The Eating Adventures of a Checker Cabbie
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
Visit FamousFatDaveDotCom for a laugh and an eating tour
Yesterday was my 28th birthday. It was sometime around my 14th birthday that I went to visit my brother at Amherst College and went out to eat at an Italian restaurant called Carmelina’s. There, for the first time in my young life, I discovered what cannoli was. Josh and his roommates ordered them, and I watched as the waiter squeezed fresh ricotta from the tube into the waiting shell. I had one bite and I LOVED it. But I didn’t really start eating cannoli seriously until a couple years later at the Giaquinta household of Potomac, Maryland.
Number 28 isn’t really a big deal aside from the fact that it means I survived 27 which Jimi, Janis, Curt, Tupac, Valentino, and a few others didn’t. Still, this birthday is momentous in a way. It marks the 14th year since I first laid eyes on cannoli, meaning that cannoli have been a part of my life for half of its duration. For the rest of my life, I will have known of cannoli for the better part of it.
Little did I know 14 years ago how big a role cannoli would play not only in my life, but in my personality. I’ve been dubbed “The Cannoli Kid” by a real-life Sicilian. I made three separate pilgrimages to Sicily in search of cannoli. And I’ve scoured the five boroughs for true cannoli in my yellow cab. I even found a reason to speak of cannoli in the Village Voice article about me in which I am pictured with a giant pickle in my mouth.
And recently I recieved an incredibly heart-warming email from a reader whose love of cannoli seems to have sprung from my own:
Hi Dave, I've been a long-time reader of your blog, and have to say I've become secretly addicted to your reviews. Though I seriously loved your "three burgers in a day" entry, my favorite has been your cannoli saga, and it has stuck out as the pinnacle of NYC eating to this California girl. Alas, I didn't have the time nor funds to go on your full tour when I was visiting Manhattan last month, but I did have Rocco's on the top of my foodie list...though of course...I forgot the address at home. Dejected, I was convinced I would have to leave the city without having tasted my first cannoli ever...until lo and behold I stumbled upon it when I was on a mission to Bleeker St. Records. It was seriously one of those serendipitous moments where you know you're at the right place at the right time! Needless to say, the cannoli was amazing, better than I ever could have imagined it to be: crispy shell, thick, sweet cream, little pistachios for nuttiness...well, I don't need to tell you, do I?I just wanted to thank you for introducing me to Rocco's, and consequently, one of the most heavenly foodie experiences of my life to date. Keep up the great work with blog and your reviews in NFT and Gothamist, and I hope one day to partake in a Wheels of Steel Tour myself! All the best, Zhaddi
(Zhaddi’s cannoli: she is clearly a better photographer than I am)
That letter warms my heart to no end. It makes me as proud a Sicilian. And it is exactly why I do what I do. If I were a chef, I’d watch with pride as people eat the food I cook them. But I’m just an eater. Thus my satisfaction comes from watching people’s eyes light up when I introduce them to the foods I love.
So yesterday, on an otherwise unimportant 28th birthday, Melissa knew exactly what I would love the most. She sneaked out to Rocco’s on the pretense that she was going to the deli. I had no clue what she was up to. But she came back to surprise me with a black and white, a strawberry shortcake, and TWO beautiful, fresh-made, hand-piped cannoli.
Read today’s Not For Tourists DC Page, and discover a Burmese restaurant with a Palestinian/ Guatemalan/ Irish bartender who serves the strongest vodka tonic in predominantly African-American Silver Spring, Maryland. Oh, and that bartender also happens to be my best friend since 7th grade (but that doesn’t mean that what I wrote about her isn’t true).
Get me in the back seat of a NYC yellow cab, put me IN A HUGE HURRY, and the hilarity ensues. While I meandered out to Bleeker Street and 6th Avenue to catch a cab to LaGuardia Airport a couple weeks back, I glanced one last time at my ticket to be sure of the terminal. My heart stopped. I knew exactly how long it would take to get the airport at that time from that spot. But I’d misremembered the departure time on the ticket by an hour. Suddenly, I was frantic.
I started hailing like my life depended on it. I looked into the eyes of the first cabbie who stopped for me, and saw he did NOT have the killer instinct I would need to get me to my gate on time. I waved him on, and he cursed at me in his native tongue. But even that was so meek I knew I’d made the right decision.
Then I hailed Viktor. Before I even got in, I said, “I’ve gotta get to LGA ten minutes ago. Can you do it? Tell me the truth, because otherwise I’ll hail someone else.” Now he looked me in the eyes, didn’t hesitate, and said, “Yes, yes, get in, get in” in an accent I didn’t recognize.
The first question was how to cross the East River. I told him to head a couple of blocks out of the way and take the Williamsburg Bridge onto the BQE. He told me it’d be faster to take the Queens-Midtown Tunnel from 36th Street. The battle was on. I told him who he was dealing with – a fellow yellow cabbie with five years driving under my belt. He told me who I was dealing with – a determined Kosavar Albanian yellow cabbie who’d been driving for many more years than I had. I nearly folded when he spoke of his six-days-a-week schedule, but I stuck to my guns.
The fight was fixed though. Right there in the passenger bill of rights posted under thick plastic in the back seat is a provision that the customer may decide the route so long as it is not unreasonable. We made it onto and across the Williamsburg Bridge in no time, and I was breathing easier.
Then the traffic snarled. The merge onto the BQE, which I knew would be slow, was at a virtual standstill. We were averaging about 2 miles an hour. And we had about a mile to go. My heart sank.
But Viktor was a pro. He didn’t say “I toldya so.” He didn’t rub it in my face. He just sat back and let it all be. We both knew I was wrong. There was no need to spell it out.
So as I stared from the clock to the jammed road before us, we began to chat. Viktor told me about growing up in a village near Pristina. I knew he’d left well before the war beacause his hack number was very low, meaning his got his license many, many years ago. I had two more digits in mine that he had. I guessed what year he left. He was impressed by that (I was close), and he was impressed with my cursory knowledge of Balkan history and politics (thank you Professor Judt of the NYU history department).
As we crawled up the steep Brooklyn side of the Koz over Newtown Creek, I told him what I do. And he immediately responded by telling me where to get a great slice of pizza. He told me there are Albanians, from Albania proper not Kosovo, who make fantastic pizza at Bleeker Street Pizza. “No way,” I said. “I live around the corner from there. I’ve never even tried it. It just looks like any old pizza place.” “It isn’t,” Viktor said with a wild look in eye.
My area is jammed with pizzerias: Joe’s and Abitino’s for slices, John’s and No. 28 for pies. I’d always seen Bleeker Street Pizza but was turned off by their “Authentic Tuscan Pizza” sign, because I’ve lived in Tuscany and found the pizza to be disgusting – like a communion cracker with watery cheese slidding off the sides.
Viktor, once the traffic I’d gotten us into let up, drove like Michael Andretti. Weaving all over the road right up to the LaGuardia exit, he topped off his virtuoso performance with a daring and uncalled-for rumble over the rough and debris-filled shoulder leading to the exit because the traffic had snarled yet again just 200 feet prior. My heart was pounding with excitment from the five minute roller coaster ride Viktor had just taken me on. I thought we might both die at a couple of different moment, but Viktor had skills and we arrived only a tiny bit queasy.
I showed him as much gratitude as I could, hopped out, and found that my flight was delayed by 2 hours. So it turned out that I didn’t need to pick just the right cabbie. Still, I’m glad I found the one I did. Now, I was excited to return so I could try out Bleeker Street Pizza.
I took the taxi back from the airport straight to the corner of 7th Ave and Bleeker and went in for a couple slices. When I arrived, an obnoxious drunk was eating his slice at the counter. “How long you been making pizza?” he demanded of the counter man. “Nineteen years,” he responded. “Well you been doin’ it wrong for nineteen years,” the drunk said. Clearly, I’d come in late in the conversation, but I thought he might be reacting to the fact he was eating Albanian pizza rather than the classic New York style.
I gave the counterman a knowing look, as if to say, “This guy is an idiot, but I’m not.” I ordered my two slices as well as a lemon ice that I was excited to see was imported from the famed Lemon Ice King of Corona in Queens. As my slices heated up in the oven, I impressed the counterman with my cursory knowledge of Balkan history (works every time). I told him I’d met a Kosovar Albanian yellow cab driver who recommended I come, and he responded with geniune concern that the man I’d met was clinically insane. I told him I had a hunch about that from the way he drove.
The drunk had wandered off. I sat down to eat my slices in peace. And I enjoyed them thoroughly.
They were a little greasy maybe, but grease isn’t a bad thing in my book. The cheese was sparse, which is nice when the tomato sauce is as sweet as theirs is. The crust was weak, but it didn’t ruin the slice at all. It was just there. Actually, it was crispy the way I like it to be sometimes. I liked this pizza better than my previous favorite slice joint in the neighborhood – Joe’s – but Joe’s had gone pretty far downhill lately.
This pizza was certainly unlike anything I had in Tuscany. And it wasn’t the classic Napoli pizza either. In fact, it’s not exactly like any slice I’ve ever had in New York either. They’d be foolish to advertise it this way, but it really must be authentic Albanian pizza.
Bleeker Street Pizza, 7th Avenue and Bleeker Street, West Village, Manhattan
Famous Fat Dave’s Five Borough Eating Tours, Five Borough Pizza Tours Available
I’ll be happy if Alfonso Soriano stays a Washington National next year. But if he goes anywhere, I hope it is back to the Yankees. Either way, read yesterday’s Not For Tourists Guidebook Washington, DC page for an idea on where to eat in the area between the Capitol and RFK Stadium.
I hope you’ve been checking in to Not For Tourist Guidebook every day. If you haven’t, may I suggest you do so today. Both the New York page (Randazzo’s Seafood in The Bronx) and the DC page (Roger’s Produce in Potomac, Maryland) have blurbs written by some crazy cabbie.
Also, I’ve missed a couple opportunities to link to my blurbs in the past few weeks, so you can belatedly click below for those as well.
Magic Fountain Ice Cream in New Jersey
Bethesda Co-Op in Bethesda, Maryland
Tony Cheng’s in Chinatown, DC
Hi folks. Adam B. here, hoping to take a moment to go back in time with you and Famous Fat Dave. The month was March, the year was 2003: a tumultuous time for our nation. Scorn for America was building as the leader of the Free World abondoned reckless diplomacy in favor of a cool, calculated blitz to Baghdad.
Things were tense between worldwide anti-war protests mounting and Nicole Kidman duking it out with Rene Zellweger for best actress. With iTunes still a month away, what better way to escape reality than a trip to Portland, Maine to vist our friends Ian and Marin.
FFD and I hopped in the Maxima and headed to Maine from Maryland via Philadelphia, where we stopped for piping hot soft pretzels . . . and cheesesteaks . . . oh yeah, we stopped for hoagies too.
Once we got to Maine, we knew that no reunion with auld-tyme friend would be complete without a feast. And no feast in Maine is complete without lobster. So by the transitive property, Dave and I made it our mission to find the most succulent, meaty, fisty lobsters that we could afford. We set out on the streets of Portland on a cold, crisp, sunny day. Blue jeans and sweatshirts. Hand and hand.
We ended up at the creaky Harbor Fish Market where freshly caught seafood practically dances from the boat to your plate. Dave and I persevered through the anti-tourist tactics of black flies and ridicule (in a thick New accent) for lack of lobster knowledge. We emerged from the store with a cardboard cornucopia of crustaceans.
We arrived back at the house, and while the rest of the feast was being prepared, a pang of conscience came over us while staring into the box. We decided to give our main course a few more minutes of dignity in the master bathroom (unbeknownst to our hosts).
When the time came to transfer the lobsters to the kitchen, any dignity that remained was quickly erased by Dave in one fell schwing:
Thankfully our host Ian knew what the hell he was doing and took charge of the operation. With Cheshire grins, the three of us proudly pose with our prize catch just before the boil:
And a few minutes later, viola! The well-deserved reward for a hard day of deep sea shopping. The lobsters are served prete-a-mange along with all the fixin’s (don’t worry Marylanders, the Old Bay Seasoning was present but off camera).
Famous said grace. Then we toasted to health, good cheer, and a merciful Jewish G-d who hopefully understands the complexities and difficulties of abiding by all laws of kashrus in a modern, predominately gentile society.
Amen
Harbor Fish Market, 9 Custom House Wharf, Portland, Maine
Visit Adam B.’s Zone You Can Deal With! and tell him where Tupac is
