189840 Tue Sep 19 21:29:12 -0700 2000 21 18 Manhattan 0 1014160 i kept hearing about joe's dairy (on sullivan and houston) and used to walk past it on my way to the subway (and sometimes on my way to once upon a tart to get their chocolate bread pudding...), and finally tonight i went in. why had i hesitated? why? they make their own mozzarella, so i got some salted and some smoked.... mama mia. heaven. my fingers still smell smoky from the little piece i cut off and popped in my mouth. but the real revelation was their cave-aged gruyere. i lived in switzerland for a while and got used to good gruyere just being everywhere; you really can't get bad cheese there, no matter how hard you try. i've been looking for it for ages, and in all the right places, i thought, but i always found only that disgusting rubbery stuff with no flavor. tonight i found the real thing. joe's has it, and it's the kind with a pungent, sweet flavor and the crunchy crystals of goodness in it. their prices are also SO much more reasonable than those ridiculous supergourmet stores. BTW, the italian takeout across the street, where i had dinner, has a marinara sauce i love (on penne for five bucks, although tonight a bit too salty), and tonight one of their specials was orrechiette (sp?) with mushrooms, prosciutto (again, sp?), truffle oil and cream -- i loved it. not too creamy, great mushrooms (cremini?) and the truffle oil was so nice and earthy. you can sit in their tiny, wonderful space and eat from huge bowls and watch italian tv. the place has a loyal local following. they deliver. then pop down to once upon a tart for a piece of chocolate bread pudding (their brownies are too big and dry, they're like bricks; i avoid them). Tue Sep 19 21:29:12 -0700 2000 0 emily 1 1014173 Ah, you have now discovered the joy that is Sullivan St. The take-out italian you mention is Peppe Rosso To Go. May I also recommend the provolone at Joe's Dairy? It's like no other I have had... sharp and crumbley, oozing a little bit of whey...WOW. It's the only place to get mozz. and the prices are awesome. Recently, for $13.95 total, my friend got: 1/2 lb of Reggiano Parmesan, 1/3 lb of Pecorino Romano, 1/2 lb of smoked mozz., and 1/2 lb of provolone. A steal! Their parm is $9 something a lb and most places it's 12, 13, 14 a lb! The mozz. at Balducci is rubbery and more expensive. I just love Joe's... the only thing to avoid is the mozz rolled up with prosciutto... it's never fresh enough. Also, I have tried alot of the muffins at Once Upon a Tart and can recommend the Apple Cranberry (delicate with a hint of cinnamon) and the Apple Oat Bran (coarse and rich with chunks of apple and raisin t/o). If chocolate is your thing you might try a tart... I had the chocolate-pear tart once and really liked it. Glad you enjoyed Sullivan St. P.S. If you cook, the little butcher shop is great for all kinds of meat and things like pancetta. I think it might be called Pino's. Wed Sep 20 09:52:35 -0700 2000 1014160 0 Jessica Shatan 2 1014177 Do not neglect, of course, the profoundly burnt Pugliese loaves at Sullivan Street Bakery, which makes the best bread in New York. Wed Sep 20 10:56:13 -0700 2000 1014173 0 Pepper 3 1014180 Also do not neglect Raffetto's on Houston, near Sullivan, for fresh pasta (good enough to eat raw) and other supplies (e.g., anchovies and capers). Wed Sep 20 11:22:56 -0700 2000 1014177 0 R. Carter 4 1014185 I've tried a few things from Raffetto's over the years, and never been much impressed, but I've given neither a thorough nor a recent check-out. Any other thoughts on this place out there? I find that the pasta shops in Queens blow away the ones in Manhattan. Cassinelli's in Astoria (31-11 23 ave 274-4881; if they're closed, buy their stuff in the deli next door), for example, makes the best retail ravioli I've found. But if we're going to go into detail about that, somebody please start a thread on "Outer Boroughs" ciao Wed Sep 20 12:26:15 -0700 2000 1014180 0 Jim Leff 5 1014200 The ravioli and tortellini are not the BEST as they are made and then frozen. If you do get them, the plain cheese tortellini are best, the filling is seasoned just right and they come in cheap 8 oz. bags that you can pop in your freezer and will serve 2. The chicken-prosciutto is good for the ravioli (or the plain cheese.) The fresh pasta, which is cut in front of you depending on the width you request is excellent, again, the simpler the better because the herbal and the lemon didn't really taste very pronounced. If you want to tuck into some fresh fettucine or papperdelle it's *really* good. Or buy the sheets uncut for lasagne (just layer and bake, no boiling needed). But getting it cut is worth the show of seeing the old machine at work :-) Also, it's good for the dried pastas--in hard to find shapes and in specific amounts (they keep them in big built-in bins and will scoop them into bags for you), for example for a recipe I needed 1 and 1/2 lbs of a shape I couldn't find in the supermkt or just a cup of ditalini for minestrone. While you're there, you must get the "genoa toast" which they make--a weird greasy crusty, slightly cheesey slightly spicy (red pepper flakes?) cracker... prbably made from left over bread. Pick up a bag full next time you go to a party and people will love reach into the grease-stained bag and crunching into them while drinking beers. Also, you can find some hard-to-find italian items like whole wheat Di Cecco pasta which, alas, I can't find *anywhere* (even Raffetto's) any more. Wed Sep 20 15:20:53 -0700 2000 1014185 0 Jessica Shatan 6 1014205 The ravioli at Raffetto's is distinctly not all frozen, unlike the miserable Ravioli Store down on Sullivan. My kid is addicted to the spinach-ricotta ravioli, which are always fresh, and always just wonderful (as well as the tortellini, which are not the store's strength). The odder flavors may not turn over as often, but what's good--which does include that fresh pappardelle--is good enough to draw me back at least once a week. And if you're not inclined to make your own tomato sauce, or you just want something to doctor, the marinara sauce is quite good too. Wed Sep 20 16:08:44 -0700 2000 1014200 0 Pepper 7 1014225 this might echo back to your "frozen fries are better" theory, but the main guy at Cassinelli's (which you've just got to try--their spinach cheese ravioli contain like a dozen ingredients, including crushed pignoli nut and many cheeses and nutmeg, though they're not at all unhaimish) insists that frozen ravioli are superior (he actually sells both). Says the fresh don't hold their shape well on the way home and tend to easily break during boiling. Complains that all his "gourmet" customers insist on fresh, but he thinks they're making a mistake. Wed Sep 20 21:17:02 -0700 2000 1014205 0 Jim Leff 8 1014392 Unless you get ravioli made fresh to order, they hold up better when frozen and lose very little of the flavor and none of the texture. As for Raffetto's, the mini ravioli are all frozen, but most of the normal size is fresh. Ditto the tortellini, which I think is better than most. You can't go wrong with anything there as it's one of the best pasta shops in NYC- not just my opinion, but a friend who's the sous chef in one of Manhattan's most respected restaurants and another friend who's family owned Italian restaurants for 50 years both agree. Mon Oct 18 11:15:55 -0700 2004 1014225 0 WhoIAm 9 1014394 Agreed, Rafetto's is the best. Love their stuff. They even have pumpkin ravioli, which is fun for the autumn. Their tortellini is very good also, as well as their fresh cut pasta. And the nicest people. Mon Oct 18 16:30:35 -0700 2004 1014392 0 Janie 8 1014393 FWIW- The facts are: Fresh ricotta ravioli when cooked fresh, are very creamy. When cooking the same ravioli from the same place that WERE frozen and any other frozen I've ever tasted for that matter, the texture of the ricotta is dryer, "curdier" and seemingly more dense. Whether you prefer the one texture over the other is left to personal taste. (I like both but I guess lean toward the creamier texture.) As far as them falling apart when fresh, I don't buy that as MAYBE ONE single Rav' in 3 or 4 dozen will occasionally break when cooking. (You can't be slamming them around in the pot:) The place where I try to buy my Rav's is in the Belmont section of the Bronx, called Borgatti's.I have never had better cheese ravioli than those. In fact my Grandmother in her later yrs tasted them when I brought them to her. She was noted for her cooking skills and no one EVER left her table hungry. I remember hers from when I was younger and they were excellent. She admitted, (though I didn't have the heart to agree with her) that Borgatti's were better than hers. But in fact they were. Mon Oct 18 12:44:33 -0700 2004 1014225 0 Chas 6 1014218 Just today I saw whole wheat De Cecco spaghetti and linguini at Todaro Bros. on 2d/30th, and the w.w. linguini around the corner at the Food Emporium on 3d/32d, along with the increasingly rarely seen spinach linguini. Wed Sep 20 19:39:32 -0700 2000 1014200 0 Caitlin 7 1014226 Omigod--thank you!! Funnily enough, I believe Raffetto's was carrying De Cecco spinach pasta after they stopped carrying the WW. But I fear we're getting away from the heart of chowhound here... Wed Sep 20 21:44:18 -0700 2000 1014218 0 Jessica Shatan 3 1014184 Forgive me, but I've actually never been to Sullivan Street Bakery. Can you give a brief guide to highlites there (other than the the profoundly burnt Pugliese loaves)? Wed Sep 20 12:23:56 -0700 2000 1014177 0 Jim Leff 4 1014204 Sullivan Street Bakery bakes reinvented Southern Italian breads with soft, pully insides and hard, burnt crusts. The Pugliese (their signature loaf), is sort of their basic bread, although they do a great variant crusted with sesame seeds and a very good ciabatta. They were developed as sort of a response to the Nancy Silverton-style slow-rise breads you find at Amy's, Balthazar, Ecce Panis, etc. You can also buy Sullivan St. breads at Gourmet Garage and Murray's, among other places. The breads carried only at the source, and at the new bakery that opened this month on the UES, I think, include carta de musica, which is very thin, very broad and very crisp; focaccia; Pugliese-style pizza with roasted artichokes, potatoes, or rosemary and grapes; and very passable crostata. An amazing place. Wed Sep 20 16:01:44 -0700 2000 1014184 0 Pepper 5 1014224 many thanks. definitely got my appetite up! Anybody know the address of the new branch? I couldn't find it on the web...too new (I'm also wondering if it's as good) ciao Wed Sep 20 21:14:11 -0700 2000 1014204 0 Jim Leff 2 1014192 Wow! I was at Joe's dairy over the weekend and purchased all the cheeses described above and a bit of parm. simply put they rock: the guy behind the counter was mucho friendly and gave me tastes of all kinds of cheeses. He said the Cave aged Gruyere is his fave. Sold! I highly recommend the place. I think its important to keep the mom and pop shops in business. I think they are a dying breed. give them your money and stay away from the Dean and Delucca's.(sorry for the digression) :) Wed Sep 20 14:03:55 -0700 2000 1014173 0 SLAP 2 1014211 thanks for the muffin tips! i have tried their chocolate-pear tart and it's unbelievable. i was eyeing their walnut tart; any word on it? Wed Sep 20 17:20:08 -0700 2000 1014173 0 emily 3 1014214 Nope, sorry--I haven't tried too many tarts recently. I had a few savory ones once...pretty good. Also a good muffin is the Banana-Poppy. And what they call a Raspberry Scone, the one with jam in the recessed center--actually that had wonderful walnuts t/o. Avoid the blueberry muffin (boring) but try the blueberry scone. A lot of the muffins are just wonderfully permeated with vanilla. Also, don't be scared off by the burnt edges of some muffins, at least for the Apple Oat Bran, the burnt ones are better!! Oh, and one more thing: I have tried a few of the biscotti and the cornmeal-almond win hands down--much better than chocolate-pistachio. Wed Sep 20 17:36:50 -0700 2000 1014211 0 Jessica Shatan 4 1014216 thanks for the info. their scones did look wonderful; flat and tender. i encourage those who love rich, dense chocolatiness to get a slab of their chocolate bread pudding. it's quite fabulous. like the child of an intensely moist and dark chocolate pound cake and a chocolate truffle, but not too sweet. it's about how your teeth sink through it. it's ever-so-slightly chalky. i think i need to eat more muffin/scone things, less sweet and rich, when i go to bakeries. i always head for the brownie and i think i miss out on a lot. so i'm going to make it a goal to try your recommendations. Wed Sep 20 18:17:38 -0700 2000 1014214 0 emily 5 1014217 Cool--check it all out and report back, either on the boards or to my email. It'll be interesting to see if our tastes align at all. Have fun :-) Wed Sep 20 18:29:42 -0700 2000 1014216 0 Jessica Shatan 6 1014223 Email helps a hound, posting helps the whole pack! Please don't discuss potentially informative stuff via email, thus depriving the rest of us! ciao Wed Sep 20 21:11:30 -0700 2000 1014217 0 Jim Leff