BENSONHURST'S PREMIER NEWS BLOG

The preserved plums at Wah Fung New York Mall

Food Stuffs is a new column examining the gastronomic landscape of Bensonhurst and the surrounding neighborhoods. Each entry will cover anything and everything even remotely related to food because here in Bensonhurst, food is always news.

Hidden in the quiet Asian Grocery stores of Bensonhurst are many treasures. Some are appetizing, some are intimidating and some are just funky. In the Wah Fung New York Mall at 2286 86th Street, among the dried coconut, 30 types of ginseng, withered mushrooms and cranky staff members are jars of colorful preserved plums. Could there be a better way to start a pickle column than with a rainbow of shapes, sizes, textures, flavors and types?

The preserved plum pickles have a bizarre taste that reminded this reviewer of a chemical mixture of cotton candy and frozen orange juice. The aftertaste recalls lollipops children are given in doctor’s offices after an injection: sweet and also, somehow, sad.

I was conservative and chose only the plums that were $3.80 a pound, and almost a week later I still have most of them. If you want to try these odd and intense plums – you can certainly do it on a budget.

I also sampled the preserved mandarin, which I enjoyed. It had the bitterness of citrus skin and the taste of lemon-scented pledge.

One darker preserved plumb was more expensive at $9.40 a pound. It looked more like a dried piece of steak than dried fruit. That plum was the most palatable, having the texture and aftertaste of licorice. Imagine a fine anise-flavored liquor injected into a Jujy Fruit.

If the neon plum parade is not reason enough to visit 86th Street, you should know that the staff in the mall were extra friendly. They refused to allow any photos of the plumbs, even after I purchased them. I also had to ask six times how to prepare the dried coconut – the one word answer – soup! But the Bean’s talented photographer was able to sneak a couple of shots, as if we were in the middle of a communist cell meeting or a Central American civil war circa 1980.

The staff also checked my plum bag to make sure I hadn’t taken the expensive plums. I will note the helpful assistance of the plum police after I struggled with the tight lid of a preserve jar and one strong staff member was able to pry it open without injuring me, the plums or himself.

I will say this, if you love pickles, if you love preserves, you should go and sample all of these strange fruits. It will help you grow some hair on your chest and give you some serious Bensonhurst street cred.

Until the next barrel.

Wah Fung New York Mall, 2286 86th Street.

Is there a restaurant or specific dish you think we should check out? Let us know!

When out-of-towners ask for a bakery recomendation in Bensonhurst, the name that comes up again and again is Villabate at 7001 18th Avenue.

Villabate-Alba has been a Bensonhurst institution for over 30 years. Hot bread, espresso, cappuccino and cannolis are all specialties at the bakery.

Though this clip is from 2010, the panetteria still stands as a neighborhood favorite. Check out the BRIC episode starring the Alaimo family (the family that has ran the shop since its opening).

Let us know, is Villabate’s your go-to place for Sicilian pastries or do you recommend another local bakery?

Photo by DJ Nick Russo (twitter.com/deejaynickrusso)

The New York Daily News is running their “Best of NY” contest and the folks at John’s Deli at 2033 Stillwell Avenue are in the running to take home the prize for “Best Sandwich Shop.”

If the words “Subway,” “mutz” or “midnight gravy” mean anything to you, then it is your duty to vote.

Here’s what the John’s Deli staff write on their Facebook page:

To all our loyal customers can you help us out by voting for John’s Deli as the best sandwich shop? NY Daily News is having a contest and it takes two seconds just copy and past the info below about our store to either their Facebook page or Twitter. Please let us know if you voted. Thanks!

The contest closes on August 10 at 6 p.m and the winner will be announced August 19. Submissions must say John’s Deli, their address and a reason as to why they are worthy.

Email submissions are also acceptable at BestOfNewYork [at] NYDailyNews [dot] com.

Good luck John’s Deli, you are definitely one of the best!

Source: TheGirlsNY via Flickr

After the mob war over the alleged recipe leak of L&B’s secret sauce came to light, foodie New Yorkers wanted to pit the heavyweight against the contender.

Adam Kuban of Serious Eats visited both pizzerias to get to the bottom of it. Here’s what he said:

The crust at The Square is noticeably sweet, whereas L&B’s is not. The Square is not off-the-charts sweet, but you can pick it out even among the flavors of the sauce and cheese. If you’ve had Portuguese sweet bread or Hawaiian bread, it’s similar to that. The Square’s sauce balances out the sweetness of the crust in a way, though, it is a bit more acidic than L&B’s. L&B’s sauce has a more-pronounced dried-herb flavor.

L&B seems to use more sauce as well. At The Square, there’s a nice balance among crust, sauce, and cheese. Everything is in harmony. But if you like a saucier slice, L&B might do it for you. With a thicker crust, that extra sauce is sometimes a welcome addition.

It’s great that someone was willing to go all the way to Staten Island and gather this useful research. Maybe he had a friend with an EZ Pass.

Source: Jaime de la Fuente via Wikimedia Commons

A website has recently gone hyperlocal by making it easy to find the most recent health inspections information on your favorite local restaurants.

EveryBlock takes recent restaurant inspections from New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and then maps them.

The website lists the number of violation points a site receives per inspection. The number of points determines whether a followup inspection is required. Thus, 0-27 points means that there is no followup required and 28 or more points means that a followup is a must.

New York Times writer Brian J. McCabe penned a piece that explains New York’s grading system in detail. He mentions that it’s a passing or failing grade isn’t the only thing that matters in a score. The specific score an establishment receives holds a great deal of meaning too. For example, there are three categories of violations that may be observed and a passing grade may not guarantee a noted absence of rats or mice.

Check out the EveryBlock violation ratings page for neighborhood places and see if you can spot the ones that have a whopping 55 violations.

My favorite nickname for this dish is the “Big Mac Salad,” although that name probably doesn’t do it justice. While this recipe combines beef, lettuce and dressing in a way that’s similar to the famous McSandwich, you could say it includes ingredients of a somewhat different quality.

Instead of using mysterious McMeat, Colleen incorporates juicy, well-seasoned cuts of flank steak into a bowl of crunchy veggies for a low carb meal that’s both tasty and healthy.

If you’re like me, and like to load down an otherwise innocent salad with high calorie dressing, try Walden Farms Calorie Free French Dressing for a low (virtually no) calorie alternative.

Enjoy! Click Here For A Salad That Sizzles

Aaah… the humble yet delicious scone.

While many cultures throughout the world make a similar cookie-like breakfast bread, scones – in their American incarnation at least, originated in Scotland and Southwest England. They’re also considered a traditional dish in the Republic of Ireland – whose representatives chose the scone as their own contribution to the Café Europe cultural initiative.

According to Wikipedia, what we call a scone [pronounced like "cone" or "Joan"] is actually pronounced like “con” or “John” by around two-thirds of the British population, as well as most people in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

You know what goes with scones? Currants and orange zest. While Colleen’s recipe for a wonderfully moist mixture certainly doesn’t need any help, the small dried seedless grapes and the slight tangy acidity of the orange make this a perfect bread that you really don’t need to butter.

If you’re not sure which pronunciation of scone to use, the poem below reminds us that both are correct in their own way:

“I asked the maid in dulcet tone

To order me a buttered scone

The silly girl has been and gone

And ordered me a buttered scone.”

And while I don’t think I’ve ever actually had a proper Devonshire cream tea under the low afternoon sun, these scones freaking rock in the morning – whether fresh out of the oven or heated up later – with a hot cup of cappuccino.

Enjoy! Click Here To Get The Scoop On Scones

With this year’s Grillin’ On the Bay happening tomorrow, and warm weather appearing after what was a pleasantly mild winter, we’ve had the outdoor culinary arts on our beans here in the Bensonhurst Kitchen.

One of our favorite things to do at this time of year is show fellow apartment dwellers how – in lieu of outdoor space – many grilling and smoking techniques can be replicated or modified in the not-so-great indoors.

For a talented cook like Colleen, working with what’s available is actually a great way to showcase her highly adaptable skills – plus it illustrates to our readers how a little ingenuity can go a long way.

Today, Colleen will once again show you what she can “pull off” in a small kitchen without the benefit of a smoker, outdoor grill, or professional restaurant equipment.

Mustard just seems to go with pork, which is why we decided to accompany our swine with a warm bacon-mustard barbecue sauce, that also happens to double as a nifty salad dressing.

Enjoy! Click Here To Get The Most Out Of Your Kitchen

Source: holycalamity via Flickr

Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, whose pies are beloved by both Brooklynite and tourist alike, is coming south. They’ll soon be opening a second Brooklyn location in Coney Island.

The restaurant, which already has stores across the country, will be moving to a spot directly across Surf Avenue from the entrance to Luna Park, reports NY1.

The renowned eatery, known for its location under the Brooklyn Bridge, has built a reputation with its coal brick oven and long lines of eager pizza eaters.

This is not a traditional Irish Soda Bread.

The Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread has a very interesting (seriously!) and informative website. And right at the top of their home page is an angry diatribe against the heartless, sugary wench that is today’s sweet, raisin-filled soda bread.

See, beginning in the mid 19th century there was this thing called the Great Famine – otherwise known as the Irish Potato Famine. People on the Emerald Isle were starving – literally dying of starvation.

Around the same time, the use of bicarbonate of soda (Bread Soda) as a leavening agent was slowly gaining popularity in Ireland – particularly to work with the “soft” wheat grown there.

The original soda bread was exactly that – bread, not the dried fruit cake it’s purported to be today!

Many Irish men and women left for the United States during this time, in what was the first major wave of immigration native-born Americans – and New Yorkers – had ever seen.

It may come as a shock, but the Irish who left Ireland during the Famine years probably didn’t bring a recipe for Irish Soda Bread with them. During those times, newfangled ingredients invented by chemists often took decades to catch on – not to mention that it would take even longer because food was so scarce.

So for the most part, Irish soda bread became popular in Ireland after the Famine. The phrase “Irish Soda Bread” didn’t actually show up in Irish-American cookbooks until the 1930s.

Don’t worry, Colleen has managed to strike a balance between soda bread that’s well… bread, and the sweet dessert cake we know and love today. Oh, she used raisins. And sugar – but just enough to curb the strong soda taste. What she did not use were eggs, which would just not be in the spirit of this spartan yet scrumptious bread/cake.

The end result is a hearty bread which the baking soda lends a wonderful tongue stimulating taste and texture to.

But enough with all the blarney! Here’s a soda bread you can be proud of. While it falls somewhat short of tradition, you probably won’t notice as you drink your green beer while wearing that plastic green derby hat made in China.

Besides, is fearr Gaeilge briste, na Bearla cliste.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

Slainte! Click Here For A Soda Bread Your Kin Would Be Proud Of