Coney Island Texas Lunch - Scranton, PA

For those of you keeping track at home, this is my 3rd straight posting featuring hot dogs, so I can't tell if I should be congratulated or accused of being in a rut. Anyway, my discovery of this particular dog came around in a roundabout way. While on our way to Ohio recently to celebrate Thanksgiving with family, we took a detour into the Catskills to visit a potential sleepaway camp for Hackknife Jr. and Hackknifette to attend next summer. Our route back towards I-80 took us through rural northeastern Pennsylvania and down into the Wyoming Valley, home to Scranton and, as luck would have it, the top hamburger in Pennsylvania according to burger expert George Motz (it was a lucky coincidence that I had noticed this article published by the website First We Feast just days prior to our trip) at a place called Coney Island Lunch.  Waving off the pleas of my progeny to find a pizza place for our midday meal, I directed the GPS into downtown Scranton in search of said burger.

Upon arriving and exiting the car, we walked up Lackawanna Avenue to find two very similar-sounding restaurants located mere steps from each other: Coney Island Texas Lunch (100 Cedar Ave., pictured above) and Coney Island Lunch (515 Lackawanna Avenue).  Huh?  What gives?  Well, after further investigation, I learned that CITL is operating a newly-owned diner business in the original restaurant location (open since 1923), while CIL features descendants of the original family operating in a new location (open since 1988) down the block.  Confused?  I'll try to explain.

Greek immigrant Steve Karampilas was the founder of Scranton's first CITL.  For many Greek immigrants of that era, opening a diner serving (among other items) chili dogs seemed like a good way to get established in the new country.  In fact, if I go back and review the histories of other chili dog palaces I've visited, nearly all of them have the same backstory - this includes Coney Island Sandwich Shop in St. Pete (open since 1926), Nu-Way Weiners in Macon, GA (open since 1916), American Coney Island in Detroit (open since 1917), and Lafayette Coney Island in Detroit (open since 1917).  I can even throw in nearby Hubba's in Port Chester, NY (formerly known as Texas Quick Lunch and open since 1920) - I'm sure there are many others waiting to be sampled (and sample them I shall).  This digression, however, tells you little about the issue at hand.  Let's return to our story.

Apparently, the original CITL was quite popular, sharing the virtues of chili dogs and chili burgers with multiple generations of Scrantonites.  After Steve passed on in 1972, his sons Ted and Jack took over and all was well until around 1987 when, in a dispute regarding the future direction of the business (Ted wanted to keep renting space in the old building, while Jack preferred ownership in a new location), the brothers went their separate ways and Jack opened a rival CIL (which is now run by his son, Pete).  Ted cashed out to his partner in 2004, who kept the CITL name on the building and in promotions (as did another set of owners in 2014).  This is a source of much consternation to the folks at CIL, who insist (rather defensively, I might add) on their website that they are the original family (which is true), use the original recipes, and even maintain remnants of the original business's phone number (showing a picture of the 1940 Scranton City Directory to support their case), so all parties everywhere should consider CIL to be the true CITL, not those poseurs down the street who used to pump gas for a living (I'm paraphrasing the website here, but you get the idea).

Of course, none of this was known to me at the exact moment I stood on the chilly corner of Cedar and Lackawanna in downtown Scranton, trying to make sense of the two unexpected options present in my field of vision while two hangry kids and an unsympathetic wife implored me to make a snap decision about lunch, so I chose CITL, which was, after all, closer to us and sported the sign out front that said "Since 1923" (not to mention that it just looked more legit to me than the other one).

CITL's interior was surprisingly up-to-date and spiffy for a place that had been in operation since the 1920s (as it turns out, extensive renovations were required after a fire gutted the space in 2008).  The kitchen is little more than a galley space, which means that the menu is pretty much limited to hot dogs, burgers, fries, soup, and a couple of desserts.  The wooden booths, wainscotting, coat racks, and tile floor are all faithful reproductions of the originals that were destroyed in the fire.

So what is it about these burgers that would make Mr. Motz take notice?  According to him, they're "deep fried, refrigerated, then marinated in a sauce, and reheated on the flattop", served with mustard, onions, and an ample ladling of chili.  The sauce used for the marinade is a "special chili sauce" (presumably a Karampilas family creation) and the beef is lean ground round from Schiff's, a local butcher.  I, of course, had to try both a "Texas Weiner" (featuring a hot dog from another nearby meat purveyor, Gutheinz, served with similar toppings) and a "Texas Cheeseburger", which look almost identical on the plate (see below), along with a pile of fries dusted in Old Bay seasoning and a bottle of Cherikee Red soda (first developed by a small bottler in Cleveland and now part of the Dr. Pepper brands, although mostly just seen in Ohio and Pennsylvania).

I found the Texas Wiener to be good (it's on the left), but the Texas cheeseburger was excellent, a sloppy, wonderful mess of a sandwich that, were we not going to be overindulging on turkey and fixings in less than 24 hours, I would have considered eating another.  If you do get fries, I'd recommend ordering them with gravy instead of Old Bay (Mrs. Hackknife was kind enough to share hers with me) and skip the Cherikee Red in favor of a different soda or, better yet, try some of the house specialty pie or rice pudding for dessert.

So after all of this reading about the schism between brothers and rival chili dog factions, I didn't realize until I sat down to write this posting that the burger listed in George Motz's article as being the best in Pennsylvania was actually from CIL, not CITL (oops)!  For now, I have to assume that the recipes at both joints are nearly identical, but I won't be able to share a truly informed opinion about one versus the other until I'm back in Scranton someday...

Walter's - Mamaroneck, NY

Here in Mamaroneck, we have our very own world-famous hot dog stand in the form of Walter's, housed in a Chinese pagoda on Palmer Avenue since 1928.  Founders Walter and Rose Warrington first began hawking their proprietary blend of beef-pork-veal sausages around town in 1919, settling on the now-iconic design of their new home a few years later in the hopes of attracting curious Westchester County drivers out for a spin in the horseless carriage.  Descendants of the family still own and operate the stand today.

The menu is sparse (mostly just hot dogs) and all seating is in the outdoor picnic area next to the structure.  I've passed by several times now since we arrived here and there almost always appears to be a line of patrons waiting to satisfy their fix.

Locals rave about the Walter's dog, which is split down the middle (something I've encountered more than once out East), grilled on the flattop in a secret butter-based sauce until browned, then topped with their own brown mustard (a mix of relish, Dijon, and unnamed spices, a bottle of which you can purchase for $4) and served on a toasted bun.  The now-defunct Gourmet Magazine went so far as to name Walter's as the top dog in the country back in 2001 and it still appears on many national best-of lists.  My opinion?  I'll take a fully-dressed, all-beef Chicago dog over this one any day, however, I can certainly see the appeal (especially with the mustard, which I'd like to have around the Chuckwagon for general use).

Other menu items range from tasty (funnel cake fries and potato puffs, which are like croquettes) to average (fries and curly fries).  Roadfood.com makes mention of the vintage chocolate malt powder dispenser for preparing milkshakes - I tried one last time out and was a bit disappointed that the old equipment didn't seem (to me, at least) to turn out a better malt.  Regardless, I'm looking forward to the warmer months again when the wife, kids, and I can head over to Walter's some summer evening and chow down on a grilled dog and milkshake in the picnic area...

Danish Dogs (Great Northern Food Hall)

Forgive me, Dear Readers, as it's been nearly a month since my last posting.  The previous 4 weeks have been tumultuous ones, starting with the ups and downs and ups of my beloved Cubs making an extended playoff run all the way to a dramatic World Series title, followed by the unexpected crash of emotions in the wake of the presidential election.  So after a month's worth of stressful immersion in pretty much nothing but baseball/politics, I'm finally ready to return to mundane musings about sandwiches and Thai food (as trivial as that now seems, I desperately need the diversion at this moment).

On what seems like a long-ago Friday (it's only been 2 weeks), I decided to hop the train down to Grand Central Station for a few hours.  Before June of this year, I'd never visited this magnificent edifice, and I can say that I find it as awe-inspiring as I always imagined, especially the vaulted ceiling of the main concourse (one puny picture doesn't do it justice).

What's really interesting now about GCT is that it's become a destination unto itself, with enough markets and restaurants inside so that one never needs to actually venture out on the busy streets of Manhattan.  Wandering the many halls and alcoves, I managed to limit myself to a growler of great local beer and some French cheese (a goat Chevre), resisting the urge to max out my credit cards on upscale grub.

The real reason for my trip was to check out the new Great Northern Food Hall, a collection of Nordic-themed food stands and a (now Michelin-starred) sit-down restaurant conceived by Danish entrepreneur Claus Meyer, who is half of the team (along with Rene Redzepi) that founded the world-renowned Noma in Copenhagen and is credited (or, at least, self-credited) with starting the "New Nordic Cuisine" movement.  Mrs. Hackknife (who passes through GCT almost daily) has brought home on more than one occasion wonderful smorrebrod from the Hall, the beloved open-faced sandwiches that are indigenous to Denmark.  When we traveled to Copenhagen in 2008, we discovered that Danes are also big into hot dogs (they call them polse, or polser), further evidenced by the inclusion of a gourmet hot dog stand in the Great Northern Hall called Danish Dogs.  The hot dog creations served by Mr. Meyer's culinary team have received mixed reviews in the press thus far, but I wanted to try them out on my own to see if they're worth the $17 round-trip train ticket from the Chuck Wagon.

The Danish Dog counter is a little hard to find, located along what's called the terminal shuttle passage that runs along Vanderbilt Avenue - this is separated from most of the Great Northern Food stands, which are a short distance away in Vanderbilt Hall.

For $6, diners can order a basic hot dog (the "Hound Dog") with a few standard toppings or spend a little extra for the stand's signature creations (some critics have complained about the prices, but I suspect these people never ate at the late Hot Doug's in Chicago before, where such elaborate combinations of sausage and fixings are easily worth the cost).  After much deliberation, I went with the "Hen Hound" and the "Great Dane", both of which include a sausage supplied by a sustainable butcher in Brooklyn using New York/New Jersey pasture-raised meat and potato buns made in house by the Great Northern Hall bakery next door.

The Hen Hound has gotten a bad rap thus far, but I found it to be quite good, a great pairing of chicken sausage with a slew of crunchy white cabbage, a little watercress, tarragon mayo, green tomato relish, and a punchy apple-horseradish ketchup that I wish they'd bottle.  All of the pieces worked together to make a sum clearly greater than its parts - I'll bet Doug Sohn would have been proud to serve this at Hot Doug's.

The "Great Dane" (which is allegedly the dog most like what you'd find in Denmark, although I don't recall seeing anything quite like this) definitely passed the look test, but came up a little short in my book.  I felt like the beef-pork hot dog was a little overwhelmed by the ample number of toppings (white onion, crispy shallots, pickled cucumbers, spiced ketchup, remoulade, and mustard), which seemed to have been unevenly distributed inside the bun (a different flavor stood out with each bite).  There was no harmony among ingredients here and the whole creation seemed a bit busy - I would have happily replaced the white onion and mustard with more crispy shallots.

Although I'm anxious to eventually try out the other two menu options (the "Gravhund" and the "Kvik"), I don't know that I'd make a special trip back to GCT just for Danish Dogs (but if I can bring home more beer/cheese, well, let's talk)....

Sandwiches of Westchester County - Chicken Souvlaki

Our new home sits approximately a 30-minute drive from one of America's iconic rivers, the Hudson. Until I lived in New York, I didn't have much appreciation for just how mighty this river is, as it appears to be nearly as wide as the Mississippi in some places:

This panoramic picture (one of the features on my fancy new phone) was taken from the Tappan Zee Bridge viewing platform in Tarrytown and doesn't begin to convey the majesty of the view. To give you some sense of the scale involved here, the Tappan Zee (which will soon be replaced with a new, nearly-$4 billion bridge) is over 3 miles long.

We've discovered that many of the towns along the Hudson in Westchester County (such as Tarrytown, Dobbs Ferry, and Hastings-on-Hudson) are very charming and picturesque. Several of them have retail developments with restaurants and shops built into old riverside commerce buildings, including Bridge Street Properties in Irvington, which is where you'll find MP Taverna.  "MP" are the initials of Executive Chef Michael Psilakis, who parlayed a love of his mother's Greek cooking into a small local restaurant empire serving what he refers to as "Modern Greek" cuisine.  His tavernas (there are four of them) and other eateries are so well-regarded among diners and critics that he had a Michelin Star at one point (although that venture, Anthos, has since closed).

The Thursday lunchtime that I popped in for lunch was very quiet, and I took a seat at the bar below a large TV showing the latest business news on MSNBC.  Westchester Magazine told me that I'm practically obligated to order the chicken souvlaki sandwich with the house's smash fries, so this is what I did (with a pint of nearby Captain Lawrence's Effortless Grapefruit IPA to wash it down).  The souvlaki was exactly as advertised, tender and moist and filling, stuffed full of marinated chicken pieces, sauteed onions, peppers, lettuce, tomato, with a sober schmear of tangy tzatziki sauce (so as not to overwhelm everything).  I found the little cup of pickled veggies to be a great foil for the rich sandwich and the terrific smash fries, which, according to the magazine article, are soaked for 24 hours, cooked in the oven, flash-fried once, smashed, and then flash-fried again before serving, yielding golden brown, crunchy wedges.  I'd have no problem indulging in this lunch combo again and the missus and I (who are no strangers to Greek food, having eaten our fill repeatedly in Chicago and Tarpon Springs, FL) will definitely be back for dinner at some point...

Yakitori Totto

One of the clear gastronomic advantages of being close to New York City is the ready availability of international cuisines not easily found in other parts of the country, especially traditional Japanese food (although good ramen, for example, is popping up in a lot of places now). Having spent some time traveling there, Mrs. Hackknife and I have a profound fondness for the cooking of Japan, which, like most countries, can vary from region to region. One particular item that's mostly indigenous to the typical workingman's tavern (known as an izakaya) in Tokyo is yakitori, or "grilled chicken", a class of savory snacks (not all of which are chicken parts) that are skewered, brushed with a long-simmered marinade called "tare", and then grilled on a hibachi using either charcoal (preferred) or gas flames. Like most bar snacks, these are designed to go down well with a pint of beer or glass of sake, and the best yakitori chefs have perfected their craft of skewer grilling over many years.

In America, yakitori can be elusive. I can recall having some at Japanese restaurants in Chicago (Momotaro) and Las Vegas (Abriya Raku Grill), but I hadn't encountered a true yakitori izakaya here until Mrs. H. clued me in to one right here in Manhattan that she visited after work one day. Conveniently for us, it's located near the Theater District and we just happened to need a place to get dinner with the kids after seeing our first Broadway show a few weeks back, so off we went.

Yakitori Totto (251 W. 55th St.) opened 2003 and, like many good restaurants in Japan whose owners can't afford to pay ground floor rents, is situated on the 2nd floor of its building.  This cozy tavern (and I do mean cozy - the space is tight, giving me flashbacks to Tokyo) recently hosted Anderson Cooper and Anthony Bourdain, who were doing a promotional interview for the new season of Parts Unknown, and M. Bourdain lauded the house's chicken skin skewer.

I couldn't definitely determine if the grilling at Totto was being done over charcoal or gas (it could have also been an electric hibachi, I suppose), but our little group was eager to try a bunch of different skewers regardless.  First up was shishito peppers:

Lore has it that every 20th pepper or so is a spicy one, or as the Totto website puts it "shishitos are delegated as none spicy pepper but among them there are exception.  If you've got one, like we say, you've got a luck".  I guess we had a lot a luck since 2 of our 6 peppers were on the fiery side.

Not for the squeamish, these are chicken hearts (3 of them make a single skewer, although we've got 4 on ours), an uncommon delicacy not usually seen outside Japan.  Although a tad chewy, they had a nice flavor (I've found the few animal hearts I've had to be similar to pot roast) that even the kinder liked (Mom and I were delighted and proud of them for trying something out of their comfort zone).

Cherry tomatoes - tasty, but not much notable otherwise...

Here's the Bourdain favorite chicken skin - I had high expectations for this and was a little underwhelmed, more flaccid than crunchy.

Asparagus....yum....

This is negi pon, or pork pieces with ponzu sauce, which was a very nice combination of savory, citrus, and bite from the scallions on top.

The chicken meatballs (braised in the tare sauce just like everything else) at Totto are stuffed with shishito peppers and are one of the most popular items on the menu - I can see why as all 4 of us enjoyed them very much.

The plates kept arriving fast and furiously - (from left to right) roasted garlic, kalbi (beef short rib), and beef tongue (Hackknifette surprised us by trying and liking some of this one).

One last skewer, this time another uncommon one that they call hatsu moto, or "muscle beneath the heart" (4 chickens per order), a little more tender than the heart itself, but similar in taste. Although I had a tough time finding much information online about this cut, I eventually determined that it's the ascending aorta vessel of the chicken heart (had I known that at the time, I might have demurred a bit).

I had to be talked into getting dessert and I'm glad I caved in.  The kitchen serves something called an "ice banana" that consists of a frozen banana floating in a broth of tapioca, mint, and coconut milk (in foreground).  After a few minutes, the texture of the banana drifted into the zone between frozen and thawed, thus becoming the perfect foil for the sweet liquid (this will be added to my list of best desserts of 2016).  We also tried a green tea affogato (background), which was a bowl of vanilla ice cream, sweet red beans, and green tea mochi (gelatinous rice ball) with a side of green tea dipping sauce, also very good.  Had we combined the 2 bowls, I suspect we'd have ended up with a concoction similar to Filipino halo-halo, but I was perfectly happy keeping them separate.

So now I know that we can get terrific yakitori in NYC along with ramen, sushi, tonkatsu, and probably 50 other Japanese delicacies just waiting to be found.  Pretty soon, the only reason we'll ever need to return to Japan is for the whisky and wacky television shows...

The Many Slices of Sal's - Salad/White

After 2 months of residence in Mamaroneck, I've learned it's generally accepted knowledge that our best local pizzeria is Sal's Pizza on Mamaroneck Avenue (316, to be exact) in the main shopping district. Although my sample size is pretty small (I think we've tried, oh, 5 or so different pizza places), I'd have difficulty arguing otherwise thus far and, in general, the overall skill level of pizza makers here in our little corner of New York is impressive (especially when compared to Florida, where Domino's makes it on a top 5 list). Anyway, Sal's has a number of interesting pizza combos beyond the standard cheese-and-tomato (theirs is quite good, by the way) that I wanted to share with my readership, two of which I explored just today.

This is a salad pizza slice.  What on Earth is that, you may ask?  Well, near as I can tell, Sal's takes a perfectly normal plain cheese pizza, lets it cool to room temp, then adds a heaping layer of chopped salad (pretty much just lettuce and chopped tomatoes) that's been mixed with some Italian dressing.  Voila - salad pizza.  I noticed a number of patrons enjoying this peculiarity on my first few visits, so I had to try it out.  It's.....ok, I guess, not as sloppy as I feared (the crust is stiff enough to support the salad when you pick the slice up without it going everywhere), but not exactly my cup of tea.  I don't need to have another.  And lest you think this is a Sal's original, I've seen salad pizza on the menu at several other pizzerias throughout Westchester County, so someone somewhere around here came up with this idea at some point.

White, or tomato sauce-less pizza, is a concept that I'm much more versed in, having grown up with an Italian grandmother whose own version of white pizza (olive oil, garlic, and roasted peppers on heavenly homemade dough, if I remember correctly) makes me swoon in a Proustian fashion. Different pie makers have different ideas of what constitutes a "white" slice, however, and the white pizza at Sal's features a thick slab of ricotta cheese spread nearly across the entire crust surface.  I would have liked the ricotta to have a bit more pizzazz (had I closed my eyes and guessed at what I was eating, I would have immediately thought of mashed potatoes), but, all things considered, an improvement over my salad slice.

More on Sal's pizzas at a later date....there's more to try...

Burgers, Shakes, and Fries - Greenwich, CT

Can a restaurant with a very plain-Jane name serve food that is anything but? The answer in this case is a resounding "yes"! Our good friends at Roadfood turned me on to this tiny palace of grill greatness just a few short miles from the Chuckwagon. Although I was marginally tempted to grab the $1.99 pizza slice for lunch while shopping at the Costco in Port Chester (which is, surprisingly, not all that bad for quasi-institutional grub) one day, I resisted the urge and instead crossed over the Byram River into Greenwich to dine at Burgers, Shakes, and Fries, or BSF (even the proprietors use this acronym - it's on their signs/brochures), which is perched on the nondescript, otherwise-residential corner of New Lebanon Road and Delavan Avenue.

I don't have all of the particulars, but owner Kory Wollins has been showered with local accolades ever since he opened shop about 10 years ago, a stalwart on pretty much all of the annual Best of Burger lists for southwest Connecticut.  At 11:45 on a late Thursday morning, I had the place all to myself (table seating is extremely limited) before the phone began ringing off the wall with to-go lunchtime orders.  The Roadfood reviewer recommended the double burger, a 2/3 lb. behemoth of prime beef from Bronx-based Master Purveyors topped with cheese (I picked American) and a selection of free "little fixin's" as they call it on the menu (in my case, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and raw onions - hold the hot peppers), cooked to medium and served between grilled buttered toast slices. At my age, I'm generally not in the habit of ordering double anything (let alone almost a pound of red meat) lest I create subsequent digestive issues for myself; however, I rolled the dice on this occasion and I'm glad I did.

It's rare that something looking so delectable in pixels (I have a new, fancy cell phone now, which doesn't hurt, I suppose) matches its appearance in taste, but this burger hit all of the possible marks, a sloppy, glorious mess perfectly balanced between the beef, cheese, toppings, and toast, with just a slight schmear of the house special sauce to be daring (I couldn't exactly place its contents - mayo, relish, Worcestershire sace?, tarragon?).  My small side order of fries wasn't bad, either, but I'll definitely be back for the burgers and maybe a hallowed shake (which are also very popular at BSF) next time...