GASTRONORMOUS

THURSDAY’s lunch–Katzenberg’s Deli, Greenwich, CT
Mixed Greens salad with brocolli, carrots, chick peas, kidney beans, cheddar, dried cranberries.

Yes, another salad!

If you want a big salad, with tons of add-ins, Katzenbergs is the place for you. It is sort of a mess, as you can see. It is not what you would call a composed salad. It is actually so big, with such a large volume of fixin’s added onto the top that it is impossible to toss. This means that I must excavate from the top down and by the time I eat the upper strata, I am full. That is okay because the leftover lettuce usually ends up being a salad for the Hubs and I to share at home for dinner, that is, after I have washed and picked out the bad lettuce. Yes, Katzenbergs also has the issue with wilted or worse lettuce. They must get it form the same supplier as Gourmet Galley.

Anyway, not the worse lunch I have ever had, but, I assure you, quite far from the best.

Today we ordered from Bruckners, an establishment that I am happy to report breaks the Greenwich bad-lunch rule. Their dishes are thoughtful and the quality of their ingredients is pretty high. Not everything here is a winner (I think their sandwiches are more successful than their salads, for instance), but for the most part I can count on them for a satisfying and healthy meal.

Today we order from one of my favorite lunch places in Greenwich, called Bruckners. Their dishes are thoughtful and the quality of their ingredients is pretty high. Not everything here is a winner (I think
WEDNESDAY’s lunch–from Bruckners, Greenwich, CT
Cheese and Vegetable Sandwich

This vegetable sandwich is mostly vegetables, with a bit of cheese, piled high on good quality multi-grain bread, with some mustard and a dash cayenne, which is a nice touch. Vegetables include lettuce, sprouts, cucumbers, tomatoes, roasted red peppers, cabbage, and red onions. There are other restaurants in town that put an inch-high stack of cheese on a sandwich, which, though I love cheese, is way too much. Bruckners uses just the right amount. For some reason, today they put mayo on it too–and a bit too much of it–which takes away a bit from the sandwich. But overall, I can’t complain. This was a yummy lunch. Bruckners makes great soups, too. I wish our office ordered from here every day!

TUESDAY’s lunch–from Gourmet Galley, Greenwich, CT
Green salad with broccoli, carrots, feta, hard-boiled egg, chick peas, croutons.

Today’s salad was okay by Gourmet Galley standards. They gave me just the egg white, rather than the entire boiled egg, and about a quarter of the lettuce was wilted or worse, but that is to be expected here, unfortunately. Usually, when I order a mixed green salad from this establishment, they send romaine. It is this type of carelessness that is endemic among lunch places in the area of Greenwich, for some fathomless reason. I can forgive a restaurant that under-salts something, or just gets a combination of flavors not quite right, but I am hard pressed to find an excuse for serving rotten lettuce, or just delivering a completely different item than what one ordered (which happens frequently).

The one stand-out good thing about this salad was the croutons. They are homemade and really garlicky. Everything else is pre-prepped or from a can, and so pretty hard to mess up, unless you fail to pick out the wilted and rotting lettuce, that is. Sigh!

I am beginning to think positing about these lunches was a bad idea. It is pretty depressing (well, as depressing as a free lunch can get, I suppose). I am holding out for something good tomorrow!

This is a special week at gastronormous: I am calling it Working Through Lunch Week. Let me explain.

One of the perks of my day job is that we get a free lunch delivered to our office every day. One of the drawbacks of my job is that these lunches come from restaurants located in and around Greenwich, CT (yes, I live in Brooklyn and work in Greenwich!). My workplace is rather isolated, so running across the street to the Quizno’s for a sammy isn’t an option. Lunch must be brought in or delivered.

You would think that one would eat quite well in the city populated by the most millionaires per capita* than any other city, but you would think wrong. These real estate moguls and investment bankers must eat out in New York City or have their own private chefs cook according to their whim, for I can’t imagine them enjoying a meal out at most of the places that frequently serve us lunch. There are some notable exceptions to the bad-lunch rule, let’s just hope one or two of them pops up this week!

MONDAY’s lunch–form the Olive Branch, Greenwich, CT
Grilled Portobello Sandwich and a slice of “spumoni” cheesecake.

Yes, this shroom-juice-stained, shriveled, bready blob is in fact a sandwich. Of sorts. In the past, the mushrooms have seemed canned or marinated or something. Today they actually seem like they are fresh-grilled. But still, look at this mess. (Mixed in with the mushrooms are grilled peppers, provolone cheese, and some sort of sauce.) I must admit it does taste a tiny bit better than it looks. If you sort of squeeze your eyes tightly shut and let reflexes guide the sandwich to your mouth, it isn’t really terrible. But is it a well crafted sandwich? Let me just tell you that Tom Colicchio would not approve.

And the Spumoni cheesecake? I don’t normally get dessert at lunch. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did. But the description of this special sweet treat for today was too intriguing to pass up. It was described as a 3-layer cheesecake with vanilla, rum, and amaretto layers, topped with whipped cream, pistachios, and cherries. Sounded decadent. It turns out that I really shouldn’t have. I mean, I really, really shouldn’t have.

It in fact ended up being pistachio, cherry, and some liquor-flavored layers, topped with candied gummy red things and almonds. I don’t like cherry-flavored just about anything. It was overly sweet and flavors tasted terribly artificial. I ate two bites and threw it out. What a waste of my dear old friend cream cheese!

Tune in tomorrow for Tuesday’s lunch!

*A totally made up statistic. But it could be true.

No, the title does not refer to a hip new restaurant, but backyard barbeque I attended in Maplewood, NJ last weekend. The food and company were wonderful. Some highlights included: these amazing veggie/tofu kabobs. I have no idea how they got the tofu to stay on the skewers, but I am so glad they did because it was amazing. The kabobs had a wonderful flavor that I was surprised to learn was supplied by a jar of marinade from Trader Joes(!). I didn’t imagine a jarred marinade could taste this good.

Also featured were the hostess’ family recipe chicken wings, barbeque chicken, bison burgers, chicken sausages, veggie sausages, New Mexican layered dip and chips, about the best potato salad I have ever had, tasty cucumber salad, and desserts galore, including some to-die-for blondies. Besides the sangria I brought and copious soda, beer, and wine, there was also a delish bourbon slush (supplied by the Predicate).

Thanks Suz and Jen!!! Here are the pics:

After going to the Flea nearly every weekend for the past month to search for items needed for our new apartment (specifically, a dining table, paintings, and miscellaneous objets), I have determined that, as much as I love perusing vintage junk, the best part of the Flea is the food. The increasingly enormous lines we have encountered offer testament to that.

We were hungry at noon with only coffee in our bellies, and there were plenty of options at the Flea to sate us. The Red Hook Ballfields Papusa vendor was indeed there (as long rumored), but the lines were prohibitively long (like seriously, a half-hour long), so we decided we could wait for the ballfields opening in June. Waffles and Dinges were not there for some reason, which left me forlorn until I took a bite of the sandwiches we ended up getting at the Choice Market booth. Hubs, The Predicate, and I enjoyed hangar steak and grilled vegetable sandwiches, which were totally delicious; loaded with perfectly proportioned meat, veggies and cheese, on super fresh bread. This fueled our shopping excursion.

Whilst shopping I had two food-people sightings: I spied someone who looked an awful lot like Zoi a “cheftestant” from Top Chef, being hugged and kissed by someone who did not look an awful lot like Jen, her girlfriend and co-cheftestant. About 10 seconds after seeing her, I saw Wylie Defresne and a companion, browsing the goods, not the foods.

Before leaving the Flea, we stopped to get a little sweet treat. The Predicate got a cannoli from Salvatore’s, which was 10 times better than the average NY cannoli (though it is in my opinion still no Boston cannoli, the likes of which send me into a bliss I cannot describe), and Hubs and I each had a mini cupcake from Kumquat Cupcakery (pistachio and strawberries-and-cream, respectively), which were much better than your average cupcake. I am picky about frosting in general and cupcakes in particular, and, well, let’s just say I scarfed mine down before I had a chance to take a picture of it, which is a shame because it was about as freakin’ adorable as a baked good can get.

See you next Sunday!

Saturday morning the Hubs and I got out onto the street at the crack of noon to go shopping for a bunch of new-apartment needs (storage, repair, and organizational items, mostly), and on the way to the subway we stopped by the Green Apple Cafe for a country (aka Sunshine [carrot, etc.]) muffin, a cheddar scallion scone, and two iced coffees [$8.50]. The pastries were delicious and I wondered if they were baked on premises (the place was tiny, so I kinda think not). I had my iced coffee black and found it a little bitter, but with milk and sugar it was fine. The service could not have been friendlier! I only wish they were open when I go to work in the morning!

After a looong day of shopping, we ordered in Indian food for dinner from Amin. The food was just okay in my opinion, except for the Mottar Ponir, which was awful. I wouldn’t rush to order from them again.

More shopping for the apartment on Sunday. We stopped by the Brooklyn Flea, hoping to have for breakfast some of the delicious waffles we had been hearing about while perusing the furniture and other goods. Unfortunately, no dogs were allowed, and we had our little one with us, so no waffles for us! Instead of waffles, we decided to go for an even healthier breakfast option: pizza!

We got a slice to share at Mario’s in Clinton Hill [$2.25]. A sign outside proclaims them “The Best Pizza in NYC!” That, I assure you, it is not. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t anything better than your average corner slice joint. The crust tasted it like it might have once been frozen. A bit later, we shared a second slice from the comically named Not Ray’s [$2.50]. It was better than Mario’s, and better than your average corner pizza place, but still not as good as some of my favorite pizza places, like L’Asso. The crust at Not Ray’s was chewier and fresher, and the sauce was saltier than the sweet sauce Mario’s employs. Not a bad slice.

At the end of our big errand-running walk, we stopped by Gnarly Vines to pick up a bottle of wine. We chose Cline’s Zinfandel, and big, rich, chocolaty-fruity red. If you like big reds, this is a good inexpensive one [$11.00]. Gnarly Vines has a friendly staff and pretty good selection (and a few more less expensive options than nearby Green Grape and Thirst). A bonus: they will enter the wines you buy in a databse (if you want them to), so you can keep track of those wines you buy and enjoy but never can remember…

For dinner, we went out with the Hub’s cousin to Luz, which bills itself as “Nuevo Latino” food. The food was pretty good (though the salads looked like they had been dressed an hour before they arrived at our table–a bit on the soggy side), but the service was unreasonably slow. We weren’t in a rush, but even so, there was way too long a wait before the first course between courses, and then again before the bill. Plus, two of our entrées arrived a good ten minutes before the third. If they work out their service issues I would consider going back, but in the meantime there are many other restaurants to patronize…

All in all, not the healthiest weekend, but we had fun exploring the food offerings of our new neighborhood! Soon, very soon, I will get back to cooking for myself.

I forgot to mention the other day that when we went to Fragole, we thought about getting dessert after dinner, but nixed the idea once we considered how much longer it meant we would be there enduring their slow service. So instead, we stopped by Sweet Melissa on the way home. We ogled everything in the shining glass case before finally deciding on the Peanut Butter Indulgence, the peanut-encrusted chocolate confection pictured here (note small dog in background plotting a peanut butter coup).

I forked through the rich chocolate ganache, splitting the cake in half and thought, hey, where’s the PB? On account of the prominence of the term “peanut butter” in the title of the item, I assumed that would have a noticeable amount of, well, peanut butter in it. In actuality, it was mostly chocolate cake, with the thinnest of peanut butter schmears. Unfortunately, as a plain chocolate cake, the dessert also fell short–not the moistest I have ever had. I am sure there are other chocolate delicacies at S.M.’s that are more chocolately and delicious than this.

So, if you love all things peanut butter, as I do, or even if you just have a hankering for chocolate cake, I would not recommend this particular dessert to you. Luckily, there are plenty of other winsome options to sample from that glass case at Sweet Melissa’s…

Sweet Melissa
276 Court Street (at Douglass)
Brooklyn, Ny 11231
718-855-3410

Where: My place, Brooklyn, NY
When: last Saturday
What: Pizza with potatoes, blue cheese, and vidalia onions; chopped salad

Now, normally I am a sauce girl. I like sauce on my pizza. And not the white stuff either (white pie. puh!); I prefer a rich tomato sauce, but San Marzanos (as required by D.O.C. [Denominazione di Origine Controllate] pies, along with mozzarella di bufala, among other requirements) can be okay, too.

But as I walked down Smith Street last weekend, I stopped in my tracks when I saw this scrawled across a chalkboard set up outside Pacific Pizza: “Pizza with potatoes, blue cheese, and vidalia onions.” I like me some starch, but it takes some culinary cajones to put potatoes on top of bread and call it a pizza. I had to try it. As luck would have it, I had invited a couple friends over that very chilly evening to watch a movie at my place. I had planned on making my baked macaroni and cheese with spicy crust, but this instantly changed those plans to delivery instead.

When I called the joint to order, the description of the pizza had improved. In addition to potatoes, blue cheese and onions, the order-taker informed me, there was also mozzarella and rosemary. While it is always risky to order a non-conformist pizza without a back-up-traditional pie, I decided to get just a large special, plus a chopped salad.

The salad was a disappointment. It was a totally uninspired mix of romaine (my bane!), cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and provolone, with a vinegarette that looked and tasted like muddy vinegar. I know that a Caesar isn’t a Caesar without romaine lettuce, but in any other type of salad, why use romaine or iceburg lettuce when there are so many other types of lettuce with more flavor and nutritional punch (red leaf, arugula, raddichio, endive, frisee, etc.)?

The pizza, on the other hand, was delicious. The potatoes were paper-thin, chewy in the center, and perfectly crispy around the edges, and there was a nice balance of cheeses–they were careful not to overwhelm the pie with too much bleu–and it was perfectly seasoned with rosemary and salt. This was a subtle pie, there was no sock-you-in-the face tomato sauce, no peppery piquancy, just pleasant, comforting, mellow flavor and dense, chewy texture. The only thing that kept the pizza from being sublime was the crust, which could be improved upon. It was floury (as in, powder caked on the underside of the crust) and lacked flavor, a complication from under-salting, which I find to be unfortunately common problem among pizza crusts.

There is a dining room at Pacific Pizza, and they have spruced it up a bit since their conversion from the last pizzeria iteration there called La Rosa and Sons (part of a trio of restaurants that dominate the corner of Smith and Pacific Streets, and seem to share a kitchen), so it might be a nice place to eat if you ever find yourself on Smith Street, hankering for pizza. And if you live in the nabe, by all means, order delivery from here, but be sure to ask about the specials!

Pacific Pizza
98 Smith Street (at Pacific)
Brooklyn, NY
718-935-0545