Famous Fat Dave: The Hungry Cabbie

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

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

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.

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!

What can a guy like me eat in a neighborhood like SoHo? Read today’s Not For Tourists to find out:

Fanelli’s Cafe

For a good time call www.FamousFatDave.com

Even in my ancestral homeland of Chicago, a town that is stamped on my D.N.A and etched in my heart, I have to face angry questions about my loyalties from New York haters. When I’m visiting with my extended, deep-dish-loving family, people know that I’ve declared New York my adopted hometown. They know that I have a warm place in my heart for Chicago, but I am fully in LOVE with New York.

As I ate my second Wieners Circle hot dog at 2 a.m. last week, one of my cousin Jeremy’s friends from high school started talking pizza. I wanted to concentrate on my delicious hot dog, so I wasn’t about to start debating. But this guy, fortified with a few Jager bombs and a Chicago accent, forced the issue.

I tried to explain to him that Chicago food is in my blood, that grease runs thick in my veins (and arteries), and there was no reason for him to be defensive. But by this point it was more of a monologue on his part. I let him go for a while, but the last straw was when he broke into a Vinnie Barbarino style over-the-top New York goomba voice, bobbed his head like a chicken, and mocked me with, “Hey, OOOH, Dis pizza is good, yeah sure, but it ain’t as good a Ray’s on 59th Street no how.”

First of all, Ray’s on 59th Street, if it exists, is not good. Second of all, I am a lot of things, but I am no food snob. I’m always open to trying new things. And if I find the taste is superior, I’m not afraid to change my mind about what’s better. Plus, I never even said New York has better anything as far as this guy knew.

But since he brought it up, I thought I’d indulge this New York hater. So today I’m going to compare a few of the foods I ate in Chicago recently with some similar foods I ate in New York recently. And since he dropped the pizza bomb, I’ll start with that.

I am well aware that many of the denizens of each city harbor very strong, often irrational, feelings on the pizza issue. And not everyone will be happy with the pizzerias I’ve chosen to compare. But Due’s is where the majority of my family recommended I eat when I was in Chicago (although certain members of my family urged me to go elsewhere- Lou Malnati’s, Edwardo’s, Baccino’s, or Gino’s to name a few). And John’s is where I last ate pizza in New York solely because it’s around the corner from my house.

I have had great deep-dish pizza in Chicago. It is amazing. The sheer amount of cheese is staggering. The flavor of the sausage has made my heart skip a beat. The thick crust can be delicious.

But at Due’s none of those things were true. The crust, though my Aunt Linda loved the buttermilk quality of it, was way too thick and dry for my (and my Chicago-born mother’s) liking. The bland crust overwhelmed the whole pizza. Deep-dish offers the possibility of voluminous cheese, sauce, and sausage, but the proportion of crust to everything else was way out of whack at Due’s.

(LOOKS really good right? But even with all that cheese the pizza was too bready)

John’s, though all anyone seems to write about it anymore is that it isn’t as good as it used to be, is a classic New York thin crust pizza. Maybe it’s not as good as an authentic Napolitana pizza, but the proportions are right on. The crust is thin but not floppy, the cheese is plentiful but not so much as to overshadow the rest of the pie, the sauce is spread to the edge but the pizza isn’t swimming in it. My John’s pie just had more flavor than my Due’s pies did, even though there was less of everthing on my John’s pie.

Plus, if you so desire, you can find a perfectly proportioned, cheesey, saucy, chewy thick slice at L&B Spumoni Gardens in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

(Spumoni goes so well with a thick slice no matter where you are from)

I admit, however, if you crave great Chicago pizza, Spumoni Gardens won’t do.

I also tried a cherry lime ricky at Due’s. This drink, had at an old-fashioned soda jerk like Tom’s in Brooklyn, can be incredibly tasty and refreshing. A classic New York cherry lime ricky is just selzer, syrup, ice cubes, and a lime slice. Due’s made their’s like a frozen smoothie.

(Chicago on the left; New York on the righ)

Generally I love smoothies, but the one I had at Due’s was weak. It melted way too quickly, and it left me in the mood for a real New York style cherry lime ricky.

Billygoat Tavern is a famous old Chicago institution from the 30s on the level of Tom’s Diner in Brooklyn. Billygoat was even parodied on Saturday Night Live in the 70s (because all the good cast members on SNL in New York came out of Second City in Chicago), yet my branch of the family had never been there. The moment we walked in, I immediately realized that it had been a terrible mistake that it’d taken us this long.

(smoke obscured the view of our “doubles” on the grill)

The grill man actually did yell “Cheezeborger, cheezeborger, cheezeborger, cheezeborger” the way John Belushi did in that SNL sketch. Classic old Chicago characters in suspenders and fedoras sat in every dark corner watching the Cubs getting slaughtered by the Mets. And the burgers were delicious.

(Here is my branch of the family, every member with a full mouth of Billygoat burger aside from Milo whose mouth is full of Goldfish)

(Milo will move onto burgers soon enough if I do my job as his uncle)

The host suggested we (and everyone else who came through the door) order “doubles.” My sister-in-law didn’t come up to the counter to see that each patty was McDonalds thin, so she ordered a “single” and ended up being fairly disappointed. The doubles, with cheese between the patties and a fixin’ bar of chopped onions, relish, and sliced pickles, were tasty for sure. But I think, like the Due’s pizza, there was too much bread. My sister-in-law and I decided to go back for a second round and split a “triple,” and we were both duly impressed.

(Melissa shows off the “double” and I show off the “triple”; I think it is clear who makes the better spokesmodel)

The “triple” was delightfully meaty and cheesy, and I think the host should be recommending those. But I must say that even a “triple” can’t compare with a Corner Bistro “bistro burger.” The bistro burger is the premier burger in New York if not the world. Admittedly, it has a leg up on a Billygoat burger because the bistro burger comes with three stips of bacon. But the real difference is in the beef.

I saw the Billygoat burgers come out of stacks of patties with slices of paper in between before they hit the grill, making me suspicious that they had been frozen at some point in their history. Corner Bistro ground beef is stored in a vat. I used to order mine medium, but one night at around 3am I witnessed the owner drop by, put a rubber glove on, grab a handful of ground beef out of the vat, and eat it raw. Since then, I always order my bistro burger rare.

One thing Billygoat has on Corner Bistro is that they offer much crunchier, tastier pickle chips (I think the above pictures make that clear). And crunchy pickles go a long way toward a good burger experience for me. So now might be a good time to compare New York pickles to Chicago pickles.

Let me begin by saying Chicago wins the prize for best utilization of pickles. If New Yorker put a entire pickle spear along side each of their Sabretts, they’d be a much happier bunch. But I can’t say the Puckered Pickle Co., “Made With Pride In Chicago,” that my Aunt Linda keep in her fridge are as good as the Gus Pickles I keep in mine. And I know of no place in Chicago that sells pickles out of the barrel on the sidewalk the way nature intended.

It seems like I’m saying Chicago’s food is inferior to New York’s. But I assure I think no such thing. It so happens that I like John’s better than Due’s, Corner Bistro better than Billygoat Tavern, and Gus Pickles better than Puckered Pickles. But Chicagoans can take for granted some foods that New Yorkers can’t even hope to find at near that quality (Italian beef sandwiches for one).

And more importantly, Chicagoans know how to eat. Where else can I go where people don’t bat an eyelash when I eat ribs for breakfast:

(You can tell it’s breakfast because my hair is wet from the shower)

(My aunt Linda makes sure to bring ribs home from the black part of town)

Had I picked different places, Chicago might have come out on top in every category. But I did give Chicago a fair shake. The places I review here are institutions in that town. And I didn’t even bother to compare hot dogs or ribs because I think Chicago takes those columns with no competition. So you New York haters need to cool out. Still though, New York is a great place to come home to.

Due’s, 619 N Wabash, Chicago

John’s, Bleeker Street and Jones Street, West Village, Manhattan

L&B Spumoni Gardens, 86th Street and West 9th Street, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn

Billygoat Tavern, 430 N Michigan Avenue Lower Level (SERIOUSLY, GO DOWN SOME STAIRS THAT DON’T LOOK LIKE YOU SHOULD GO DOWN THEM, DON’T BE DISCOURAGED IF YOU CAN’T FIND IT AT FIRST) Chicago

Corner Bistro, West 4th Street and Jane Street, West Village, Manhattan

Gus Pickles, Orchard Street and Broome Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan

Hecky’s, 1902 Green Bay Road, Evanston

Visit www.famousfatdave.com for an eating tour of New York City