Famous Fat Dave: The Hungry Cabbie

You wouldn’t know it by looking at me, but I love salad. I enjoy it as an appetizer. I clean off my plate when it comes as a side. And, if it’s really tasty, I could be completely satisfied with salad as an entree.

However, meat, and plenty of it, is clearly what brings people to Coney Island Avenue and Avenue T. Sahara, which is open extremely late into the night, is packed every evening even though it is not cheap. Russians come up from Brighton Beach. Italians come over from Bensonhurst. Black cars parallel double park out front. The lot is usually full by dinner, and on the weekends Sahara is popular enough that they have to offer valet. Everybody in southern Brooklyn knows that Sahara is the place to go for a fix of tasty Turkish meat.

The mixed grill is nothing but winners. The plate is loaded down with shaved bits of meat off their lamb and beef “gyro,” crispy on one side, juicy on the other. The chicken kebab is grilled beautifully, leaving exactly the right parts charred and the right parts tender. And the lamb chop is delightfully greasy.

When I stop at Sahara on a tour, I usually show off Sahara’s shawarma (which they refer to as “gyro sandwich” even though they’re Turkish). Although the spacey grill man occasionally fills the pita with far too many vegetables on top so that the precious meat can’t be reached until after a few messy bites, I still consider it one of the best shawarmas in town.

So isn’t it ironic that Sahara serves my favorite salad on earth? It is called the Shepherd Salad, and it is genius in it’s simplicity. It consists of nothing more than cubed tomatoes and cucumbers along with some red onions and cilantro. The dressing, they tell me, is simply olive oil, salt, and vinegar. And it’s usually garnished with three or four black olives (unless you order it to go, in which case you get none, which is annoying). And every salad comes with soft, fluffy, chewy Turkish home bread that they bake there daily.

But I’m sure the main reason I’ve fallen so hard for Sahara’s Shepherd Salad is the cheese option. For an extra couple dollars, they’ll serve the salad with feta. This Turkish feta, however, is a creamier version than the crumbelievable Greek variety I’m used to. And, quite brilliantly, they SHAVE it rather than crumble it. The result is a salad with an even distribution of feta that makes every bite a sensation.

Yes, there is a giant, lit-up plastic gyro over the doorway. Yes, their slogan is “Let’s Meat At Sahara.” And, yes, I am, admittedly, an unreconstructed carnivore. But since I discovered Sahara’s Shepherd Salad, when I find myself on Coney Island Avenue, my mouth starts watering for salad.

As published in Gothamist.com

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As much as I like to pretend to act like one, I am no working class hero. True, I’ve done a number of blue collar jobs. But that hardly makes me a member of the proletariat. My mom was a teacher and is now a counselor. My dad was a professor, then a high level government official, and is now a lobbyist. And they paid for my undergraduate degree at NYU. No matter how long I drive a cab, I’ll never really be working class.

My dad, on the other hand, really did start out honest-to-goodness blue collar. His father ran a convenience store on the North Side of Chicago. My dad sold tube socks on the corner because he had to. I sold pickles on the sidewalk because it was my idea of a dream job. He drove a bus because it was a steady job. I drove a bread truck to get free, fresh rye bread. He sold lemonade at Wrigley Field and Comisky Park because that was how to make money at his age in Chicago. I sold hot dogs at the ball park in Coney Island because it was fun.

Although my dad successfully clawed his way out of the working class (he never imagined his second born would find it enthralling to claw back into it), the man can still enjoy blue collar cuisine. And I do believe that there is such a thing. I’ve never seen any other former Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Controls devour a Chicago hot dog or an Italian beef sandwich or a deep dish pie with as much pleasure and comfort as my dad does. It’s like watching an old teamster at a truck stop on Route 66. He is in his element. Even though he became a Republican and moved to Potomac, Maryland, he never forgot his working class roots.

And even though I could never pass myself off as anything close to a real blue collar guy, I’ve read that taste buds are genetic. And I’ve always loved to eat the working man’s lunch.

That’s probably a big part of the reason I fell in love with Defonte’s Sandwich Shop in Red Hook the moment I took my first bite of their signature sandwich. Homemade roast beef, fried eggplant, and fresh mozzarella on a big, long hero is exactly what my dad would have loved had he grown up in Brooklyn rather than Chicago. The sandwich is messy and gigantic, meant to satisfy your hunger quickly and your taste buds thoroughly without wasting time on presentation.

Defonte’s, at the edge of Red Hook near the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, has been serving the working class denizens of Red Hook since the days when the neighborhood was packed with longshoremen. When I went, there was a truck driver double parked outside chowing down on his roast beef sandwich before hitting the BQE. There were a couple contruction workers inside waiting in their hard hats for their orders to come up. And I know there was at least one cab driver in there. But that sandwich was so good I wouldn’t have been surprised to see an Under Secretary walk through the door.

379 Columbia Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn

As published in my weekly outer borough column in Gothamist.Com

And I give daily eating tours at FamousFatDave.Com

Last week, the New York Times quoted me about the new Grimaldi’s at Aviator as saying, “If it’s true that it’s Patsy Grimaldi doing it, then it’s going to be good.” I meant that. Grimaldi’s on Old Fulton Street is good. I don’t think it’s great. I certainly don’t think it’s worth waiting in line for.

(A fine looking pie in Floyd Bennett field, but it’s the taste that matters)

I took a tour out to the new Patsy’s at Floyd Bennett Field. Generally, I only go places that I’ve been to 1000 times. But I was confident Patsy’s would be good. And my customer’s were up for an expedition. The problem was, it wasn’t true that it’s Patsy Grimaldi doing it. We were met by a couple teenagers behind the counter. And the pizza? Read today’s Gothamist column:

Grimaldi’s At Aviator

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I’ve got a lot to say about pizza:

Lucali’s

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No matter how you feel about Junior’s cheesecake, you gotta believe you’ll love their fried chicken smothered in barbeque sauce. Visit Gothamist today and read my column on:

Junior’s

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Check Gothamist today for my column on Ali El-Sayed of Astoria, Queens. Be warned, he curses a lot, and I quote him a lot:

Kabab Cafe

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In today’s Gothamist post I take a tip from one of YOU, my beloved readers. The outcome is joyous:

Ba Xuyen

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