02.01.07
Posted in Brooklyn, Fruits and Veggies, Gravesend, Meats, Middle Eastern, Posts For Gothamist at 12:44 am by Administrator
You wouldn’t know it by looking at me, but I love salad. I enjoy it as an appetizer. I clean off my plate when it comes as a side. And, if it’s really tasty, I could be completely satisfied with salad as an entree.
However, meat, and plenty of it, is clearly what brings people to Coney Island Avenue and Avenue T. Sahara, which is open extremely late into the night, is packed every evening even though it is not cheap. Russians come up from Brighton Beach. Italians come over from Bensonhurst. Black cars parallel double park out front. The lot is usually full by dinner, and on the weekends Sahara is popular enough that they have to offer valet. Everybody in southern Brooklyn knows that Sahara is the place to go for a fix of tasty Turkish meat.
The mixed grill is nothing but winners. The plate is loaded down with shaved bits of meat off their lamb and beef “gyro,” crispy on one side, juicy on the other. The chicken kebab is grilled beautifully, leaving exactly the right parts charred and the right parts tender. And the lamb chop is delightfully greasy.
When I stop at Sahara on a tour, I usually show off Sahara’s shawarma (which they refer to as “gyro sandwich” even though they’re Turkish). Although the spacey grill man occasionally fills the pita with far too many vegetables on top so that the precious meat can’t be reached until after a few messy bites, I still consider it one of the best shawarmas in town.
So isn’t it ironic that Sahara serves my favorite salad on earth? It is called the Shepherd Salad, and it is genius in it’s simplicity. It consists of nothing more than cubed tomatoes and cucumbers along with some red onions and cilantro. The dressing, they tell me, is simply olive oil, salt, and vinegar. And it’s usually garnished with three or four black olives (unless you order it to go, in which case you get none, which is annoying). And every salad comes with soft, fluffy, chewy Turkish home bread that they bake there daily.
But I’m sure the main reason I’ve fallen so hard for Sahara’s Shepherd Salad is the cheese option. For an extra couple dollars, they’ll serve the salad with feta. This Turkish feta, however, is a creamier version than the crumbelievable Greek variety I’m used to. And, quite brilliantly, they SHAVE it rather than crumble it. The result is a salad with an even distribution of feta that makes every bite a sensation.
Yes, there is a giant, lit-up plastic gyro over the doorway. Yes, their slogan is “Let’s Meat At Sahara.” And, yes, I am, admittedly, an unreconstructed carnivore. But since I discovered Sahara’s Shepherd Salad, when I find myself on Coney Island Avenue, my mouth starts watering for salad.
As published in Gothamist.com
Visit www.famousfatdave.com for Five Borough Eating Tours: VEGGIE TOURS NOW AVAILABLE
Permalink
08.01.06
Posted in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Caribbean, Crown Heights, Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tours, Gravesend, Homecrest, Italian, La Pizza, Latino, Meats, Middle Eastern, Prospect Heights, Red Hook, Sandwiches, Seafood, Sheepshead Bay, Sweets at 11:23 am by Administrator
The dog days of summer are not a good time to be a cabbie in New York. It seems like everyone who has the means has already taken off for breezier locales. Business is dead. Gas is more expensive. Profit margins are squeezed.
So it’s a good thing that I’m conducting more and more Famous Fat Dave’s Five Borough Eating Tours these days. The more you read The Hungry Cabbie, and the more you tell your friends, the less often I have to drive my yellow cab for street hails. Reservations for tours are pouring in (August is almost booked), so call now. Operators are standing by.
This weekend I was planning on heading to Rockaway Beach for a filet of sole hero from the 101 Deli, a stroll on the boardwalk, and a dip in the Atlantic. But I was busy with two eating tours I booked at the last minute. One was a Midnight Munchies Tour like the one I did with David Wain and Ken Marino in June. The other was a Best of Brooklyn Tour I conducted for the Sorey family of Richmond, VA.
Rachel and her boyfriend have a few years in New York notched on their belts, but the rest of the fam came up for the occasion, a surprise gift for Mr. Sorey. With dad in the passenger seat and 4 in the back seat, we were breaking all sorts of Taxi And Limousine Commission rules, so there was a nice touch of extra added adventure whenever we saw a police cruiser and had to have one person slink down in the back seat to hide.
We only had four hours for the whole tour, but the Sorey’s were real champs, and we did a lot of eating on the run so as to fit in more chow time. I didn’t take a picture of the Ewephoria Sheep’s Milk Gouda from Murray’s, but that’s what held us over during the drive to Tom’s Diner in Prospect Heights:
We called ahead, so our piping hot Belgian waffle with strawberries was waiting for us. We felt like the smart ones as we slathered ours in syrup and cinnamon butter while we sat outside in the chairs meant for all those people waiting in the line that stretched out the door:
Click here to read what I wrote about Tom’s in Gothamist.
After we (I) finished our waffle (this was when I explained that Famous Fat Dave always gets the last bite), we stopped at El Gran Castillo de Jagua for a Cubano. The mercury was pushing 100, so the heavily forested Prospect Park was the ideal spot for everyone to dig in on the pressed sandwich:
Click here to read what I wrote about El Gran Castillo de Jagua in Gothamist.
The kids ran into Culpepper’s to grab a Bajan (that means ”from Barbardos”) flying fish cutter with hot sauce while the rest of us relaxed in the A.C. from my 2001 Ford Crown Vic with 200,000 miles on it. Then we all took turns devouring that sandwich while we drove down Nostrand Avenue:
Click here to read what I wrote about Culpepper’s in Gothamist.
Stuck in a bit of traffic on Nostrand and Glenwood, we noticed the overwhelming smell of smoky bbq filling the air above the avenue. I switched on the hazards in a no parking zone in front of a church, ran across the street, and returned with some jerk chicken from a Guyanese man bbqing on the sidewalk:
And my nose served us right. It was delicious:
Next stop was the Irish-style, soaking wet roast beef sandwich from Brennan and Carr that took a beating in my Gothamist column last week. And guess what creepy Gothamist commenters: The Soreys all LOVED it:
Like father,
Like son.
Click here to read what I wrote (and how revolted some ignorant commenters were) about Brennan and Carr in Gothamist.
After a taste test comparison with the Roll N’ Roast beef sandwich with cheez whiz and onions in neighboring Sheepshead Bay, we took our Roll N’ Roaster lemonades and hit Brighton Beach for a while. We had time to get some sun, feel the breeze, and take a gander at some Little Odessa’s summer street culture:
No Famous Fat Dave tour is complete without eating off the big yellow table:
And that’s how we enjoyed our shawarma from Sahara in Gravesend. Mr. Sorey wasn’t impressed. I wish we had time to hit Zaytoon’s (they put pickles in their shawarma, and the meat has the more complex flavor Mr. Sorey was looking for), but we had time constraints:
Click here to read what I wrote about Sahara and Zaytoon’s in Not For Tourists Guidebook.
L&B Spumoni Gardens in Bensonhurst is always a crowd-pleaser though. No one can deny the glory of a steaming hot thick slice of pizza and a steaming cold squeeze cup of spumoni on the outdoor patio:
Click here to read what I wrote about Spumoni Gardens in Not For Tourists Guidebook.
Zipping up the Gowanus Expressway that never has any traffic on it, we found ourselves in Red Hook as the time grew near for me to return the cab to Cha Cha in Greenpoint. Frozen, chocolate-dipped mini key lime pie on a stick really hits the spot at the end of a muggy, sticky day of eating and driving. Everyone was grabbing for it:
Click here to read what I wrote about Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Piesicles in Gothamist and Click here to read how I discovered Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies
So how could we possibly cap off a tour like that? We did it with deep fried, crunchy, dill, sour pickles, rolled in Cajun spices, and dipped in tartar sauce. A heavenly treat straight out of Elvis’ cookbook. And it was a big hit:
Where do you find something so scrumptious you ask? I’m keeping that one a secret for now. But if you take a tour, I’m sure we can arrange a tasting.
I’d like to use this space to thank the Soreys for their enthusiasm. You really ate like pros. I’m sure it is clear from these pictures, the Sorey’s enjoyed their Best Of Brooklyn Tour immensely. But more importantly, they really did save Famous Fat Dave the last bite:
Visit www.famousfatdave.com to book an eating tour. And if today’s post wasn’t enough Best of Brooklyn for you, take an almost entirely different virtual Best of Brooklyn Tour with the Dolgens.
Permalink
06.12.06
Posted in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tours, Flushing, Gravesend, Japanese, Jewish, Korean, La Pizza, Manhattan, Middle Eastern, Pickles, Sandwiches, Sheepshead Bay, Upper West Side at 6:19 am by Administrator
David Wain and Ken Marino of The State went on a Famous Fat Dave’s Midnight Munchies Tour last week for a www.gawker.com story. I cannot express to you how overjoyed I was that I had, in my cab, the man who said, “I got soooooome babaGANOSH!!!” and the man who responded, “I wanna dip my BALLLLLLLLLLS IN IT.” Coolest thing ever.
The direct link is: http://www.gawker.com/news/gawker-walker/gawker-walker-midnight-munchies-with-famous-fat-dave-179379.php
(Famous Fat Dave never looked so fat or so famous)
(David Wain rarely smiles, but I assure he loved the bulgogi)
(Ken Marino, next to the cab parked on Avenue T, expressed his feelings on the adventure)
Visit www.famousfatdave.com to take virtual eating tours without comic geniuses
Permalink
05.04.06
Posted in Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens, Gravesend, Manhattan, Meats, Middle Eastern, Posts For Not For Tourists, Sandwiches, West Village at 6:04 pm by Administrator
I’ve bridged the cultural divide between East and West, and all it took was meat on a stick. In today’s Not For Tourists Guidebook “On Our Radar” section, read my article about four of the juiciest shawarma joints in town.
And then, if you still haven’t gotten in the mood shawarma, read an article I wrote for Attache Magazine about a Kurdish shawarma stand in Madrid that would make Saddam Hussein feel like a schmuck in the “Published Food Writing” section of the Famous Fat Dave Five Borough Eating Tour On The Wheels of Steel website. Long live Kurdistan.
Permalink
