11.13.06
Posted in Eastern European, La Pizza, Manhattan, West Village at 8:26 pm by Administrator
Get me in the back seat of a NYC yellow cab, put me IN A HUGE HURRY, and the hilarity ensues. While I meandered out to Bleeker Street and 6th Avenue to catch a cab to LaGuardia Airport a couple weeks back, I glanced one last time at my ticket to be sure of the terminal. My heart stopped. I knew exactly how long it would take to get the airport at that time from that spot. But I’d misremembered the departure time on the ticket by an hour. Suddenly, I was frantic.
I started hailing like my life depended on it. I looked into the eyes of the first cabbie who stopped for me, and saw he did NOT have the killer instinct I would need to get me to my gate on time. I waved him on, and he cursed at me in his native tongue. But even that was so meek I knew I’d made the right decision.
Then I hailed Viktor. Before I even got in, I said, “I’ve gotta get to LGA ten minutes ago. Can you do it? Tell me the truth, because otherwise I’ll hail someone else.” Now he looked me in the eyes, didn’t hesitate, and said, “Yes, yes, get in, get in” in an accent I didn’t recognize.
The first question was how to cross the East River. I told him to head a couple of blocks out of the way and take the Williamsburg Bridge onto the BQE. He told me it’d be faster to take the Queens-Midtown Tunnel from 36th Street. The battle was on. I told him who he was dealing with – a fellow yellow cabbie with five years driving under my belt. He told me who I was dealing with – a determined Kosavar Albanian yellow cabbie who’d been driving for many more years than I had. I nearly folded when he spoke of his six-days-a-week schedule, but I stuck to my guns.
The fight was fixed though. Right there in the passenger bill of rights posted under thick plastic in the back seat is a provision that the customer may decide the route so long as it is not unreasonable. We made it onto and across the Williamsburg Bridge in no time, and I was breathing easier.
Then the traffic snarled. The merge onto the BQE, which I knew would be slow, was at a virtual standstill. We were averaging about 2 miles an hour. And we had about a mile to go. My heart sank.
But Viktor was a pro. He didn’t say “I toldya so.” He didn’t rub it in my face. He just sat back and let it all be. We both knew I was wrong. There was no need to spell it out.
So as I stared from the clock to the jammed road before us, we began to chat. Viktor told me about growing up in a village near Pristina. I knew he’d left well before the war beacause his hack number was very low, meaning his got his license many, many years ago. I had two more digits in mine that he had. I guessed what year he left. He was impressed by that (I was close), and he was impressed with my cursory knowledge of Balkan history and politics (thank you Professor Judt of the NYU history department).
As we crawled up the steep Brooklyn side of the Koz over Newtown Creek, I told him what I do. And he immediately responded by telling me where to get a great slice of pizza. He told me there are Albanians, from Albania proper not Kosovo, who make fantastic pizza at Bleeker Street Pizza. “No way,” I said. “I live around the corner from there. I’ve never even tried it. It just looks like any old pizza place.” “It isn’t,” Viktor said with a wild look in eye.
My area is jammed with pizzerias: Joe’s and Abitino’s for slices, John’s and No. 28 for pies. I’d always seen Bleeker Street Pizza but was turned off by their “Authentic Tuscan Pizza” sign, because I’ve lived in Tuscany and found the pizza to be disgusting – like a communion cracker with watery cheese slidding off the sides.
Viktor, once the traffic I’d gotten us into let up, drove like Michael Andretti. Weaving all over the road right up to the LaGuardia exit, he topped off his virtuoso performance with a daring and uncalled-for rumble over the rough and debris-filled shoulder leading to the exit because the traffic had snarled yet again just 200 feet prior. My heart was pounding with excitment from the five minute roller coaster ride Viktor had just taken me on. I thought we might both die at a couple of different moment, but Viktor had skills and we arrived only a tiny bit queasy.
I showed him as much gratitude as I could, hopped out, and found that my flight was delayed by 2 hours. So it turned out that I didn’t need to pick just the right cabbie. Still, I’m glad I found the one I did. Now, I was excited to return so I could try out Bleeker Street Pizza.
I took the taxi back from the airport straight to the corner of 7th Ave and Bleeker and went in for a couple slices. When I arrived, an obnoxious drunk was eating his slice at the counter. “How long you been making pizza?” he demanded of the counter man. “Nineteen years,” he responded. “Well you been doin’ it wrong for nineteen years,” the drunk said. Clearly, I’d come in late in the conversation, but I thought he might be reacting to the fact he was eating Albanian pizza rather than the classic New York style.
I gave the counterman a knowing look, as if to say, “This guy is an idiot, but I’m not.” I ordered my two slices as well as a lemon ice that I was excited to see was imported from the famed Lemon Ice King of Corona in Queens. As my slices heated up in the oven, I impressed the counterman with my cursory knowledge of Balkan history (works every time). I told him I’d met a Kosovar Albanian yellow cab driver who recommended I come, and he responded with geniune concern that the man I’d met was clinically insane. I told him I had a hunch about that from the way he drove.
The drunk had wandered off. I sat down to eat my slices in peace. And I enjoyed them thoroughly.
They were a little greasy maybe, but grease isn’t a bad thing in my book. The cheese was sparse, which is nice when the tomato sauce is as sweet as theirs is. The crust was weak, but it didn’t ruin the slice at all. It was just there. Actually, it was crispy the way I like it to be sometimes. I liked this pizza better than my previous favorite slice joint in the neighborhood – Joe’s – but Joe’s had gone pretty far downhill lately.
This pizza was certainly unlike anything I had in Tuscany. And it wasn’t the classic Napoli pizza either. In fact, it’s not exactly like any slice I’ve ever had in New York either. They’d be foolish to advertise it this way, but it really must be authentic Albanian pizza.
Bleeker Street Pizza, 7th Avenue and Bleeker Street, West Village, Manhattan
Famous Fat Dave’s Five Borough Eating Tours, Five Borough Pizza Tours Available
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11.08.06
Posted in DC, Posts For Not For Tourists at 7:26 am by Administrator
I’ll be happy if Alfonso Soriano stays a Washington National next year. But if he goes anywhere, I hope it is back to the Yankees. Either way, read yesterday’s Not For Tourists Guidebook Washington, DC page for an idea on where to eat in the area between the Capitol and RFK Stadium.
Mr. Henry’s
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11.03.06
Posted in Belmont, Bronx, Chinese, DC, Fruits and Veggies, Italian, New Jersey, Posts For Not For Tourists, Seafood, Sweets at 8:48 am by Administrator
I hope you’ve been checking in to Not For Tourist Guidebook every day. If you haven’t, may I suggest you do so today. Both the New York page (Randazzo’s Seafood in The Bronx) and the DC page (Roger’s Produce in Potomac, Maryland) have blurbs written by some crazy cabbie.
Also, I’ve missed a couple opportunities to link to my blurbs in the past few weeks, so you can belatedly click below for those as well.
Magic Fountain Ice Cream in New Jersey
Bethesda Co-Op in Bethesda, Maryland
Tony Cheng’s in Chinatown, DC
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11.02.06
Posted in On The Open Road, Posts By Adam B., Seafood at 5:48 am by Administrator
Hi folks. Adam B. here, hoping to take a moment to go back in time with you and Famous Fat Dave. The month was March, the year was 2003: a tumultuous time for our nation. Scorn for America was building as the leader of the Free World abondoned reckless diplomacy in favor of a cool, calculated blitz to Baghdad.
Things were tense between worldwide anti-war protests mounting and Nicole Kidman duking it out with Rene Zellweger for best actress. With iTunes still a month away, what better way to escape reality than a trip to Portland, Maine to vist our friends Ian and Marin.
FFD and I hopped in the Maxima and headed to Maine from Maryland via Philadelphia, where we stopped for piping hot soft pretzels . . . and cheesesteaks . . . oh yeah, we stopped for hoagies too.
Once we got to Maine, we knew that no reunion with auld-tyme friend would be complete without a feast. And no feast in Maine is complete without lobster. So by the transitive property, Dave and I made it our mission to find the most succulent, meaty, fisty lobsters that we could afford. We set out on the streets of Portland on a cold, crisp, sunny day. Blue jeans and sweatshirts. Hand and hand.
We ended up at the creaky Harbor Fish Market where freshly caught seafood practically dances from the boat to your plate. Dave and I persevered through the anti-tourist tactics of black flies and ridicule (in a thick New accent) for lack of lobster knowledge. We emerged from the store with a cardboard cornucopia of crustaceans.
We arrived back at the house, and while the rest of the feast was being prepared, a pang of conscience came over us while staring into the box. We decided to give our main course a few more minutes of dignity in the master bathroom (unbeknownst to our hosts).
When the time came to transfer the lobsters to the kitchen, any dignity that remained was quickly erased by Dave in one fell schwing:
Thankfully our host Ian knew what the hell he was doing and took charge of the operation. With Cheshire grins, the three of us proudly pose with our prize catch just before the boil:
And a few minutes later, viola! The well-deserved reward for a hard day of deep sea shopping. The lobsters are served prete-a-mange along with all the fixin’s (don’t worry Marylanders, the Old Bay Seasoning was present but off camera).
Famous said grace. Then we toasted to health, good cheer, and a merciful Jewish G-d who hopefully understands the complexities and difficulties of abiding by all laws of kashrus in a modern, predominately gentile society.
Amen
Harbor Fish Market, 9 Custom House Wharf, Portland, Maine
Visit Adam B.’s Zone You Can Deal With! and tell him where Tupac is
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10.26.06
Posted in Boreum Hill, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Eastern European, Hot Dogs, Latino, Middle Eastern, Polish at 2:27 am by Administrator
On August 20, 2001 my brother Josh moved in with his special lady friend Tracy in Boreum Hill Brooklyn. Soon thereafter, I began driving a yellow cab. Two of the first three garages at which I worked were located in Brooklyn, so it quickly became something of a tradition for me to stop by their apartment on Mondays (Josh’s day off) to relax and eat before my night shift began.
And what a neighborhood in which to eat. Less than a block off Smith Street, the world was our oyster when it came to ordering. I’d always spend the first chunk of my Monday shift gleefully stuffed with pannini from Pannino’teca, a rueben from Salonike, or a burger from Bar Tabac.
It was a perfect setup for me. Relax and eat, eat and relax, and then go out and face the city being of sound mind and full belly. But then some ominous developments began to occur. Josh and Tracy got engaged. Josh and Tracy got married. Josh and Tracy began talking about moving to the suburbs. Josh and Tracy had a baby — Milo. Josh and Tracy bought a station wagon.
I tried my hardest to convince them that Milo would grow up to be much cooler if he grew up in Brooklyn rather than the ‘burbs as we had. But Josh countered with some nonsense about sending Milo to a good public school and giving him a backyard to play in. As well as Josh and Tracy are doing, you’ve pretty much got to be a millionaire to buy a place with a backyard in that part of Brooklyn and send your kids to private school.
Before I knew it, they’d bought a house in Westchester, and they were packing their things. I’d grown quite attached to their neighborhood in the five years they lived there together. But I guess I could understand them wanting to give Milo a backyard and a good school. Plus, I fully admit that it’s nice to be a little further away from the Gowanus Projects than a quarter block.
It was with a heavy heart that I drove over to Josh and Tracy’s for my last Monday lunch. Tracy was at work, but Josh and I decided to head over to Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights to do our final lunch right. We took Milo to Teresa’s where he was an instant hit with the Polish waitresses. And they were a hit with him.
The blintz was a hit with me. I ordered the pierogies, which I’d had many times before and never left me disappointed. Boiled and served with apple sauce and onions, Teresa’s pierogies are as close to the gut-busters I had in Krakow as any I’ve tasted in New York.
But I’d never orderd their blintzes before. I’m used to blintzes being mediocre at best. The filling always seems to be too sweet for me, as though some uncaring cook just stuffed it with Smucker’s jelly. And the outside is always too mushy.
But the blintzes that Josh ordered that day were a thousand times better than any blintz I’ve ever tried. The outside was just crispy enough to change the entire texture of the treat from the usual “blah” to the rare “delicate and gourmet.” The sweet farmer’s cheese filling was by no means overwhelmingly sweet. So much so that it benefited from more sweetness being shaken onto it from above in the form of powdered sugar. And the plum butter gave the whole thing a down home flavor.
Milo dug it the most:
Josh and I had never eaten at Teresa’s together, and that meal just made me more wistful than ever. Now, when I drive the cab on Mondays, I’ve got no anchor to throw before I start working. I just have to dive right in.
I’ve been up to Westchester a few times already. They’re supposed to have great Mexican food on North Avenue. But the burritos we had at El Jalisco were merely pretty good, though they were clearly authentic. Milo loved them because they were covered with two slices of melted Muenster – his fave.
Watching Milo enjoy them so much made me like them a little more. But he won’t remember the superior burritos at California Taqueria on Court Street. Maybe we’ll find better burritos somewhere else in Westchester.
The whole family went out for some Turkish food one evening at Turqoise in the next town over from Josh and Tracy’s house. The meal was delicious, especially the stuffed grape leaves jammed with pine nuts. But Milo enjoyed the milk more than anything else:
I still prefer Kapadokya in Brooklyn Heights for Turkish food. I took Josh there for his bachelor party, and we ordered from there a few times afterwards:
I was starting to wonder if Westchester was going to yield any great food. We heard there was great whitefish salad at one deli, but when we went they were sold out. We heard Walter’s has the best hot dogs in the whole New York area, but when we went they were closed.
Yesterday, Josh threw his first barbeque at the house. Melissa and I brought some Merguez sausage and a whole wheel of parsley and cheese pork sausage from Pino’s on Sullivan Street. The wheel, once unwound, went over big:
Milo couldn’t resist it.
So there we were, deep into the suburbs. Brooklyn was already a distant memory. Milo won’t ever remember it. I took stock.
Josh was firing up the grill. Kids were running around the backyard as we played football and baseball. The sun was shining through the clouds, and the shadows were short. People were spread out across Josh and Tracy’s big house. Parking was plentiful. And everyone was relaxing and eating, eating and relaxing – including me.
Teresa’s, 80 Montague Street at Hicks, Brooklyn Heights
Kapadokya, 142 Montague Street at Henry, Brooklyn Height
Pino Prime Meats, 149 Sullivan Street, SoHo, Manhattan
Turqoise, 1895 Palmer Ave, Larchmont, Westchester
El Jalisco, Somewhere on North Avenue 576-4008, New Rochelle, Westchester
Famous Fat Dave, 5 Borough Eating Tours, New York City
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10.19.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Fried Chicken, Soul Food, Southeast Asian, Thai at 9:47 pm by Administrator
When I’m out there on the mean streets in my cab, I’m risking my neck for food tips. More than monetary tips or even a good story, I want to know where my fares eat. And I’ve got a long list of foods that I’m in the market for.
Second Avenue Deli closed, so I’m in desperate need of a tip on a good corned beef sandwich. I haven’t found too many great burritos in this town, so I often test my Spanish skills in hopes of finding one to rival a west coaster. And I’m slightly obessesed with pickles, so I tend to nudge the conversation in that direction if I sense someone might know his way around a full sour.
But I usually do NOT go out of my way to get tips on where to find fried chicken. Although fried chicken is one of my favorite foods on the planet, I get enough of it right here in the comfort of my own home. My special lady friend Melissa, drawing on the techniques of countless generations of Khymer-style Thai Muslim chefs from her mother’s “Neighborhood of Kitchens” in Bangkok, fries up chicken at home like no New York City fry cook ever could.
She guards the family recipe with her life, but I can tell you she fries it first and then puts it in the oven so as not to burn it in the oil but still cook it all the way through. She also makes a dipping sauce for it with lime juice, fish sauce, hot pepper, and some other secret ingredients. And she serves it over jasmine rice.
The results are heavenly every time. I’ve never had fried chicken with skin so crispy or meat so juicy, much less both factors combined perfectly. The eating experience Melissa provides makes your eyes light up, as evidenced by this shot of Melissa’s friend Melanie going in for her second bite:
But there is something about me that makes people think I want to know where to get fried chicken. Most likely it’s the shape of my face, which, precisely BECAUSE of fried chicken, is round. I used to be skinny, believe or not. My ribs actually showed until I was 8 years old.
It was then that I discovered the joys of that sacred deep fried bird and began riding my bike to Roy Rogers multiple per week. I used my allowance, and when that ran out, I sold baseball cards to finance my fried chicken expeditions. This continued unabated for a few months, and I steadily gained weight without understanding why. My mom noticed the startling weight gain too, but she didn’t know why either. I wasn’t telling her where I went after school every other day, and she chalked up the second chin to our purchase of a Nintendo, which occured simultaneously.
Finally, as I was chowing down on a drumstick one afternoon, my mom and brother walked in to my Roy Rogers on the way home from my brother’s swim practice. “What are you doing here?!?” my mom asked, very surprised to see my greasy face. “What are YOU doing here?” I replied. “I come here all the time.”
My body never recovered. My ribs never showed again. But I never lost my love for fried chicken. My mom took it upon herself to teach me well that I can’t continue to eat fried chicken two or three times a week if I wanted to live to see the next century. So nowadays, I try to keep my fried chicken consumption down to that Thai fried chicken that Melissa cooks when the mood strikes her.
Still, I cannot resist good old soul food style fried chicken every once in a while. I’ve been known to stop at Popeye’s from time to time (a step up from Roy’s, I believe). And, as I say, people tend to tell me where to get fried chicken without my asking. After I cross the Manhattan Bridge, I keep getting told to go to Ruthie’s Restaurant a couple blocks east of the Fulton Street Mall in Downtown Brooklyn. Not only did I get multiple recommendations from my fares, but the great Robert Seitsema of the Village Voice gave Ruthie’s a favorable nod as well.
Our friends Mark and Jack, who like to squeeze into our tiny apartment whenever Melissa is frying chicken, came along for the Ruthie’s run when they heard Melissa wouldn’t be cooking. We were immediately welcomed with open arms and friendly smiles by everyone from the counter girl to the waiter to Ruthie herself as she did the cooking in the back. We all felt right at home. And when the food came, we were feeling even better.
The chicken looked perfect. But it was too hot to eat, having just come out of the oil. It was practically still snapping and popping like it was in the pan. So we dug into the sides. PHENOMENAL. EVERY ONE OF THEM. The mac n’ cheese was cheesy and crispy just like i like it. The collard greens were flavored with bits of smoked turkey which made the vegetable as tasty as a good plate of meat. The black-eyed peas were delicious as well, exuding an almost pickled aroma. And the candied yams were better than any I’ve had during my 26 Thanksgiving dinners.
Finally, the chicken had cooled down enough to tear into without giving ourselves second degree burns. It was everything we hoped it would be. The skin was crispy and bursting with flavor. And the meat, even the white meat, was tender and juicy. I want to make clear that I still prefer Melissa’s Thai fried chicken, but I could see myself getting back into my Roy-Rogers-8-years-old-selling-baseball-cards-to-eat mode with Ruthie’s.
After all that, dessert didn’t disappoint. The red velvet cake might have been a little dry, but the sweet potato pie made up for it and more. I didn’t think anything could be sweeter than those candied yams, but this pie took the cake. The crust tasted homemade and buttery, and the filling was silky smooth and sweet like Melissa. Mark modeled it for me:
Even though we felt like we were at home, I have to say that eating at Ruthie’s isn’t quite as comfortable as actually eating at home. Her food is so good, it attracts everyone to her door, including the local junkies. As we ate, the man pictured here hovered in the doorway begging for some collard greens:
He wasn’t so much begging for them like a homeless person on the street would, but he was begging for them like a child would from his mother. They are that good. When he got to his feet, he stood in the doorway pleading with Ruthie, “Just a little a your greens Rootie. Pleeeeease. Just a little Rootie.” He seemed to know her.
One of the things I love about that woman is that she didn’t just say, “Get the hell outta here” like most owners would. She told him, “Don’t come here LIKE THIS. Don’t disrespect my place.” She wasn’t saying he could never have her collard greens. That would be cruel. Her greens are the stuff of life. She was just saying that he couldn’t have them “like this.”
Finally, he proved to be too much, and she took it upon herself to kick him to the curb. Take a look at this video (no sound necessary because you can’t understand what the junkie is saying), and watch closely at the end as Ruthie comes to our rescue: Ruthie To The Rescue On Youtube
Don’t tell my mom, but I think I might start eating more fried chicken.
Ruthie’s Restaurant, 96 DeKalb, Downtown Brooklyn/Fort Greene
Visit www.FAMOUSFATDAVE.com for five borough eating tours
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10.18.06
Posted in Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tours at 3:58 am by Administrator
Starving for Famous Fat Dave? Hungry for pickles? Grumbling for more Hungry Cabbie? Read an interview in the Village Voice’s Best of NYC edition. And come back tomorrow, because I promise to have a fresh post for you to read full of pictures and fried chicken and a video and the always crowd-pleasing shirtless junkie falling asleep standing up.
“Best of NYC: People We Love” Interview internet link
And if you didn’t pick up the hard copy off the street, take a look at it in my “Dave In The Press” section. The picture is comically huge.
“Best Of NYC: The People Who Make New York Fabulous” Interview newspaper spread
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10.11.06
Posted in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Chinese, Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tours, Jewish, La Pizza, Latino, Lower East Side, Manhattan, Pickles, Red Hook, Sandwiches, Sheepshead Bay, Sweets, There's A Beverage Here Man at 8:01 am by Administrator
I hear YouTube.Com just changed hands for a billion and half dollars. I’m betting that at least a buck of that was because I posted a 17-minute Famous Fat Dave’s Faves Tour this summer. Even though we shot it in my Maxima rather than a yellow cab and we only hit two boroughs, you’ll get a pretty good feel for how a Famous Fat Dave tour goes down.
Josh Ozersky, also known as Mr. Cutlets, listed the clip as one of “America’s Amusingest Food Videos” in New York Magazine’s Grub Street. My cousin, Jeremy Weinstein, also known as Joe Hollywood, edited it, and rumors are already flying about a long-awaited nod from the Academy for his work.
Click Here For The Famous Fat Dave’s Faves Five Borough Eating Tour On YouTube
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