06.21.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Clinton Hill, Latino at 5:11 am by Administrator
I’m totally down with Mexicans. I always have been, even before it was a hot button issue. My best friend in third grade was Gustavo Gonzales. And my best friend in fourth grade was Felipe Gonzales (no relation).
When I worked at Murray’s Cheese Shop, I didn’t get along with every other cheesemonger, but I made fast friends with all of the Mexicans. I’d try to speak with them as much as possible to pick up the slang. And I talked so much baseball with them in my broken Spanish that they stopped calling me “Mr. David” and bestowed the honorary nickname of “Mr. David Ortiz” upon me.
I think because I was openly friendly with the Mexicans, I was treated like one of them by the management, and I eventually left because I felt I wasn’t respected there. But before I went, I tried to organize a union as we stood around the lockers nightly.
I thought my efforts were going unappreciated (probably because they couldn’t understand my Spanish) until one day while I was stocking a cracker shelf. Cristo, one of my closest friends at Murray’s, saddled up next to me and pretended to front some items so as not to draw the ire of the watchful and vengeful manager. Cristo, who is from Puebla, shot me a sideways glance and whispered, “Hijos del maize (children of the corn). . . Viva la revolucion.” I smiled at him and nodded vigorously. As he walked off with his arms full of Pecorino Romano he barked, “VIVA EL CHE!!!”
(Mi amigo Carlos who taught me to say “Que Pasa Con La Rasa” posing proudly with some cheese)
My heart was swollen with proletarian pride. After that, even the quiet Mexican from Chiapas would smile at me every time he passed, sometimes raising a fist, and occasionally murmuring, “Viva Commandante Marcos.” Even with all the revolutionary sentiment I’d stirred up, I didn’t manage to organize a union, though one surely was needed.
Oddly, I’ve never met a Mexican yellow cab driver (another group of immigrants who would do well to form a union). I’ve met immigrants from pretty much every other country on earth who drive yellow cabs. And I’m sure there are Mexican cabbies. There must be. I’ve just never met one.
The result is that I have no reliable source for Mexican food recommendations in New York City (Murray’s Mexicans all ate at home). I’ve asked my Mexican fares, but I’ve never found a Mexican restaurant with tacos or burritos that compares to what I’ve eaten in California . . . until yesterday.
My friend Mark (not a Mexican, but he is fluent in Spanish after living in Argentina for a few months) urged me to visit a place near his Clinton Hill apartment called Castro’s. Mark, a very talented musician who just finished a great album all about apples, knows his burritos. He swears by Castro’s, and now I do too.
The burritos at Castro’s are gigantic. They are probably larger than the ones I found in the Mission District (unless my memory has faded), and certainly larger than the ones I found in East L.A. and San Diego. The innards are full of fresh veggies, fluffy rice, wet black beans, and succulent meat. They serve a generous portion of guacamole, salsa, and spicy green sauce on the side so that each bite can be custom flavored.
The highlight of the Castro’s burrito is the tortilla. They do a sort of toasting of the entire burrito once it is contructed. The burritos are placed onto a tray, lifted upwards, and pressed against the roof of the oven. A small brown spot appears on the top of each burrito where it touched the metal, and the texture of the tortilla comes out varied from crispy to chewy depending on how close it was the roof or the tray. Every bite is a unique taste sensation.
(One of the burrito’s broke apart before it was half eaten, but Mark claims that this was a first)
I’m not saying Castro’s burrito is the same as an authentic California burrito. I’m saying a comparable wave of ecstasy washed over me as I ate it. It made my shoulders relax, my mind expand, and my belly widen. And, as always, I was totally down with the Mexicans.
Castro’s, Myrtle Ave btwn Ryerson and Gran, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
Visit www.famousfatdave.com for a good time or to book an eating tour
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06.17.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Meats, Posts For Gothamist, Red Hook, Sandwiches at 3:00 pm by Administrator
A place has got to be really bad, if I’m going to bother panning it. Hope and Anchor was that bad. Disappointment and sorrow abound in today’s Gothamist column at:
http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/06/17/the_hungry_cabb_5.php
Visit www.famousfatdave.com to book an eating tour on which we will not eat at Hope and Anchor
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06.12.06
Posted in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tours, Flushing, Gravesend, Japanese, Jewish, Korean, La Pizza, Manhattan, Middle Eastern, Pickles, Sandwiches, Sheepshead Bay, Upper West Side at 6:19 am by Administrator
David Wain and Ken Marino of The State went on a Famous Fat Dave’s Midnight Munchies Tour last week for a www.gawker.com story. I cannot express to you how overjoyed I was that I had, in my cab, the man who said, “I got soooooome babaGANOSH!!!” and the man who responded, “I wanna dip my BALLLLLLLLLLS IN IT.” Coolest thing ever.
The direct link is: http://www.gawker.com/news/gawker-walker/gawker-walker-midnight-munchies-with-famous-fat-dave-179379.php
(Famous Fat Dave never looked so fat or so famous)
(David Wain rarely smiles, but I assure he loved the bulgogi)
(Ken Marino, next to the cab parked on Avenue T, expressed his feelings on the adventure)
Visit www.famousfatdave.com to take virtual eating tours without comic geniuses
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06.10.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Posts For Gothamist, Red Hook, Sweets at 12:36 pm by Administrator
Lady Liberty keeps her eye squarely on Red Hook. And she’s getting a hankering for a key lime piesicle. Read today’s column in www.gothamist.com. The direct link:
http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/06/10/the_hungry_cabb_3.php
Visit www.famousfatdave.com to save your eternal soul.
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06.08.06
Posted in Boreum Hill, Brooklyn, Posts For Gothamist, Sandwiches at 2:23 pm by Administrator
Celebrate late night indigestion with me at a (not too) greasy spoon on Smith Street in today’s edition of The Hungry Cabbie Eats The Outer Boroughs in www.gothamist.com. Even some of those brutally honest gothamist commenters were impressed. The direct link is:
http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/06/08/the_hungry_cabb_2.php
Visit www.famousfatdave.com for a laugh or to book an eating tour
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06.05.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Latino, Park Slope at 9:13 am by Administrator
When I started driving a yellow cab nearly 5 years ago, I said I’d never get jaded and cynical like so many other cabbies seem to be. I promised myself I’d approach every shift with the open minded enthusiasm that I had on my first day. I never wanted to hear myself say something ridiculous like, “I’ve heard it all before.”
But I’ve driven in about a hundred thousand circles around this city so far, and I have to tell you: I’ve heard it all before. On my very first night shift, I stopped for a man on Mulberry Street with one arm around his girlfriend and the other hailing me madly. He had apparently just popped the question, and as soon as I hit the meter the blushing bride-to-be moaned, “This dick for the rest of my life. . . THIS DICK.” Then her head disappeared into his lap for rest of the two minute fare.
And I was a hack for less than a year before I witnessed a man scream “Sieg Heil,” make the nazi salute, and take a bite off a woman’s collar bone. Her response, once she’d put a safe distance between her and him, was to point to her bloody wound and yell, “You goin’ down cuz I got the forensic evidence right here.”
Soon thereafter I listened as a worried frat boy confided in me that he’d slept with his paraplegic roommate without a condom. Just his luck, she told him later that she had HIV. The real kick in the ass was that she’d contracted HIV from his own brother who’d secretly slept with her during the frat boy’s birthday party. Could anything top meeting a guy who just found out that, first of all, his brother had HIV, and, second of all, he might have contracted it too, indirectly, from his own flesh and blood?
What I’m trying to say is, no matter what I try to force my attitude to be, my jaw rarely drops these days. But last week I took a British woman to her brownstone on President Street in Park Slope. It was the day I’d gone to the JFK central taxi hold and played my first ever game of cricket, so I was excited to tell a real Brit about my recent cultural exchange.
The conversation turned to real estate when I asked her why she’d left London. She told me she couldn’t afford to buy a house there, but a year and a half ago, she bought her brownstone in Park Slope with money to spare. I asked how much she had paid, and she responded only with a cryptic remark that her Brooklyn house would be worth 6 million dollars if it were in London.
Then she managed to make my jaw drop. She told me that the value on her brownstone had increased by a full 100 percent in the last year and a half alone. I’ve been hearing that the bubble is about to burst since Clinton was in office , but, evidently, it hasn’t even started in Brooklyn. I was truly shocked. I’d been saving up to buy my own place in Brooklyn, but now I guess my money isn’t good enough. So I suppose I’ll be investing it all in that 1934 Goudy Gum “Lou Gehrig says” series Lou Gehrig card I’ve wanted my whole life:
(Actually I haven’t saved enough money for this yet either)
With real estate prices ballooning out of control like that, I’m sure it will have dire consequences on cheap eats in that neighborhood. So this weekend, I decided to meet my friend Bryant, who lives in Park Slope, at the inexpensive Mexican joint he’d been telling me about for months.
It is called Cafe Mexicano, and Bryant, along with every fare I take to that part of Park Slope, raves about the $2 tamales. I figured I’d better try them before a rent hike puts the place out of business.
Cafe Mexicano is exactly the type of eatery I would love. Comically tiny (that might help with rent), reasonably priced, and run by friendly people who mix Spanish words into their English sentences. I did not, however, love driving through a biblical downpour and hellish traffic to find that they were completely out of tamales.
I should have ordered the tacos, since they looked delicious and Bryant said they are the second best thing on the menu. My friend Andrew, who I brought with me across the bridge, did order them, and he seemed quite happy:
But I, stupidly, took the advice of the white girl at the other table (there are only 2 tables inside) and ordered chilaquiles. It sounded wonderful: a bowl full of “crunchy” tortilla chips, shredded chicken, salsa verde, sour cream, cotija cheese, red onion, and avocados. And had the menu not claimed the tortilla chips would be “crunchy,” I might not have been disappointed. But they were anything but “crunchy” (how could they possibly survive all that), and so I was disappointed.
And I was also disappointed with the grilled corn rolled in cotija, chili powder, and mayo. Andrew and I could have walked just one block from his house to Cafe Habana on Elizabeth Street for the same treat with ten times the flavor (and ten times the wait).
(This Mexican corn looks exactly like the Cuban incarnation at Cafe Habana)
Really, I’m mostly mad at myself for ordering poorly. So I plan to return to Cafe Mexicano in the very near future. Hopefully I’ll have better luck. But if they keep running out of tamales, they won’t be around long enough to see their rent double.
Cafe Mexicano, Union Street btwn 4th Ave and 5th Ave, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Visit www.famousfatdave.com for a laugh or to book a five borough eating tour
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05.19.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Coney Island, Hot Dogs, New Jersey at 9:58 am by Administrator
A lot of people, I am told, apply for good jobs when they graduate from college. They enter the work force swinging, and they don’t stop until they’ve retired to that beach house or country home 50 years later. A lot of people, my parents often tell me, keep their eyes on the prize so they can land that six figure salary and send their own kids to college.
My parents dropped a cool hundred grand on my four years at NYU. And when I graduated, I wasted no time. The ink on my degree wasn’t dry yet, and I filled out my very first job application. I drove down to Coney Island, walked up to the first cashier I saw at Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, and demanded an application and a hot dog with sour kraut and onions.
I neglected to mention my college degree to them. I also neglected to mention that I planned to triple the value of my hourly wage by consuming enough hot dogs to train for the International Hot Dog Eating Contest like Badlands Booker. Yet the manager looked at me like I was crazy and told me he’d get back to me. I called every day for weeks until I was finally informed that I was “overqualified.” I didn’t feel overqualified, and I was heartbroken.
(The true king of the open mouthed photo op and a personal hero of mine: Badlands Booker)
You have to understand, I am the type of person who stops for a hot dog on his way to eat ribs. I’ve based my entire philosphy of cab-driving on a chance encounter I had with a Chicago cabbie who pulled off the highway to get a Super Dog with me on the way to O’Hare.
Hot dogs, I must say, are one of my great passions. I consider it one of my worthiest accomplishments in life that it was my grilled hot dog during my bbq at my bungalow in Rockaway that was the first bit of meat my vegetarian friend Mark ate in close to a decade. “Is this a really, really good hot dog Dave? Or is this just what they taste like?” he asked, wide-eyed. I just smiled. Within days, he was eating multiple hot dogs per week, he was the star of the annual 7th Street Community Garden Pulled Pork Party, and he eventually moved to Argentina in part to partake of their bountiful and inexpensive steak.
During a stormy evening in Chicago a few years back, I was so overcome with the excitement of a coming hot dog run to Big Herm’s Hot Dog Palace that I decided to race the car to the store for the last long block. I was in the throws of a folk hero phase at the time and felt like the John Henry of the North Side that night. I jumped out of the car in the pouring rain and kept up for (as I recall) quite a while until my brother and cousins left me in the dust. The whole while I sang: “Big Davey when he was a babyyyy, settin on his mammy’s knee, picked up a hot dog in his little right hand, said this’ll be the death of me me meee, yes this’ll be the death of meeee.” As I ate that dog that night dripping wet, I felt I had become a sort of folk hero myself.
And I think I was right about it being the death of me. A couple of summers ago, I finally landed a job selling Nathan’s hot dogs in Coney Island. I worked as a vendor in the stands at the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league ball park. The Cyclones were not good that year, and crowds were sparse. That was not good for business (I’d take home $25 on a good night), but it was even worse for my diet. Since I got to keep the hot dogs I didn’t manage to sell, and the longer the season dragged on the more hot dogs I took home to my endless bbq, I realized almost too late that I was edging perilously close to actually becoming Ignatius J. Reilly. Ironically, since I had a rockin tan from living on the beach that summer, people kept telling me that I looked marvelous (tans have a slimming effect). I could honestly tell people, “Thank you, I’m on a hot dog diet.”
(Crucified by my own gluttony at Nathan’s Famous)
So when I saw A Hot Dog Program on PBS a few weeks ago documenting the nation’s best hot dogs, I was chomping at the bit. I’ve lived in New York for close to a decade, but I’d never heard of Rutt’s Hut just across the Hudson River in New Jersey. At Rutt’s Hut, they deep fry their hot dogs which burst open in the oil, and they serve them with a homemade relish that you can spread directly into the gaping wounds in the extra crispy dog. They are called “rippers,” and I had never conceived of something so enticing in my entire life of excess and gluttony.
Yesterday I made it out there at the beginning of a brief road trip I’m making down the eastern seaboard. I got lost and had to ask directions at an ice cream parlor. The girl there told me the deep fried hot dogs were “kind of gross,” but I paid her no mind.
When I arrived, I ordered myself “a hot dog,” too whimpy and out of my element to confidently ask for a “ripper.” What I got looked just like what I’d seen on the documentary:
My first, ravenous bite after so much anticipation and hullabaloo might be most appropriately described as the biggest disappointment I’ve had the displeasure to experience since the Yankees choked and then choked and then choked and then choked again in the 2004 American League Championship Series.
The skin looked the part, but it was almost rubbery. The relish was lacking something (I think it was the flavor of pickles). The meat inside had shrunken and shriveled and retreated from the lackluster casing. And the dog had not one bit of snap to it.
(This candid, greasy-mouthed shot of me eyeing the ripper says it all)
I marched back up to the counter, having heard one hefty local order a ”ripper” (or three) loud and clear. I asked for one “ripper” and was met with the same sad dog. I hung my head. I’d been duped.
As a consequence my faith in PBS has been shaken at its very core. How can I ever trust Public Broadcasting again, or, for that matter, any other grand public institution (regardless of the systemic corruption and cronyism). I let my belly down, so I’m going to blame some of the people in this room – and then I do not forgive. The next hot dog I eat, I assure you, will be from a place good enough to work for.
Nathan’s Famous, 1310 Surf Avenue, Coney Island, Brooklyn
Rutt’s Hut, 417 River Road, Clifton, New Jersey
Go to www.famousfatdave.com for a laugh or to book an eating tour
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05.08.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Fruits and Veggies, Pickles at 4:49 am by Administrator
Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong decade. I would have loved to have been around during the 20s and 30s. It seems like that lifestyle would have been right up my alley. I’ve spent my last few years trying to capture a little of that old timey feeling, working the streets as a yellow cabbie and the sidewalk as a pickle man. My jobs are very unusual for a twenty-something Jew these days, but they would have been quite common for my demographic during that straw hat era.
I’ve heard that you used to be able to walk down the street in New York and not miss one pitch of the Yankee game, because every window was open (I admit I would not have been happy without air conditioning) and everyone was listening on the radio. I like using old fashioned sayings like “What the blazes” and “Get on the trolley.” I would have loved to hang out at any speakeasy, but I’ve never even considered going to The Crowbar or PM or Lotus. And people used to eat pickles because they were delicious and plentiful, not because they were nostalgic or kitschy.
This weekend, I witnessed something I can describe only as heartening. A brand new Brooklyn pickle company, Wheelhouse Pickles, was born. They threw a launch party at Freddy’s Back Room, an old speakeasy that is slated to be torn down to make way for Ratner’s Nets Stadium. One of my fares gave me flyer with a picture of smiling, buck-toothed pickle strapped to a rocket being launching skyward. The rumour was that they were going to actually launch an actual pickle via fireworks. Lured by promises of free beer, free gin, free music, and free pickles, I couldn’t resist. “COME FOR THE PICKLES, STAY FOR THE PICKLES,” the flyer boasted. Right up my alley.
When I arrived at Freddy’s I was astonished to find a full fledged party in progress. The back room was jam-packed, the bar up front was overloaded, and people were spilling out into the streets. Everyone was smiling, alcohol was flowing, and dancing was breaking out. A live jug band, The Flanks, was playing some great old-timey music with a stand-up bass, a fiddle, a guitar, a banjo, a harmonica, and, I think I heard at one point, a kazoo.
The star of the party, however, was the free pickles. Trays of sliced pickles made the rounds through the sweaty room, and the revelers enthusiastically stabbed at the samples with tooth picks. I heard one overwhelmed man holding an empty tray high above his head as he tried to make his way back to the kitchen say to no one in particular, “The kids love the pickled beets.”
(The mob scene at a pickle tray)
But that was not all they loved. The pickled okra was a particular success, along with the pickled pears, pickled wax beans, and bread and butter pickled cucumbers. Every kind of pickle I tried had a nice blend of sweetness and crunch along with a spicy kick on the aftertaste. The sour pickles didn’t compare with the traditional lower east side variety, but they were still tasty.
One of the people passing around the pickle hors d’oeuvres shouted me a brief story about the company being born out of the necessity to preserve the pears near the owner’s grandmother’s country house upstate lest they rot on the topsoil. And I must say, the pickles tasted very country. Bread and butter pickles are not New York pickles. When I worked at Guss Pickles on the lower east side and people asked me for sweet pickles, I’d tell them to go to Georgia.
Well, now I guess they can just order from Wheelhouse Pickles (not for another week). As for me, I spent a good deal of time at the merch table of my dreams:
And I ended up taking home a jar of pickled cucumbers in champagne vinegar which I’ve already polished off:
(as a former pickle man who takes pride in his craft, it is nice to see that Wheelhouse packs their jars full and tight)
I was smiling from ear to ear the entire time I was at the launch party. It truly made my heart swell to see so many people thoroughly enjoying pickles without a hint of irony in their eyes. Everyone was there and everyone was happy because everyone likes pickles. It was a great time, and it made me feel a little more at home in this century.
(You can’t get more up my alley than a Taxi Driver/ Pickle reference)
Wheelhouse Pickles, Only online at http://www.wheelhousepickles.com
Freddy’s Back Room, Dean Street and 6th Avenue, Downtown Brooklyn
Guss Pickles, Orchard St btwn Broome and Grand, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Read an article I wrote about pickles on Ludlow Street a century ago in L Magazine in the “Published Food Writing” section of the Famous Fat Dave’s Five Borough Eating Tour website
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