Foodie Institutions — Waffle Cones, Hot Dogs, Ice Cream. What’s Your Local Legend?
Image via Wikipedia
As someone currently allowed nowhere near an ice cream cone or hot dog, a girl can still dream. I liked this recent piece about Doumar’s Cones and Barbecue, in Norfolk, Virgina:
Now 88, Albert sports an orange cap bearing a stitched ice-cream cone and his nickname, “Big Al.” It sets off his gray suit, suspenders, and bow tie. Sitting by the humming soda fountains, he explains that Uncle Abe came to the United States from Damascus, Syria, around the turn of the 20th century, in hopes of making enough money to move his parents and three brothers here. Once his brother George joined him, the two worked in the waffle-cone business together, creating an ice-cream-cone empire. He would scout a location, arrange for a local ice-cream manufacturer to deliver his product, set up a site, and put one of his relatives in charge. The stands eventually stretched from Coney Island, N.Y., to Jacksonville, Fla.
Albert’s son-in-law, Randy Windley, says that at one point Norfolk boasted more than a dozen drive-ins, two of which were Doumar’s, including one on the beach near the Chesapeake Bay. In 1933, a hurricane flattened the restaurant on the water, and another in Florida closed when an interstate made the land it stood on more valuable than the restaurant. The Doumar’s that has stood on Monticello Avenue since 1934 is the family’s last outpost.
The place recalls another era: Fifty people can dine at the soda fountain or in booths that ring the restaurant, and the staff can serve about 60 cars at a time in the parking lot. Waitresses cruise the parking lot bearing trays of burgers, fries, and milkshakes. Several generations of one family arrive in search of homemade limeades or double scoops in a cone.
I live in a county north of New York City, with two foodie institutions I like, La Manda’s Restaurant — despite its formica, fluorescent lighting and noise — thriving since 1947 and Walter’s, whose extraordinary Chinese -themed red tiled roof and hanging lanterns on each corner has offered great hot dogs and curly fries on a quiet residential street in Mamaroneck since 1928.
When we’re in Paris, we live for Berthillon ice cream, with 33 amazing flavors like rhubarb and blood orange. The line-up at Berthillon’s shop on the Ile St. Louis (our rented apartment faced it) began early and often snaked around the corner.
(French women don’t get fat because when you order une boule [one ball, i.e. one scoop] it’s the size of a golf ball. Order a “small” in the U.S. at a Ben & Jerry’s or Baskin-Robbins and it’s three huge scoops, likely three times the calories.)
What’s your favorite foodie destination — in your town or elsewhere?
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I have a New York stomach that lives in Los Angeles that commands my legs to walk to Goldblatt’s for rare roast beef and bagels and cream cheese and sweet and sour cabbage soup and matzo ball soup and celery soda and black and white cookies.
All at once?! I tried matzo ball soup once and truly don’t get it. Ditto black and white cookies. Junior’s cheesecake, yes. Pan roasts at the Oyster Bar, yes.
I miss Canadian stuff like Nanaimo bars, which are basically a heart attack on a plate; sort of a brownie, but better. Or tourtiere, which is a hamburger pie. Elegant!
I have a midwestern stomach now living in Los Angeles. Maid Rite/Loose meat sandwiches and pork tenderloin sandwiches are dreamy. My ex is going to Marion, Iowa (about an hour from where I used to live) for training next week and I keep calling her with more things I want her to eat for me.
The Beaver Valley is a chain of small yoosta-be steel towns towns on the Beaver River in Beaver County (just northwest of Pittsburgh). One of the towns, New Brighton, had a little Hot Dog Shop called the Brighton Hot Dog Shop. It was a Mecca when the steel mills were running full tilt. The mills are mostly gone. Bald Eagles now soar over the river. But we now have 12 Brighton Hot Dog Shops. There is one in every town in the valley. The dogs, frys in peanut oil, and pasta chili are unmatched anywhere. For some strange reason, when you order a dog with “everything”. it comes with chili and onions. I reckon the chili has all the “other” ingredients. Every town in the valley has their own shop and they are all excellent. igs. The wif and I rarely eat there on accounta it being such high fat fare n@. If you really want to eat well in the Pittsburgh area, sample Friday Lenten fare available at Roman and Greek Catholic churches. Fried fish and pierogis are gobbled by tens of thousands of the descendants of mill hunks throughout the Steeler Nation.
This is making me hungry. Funny how the cherished specialties are never low-fat, low- calorie and full of green vegetables…