Famous Fat Dave: The Hungry Cabbie

The same 300 pound Harlem fare who told me to go to Londel’s for fried chicken and waffles told me I also must go to Spoonbread for Sunday brunch.  But I loved Londel’s so much that whenever I was in the neighborhood I couldn’t imagine eating anywhere else. 

So it wasn’t until I shot the New Year’s Day Holiday Foods webisode that I finally made it to Spoonbread just blocks away from Londel’s in Harlem.  I am prettyyyyy pretty mad at myself for my reluctance to branch out because Spoonbread was amazing. 

Watch as Miss Norma Jean and I dive deep into some black eyed peas and rice:

Holiday Foods:  Hoppin John 

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My relationship with Columbia University has been long and rocky. When I was first applying to colleges in the fall of 1995, I happened to rent both Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver for the first time. After watching them back to back, I felt dark and sticky, and all I knew was that I would go to school anywhere in America EXCEPT New York City.

Then I took a year off between high school and college during which I got over my fear (probably because I witnessed totally strangers embracing each other in the streets on tv after the Yankees won the 1996 World Series). So I applied to Columbia. And I got rejected.

After a semester down at NYU during which I endured one too many “fruit bowls” (my naked roommate loved surprising me when I came out of the shower - unbespectacled, dripping wet, at my most vulnerable - by jumping up and down bent over at the waist displaying his melons, apples, and banana), I decided Columbia might be a more cerebral environment. I applied on transfer, and I got ACCEPTED. But by the second semester I had settled into my new dorm where I shared a wall with an addictive diner called The Kiev and a room with slightly less naked roommates. So I rejected Columbia.

Three years ago I applied for graduate school at Columbia, and they rejected me again. The next year I applied for a different graduate program, and they accepted me. But then I deferred from them for a year so I could pursue my more immediate interests in eating and driving. I told you: the relationship has been rocky. It’s been almost as though Columbia has been Tommy Lee and I’ve been Pamela. No, it’s been exactly like that.

But there came a time in my life not too long ago when I realized I didn’t want to drive a yellow cab forever. An advanced degree might lift me out of that working class that I pushed my way into after college. And so, a month ago, more than 11 years after I first applied, I started school at Columbia.

No worries though. I told them that I am Chief Executive Officer, President, and also a member of Famous Fat Dave Industries so they let me into their executive program. I only have to go on Saturdays, and I have the rest of the week to occasionally drive the cab or conduct my five borough eating tours (operators standing by at www.FamousFatDave.com) I’m still living the dream.

I spent a good deal of the summer asking fares and customers where they eat in Morningside Heights, because, I admit, the Columbia area is a black hole in my map of good eats in NYC. I often take my tours through there on our way to Harlem to show them the famous Tom’s Restaurant facade of Seinfeld fame. And Koronet Pizza’s traffic sign sized slices have been known to impress the occasional drunk Midnight Munchies Tour customer. But I still don’t know where to eat when I’m at school, and I want something delicious.

Last Monday, on our way to see Showtime At The Apollo (it’d been my dream to be one of the white guys in the front row who gets made fun for driving like a white guy for as long as it’d been my dream to go to Columbia), my cousin Aaron, my cousin Jeremy, and his roommate Mike stopped at the campus gates to see what all the fuss was about with Ahmadinejad speaking. Would it be a perversion of freedom of speech, providing a platform to hatemongering? Or would it be a glimpse into the Iranian point of view and an open debate?

Either way, we felt like it might be an historic moment, like that time a bunch of the Weathermen from Columbia accidentally blew themselves up before class one day in the 60s. Except this time, we’d hear from a guy who pays for people to blow themselves up on purpose.

A couple hours before the speech, the scene was . . . festive? The Columbia kids had plastered the campus with flyers. One flyer had a picture of Ahmadinejad’s smirking punum with the caption, “Putting the Purr In Persian.” Another had his manscaped mug subscripted simply with “Bringing Sexy Back.” My favorite was this one (which I just had to have for myself, so I slyly tore it down and then posed for Mike’s camera with it). I think it cut through all the messy history and politics and religion clouding the issue and got right to the crux of the matter:

I had to leave my boys behind to see what was going down on campus because access was restricted, and when I came back I felt a little sad that I’d been missing out on the protest outside the gates. We’d come to protest the protesters, and it seemed like we were the only ones who thought the man should be allowed to speak.

But when I got back through the gate I found that Jeremy and Mike were getting along with the flag waving, New York Post reading, God fearing Americans who’d gathered to unwelcome the Hitler of Iran:

We spoke with a reporter from the Daily Telegraph (he assured me it was less of a tabloid than The New York Post, the inflamatory paper up on the sign in the picture above). We spoke for a while, and the main thrust of my conversation with the reporter was that I wish I were able to attend the forum so I could ask Ahmadinejad what he really thought of Brittany’s performance at the VMAs - I bet you he’d say he thought it was great he’s such a contrarian. Instead the quote made me sound like a serious and reasonable person. I also like that he dubbed me a “master student” which I most certainly am not (click here and read the whole story including Famous Fat Dave’s thoughts on the controversy because I know you care).

I later found out that President Bollinger, who “disrespected” America by allowing Ahmadinejad to speak and then “disrespected” Ahmadinejad by calling him a petty and cruel dictator, made his career as a first amendment scholar. So you can argue against Bollinger allowing him to speak, but you’d probably lose the argument if it’s on the grounds that this sort of thing shouldn’t be protected under free speech. If you start going down that road, you might realize that you just don’t agree with the first amendment.

Once this guy got up on his soap box about how Harlem is facing it’s own genocide and it’s called gentrification (people were REALLY throwing the word genocide around that day at Columbia), we remembered why we were really uptown.

Leaving the hullabaloo behind us, we walked down onto 125th. Now we were in my locale. I felt much more at home. The options for amazing food were boundless. After a brief stop at Manna’s for some devilled eggs, mac n cheese, and banana nilla wafer pudding, we were ready for Showtime.

We could have stayed at the campus to listen to the speech. But we would have had to just sit there and take it. At the Apollo, they understand free speech. And they know it works both ways. Anyone can get on stage , no matter how outrageous, during the Amatuer Night portion of the taping (so long as they rub the stump as they come out).

But when the crowd doesn’t like someone, they stand up at the their seats and in the aisles, wave BOTH hands in the air from side to side, index fingers extended, and the performer gets swept off the stage by a tap dancing guy wearing a top hat and white tails. I heard that Ahmadinejad seemed taken aback by the rude reception he got down on 116th Street. But from my vantage point on 125th Street, it was clear that he had no idea how good he had it.

Visit www.famousfatdave.com for food tourism at its most brazenly provocative

Manna’s, 125th And Frederick Douglas, Harlem, Manhattan

I’ve finally returned from my west coast swing, and I picked up a Saveur Magazine at the news stand on 6th Avenue and West 3rd Street. I had no idea the Saveur 100 covers the entire planet, so now I am even more honored to have been included.

(click here for a bigger image in my fun-filled “Dave in the Press” page on FamousFatDave.Com)

I also had no idea what Zankou Chicken was while I was out there. Apparently, it’s Lebanese garlic rotisserie chicken in the LA area (all things that I love including, after this trip, the LA area), and it’s blurb number thirteen in the Saveur 100. Had I bought my Saveur before I got back, I would have made a bee line straight for it.

I did, however, manage to make it to Roscoe’s House Of Chicken And Waffles during my stay in LA. I’d scoured Harlem in search of great fried chicken and waffles for many years without finding anything worth writing home about. Finally, I discovered Londel’s, and it has become my new favorite. And finding great fried chicken alone is not a problem in New York. But that didn’t make me any less eager to try Roscoe’s. I’ve heard so many good things about it, my mouth was watering the moment I woke up on the day we planned to go.

My cousin Jeremy (respected resident of LA, big shot Hollywood editor), my girlfriend Melissa (Khmer-style Thai chef, international lover of me and fried chicken), and I planned to hit the Roscoe’s location in Oakland on our roadtrip because Jeremy had heard it was more “authentic.” We made it up to the Bay Area on our roadtrip only to find that Roscoe’s had closed. So we had to wait until we made it back to LA.

On New Year’s Day, we woke up at 3pm to face 2007 fresh. We devoted the rest of the day to Roscoe’s. What better way to kick off a new year than with food that will kill you as soon as look at you?

The experience began with a half hour wait on the bench outside which was quite memorable. First because the weather on the 1st of January was 75 degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky which was shocking to me as an east coaster (although it was almost as nice in New York that day I heard, it’s just that in LA that kind of weather on the first of the year doesn’t signal the end of the world as we know it as it does in the east).

Secondly, the wait was memorable because a gold-toothed, wife-beater clad, bandanna-wearing rapper in a nice car rolled into the parking lot, blasted his beat from the stereo, and rapped into everyone’s face on line to try to sell his cds at $10 each. The part that was really surprising was when he left his car in the lot for ten minutes with the door ajar and the keys in the ignition and the beat still blasting to go inside Roscoe’s to rap at each and every table. I almost stole his car just to teach him a lesson.

Then we waited another half an hour because the waitress forgot about us in the corner of the restaurant, a wait a little less memorable because we all grew delirious from hunger. So I was really anxious to eat by 5pm when the food finally arrived. I’d been smelling it for more than an hour, I hadn’t eaten a thing all day, and I’d been wanting to go to Roscoe’s for more years than I could recall. The fix was on. There was no way I wasn’t going to love it.

And I loved it. I orderd the Carol C. Special: “succulent breast, one delicious waffle.” The fried chicken was perfect- crispy, juicy, tender, flavorful, felt like I was committing a crime by putting in my mouth. The waffle, full of butter and syrup (the syrup was my doing, the butter showed up on the waffle in the form of a great, white, melting ball), really was “delicious.” Although they are much fluffier at Londel’s in Harlem I must say, these waffles actually went with the chicken even better. It was as much of a delight to take a bite of waffle and then tear off a piece of fried chicken as it was to synchronize the two in one bite.

(the self-timer function on my camera was a constant during the trip)

The sides - rice, mac n’ cheese, candied yams, and potatoes in gravy - were all amazing, although I couldn’t eat much of them because when I haven’t eaten until 5pm, my stomach is too tight to do much gorging. The corn bread, as it can be even at the best soul food spot, was a little too dry for my taste, even after a healthy application of butter. The biscuits, however, were so doughy and flaky and moist and buttery all at the same time that I almost ordered another even after I was stuffed, but I thought better of it because I figured it’d take another painful half an hour. Even the Arnold Palmer (which Roscoe’s calls “Lisa’s Delight”), half lemonade and half iced tea, was tastier than I’ve had it at most places in the deepest of the deep south.

(That’s my cousin Jeremy who made himself the first member of the 911 Nanny Army)

My wild expectations had been met, surpassed in some cases, by the LA institution. We all spent the last few hours of the first day of 2007 either laying flat on hour backs trying to digest our Roscoe’s feast or playing Guitar Heroes II. Next time I make it out to LA, I’m going to make sure I go to Zankou, but I’ll also be hitting up Roscoe’s again. Maybe twice. I’ve got a feeling 2007 is going to be a very good year.

Visit Famous Fat Dave . Com For Five Borough Eating Tours Back East

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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When I’m out there on the mean streets in my cab, I’m risking my neck for food tips. More than monetary tips or even a good story, I want to know where my fares eat. And I’ve got a long list of foods that I’m in the market for.

Second Avenue Deli closed, so I’m in desperate need of a tip on a good corned beef sandwich. I haven’t found too many great burritos in this town, so I often test my Spanish skills in hopes of finding one to rival a west coaster. And I’m slightly obessesed with pickles, so I tend to nudge the conversation in that direction if I sense someone might know his way around a full sour.

But I usually do NOT go out of my way to get tips on where to find fried chicken. Although fried chicken is one of my favorite foods on the planet, I get enough of it right here in the comfort of my own home. My special lady friend Melissa, drawing on the techniques of countless generations of Khymer-style Thai Muslim chefs from her mother’s “Neighborhood of Kitchens” in Bangkok, fries up chicken at home like no New York City fry cook ever could.

She guards the family recipe with her life, but I can tell you she fries it first and then puts it in the oven so as not to burn it in the oil but still cook it all the way through. She also makes a dipping sauce for it with lime juice, fish sauce, hot pepper, and some other secret ingredients. And she serves it over jasmine rice.

The results are heavenly every time. I’ve never had fried chicken with skin so crispy or meat so juicy, much less both factors combined perfectly. The eating experience Melissa provides makes your eyes light up, as evidenced by this shot of Melissa’s friend Melanie going in for her second bite:

But there is something about me that makes people think I want to know where to get fried chicken. Most likely it’s the shape of my face, which, precisely BECAUSE of fried chicken, is round. I used to be skinny, believe or not. My ribs actually showed until I was 8 years old.

It was then that I discovered the joys of that sacred deep fried bird and began riding my bike to Roy Rogers multiple per week. I used my allowance, and when that ran out, I sold baseball cards to finance my fried chicken expeditions. This continued unabated for a few months, and I steadily gained weight without understanding why. My mom noticed the startling weight gain too, but she didn’t know why either. I wasn’t telling her where I went after school every other day, and she chalked up the second chin to our purchase of a Nintendo, which occured simultaneously.

Finally, as I was chowing down on a drumstick one afternoon, my mom and brother walked in to my Roy Rogers on the way home from my brother’s swim practice. “What are you doing here?!?” my mom asked, very surprised to see my greasy face. “What are YOU doing here?” I replied. “I come here all the time.”

My body never recovered. My ribs never showed again. But I never lost my love for fried chicken. My mom took it upon herself to teach me well that I can’t continue to eat fried chicken two or three times a week if I wanted to live to see the next century. So nowadays, I try to keep my fried chicken consumption down to that Thai fried chicken that Melissa cooks when the mood strikes her.

Still, I cannot resist good old soul food style fried chicken every once in a while. I’ve been known to stop at Popeye’s from time to time (a step up from Roy’s, I believe). And, as I say, people tend to tell me where to get fried chicken without my asking. After I cross the Manhattan Bridge, I keep getting told to go to Ruthie’s Restaurant a couple blocks east of the Fulton Street Mall in Downtown Brooklyn. Not only did I get multiple recommendations from my fares, but the great Robert Seitsema of the Village Voice gave Ruthie’s a favorable nod as well.

Our friends Mark and Jack, who like to squeeze into our tiny apartment whenever Melissa is frying chicken, came along for the Ruthie’s run when they heard Melissa wouldn’t be cooking. We were immediately welcomed with open arms and friendly smiles by everyone from the counter girl to the waiter to Ruthie herself as she did the cooking in the back. We all felt right at home. And when the food came, we were feeling even better.

The chicken looked perfect. But it was too hot to eat, having just come out of the oil. It was practically still snapping and popping like it was in the pan. So we dug into the sides. PHENOMENAL. EVERY ONE OF THEM. The mac n’ cheese was cheesy and crispy just like i like it. The collard greens were flavored with bits of smoked turkey which made the vegetable as tasty as a good plate of meat. The black-eyed peas were delicious as well, exuding an almost pickled aroma. And the candied yams were better than any I’ve had during my 26 Thanksgiving dinners.

Finally, the chicken had cooled down enough to tear into without giving ourselves second degree burns. It was everything we hoped it would be. The skin was crispy and bursting with flavor. And the meat, even the white meat, was tender and juicy. I want to make clear that I still prefer Melissa’s Thai fried chicken, but I could see myself getting back into my Roy-Rogers-8-years-old-selling-baseball-cards-to-eat mode with Ruthie’s.

After all that, dessert didn’t disappoint. The red velvet cake might have been a little dry, but the sweet potato pie made up for it and more. I didn’t think anything could be sweeter than those candied yams, but this pie took the cake. The crust tasted homemade and buttery, and the filling was silky smooth and sweet like Melissa. Mark modeled it for me:

Even though we felt like we were at home, I have to say that eating at Ruthie’s isn’t quite as comfortable as actually eating at home. Her food is so good, it attracts everyone to her door, including the local junkies. As we ate, the man pictured here hovered in the doorway begging for some collard greens:

He wasn’t so much begging for them like a homeless person on the street would, but he was begging for them like a child would from his mother. They are that good. When he got to his feet, he stood in the doorway pleading with Ruthie, “Just a little a your greens Rootie. Pleeeeease. Just a little Rootie.” He seemed to know her.

One of the things I love about that woman is that she didn’t just say, “Get the hell outta here” like most owners would. She told him, “Don’t come here LIKE THIS. Don’t disrespect my place.” She wasn’t saying he could never have her collard greens. That would be cruel. Her greens are the stuff of life. She was just saying that he couldn’t have them “like this.”

Finally, he proved to be too much, and she took it upon herself to kick him to the curb. Take a look at this video (no sound necessary because you can’t understand what the junkie is saying), and watch closely at the end as Ruthie comes to our rescue: Ruthie To The Rescue On Youtube

Don’t tell my mom, but I think I might start eating more fried chicken.

Ruthie’s Restaurant, 96 DeKalb, Downtown Brooklyn/Fort Greene

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My two favorite minorities in the world are the Kurds and fat people. Although I’ve never picked up a Kurd, I’ve been hailed by many, many fat people. Some cabbies have told me that they refuse to pick up obese people on the grounds that they take too long to get into and out of the cab. My response is that it is just as immoral to refuse fat fares as it is to refuse black fares. But I’ve found that those weak-minded cabbies who won’t take the big ‘uns, generally don’t take black people either.

I, of course, jump at every opportunity to take both obese and black fares. My reasoning is simple. Both groups tend to take eating seriously. I’ve had a lot of luck matching taste buds with both fat people and black people. So when I saw a 300-pound black woman in front of Barnard College recently, I swerved across two lanes of Broadway to grab her.

Once she’d gotten inside my taxi, she told me to go to 137th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. PERFECT, I thought. Who better to ask where to find good soul food in Harlem? But it was a delicate subject, and I couldn’t decide exactly how I would bring it up.

We made small talk about traffic and the yellow cab business. “Used to be, just a few years ago, yellow cabs wouldn’t come to Harlem,” she pointed out. “Yeah, things are changing. Bill Clinton’s had his office on 125th Street for years now. There’s money to made up here these days,” I replied pleasantly. “Rents are going up. Black people can’t afford to live in Harlem anymore,” she said. The chit chat came to a halt, and we both just stared out the window as we sat at a red light on 132nd Street.

We were ignoring the fact that we’d both witnessed two or three empty yellow cabs pass her by before I swooped in to pick her up. We were also ignoring the fact that there wasn’t a single face on the street that wasn’t black.

Now we were fast approaching her house. I felt the opportunity slipping away. We caught some lights, and, before I knew it, we were there. She was paying me. She was slinging her bags over her shoulder. She was scooting to the curb side. We hadn’t really been totally honest with each other the entire conversation, so I didn’t know how to broach the soul food topic without sounding offensive.

I was worried that it would seem presumptuous. But I could tell she had the kind of body you get from eating fried foods and way too much butter, not Twinkies and Ho-Hos. Plus I’d run out of time. So I just went for it. “Where do you get your soul food?”

She stopped gathering herself, looked me in the eyes through the rear view, and stated very authoritatively, “The only place I go out for soul food is Londel’s.” JACKPOT. I’d never heard of it.

My friend Nate has been living in Harlem for a few months and told me he’d always be up for an eating expedition. I went off duty, picked him up, and sat down at Londel’s within the half hour.

I hadn’t asked my fare the price range, so I was a little thrown off when I saw that they charged more than $10 for the entrees. But it was the type of place at which the waiters wear tuxedos, so it made sense. Even though we were the only people in there at 5:45pm, we felt underdressed.

But the waiters, even the busboys, were so friendly that we felt right at home before our food even came. And when it did, we felt even better. I went with the fried chicken and waffles because I had a good feeling about the place.

I love the concept of chicken and waffles, but I’d never had a really great dish of it. I’ve eaten at Pan Pan, the old chicken and waffle lunch counter on 135th and Lenox, and I wanted to think it was delicious. But I couldn’t get past the fact that it tasted as if I was eating two things that didn’t naturally go together. Like peanut butter and hot dogs (I’ve had that too: Hagerstown, Maryland minor league game circa 1995), the fried chicken just doesn’t seem to go with the waffles, whether taken in the same or separate bites. I had been considering flying out west specifically for Rosco’s. And then I ate my first bite at Londel’s.

The taste sent me straight to the moon. The flavors and textures blended like I’d always wished they had. It made me reevaluate my whole worldview. If chicken and waffles could be this good, what else have I been missing? There must be so much else out there that I don’t understand.

Likewise, Nate fell head over heals for his mac n’ cheese and collard greens. I was right there with him once I stole my first fork-full. His cornmeal-dusted fried whiting was good too, though both of us had tasted better.

We didn’t really have room for dessert, but our waiter was giving us the hard sell. We almost went with the sweet potato pie, but Nate is a semi-professional pie chef and he nixed the order when the waiter admitted that the crust wasn’t homemade.

We went with the bread pudding instead, and it might be the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I’m not even a dessert person, but I went absolutely bonkers for the bread pudding. The consistency was like something from another planet. The sweetness would explode into every corner of my mouth with each bite. It was classic comfort food cooked in truly gourmet fashion. Nate and I sat in silence, occasionally shooting each other wild-eyed looks, until the plate looked like it came right out of the dish washer.

(notice the rum and caramel sauce expertly drizzled)

I knew that restaurant tip was going to pay off. I could tell how wise my 300 pound fare was. She clearly had a handle on good eating. But she also had a grasp on the subtleties of life.

After she’d gotten herself out of the cab, she leaned back in the window. With more than a bit of suspicion in her voice, she asked, “Why are you so interested.”

“Well, I love soul food. But I also take people on eating tours of the five boroughs,” I told her. “I call myself Famous Fat Dave.”

She sized me up with her eyes, looked down at her own body, and said, “Well Famous Fat Dave. . . Everything’s relative.”

Londel’s, 2620 Frederick Douglass Blvd. btwn 139th and 140th, Harlem

Visit FamousFatDave.com for five borough eating tours and we can hit Londel’s on a Sweet Tooth Tour, a Fried New York Tour, or a Famous Fat Dave’s Faves Tour

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

I’m about to broach a sticky subject.  It might be a little uncomfortable for you to confront.  Think you can handle it?  Okay, here goes.  Why do black people have so much trouble catching cabs?

I can’t answer that question for every city in America, but I know what New York City yellow cab drivers are thinking when they speed by black people who are clearly trying to hail them.  Judging from my non-scientific study of cabbies with whom I work, the reason is not so simple as bald racism.  Yellow cab drivers are not necessarily scared that black people will rob them, though I’m sure there are some weak-minded ones who do harbor that prejudice.

After spending many hours conversing with other cabbies waiting at the garage or lined up at the airport, I’ve come to a fairly simple conclusion.  Because cabbies make their money by dropping off and picking up fares in rapid succession, they would always rather take a fare to a part of the city where another fare can be found quickly.  This is the same reason they never want to go to Brooklyn no matter what race you are.

The racial profiling occurs when cabbies pass black people by because they assume black people are heading to a neighborhood far from the busy core of Manhattan.  You might be heading to Brownsville, Brooklyn where the cabbie won’t get another fare for an hour, but the cabbie will stop for you if you are white because he assumes you are not going to Brownsville.  If you are black however, even if you are heading to the West Village, many cabbies assume you are heading to Brownsville, and so they pass you by.  It is a less vicious type of racism than people might imagine is responsible for this phenomenon. 

Another more unpleasant stereotype that cab drivers attach to black people in New York is that they are bad tippers.  The black people who live in rough neighborhoods far from the moneyed sections of Manhattan might ask for the 60 cents of change on a $12.40 fare.  I have no problem coughing up the change in that situation since they obviously need that money more than I do (my problem is with Upper East Siders who tip 50 cents on a $5.20 fare by giving $6 and asking for a quarter “for the phone” which hasn’t been a quarter in a couple of years now).  So the issue is more that cab drivers are intent on making as much money as possible than that cab drivers live in fear of black people.   

I take pride in the fact that, like Travis Bickle, I run all over town.  I’ve never once passed a person by because of the color of his skin.  I was raised that way.  I’m no hero though.  If I had a family of 5 to support in Jackson Heights, and another family of 25 to send money home to in Karachi, I might not be so egalitarian.  But I don’t drive for the money as much as I drive for the adventure of it all.  So it wouldn’t make any sense at all for me to pass anyone by, because I might get a good story or a restaurant tip out of it.

A while back, I watched as 4 or 5 cabs passed a black couple on Broadway and 125th Street in front of me.  Once they climbed into my cab, the man immediately put a $10 bill through the divider and said with a strong hint of exasperation in his voice, “THAT’S just for stopping.”  So much for the tipping stereotype.

He was, however, heading to a neighborhood far from any place where I might find another fare:  The South Bronx.  It was late on a Thursday night and they were going dancing at a soul food restaurant slash lounge called Sam’s.  He actually invited me in, but I regretfully declined because I needed to go back to work.  I’d been there multiple times before to partake of their delicious bbq chicken on my way to Yankee Stadium just blocks away.  But the night club concept fascinated me.

Yesterday I convinced my friends Jack and Lance to come with Melissa and me for a late night soul food session at Sam’s.  We made it up there by about 2 a.m., so when we walked in the joint was in full swing.  I like to think of myself as a man of the people, all the people, who isn’t constrained by social barriers.  But I must admit that being the only white guys in a very crowded, sweaty South Bronx lounge made me a bit self-conscious.

We stood at the top of the stairs overlooking the dance floor feeling pretty much everyone’s eyes on us.  But the tension was broken when the waitress introduced herself with a giant smile and led us to our table in the back.  As we waded through the dance floor my own giant smile spread across my face because I witnessed some of the boldest dance moves I’ve ever seen.  My favorite move involved a man slapping his dance partner on the butt so firmly that the smacks were clearly audible over the throbbing bass that was loud enough to shake the stools.

Late at night, Sam’s only serves finger foods so, being the gluttons we are, we ordered one of everything on the menu.  That consisted of fried shrimp, fried fish strips, chicken wings, french fries, chicken fingers and plenty of tartar sauce.

The food was not as great as it is during regular dining hours, but we all agreed that our mini late night feast was downright phenomenal as far as meals served at 2:30 a.m. at dance clubs go.  Even though we were just sitting in the back quietly enjoying our soul finger food, we had attracted a great deal of attention.  Jack, a pale young man with wild golden locks falling about his shoulders, said that he has been to a number of foreign countries, but he had never gotten anything like the priceless and perplexed looks he got from so many of Sam’s patrons. 

(Jack shows off his mop top as he attempts to dry his lap of a budweiser that was spilt at the edge of the rowdy dance floor) 

But aside from our friendly waitress, our interactions with the locals consisted mostly of shy or confused stares rather than verbal communication.

Finally, an incredibly friendly (and incredibly drunk) woman stumbled over to our table after a trip to the bathroom.  She introduced herself as Tracy, and she phrased everything as though it were a secret from everyone else at the table.  Tracy took an instant liking to Lance and shot him a seductive smile. 

(You can see what Tracy saw in Lance, pictured here looking at the napkin that came stuffed into his beer)

She confided in Jack that her children were being “pains in my BE hind, and they should know better because they are 22 and 24.”  To Melissa she whispered, “Everyone in here is asking ‘Who dat? Who dat? She is beautiful.”  And for me, she took about a full minute to get herself into this pose:

And then she shouted, “Don’t label that picture ‘Crazy Black Bitch’” as she scooted off onto the dance floor.

Melissa was clearly in the mood to dance too:

But I wasn’t man enough to take her out onto the dance floor, because I didn’t think I would be able to keep up with those Boogie Down moves.  So we took our leave.  We ended up dancing our way back across the dance floor anyway, because Tracy had broken the glass wall between our cultures.  Everyone on the floor did at least a couple of steps with each of us as we danced through.  Tracy got DOWN with Lance, and she freaked him until he was caught between her and the speaker.  Then she took on Jack and me at the same time, and we ended up doing the bump with Tracy bouncing gleefully between us. 

We handed our waitress the check with a 20 percent tip, and she acted like we’d made a mistake.  “You gave me $7 too much,” she said.  “No, that’s for you,” I told her.  She raised her eye brows in surprise, and her eyes lit up.  Apparently, that tipping stereotype holds true at Sam’s.

Sam’s Restaurant, 596 Grand Concourse, The Bronx

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