him of being one. He said, “I’ve always been gay. I grew up playing with barbies not bombs.”
Thankfully for Osama, he did not have to liv through the Taliban era. I can’t imagine he would have made it very far. In fact, he did not even have to endure the Soviet occupation. He, his sickly sister, and his mother managed to make it to New York just in time for Osama to enjoy the burgeoning disco scene. He told me he remembered learning of the Soviet invasion as he walked out of a gay porno theather on 42nd Street on Christmas day in 1979. In his words, it was a “buzz kill.”
Osama told me the US reconstruction effort in Afganistan is a joke. He recently returned from a trip to Kabul, and, according to my increasingly agitated fare, the only visible sign of progress is a newly paved road between the capital and Kandahar. And even that is only used by heavily armed UN and NATO troops because the bandits are prevalent.
What’s worse, he meets people all the time here in America who tell him they hate his name, or hate him for his name. Osama claimed that is the equivalent of an Afgan hating all Westerners named John. I will admit to you that, when I trekked through Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains soon after September 11th, I named the mule that carried all of my heavy, stinking bags “Osama” out of spite. I didn’t mention this to Osama last night, because I didn’t think he’d see the humor in it.
He had worked himself into a tizzy, and he felt it important to tell me, “Let me tell you, I cried harder than you did when the World Trade Center collapsed, because you were born here but I had to work to become an American.” Before Osama got out of my cab in a huff, I asked him where his favorite cheap place to eat in The Village is.
Without hesitation he told me he’d been going to Temple in the Village for more than 20 years. The Temple serves the healthiest buffet in the city, if not the world.
The lengthy buffet table consists entirely of vegetarian, vegan, and macrobiotic (foods that occur naturally in the local ecosystem according to Osama) selections. Osama declared that he had lived on a macrobiotic diet since his youth back in the Panshir Valley.
My belly was pleading with me for some veggies after my giant, late-night slice of pizza the night before. I was more than satisfied with this meal. I grabbed myself three quarters of a pound of seaweed, pickle spears, collard greens, bean sprouts, bok choy, sesame broccoli, olives, zucchini tempura, broccoli rabe (a personal favorite) and spicy cabage kim chi. At 6 bucks per pound, my whole meal was only 5 dollars including tax. I asked the shy owner why the kim chi was so good, and he told me it was because he is Korean and he makes it himself in the back.
It was one of those places I couldn’t believe I’d never been to after all the time I’d spent in that neighborhood over the years. I’ll be eating at the Temple in the Village again I’m sure. I won’t, however, be making fun of anyone’s name again anytime soon.
Temple in the Village, West 3rd Street between LaGuardia and Thompson, The Village, Manhattan
Visit www.famousfatdave.com for a laugh or an eating tour
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04.22.06
Posted in Bronx, Fruits and Veggies, Hunt's Point, Italian at 6:18 am by Administrator
The Bronx can be a scary place. I have to admit that, even after more than four years of driving a cab, I don’t really know my way around it. Hunt’s Point, the desolate peninsula bulging out of the borough east of the Bruckner Expressway, might be the scariest part of the Bronx. Warehouses and auto glass stores seem to be all that there is along the neigborhood’s two wide avenues. Countless eighteen-wheelers rumble up and down the streets day and night, outnumbered only in the wee hours by the chunky, sassy hookers that made Hunt’s Point Avenue famous as “Ho Avenue.”
Last night, sometime during the smallest of those wee hours, I picked up a fare in Harlem who was on his way to his job as a truck driver for the Hunt’s Point Terminal Market. He was late, in such a hurry that he was willing to take a cab to work, something he told me he very rarely does. But he still had time for breakfast. At the end of Hunt’s Point Avenue, just before the left turn for the Terminal Market, my fare asked me to wait and jumped out of the cab for a meatball hero and a side of broccoli rabe.
It’s that kind of blue collar breakfast that keeps the proletariat down, but for me, it was dinner time. With a knowing look in his eye as he devoured his hero, he told me to go back and get anything with broccoli rabe. I trusted him not just because he worked in the area, but he had the kind of thick Italian accent you get when you are born in Napoli, not New York. With time to kill, I pulled up amongst the ample parking and walked into Fratelli Pizza Cafe. A couple cold pizzas sat on the counter, so I asked Joe, the counterman, what to order with broccoli rabe.
(Joe, making a fresh pie just before dawn)
He told me to get the broccoli rabe hero. I figured the bitter leafy vegetable would be too much for my palate without anything to marry it to. So I got a broccoli rabe and sausage hero and mozzarella sticks.
(I put that fork to work)
The hero was ridiculously large and so scrumptous. And I was wrong. The rabe could have carried the hero on its own without a problem. I ate half of the rabe with a fork because it was so fresh and garlicy and not too bitter. I’d never heard of a broccoli rabe hero (nor had I heard of a 24 hour a day full Italian eatery). The sausage and mozzarella sticks were delicious as well. So late at night, in the roughest part of the Boogie Down Bronx, I was blindsided by so fresh and unique a meal. Joe told me they stay open around the clock because of all the truck drivers like my fare who roam the neighborhood. They serve the rabe because its so good.
Fratelli Pizza Cafe (open from midnight on Sunday until Friday afternoon, I wouldn’t want you risking your neck to go when it’s not even open) 402 Hunt’s Point Ave, The Bronx
Check out http://www.famousfatdave.com for a chuckle or to book an eating tour
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