Tuesday, July 5, 2011.
A Nor'easter On The Radio. Cheryl Charming. Beef Tongue Sandwich
It wasn't until the end of the radio show that Mary Ann's weekly puzzle--Guess The Theme Of Today's Show!--was solved. And by a guest, yet. Everybody there was originally from the Northeast. Funny thing was that MA had no idea of this. It was accidental!
Paul Murphy, the low-key co-proprietor of Jacmel Inn in Hammond and Nuvolari's in Mandeville, was first to arrive and go on. He had the perspicacity to bring with him a bottle of Nadia Pinot Noir from Santa Barbara. I rustled up some glassware, and the guests and I began to loosen up to the degree that makes for the best conversation.
In the middle seat was Dan Stein, the owner of Stein's Deli on Magazine Street. I knew he'd come up through the deli at Martin Wine Cellar. I didn't know that his first career was as an attorney. He left that behind to do deli. And beer. His store has more different beers than any other retailer I know. So many, he wasn't quite sure of the number, which he guessed as being between 300 and 400.
Those include beers with such astronomical alcohol percentages that extraordinary means must be used to jack them up. This makes for great rarity. He told us of a beer that sells for over a thousand dollars a bottle. What does one drink that with?
Dan brought a bunch of his sandwiches, including a beef tongue sandwich. "I brought that because every time somebody asks for it, they usually say 'Tom Fitzmorris said you can get beef tongue here.'" It used to be so popular a cold cut that we even sold it at the Time Saver when I was a teenager. Now it's hard to find. (Not talking here about the awful canned stuff.)
Richard Fiske from the Bombay Club was at the end of our the red bean-shaped broadcast desk. We reminisced about a summer some years ago when, in three attempts to put on a New England-style clambake, the most torrential kind of summer rainstorms came up and put out the fire. After the third time, Richard gave up trying to make that a summer promotion, and moved to a special on lobsters. Which he has this year, too: $25 for a pound-and-a-half-lobster, salad and side, every Thursday.
Richard was supposed to have come with his new chef Ricky Cheramie. He was too busy to make it, but his replacement made us forget him immediately. Cheryl Charming, who runs the Bombay Club's famous bar, filled in. She was so interesting and alluring that in the days after I received numerous on-air calls and e-mails requesting that she come on again.
I'm ashamed to say I didn't know who Cheryl Charming was. Turns out she's a cocktailian of the highest order, having not only created more than a few new drinks, but written nine books on the subject. Four nights a week, she's the chef of cocktails at the Bombay Club. A bar that has always taken its work seriously.
We killed the bottle of wine, and several of the unusual "sodas" (to use the Yankee term) Dan Stein brought with him. And most of the sandwiches. After the show, I ate half of the rather large beef tongue sandwich. It left me too full for dinner out.
Or so I thought. By the time I got to the North Shore, I was hungry. Where over there could I go that I haven't been too many times already? I thought of an answer to that: Fazzio's. It's been at least five years since the last time I darkened their door.
Fazzio's is a landmark, at the busy intersection of Causeway Boulevard and LA 22, highly visible from both. So why don't I go there much? Simple answer: I've never had what I would consider to be an especially good meal there. The appeal of the place is easy to understand, though. The menu is straightforward, the portions are enormous, and the prices are low. And the wait staff has always been friendly.
Today I was served by a guy I remember from years ago at Bozo's. Things were slow enough (day after the Fourth of July, it is everywhere) that he and I shot the breeze about the currents in the restaurant business.
He recommended the daily special of braciolone. This is a familiar southern Italian dish which is so much work to make that the number of restaurants serving it has been on the decline for years. It's a slice of beef rolled around stuffing of bread crumbs, ham, garlic, egg, and Parmesan cheese. It's the same thing you hear called braciole (brah-ZHOLE) on television shows with New York-Italian characters, except braciolone is a bit bigger.
Fazzio's version was one of those dishes which, if you eat a whole one, a week and a half later you're hungry again. I think it could have fed me and both of the Marys, with some left over for the dog Susie. With it came a large pile of spaghetti and red sauce, itself big enough for a meal.
Well, one thing I can say about Fazzio's. It's consistent. This was about as good as other meals I've had there in the past.
Fazzio's. Mandeville: 1841 N Causeway Blvd. 504-624-9704.
It has been over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
