I rarely come across a #1, #2s are a dime a dozen, and, well, it’s been a while since I’ve come across a #3.

I’m happy to say, Taiim Falafel Shack rates as a solid #3.

Don’t be misled by the name — it’s smallish, maybe, but no “shack.”  Very clean and contemporary inside, with three tables and some counter space.  Two spits with juicy meats slowly rotate in the kitchen area. Sorry for the lack of interior pictures — there were so many employees around, including the owner, and I felt self-conscious.

The owner seemed enthusiastic and helpful; while I was there, she explained different dishes to a customer who was looking for catering options.  ”Gosh, it smells so good in here!” the customer exclaimed a few times.

Prices are reasonable, ranging from $5-$8 for a pita sandwich (filled with falafel, shawarma or kebabs), and $10-$14 for the platters (available as meat or vegetarian).

I picked up a side of stuffed grape leaves.

My first taste of warm stuffed grape leaves; I was surprised how much I liked them like that.  They were tightly wrapped, firm, and less acidic than other stuffed grape leaves I’ve eaten.

Here’s the falafel sandwich served on a pita with tomato, cucumber, pickled turnips and tahini.

I’m far from an authority on falafel and if my evaluation is incorrect, please don’t blast me on Chowhound.  But I know that I’ve eaten many a disappointing falafel — more leaden skipping stone than appetizing fritter – at otherwise good restaurants.

This falafel was nicely spiced (if a bit salty), warm and soft inside, with a light, crisp crust. The pita, too, was warm and soft — and just the right thickness.  I loved all the other bits inside, plus the creamy tahini.  A very, very balanced and well put together falafel sandwich.

Taiim has fresh pastries and baklava displayed in trays on the counter.  Baklava = too tempting to resist.

I’d seek out a place like Taiim, especially if I happened to be in the Dobbs/Hastings area. I think it was my friend Craig who first clued me in to it and mentioned he’d eaten there on a Saturday morning after swinging by the Hastings Farmers Market.

That sounds like a pretty ideal morning.

Taiim Falafel Shack
598 Warburton Ave.
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
914-478-0006

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. It’s been a hectic few days. And it’s getting a little more hectic, with a last minute trip down to Washington D.C. tomorrow. I arrive around lunchtime and know I’ll be ravenous, so I’m seeking out recommendations for quick and easy lunch spots. Anything between Union Station and The National Mall would work. Any ideas?

Also, it’s been a while since I’ve ridden Amtrak — they still have a snack bar, right?

Pork lovers will likely revel in the roast pork sandwich at the quaint Hastings-on-Hudson restaurant, Juniper.

Actually, I think what makes the sandwich special is not the pork — though it’s quite good — but everything that surrounds it.

I’m a sucker for grilled, chewy, crusty bread, and that’s what the sandwich comes on — perfect bread.  There are other contributors of texture and taste, too: crunchy slivers of fragrant fennel (an underutilized vegetable), tangy pickled red onion and a bright salsa verde. The pork?  While extremely juicy and tender, it’s almost a bit overshadowed — an extra little oomph of garlicky herbiness would push it over the top.

Oh, and maybe a small dab of cheese, as well.  Then this sandwich would be unstoppable.

Juniper
575 Warburton Ave.
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
914-478-2542

* My sister gave me several bottles of Zico coconut water to take home with me the last time I visited. Tastes good, is all-natural, and each bottle contains 569mg potassium, 160mg sodium, and 13g carbohydrate. Pretty great stuff if you do any kind of endurance sports.

* Looking to expand your culinary horizons?  Check out Westchester Community College’s Continuing Education Taste of Westchester cooking demonstrations. Each class is held at a different Westchester restaurant and led by the restaurant’s chef. Click down to page 46 of the brochure.

* CIA Director Leon Panetta came off ten times less wax museum-ish than Nancy Pelosi on last night’s Top Chef, but I couldn’t help thinking how bizarre his day must have been:

9am: Meet with top CIA staff to discuss Iran’s nuclear capability.
10am: Brief President on counterintelligence efforts in Afghanistan.
11am: Serve as tasting judge for Alex’s nasty veal parmesan.

* Speaking of Alex, has Chris Hansen of Dateline NBC ever strolled into his kitchen? Cause it wouldn’t surprise me.  Dude is uber-creepy.

* You know you’re too into food when you hear “CIA” and immediately think, Culinary Institute of America.

* I hard boil an egg exactly the same way every time, so how come sometimes the shell peels right off, and other times it sticks?

* I like how chefs have turned the word “confit” into a verb, as in, “I confit’d it.”

* Who funded this beer goggle study, the National Academy of Fraternity Sciences?

* Anthony Bourdain crushes the dreams of every aspiring culinary student, riiight at about page 50 of his new book, Medium Raw.

* Two recipes I’ve liked recently:

Peas and Broccoli Rabe Risotto

Panzanella (Bread and Tomato Salad)

* It’s been such a hot summer that I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have almond jello and cut-up melons in the refrigerator.

* If you’re buying almond extract, don’t buy the McCormick brand. Buy generic at Stop & Shop or ShopRite — it’s half the price.

* After spending quite a bit of time in professional kitchens these past few weeks, I’ve made a few observations: 1) The chefs are fastidiously clean (they’re constantly wiping down their cutting surface), 2) The way they dice vegetables into such small, uniform pieces always impresses me, and 3) A proper mise en place can make all the difference in the timing and efficiency of cooking.

* Grimaldi’s, Grimaldi’s… with all that pizza you’re selling, how do you manage to be $44,000 behind in rent?  And what does paying rent on time “for the most part” mean?

* The new indie film Soul Kitchen starts playing at Jacob Burns Film Center on Sept. 3rd. The description says it’s “a delicious, free spirited story of food, friends, and rock & roll.”  Sounds intriguing.

I went up to Syracuse this past weekend with my friend Danielle for a triathlon training camp.  We’re both doing the Syracuse half Ironman next month, and this was a chance to get on the course and see how much suffering we’re in for (the answer is a lot).

Fortunately, we also ate well along the way.  Here’s a summary.

Friday
Like I said, the drive up should have been four hours, but accidents galore on 87N backed us up in a big way Friday evening.  By the time we reached the Middletown, NY area, we were both famished.  A jaunt down the main drag turned up every chain restaurant known to man.  We came upon an Italian restaurant and ventured in. Yikes. Not only was the place a ghost town (at 8:30 on a Friday night), it also had an antiseptic, nursing home smell.  We ventured out.

And found a diner.

When in doubt, always choose a diner.  Limitless menus, 24 hour, large portions, consistently bustling, interesting people-watching — you can’t go wrong.

You can barely make out my turkey dinner under all that gravy, but it’s there, and it even came with my favorite, matzo ball soup. Thank god for diners.

Saturday
Wanna break the ice with someone from Syracuse?  Ask, “Hey, what do you think of Wegmans?”  The Syracusans I’ve met display a fervor for this supermarket chain that borders on cultish.  They love Wegmans.

Now I do too.  Let me set the scene: We had just spent the past six hours churning through choppy lake water, battling endless hills and vicious winds on the bike, and topping it all off with a run. We’d burned through countless calories while subsisting on energy gels, sports drinks, bananas and bagels. It’s difficult to explain how badly you want real food after sucking down gel after gel after gel. It’s like in Survivor when a contestant wins a reward challenge and gets to eat a full dinner while everyone else huddles around a campfire roasting grubs.

Well, Wegmans was our reward dinner.  Danielle and I raced over there after training camp was over, and there should have been harps playing and pearly gates, because this… was heaven.

I snapped the above photo and the cashier and her friend burst out laughing. “Why are you taking a picture??” she asked in curious amusement.  ”I’m from out of town and have always heard about Wegmans,” I answered.  She clearly thought I was nuts.

Danielle was all about the Wegmans subs, picking up a turkey with the works.

I fixed myself a container of hot food from the buffet.

I realize it’s a supermarket buffet and regular food, but I can’t convey to you how hungry we were. At this moment, this made me as happy as anything from a four-star Manhattan restaurant. It tasted that spectacular.

Sunday
Along with Wegmans, you also can’t visit Syracuse without stopping at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. And yes, we have a Dinosaur in Harlem, but the Syracuse location is the original.

Total mob scene, but somehow Danielle and I managed to get a table without any problem.

Dinosaur makes its own barbecue and hot sauces, and they’re set out on the tables.

We shared an appetizer of crispy fried green tomatoes with grated Parmesan.

Our server also mentioned one of the specials as “pork wings.” What in the world does that mean??  When I jokingly questioned it, she didn’t have much of a response.  I don’t think she knew what they were, either.

Danielle’s pulled pork sandwich:

Those three round objects are salt potatoes. I’d never heard of them before, but they’re a big deal in upstate NY.  Small white potatoes boiled in salted water?  I’m not sure, but they are good.

My plate of epic deliciousness, the Tres Hombres: brisket, pork ribs, pulled pork, cole slaw, cornbread and Cajun salt potatoes.

It was a huge plate of food, and I gobbled up every last bite, dipping the meat in Dinosaur’s Wango Tango sauce — barbecue sauce with a kick of habanero.

On the drive home, wouldn’t you know it, more traffic.  That’s what gas stations are for: bathroom breaks and junky food. Behold a Toll House chocolate chip cookie sandwich.

Finally, I should mention Danielle’s parents.  Not only were they gracious hosts who let us crash at their house, not only were they forgiving when I accidentally flooded their basement while taking a shower, but they even sent me home with food.

Danielle’s parents grow gorgeous vegetables and herbs in their back yard, and her mother packed me up a goodie bag of freshly picked produce:

Tomatoes, peppers, parsley and basil (the cucumber is from Danielle’s grandfather).

The first thing I did when I got home?  I made a pot of sauce.

I’m not kidding you, this was possibly the best sauce I’ve ever assembled. It had nothing to do with my cooking, and everything to do with the ingredients. The freshness and vibrancy of flavor were off the charts. I could taste each individual ingredient in a way that I never can when I make sauce normally.

When it comes down to it, that sauce may have been the best thing I ate all weekend.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que
246 W. Willow St.
Syracuse, NY
315-476-4937

That’s how my friend Emily and I ended up at Lalibela (not Montreal).  We were in the parking lot after a workout chatting about getting some people together to go for Ethiopian.  I drove home, with Ethiopian on the brain and a craving that would not be denied. A few texts later, we were racing to Mount Kisco before Lalibela closed.

To start, a couple of glasses of the wonderful Ethiopian honey wine that was chilled and slightly sweet, but not cloyingly so.

We split this appetizer of avocado salad on injera (Ethiopian bread).

Injera usually has a faintly sour tang to it.  I noticed that this injera lacked the sourness — perhaps a deliberate attempt to tone down the distinctive flavor for the suburban Westchester masses?

Emily and I were both hungry and plowing through the cooling appetizer.  The danger with injera is that it’s spongy and can fill you up quickly without you realizing it.  We made sure to save room for the main course, the Taste of Lalibela combo.

Four veggie dishes — lentils, split peas, collard greens and string beans, and three meat dishes — Siga wat (slow-cooked beef), Gomen besiga (shredded beef) and Yebag wat (lamb).

Such a relaxed and experiential form of eating.  No utensils — just tear off a piece of injera and use it to scoop up a mound of veggies or meat.

Everything was tender, flavorful and well spiced (one of the beef dishes was a hair salty).  We both relished the wine and the dinner. Somehow Emily managed to keep her hands relatively clean, whereas mine required several napkins and resembled a four year old’s in finger painting class. How’d she do that?

I cannot express how happy I am to finally have an Ethiopian restaurant (and a good one) in Westchester.  It’s something I’ve been pining for for years.

To the staff at Lalibela: I apologize that we were still eating a half hour past your closing time. I know you probably wanted to get home.  But just know that we enjoyed your food, and we will be back.

Lalibela
37 South Moger Ave.
Mt. Kisco, NY
914-864-1343

Recently, Amy Kundrat, a contributor to CT Bites and fellow cycling/running kindred spirit, organized a food blogger meetup at Miya’s Sushi in New Haven.  It was such a good time that she decided to do it again, setting up a four-course (plus intermezzo) dinner at the Norwalk eatery, Nicholas Roberts Gourmet Bistro.

The room included Stephanie Webster of CT Bites, Rinku Bhattacharya of Cooking in Westchester, and other food media types (one, whom I cannot name, writes for a very prominent publication). My friend Ron was there; so was Westchester foodie Cheryl, who writes great restaurant recaps on Facebook and needs to start her own blog. Hint, hint, Cheryl.

Nicholas Roberts is BYOB — it looked as though every person had the same idea and brought a bottle of wine.  I toted along a trusty bottle of Seyval Blanc from New York state’s Glorie Farm Winery.  Properly socially lubricated, we were ready to eat.

Chef Robert Troilo started us off with a colorful Napoleon of polenta and summer squash.

I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of flavor (not sure what I was expecting). The different textures and combo of balsamic vinegar, basil oil, and tart goat cheese gave each bite real punch.

Big flavor in this next dish too, the seared tuna steak.

Expertly seared tuna, a ginger truffle sauce, and a bed of broccoli rabe, one of my favorite vegetables.

Our intermezzo course couldn’t have been more appropriate on another sweltering summer day. Watermelon and a light sorbet — refreshing, and a welcome palate cleanser.

Rack of lamb in chimichurri, perched on a delicious potato and rutabaga gratin.

I’ve mentioned before that I can run hot and cold on lamb.  I was in the red zone on this one — loved the marinated meat and gnawed on every bit of it down to the bone.

Dessert was all about super ripe, super in-season and super delicious peaches in a peach pie with pecan streussel topping.

With so many interesting food people in the room, my one regret is that I didn’t have the chance to meet all of them. We had bandied about the idea of making people pick up their plates and move around to different tables throughout the course of the night, but no one had the nerve to put it into action. Food blogging meets speed dating?  Wait a sec, there’s a potential business idea there…

Anyhow, it was a fun night. These Connecticut folks have inspired their New York neighbors. We Westchester food zealots may soon try to set up a blogger meetup at a restaurant in our neck of the woods.  Any suggestions?

Nicholas Roberts Gourmet Bistro
75 Main St.
Norwalk, CT
203-229-0035

Today is my mother’s birthday, so this post is for her.  Among her many cooking specialties are egg rolls, which she makes every Christmas and on other special occasions.

In college, she would sometimes send me back to school with a few egg rolls after a visit home.  I’m not proud to admit, I never shared a single one with my roommate or friends. Couldn’t do it. I was hungry all the time in college (not much has changed) and those things were like gold.  Whatever magnanimous spirit I may have possessed did not extend to mom’s egg rolls.

I was up in Boston last weekend visiting the family, and my mom and I shot this video of her making her awesome egg rolls.  You’ll see that they’re quite different from the heavy, cabbage-filler egg rolls often served at Chinese restaurants with goopy duck sauce. My mom has her own preference of filling, but you can put whatever you like inside.  They’re best eaten with a vinegar-soy dipping sauce or with hot sauce.

Hope you like the video!  Let me know what you think.

And happy birthday, Mom!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wudeT_ne-PI

Eating a burger at Birdsall House was the next logical step after visiting Hemlock Hill Farm in Cortlandt Manor. I’d shot a video about the farm; I’d observed the cows up close as they grazed and lounged in the shade.  Hell, I’d even stepped in their cow flops.

Now, I was about to bite into a burger made from Hemlock Hill beef.  Had I been face to face with the steer who’d given up his life to become this hefty, juicy patty? The thought kept crossing my mind. It was a reassuring thought, that I knew exactly where my meat was coming from, and had a semblance of understanding about how the animal lived.

I don’t mean to get all pseudo-deep here; just really liked that the beef was local, is all.

Anyway, I was at Birdsall House for lunch with Katherine Curry and her friend Darryl.  All three of us ordered burgers, but we started with a plate of pulled pork nachos.

And a bowl of soft, creamy polenta. I know it’s just glorified grits, but I’m really beginning to develop a taste for the stuff.

(Side note on polenta: a reader named Christine emailed the best suggestion a few weeks ago when I could only eat soft foods: Make a batch of polenta, spread it on a dinner plate and let it cool, then slice it up like a pizza. Pan fry the pieces in a little olive oil until crispy, and top with sauteed broccoli rabe and garlic, grated Parmesan and a sprinkle of hot pepper flakes. Phenomenal.)

And now, the burger.

Birdsall House adds several nice touches to their burgers. First, the fries are excellent.  Then there are the accoutrements: a porter and caraway mustard, and a homemade ketchup that has a unique tang to it, almost like sauerkraut.  A small pile of caramelized onions comes on the side, as do a few slices of pickled carrots. And the bun is whole wheat.  Nice.

None of this takes the focus away from the star of the show though, the Hemlock Hill beef.  I took a very substantial bite and mmm, good.  The beef was… beefy. (I can’t think of any other way to describe it.)  But do you know what I mean? Some burgers don’t taste like much of anything without the condiments. The flavor of the beef itself is muddled and muted.  But this burger — there was a definite presence; it tasted like beef.

I just wish I had ordered mine cooked medium, rather than medium-well.  I guess with everything I’ve read, I’ve become leery of seeing pink in my burger.  We discussed this at the table and a good point was made: that one of the reasons to eat locally and from small farms is so that you can feel safer about your food and enjoy it without hesitation.  So, yes, I should have ordered it medium.

And don’t forget the beers.  The list of local craft beers looks very interesting.  Laura De Maria of Hemlock Hill Farm said it best when referring to Birdsall House: “If you had a beer and a burger, it’d be a great combination.”

Birdsall House
970 Main St.
Peekskill, NY
914-930-1880

My dad would love the Mega Mussels Linguini I ate last weekend in Long Beach. Some friends and I were at The Whale’s Tale, one of the many restaurants that dot Beech Ave, the main drag in town.  It doesn’t look like much from the outside — kind of like your typical dive bar.  Looks can be deceiving.

My friend Phoebe’s fiance Steve asked if I liked seafood.

“LOVE seafood,” I answered.

“The mussels linguini are awesome,” he said. “The sauce is spicy, kind of like a fra diavolo.”

Fra diavolo… Ding!  Cue the Pavlov’s Dog reaction.  That was easy  – I had no more use for the menu.

But first, a cup of New England clam chowder. (And yes, it’s the middle of a hellaciously hot summer and I ordered chowder.)

As a snobby New Englander, I tend to look down on New Yorkers’ attempts at making our chowder, but I’ve gotta give props where props are due: this was excellent. It was chunky, the creaminess was spot-on, and the flavor of briny clams unmistakable.

And here’s the Mega Mussels Linguini (a very reasonable $14), which I requested to be “extra spicy.”

You can’t even see the linguini under that mountain of mussels, but it’s there, along with a tomato sauce that had a definite kick to it.  Just right, not too much.  The linguini itself was a hair overcooked; more than made up for though with that great sauce and the generous portion of mussels.

We had a basket of garlic bread on the table, and I used the last few pieces to scoop up the extra sauce.

Never mind that I was sweating now like I’d just run a race.  No matter. If you’ve got to sweat a little for a spicy fra diavolo, then so be it.

The Whale’s Tale
916 W Beech St.
Long Beach, NY
516-432-9587