Finally! The Coolhaus truck!

...Well, one of three (plus a cart?) in NYC, apparently. You may remember my excitement when I first had a "mintimalist" ice cream sandwich from the chest freezer at Zito's. Since then, I've been checking their twitter daily to see when one of their vehicles is within a few blocks of me, and it finally happened.

Hidden under some scaffolding

T3, as this truck is named, was parked on Vanderbilt in Manhattan, right near Grand Central. It was five blocks away from work, but the weather was relatively cool today, so I figured I could get there and back without ending up with icecream soup. It was a close call.

I get overly excited when I'm presented with too many choices and I always pick more than I can eat in one sitting in these scenarios. Since I'd also gotten lunch and a drink, I didn't have the capacity for two inch-and-a-half thick ice cream sandwiches, but I got them anyway and stuck one in the freezer.

Snickerdoodle and Southern Belle

My first pick was Snickerdoodle cookies with "Southern belle" ice cream inside. The combination of Maker's Mark, peaches, and sugared pecans is practically a shopping list of delicious things that remind a body of the south, so the title is adorable and apt. Not only that, though, they go really well together. I'm glad I got this summery concoction before its suddenly out of season. There's a strong enough whiskey flavor to make you question how much of a lady this belle really is, but the deliciously crunchy pecans and sweet peaches could fool you at first blush. The cookies were cinnamon-y and buttery and strong enough to hold all that wonderful ice cream and you'd be very happy if someone just handed you one of these cookies all by itself.

Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Stout, and Pretzels!

A couple of hours later when I was feeling a little afternoon snacky, I pulled the second sandwich out of the freezer at work. Chocolate chip cookies were held at arms length by chocolaty stout beer with salty pretzels. (Maybe letting this get a little melty was a bad idea, as the pretzels were soft by the time I got to eat it.) There might have been sea salt in the cookies too, but wherever it was coming from, that salty taste was cutting through the cold sweet stout ice cream with every bite and warming my mouth in the process. These cookies are apparentyl the original offering from Coolhaus, and it's easy to see how someone could build a food truck empire on this hearty, chocolaty foundation. Coolhaus offers half a dozen different cookie options but if they were out of everything else, you'd still score a win if you filled two of these with any of their ice creams.

Sometimes the trucks or the cart come to Brooklyn and set up in some of the parks here or at some of the outdoor movies and pier events, so follow them on your twitter and get there.

-SdJ

Zito's on 7th avenue, Park Slope

You know how sometimes you just want a really good sandwich? Something hearty and satisfying, on good Italian bread? Well there's no shortage of delis in the area, but there's always a little something missing from most of the heros (we call them hoagies where I come from,) that I've tried so far.

My biggest beef (no pun intended,) most times is the bread. Almost all of the sandwiches if tried here have bread that's a little too soft or too fluffy. Long rolls should be chewy. Not stale, but strong. And with a little crustiness to the crust.

Zito's always looks legit when I walk by one of their two locations. There's usually a good looking stack of rolls just visible from the street, and a case of cured meats from Salumeria Biellese instead of the usual Deitz and Watson or Boar's Head. When my sandwich craving hit me this time, I thought maybe Zito's could sate it. They came pretty darned close.

I ordered their version of a classic Italian sub/hero/hoagie called the Autogrill, for some reason, despite having zero ingredients actually come in contact with a grill. You have your choice of roll when you order a sandwich but i didn't notice this option until later, and apparently the default is the Rustic. The foot long roll was exactly what I wanted. It had tooth. It fought back. Perfect.

The interior was equally delicious but sadly under-filled. Salty prosciutto, spicy capicola, and fatty mortadella were of great quality but scarce. For $10.50, I'd expect more than one layer of each. Mild provolone could have been replaced with sharp to great effect. The peperoncini peppers added a wonderful vinegar kick, and the Six Point Sweet Action I got with it was a perfect accompaniment with its slightly astringent hoppy aftertaste.

While I enjoyed the taste of my sandwich immensely, my lovely companion ordered the winner this time. The hot Six Point braised roast beef sandwich was chock full of sliced roast beef in a thick and spicy beer and tomato sauce. The roll had a wonderful crunch to it from some time in the broiler, and homemade mozzarella had melted into beautiful stringy white blobs. Marinated mushrooms and sautéed onions finished it off, and the whole thing was the embodiment of pure tasty comfort.

We finished with an ice cream sandwich from the freezer case by Coolhaus. "Mintimalist" satisfied our love of puns as well as our collective sweet teeth. The chewy chocolate chocolate chip cookie held an inch-thick serving of basic but incredibly powerful mint chocolate chip ice cream. No artificial green color, but enough mint leaves pulverized into it that tiny green flecks were easily visible. Apparently they have a couple trucks here in New York, with crazy flavor combinations I can't wait to try. Expect a review when I can track them down on their twitter feed.

The biggest downer about this place: the Pandora music feed that kept skipping/buffering every 10 seconds while the staff blissfully sang along to Fatboy Slim as if nothing was wrong. The entire time. Seriously, 30 minutes or more of skipping Fatboy with the occasional commercial thrown in. (You can't spring for the monthly membership? And maybe lay off downloading whatever it is thats chewing up your bandwidth during business hours?)

Final verdict on Zito's:

Food: 9/10
Value: 6/10
Ambiance: 5/10
Service: 8/10

-SdJ

The "Autogrill"

Six Point Braised Roast Beef

Sweet Action. For my mouth

Mintimalism...

BEST Ice Cream Sandwich

Shelves full of stuff to make things look fancy

Philadelphia excursion, Part 4, Sampan and Sigur Ros

Dinner was at Sampan on 13th street. (I've heard NYC has a Sampan too, but they are not related.) My lovely companion and our friends and I ordered the tasting menu. At $45 per person, and 7 courses, you really can't beat it, and we had plenty of leftovers.

Hamachi ceviche and fried chicken bao buns were the starters. The ceviche was served in individual miso-soup-spoons and disappeared before I could take a photo. Truffle was the unexpected secret ingredient. Rice bao buns were fluffy inside, but strong enough to hold together contained crunchy edged chicken cutlets, Panko-fried and covered in a sticky sweet chili glaze. I could have made a meal out of just this.

Next we had lamb satay, mini lollipops with a spicy seasoning, and cold noodle salad with warm grilled beef tenderloin. Both meets had perfectly charred edges, but neither were standouts but they got the job done like Bacardi and Cola.

Threatening to drown ourselves in noodles, we also had the Korean BBQ short rib lo mein. This beef was so tender. It seriously fell apart at the touch of our chopsticks. So much flavor was packed into each caramelized bite that I don't think anyone noticed the noodles underneath. Kobe beef fried rice was sweet and tender and disappeared quickly.

Sea bass over roasted cauliflower was a standout. Topped in shredded apples and tossed with grapefruit, it was such a bright contrast to the smokey sweet favors of the fish. This is a must-eat. I mean it. Go there and order it and eat it and tell me how good it was so I can enjoy it again vicariously.

Lastly, tiny baby soft serve ice creams. Rice Krispy treats flavor, and Snickers bar flavor. They make 2 different favors every day, and we got a selection of both. Adorbs. And small enough to find room for after all that food.

If you can make it here during happy hour, they have some of the best food deals in the city. Just sayin.

Chicken bao buns

Lamb satay

Beef tenderloin over cold rice noodles

Short rib lo mein

Kobe beef fried rice

Mini soft serves

Rice Krispy treat mini cone

Sigur Ros was ethereal. Perfect for an outdoor concert in the summertime. I hope a lot of you got to enjoy their show at the Prospect Park bandshell on Tuesday. Their opener, though, Perfume Genius, sounded too much like a sad bullying scene from Glee, and had a firm stance against songs over 2 minutes long, to the point that most of them seemed to cut off abruptly in mid verse at around 1:50. You could have made a drinking game out of it. Or, you know, whatever that smell was wafting in the air...

-SdJ

Perfume Genius. Feel their pain in two minutes or less.