Chus On Chow

Our neighbors, Pete and Barb M., just turned us on to NY Gianni’s Bronx Style Pizza – we’ll call it Gianni’s Pizza from here on in – and boy are we ever glad they did. Y’all will recall how miserably Cosmo’s failed the Lonnie’s-hot-fast-pizza test. So I figured, to be fair, I’d have to run Gianni’s through the same test. OMG! What a difference!

I called Gianni’s after looking at their website and asked if I could place an order by phone but eat it there. The very friendly fellow on the other end of the line said, of course! and wanted to know how soon we’d be there. “Seven minutes” I said. “It will be done in twelve. Come on down!” Sure enough, it was hot and ready when we got there, a short drive down Burnet Ave from our Eastwood home.

And what a warm welcome we got, too. Gianni and his lovely wife and mom (or so we believe, having been too famished to politely get this information) were so sweet; they made us feel genuinely at home. The place is tiny, mostly for take-out, but the little room where there are four small tables was very nicely decorated, there was pleasant music playing, and there was no danged TV blinking away to distract us from what we came for: great food. Gianni pointed out that they have  wi-fi and so anyone is welcome to come with a laptop and play their own TV.

So how was the pizza?  Mamma mia! Ecco una pizza come Dio la vuole! Everything hand-made and fresh, the “Grand Concourse” (meat lover’s) pizza was indeed grand, loaded with cheese and almost overpopulated with ham, bacon, pepperoni, ground beef, all on a thin hand-tossed crust just thick enough to hold up to eating from the hand.

I really do not like mediocre pizza. There’s so much of it around these parts. I will even drive all the way up to Marshall St. and put up with rudeness to get a good pizza. Thank goodness, that won’t be necessary any more. Dave and I will be going back to Gianni’s repeatedly – there’s quite a menu to work our way through.

By the way, Gianni has worked for years at some of your other favorite pizza joints. I won’t say where – go on in and ask him yourself. While you’re there, try ordering in Spanish, the other language of this bi-lingual couple. When Gianni found out I’m a Spanish teacher, he said I should have my students come down and order their meal all in Spanish.  I think I’ll make that a very strong suggestion! They’ll be well rewarded for their efforts.

Gianni’s Pizza is located at 1428 Burnet Ave., not far from the corner of Teall and Burnet. It shares space with the Liberty Bakery, so you’ll likely go home with a half dozen cookies, including Central New York’s famous half-moons. They’re open Monday through Thursday 11-9 and Friday through Saturday 11-10.  Alas, they are closed on Sunday. If you go in, please tell them the Chus sent you.

Michael Angelo’s recently opened on James St. in Eastwood between Sacred Melody Plaza and Wegman’s.  This location has been the site of many restaurants, almost qualifying as a restaurant graveyard.  I did my share of whining when the Melt Shop closed, whose service and simple fare I enjoyed and rooted for.  But by now it’s almost morbidly fascinating to see every brave soul who tries their luck in this karma-challenged spot.  I know none of you could have guessed it, but they offer Italian fare.

We made our way over to Michael Angelo’s on a very cold night recently.  As some already know, the owner was previously a very longstanding chef at Antonio’s, and some favorite recipes from that former hotspot came along with him.  I went for the Riggies to cut the winter chill.  This Utica-styled pasta favorite was appropriately spicy, the sauce was good, and the portion was quite massive.  Lonnie opted for the fish sandwich, and we were both impressed with the flavor and how refined and delicate the breaded coating was.  Our server was very pleasant and friendly.

It’s a small, modest place, not comparable to somewhere like Antonio’s, a fairly fancy restaurant.  The new decor is tasteful, though.  It’s almost surreal to have seen such a long sequence of decor changes in that building.  We’ll see how they make out – they don’t appear to be doing a lot of advertising, so I’m guessing that their success will depend on whether they can attract former fans of Antonio’s who might enjoy a somewhat more modest meal price.

I have decided to nominate Jennifer of the Melt Shop as the Friendliest Person in Eastwood!  She is absolutely wonderful!!!!!!  Who’s with me? – Dave

You know how it is when you get stuck in a rut. At the moment when you’re the hungriest and most brain function has shut down, all you can think of is that one item that you know they’re serving over at your usual spot… whatever that is.

So it’s Friday evening and we’re hungry and we just want some fried haddock.  Where to go? Well, we live in Eastwood and we’re fairly near to the Fish Cove in Shop City and I can’t for the life of me think of any other place in Eastwood that serves haddock (and I’m sure there are at least a half dozen). So Dave drives over there to pick up the fish and returns almost immediately. “The Fish Cove is gone. There’s just some pizza place there.”

This is what I get for sending a brilliant designer/musician on a fishy errand. He’s already got fried brains – how is he going to find fried fish?

I can’t believe that Fish Cove is gone. They always seemed to be doing such a booming business! But alas, these things happen. I accept his report as true (although it’s not). This is a good thing, because it forces my own fried brain to focus… focus… Where… is… the… fish?

Oh YEAH!  The Melt Shop! Silly us! We can walk over there. It will take us maybe five or six minutes to stroll over on this glorious summer evening. And we’re so glad we do.

We’d been in the Melt Shop months before. Times are tough, we’re not eating out quite as often, we don’t usually look for sandwiches. We wondered how the place was doing.

Quite fine, as a matter of fact! The place is still immaculate, the walls are now even more covered than before with fascinating huge photos of iron works and aluminum smelters, men doing some of the most incredible, hot, dirty work. I mean, they’re pouring molten steel from buckets the size of my house!

There are black and white checked table cloths on every table and the counter has five people sitting at it. Lots of room to sit and relax in here. A TV is going (the only negative point in my book, but I guess people like it) and the service is extremely friendly and spot-on.

We order the beer battered haddock. I’m not interested in anything but the fish so I order the sandwich without the bread. Who needs it? (Dave, as it turns out, but he’s a guy…) I just want to dip that fish in the ample tartar sauce that’s served with it. Utter simplicity, nothing to get in the way of the crunch of the batter, the delicate warm juices from the fish, the perfectly tender yet ample white flesh of the fish, and just the right level of tang in that sauce.

I eat the thing with my fingers, it’s so crispy on the outside. I’ll confess, I’ve been known to surreptitiously lick the plate in high-end restaurants… when the sauce simply could not be washed down a drain, when nobody else was left in the room, when the lighting was low.

But not here. In this brightly-lit dining room, I stick my fingers right into the tartar sauce and lick them while taking more bites of the fish. Shameful!

Heavenly.

Check out the Melt Shop’s website. Nice photos, all the information you need right at your fingertips (it’s not overdesigned by some college kid who’s more impressed with his Flash skills than with your need to find the hours of the restaurant). It’s a reflection of what you find at this restaurant: down-home, bright, cheery and hey!  it’s close to everything!

August is a tough month for restaurants. If you’re reading this, then do yourself a favor, this month. Pay them a visit. Then let us know what you ate there and how you liked it.

A few weekends ago we spent the day in Rochester with friends. To finish off our visit, we took a stroll around the historic Corn Hill district and had dinner at Tony D’s. I’d found them on egullet-org – great recommendations for restaurants just about anywhere in the world there – so we took our chances and were not disappointed.  To sum up:

• Their coal-fired oven makes awesome pizza. It’s got a very thin crust that becomes nearly crispy. The flavors of the toppings are the star because they’re not being swallowed up in a inch of bread dough.
• The ambiance is fun, warm, friendly. The place is small, so we found ourselves sitting close to other humans (horrors!). If you don’t like feeling as though you’re in Europe, you’ll probably want to go back to Pizza Hut.
• The location at 288 Exchange Blvd. is great, on the Genesee river, right at the edge of the Corn Hill district, so nice for a stroll before or after stuffing yourself.  (This is only about three blocks from the Rochester Dinosaur Barbecue. Eat at Tony D’s, go dancing at the Dino – you can eat at the Syracuse Dino any time!)
• They have great wine and beer selections.
• You can get a seat at the counter overlooking the chefs’ station. Now that’s fun.
• The prices can’t be beat.
• Oh, and did I say the pizza was awesome? Don’t miss it. And for God’s sake, don’t complain about the bit of charring that makes this pizza unique. It’s part of the flavor profile. If you don’t like that, try a different dish. You will not be disappointed.

Now the last thing Syracuse needs is one more pizza joint. But I want to know if anyone in Syracuse can duplicate this pizza. I don’t require that you have a view of a river. Just get that oven incredibly hot and the crust thin and really crispy. For God’s sake, know what you’re doing with a pizza. Be from Brooklyn. 

A glass of good chianti or even a shiraz would make me happy, too.  Can anyone in Syracuse do this?

Update: As of September 2009, unfortunately, Mike is no longer working at the River House.  Frankly, I am no longer confident that the food there will be high quality – Dave

It’s not often that a great chef happens by to chat over the garden fence. But that’s what happened a few weeks ago as Dave and I worked out in the veggie plots.  Mike Sweetman and his wife and daughter were out for a walk and found us with dirt under our fingernails. We ended up in a long conversation about food, all of us more than a little pleasantly surprised to find serious foodies just three houses apart on the same street!

So when Mike got a job at the River House in Pulaski (north of Syracuse, NY, for you international readers), he started sending us emails detailing the evening’s specials and we just couldn’t resist. We travel for food, and 40 minutes on 81-north isn’t too much of a sacrifice for a meal like the one that awaited us.

River House is smack dab in the middle of little Pulaski, so you can’t miss it even if you try. It’s sitting on a spot that has had one hotel, tavern or restaurant after another, each one burning down in turn. Well, we hope this one doesn’t follow suit! It’s a new building with ample parking, a ramp and stairs up to the front door, and three separate rooms for the public. The first is the bar, a casual place for dining and/or drinking. Then there are two distinct restaurant rooms, one of which you see here – look at the picture over the mantle to see one of the earlier iterations:

We were seated in the next room over (didn’t get a picture of it) and, after looking over the menu, decided to go with the specials that Mike had put together for the evening:

The appetizer:  SURF AND TURF- Pan seared tenderloin and scallop medalions – shitake mushroom – white truffle butter:

I don’t quite know how to convey the series of sensations that this dish caused to take place in my mouth. Every bite was a descent into the depths of every flavor Chef Mike could bring out of the simple ingredients. I do not remember ever having had a scallop so expertly prepared, incredibly moist and tender, the caramelization and black pepper contrasting so pleasingly with the tender textures and flavors of the interior. Amazingly, the tenderloin provided the same experience, in its own beefy way. Even the bit of greens was an eye-opener. Heavenly.

Dave ordered the pasta dish, described by Mike thus:

PASTA – Shrimp & Angelhair al’ Arrabbiata – Seared jumbo shrimp – house-made arrabbiata sauce – aglio spinach.

“Arrabbiata sauce is made with whole plum tomatoes, garlic, basil, sugar, olive oil. It has a very faint spice and is sweet and just a nice hint of garlic. I know it may sound a bit strange; arrabbiata means angry. It was made by an old Italian chef who got pissed off one night and threw a pan of sauce that landed with another; someone tried it and loved it. There is nothing angry about how it tastes.”

Again, expert handling of the seafood, and this time a sauce that was certainly not angry-making, but indeed surprising. I don’t like sweet stuff in my dinners, yet in this case the wee bit of sugar was used like a salt or a spice. It just brought out the best in the sauce. Dave was very kind to let me have as much of it as he did.

My own meal was something I haven’t dared to order in decades, literally. Delmonico steak. I have fond memories of one of these from back in the’70’s, and every other one since then has disappointed. Well, not tonight. Mike managed to coax out all those deep, dark layers of flavor that a good Delmonico should deliver.

Delmonico steak – caramelized onions – white truffle butter – wild mushroom risotto:

The caramelized onions were the deepest brown I’d ever seen. I asked Mike about this some time later and he said that those onions are in the pan for over an hour. It takes that long for all the chemical changes to take place. This is dedication to an onion ideal.

The wild mushroom risotto was as good as my own. I don’t make a lot of really outstanding food (most of it is good to pretty good), but I’m picky when it comes to risotto being done right. I make a good one. But this one was every bit as good… okay, it was better. It was sooo good! When I need comfort food, this is what I want.

Most meals fall into one of three categories:

1. It’s pretty bad, but we’re traveling in upstate New York and there’s no good food for fifty miles so we’d better just shut up and eat.

2. It’s a decent meal. You know, most of it is average but one or two items are really good, worth considering a return trip.

3. It’s memorable. Everything is right – the lighting, the service, the food, the beverage selection. One or two items are truly outstanding and the rest is quite good. But mostly, you’re glad you came and will return some day.

But then there are those meals that just build, one course at a time, from one excellent experience to another. The care that the chef or cook takes, the feel that they have for what treatment would make these ingredients really sing, is evident in every single bite.

We’ve had two other experiences like this just in the past few months; once at Amada Restaurant, chef Jose Garces’ place in Philadelphia. We were eating their tapas menu and at one point, overcome with sensation, I simply started weeping. I couldn’t help it! Fue superior a mí.  It bested me.

The next time was at the home of a couple we happened to meet at an art opening in Albany. They guided us slowly through course after course, and at one point that feeling of overwhelm started to bubble up. Trying to look like a rational human being, I dabbed daintily at my eyes and admitted that it was all so delicious I was moved to tears.

And wouldn’t you know, it happened again at some point at the River House Restaurant – probably during the steak. You don’t get this with just one great dish. It’s like a symphony – every instrument has to be in tune and every movement has to be played not only expertly but with feeling and even love. If you have never cried at some point while listening to the Ode to Joy, then you might not know what I’m talking about.

But you might give it a shot at the River House. Tell them you read this blog and you want Mike’s suggestions for the evening. I’d be interested to know how it goes for you.

That’s Chef Mike Sweetman. Actually, he’s adamant about introducing himself as co-chef along with co-chef Sam Carpenter, whom he dragged out of the kitchen so we’d know who was responsible for part of the meal.

The RiverHouse Restaurant is at 4818 Salina Street, Pulaski, N.Y. 13142
Phone: (315) 509-4281