The Lunch Break Chronicles

Pumpkins, Alyson’s Orchard, Walpole, New Hampshire.

10/31/2008

So, it’s Halloween and I planned a post about going to Keene, N.H. for Pumpkin Fest 2008 last weekend.

The thing is, notwithstanding literally thousands of Jack-o-lanterns, there wasn’t a whole lot of pumpkin-related food action going on up there.

We did buy a pie from the Peterborough Children’s Choir’s pie stand and while a friend deemed it ‘maybe the best pumpkin pie ever,’ I can’t honestly say I can tell much difference between the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever had and just a pretty good pumpkin pie.

[Here is where I give a shout-out to staff writer Magdalene Perez's pumpkin pie in the hopes of being gifted with another slice in the near future]

Some of the fair’s non-pumpkin related food was noteworthy: principally the hand-cut French fries and the deep-fried apple donuts sold by the Boy Scout Troop 302 of Keene.

The apples we picked at nearby Alyson’s Orchard yielded a couple of OK apple pies (this, apparently, is a skill I could vastly improve upon).

The two things that absolutely stood out in my mind as extraordinary had nothing to do with Pumpkin Festival: the Brattleboro Food Co-Op and the restaurant at L.A. Burdick Chocolate in Walpole, N.H.

First, the co-op Brattleboro, Vt. off of Interstate 91, offers a fantastic variety of cheese, produce (organic and conventional), bulk cereals, spices, oil, honey, etc., and meat. I can recommend their chorizo and the awesome grass-fed, organic, we-read-bedtime-stories-to-the-cattle-before-we-slaughter-them steaks. A little salt and pepper and into the cast iron and you can’t really go wrong with these.

Burdick’s is 20-miles up the road and besides their hand-made chocolates, they offer a brasserie-style menu in the inviting dining room next door. Everything sounded great except the vegan split-pea soup, (because what is split-pea soup without ham in it?).

The blue cheese salad ($8) was piled with huge chunks of quality blue cheese, quarter-inch hunks of smoked bacon and walnuts. I followed this up with a bowl of mussels ($15), which were very good. However, I quickly became jealous of my friends who ordered the steak frites ($18) and the Provençal beef stew ($16). Oh yeah, the Walpole Creamery pumpkin ice cream was really, really good. Especially with a chocolate Madeleine.

So, now I can say I’ve been to Pumpkin Festival.

–CP

BELOW: Black Oxford apple, Alyson’s Orchard, Walpole, New Hampshire.

Shawafel plate (half falafel, half shawarma), $14.99.

Chris Preovolos/The Advocate

10/30/2008

LAYLA’S FALAFEL: 926 HIGH RIDGE ROAD

As owner Dino Sakakini tells it, he owned a Subway sandwich franchise in Bridgeport where he regularly made off-the-menu falafel sandwiches that garnered a cult following.

It soon became clear to the Palestinian-born restaurateur that he could make it on his own, selling strictly Middle Eastern food in Fairfield County.

In 2000, Sakakini opened Layla’s Falafel on Black Rock Turnpike in Fairfield. A second location on High Ridge Road in Stamford was added three years ago and a long-awaited third location in Downtown Stamford is slated to open in the coming weeks.

Sakaini leased a space on Main St. in Columbus Park and a “coming soon” sign went up, but a year-and-a-half later, there is still no Layla’s downtown.

His brother in Fairfield told me Dino gets caught up in the minutiae, like picking silverware. Later, over a cezve of Turkish coffee, longtime-customer Yoel Iphraim puts it this way: “he lives his business; just like every small business owner, he is intimately involved in the details.”

I lost track of the developments downtown after the Advocate moved to industrially-zoned Springdale, where I can only look back at the luxury of walking to lunch with wistful affection. But as a downtown-ish resident, I will certainly welcome an operational Layla’s within walking distance from home.

The Main St. restaurant will be a little more upscale, with table service, separate lunch and dinner menus and an additional prix fixe offering. This will be the first Layla’s in close proximity to the corporate crowd as well as nightlife and Sakaini plans to cater to this clientele.

Admittedly, I haven’t gotten that deep into the menu, I usually order the falafel and lamb shawarma sandwiches but there are a lot of other popular items, soups, kabobs, salads, stuffed grape leaves, etc.

“The food of the Middle East is ‘the original food,’ ” says Sakaini, conjuring up references to the Cradle of Civilization. From there it has spread far and wide, through trade, various empires and centuries of emigration. Sakaini’s Middle Eastern salad is virtually identical to the one I ate every night when I lived with my Greek-American grandfather for a couple of years in college.

Layla’s has been consistently rated as the top Middle Eastern restaurant in the county by the readers of the Fairfield County Weekly, edging out Stamford’s Myrna’s Mediterranean Bistro which has also opened a second, more upscale restaurant in Greenwich. One notable difference is that Myrna’s sells beer and wine, but Sakaini promises me this will eventually be available at the Columbus Park location.

Yesterday, I ordered the shawafel plate, a combination of falafel and lamb shawarma served with pita, a Middle Eastern salad, hummus and mujadara, a rice dish made with lentils and onion (which is terrific). Despite my reputation for having a bottomless-pit of a stomach, this is an obscene amount of food and I needed a little help polishing it off.

This afternoon, Iphraim–the friend and customer–pours another syrupy Turkish coffee into his paper Dixie cup, telling me somehow it is better served that way. “You come in here and you feel at home,” he says, and the both of them send me off with advice on how to prepare my own in the traditional manner.

–CP

UPDATE: As of Nov. 30, Layla’s downtown is still not open.

Chris Preovolos/The Advocate

10/29/2008

At the risk of beating a dead horse: this will be my final cupcake update.

Yes, Crumbs Bake Shop in the High Ridge Center shopping center had a soft opening today.

Yes, the large cupcakes are $3.75.

Yes, they are good.

Yes, they are still, however, cupcakes so let’s get a grip here. (Of course, as I write this, I must admit to racing over between assignments to get one.)

The schedule for tomorrow’s official opening and cupcake giveaway still stands as outlined in this previous post.

–CP

P.S. I was heartened to see a sparkly, new Rancilio two-group espresso machine on the counter.

UPDATE: The copy desk bought a round of cupcakes and seemed extremely pleased with their orders.

10/28/2008

I finally have official word on the opening of Crumbs Bake Shop in High Ridge Center.

HERE IS WHAT I KNOW:

1,000 FREE cupcakes to be given away beginning at 8 a.m. this Thursday (10/30).  A ribbon cutting with the mayor at 3 p.m., which sounds exponentially less interesting than free cupcakes. And someone or something called a Baba Booey making an appearance at 4 p.m. on Saturday (I don’t know what that is and I don’t want to find out).

I realize that I previously called into question the necessity of cupcakes, but there has been a lot of interest on the subject.

So, there you have it: Free cupcakes Thursday.

–CP

Cappuccino. 41st-ish and Park.

Photo/Chris Preovolos

10/25/2008

JOE, THE ART OF COFFEE: GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, GRAYBAR PASSAGE

If you can bear to drink your cappuccino out of a paper cup – I nearly shudder at the thought – Joe, the Art of Coffee’s Grand Central Terminal location is easily the most accessible opportunity to experience high quality espresso and espresso-based drinks.

Fortunately, they will serve you a single espresso in a ceramic demitasse, so not all civility is lost and you can down one as you watch a talented barista deftly apply a micro-foam rosetta atop your drink of choice.

(more…)

10/22/2008

So, I’m a little behind news curve here… but according to this newspaper, there is a CHILI COOK-OFF this Saturday at the Unitarian and Universalist Society in Stamford. Read Christina Hennessy’s story on the event which benefits The Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County: here.

Now, while ‘Stamford’ and ‘Unitarians’ aren’t exactly words that scream ‘chili’ in my mind, I’m sure these New England representations will do the dish proud. I’m bummed that I will be out of town this weekend.

WHERE AND WHEN:

Saturday, Oct. 25, 12-3 p.m.

Unitarian Universalist Society of Stamford, 20 Forest St., Stamford

$10 per person, or $5 per person if you donate a bag of non-perishable food items.

REMEMBER: steer clear of The Merciless Peppers of Quetzaltenango.

–CP

(NOAA via AP/File)

IN SEARCH OF GOOD CAFETERIA FOOD

10/20/2008

A couple of years ago my po’ boy-radar drew me towards a woman eating such a sandwich in the plaza at the 400 Atlantic building in downtown Stamford.

Not knowing of any place around here that served one, I felt compelled to ask where she obtained her fried-shrimp-and-remoulade-laden lunch. In the office cafeteria, she told me.

Apparently, the cafeteria in the building at the intersection of Atlantic St. and Tresser Blvd. is open to the public…or at least you don’t have to go through security to get in because it’s in the lobby. I hadn’t set foot inside until this week.

Far be it from me to disparage the food at the depressing Riverbend Cafeteria (where the Advocate is located) but I don’t think I’ve ever seen lobster ravioli on the menu there. Not that I really look.

Let’s be honest, there wasn’t any lobster inside this pasta; back home we’d call them crayfish, or langostinos if you shop at Whole Foods. Nevertheless, they were good. Good enough that I really didn’t want to think about how much butter and cream had to be in that sauce.

Alas, still I wait for my opportunity to catch a glimpse of the main UBS cafeteria, the Holy Grail of Stamford’s corporate lunchtime eateries. I’ve heard it spoken of in reverent, hushed tones…the streets there are paved with gold, I tell you.

If I must give up my career in the insecure newspaper business for one in the now-teetering world of investment banking to gain access to this plenitude, so be it.

This is my white whale.

–CP

UPDATE: The brothers from Calexico took top honors in this year’s Vendy Awards. I need to head down to SoHo ASAP for a taco. Hopefully next week…and I take back what I said about San Diego.

10/16/2008

If I (a) wasn’t working and (b) had $100 I would be here on Saturday: the 2008 Vendy Awards in DUMBO.

The event held by the Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project in NYC pits vendors against each other in an “Iron Chef-style cookoff,” vying for the Silver Vendy Cup to determine just who is the king of NY street food.

One of the finalists, the Calexico Carne Asada cart, is normally posted at Wooster and Price streets. However, I had the pleasure of trying one of their San Diego style carne asada burritos in Stamford’s South End a couple of years ago when they were on-hand for a climbing competition at Go Vertical. Good stuff.

And let’s face it, any event whose logo is a taco fighting a hot dog Godzilla-versus-Mothra style has to be totally awesome.

–CP