The Saboscrivner

The New York Adventure Part 5: Russ & Daughters Cafe

Russ & Daughters Cafe (http://www.russanddaughterscafe.com/) opened for business in 2014, but it still feels like a time capsule of old-school Jewish New York, particularly representative of the early 20th Century Lower East Side. And it should, because the original Russ & Daughters “appetizing store” is still going strong after opening over 100 years ago, in 1914. The sit-down cafe appropriately opened a full century later, with gleaming retro interiors, luxurious booths, and tantalizing displays, reminiscent of the original.

This was another pilgrimage for me. My wife and I have been to New York more than once before and even hung out in the Lower East Side, but never made it to the original Russ & Daughters storefront. The more accessible and comfortable Cafe didn’t even exist when we were last there for our honeymoon in 2009. So I studied the menu in advance, determined to do it right.

I started us out with two mini potato knishes, which came with some good deli mustard. I’m much more of a knish guy than my wife, and since I didn’t indulge in knishes at Ess-A-Bagel or Junior’s, I figured it was now or never. They did not disappoint. They were very soft, with a nice oniony flavor in the potato filling and a soft, yielding dough shell I could cut with the side of my fork. If you don’t know from knishes, those baked (or occasionally fried) pockets of dough stuffed with potatoes or other fillings, I highly recommend them, especially if you’re anything like me and sometimes crave a mustard delivery device. Publix has started carrying the Gabila’s brand in the frozen food section, and those are some of my favorites. But these were no slouches.

My wife ordered the Shtetl platter: an everything bagel with smoked sable, after I turned her onto it at Ess-A-Bagel. While she said it was all very good, the bagel was smaller than Ess-A, and they skimped on the sable. You can see the thin slices they served her, whereas Ess-A packed their much larger bagel with thicker slices and chunks of the good stuff. I ended up with all her tomatoes and onions, as well as the goat cream cheese, which was a little funky for her tastes, despite how much she loves goats. It wasn’t baaaaaaaaad.

As the self-proclaimed Dean of Sardines, I am also a lifelong fan of pickled herring. My family used to bring in bagels on Sunday mornings at our suburban Miami home, always with cream cheese, nova salmon, and a jar of Vita or Skansen brand pickled herring, and I have loved it ever since. The most common kinds that you can even buy at Publix are boneless herring fillets, shiny and silvery, either in a wine and vinegar sauce or a sour cream sauce, both sweetened and packed with onions. Definitely not something to serve or eat on a hot date, but way more delicious than they sound. I guess they would have to be, right?

I was overjoyed to order a sampler platter with four different kinds of pickled herring to try: regular pickled (along the top), roll-mops (two long, thin fillets wrapped around pickled onions), schmaltz (fat) herring on the bottom left (cured in salt and sugar), and matjes herring on the bottom right (mature schmaltz herring cured for a longer period of time, tinted red by sandalwood). The matjes herring was juicy but incredibly salty, sour, and tangy, even by pickled fish standards, and even by my own standards. It was a bit much — still worth trying, but I definitely wouldn’t order it again.
Anyway, the platter came with a mound of sweet, vinegary pickled onions, surprisingly tasty pickled beets, and a sprig of fresh dill.

But wait, there’s more! My herring platter also came with slices of soft, fresh-baked pumpernickel bread and three different dipping sauces: a creamy mustard sauce with dill (top), a thicker and sweeter mustard (left), and a sweet cream sauce (right). I cleaned my plate, eating everything as a careful ritual: tear off a piece of pump, dip one side lightly in one of the sauces, add a piece of fish (never mixing the different kinds), top with pickled onions, repeat. I think they brought just enough bread to cycle through all the different possible combinations and permutations. It was good pumpernickel, and I have been craving more ever since. In fact, I bought some upon returning home, but wouldn’t ya know it? It was better in New York. (Must be the water!)

We left with these delightful little coffee-flavored hard candies from the Netherlands, a nice alternative to a mint (although after eating all that fish, a mint might have been better for my breath).

Oh, here’s a bonus shot of the original Russ & Daughters appetizing store, the one that opened in 1914. It was a short walk from the much newer Cafe, and an even shorter walk from the equally legendary Katz’s Delicatessen (which is coming, Saboscrivnerinos!). I went inside just so I could have the experience, but it was a mad mob scene. I took a number — 446 — but they had only just called 404. There are no tables to eat anything there, and whatever I would have wanted to buy was perishable and would never have survived the voyage home, so I left empty-handed.

I was very sad that the timing of our New York adventure occurred before June 12th, the start of the New Catch Holland Herring season at Russ & Daughters. These are supposedly the best herrings in the world, and you eat them standing up, holding them by the tail and lowering them down into your mouth, like cartoon cats. Back in that more innocent time when it was cool to like Louis C.K., he brought Parker Posey to Russ & Daughters on a date in an episode of Louie, and they ate the New Catch Herrings together. Just like when he showcased Veselka on another episode of the show, I have wanted to go to there ever since. Mission accomplished!

The New York Adventure Part 4: Xi’an Famous Foods

One of the restaurants I researched for our New York trip, after reading raves for years, was Xi’an Famous Foods (https://www.xianfoods.com/), a family-owned Chinese restaurant specializing in spicy noodle dishes, with eleven Manhattan locations, three in Queens, and one in Brooklyn. From its humble beginning in a tiny mall basement food stall in Flushing, Queens, in 2005, Xi’an has grown into a familiar New York City institution.

According to the website, the city of Xi’an in northwestern China created a unique cuisine incorporating Middle Eastern influences and lots of spices, including mouth-numbing Szechuan peppercorns. I have reviewed some of Orlando’s own Szechuan-influenced restaurants, Taste of Chengdu and Chuan Lu Garden, and I’m always a noodle fan, so I had to try Xi’an Famous Foods while I could. Luckily, while we were touring our favorite museum, the always illuminating Museum of Modern Art, I looked out a second-floor window and saw a Xi’an location directly across the street! It was meant to be.

Unfortunately, this location wasn’t the most accessible for my walker-wielding wife, who courageously climbed down a few steps to enter. We took note of all of our “adventures in accessibility” in New York and realized how lucky we are that most buildings and businesses in Orlando are accessible for people with disabilities, compared to larger, older cities. New York is still rad, but that was an ongoing issue throughout our trips, past and present. But I digress.

Anyway, Xi’an Famous Foods posted its full menu on the wall inside, with photos — something we really appreciated, that I wish more restaurants would do.

My wife was a little intimidated by the promised spiciness, and the place was hopping with the lunch rush, so we compromised with me ordering my meal to go, to enjoy back in our room. Chili oil leaked in the bag on the way back to our hotel and made a huge mess, which made photography difficult, but I did my best.

This was the dish I fantasized about in advance: hand-ripped wide biangbiang noodles with stewed oxtails. Everyone warned me to order the noodles with the cumin lamb, and I do love cumin lamb, but oxtails win out.
That’s a dish I crave almost constantly, especially from Jamaican restaurants, despite indulging only once or twice a year. I’ve made slow-braised oxtails at home too, but since she doesn’t care for them, it almost seems like more trouble than it’s worth. Needless to say, these oxtails were much spicier than the Jamaican recipes I am used to, and I even ordered it mild (better safe than sorry, I figured). They were tender and unctious, though, just as they should be from the slow stewing or braising process. The noodles were delicious, with a great chewiness.

But since I’m also a cumin lamb fanboy, I had to try it too. Luckily, Xi’an offers a spicy cumin lamb burger, a sandwich on a crispy flatbread bun that was like a cross between a pita and an English muffin, in terms of texture. The bun didn’t do much for me, but the lamb was tender, flavorful, and very, very spicy. I wimped out with the noodles, but felt I owed it to myself and to the cook to try something at maximum strength.

Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gaaaaal!Final thought on the famous cumin lamb: NOT BAAAAAAAD.

I wish I had more to say, but I just wish I could have tried more things. I don’t think you can go wrong with anything atop these biangbiang noodles: not just oxtails or cumin lamb, but also spicy ground pork (like the dan dan noodles I love so much), stewed pork, spicy and sour pork belly, bone-in dark meat chicken, vegetables, and even plain noodles tossed in chili oil. You can get most of the noodle dishes in soup as well, plus dumplings stuffed with spicy and sour lamb or spinach and vermicelli noodles, with or without soup. Everything was very affordable, and as we could tell from the midday crowd, Xi’an Famous Foods must be a hot lunch spot for New Yorkers around the city (no pun intended). I’m glad I finally got to feel the heat for myself.

The New York Adventure Part 3: Junior’s

One thing New Yorkers and well-traveled foodies always warn people about is to NEVER EAT IN TIMES SQUARE. It’s tourist trap central, featuring comically large, multi-story versions of national and worldwide chain restaurants. That’s where you have your oversized Olive Garden, your astronomical Applebee’s, your stupendous S’barro (someone once said they have the best pizza in New York!), and I swear we passed some kind of combination prodigious Planet Hollywood and brobdingnagian Buca Di Beppo. (“I’M AT THE PLANET HOLLYWOOD! I’M AT THE BUCA DI BEPPO! I’M AT THE COMBINATION PLANET HOLLYWOOD AND BUCA DI BEPPO!”)

But when we took a cab down to the Richard Rodgers Theatre to see Hamilton (only the greatest musical of all time!), my wife and I both clocked Junior’s (https://www.juniorscheesecake.com/), another one of those legendary, old-school Jewish New York restaurants. I was a little surprised to see it, because I thought Junior’s was a Brooklyn thing, and I knew we weren’t going to make it into Brooklyn on this trip. I barely gave it a second thought, because on the rare times we go to concerts, plays, and stand-up performances at home, my wife is usually too tired to go out for a bite afterwards. When I lived in Gainesville (go Gators!), I loved going out for food with my friends after a show. To this day, food always tastes the best to me at night, after doing something fun.

But after being completely blown away by the awesomeness of Hamilton, my wife said she could eat, and we both immediately thought of how close we were to Junior’s. It turns out there are two separate Junior’s locations in the Times Square/Broadway area, and they’re open late to accommodate the after-show crowd. Little did we know that we would end up taking in a second Broadway show on this trip, or that we would end up at both Junior’s locations! I’m so glad we did, though. Since this was the only restaurant I didn’t research in advance, it ended up being the most pleasant surprise.

This is the 45th Street Junior’s location, at 1515 Broadway. It looks old, but it was founded in 2006. (The original location in Brooklyn was founded by Harry Rosen in 1950.)

Like so many of the iconic Jewish delis of decades past, Junior’s served us free cole slaw (good) and dill pickles for the table.

My wife’s chocolate milkshake was good enough to bring anyone to the yard. Dig that Junior’s glasses have instructions for mixing up the perfect egg cream, with seltzer, milk, and chocolate syrup (go Fox’s U-Bet or go home).

I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting anything special when I ordered onion rings, but I am an onion ring aficionado, this is The Saboscrivner, and we have a little recurring feature on here called

[NEW YORK POLICE SIREN SAMPLE!]

RING THE ALARM!

And these were godly onion rings. I didn’t know what to expect from their thick batter coatings, but they were crispy-yet-yielding on the outside, and soft on the inside, with a slight sweetness. If I had to describe them, it was almost like a funnel cake-style batter, or like a really good old-fashioned sour cream cake doughnut, but with a crunchier outer layer — and of course not that sweet. I’ve never had their equal and doubt I ever will again.

This was the combination corned beef and pastrami Reuben sandwich we ordered to share in our post-Hamilton afterglow, and it was a winner. The rye bread was buttered and lightly grilled to perfection, as opposed to too many Reubens where the bread is toasted hard to the point of being burned, and you can’t even take a bite without the sandwich flopping apart. Both meats were sliced thin and lean, but this would not be our only pastrami experience on this trip, fear not. They served the Russian dressing on the side, which was great because my wife is always hesitant around sauces and condiments, whereas I generally love them, and I feel like we ended up with more this way. Needless to say, some of my onion rings took a dip.

And finally, the piece de resistance — a slice of Junior’s famous blueberry cheesecake. We both love cheesecake, and we both agreed this was the best cheesecake of our little lives — so much better than Florida mainstay Publix, and streets ahead of the Cheesecake Factory. It was perfect in every way, to the point where I almost feel guilty posting this pic and raving about it, knowing my dozens of readers (baker’s dozens?) can’t just pop off to Junior’s to score a slice for themselves.

Our last day in New York, we realized we didn’t have any set plans for the evening, so we decided to see Chicago, a musical we had never seen live before. We love the 2002 Best Picture-winning movie, though. Since the Chicago revival is the longest continuously-running show in Broadway history (since 1996), it didn’t have the hype that Hamilton did, and were were lucky to score excellent and affordable fifth-row orchestra tickets. It razzle-dazzled us, especially Desi Oakley, whose adorably sexy and hilarious lead performance as coquettish murderess Roxie Hart, blew away the A-list actress from the award-winning film. Plus, we’ve been digging Fosse/Verdon, the FX miniseries about the mercurial director-choreographer and his dancer-actress-muse, and they aired their making-of-Chicago episode mere days before our New York arrival. Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma, but I believe that everything happens for a reason!

Our luck just kept improving, because the Ambassador Theatre, where we saw Chicago, is right next to the other Times Square-area Junior’s location, 1626 Broadway at 49th Street, which opened in the summer of 2017. And after how much we loved it the previous night, my wife was more than up for an encore performance. This one featured the mid-century “space-age” design I love so much, that was so popular from the postwar years into the early 1960s. It was cool to see this new version of the rotating “Junior’s” sign that the original location in Brooklyn has.

My wife ordered something I probably never would have gone with, but it knocked our proverbial socks off: a brisket sandwich served on crispy-fried potato latkes, served with au jus and some of the freshest, chunkiest applesauce ever. This thing was huge! The brisket was pretty good (we’re both too used to smoked barbecued brisket, and this could have been improved by being a little fattier), but the latkes (AKA potato pancakes, goys and girls) were among the best we’ve ever had. And yes, you eat them with applesauce.

I spend so much of my life thinking “What am I, chopped liver?” that along the way I became a big fan of the stuff. I had yet to try chopped liver at any of our other NYC deli destinations, so tonight was the big night. It came served simply, two big scoops with some thin slices of bread, which could have been toasted or grilled to hold up better to the weight and creamy richness of the chopped liver. And as much as I love onions, raw red onion is a little much for me, so I left those alone.

I asked my wife if we were going to indulge in another slice of Junior’s heavenly cheesecake, but she was already enchanted by seeing a slice of red velvet cake being walked out to a nearby table. She loves red velvet cake far more than I do, but hey, anniversary trip, and who am I to stand in the way of her continuing good times? She loved it, and even I liked the bite I had. Fear not, fearless readers — even the two of us, together at this late hour, couldn’t finish the whole supersized slice.

So that was Junior’s. I hadn’t planned it into our schedule at all, but fate intervened, and we ended up there twice — two different nights, two separate locations. And Times Square or not, tourist trap or not, everything we ordered transcended our expectations.

And here’s a helpful hint from your old pal The Saboscrivner: Orlando denizens, you CAN treat yo’selves to Junior’s cheesecake locally, at Pickles Deli in Longwood, on State Road 434 right off Exit 94. They ship it in from New York and serve plain, raspberry swirl, chocolate “skyscraper,” and carrot cake “skyscraper” cheesecakes by the slice. So forget the Factory and try Junior’s for yourselves. Plus, Pickles is pretty great too. Expect a review at some point this summer!

The New York Adventure Part 2: Veselka

On our first evening in New York City in ten years, we absolutely had to make a pilgrimage to The Strand, the four-floor bookstore that puts most other bookstores to shame. We went there on our honeymoon back in 2009, and it seemed even larger this time, with a better selection. After browsing for a while, marveling (no pun intended) at how their graphic novel selection had grown over the last decade, and buying my wife some books, I knew where we had to go for dinner. After a Lyft ride we unexpectedly shared with another commuter (who seemed as surprised as we did), we ended up where we were supposed to be:

Veselka (https://www.veselka.com/), the 65-year-old Ukrainian restaurant I’ve wanted to visit since Louis C.K. took his TV daughters there for a late-night breakfast in the first season of Louie, before we knew what we now know about Louis C.K.. It was also one of Anthony Bourdain’s stops in his heartbreaking final episode of Parts Unknown, set in the East Village and Lower East Side. It’s a counterculture hangout favored by local luminaries and celebrities for many decades, a place that radiates cool without trying to be cool at all.

Veselka is an East Village institution, a diner that opened in 1954 and has been open 24 hours a day, seven days a week since 1990. The menu boasts American breakfast, lunch, and dinner classics as well as traditional Ukrainian specialties, which I figured I would stick to. They also serve beer and wine. Here are some of the specials of the week:

My wife and I both love pierogies, and Veselka is pierogi paradise. You can get them boiled or fried, and we opted for fried. They have several varieties, so we went for a platter of four different ones: meat, potato, cheese, and truffle and mushroom (that one was all her). Each one was better than the last, but I think we agreed the cheese one was the best, with a subtly sweet, creamy, farmer’s cheese filling. The pierogies came garnished with applesauce, sour cream, and my beloved caramelized onions. We didn’t expect that they would be crispy and bubbly on the outside, like old-school McDonald’s fried apple pies, since most pierogies I’ve had are sauteed in a pan with butter. These were better than either of us could have imagined!

My wife ordered chicken schnitzel, a breaded chicken breast cutlet that came with two sides. She went safe, with fries and egg noodles, although it was a little disappointing the egg noodles didn’t come with butter. They were just plain!

I had a hard time deciding, but since a lot of the Ukrainian specialties included mushrooms, I ultimately chose bigos, a hearty Eastern European dish I first tried many years ago at Hubert’s Polish Kitchen, a restaurant at the North Market in Columbus, Ohio, when there was snow on the ground. It’s a salty, sweet, and sour sauerkraut-based stew that also includes kielbasa sausage, roast pork, and onions, and it is absolutely delicious, even in May. I should learn to make this at home, I like it so much.

One of my sides was really creamy potato salad, loaded with dill and carrots, that worked well cutting the richness and saltiness of the bigos stew.

And because I know my wife always loves it, I also ordered kasha, roasted and boiled buckwheat (O-TAY!), a traditional Jewish side dish often served with bowtie pasta (kasha varnishkes). My mom used to make it a lot, when we were kids. I think kasha is just okay, but my wife seemed to like Veselka’s version a lot. We had no idea how huge the portions would be, so we had to help each other with all of this food.

My wife wasn’t blown away by her honey mint ginger iced tea. It sounded refreshing, but it had a fierce gingery bite.

I, on the other hand, loved my vanilla egg cream, a sweet drink that contains neither eggs nor cream. The chocolate egg cream, the much more common variety, is a classic old-timey Jewish New York beverage, made by stirring together seltzer, milk, and Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup. Accept no substitutes. Florida followers, you can find Fox’s U-Bet at most Publix stores, and it’s far superior to any other commercial chocolate syrups. We always keep a bottle in the fridge for occasional egg creams. They are like a dessert that also helps with digestion! (Altacocker alert!) But I had never even seen a vanilla egg cream before, and I’m glad I went for it. I love vanilla-flavored anything, but the kitchen is the only room I like things to be vanilla in, if you know what I’m sayin’.

And for dessert, we shared fresh blueberry pierogies, drizzled with sour cream. These weren’t the crispy fried pierogies from earlier in our meal, and we were a little surprised they contained actual whole blueberries, lightly warmed during the cooking process, rather than blueberry compote or preserves that we expected. They were tasty, but I might have preferred the crispy fried exterior and sweeter blueberry compote filling.

If I lived in the East Village, I would probably be a regular at Veselka. This was our first experience with any Ukrainian food, although I sure love Polish food and miss Polonia, the Polish restaurant that used to operate near my old apartment in Longwood (one of Orlando’s countless suburbs). But most importantly, I love all the history and atmosphere at these classic New York eateries, the places that have been around for decades and stay open late. They are primo people-watching spots, and you can tell multiple generations have shared delicious meals and happy memories there, and they’ve also survived some shit there. Very few restaurants in the Orlando area have been around this long, but whenever a place lasts this many decades, you know they’re doing a lot right. Veselka definitely is.

The New York Adventure Part 1: Ess-A-Bagel

My wife and I are celebrating our TENTH wedding anniversary in October, and we both wanted to make a big thing of it by returning to New York City, where we spent our honeymoon in 2009. We haven’t had a chance to return in this entire last decade, but since my wife is a college professor and I’m also in academia, October is a pretty busy time for us, and it would be impossible to get away then. So we opted for a mid-May getaway, during the empty and quiet weeks between the spring and summer semesters, before New York starts to rival Florida’s heat and humidity. We also had some personal and professional milestones to celebrate, so the timing was right and the stars lined up for us. We planned to take in the sights, see shows, and eat like kings.

Just as we did on our honeymoon, we chose our hotel based on its proximity to the legendary Midtown Manhattan bagel restaurant Ess-A-Bagel (https://www.ess-a-bagel.com/), considered by many the best bagel shop in the bagel capital of the world (sorry, Montreal!). And wouldn’t you know it — we ended up reserving the exact same hotel, just under a different name and new management, ten years later. It was meant to be!

So here is where the magic happens, this hole-y site. I’m always taken aback by just how small and cramped many iconic New York restaurants and businesses are, and Ess-A-Bagel is no exception. You enter and automatically line up, make your way down the counter until someone calls you, place your entire order with them, pay at the end, and hope there’s a tiny table available for you by then.

Ess-A-Bagel boils and bakes some of the largest bagels I’ve ever seen, with all the classics represented: plain, sesame, onion, garlic, salt, everything, pumpernickel, and cinnamon raisin, among others. Here’s a gigantic everything bagel, which is our favorite — coated with sesame and poppy seeds, toasted onion and garlic, and coarse kosher salt crystals.

You have a ridiculous choice of cream cheese and tofu-based spreads, all made fresh in-house. This is like heaven. The choices are unlimited, but you cannot go wrong.

In addition to all the standard cream cheeses, Ess-A-Bagel has a large selection of smoked, cured, and pickled fish, all standard Jewish fare that accompanies bagels. Most people are familiar with nova salmon — sometimes referred to as lox, although most lox is MUCH saltier than the more familiar nova your basic brunch spot offers. It pairs so perfectly with cream cheese. But when you get out of Orlando, you have far more fishy options for your bagels, and these are everything to me: smoked whitefish salad, large golden smoked chubs (whitefish), pickled herring fillets in either a sweet wine-based sauce or a sour cream-based sauce (both with plenty of sweet pickled onions!), rich smoky sturgeon, and the finest of all the smoked, cured, and pickled fishies: buttery sable, which sounds far more appetizing than “black cod.” Sable is the finest thing you can eat, and here is an article I found with a recipe and more information about it, for the uninitiated. These are the foods of my people, and they fill me with such joy.

You also have a wide variety of tuna, salmon, and other seafood salads.

And some pasta salads, potato salad, cole slaw, and additional vegetarian options, sold by the pound to enjoy as sides.

You can also order bagel sandwiches with the sliced deli meats and cheeses of your choice, but it seemed pointless to me to come all the way to New York and Ess-A-Bagel for a turkey, roast beef, or ham and cheese sandwich. (Despite its traditional Jewish specialties, Ess-A-Bagel is not a kosher restaurant, and I’ve never kept kosher anyway.)

The day we left for New York, we woke up at 3:30 AM to catch our 6:30 AM flight, got caught in morning rush hour traffic from Queens to Manhattan, and made it to our hotel to find out our room wasn’t ready yet. At that point, it was 12:30 PM — nine hours since we got up, and we hadn’t eaten anything yet. So we walked to Ess-A-Bagel just in time to join the long lunch line, and by the time we got our food and snagged one of those aforementioned tiny tables, almost an hour after that, it didn’t occur to me to take any pictures. Mea culpa, although some long-suffering Saboscrivnerinos may be relieved.

That first day, my wife ordered a toasted and buttered everything bagel, with a quarter-pound side of whitefish salad on the side. I wanted a bialy, that lovely cross between a bagel and a roll (baked, but never boiled!) with an indentation in the middle for baked onions, but they didn’t have any left. (See this Food Republic article for some bialy background!) So I got an everything bagel with sun-dried tomato cream cheese and my sweet, sweet sable. I also ordered a huge, fluffy salt bagel to tear off chunks and scoop up a quarter-pound of smoked shrimp and crab salad that looked and sounded great, and tasted even better. Everything was magnificent. My wife had fond memories of an apple cinnamon muffin from our last visit a decade back, but that was crumbly and dry, failing to live up to her nostalgia the way the bagels and fish did.

Our second day in the city, we wanted to take it relatively easy and eat a light lunch in our room, in preparation for seeing a show that evening. I walked back to Ess-A-Bagel to bring everything back to our hotel, and that time I remembered to take some photos.

My wife tried my sable the previous day and understood what I had raved about on and off for the last ten years, so she asked for an everything bagel sandwich with sable (left), and I happily obliged. I decided to try something different: a bialy sandwich (finally!) with baked salmon salad (right), at once smoky and creamy, so it didn’t need a layer of cream cheese.

Here’s a half of my bialy sandwich, generously stuffed with the baked salmon salad:

And her sable bagel, with nice thick chunks of the buttery, rich fish to melt in our mouths:

That huge everything bagel I showed you earlier came from this second visit. I also got a quarter-pound of their smoked tuna spread to go with that, and it was another good choice. I grew up eating canned tuna, to the point where I was shocked the first time I ever encountered rich, deep purple raw tuna in sushi in my late teens. My wife doesn’t like the smell of canned tuna, and it’s high in mercury and unsustainable, so I haven’t bought or even ordered it in years (although I am a huge sardine aficionado, and those are super-healthy and super-sustainable). But trying smoked tuna seemed like a worthwhile move, and it was far better than any conventional tuna salad I’ve ever had before.

My wife also asked for a black and white cookie, that New York deli and bakery classic. These should be more cake-like than anything — thick and moist, never crunchy or crispy. This one was unique for having a slight lemony flavor to the yellow cookie/cake underneath the layer of black and white icing that reminds us “We’re not so different, you and I.”

And then we went to see Hamilton, and I think it tied with seeing Tom Waits in concert in 2006 as the greatest musical experience… no, greatest cultural experience of my life. I love American history, and I come by it naturally. My dad was an esteemed history and social studies teacher, and now I teach a class that incorporates some U.S. history too. Combine that with my deep loves of musical theater (encouraged by my wife, a former child and teen actress) and hip hop, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award-winning show always felt like it was made just for me. I have obsessed over the original cast album for over three years, so finally being able to see it (and in the greatest city in the world, no less!), being right there in the room where it happens, was awe-inspiring.

Like I said, we ate like kings over our few days in the City, so stay tuned over the next week (or let’s face it, probably longer) for more of our culinary New York Adventures, right here on The Saboscrivner!

Chuan Lu Garden

Even though I have discovered the glory of Taste of Chengdu and Chef Wang’s Kitchen over the last few months, I always end up returning to one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in Orlando, Chuan Lu Garden (http://www.chuanluorlando.com/). There are two locations: one at the heart of the Mills 50 District, Orlando’s best neighborhood for dining out, and a newer one in east Orlando on Alafaya Trail, closer to the University of Central Florida.

Like Taste of Chengdu, fewer than 15 minutes away, Chuan Lu Garden specializes in spicy Szechuan cuisine, with peppercorns that numb your mouth and make everything tingle. It’s a different kind of heat than what most hot sauce heroes and chile cheerleaders are used to, but those flavors are highlighted in several dishes throughout the lengthy menu, like la zi chicken and la zi fish (crispy fried, breaded pieces that bring the tingle). I appreciate some heat some of the time, but I tend to play it safer and stick to the delicious hand-cut and hand-pulled noodle offerings.

This review is based on several visits over the last few months:

Visit #1: We met dear friends from Gainesville who were in town with tickets to see Hamilton. Unfortunately, I am an idiot and gave them directions to the wrong Chuan Lu Garden location. They drove all the way to east Orlando, when we were waiting for them near downtown, chosen purposely to put them near the theater. But they are badasses who didn’t sweat it and weren’t even mad at me. They made it to where we were in 15 minutes flat, and I ordered some vegetarian dishes for them in the meantime. (I treated them to dinner too, but I was planning to do that anyway, even before I almost ruined their night and put them in danger of missing the greatest musical of all time.)

I ordered myself one of my favorite dishes on the menu, cumin lamb, which is much less blurry in person:

My wife’s noodle soup with roast duck, the dish that finally won her over after years of me hyping up Chuan Lu Garden, making her a devoted fan:

Our glorious pan-fried pork buns (sadly not the xiao long bao, or soup dumplings, that Orlando foodies constantly crave):

Fried tofu with vegetables and the remnants of vegetable fried rice, after the four of us mostly devoured it:

Vegetable noodle soup:

Visit #2: Just the two of us.

Maybe the best Singapore mei fun noodles I’ve ever ordered anywhere, though curiously not very spicy compared to some others I’ve had. These noodles were thin and ethereal, reminding me almost of cotton candy threads (although obviously neither sticky nor sweet). I couldn’t get enough of them, and even my wife was amazed by their lighter-than-air texture and great flavor.

My wife’s roast duck noodle soup, take two:

And a roast duck appetizer, full of tiny little bones to watch out for:

For the first time ever in my experiences at Chuan Lu Garden, they presented us with a separate dim sum menu. Having been recently introduced to egg custard tarts by one of my favorite local foodies, I had to pay it forward and order them to share with my wife. She loved them, like flaky little custard pies.

Visit #3: Just the two of us again.

I ordered one of my favorite dishes on the menu: dan dan noodles with spicy ground pork, served with thin-sliced cucumbers that do a great job counterbalancing the chili oil with their own crunchy coolness.

My wife’s roast duck noodle soup, take three, but this time with the wide, flat noodles:

More of that quacktacular roast duck:

And one of my favorite dishes here, the onion pancake, which is much more like a thick paratha or super-thick flour tortilla than an American-style pancake. The outside is crispy, but the inside has a wonderful, rich, buttery crispness, with scallions baked into it.

Since I originally wrote this blog entry, I have brought her home roast duck noodle soup a few more times, often with an extra order of duck to go with it. She loves it, and what’s not to love?

And guess what, fearless Saboscrivnerinos? Chuan Lu Garden now has a full dim sum menu, including the coveted soup dumplings! I haven’t tried them there yet, but how can you go wrong? It’s SOUP… in a DUMPLING!

Pizzeria Del Dio

In my review of Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza from earlier this year, I mentioned it is one of my top three favorite pizzerias in Orlando, alongside Pizza Bruno and a third I’m finally getting around to writing about: Pizzeria Del Dio (http://pizzeriadel-dio.com/). Located at 3210 East Colonial Drive in Orlando (near the Maguire intersection, across from the Fashion Square Mall), Del Dio is not visible from busy Colonial. It is still a bit of a secret after ten years in business, but it shouldn’t be.

While Anthony’s Coal Fired bakes really terrific coal oven pizza and Pizza Bruno specializes in Neopolitan-style, Del Dio quietly serves up Orlando’s best New York-style AND Sicilian-style pizzas. However, I argue that both kinds of pizzas are best enjoyed hot, crispy, and melty right out of the oven, at the restaurant. They’re perfectly fine if you get them to go (as I have done countless times), but any pizza loses something on the drive back home or to the office. Trust me on this. In this age of delivery and instant gratification, not enough people appreciate going out for pizza anymore.

So this is my regular order when I go to Del Dio, conveniently ten minutes from work: a slice of regular and a slice of Sicilian. The regular NY-style pizza is thin and crispy, meant to be folded. They have a wide range of toppings, and I tend to like meatballs on my pizza (sometimes sliced, sometimes crumbled), but it’s great just plain, with a dusting of parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes.

Sicilian pizza, for the uninitiated, is thick, cooked in a rectangular pan and cut into square or rectangular slices. It’s not a “casserole” like Chicago’s deep dish so-called pizza. Sicilian very clearly meets the definition of pizza, just different from what most people are used to. Some are a little softer, others are crispier. I like mine somewhere in between, and the edges of Del Dio’s Sicilian slices are always nice and crispy with the slightest char, especially when I dine in and they take it right out of the oven for me. But once you get to the middle of the slice, it’s pillowy-soft. The cheese is always fresh and melty, and it contains more sauce than your typical NY-style slice. It’s a thick, hearty sauce that seems chunkier than the sauce on their regular pizza. (I think sauce is the most underappreciated ingredient on a good pizza, almost an afterthought too often.) But mama mia, they’re so good!

I’ve always heard Del Dio has really good wings, and I am hard to please when it comes to wings. A lot of the time you get maximum mess, minimal meat. Crunchy, greasy, dry sports bar-style Buffalo wings are my least-favorites. But I gave Del Dio’s wings a chance recently and was pleasantly surprised. These were mild, and they had plenty of meat and a nice, crackly crispiness to them. They were so hot (temperature-hot, not spicy-hot), I burned my fingertips and my mouth a little.

They also make excellent meatballs, which you can get as a side order like this, in a sub, or even as a pizza topping. Like I said, I’ve had them show up both sliced and crumbled on my pizza in the past, but here they are whole — a lot more photogenic this way.

They also serve surprisingly fantastic onion rings, with the golden-brown battered coating that I love. They are totally “my type” of onion rings. Unfortunately, I didn’t photograph or order them for this review, so it isn’t an official Ring the Alarm! feature.

We often order Del Dio at work, either for pizza parties for our staff or to reward the students in the evening classes I occasionally teach. We are inside their regular delivery range, but for our latest staff luncheon, I picked them up:

Plain cheese:

Pepperoni:I have thoughts and feelings about pepperoni on pizza. If you’re gonna get it, get it from a place like Del Dio that is generous with the pepperoni, laying out lots of flat slices like on the above pie. I don’t love it when pepperoni slices curl up into crunchy little grease traps. Honestly, I like pepperoni best served cold, salami-style, sliced thin in an Italian hoagie alongside its cured meat brothers and sisters, adding a bit of pleasant spiciness. But if you’re gonna put pepperoni on pizza, this is definitely the way to do it.

But this was the crowd-pleasing favorite: thin-sliced, breaded eggplant cutlet and roasted red peppers! People grabbed slices before I could even take this photo. It was fabulous, and almost everyone agreed we’d order this again in the future. I was thinking the only thing that could possibly improve it (aside from eating it at the restaurant for maximum crispness) was to add some ricotta.

And the obligatory salad that some people shared (actually quite good):

So yeah, that’s Del Dio. I crave that Sicilian pizza far too often, and don’t indulge often enough. But just FYI, if you are ordering pizzas for a large group, they will “double-cut” the pizzas to turn a classic NY-style from 8 large slices into 16 thinner ones, or to subdivide the Sicilian from 8 large, rectangular slices into 16 smaller squares. Your family, friends, co-workers, and students will thank you. And if you really want to enjoy Pizzeria Del Dio as it should be enjoyed, venture forth to the actual pizzeria and eat your pizza right there, at the scene. The difference is night and day!

Hinckley’s Fancy Meats

I’ve been hearing about Chef Matt Hinckley and his cured culinary creations for carnivores for a while now. After focusing on mail-order charcuterie sales, he recently opened Hinckley’s Fancy Meats (https://www.hinckleymeats.com/), a storefront inside Orlando’s East End Market, a small but great foodie destination in the hip-but-family-friendly Audubon Park neighborhood. You can buy his meat masterpieces by the pound there — think bacon, sausages, pastrami, mojo-marinated pork, tasso ham, porchetta (slow-cooked, boneless pork roast), and rustic pâtés, terrines, and rillettes, all on display in a nice glass deli case. But now, you can also order sandwiches featuring that marvelous multiude of meats. If that’s not fancy, I don’t know what is!

(By the way, if you aren’t sure of the differences between pâtés, terrines, and rillettes, as I originally wasn’t, or if you’ve never even tried them, Food Republic has a very helpful guide.)

Last month, I met a group from the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook for lunch at the East End Market, and many of us visited Hinckley’s for the first time. I studied the menu in advance, as I always do, but still couldn’t decide, so I ordered two sandwiches. Because I meant to share and let my new foodie friends sample the goods — yeah, that’s the ticket! (Don’t worry, Constant Readers — I got two meals out of them.)

I ordered the porchetta sandwich, which is hard to find anywhere in Florida, as well as Chef Hinckley’s take on the banh mi, those French-inspired Vietnamese sandwiches I love so much.

The porchetta sandwich ($14) includes salsa piccante, broccoli rabe (one of my favorite vegetables, especially cooked with sausage or other rich, salty meats), and roasted peppers on a crusty ciabatta roll. I would have preferred a softer roll, but it was still very tasty, with a lot going on in the sandwich.

The porchetta wasn’t quite as juicy as I was expecting, but it was still very flavorful and tender. All the ingredients worked very well together.

But even though the porchetta sandwich was good, the banh mi (also $14) was GREAT. Banh mi sandwiches are usually served on a French baguette and may be spread with some combination of butter, mayo, or pate, with a variety of pork-based cold cuts, grilled beef or chicken, or other kinds of meat, topped with pickled vegetables (usually cucumber, carrot, and daikon radish), fresh cilantro, and fresh jalapeños or other hot peppers. Hinckley’s Fancy version of the banh mi normally features country pâté and duck liver pâté with pickled carrot, daikon radish, and hot peppers and cilantro on the toasty grilled baguette.

But on the day I went, Hinckley’s offered a special kind of thick-sliced, coarse Cajun terrine of pork, confit duck gizzard and hearts, tasso ham, and smoked turkey sausage as an alternative to put in the banh mi. (I sent them a Facebook message to verify all of this deliciousness, to make sure I got it right.) Here’s a better photo from Hinckley’s Instagram account. How could I refuse, with all the recognizable chunks of different meats to sample? It was AWESOME.

A new friend was magnanimous enough to order this charcuterie board ($22) for the group to share. It came with sliced porchetta di testa (boneless pig head), thick and rich chicken liver pâté (the jar on the right), and chilled spuma di lardo (the jar on top), which is creamy whipped pork fat, sea salt, and honey. It also included toasted baguette rounds to spread the spreads on, and a Dijon-style mustard. So fancy for lunch on a workday! I’d love to see Lunchables (which are essentially charcuterie boards for children) create a culinary masterpiece like this.

We are lucky to have some incredible sandwich shops in Orlando, most of which only opened within the last two years. I’ve already reviewed several of my favorites — LaSpada’s, Stasio’s, Manzano’s — and that’s on top of all the places that serve banh mi sandwiches. A review of another big sandwich joint, maybe the biggest and best of them all is coming, I promise. But Hinckley’s Fancy Meats is doing things nobody else is, curing its own meats and reinventing the classics with creative new twists. It’s a great addition to our local sandwich scene, and all carnivores should check it out.

Hunger Street Tacos

Orlando has a plethora of fantastic Mexican restaurants, from the upscale to the cheap and casual, from Americanized to authentic. One that is consistently in the pantheon of best Mexican food is Hunger Street Tacos (http://hungerstreettacos.com/) on Fairbanks Avenue in Winter Park, moments from I-4. Brothers Joseph and David Creech, the chef-owner-operators, and Joseph’s wife Seydi, serve a unique menu of authentic street foods you would definitely encounter in Mexico City, and most of their dishes are totally singular here in Orlando. You won’t find them on most local menus, and even if you did, you won’t find their equals. I love the Creech Brothers’ story on the Hunger Street website that describes their formative years spent in Mexico and how they studied the local street foods and authentically recreated them here, starting with a catering business and culminating in their restaurant, in the original location of the now-legendary 4 Rivers Smokehouse.

Unfortunately, Hunger Street Tacos is too far from my job to dash off there for lunch, and since I work late and they are closed on Sundays, I don’t make it there nearly often enough. It had been far too long since my last visit, but thankfully my wife and I recently made it back there on a Saturday at 11 AM, while they still served some special brunch menu items, but before it got too hot and before they got too crowded.

As usual, we arrived hungry and over-ordered, so we could try a bunch of different dishes and end up with delicious leftovers for later:

Sauteed mushroom quesadilla ($4.75) for my wife, and vegetarian tinga quesadilla ($4.75) for me, on crispy grilled flour tortillas. I love the vegetarian tinga, with sauteed onion, garlic, cabbage, and chipotle peppers that made it the spiciest dish I tried (but not too spicy, for those who fear the heat). Both quesadillas include Chihuahua cheese (which, I must clarify, comes from the Chihuahua state in Mexico, not from actual chihuahuas).

Campechano taco with pulled brisket and crumbled chorizo ($3.75) and fried avocado taco ($3.75). This brisket is crispy from being cooked in a hot griddle after being slow-cooked, and the fried avocado is the perfect consistency — light and crispy outside, warm and soft on the inside.

Hibiscus and guacamole taco ($3.00). Yes, they are actual hibiscus flowers, and they are so delicious. They remind me a little of one of my favorite vegetable dishes, braised red cabbage, with their look and texture underneath that delicious fresh guacamole and tomatoes, but it’s hard to fully describe their unique flavor.

Rib taco ($4.75), a current special that will eventually be added to the regular menu. It is a bone-in pork rib, and the meat is so tender, you can simply squeeze the rib inside the tortilla to pull out the bone.

I was so excited to try the al pastor taco ($3.75, I believe), but it wasn’t ready when we arrived at 11 AM on a Saturday! Luckily, they had it ready before we left, so I had to go back inside to order one. It was totally worth the wait — one of the best al pastor dishes I’ve ever had, and that is one of my favorite dishes to order anywhere. The marinated pork is sliced fresh off a vertical trompo (think of how gyro meat or shawarma is often sliced off a rotating spit), and I don’t think anyone else in the city does it this way. The taco came simply garnished with onions, cilantro, a nice piece of fresh pineapple, and squeezing a lime wedge over it made it pure perfection.

This is Hunger Street’s chicharron de queso ($8.00), a house specialty that you cannot order to go, since it wouldn’t be the same when it isn’t hot, fresh, and perfectly crispy. Yes, this is gouda cheese, melted, stretched, and fried until it has almost a potato chip consistency. It comes with guacamole and spicy red salsa, and my advice (really Chef David Creech’s advice) is to use the crispy cheese to scoop up some of both, so you get all the flavors and textures in one bite. This would be a fantastic dish for low-carb and keto dieters who want something crispy and salty and are in chip withdrawal. Been there, done that!The chicharron de queso was so huge, we couldn’t finish it at the restaurant, so we ended up bringing a lot of it home. Wisely, I didn’t put it in the refrigerator, where it might have turned soggy. I left it on our kitchen counter on an uncharacteristically cool April day, so it was still mostly crispy later that evening.

And finally, this is one of their Saturday brunch dishes, churro French toast ($7.90), created from English muffin bread from Orlando’s own Olde Hearth Bread Company. Light and eggy and dusted with cinnamon and sugar, this is what convinced my wife to have an early lunch here, and she absolutely loved it. It was beautiful to behold, and its taste lived up to its looks!

I can’t say enough good things about Hunger Street Tacos or the warm and welcoming Super Creech Bros. While geography and timing keep me from going as often as I would like, it is one of those Orlando restaurants that is constantly experimenting, improving, and impressing. It never disappoints. That al pastor is my new gold standard, and if you’re a vegetarian or have vegetarian friends, I can’t recommend it highly enough, with dishes like the hibiscus taco, chicharron de queso, vegetarian tinga quesadilla, mushroom quesadilla (more for you!), or the squash blossom quesadilla, which we didn’t even order this time.

Susuru

I fully admit that one hip dining trend that totally passed me by is ramen. I subsisted on instant ramen noodles, spaghetti, and canned tuna and sardines for far too many years of my life, fueling myself through far too many degrees. And while I still like those ridiculously salty and unhealthy noodles today, I’ve had a hard time wrapping my mind around $10+ bowls of “fancy” ramen, after dining on 7-for-$1 Maruchan and Nissin noodles for so long. I’ve even tried a few ramen bowls from nicer restaurants, but found them bland and disappointing, and often overloaded with those long, thin, alien-looking mushrooms with the tiny caps that ruin the whole thing for me.

But my best friend was in town recently to judge the National Pie Championships with me, and on the rare times we get to visit each other (me being in Orlando or him back in Miami), we always try to show off the newest and/or best restaurants in our home cities to each other. One place I’ve been hearing great things about restaurant is Susuru (https://www.susuruorl.com), the new Japanese izakaya (casual pub) down near Disney World, close to where he was staying. It’s extraordinarily easy to find if you take I-4 to exit 68 and get off on State Road 535, also known as Apopka-Vineland Road.

Susuru features a quirky, funky, retro-hipster-otaku decor that you never see anywhere:

As a lifelong action figure collector, I got a kick out of the view in the hallway when I left the men’s room:

And as a cat lover with a few maneki nekos at home to hopefully bring some luck, I loved this little dude next to the bar:

I’m sure my readers care far more about the menu, which wasn’t available on Susuru’s website when I checked, so here it is. Note that this is a Japanese restaurant that serves no sushi. Also note that none of the food is too expensive, so I encourage you to order several different dishes and share them:

My buddy and I each ordered tonkotsu ramen ($10), with pork chashu, shoyu soft egg, bamboo shoots, scallions, nori, and tonkotsu broth. I have to admit, I was still a little skeptical, given my limited experience with overpriced and mediocre “fancy” ramen, but this was so delicious, I can’t stop thinking about it almost two weeks later. (“Or talking about it!”, my wife would say.) The broth was so rich and flavorful, almost creamy despite containing no dairy at all. Even the bamboo shoots, which I had misgivings about, were soft and yielding, like thick al dente pasta sheets. I’ve never been able to cook an egg to that perfect soft-boiled consistency, with the rich, runny yolk that infused the broth. The noodles were so far beyond the instant ramen bricks of my college days, it was like graduating from your school cafeteria lunches to a gourmet feast. And the pork! The PORK! It melted in my mouth. It was sliced thin, and it was so tender and unctuous. Once again, perfect in every way!

We also split the mentaiko fries ($6), which were McDonald’s-style fries topped with spicy cod roe mayonnaise and shredded nori (seaweed). I love anything salty, spicy, and fishy, but these were almost like a salt overload. Delicious, though. I have to imagine this would be a great dish to order while drinking beer.

Skewers, skewers, all kinds of skewers! These skewers of meat are cut into perfect, uniform, bite-sized pieces and grilled over a charcoal flame. From left to right, we ordered sausage, chicken hearts, short rib, chicken skin, and the two on the right are both chicken thighs. The Kurobota (pork honey sausage) had the texture of a hot dog and didn’t taste that different, although it picked up nice flavor from the charcoal grill they used. The short rib (in the middle) was a little tough, although still very rich and tasty. I am drawn to sausages and short rib dishes anywhere I go and count them among my favorite meats. That said…I never thought I’d end up liking chicken more than sausage or short rib, but I sure did here. All three types of chicken skewers (yakitori) were indeed better — not that I disliked the sausage or short rib! But they were among the most delicious chicken-related items I’ve ever eaten in my life. They had a fantastic taste they picked up from being grilled, especially those thighs. My only disappointment was that they ran out of chicken oyster yakitori, an off-menu special for the evening. Those two tiny, dark morsels of meat are my favorite part of the chicken, which is why I usually gravitate toward preparing thighs or roasting whole birds at home.

If you’re skeptical about chicken hearts, I implore you to give these a try. I’ve bought hearts at Publix to cook at home (marinate in a vinaigrette dressing and then saute them). I love the rich, organ-y flavor, like delicious chicken liver, but mine always come out chewy. These were anything but chewy — far more tender than I ever expected chicken hearts could be. Whoever is working the grill at Susuru is a master at his or her craft.

So I’m definitely a huge fan of Susuru. If you spend time down near the theme parks or come to Orlando on vacation, venture off park property and go check it out. Seriously, if it wasn’t an hour from home, I would become a regular for sure. I’m already planning my next Susuru adventure!