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
Permalink
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:
Visit www.FamousFatDave.com
Permalink
12.15.06
Posted in BBQ, East Village, Jewish, Manhattan, Meats, Posts For Not For Tourists, Seafood at 7:24 am by Administrator
If your Jewish mother puts the chicken through the deflavorizor, read today’s Not For Tourists Guidebook New York page for renewed hope. Also read it if your Jewish mother cooks a mean brisket like mine does. Go ahead and read it even if you don’t have a Jewish mother at all.
Mara’s Homemade
Permalink
06.29.06
Posted in BBQ, Flushing, Korean, Meats, Posts For Gothamist, Queens at 5:52 pm by Administrator
Before your 4th of July BBQ, you might want to read today Gothamist column for exotic ideas on what to grill:
www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/06/29/the_hungry_cabb_7.php
Visit www.famousfatdave.com for exotic eating tour ideas
Permalink
05.30.06
Posted in BBQ, Korean, Little Korea, Manhattan, Meats at 5:04 pm by Administrator
At some point, you might have gone on a ride-along in a police cruiser to experience just how our blue boys keep us so safe. I’ve never gone, but I’ve always wanted to. I have, however, taken people on ride-alongs in my yellow cab. In fact, almost as much as I drive solo, I drive with a friend riding shotgun. As long as people aren’t too confused or afraid to get into a cab with two people in the front (some skittish New Yorkers seem to think we might be criminals or undercover cops), ride-alongs naturaly create a much more social atmosphere. The dynamic between three people rather than two, as well having the ice breaker of an unexpected third party, puts people at ease.
One night, I picked up my friend Jack after he played a late concert at the Bowery Ballroom with his band Sam Champion (I think they should be called Carey Schwindenhammer). He was amped because he’d just played an amazing show, and his enthusiasm was rubbing off on me as usual. We were cruising Alphabet City very late on a Tuesday not really expecting to find anyone on the desolate streets. But when I saw a hand shoot up from between two parked cars, I immediately swung the cab around in a tight u-turn on Avenue C.
We were happy to have company, but as we pulled up next to the girl with the outstretched arm, we both realized at the same moment that the girl looked terrifying. We could see that she was an Asian girl in her 20s, but she looked awful. She looked like she’d been murdered (choked to death, to be exact). Her hair was disheveled in a way that appeared as if she’d been shaken violently, her clothes looked like her Sunday best that she’d been buried in six months ago, she had two black eyes, her skin was full of burst blood vessels, and her face was deathly white. Black and purple bruises ringed her throat.
We shot each other bug-eyed looks as she opened the door, and I quickly said, “Don’t say a word” to Jack even though it is normally my rule that my ride-along copilot cheerfully great new fares with a smile and pleasant salutations. My heart was pounding as she told me, “32nd Street and Broadway” in a perfectly normal, un-undead voice.
Jack and I sat mationless as though she was The Predator and she might not see us if we didn’t move (although we were not coated in mud so if she was The Predator she would have been able to see our body heat). She immediately got on her cell phone and had a run of the mill “I’ll be there in ten minutes” kind of a conversation while we took turns eyeing her suspiciouly in the rear view. Her normal voice and bland conversation gave me some courage, so I asked her, “Excuse me miss . . . if you don’t mind my asking . . . I was wondering . . . what is up with you?” She was still making me nervous, and I felt like I’d just mustered the courage to ask a girl to the prom.
“Oooooooooh this?” she said, leaning forward through the window in the plastic divider. “Yes . . . that,” Jack replied. She paused for a moment, clearly reveling in the moment. “I’m a zombie. I’m an extra in that zombie movie they’ve been shooting all week. We just wrapped for the day,” she said, making perfect sense. “Ah, that makes perfect sense,” I said.
Now that everyone was at ease, and we’d all had a laugh about the whole night of the living dead scare, we resumed that three party rapport that makes conversation so much easier when I have a ride-along. The girl turned out to be all about “L.K.” or Little Korea. I had always called it Koreatown, but I guess I was wrong. She was on her way to a late night karaoke session that she was planning to do in her full zombie getup. Then she was going to eat Korean bbq at one of the 24-hour joints on that 32nd Street strip.
Now, I usually drive out to San Hai Jin Mi in Flushing for my Korean bbq, but this girl clearly knew her way around L.K. here in Manhattan. As we turned onto the strip, she pointed out certain black cars lining the street that she claimed automatically take you to Korean whore houses if you get in. I saw that there was much I could learn from her.
Before she jumped out, I asked her where she was going for Korean bbq after her 2am karaoke session (she’d already told me that the karaoke place was just for Koreans so I didn’t bother to remember which stair case she ascended for that). She told me that her friends always go to New York Kom Tang.
Jack and I had just eaten, so I returned this Memorial Day weekend with my best friend Jennifer from back home in Maryland and her dad. Jennifer is half Guatemalan, half Palestinian, and half Irish. She’s got a lot of ethnicity in her is what I’m trying to say, so I felt the need to entertain her with some authentic ethnic food when I got the call that’d she’d be coming in to Penn Station with less than an hour to kill in the city. New York Kom Tang is just a block away from the trains, so, banking on the zombie’s recommendation, I showed them the way to L.K.
(a feast already and our second bbq dish hadn’t even been cooked yet)
We got a nice table at a huge window overlooking 32nd Street, and we were made to feel welcome immediately with wide smiles and plentiful unordered appetizers. The owner helped us choose from the expansive menu (although he tried to convince us to get two orders of the same thing for some reason), and we ended up going with bulgogi (my favorite dish at my place out in Flushing) and jeyook gui.
The bugogi, messy slices of sirloin, came first and was grilled on a metal plate over the charcoals in our table. We had no idea what to put in it, and a Korean woman came by to flip the meat and add the whole pieces of garlic and sliced peppers. Had she not arrived, Jennifer would have taken over, and her plan was to put the spicy kimchi into the pan. Thankfully, Jennifer restrained herself and we all enjoyed bulgogi done right along with our myriad appetizers.
(Jeyook gui and glowing charcoal)
The jeyook gui, neater slices of broiled pork, came second and was grilled without the metal plate. I found it to be delicious, especially inside a leaf of letuce smeared with a red paste that looked super spicy but wasn’t.
(Our bulgogi lady and our jeyook gui man)
So the meal was a hit. Both meat dishes were stupendous (though the bulgogi in Flushing is still much better and clearly worth the trip), and all of the appetizers were great. Being native Marylanders, both Jennifer and I were fascinated by the raw crab covered in gobs of red paste. I chickened out, I must admit, but in my defense I was stuffed by the time we got around to it. Jennifer said it was “fine, but it’d be better with Old Bay.” Once I realized that the red paste wasn’t only not too spicy but absolutely delicious, I began to eat it right out of the spoon:
I wonder why I hadn’t ever taken a restaurant recommendation from a zombie before.
New York Kom Tang, 32nd St btwn Broadway and 5th Ave, Little Korea, Manhattan
Visit www.famousfatdave.com for a chuckle or to book an eating tour
Permalink
05.22.06
Posted in BBQ, Meats, On The Open Road, Sweets at 10:26 am by Administrator
I can assure you that most cab drivers on this planet do not take road trips when they go on holiday. It takes a special kind of mania for a man to drive 20+ hours during his vacation from a job that entails driving as much as 12 hours a day.
But I love driving. And the miles you put behind you on a road trip are of an entirely different species from the miles that creep by in the city. Cruise control for a cab driver is like sweet, slow sex.
My roadtrip to North Carolina this weekend was exactly what the doctor ordered. I left New York City behind, and, after my pit stop at Rutt’s Hut, I headed rapidly south and west. Waiting for me in his farm house was my best friend of 20 years: Ian.
Ian has had a disproportionately strong influence on my life. It was Ian who convinced me when I was ten to refrain from wearing shoes for an entire summer (the bottoms of my feet have never been the same). It was Ian who convinced me when I was 19 to shoot the swollen falls on my first time in a canoe at Little Falls on the Potomac River (we almost made it; three other guys died that same day at Little Falls but they were drunk, they’d stolen the canoe, and they did it at night). It was Ian again who convinced me when I was 22 that the Gobi Desert in Outer Mongolia would a great place to spend the high holidays (I got very sick on fermented horse milk, a theme that will reemerge in this post). And it was Ian who convinced me last summer to sail from Cape Cod to Bar Harbor on open water even though I had no idea how to be a deck hand (I spent about 18 hours of the journey incapacitated from seasickness).
(Leaning overboard left me in th pefect position to view the sea creatures; but it was the Guss pickles onboard that cured my seasickness)
Without Ian, I’d probably never make it outside my cellphone coverage. But I’d like to think that I’ve had an effect on his existence as well. I’m sure it was more my doing than his that drove us to ride our bikes to the Giant after school for months in 8th grade to eat french bread and artichoke hearts on the sidewalk. And I’d like to think that I had something to do with the fact that, during my trip to visit him in Maine a few years back, we spent a day finding the perfect live lobsters, playing with them while that ran around his bathtub, boiling them, and feasting.
(I was worried Ian had become too immersed in southern culture when I saw the bathtub on his lawn in NC, but I guess I was relieved when I found out it was a solar powered hot tub he built himself)
So when I arrived in North Carolina, Ian was ready for me. He lives in the middle of what the locals call “The Triangle” (the area between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill). Knowing what floats my boat, he took me (and our friend Nanda) in his pick up truck on a Three City Triangle Eating Tour On The Wheels Of Steel.
The first stop on the tour was breakfast. When Ian told me we were going to a franchised chain restaurant with almost 50 locations, I can’t say I was excited. I was happy to see that we drove past the spot on the white side of town and purposely hit the one in the black neighborhood because it had a reputation for cooking with more butter.
It is called Biscuitville, and it turned out to be exactly what I always imagined the south to be like. Their motto is “Biscuits the way your grandma made them, only faster,” and they only serve and are only open for breakfast. Everyone knew everyone there (at least they acted like they did), and the cashiers were so friendly I thought they must have known me. The biscuits, being made in plain sight by three honest to goodness southern black grandmas, were ridiculously good. They were all served hot, flaky, and buttery.
Biscuitville serves all the classic southern dishes, and they put them in a fresh biscuit. I had the chicken fried steak on a biscuit. Even after a day of debaucherous eating, I went to sleep thinking about my biscuit, dreamt about my biscuit, and woke of drooling over my biscuit. On my way back up I-95 the next morning, I pulled off for a biscuit with country ham, and I dreamt the same dream the next night.
But in the Triangle, barbeque is king. Ian had two bbq joints in store for us on the tour. The first was named, aptly, BBQ Joint. This being my first eating tour in North Carolina, I had no idea that NC BBQ is proudly distinct from the more common varieties you might find in Arkansas or Texas. NC BBQ’s main difference, as far as I could tell, is that it is made with a healthy portion of vinegar. BBQ Joint was mouth-watering:
but I must say the vinegar was overpowering. It was as if they were so proud of the vinegar angle, that they killed the pulled pork with it. When I tasted it, I was felt like telling the chef, “Okay, I get it. BBQ around here is vinegary. Point taken.”
The second place Ian took me nailed it. The bbq at Hog Heaven was a perfectly balanced blend of tangy bbq sauce, salty pulled pork, and almost sweet vinegar. And the hush puppies went so well it made me think I should have some fried fritters with every meal regardless of if I am in the south.
Ian concluded the eating tour, fittingly for a man living on a farm, on a farm. We pulled up to Maple View Farm feeling a little weighed down from the day of eating. But I found some room in belly when I looked at the bins of homemade ice cream just steps away from the Holstein cows who supplied the milk. We sat on rocking chairs and devoured cookies and cream, butter pecan, and vanilla ice cream feeling like true southern gentlemen with our southern belle.
Everyone was ready to go, but I hesistated when I caught sight of the refridgerator of fresh whole milk. Something about cold milk in a glass container is simply irresistable to me. I bought a half gallon glass jar, and tried to finish it on the premises because it was delicious enough to try to down in one gulp (and I’m a cheap bastard who wanted his glass deposit back).
As you might imagine, half a gallon of whole milk on top of buttery biscuits, chicken fried steak, two kinds of bbq, hush puppies, and ice cream left me feeling less than stellar. As I writhed in pain on the flat bed of Ian’s pick up truck while we bumped down the dirt road to the Eno River state park, I wondered how Ian would convince me to take the ten mile hike he had in store for me next.
Visit www.famousfatdave.com for a guffaw or to book an eating tour
Permalink
