New Era Cafe (Akron, OH) and Kitchen Post (Struthers, OH)

Mrs. Hackknife and I recently found ourselves in Northeast Ohio again for the second of 3 family weddings (all three grooms are brothers and my first cousins) in an 18-month period. In addition to getting to see distant relatives, we always enjoy the opportunity to sample whatever outstanding local eats we encounter there. For example, we missed out on Central European grub when we passed through Akron last October (there is a sizable population of Serbians and Hungarians nearby), so we were sure not to pass on it this trip. Fortunately, one of the better Central European restaurants anywhere is located a mere 20 minutes from Akron-Canton Airport; namely, New Era Restaurant, next to Interstate 76 at 10 Massillon Road.

At first glance, the operation (which appears to be relatively new or at least newly-renovated) doesn't differ much from any of thousands of blue-collar restaurants across America, a tavern on one end and a dining room on the other with a take-out counter in the middle.  Even the menu doesn't exactly scream "ethnic food" upon review, that is, until you zero in on a few key dishes, most of which we had to try.

What looks like Brown-N-Serve breakfast sausages above is actually the national dish of Serbia called cevapi, which are skinless links of minced beef, lamb, and/or pork (not sure which meats ended up in ours).  The cevapi at New Era are served with fries and raw chopped onions, making for a tasty, garlicky treat.

The house touts their 75-year old chicken paprikash recipe, so, of course, we had to have it.  The dish (which consists of assorted bone-in chicken pieces browned in butter, then stewed with onions/paprika) is served here on a bed of dumplings swimming in the reddish paprika-laced stewing liquid.  A slice of delicious homemade strudel (we chose cheese over apple) accompanied the chicken.

Mrs. H. couldn't pass on one more offering, a thick-cut goose liver sausage sandwich, served on toast with onions and mustard.  This beauty was rich and earthy and ensured that no one would come within 50 yards of us for several hours.

After our sizable dinner in Akron, we rolled into my aunt and uncle's house in suburban Youngstown (our destination for the weekend), who promptly informed us that they have a new restaurant nearby that was a can't-miss experience.  Unable to further defile our innards that evening, we waited until lunch the next day to pop in to The Kitchen Post, a self-described "supper club" in a small strip mall space on a ragged stretch of Youngstown-Poland Road, an area of town still visibly reeling from the local steel industry's departure and about the last place one would expect to discover elevated cuisine.

Dressed for a wedding (I in my suit and my lovely bride in a formal dress), we clearly stood out amongst the youthful, hipster crowd, but settled in for a fine lunch nonetheless.  The chalkboard above the counter stated that the menu changes frequently and included a collection of casual, accessible dishes like toasts, tacos, and fried chicken.

What you see above is one of the aforementioned toasts, in this case smoked salmon with mashed avocado, red onion, jalapenos, and "everything bagel" seasoning.  This was my first experience with the ultra-trendy avocado toast and I now get the allure: KP's toast was fantastic, a real pro combo of flavors and textures that was perfectly balanced and just a tad sloppy for good measure.

If you see something called "Elvis spoonbread" on a menu, I believe it should be your moral obligation to get some. Chef Ross Fowler at KP created this decadent wonder of peanut butter bread pudding, bruleed bananas, bacon, and honey, all the best parts of Sunday brunch in a single bowl. I had to share it with Mrs. Hackknife. I wasn't happy about that.  At the rate he's going, Chef Fowler (who's only around 25 and apparently going places) should be expecting a call from the producers at Top Chef any day now...

Tampa Scachatta

A few months ago, I stumbled across an interesting article that was posted on Saveur's website. A Philadelphia-based writer and illustrator named Hawk Krall submitted a feature about something called "scachatta" (at least, that's one of several possible spellings), a tomato bread with Sicilian roots that's not quite exactly pizza, but an egg dough sheet bread topped with a meat-based tomato sauce and occasionally sprinkled with grated cheese. The kicker is that, unbeknownst to me (and not only me - most of the local foodie cognoscenti also pleaded ignorance), Tampa is the home of said specialty; in fact, Mr. Krall visited a number of prominent local bakeries as part of his research. Not wanting to miss out on such a unique item, I decided to retrace his steps and get an idea of what scachatta is all about (as well as experience a sampling of other baked goodies).

My first stop was perhaps Tampa's most well-known bakery, La Segunda Central, maker of fine Cuban bread (you can't make an authentic Cuban sandwich without it) and other delectable treats on the fringes of Ybor City (2512 N. 15th St.) since 1915.  You might wonder why one would seek out an Italian dish in a Cuban establishment - one of Tampa's intriguing qualities is the intermingling of the Cuban, Italian, and Spanish communities (all employed by the formerly-massive cigar industry), which includes their respective cuisines.

Despite its age, the retail portion of the bakery is shiny and modern, clearly renovated sometime during the past few years to help serve the large volume of customers passing through its doors.

I was here of course for scachatta, but I had a difficult time controlling myself and had to pick up a few extras, namely a devil crab and a guava turnover, both of which were quite tasty.

La Segunda's was my first-ever scachatta slice and I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was savory and rich, reminding me somewhat of the sheet pizza I'd had a few years ago at Chicago's now-departed Italian Superior Bakery on Western Ave.  Still, I found the concept a bit lacking and was curious to see how the versions at other bakeries stacked up.

The next stop (Alessi Bakery and Deli, 2909 W. Cypress St.) matches up head-to-head on the local history front with La Segunda very well - it's been around since 1912 and offers many of the same goods, although with a heavier emphasis on Italian sweets (its founder, Nicolo Alessi, was Italian, not Cuban). As you enter the store, you encounter a large display of boxed scachatta ready for purchase.

The back of the box states that scachatta means "smash the bread" in the Sicilian dialect of Italian and I'm in no position to debate this.  What I can say is that I wasn't particularly enamored with this scachatta, either - it had a sweeter, milder profile than La Segunda's, but had more of a mass-production air to it, I suspect since it'd been made not onsite, but in Alessi's 100,000 sq. ft. manufacturing plant in northwest Tampa.

Feeling a bit discouraged, I pressed onward to Housewife Bake Shop, owned and operated by the same Italian family on Armenia Ave. (6821 N. Armenia, to be exact) since 1959 (the bakery's interior appeared to be frozen in time back to the 1960s with faux wood paneling and old drink coolers). Here I again encountered a mix of Italian and Cuban treats, including a sizable guava and cream cheese coffee cake that I had to bring home to the missus and kids.

They spell it "scacciata" at Housewife and turn out a tomato pie that's thinner and more savory than the others.  If there was meat in the sauce, it was very subtle.

Last, but not least, came Angelito's La Caridad Bakery (4425 W. Hillsborough Ave.), a place I've written about on this blog before for its decadent Cuban specialties.  Spanish is the main language spoken here, and I was able to muddle my way into ordering a devil crab (if you call it a "croqueta de cangrejo", they'll probably figure out what you're asking for) along with a slab of their escachata, which was kept in a refrigerator behind the counter.

The devil crab was terrific; however, the scachatta was even better, by far the best of the bunch that I sampled.  The tomato sauce (which was loaded with Cuban spices and sweet caramelized onions) popped with flavor and texture, plus the crust was nicely browned and not overly-doughy.  Just like most everything else churned out by La Caridad, they seem to know what they're doing.  I'm not sure exactly how much of this tomato bread concoction I'll encounter once we relocate to the Northeast (more on that in an upcoming post - Hawk Krall specifically mentions Utica, NY, Rhode Island, and northeast Pennsylvania to name a few), but if I ever have a hankering for scachatta, I'll be heading to La Caridad....

Singleton's Seafood Shack/Pie Heaven - Jacksonville, FL

Hackknife Jr. and I recently made a brief 24-hour trip up to Jacksonville (about a 3.5-hour drive from the Canteen) so that he could participate in a state-wide junior piano convention. In between his sessions, we had a significant amount of downtime that allowed us to explore the greater Jacksonville area a bit, including the local science and history museum (handily referred to as "MOSH") and, of course, some eating landmarks of note. I let the boy pick our dinner venue in return for dibs on lunch - both Guy Fieri and the good folks from Roadfood wrote highly about a seafood shack out by the mouth of the St. John's River, so that's where we headed after a couple of hours at MOSH.

Singleton's Seafood Shack is located in the tiny historic fishing village of Mayport (founded circa 1565, not long after St. Augustine), home to a large naval base. You can find the restaurant right next to the St. John's River car ferry that transports passengers traveling on A1A between Fanning Island and Mayport. Although not much to look at from the outside (shack, indeed), patrons are greeted at the front door by a large display of the day's catch (much of it no doubt recently extracted from the local waters) on ice, including shrimp, crab, oysters, and various fishes.

Singleton's has a large outdoor patio where you can watch the seabirds and giant ocean-going ships navigate the wide river while waiting for your order. We started outside before slinking back into the shade of the covered breezeway.

Wanting both fresh oysters and shrimp, I settled on a cup of steaming hot oyster stew (featuring much cream/butter along with some tasty small oyster meat, some of it chewier than others) before the main course arrived, a basket of peel and eat Florida brown shrimp, cole slaw, and a terrific hush puppy (Hackknife Jr. was kind enough to also let me eat his).

As tempting as it was to try the house Key lime pie for dessert, I opted instead to drive us a short 10 minutes south into Atlantic Beach for some much-heralded pie at Pie Heaven Cafe. Congenial owner and baker Anita Hyde began her own baking business after being laid off from her corporate job with a personal mission to utilize as much of her profits as possible to reduce childhood hunger.

She managed to talk me into buying 2 slices of her wonderful pie, one of which (the Key lime, decadently-rich and custardy) I immediately consumed in the shop, the other (an equally-good chocolate bourbon pecan concoction) kept me company on the long, late-night return drive to Tampa later that evening (ed. note: it's not easy to eat pie when operating a motor vehicle in the dark - be safe, kids, and put the baked goods away until you get home or at least stop at a traffic light)...

Danny's All American Diner

While I like to goof on Guy Fieri sometimes, I have to admit that a lot of the dining recommendations from his Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives are on point. During the nearly 10 years that Triple D has been around, Guy has featured places in the Tampa Bay area on 7 separate occasions and I'm happy to report that, as of yesterday, I've now visited 6 of those 7 establishments; I'll even daresay that I think this latest one is my favorite of the bunch. The kinder and I first explored Danny's All American Diner (4406 N. Falkenburg Rd.) on State Fair Day in February (you know, the day in western Hillsborough County when all the kids are off from school and they each get a free ticket to the Florida State Fair - wait, what do you mean they don't do that where you live?). Instead of attempting to bodysurf the gap-toothed multitudes at the fairgrounds, we wandered around the quiet (and mostly empty) Henry Plant Museum in downtown Tampa before venturing out to Danny's for lunch, located about 2 miles east of the state fair site (about as close as I wanted to get that day). During this visit, I had to try the marquee item on the menu; that is, the Guy Fieri's Triple Play burger, which included a 2/5 lb. beef patty topped with pastrami, mojo pork (3 meats total, hence the "triple play" designation), Swiss and American cheeses, mustard, tomato, jalapenos, and fried onion rings, all on a sourdough bun. Yes, this monstrosity kept me close to a restroom for a couple of days, but yes, it was all worth it in the end.  On my more recent trip, I was in the mood for a Cuban sandwich and decided to put Danny's to the test again (allegedly, they offer one of the better Cubans in town).

If you're not careful when you're driving down Falkenburg Road, you'll zoom right past the small, relatively nondescript stand that houses Danny's operations.  All seating is outdoors (there are tables in front and around back) and parking is available in the scruffy, but shaded vacant lot across the street.

When you approach the ordering window, be sure to slide open the lid of the metal drink cooler and poke around a bit - inside is a terrific selection of some hard-to-find specialty sodas, including one of my favorites, Ale 8-1 from Kentucky (you can see some of the sodas above).  Also, try to resist the urge to order the Roberto Clemente burger that's being suggested to you via an enticing window painting (that's not actual size, by the way).

The staff is very friendly at Danny's, but the operation is pretty bare bones (and they seem to get a lot of call-in orders for takeout around lunchtime), so be prepared to wait a little while for your food. Pro tip - if it's warm out (duh...it's Florida), the picnic tables situated behind the storage container in the back lot are cooled off by a large electric fan.

The house Cuban sandwich is large and very tasty, definitely landing on the list of my local Top 5 Cubans. All of the traditional toppings are there (Genoa salami if you're a Tampanian, lots of Virginia baked ham, pulled pork, Swiss cheese, dill pickles, and mustard), plus a couple of others (mayo and capicolla), and the bread (which may or may not be from La Segunda Bakery in Ybor City - I couldn't tell exactly) is pressed until crunchy, a crucial characteristic of a true Cuban.

It was the onion rings that held up my order, but they were definitely worth the wait: a white paper sack filled with large, golden rings, hot and crispy from the fryer. If you must get fries, be sure to select the mix (half of each) instead.

The menu is extensive enough at Danny's that multiple visits will be required to experience all of the best sandwiches they have to offer. Although it's not close to the Canteen (about 40 minutes away), I won't be waiting for the State Fair to roll around again before returning...