In my food writing travels, I am always discovering delicious food, items that I am eager to share, albeit not off my plate. Here are some stand-outs worth sampling:
Kyma Chips
At Kyma In Roslyn
A good way to start a meal at this Greek restaurant is with Kyma chips — a stack of fried slices of eggplant and zucchini. The restaurant employs two people dedicated only to making this time- and labor-intensive appetizer.
Owner Reno Christou describes how it’s made: eggplant and zucchini are sliced thin by hand. The pieces are dipped in room temperature water and then all-purpose flour and then water once again to seal in the flour, all the while making sure they are not stuck together. The zucchini and eggplant are crisped to perfection in very hot canola oil and placed in a draining pan lined with kitchen sheets to drain any excess oil. The chips are seasoned with sea salt, white pepper and Greek oregano and carefully stacked into a tower.
They are served with Tzatziki sauce and cubes of fried Vlahotiri sheep’s milk cheese. Each order takes approximately 15 minutes to prepare from frying to plate and they can fry only three orders at once.
Eggplant Parmigiana
At Gino’s In Manhasset
This is my idea of perfect eggplant Parmigiana. The eggplant is thinly sliced and sautéed and then made into a compact mound with just the right balance of tomato sauce and mozzarella. It comes with bread and spaghetti or salad.
Chicken Pot Pie At
The Library In Farmingdale
When I spotted a chicken pot pie being carried to another table, I knew I had to try it. I got my own and it was perfect: a flaky layer of rich homemade puff pastry atop the filling of generous chunks of white meat chicken, peas and carrots and just enough sauce to hold it together, but not drown it.
Veal Tonnato At
La Piccolo Liguria In Port Washington
Veal tonnato, an interesting dish that is popular in the Liguria region of Italy, is chilled veal in a tuna sauce. A layer of thin slices of fork-tender roasted veal is laid out on a platter and covered with the rich sauce made up of tuna, eggs, wine, capers and other ingredients. At La Piccolo Liguria the dish is garnished with cornichons, tomatoes and a hard-boiled quail’s egg. I found that the tonnato was great on the garlic toast in the breadbasket.
Grits At
LL Dent In Carle Place
Even thought I didn’t grow up eating grits, it has become one of my comfort foods and on dreary days this winter, I would drop in at LL Dent to enjoy a bowl of this creamy cereal. Traditionally grits were made with hominy, a coarsely ground white corn, that takes at least 20 minutes to cook, thus the memorable scene in My Cousin Vinny where a prosecution witness’ statement is ripped to shreds by Joe Pesci’s knowledge of how long it takes to make grits.
But you don’t have to use hominy to make great grits, says Leisa Dent, the chef and co-owner of LL Dent whose family hails from Georgia. At LL Dent, the chef uses hominy that has been ground to a finer consistency, enabling her to cook it faster than the coarser hominy. My decision is whether to have them plain or with cheese. Whatever you choose, follow two of the cardinal rules of grits: eat them with a spoon and never add sugar—this is a savory dish.
Bon Chon Chicken
At Koreana In Hicksville
Koreana restaurant specializes in BBQ and is an outlet for a popular fried chicken chain in Korea (and the Philippines) called Bon Chon. After being double fried, the hot chicken is lightly tossed in a sweet, spicy, garlicky glaze, caramelizing the sauce on the surface of the chicken. This crisp deliciousness is served with pickled Korean radish.
Panama Geisha Ninety Plus Coffee
At Georgio’s Coffee Roasters In Farmingdale
Panama Geisha Ninety Plus is available in only six places in the United States and Georgio’s Coffee Roasters is one of them. Coffee is rated like wine and any score over 90 is fantastic. Georgio Testani calls this coffee “liquid Ferrari.”
Georgio and Lydia have been roasting and sourcing the world’s rarest coffees for 20 years and have visited farms in six coffee producing countries. They know great coffee.
