09.25.09
Posted in Jewish, Meats, On The Open Road, Sandwiches at 5:47 pm by Administrator
Let’s talk about beef. Pastrami to be specific.
Doesn’t that look delicious? Doesn’t that look ridiculously, mouth-wateringly, delicious? You’d think I was showing you a picture from some great New York deli. Or, I suppose, I’d think that.
But this isn’t that. This?!? This isn’t even American. It’s smoked meat. It’s viande fume. It’s Canadian. It’s from Montreal. And my world is shattered.
And it’s not even a super famous place. It’s from a local chain called Dunn’s that was started in 1927 and, according to the people I talked with, it’s average. “Used to be better,” people told me (they sounded like New Yorkers where everyone says everything “used to be better”). But I’m here to tell you. It was plenty good.
Then we went to Schwartz’s. . .
The moment I sunk my teeth into that smoked meat at Schwartz’s, I had to reevaluate my entire world view. Half the reason I live in New York City is for the pastrami. But when I tasted that viande fume, I realized I was living a lie. I thought you couldn’t get pastrami like New York’s anywhere else in the world. But it turns out, Schwartz’s smoked meat is, dare I say, TASTIER than any I’ve had in New York.
The cut at Schwartz’s is almost identical to the cut at Katz Deli. It’s a thick, rough hand-cut. And they’re both piled high. Although Katz’s pastrami IS juicier than Schwartz’s, Schwartz’s spice rub just has more flavor. There’s more to it. I have to admit it: it tastes better.
Even the pickle and slaw are as good as crack.
And not only that, but there seems to be MORE places in Montreal for good smoked meat than there are places in New York City for good pastrami. I couldn’t believe it.
Right across the street, the Main:
It’s open later than Schwartz’s and, although it’s not as good, it is legit. You can see them smoking the meat right there in the restaurant and then displaying it proudly in the window.
Again, I was a happy customer.
And we treked out to what felt like an outer borough of Montreal for Snowdon Deli. The smoked meat there was a little different. And much juicier. They serve “regular” and “old fashioned” and basically it’s just the difference between corned beef and pastrami in New York. Here they are side by side:
It is so juicy it tastes as if the meat had been dipped in au jus or something before hitting the rye bread. It makes for a super delicious riff on what I’d come to expect as a classic Montreal smoked meat sandwich. And at Snowdon, the kreplach soup on the side might even have outshown the sandwich. It tasted . . . cozy. It made me feel like I was curled up inside . . . a womb.
If I were an old Jewish man (which I pretty much am in my mind and pretty much will be in actuality very soon), and I had to pick a city – New York or Montreal – to live out my twighlight years enjoying Jewish comfort food, I might just have to pick Montreal. Hey, I’m as surprised as you are. But I was clearly wowed by the delis there.
One thing I AM secure about though, is that I’ll take a New York bagel over a Montreal bagel any day of the week. That IS a debate that people are having, and I was very excited to taste a Montreal bagel for myself. So we walked through the snow to St Viateur:
But one bite and I knew I was living in the right place for bagels. I respect Montreal bagels. I appreciate that they’re hand-made and all. But they’re sweet, almost like a cake. And they’re dinky (which the people in Montreal I spoke with thought was a good thing, and I can see how you wouldn’t want a big ass bready thing for breakfast) but I prefer my big New York bagels.
I’m not saying they weren’t good. They are. But they are no Ess A Bagel.
I had to try Fairmount too in the interest of fairness. But again, I was not impressed (with anything other than the old school sign).
And neither was Melissa:
Hopefully, I missed out on some great Montreal bagel that’s less famous but more scrumptious than these places. I’ll make sure to try again next time I’m in that great city. I’ll have plenty of time when I retire there.
Eat Your Way Through NYC On A Famous Fat Dave Five Borough Eating Tour
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02.05.08
Posted in New Jersey, Sandwiches at 5:11 pm by Administrator
Obama came to North Jersey yesterday to ask for my vote. Well, he wasn’t asking for my vote. He was asking for New Jersey votes. But he promised he’d end the war, end the mindset that got us into war, provide universal health care, fund schools, and put a chicken in every pot (he didn’t actually promise that last one). And he promised to do it by the end of his first term.
Maybe he can do it. Probably he can’t. But at least he’s saying he’ll give it a try which more than I can say for any other candidate.
The Kennedys were with him! Teddy and Caroline both. Plus Obama is a GREAT speaker, inspired and inspiring, so I ate up every word he said. And so did this little blonde boy, proving to me beyond a doubt that Obama is not just “the black candidate” like the Clinton campaign would have you think.
Obama was introduced at the Meadowlands by Travis Bickle himself (Robert DeNiro) so that was enough for me. That and the fact that Obama is “embarrassed” that we are even having a debate in this country about whether or not we should use torture. “Embarrassed” is the word I’ve been using this whole time.
But if I’m going to cross the river to the Jersey side, I’m not just going to attend a rally for a guy I decided to vote for six months ago. I’ve got to do some chowhounding. And if I’m going through the Lincoln Tunnel, Hoboken is the place to be.
The sign at the border of the city says “Birthplace of Frank Sinatra and Baseball.” So it must be one of the best places on earth. And my friend Adam Wade who works with me and my bro at NBC Sports did a hilarious video on a tuna and mozzarella sandwich at Fiore’s. I’d been meaning to get there for a long time.
Fiore’s is my kind of place: Established almost a century ago; Windows fogged up because they’re making mozzarella fresh all day; Signs on the walls that clearly haven’t been changed at least since the 50s.
Unfortunately the tuna sandwich of which Wade spoke is only on Fridays, but that’s okay because it gives me a good excuse to go back. I didn’t get a chance to dig into the amazing looking vat of oversized squid or stuffed peppers while I was there either:
I did get to try two different sandwiches. They have you pick out your own bread and bring it to the counter where a super nice guy in a grandpa hat makes your sandwich to order.
The proscuitto and sopressata with fresh mozzarella and red peppers was great. Fiore’s mozzarella is softer, wetter, and squishier than any I’ve ever had. And I’ve had ‘em all over the world (stretched Godfather reference). It had clearly been made within minutes of going onto my roll. I would have brought home a ball of it, but I just ate a ball from Joe’s Dairy on my block the day before, so I used my will power . . . and got a ball of smoked to change things up.
The special of the day – smoked ham with fresh mozzarella and gravy – blew my freaking mind. I went to sleep tasting it in my head, I dreamt about it all night, and I woke up thinking of it.
That part of Hoboken was so old school Italian. Satrialle’s Pork Store came to mind. I’d bet Guilliani. Or McCain now. But even the Italian civic club next to Fiore’s loved Obama.
And if you’ve got those guys on your side, you’re going places. Seriously. I’d have to imagine this is the first African American presidential candidate for whom they painted their windows. Obama has these old Italians, the Kennedys, and little blond children all pulling for him?!?! Plus he’s got Travis Bickle and Famous Fat Dave. This guy can win. So long as you remember to vote today.
Fiore, 4th St and Adams, Hoboken NJ
Barack Obama, www.BarackObama.com
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09.07.07
Posted in All-U-Can-Eat, Jewish, Lower East Side, Manhattan, Meats, New Jersey, Pickles, Sandwiches at 7:06 am by Administrator
I try not to spread the rumors I hear in my cab. These are just schlubs I pick up off the street, and I usually have no way to corroborate their stories. The internet is a powerful weapon which, according to my America Online Terms Of Service Agreement that I e-signed in 1994, I have sworn to use responsibly.
But I heard a particularly nasty rumor a little while back that I just had to investigate. I heard that Katz’s Deli is going to be turned into luxury condos. “No no no, you got it all wrong,” I retorted when those words violated my ear holes. “They’re turning the parking lot and Yarakovsky’s container store across the street into condos. That’s already happening.” My brain wouldn’t allow me accept the possibility that it might be true. But my fare told me that he’d read it in Time Out New York, and if James Oliver Curry says it. . .
Apparently, the plan is to close down Katz’s (for the first time since 1888), build condos on top, and then reopen Katz’s underneath. To me, this is terrifying. This is like the “grandma is on the roof” joke. They are setting me up to to let me down easy. So that I won’t just wake up one day and find Katz closed forever, the way 2nd Avenue Deli met its demise not so long ago.
(A close up of Katz’s as it has been for well over a century)
(A wider shot reveals the luxury condo trend on the LES visible just a block away on Orhard, and this shot was taken from the luxury condo construction site mentioned above)
No luxury condo on earth would allow a stinky deli on its ground floor. I think it’s a New York State Law that if there’s anything other than a bank on the retail level of a luxury condo, it’s got to be a Whole Foods.
Guss Pickles as we know it ended the same way. One day, the building’s owner decided to make luxury condos out of the Essex Street location. One morning, they went to open up the store and there was a lock on the gate and an eviction notice. Guss had to move to Orchard Street, but the joke’s on the gentrifiers because I guarantee that first floor will still smell like full sours for at least a decade. Katz’s smell, however, won’t linger if they tear the whole structure down to make way for high rise with floor to ceiling windows on every floor (which look great from the inside, but is starting to make the Lower East Side look like a suburban office park).
I decided to go into Katz’s Deli to do a little snooping . . . and eating. It was late on a weeknight, so there was no line. I walked straight up to that old meat cutter with the white hair and the tatooed forearms (if you eat at Katz’s you know who I’m talking about). As he made me my reuben, I made small talk (and made sure that he saw me put a dollar in that upside down paper cup that acts as a tip jar on the Lower East Side). His name, I found out after eating the meat he cut me for 10 years, is Peter. He’s Russian, and he’s worked at Katz for longer than Bernie was a Yankee.
“So . . . what’s the deal with this luxury condo business?” I asked as if I were Jerry Seinfeld setting up a joke. I wanted him to look at me like I was crazy. I wanted him to flick his wrist and wave his knife dismissively. I wanted him to say that it was just a rumor, a dirty, rotten lie.
But he didn’t. His face dropped. His eyes narrowed. And as he pushed a slice a warm pastrami across the counter for me to nibble, he leaned in and motioned for me to do that same. “You have no idea the amount of money these people are dealing in. . . No idea,” he said in a hushed tone. “But they don’t tell us nothing. It might be a condo with the deli on the bottom. It might be a condo with a lobby on the bottom. It might stay the way it is. They don’t tell us nothing. But you have no idea . . . no idea the amount of money.”
Now, I’ve had more powerful religious experiences at Katz’s than I’ve had at my synagogue. I’ve never felt more Jewish – or more at peace with the world for that matter – than I did while eating my first Katz’s reuben, alone, facing one of the only blank spots on the wall. If Katz’s closes, I may consider moving out of New York. That, or become a Buddhist.
So with the possibility of Katz’s closing, and 2nd Avenue Deli and Pastrami Queen as much a part of New York history as the Checker Cab, I was in the market for a new deli. I’d already heard about this place in New Jersey called Harold’s from an college friend who used to eat at Katz’s with me. Then an old New Yorker in my cab told me Harold’s was the real deal. When I heard a couple of gay Puerto Rican thugs from Newark with their elderly Jewish trick on the Christopher Street Pier announce loudly that they were all going to Harold’s, it was the last straw. It was time for me to branch out.
(Harold’s immediately gets old school cred for the skyline on the sign)
On my last trip down the NJTP I pulled off at exit 10. And there my faith was restored. I found Harold’s everything I’d hoped for and more.
First of all, everything there is oversized. And I don’t just mean oversized the way the way white girls wear their plastic belts in Williamsburg. I mean oversized the way Barry Bonds’ head is oversized. One slice of cake is the size of an entire cake anywhere else:
And, as Harold’s sign boast, in this case “bigger is better.” My pastrami sandwich was delicious. It was moist and tender, fatty without being chewy, with a tempurature like warm apple pie. New Yorkers often claim it’s the city’s water that makes their food so special, so it can’t be duplicated in New Jersey. Granted, I like Katz’s more. And both 2nd Ave Deli and Pastrami Queen were better. So I guess I’m lowering the bar now that the pickin’s are slimmer. Either way though, Harold’s pastrami made me very, very happy.
Harold’s pickles made me even happier though. I’d heard that they had the world’s largest and only free pickle bar. But I assumed that that too was a rumor. A FREE pickle bar?!? Sounded too good to be true.
But there it was, as plain as the Jewish nose on my face. And the pickles were great. New pickles, half sours, full sours (although they call them half sours, sours, and kosher dills as though the others are not kosher and don’t have dill which I think they are and they do). The pickles were almost all crunchy. Not a mushy bloater in the bunch. And the health salad, hot cherry peppers, spicy pickle chips, and pickled tomatoes were all delicious as well. When the sandwich came, a small bowl of completely gratuitous cole slaw came with it, but it ended up being one of the highlights of the meal.
I made more trips to the pickle bar than was appropriate, but at Harold’s it is a culture of abundance and no one batted an eyelash. In fact, the menu encourages sharing at no extra cost. Melissa and I shared one “small” pastrami sandwich, and by the time we left the table we were stuffed. We each got a Dr. Brown’s, we brought home left-over pickles from the bottomless pickle bar along with extra rye bread to go with the extra sandwich and a half worth of left-over pastrami, and the whole thing cost $25 including the tip.
Katz’s will close one day. And I’ve come to terms with that. Maybe there won’t be condos. Maybe there will be condos. But I will most likely see Katz’s shutter its doors before the end of my life. So when that happens, there will be a lot less of this:
And a lot more of this:
Harold’s New York Deli Restaurant, Exit 10 on the NJ Turn Pike, Follow The Signs To Raritan Center until after the clover leaf under the highway, Take a left onto the street where you see the Holiday Inn and Harold’s in the back
Five Borough Food Tourism at FamousFatDave.Com for Katz’s and much more
(On the clock at Katz’s)
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04.19.07
Posted in Hamburgers, On The Open Road, Sandwiches at 11:29 pm by Administrator
I get so many food recommendations in my cab. Pretty much everybody I pick up tells me to go somewhere. And when they don’t offer it up during the natural course of a conversation, I ask them flat out. I try to make it completely clear that I’m not interested just in what’s open right now, but what is the most delicious food in their neighborhood.
“I’m not hungry right now,” I tell them (even if I am kinda hungry) “I just want to know what’s the best place to eat around here.” Usually, people get it, and they let me in on a little neighborhood secret. Occasionally, I get people saying, “Well . . . I think the diner is still open. They don’t screw anything up there.” I have to tell them, “No, I’m not necessarily going now. I could come back. I just want to know what’s your absolute favorite thing to eat.” And if they stare at me blankly and say, “. . . Aaaapleeee Beeees???” then goodbye is too good a word babe, so I’ll just say fare thee well.
But when I’m really clicking with someone, we’re talking about life and love and sex and death and war and travel and family and, mostly, food. From those people I often get local recs as well as recs from around the country and the world. Lately, I’ve had a number of folks like that tell me about Louis Lunch. It’s up in New Haven, and it is, supposedly, where the hamburger was invented way back in 1900. Some controversy arose when a place in Texas made the same claim, but the publicity must have helped because everyone is talking about it.
With that in mind, I made a pit stop in New Haven on my way up to Boston so Melissa and I could try this prehistoric burger and see what all the hype is about (okay, we actually took the much slower route via I95 rather than I84 specifically so we could go through New Haven and eat at Louis Lunch).
(When we arrived, Melissa was chomping at the bit to have a taste)
It is well known that they don’t put ketchup on their burgers, so we didn’t make the mistake of asking for that. However, we were immediately greeted with an obnoxious attitude by the counter man. “What do you want?” he asked abruptly and with a sour look on his face before we even settled in.
Well, Louis Lunch is old fashioned, and maybe this guy is just old school, I thought to myself. No need to take his attitude to heart. “Burgers,” I smiled. With that, he gave me more unpleasant attitude about what I wanted on it. There was no schtick to his demeanor the way you get attitude at Pickle Guys on the Lower East Side or Weiner Circle in Chicago. He was just an ass.
As we waited for our burgers to cook in the beautiful old ovens dating from the turn of the last century, I noticed that all the tasty juices in the patties must be dripping off the meat in the vertical contraption. I also noticed that our burgers would be served on toast with cheese spread on it. I sort of liked the idea of forsaking the ketchup in favor of a slice of tomato. But eating my burger on toast instead of a bun felt akin to eating cereal with water instead of milk.
The whole affair made Melissa nervous. She likes her burgers how she likes her burgers:
They tasted good though. Not great. They certainly would benefit from better bread or a basic bun. The thin slices of bread did have the effect of highlighting the quality of the meat, but a small, soft sesame seed bun would have had the same effect and tasted much better. Still, I’m not going to tell them to stop serving burgers on toast if that’s how they’ve been doing it for a century and a decade. You gotta respect that.
I do not respect, on the other hand, that schmuck behind the counter. Although he was a man a few words (all of which came in a nasty tone of voice) with us, he had plenty to say to his coworkers. While Melissa and I tried to enjoy our burgers on toast, we had to listen to this man spew forth the vilest lies and obscenities about the Yankees I’d ever heard. We were on our way to Boston, and I’d been there many times before, but I’d never heard Bostonians say anything close to what this man was spitting up.
Maybe it was because New Haven lies almost exactly half way between New York and Boston so he had major STP. The man ranted almost the whole time we were there about how the Yankees just buy their championships (by that logic the Red Sox should have the second most championships because they spend the second most money), how Yankee fans are the most obnoxious in the league (I saw a Red Sox fan chuck a UNeaten slice of greasy pizza at a guy’s face the other day at Fenway just because he thought it’d be funny as a batted ball hit the poor guy in the hands and the left fielder simultaneously knocked his beer onto his jacket), and that Derek Jeter and ARod are “totally gay for each other” (this one may be true, not that there’s anything wrong with that, and there is certainly nothing wrong with hitting game-ending home runs twice a month).
We were the only ones in there at the time, so there was no ambient noise to drown out his curses and venomous rage. I actually just felt bad for him as well as his coworker who had to listen to it. I was wearing my Nationals hat at the time, but I got the feeling if he’d known I was a Yankee fan the whole experience might have been even worse.
Melissa didn’t even finish her burger. By the end of the meal, I was showing some leg in hopes of getting a ride out of there as fast as possible.
STP=Something To Prove
Famous Fat Dave Dot Com=Five Borough Eating Tours
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01.24.07
Posted in BBQ, Chic, Chinese, Hamburgers, Italian, Latino, Meats, On The Open Road, Sandwiches, Seafood, Sushi, There's A Beverage Here Man at 1:15 pm by Administrator
There is something fundamentally wrong with a country in which a man has to work for 20 years before he gets to take 5 weeks of vacation. Every time I travel, I run into Europeans, Australians, Argentinians, Congolese who have been on the road for months. Sometimes years. And the Americans feel lucky to take advantage of a four day weekend.
I consider it my civic duty to travel (or vacation, whatever you want to call it) as much as possible. As a yellow cabbie, I don’t get paid vacations. I don’t get dental. I don’t even get a refund if I rent a cab that breaks down twenty minutes into my shift. But I do get to make my own schedule.
So over the new year, I headed out west. Melissa, my sweet, Khmer-style Thai girlfriend, put her vacation days from 06 together with her vacation days from 07, and we managed a fairly lengthy west coast swing.
And even though my job has me logging a lot of hours behind the wheel, I intended to do California right by making it into a classic Highway 1 road trip. We had family and friends to see (crash with) all along the way. We had nature to experience. We had nerves to calm. But mainly we had bellies to feed and taste buds to please.
Jeremy, my very talented and chic Hollywood editor of a cousin, took the first week of our journey off of work so he could join in the festivities. He promised to show us around LA after exploring a little more of his adopted state together. He also promised to let me drive as much as I wanted. And with a plan to NOT make any plans more than half a day in advance, we took off in his souped up Honda Accord heading north along Highway 1.
But before we left, Jeremy introduced me to a Santa Monica Italian (possibly Sicilian because I saw a big map of the island up on the wall) institution called Bay Cities. In addition to ridiculously big and delicious heroes that would make any New Yorker blush:
(the other half was bigger)
I was overwhelmed with the selection of Italian cheeses, olives, jarred imports, salami, (Jewish) pickles, and fresh bread. I decided to stock Jeremy and his roommate Mike up on some Bay Cities delights:
And neither of them wasted time tearing into the particularly tasty sopressata (though Jeremy had a hard time remembering what it was called, nice Jewish boy from Chicago that he is):
Every single thing we bought was nothing short of great. An old woman I chatted with as I waited for the counter man to scoop my artichoke hearts proudly informed me that Bay Cities used to be a tiny little shop with saw dust on the floor that smelled overwhelmingly like parmesan. Now, they had hit the big time with a much larger location.
There was a sign claiming that Bay Cities makes fresh bread all day long. I didn’t believe it until I saw someone come out of the back with a cart full of piping hot filone (pictured above on the table and in the sandwich). All I had to do was look at him, and he handed me a loaf that was literally too hot to hold. Try finding filone too hot to hold at 4 pm in New York City.
From the way people, particularly New Yorkers, talk about LA and its food, I didn’t think a place like Bay Cities existed there. But if Bay Cities were on Bleeker Street in Manhattan, there would be a line out the door all day long and tourists would be coming in from every corner of the globe to take a picture in front of the garlic hanging from the ceiling. Right then and there, I realized I didn’t know ANYTHING about LA. I also thought I might be able to live there.
We put LA many dark hours behind us. Most of the first leg of the journey was done in the pitch black because we’d spent the daylight eating Bay Cities and playing Mike’s Guitar Heroes II. My internal clock felt like we had until 9pm before the sun went down because the weather was like summer. Highway 1 north of LA FELT beautiful even though we only saw the first 15 minutes of it at dusk. And we spent the rest of the night at a lodge in Big Sur.
There, we found Monterey Bay beef jerky. And on a roadtrip heavy on jerky, that bag of Monterey Bay proved to be the tastiest. Even though we all commented on how amazing it was (”I think this is the best beef jerky I ever had,” Jeremy said during our inaugural game of Rummy 500 at the lodge), we somehow managed not to take a picture.
We did, however, take a picture of the famous dungeness crab I had in the actual town of Monterey at a strip mall spot called Sea Harvest Restaurant and Market:
And it was tasty indeed. It was much easier to find big bunches of meat than back home near the Chesapeake. But I have to say Monterey dungeness crab, if that was a typical example, doesn’t compare to Maryland blue crab for taste or overall experience. But hey, no one ever told me they were competing.
Next stop: San Francisco. We stayed with our extremely generous friends Lily and Levi in their beautiful apartment in Twin Peaks with an insane view:
(okay this is the view from the hill just up the hill from their apartment, but apparently building a city on a series of steep hills has one advantage: abundant views)
We actually managed to have not one, but two mediocre burritos in The Mission. The first spot’s lackluster performance could be explained away by the fact that our visit to La Taqueria Corneta came just before closing the day after Christmas. Their hearts must have been with Jesus rather than refried beans.
But we went to Poncho Villa’s in the middle of day on December 29th, and it was WEAK. Both burritos were dry and lacked flavor. Pictures were taken in wild anticipation only to be deleted in genuine anger. I’d had incredible burritos in the Mission on past SF trips, and I don’t know what went wrong this time.
Chinatown, on the other hand, did NOT disappoint:
The Peking Duck at Great Eastern was perfect. Super crispy skin. Super tender meat. Not too much fat in between. And the steamed bun vehicle is so choice. If you have the means, I do suggest you try it. I’ve never had that option back east, but I found the buns add a wonderful texture to the duck that pancakes never could. And they are much smaller so you could easily handle three or four or five sandwiches, while I usually have to stop at two pancakes.
And everything else we ate – Mongolian beef, fried rice, the lemoniest lemon chicken ever, mussels– was about two notches above what passes for great in New York’s Chinatown. We sat there eating like kings and queens of the Ming Dynasty until midnight. We even got a spot across the street (unHEARD of according to Levi, who was born and raised in SF). It truly was a blessed meal.
Next, Jeremy and I went across the Bay for a meal with our beloved Aunt Francis and dear cousin Sandy. They wanted to show us Sausalito. They claimed it was much more beautiful in the daytime, but I thought it was plenty nice at night.
Aunt Frances can be picky, and she shot down Sandy’s suggestion of Thai food saying, “Too spicy.” But when Sandy suggested sushi, Aunt Francis agreed saying, “I love anything Chinese.” Classic Aunt Frances.
We arrived at Sushi Ran ready to eat, and we had a feast. My white tuna sushi (top right) was, hands down, the best I’ve ever tasted, and white tuna is my bar none favorite piece of negiri. So that’s saying something.
Jeremy and I both loved his citrus salmon roll (top left) as well. They sliced the lime so thin that the rind didn’t take away from the melt-in-your-mouth experience in the least. The California roll (bottom left), which I ordered on the logic that I ought to since we were in California after all, were the only thing mediocre on the table. Aunt Frances popped the entire ball of ginger (bottom right) into her mouth before we could stop her, sucked on it for ten seconds, spit it out, and shouted “Wa Wa Weeeeee Wah!” I guess Borat did not invent that, because Aunt Frances told us, after we finished laughing, that Wa Wa Weeeeee Wah is just something people used to say.” She then declared the restaurant to be shabby even though her teriyaki was admittedly great.
For dessert, Jeremy ordered a tea which had hundreds of tea leaves stitched together by hand with silk thread. The tea leaf flower, when it arrived at the table, blossomed at the bottom of the glass of hot water before our eyes:
I can’t say it was the best glass of tea I ever had, but it was very California.
Then we found ourselves in Sacramento. The “annoying hipsters” call it Sacto, according to my friend. Andy and his girl Jess, with whom I made fast friends while we all lived in Spain a couple years back, call it “Sac Town” or just plain “Sac.”
Anyway, I had no idea what Sac would be like, but I knew that I never would have gone if it weren’t for Andy and Jess. And I knew that they would show us a good time no matter what. They are the type of people who attract all sorts of wild characters, they surround themselves with genuine folks, and the fun is just bound to follow:
(That is Andy is on the upper right, Jess is squished beneath him, and that’s his friend Phips with ZA CRAZY EYE in the middle in “Old Sac”)
We hit 3 bars in three hours, all of which were fun in their own way, and then made it back to Andy’s place for some Spain-style late night partying. There, amidst the drunkenness and insanity at Andy’s house at 230am, Andy introduced me to my single favorite treat of the entire roadtrip:
The Sacramento Salsa Company makes a garlic salsa that blew away every other salsa I ever tasted (I’ve never been to Mexico). They claim to use tomatoes from California’s “tomato country” which I didn’t know existed (could it be as good as Jersey tomato country? apparently). And the plentiful garlic comes from Gilroy, a mythical town Jeremy told me of where everything is made from cloves of fresh garlic including the ice cream.
Andy and Jess swore that making nachos out this Sacramento Salsa would change my life. I was reluctant because I enjoyed eating it straight out of the container so much. But Andy argued that cooking the garlic brings out the flavor, and did his bidding.
(Jess couldn’t decide on the international sign for ROCK or the the international sign for WEST SYIIIIDE to show off the Sac Town specialty)
Yes, I admit, it may have been because it was very late at night, I may not have been entirely sober, and I was RAGING with my old friends from my crazy days in Spain, but those nachos really did change my life. At that moment, in that town, no treat could have been more perfect. And I’ll never look at salsa the same way again.
The rest of the roadtrip was a bit of a blur. But we did continue to search for delicious tastes of the golden state.
I recall going for breakfast the next morning bleary eyed. Andy led us to the tastiest “Mexican food cooked by white people” in all of Sac. It was called Nopalitos, and Melissa finally got a great burrito there:
I had a bold salad with vinaigrette on top and chile verde beneath:
We encountered the most pitiful salad bar in history at our hotel in Yosemite. And I ended up trying to drink of one of the park’s impressive waterfalls:
We visited with my cousin Bo and his family in Santa Cruz. We pretended it was Santa Carla and we were vampires. Jeremy even had the sound track in his car. “Eat this David and become one of us.” On the pier, we ate surprisingly stellar fish and chips and fried calamari (that gave Melissa and me surprisingly nasty burps for our cruise back down through Big Sur that made Jeremy both love and fear us more):
(I didn’t read the signs saying “Don’t Feed The Seagulls” until AFTER I fielded an array of dirty looks from the locals who should be so lucky that I didn’t feast on their flesh. I’m tryin’ to watch the Lost Boys.)
And Melissa and I later stumbled upon the best diner food of our young lives. She knew she was going to be happy with the food in California because her two favorite meals are sushi and burritos. But I’d have to say chicken fingers are a very close third.
While we were spending a couple days in Palm Springs testing out what life would be like if we were already retired (I consider this my civic duty along with vacationing as much as possible), we were told to try Ruby’s Diner. We were shocked by how amazing the chicken fingers were:
(Melissa is laughing because she can’t believe how good such a simple diner menu item could be, especially when you’re retired)
We also enjoyed Ruby’s Kobe sliders. Normally, I would never order Kobe anything, but I figured as long as I was retired, I may as well:
Sadly, the roadtrip had to come to an end. But once we returned to LA, the good eats just kept on coming. Our meal at Roscoe’s House of Chicken N Waffles was all I ever dreamt it would be and more. We were overwhelmed with our choice of high quality fast food burger joints, any of which would be the best of its kind back east. And we eagerly wolfed as many as we could.
But the most distinctively LA eating experience we enjoyed came when Jeremy’s mom/my Aunt Linda told Jeremy to take us all out on her credit card. Jeremy wasted no time heading straight for The Ivy.
Oh yes, that’s Sharon Stone dining right next to where we waited for our table on the sidewalk. It was an odd sensation standing next to a woman I’d never met but whose beaver I’d seen (and examined closely on slow mo and freeze frame when I was 12). And the woman she is with is wearing sunglasses ON HER HEAD. I love LA.
The maitre d’ thought he knew Jeremy. And Jeremy responded, “Yeah, you’ve seen me before.” So we got a table right quick.
The calamari app came quickly too, but we were too busy being fabulous to think about it too much.
(That’s us/Melissa still being fabulous by dessert with our super fluffy key lime pie)
My entree, a mixed seafood pasta caught my attention though.
The pasta looked hand cut. And they do NOT skimp on the seafood at The Ivy. I was extremely pleased with the dish. But after Angelica Houston meandered past (she wasn’t even there WITH Sharon Stone), I couldn’t concentrate on my food anymore. There was just too much external stimulation:
We managed to fight through the gauntlet of paparazzi trying to take Melissa’s picture:
Only to find Jeremy’s souped up Honda Accord’s hood covered not only in bird shit, but feathers as well when the valet brought it back. I don’t think Angelica’s Houston’s car came back that way.
I was still coming off the high of the roadtrip, and I was going through driving withdrawal. So Jeremy let me drive to dinner that night, whereupon I BUMPED the car behind me while parallel parking. Jeremy and Mike gasped in audible horror when I did it. “What, you don’t bump people’s cars out here?” I asked innocently. “No, Dave, you definitely don’t bump people’s cars out here.” Makes sense. I could go with that flow. But you should see the bumper on my car here in New York.
Thankfully, we were parked outside of Baby Blues BBQ. Jeremy declared it to be his single favorite restaurant in all of LA. And, AGAIN, we were greeted like old friends by the staff. Jeremy, the waitress let me know, is the “sweetest kid.” But I already knew that.
He’s also got great taste, because the food at his pick was so good it made me wish we’d eaten there every night we were in LA. It’s southern bbq, which is a risky venture to undertake anywhere outside of the south (I admit I was skeptical before I sat down and smelled the array of bbq sauces). But this meal turned out to rival anything I’ve eaten down south.
My “Memphis ribs” (above) were supple on the bone, crispy at the edges, and bursting with smoky, meaty flavor. I was surprised they called them “Memphis ribs” if they weren’t dry rub like at Rendezvous (a famous rib joint in Memphis that made remember how happy I am to be alive). The waitress said they start out as a dry rub, but Baby Blues likes to bring them to the table with a little sauce.
No matter what style the menu described them as, they were some of the best ribs I’ve ever tasted. And mine were served on a Yankee plate?!? What a pleasant surprise to find after ripping through half my rack. Baby Blues is truly a restaurant after my own heart.
As you could see from the size of my Yankee plate, I only ordered half a rack and sauteed okra (I’d filled up on cheese from Bay Cities before we left). Jeremy, on the other hand, ordered a whole rack of Texas style beef ribs. And he challenged himself to eat them all:
(On the left, Jeremy is a man on a mission; On the right, he feels like he hit a brick wall with two to go, but I think I recall him polishing those off as well before we stood up from the table)
Before we knew it, we had to catch our flight back. We knew we loved California. But we had, to our surprise, grown quite attached to LA. We agreed that we’d live there if the drivers weren’t so NUTS. People turn their wheels like they are making a turn from an avenue onto a street in Manhattan just to change lanes on the Freeway. I saw the fresh aftermath of THREE different apparently fatal accidents in the few days I was in the LA area. That is not normal to see back east. Jeremy seems unfazed. He also seemed unfazed when a drunk in an SUV nearly smashed into us head on just a block from his place in West LA. To me, the drivers seem more dangerous than the earthquakes and the mud slides and the wild fires and the gangs. I tried not to let it bother me. I was on vacation.
Before we left, I wanted to eat something that I couldn’t get back in New York. So Jeremy and Mike took us to Wahoo’s:
Fish tacos are almost never an option where I usually eat. In fact, I’d NEVER eaten an authentic one. The fish tacos at Wahoo’s in Santa Monica sealed the deal for me. I couldn’t have done my public service of going on vacation in any more appropriate of a locale. California is certainly a spot that makes me feel like I’m getting some serious vacation time in:
Visit www.FamousFatDave.com
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01.21.07
Posted in Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tours, Hamburgers, Sandwiches at 11:09 am by Administrator
I’ve really got to Google myself more often (than once every 4 days). A Hamburger Today Dot Com, my very favorite web site about hamburgers, ran an interview I did with them a few days ago. And I didn’t even know they did it.
This is quite an honor, not only because AHT is a great site, but because such lumanaries of food writing as Frank Bruni and Mr. Cutlets have been “Grilled” in the past.
Click here to read the interview.
And click here to reread an old favorite post of mine that I wrote for A Hamburger Today during National Hamburger Month last year.
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01.12.07
Posted in Brooklyn, Italian, Meats, Posts For Gothamist, Red Hook, Sandwiches at 8:11 am by Administrator
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
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01.05.07
Posted in Hamburgers, On The Open Road at 5:39 am by Administrator
After a last minute flight to LA, I’ve been cruising around California for the past couple weeks:
(It’s been a whirlwind)
Check back in soon to hear tales of the eating adventures of a NYC yellow cabbie who is OUT OF HIS ELEMENT on the west coast. And then it’s back to dreary old Manhattan for me.
In the meantime, pick up a Saveur Magazine and check out #15 on this year’s Top 100 list!
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