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Steve Gilliard, 1964-2007
It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog, passed away June 2, 2007. He was 42.
To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.
Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve meant so much to us.
We will miss him terribly.
Taste of Seafood
Labels: food, New York city
Dave Freedenberg
Famous Fat Dave, a 28-year-old cabbie,
is neither famous nor fat. But he's heading
in the right direction
A bite of the Apple
BY PETE DONOHUE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
.A taxi driver whose top three passions are eating, traveling and eating some more, Dave Freedenberg is a rolling encyclopedia of unheralded-but-treasured neighborhood food joints.
And he'll take you to eight of them - in a row.
"You eat the food and I pay the parking tickets," Freedenberg told the Daily News.
To anyone seeking a taste of New York beyond midtown and SoHo, Freedenberg offers "Famous Fat Dave's Five Borough Eating Tour on the Wheels of Steel."
If your idea of a good time is eating the best broccoli rabe of your life over the trunk of a taxi outside a four-table restaurant in the South Bronx, indulging in a roast beef, eggplant and mozzarella sandwich in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and then topping it all off with some ice cream in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, then Freedenberg is your man.
Kath Collis, a semiretired management consultant from Wales, took the tour several times because she grew tired of the "obviously touristy" options when visiting her son in the city.
"I have eaten everything from deep-fried pickle in Brooklyn to white-bread fish sandwiches in Harlem and freshly made cannoli in the Bronx," said Collis, 76. "Thanks to Famous Fat Dave, I have also met many of these people who have made these delicious foods."
Taste of Seafood is one of Harlem's true food attractions. Today was a shitty day here, people went to get food there. Middle of the summer, line out the door. My father lives in the neighborhood, I asked him once if he had not seen a line there. He laughed. There are offices and a hospital near by. As well as access to the Triboro Bridge.
The restaurant is a narrow counter where everything is fresh. They serve whiting, catfish, chicken and shrimp. You need to order the chicken first, because it takes 15 minutes to cook. On a Friday, you will see people order $40-50 worth of food for their families. They have the traditional soul food sides, mac and cheese, greens, sweet potatoes, potato salad.
I like the chicken myself, but the fish rocks. One time, I saw this family ordering food, and they were sitting in a van. A girl about 10-11, got out, barefoot. You knew she wasn't from here. Her aunt or something explained why you don't walk barefoot in New York.
And this isn't cheap, bills can push $20 easily for a couple of plates.
This reminds me of church food, which is good, because it's run by a church.