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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06.08.07
Posted in Latino, On The Open Road, Seafood at 5:18 am by Administrator
Take a wild guess at who gave us our best restaurant rec while we were in Zihuatanejo. Nope, not Andy Dufresne. It was the cabbie who picked us up at the airport and drove us to our hotel.
I sat through 4 years of Montgomery County Public School Spanish between 7th and 10th grades. And I lived in Madrid for 4 months while I interned at the US Embassy. But I didn’t pick up a lick of Spanish until my stint working with a bunch of Mexicans as a cheesemonger at Murray’s Cheese Shop.
And I didn’t realize how much I’d picked up until I got into that cab and began carrying on a conversation with that cabbie. I surprised myself – and Melissa – at how much I was able to communicate, because I’m borderline retarded (no joke; just ask Dr. Rita Brown from a town known as Oyster Bay Long Island who administered the tests) when it comes to language skills. I spoke enough to ask where to eat, and I understood enough to hear our cabbie say, in no uncertain terms, “La Sirena Gorda.”
But La Sirena Gorda is in downtown Zihuatanejo, and we were staying at Playa La Ropa up the coast from there. So for the first week, we mostly just ate what was within walking distance. Dona Prudencia, the restaurant attached to the super fancy Villa Del Sol Hotel, served the best food we found on the beach. Their jumbo coconut shrimp, with crusty shavings of coconut and a sweet mango dipping sauce, tasted like one of the amazing Thai dishes Melissa’s mom makes. Their ceviche came warm, and it looked and tasted as though the fish had been blanched before the lime juices cooked it. The menu claimed that it was prepared in the “traditional” way, but I’d never heard of warm ceviche. Either way, it was bomb.
And their shrimp in white wine and garlic sauce with mushrooms and rice put a smile on my mamasita’s face despite the intense nighttime heat and humidity.
Aside from that restaurant, the food on Playa La Ropa was uninspired. La Perla (the restaurant that people on the series of tubes that make of the interwebs said was the best on the beach) served fish taquitos that tasted like they were filled with comida gato.
To be fair, the chips and salsa were not only inspired, they were divinely inspired. The salsa was freshly chopped, not too spicy, and bursting with cilantro. Even the chips were better than I’d ever had. They were thicker than the chips I find in El Norte, with a bit of grease to them that gave them their own flavor. In fact, pretty much everywhere we went had the best chips and salsa of my life.
And I can’t express to you how blissful a feeling it is to order guacamole and
A: Not get charged $4 for a spoonful of it
Dos: Find great mounds of it beneath your pile of chips, so that you feel silly for having rationed it at the start
Quatro: Realize that even cat food tacos taste okay with a shit ton of guac and fresh salsa on top
When we finally made it into downtown Zihuatanejo, we were planning on hitting La Sirena Gorda, but the cabbie who brought us to town said it was touristy and that we should eat at this other place that I don’t think had a name. We gave it a shot because we were in no mood to search, and it looked like Mexicans were eating there. But, ONLY Mexicans were eating there. For some reason, we did not take into account what a place like this would do to our lower GIs.
The food was tasty though. We had fried chicken taquitos (the idea was brilliant although it could have been executed much better. Still, someone had better serve fried chicken tacos in New York because there is a market for that). We also had these messy soft corn tortilla things covered in beef, mayo, and tomatoes, and chicken enchiladas with verde sauce. Everything was covered in oaxaca cheese and shredded raw cabbage. I went crazy, ignoring the fact that I’d been brushing my teeth with bottled water in an effort not to get sick, and ate more raw cabbage (most likely not washed in Evian) than prudent. And I paid for it. Still, I maintain that it was worth it.
When we recovered a couple days later, we headed back into downtown Zihuat for dinner. And without even trying, we happened upon La Sirena Gorda.
It means “The Fat Mermaid” as you can see from the wooden sign in the foreground pointing tourists toward the Fat Mermaid Shop. Usually, tourist restaurants with gift shops are not where I like to eat when on vacation. But when I looked inside, I saw only Mexicans. And when I looked at the menu, I saw about a dozen varieties of fish tacos. Now, I think fish tacos are the greatest idea in the history of ideas. I can imagine that a truly great fish taco could be one of my favorite eating experiences ever. The concept is perfect. It is as though the guy who invented fish tacos was thinking of me when he did it.
But I’d never found that Platonic fish taco I imagined when I first heard about them a few years back (I’m an East Coaster. We’re lucky to get good Taco Bell). So when we sat down at La Sirena Gorda, I went all out. I basically ordered one of each taco on the menu.
The three types pictured above are Pibil (the two on the top left), smoked fish (middle), and carnitas (bottom right). The pibil tacos, with red onions, were the most impressive. The smoked fish tacos tasted Jewish, which, in my book, is good, but certainly not the Platonic fish taco for which I was searching. The carnitas fish taco won the award for weirdest as the menu proudly declared that it was fish perpared as though it were pork. And that’s exactly what it tasted like. The serenita taco had THREE types of chillis mixed into the fish, but it was, somehow, not very hot.
The white hot habenero hot sauce that the waiter warned us was “mas caliente” (he also warned us the Corona was mas fina) was, as Wolf Blitzer would say, so white and so hot. I loved it. Melissa LOVED it. . . maybe a little too much.
She paid for that too.
Five Borough Eatings Tours at w w w. Famous Fat Dave . c o m
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05.30.07
Posted in On The Open Road at 9:13 pm by Administrator
Tell you where I’d go. Zihuatanejo.
Mexico. Little place right on the Pacific. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That’s where I’d like to finish out my life, Red. A warm place with no memory.
(I think a man laying in a hammock outdoors feels more like a man with a bottle of suds – and some pork rinds)
I don’t think it’s too much to want. To look at the stars just after sunset. Touch the sand. Wade in the water. Feel free.
Get busy living or get busy dying. – Andy Dufresne
Eating Tours are still available. No good thing ever dies. Visit www.FamousFatDave.com to schedule yours upon my return from Zihuatanejo.
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05.18.07
Posted in Astoria, Middle Eastern, On The Open Road, Queens, Seafood at 8:01 am by Administrator
I’m no innovator. Famous Fat Dave’s Five Borough Eating Tour On The Wheels Of Steel may be one of a kind in this town, but the concept of cabbie-as-tour-guide is not unique. In almost every country I’ve visited, I’ve found cabbies who double as tour guides. It’s only natural. Who knows a city better than the people who drive all over every inch of it, talk with every person in it, eat at a different place for lunch every day?
When I blew into Cairo in February of 2005, I’d already been doing my eating tours for friends and family (and friends of family and family of friends) in New York for years. But I met a cabbie there who took me on a tour that made me realize I should be Famous Fat Dave for real.
As far south as Abu Siembel (40 clicks north of the Sudan border) I’d heard rumors of this cabbie in Cairo who gives pyramid tours. On the way to Luxor I ran into a friend I’d met back in the Sinai, and she gave me his name and number. So the minute my train stopped in Cairo, I called this Ibrahim and within an hour he met me at the station cafe just as the sun was coming up.
He was a huge man with a huge smile. After he made sure I was well fed at the cafe, we were off. His cab, a classic black and white taxi (the yellow cab of Cairo), was comically small. I couldn’t bring myself to dream how this big guy squeezed into his tiny 1975 Peugot with 3,000,000 km on it all day long. But he did.
We spent the day cruising around the 22 pyramids of the lower Nile region. He stopped at all the amazing views. He gave a running commentary on everything from Egyptian history to Cairo traffic.
And his jokes were priceless. Before we stopped for lunch, he said that his cab was “hungry too.” At the gas station he pointed to the oil palms lining the Nile, turned to me and said, “But David, we don’t have much oil here. Only a little” and then made a gesture as if to ward me off. “Mr. Bush can smell oil,” he said (he never knew that I was crying inside). When a man pulled his donkey into the gas station, Ibrahim let out a belly laugh and told me the donkey was there to get gas too, “IN HIS ASS!” I’m not sure if the pun was intended.
I wanted to go native for lunch. I’d never tried Egyptian seafood, and I saw some people eating it at a stand. But Ibrahim warned me not to eat anything out of the Nile. Instead Ibrahim took me to a super touristy spot because he got to eat there for free (this was not an eating tour after all, we had 22 pyramids to squeeze in). Still, the meal was delicious. The babaganoush, tahina, hummus, and pita were nothing less than fantabulous. And the mixed grill and pickles were okay. But I could have eaten for three days in Egypt for what it cost me.
By the time we reached the Great Pyramids at Giza, he’d taken a real shining to me (I’d like to think). I told him about the Famous Fat Dave tour I conducted back in NYC and that I drive a yellow cab, so, naturally, he saw a little of himself in me. He pointed to my burgeoning pot belly and said that in 30 years, I’d have a belly like his. I told him I hoped to have a tour like his as well.
So when I returned to New York, I began promoting my tour in earnest. I’d already discovered a great Egyptian spot to take people on Steinway Street called Kabab Cafe. The food there is better than most I had in Egypt, and Ali, the owner, with his larger-than-life personality and bold opinions reminded me of Ibrahim.
My cousin Aaron, the swingin’ violinist who played on my theme song, moved to NYC last week (his first gig will be as the lone violinist at a Stephane Grapelli tribute at Lincoln Center on June 1), and I took the drive out to LaGuardia to pick him up. Afterwords, I stopped off to see Ali on Stienway Street for some falafel and a chat. But his store was shuttered for renovations. I considered going to his brother’s restaurant Mombar up the street which is just about as good, but I noticed an inviting place called Sabry’s across the street.
Sabry’s bills itself as an Egyptian seafood restaurant. Because Ibrahim warned me not to eat any fish out of the Nile, and it’s illegal to fish out of the Red Sea, I never ate any seafood during my month in Egypt. So I was intrigued.
This place had some beautiful looking fish on display in the middle of the dining room:
And all sorts of interesting fish were being pushed across the counter to the frenetic waiters like whole Red Snapper:
And fish heads:
We got it started with some of best, hot pita I’ve ever tasted:
A strawberry smoothie that would have hit the spot if I were in the Sinai:
And some fried shrimp to gauge how good the place might be compared to any old seafood shack:
We could tell we were in for a treat, because we’ve both had our fair share of fried shrimp, and these were especially good. They were plump and fresh, fried just to the point at which the freshness was still evident.
Our main courses were amazing. The talapia special that the waiter pushed blew my freaking mind. The meat fell off the bone like bbq pork even though it was grilled fish. And it was loaded with all sorts of amazing herbs and spices that gave it the flavor of Egypt with the quality control of America.
The other dish they called “fish cake” because it came piled high like a wedding cake. I’d never had anything like it. I didn’t get the name of the fish from the waiter whose English, though better than my Arabic, was a little weak. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the delicate fish mixed with steamed vegetables immensely and I’m glad the waiter convinced me to order it.
Egyptians must just be a gregarious bunch, because this waiter, like Ibrahim in Cairo and Ali across the street, was nothing but smiles and jokes the whole meal:
Ibrahim, from the driver seat of his black and white cab, took it upon himself to explain to me that the Jews refuse to live in peace and must always make war, so the Arab-Israeli conflict will never end. There were billboards all over Cairo proclaiming “Egypt is the Leader of Peace.” Our waiter, however, told us that he thinks terrorists are crazy. I didn’t bring up the subject, and I felt sorry for him that he felt the need to clarify that to me, as though if he’d left it unsaid I’d assume he agrees with terrorism. But mostly, he just joked around with us and smiled a lot.
Even the guys preparing the fish and making that delicious pita behind the counter were friendly:
So I’ve got a cab like Ibrahim’s and a tour like Ibrahim’s. My belly still isn’t quite like Ibrahim’s. But now, unlike Ibrahim, I’ve even got a place for Egyptian seafood.
Sabry’s, 24-25 Steinway Street at Astoria Blvd, Astoria, Queens
Visit www.FamousFatDave.com for five borough eating tours
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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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04.03.07
Posted in BBQ, Brooklyn, Caribbean, On The Open Road at 3:42 pm by Administrator
It was midnight in Austin, Texas. My friend Gary – Brooklynite, sushi eating champion – and I were in the midst of a cross-country road trip. We just spent a lovely evening eating queso and drinking margaritas with some hospitable UT kids. But we had no place to crash because, contrary to my assumption that all of Texas is full of wide open spaces, these grad students were packed in like sardines. We may as well have been back in New York. There wasn’t even any floor space to spare.
(That’s my cousin’s husband’s little sister on the right modeling some queso with her friends. Talk about southern hospitality, we were already approaching a full 6 degrees of separation and she treated us like family.)
But we were in an open road state of mind, and we were happy to take on the driving challenge. “You think we can make it to White Sands, New Mexico by morning?” Gary asked one of our gracious hosts. “Sure, and you’ll pass through the darkest place in America on the way. You’ll see all the stars,” she replied in a slow, southern drawl as we looked at the Road Master together. “You gotta go through a shit ton a Texas first though,” were her only words of caution.
So off we went into the muggy Texas night. Gary drove first because he hadn’t had a margarita in a couple hours. I was used to driving my cab very late at night, so I’d take over in a few hours. I folded my arms and pulled my hat low over my eyes like I was Austin Millbarge and Gary was Emmett Fitz-Hume.
Very soon thereafter I was awoken not because we were surrounded by Mujadhadeen, but because Gary was howling with terror as we whizzed by a deer standing on the shoulder. Gary’s eyes were wild with fear, mostly because he loved his 2003 Hyundai like a son. I begged him to slow down, but even at 50 mph, deer would appear from out of nowhere, and we’d miss them by pure luck. When we saw the mangled carcass of a buck that looked as though it’d been creamed by a tractor trailer, we figured our chances of hitting something had risen to about 50/50.
In the first town we came across, we asked the gas station attendant why there were so many deer out. “This here is Hill Country you boys are in. We got a lotta deer in these parts,” he informed us. Why none of our hosts in Austin had warned us, we didn’t understand. They must not have known what dangers lurked to the west. “Well, how fast can you go?” I asked. “You can go as fast as you want. But I keep it to 40 . . . and that’s still pushing your luck,” he grinned.
Realizing we couldn’t get anywhere in Texas going 40 mph, we found a cheap motel for the rest of the night. We were both deflated. I knew Gary was in a weird place, because he was speaking fondly of the Gowanus Expressway as I fell asleep. I dreamt of queso and margaritas and venison jerky.
We awoke to discover that we were in a town called Llano. But even before we found out where we were, we were overwhelmed with the divine scent of barbeque. As we wandered out into the street like a couple a hobos, we felt as though we’d happened upon some sort of Garden of Eden (we actually weren’t far from Eden, Texas).
(Here I am later in the day in Eden, Texas)
The entire, tiny town was engulfed in smoke from multiple barbeque pits and smoke houses lining the main street. The locals weren’t batting an eyelash. We thought that this must just be the way it is in Texas all the time. We were wrong, but we knew there was nothing like Llano back in New York.
It turns out, we were wrong about that too. Recently, I was driving a plucky family of adventurous eaters through Brooklyn when we got caught in a traffic jam on Nostrand Avenue approaching Flatbush. We were overwhelmed by a familiar smoky scent. The whole street was filled with smoke, and the locals didn’t seem at all concerned.
I spotted the source of the smoke, pulled the cab over in a no parking zone in front of a church, and ran across the street to see what was cooking. “Jerk chicken, Guyana style . . . you know, the place where Jim Jones killed all those people,” the sweaty cook standing over the steel barrel full of chicken and charcoal on the sidewalk told me.
(It struck me as kind of sad that nearly 30 years after the kool-aid, this native son of Guyana still felt he had to invoke Jim Jones’ name to explain where he was from)
(The jerk chicken was to die for)
Before I saw what was on the grill, I hadn’t the audacity to dream I’d found Texas brisket or beef ribs on the streets of Brooklyn. But once I tasted that jerk chicken, it seemed to me that Shaborn Juice Bar must be the Brooklyn equivalent of Llano. That divine scent and that ubiquitous smoke brought me back to the heart of Texas. And the jerk chicken, tangy and spicy and custom drenched in jerk sauce, was as flavorful as any barbeque I had back in the lone star, though in a totally different way. We devoured it all right there amidst the smoke filling the air on Nostrand Avenue. It tasted as though we’d found the Garden of Eden.
(Usually we don’t try anything I haven’t had a million times before on the tour, but that day it was clear that whatever came out of that smoke would be delicious)
Shaborn Juice Bar, Nostrand Ave And Glenwood Rd (near Flatbush Ave), Flatlands Brooklyn
Visit www.FamousFatDave.Com 4 5 Boro Food 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:
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01.11.07
Posted in Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tours, Fried Chicken, On The Open Road, Soul Food, There's A Beverage Here Man at 12:12 am by Administrator
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.
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