Famous Fat Dave: The Hungry Cabbie

You’ve got to understand something. I’m not a cab driver. I’m just a guy who drives a cab.

If I were a cab driver - one like most of those guys you find behind the wheel when you open the door to your yellow chariot in New York - I’d be working six days a week. So I’d have many more stories with which to update this blog.

Have you ever gotten into a cab and it smelled AWFUL, like the cabbie has been living in there? Well it’s because the cabbie has been living in there. Cabbies can make the most money by leasing the car for the whole week and just driving 18 or 19 hours a day. I’ve never done that, but I’ve considered it. I did try a 24 hour shift once but a little over half way through I realized those hours didn’t agree with my constitution. I managed to enjoy taking 5 or 6 lunch breaks on that shift before I quit around hour 20.

If I were an average New York cab driver, I’d have a family to support, maybe in Jackson Heights. And I’d have an extended family to support, maybe in Karachi. But I’m just a guy who drives a cab. I have just myself to support, so I drive only when I am broke, or I need money to pay the rent. If you want to sit there outside your building telling me about your favorite soup dumplings in Queens, I’m all ears. Try to do that with a real cab driver. He’d act like you’re taking food out his children’s mouths. Because time is money, and when you have people who depend on you, you’re not doing this job for fun.

If I had to drive for a living, I’d probably not be in a chipper mood chatting you up about the food in your neighborhood anyway. I’d probably be on my hands free device all the time (which are illegal for yellow cab drivers to use, so if you want your cabbie to stop talking on his, he should stop- but first ask yourself why you find it so annoying. Is it because the sound of a language you can’t understand bothers you? If that’s why, then maybe you ought not live in a city in which most of the residents weren’t even born in America). And on my hands-free, I wouldn’t be talking to my friends about where everyone is hanging out tonight, I’d be talking to other cab drivers who speak my language about which bridges are jammed, what avenues are open, which airports need cabs. I’d be working.

But I’m just a guy who drives a cab. I drive when I feel like driving. I used to drive more than I do now. But it’s a terrible job. I’ve been robbed. I’ve been attacked by a junkie. They told us in Taxi Academy that driving a cab is the second most dangerous job in America aside from being a deep sea fisherman off the coast of Alaska (I never looked it up, I could just feel in my gut that it’s true).

There is a reason that it’s only immigrants who usually do this job. The muscles in your back and legs stiffen and knot as you sit for 12 hours at a time. And there are no health benefits for cab drivers. When you have to go to the chiropractor after twenty years on the road, take a guess who pays for that.

The old timers tell me that there used to be a union, but the only thing it did for drivers was if you had a flat or broke down and you couldn’t work for a minimum of three hours, you’d get $5. Now, the Taxi Workers Alliance speaks on behalf of cabbies, but I’ve never witnessed them achieve anything significant either. They were against the GPS system being put into cabs. But all cabs have to have GPS by October.

I haven’t driven a cab in well over a month now. And I’m so happy about it. I haven’t had to scarf down my meals in five minutes so I could get back on the road to try to scratch out a profit on the night.

To me, that is one of the defining differences between people who are cab drivers and guys who drives cabs. Cab drivers always have to eat and run (not to mention pee and run) because every minute spent lingering over a meal is a minute not making money. Guys who drive cabs every once in a while have the luxury of eating like a European.

My new favorite place to kick back and enjoy a meal like a man who has no place to be (or a European who has nothing to do but eat dinner for three hours) is Palma on Cornelia Street. I’d eaten lunch there on a number of occasions and enjoyed the homemade gnocchi with ricotta salata, an inexpensive, fresh-tasting rindless cheese which happens to be one of my all time favorites from my days working at Murray’s just a few steps away from Palma.

And the green cerignola olives that arrive at the table just after you’ve been seated might be the most perfect olive I’ve ever eaten. They’re firm, yet it’s easy to pull the meat off the it. I usually ask for seconds and thirds on my olives until the waiter makes fun of me (although he always brings me more).

But when I went for dinner for my first time a couple months ago, right about the time I starting really slacking off on driving the yellow cab, I found that they serve linguine with clam sauce on the dinner menu.

Now, I love linguine with clam sauce. Rather, I LOOOOOVE linguine with clam sauce. It’s the first thing I order at any Italian restaurant. I’ve lived in Italy. I’ve lived in Italian neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan. I’ve eaten more linguine with clam sauce than a lot of native Italians have (I’d like to imagine). And Palma’s linguine with clam sauce ranks as some of the best I’ve ever had. Top three maybe.

I’ve eaten it about five times now, and every time the linguine is boiled perfectly al dente, the clams are plump and fresh, and the sauce is light and delicious.

Last time I ate there I never felt less like a cabbie. I spent hours relaxing and eating. I lingered over my espresso.

While I sucked on my sugar stick like a lollipop, I gawked at Tom Brady and Gisele as they dined next to us (Melissa’s email to Page Six is quoted word for word here). You could see Gisele’s ribs through the back of her shirt, but I think she was eating. Apparently, she’s known as one of the bigger models, but she looked half dead.

The waiter/manager, who’d noticed how many times I’d shown up and ordered linguine with clam sauce in the past few weeks, was starting to think of me as a regular I suppose. So we chatted as I was on my way out of the garden in the back. “What do you do?” he asked. “I do eating tours . . . And I write . . . And I’m going to grad school,” I told him. “. . . Oh! And I’m a guy who drives a cab.”

Palma, Cornelia Street Between 6th Ave and Bleecker, West Village

Visit FamousFatDave.com for fun and food tourism

“If you will it, it is no dream.” Theodore Herzl. State of Israel. If you will it, Nigiri, it is no dream.

And that is precisely what Nigiri did. He willed it. His eyes, just moments before glazed over and drooping nearly shut, lit up. His posture improved. His upper lip literally stiffened. And he began to eat once again.

“Did I blow it?” The Big Vashinsky mumbled as he bit off half a yellow tail. I studied my cell phone’s stop watch. It had been more than a minute. Jack counted the pieces remaining on the plate. It was still possible to break the record. Because he started out so strong, because he downed about 30 pieces in the first seven or eight minutes alone, Nigiri still had an outside shot.

“No, you can still do it,” Jack told him as he rubbed his shoulders like a prize fighter between rounds. And so Nigiri ate. And ate. And ate. He’d hit his brick wall, and he’d smashed through it. True, he’d come out slower on the other side, but he was still downing pieces, one after the other. No time for chop sticks. No room for soy sauce. Nigiri was running on pure will power.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a problem arose. The buzzer that George the sushi chef and the waitress brought out was running fast. Compared with the stopwatch on my cell phone, it was a good two minutes off. This could pose a problem. Do we contest the clock during the heat of competition? That might break Nigiri’s concentration. And even if we did challenge the false clock, we still might end up like the American basketball team of the 1972 Olympics (not to compare Yummy Village to the Evil Empire).

Jack made the decision: don’t let our champ know. Just tell him to keep eating and have him beat the official clock.

The water, which was just a luxury at the start, became a necessity between each bite. The remaining pieces, which ranged from average to slightly larger than average, looked gigantic even to me. And then came the final thirty seconds:

VIDEO OF THE PANDEMONIUM (with an unfortunate audio delay I cannot fix)

With no time left on the clock (yet just over 2 minutes on my clock) Nigiri did it. He swallowed the last piece as the clock hit the buzzer. Pandemonium broke out at Yummy Village.

I couldn’t believe what my eyes were telling me. It was the most impressive thing I have ever witnessed. No, I ain’t never seen no queen in her damn undies. But I have seen the Sistine Chapel. And I have seen the great pyramids at Giza. And I have seen the 1998 Yankees. And I have even seen Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi eat a similar number of hot dogs in just 12 minutes.

But The Big Vashinsky is not a professional. Yummy Village, though it should be, is not on the competitive eating circuit. What Nigiri did that night was something no one could ever take away from him, even if his record falls which, like sands through the hour glass, it surely will. Takeru, a Japanese man, came from Japan to eat a record amount of the ultimate American food- hot dogs- in Nigiri’s neigborhood. And now Nigiri, a Brooklynite, comes to Manhattan to eat a record amount of the ultimate Japanese food. The irony should not be lost.

Nigiri faced a Wall of Fame full of dozens of challengers, some losers, some champions, and he defeated each and every one of them by sheer force of will.

VIDEO OF THE WALL OF FAME

He did not come out of it unfazed. After achieving his sushi immortality, he stumbled out onto MacDougal Street and tried to throw up (I told you I refuse to sugar-coat what we’re really dealing with here). But he couldn’t. It was as though he stomach was saying to him, “NO! We’ve come this far, we won’t lose our honor now.” When he returned from the frigid lower Manhattan elements, he couldn’t get warm for ten minutes. Clearly, all of Nigiri’s blood was in his belly.

During the ceremonial pinning up of the Polaroid, he was still in extraordinary pain.

VIDEO OF THE PIN UP

But even after all that, Nigiri abides.

Nigiri abides. I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that. It’s good knowin’ he’s out there, Nigiri, takin’ her easy for all us sinners.

PART II OF THIS TALE IS ALSO PUBLISHED ON SUPERSIZED MEALS DOT COM,THE DIRCET LINK IS HERE

YUMMY VILLAGE SUSHI IS LOCATED ON MACDOUGAL STREET BTWN BLEECKER AND MINETTA LANE IN THE WEST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN

“A way back east there was a fella. Fella I want to tell you about. Fella by the name of Gary Vashinsky. At least, that’s the handle his lovin’ parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Vashinsky, he called himself “Nigiri.” Now, Nigiri, that’s a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about Nigiri that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived likewise. But then again, maybe that’s why I found the place s’durned innarestin’.”

“They call New York the Big Apple. I didn’t find it to be that exactly, but I’ll allow as there are some big meals there. ‘Course, I can’t say I seen London, and I never been to France, and I ain’t never seen no queen in her damn undies as the fella says. But I’ll tell you what- after seeing New York and thisahere story I’m about to unfold–well, I guess I seen somethin’ ever’ bit as stupefyin’ as ya’d see in any a those other places, and in English too. So I can die with a smile on my face without feelin’ like the good Lord gypped me.”

“Now this story I’m about to unfold took place back in early February– just about the time of our conflict with Muqtada Al Sadr and the Eye-rackies. I only mention it ’cause sometimes there’s a man- I won’t say a hero, ’cause what’s a hero?- but sometime’s there’s a man.”

“And I’m talkin’ about Nigiri here. Sometimes there’s a man who, well, he’s the man for his time n’ place. He fits right in there- and that’s Nigiri, in New York City.”

“And even if he’s a lazy man, and Nigiri was certainly that- quite possibly the laziest in Kings County- which would place him high in the runnin’ for laziest worldwide. But sometimes there’s a man. . . Sometimes there’s a man.”

“Well, I lost m’train of thought here. But - aw hell, I done innerduced him enough.”

Yes, this Big Vashinsky is the very same man I profiled a few months back during my all-you-can-eat sushi in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn expose. So it is not surprising, with all of those untold hours of training under his belt, that he felt it possible to take down a sushi-eating record here in Manhattan. It’s called the Yummy Village Sushi Challenge. Eat one more piece than anyone ever has within 20 minutes, and the meal, now valued at somewhere around $150 depending on what’s ordered, is free.

Last week, during Nigiri’s birthday celebration, well after 3 in the morning, the Big Vashinsky decided to go for the gold. The previous record: FIFTY TWO PIECES. But for a guy whose nickname (rarely employed, I admit) IS Nigiri, for a guy who comes from a neighborhood in which all-you-can-eat sushi has gone from craze to way of life, for a guy who never says never, FIFTY THREE nigiri in 20 minutes seemed, somehow, within reach.

And so, with his friends Jack, Melissa, and me to support him along with the waitress and George the sushi chef, he went for it. The support team was ideal. Jack, who recorded the Famous Fat Dave theme song while stuffing himself with sushi from this very Yummy Village, knows what makes The Big Vashinsky tick, and thus knows how to talk to the man even during the most trying of times. Melissa, who lives and dies for sushi and has eaten at Yummy Village late at night many times and so knew what best to order (7 eel, 20 yellow tail, and 26 of some of the tastiest salmon in town), has a calming effect on Nigiri like music on a savage beast. And I have a digital camera and a blog.

When the clocks started, Nigiri started off so furiously, within the first few minutes he put himself IN the game through sheer will power. Fifty three pieces in 20 minutes would not be easy. And most of the winners on the Wall Of Fame noted on their polaroids that they’d broken the record in far less than the alotted time. If The Big Vashinsky didn’t start off strong, there’d be no hope. And he was doing EXACTLY what he needed to do:

VIDEO OF THE FURIOUS PACE

The pace at which Nigiri began consuming nigiri was staggering. The concentration on his face was intense. The determination in his eyes was inspiring:

While Jack did most of the coaching, Melissa ate her own meal alongside Nigiri’s so as to make him feel like less of a spectacle:

But his concentration was so strong, I have the feeling that it wouldn’t have broken had he been under a spotlight in front of a stadium full of angry, drunken Sed Sux fans. He was a man on a mission.

Even George the sushi chef, who stood to lose quite a bit of money late on a random Tuesday night, was altruistically encouraging. Probably assuming that Nigiri would be no match for his Sushi Challenge, George was all smiles as he posed for a picture while the challenger pressed on behind him:

And when it came time (later) for Nigiri’s stomach to revolt against the unwelcome intrusion of raw fish and expanding white rice after much beer and whiskey during a part of the night when he is normally fast asleep, George told The Big Vashinsky he could stand up from the table (something George’s own printed rules forbade). George even encouraged him to do like Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi, the six time Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Champion who has never been beaten in competition with a human (a Kodiak bear once defeated him), and shimmy his belly loose:

VIDEO OF THE TAKERU SHIMMY

No folks, I’m not going to sugar coat this. The event was not a pretty sight. There was a moment somewhere around piece 29 when Nigiri nearly lost it. His cheeked puffed out. His eyes shut tight. His belly let out a great roar and a whine as if an ocean liner was capsizing on the high seas. He put his fist to his pursed lips. We all held our breath in fear and wonder. And then . . . with his fist still pressed to his lips . . . he gave a slow, authoritative wag of his index finger as if to say, “Fish, I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.” We were witnessing the event turn from something out of The Big Lebowski to something out of The Old Man And The Sea. It was now man versus nature.

Nigiri shot an angry glare at the sushi before him. With a flash of his eyes, I understood him to communicate with his adversary, “Fish, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?” And with a determined grunt, Nigiri picked up another piece of sushi and downed it in seconds.

Had he been looking at a copy of The Old Man And The Sea (like I am clearly doing now), I’m sure he would have said, “I think the great DiMaggio would be proud of me today.” Of course the great DiMaggio couldn’t be there that night, but Jack, his eating coach, was most certainly proud:

Now, George and the waitress began to watch in awe as Nigiri forged ahead. At this point, I think, they were starting to believe, as we all had from the start, that he might actually do this. Nigiri was, again, making rapid progress. And they were starting to sweat:

But then, suddenly and for no apparent reason aside from the obvious one, Nigiri couldn’t eat another bite. It was like watching a thoroughbred pull up lame. He’d reach for a piece, and then stop just short of picking it off his plate. Then he’d shake his head as if he didn’t understand what was wrong. I was reminded of the moment Bo Jackson crumbled to the turf upon trying to stand after sustaining the hip injury that ended his career.

VIDEO OF THE INTERNAL STRUGGLE

He’d been my friend for many years already. But the performance I witnessed in just those first 10 or 11 minutes made him my hero. I know I asked, “what’s a hero?” at the start of this piece. But this Big Vashinsky had become my personal hero regardless of whether he would go to finish his 53 pieces or not.

Like the kid who asked Shoeless Joe to “Say it ain’t so,” I asked Nigiri if could eat any more. He shook his head no. I shook my head no in response. I hung my head. My heart sank. I asked if he would mug for a photo while his body refused to cooperate with his heart. The pained image that my camera captured says it all:

But there was still time on the clock. . .

COME BACK NEXT WEEK TO FIND OUT IF NIGIRI CAN FINISH THOSE LAST FEW NIGIRI IN TIME

AND IN AN EFFORT TO ENSURE GARY VASHINSKY BECOMES THE FOLK HERO HE DESERVES TO BE, THIS STORY WILL BE POSTED SIMULTANEOUSLY ON AN AMAZING SITE KNOWN AS WWW.SUPERSIZEDMEALS.COM

THE DIRECT LINK TO PART I ON SUPERSIZEDMEALS.COM IS HERE

YUMMY VILLAGE SUSHI IS ON MACDOUGAL STREET BETWEEN BLEECKER AND WEST 3RD, WEST VILLAGE

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

If Virginia is for lovers and Maryland is for crabs, the Lower East Side is for smoked whitefish. But check out today’s Not For Tourists Guidebook New York page to learn where else one might find a niiiice smoked fish:

Lobster Place

Visit WWWDotFamousFatDaveDotCom for niiiice five borough eating tours

All-you-can-eat sushi makes some people nervous. But it just makes me excited. Check out the “Tracts” section of Not For Tourists Guidebook’s New York page for a long, sole-searching piece I wrote on a magical neighborhood deep in Brooklyn where all-you-can-eat sushi is a way of life:

Stuffed To The Gills: All-U-Can-Eat Sushi

(Gary: The man behind the fish)

Visit www.FamousFatDave.com to book an eating tour. May I suggest my own version of all-you-can-eat sushi: The Famous Fat Dave Sushi Bar Hop

Read today’s Not For Tourists Guidebook New York page for all sorts of noodle dishes:

Noodle Bar

Visit www.famousfatdave.com for all sorts of eating tours

I’m not talking about the Restaurant Row you went to with your parents before they took you to see Glengary Glen Ross.  Visit Not For Tourists Guidebook to read my piece on the downtown Restaurant Row at:

www.famousfatdave.com/FoodWriting/NFTCornelia.pdf

Visit www.famousfatdave.com for a laugh or to book a five borough eating tour