Delivery Department

By Stephen Diamond, Jr. and Cristina Alesci

Like many New Yorkers, we are not always able to be as social as we would like. Late nights at the office, vicious snowstorms—even a pressing deadline—can shutter us indoors against our will. For times like these (or when we just feel lazy), we seek deliverance through delivery. If the number of bicycling busboys navigating the streets of Lower Manhattan every evening is any indication, many of you do too.
As food writers who strive to provide a full service column to our readers (and we trust our use of the plural here is not unwarranted), we offer below four dependable delivery places to consider next time you decide to dine in. Each one is listed on Seamlessweb (www.seamlessweb.com), is reasonably priced and typically delivers in 30 minutes or less.

Alfanoose
A no-nonsense Lebanese restaurant tucked into a near-forgotten stretch of Maiden Lane, where its owner, Mouhamad Shami, and his family consistently prepare fresh and delicious food. Although many praise the falafel ($5 sandwich, $9 platter), our favorite dishes are the shish tawook, or grilled cubes of marinated chicken ($7 sandwich, $12 platter) and the kafta kabob, or grilled ground spiced beef and lamb ($7 sandwich, $12 platter). The platters come with a choice of two sides and we recommend the red mojadra, which is a moist blend of cracked wheat, tomatoes and red peppers, and Alfanoose’s creamy homous (hummus). Another excellent side is their zesty tabouli. The sides can also be ordered extra ($4.50 small, $8.50 large).
8 Maiden Lane (between Nassau and William Streets)
www.alfanoose.com 212-528-4669
Hours:
12:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m., Weekdays
12:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m., Saturdays; closed Sundays

Barbarini Alimentari
You won’t find any heros at this sleek Italian deli for the bourgeoisie, so don’t even ask. Instead, Barbarini Alimentari specializes in pasta dishes from Southern Italy such as handcut spaghetti alla chitarra with sausage ragú ($13), a chewy sausage and meat sauce pasta dish perfect for cold winter nights. Vegetarians can enjoy the spaghetti with rich aromatic pesto, string beans and pine nuts ($13) instead of meat. For sides, try the red beet and dried ricotta salad ($7.50) or roasted peppers with garlic & anchovies ($6). Although the set menu is limited, be sure to check the regular specials, which offer additional choices including a delicious black linguini with squid ink, shrimp and peppers ($15) and a refreshing fennel, arugula and orange salad ($7.50).
225 Front Street (between Beekman Street and Peck Slip)
www.barbarini.net
212-227-8890
Hours: 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 p.m., daily
10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m., Saturdays
10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m., Sundays

Texas Rotisserie & Grill
Texas Rotisserie & Grill offers full flavored rotisserie at no-frills prices with delivery until midnight. Although their menu is longer than a Houston drawl, the rotisserie chicken (half chicken, $9.95, whole boneless breast platter, $11.95) is the star. Consistently moist and full of smoky barbecue flavor, their chicken also comes with a choice of two sides. Except for the corn bread and whipped sweet potatoes, both well worth ordering, the sides can be inconsistent. TR&G also offers broasted chicken (a chicken both broiled and roasted), ribs and other down-home fare. Take our advice and stick to the rotisserie, which offers the best pluck for the buck downtown.
94 Fulton Street (between Gold and William Streets)
www.texasrotisserie.com
212-566-6666
Hours: 11:00 a.m. – Midnight, daily

Two Gold Street
In America, the omelette is generally underappreciated as a dinner course. At Two Gold Street, the omelettes ($8.25) get more respect, where they are available all day long and arrive fluffy and hot. Conceived as a diner with a sushi bar, this restaurant is also an excellent option for well prepared salads, offering a total of eleven. The roasted beet, arugula and goat cheese salad ($9; $13 with steak and $14 with chicken or shrimp) is a fresh, well balanced offering that never gets boring. The chicken paillard salad with blue cheese ($11) and the watermelon, arugula, pine nut and feta salad ($8.50) are two other standouts.
2 Gold Street (between Platt Street and Maiden Lane)
www.goldstnyc.com
212-747-0797
Hours: 24 hours daily

Dean's Resturant and Pizzeria

By Stephen Diamond, Jr. and Cristina Alesci

In the 1950s, Americans thought Dean Martin was a quintessential Italian lover. We overlooked his Ohio roots, mesmerized by his velvety vocal cords and swarthy good looks. In contrast, Dean’s, a new family style pizzeria and restaurant that opened recently on Greenwich Street, flaunts its American roots while offering diners a flavor of “Hey Mambo” Southern Italian home cooking and very good pizza. The Tribeca restaurant is the third Manhattan location for the Dean’s chainlet, which was named after the famous crooner and is a branch of the Angelis-Tsoulos coterie’s constellation of New York pizzerias (Adrienne’s, Angelo’s, Nick’s and Patsy’s).
The spacious dining room, fashioned out of a cavernous loft that was previously home to Pico and Dominic Restaurant and Social Club, is especially well-suited for large groups. Tables are arranged in rows that lend themselves to easy modification; four two-person tables can be lined up to seat eight people faster than you can say “Volare.” Near the front of the restaurant, a semi-circular bar dominates the center of the dining room. Featuring a wooden trellis overhead, the bar softens the former warehouse space and adds to the overall coziness. The beams support light fixtures that hang like vines over the center of the bar.
Featuring dishes such as pasta with homemade meatballs ($10, individual/$16, full), linguine fra diavolo pesce ($13/$22) and veal cutlet parmigiana ($14/24), Dean’s menu offers a sampling of many popular Southern Italian dishes that were Americanized for less native taste buds. Like its namesake, Dean’s displays a fondness for the sauce. In some dishes, such as penne a la vodka ($12/$16) and chicken marsala ($10.50/$17), the sauce works; in others, such as an otherwise flawless herb-crusted sole ($12/$20), it’s a handicap. The delicious sole, lightly fried with a touch of saltiness, was served with a splat of tartar sauce that would have been right at home at an Arthur Treacher’s, but was jarring with a piece of fish this good. Instead, have the waiter hold the sauce and bring you a wedge of lemon. Similarly, a crisp multi-colore salad (individual, $7/$12) was overwhelmed by a sweet salad dressing that masked the crisp bitterness of the arugula, radicchio and endive leaves. A better option would be to substitute the dressing with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. All of the salads at Dean’s may be ordered with grilled chicken, which arrives slightly charred yet moist and golden, with a zesty squirt of lemon juice on top.
The star of the show, however, is the pizza. Two large, flame-breathing pizza ovens dominate the restaurant’s southern wall, pumping out crisp pizza crusts that are worth seeking out, especially in Tribeca, which suffers for a lack of good pizza.
Dean’s offers two types of pizza—a slightly doughy round pie, available in both 12-inch ($13) and 16-inch ($15) sizes, and a thinner crust, old-fashioned square pizza ($16). In our opinion, the thin crispness of the square pie, which is baked in a pan, makes it the better of the two (although both are very good). Geometry aside, the square pie is topped with four cheeses (fresh mozzarella, dried mozzarella, grana padano and pecorino) rather than just mozzarella. For those seeking to customize their pizzas, a standard roster of fresh toppings are also available, at an extra cost.
Dean’s is a much-needed arrival for the pizza-deprived denizens of Tribeca. If the overall effect of the restaurant is not as sexy as ol’ Dino himself, it is at least as comforting as his voice.

Dean’s Family Style Restaurant and Pizzeria
349 Greenwich Street
212-966-3200
Sunday – Thursday: 11:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m.
Friday -- Saturday: 11:00 a.m. – Midnight
Cost for Dinner:$20-35 per person, depending on drinks.

Wall Street Burger Shoppe

By Stephen Diamond, Jr. and Cristina Alesci



Wall Street Burger Shoppe, a restaurant that opened several weeks ago in the Financial District, offers a bar snack curiously titled “Roasted Marrow Bones.” This $12 nibble may have you wondering whether you’ve just stepped into the world of Fred Flintstone, where a certain drive-in movie theater served brontosaurus ribs big enough to flip a Stone Age car on its side.
The restaurant is housed on the first two floors of a four-story nineteenth century brick building near Wall Street. The ground floor, glistening with white subway tile walls and bare metal display cabinets, evokes an elegant meat locker, while nickeled Art Deco bar stools and a long white lunch counter festooned with glass ketchup bottles and straw containers hark back to a simple Prohibition-era diner. The nostalgia continues in the upstairs dining room, where the walls are lined with small hexagonal black and white tiles arranged in a diamond pattern. In the center of each diamond is a round brass insert that, depending on the amount of Six Points Ale you’ve consumed, resembles a skull, a smiling face, or neither. The lower half of the walls, as well as the tables, are fashioned from wide planks stamped with Burger Shoppe’s logo in black. A modest side bar, together with low-wattage lamps in ceramic wall fixtures and suspended mason jars, help give the upstairs saloon a raffish charm.
The menu, here is all about the meat. Appetizers include short rib pudding ($15), a delicious hash of pulled short rib braised in red wine and served with char-grilled bread. Although chewier than expected for short rib, the hardier texture was a bonus, allowing us more time to savor its toothsome flavor. Then there are the aforementioned roasted marrow bones, which in the words of Heather Tierney, one of Burger Shoppe’s owners, “are pure decadence.” Four center-cut veal bones are accompanied by toast and a cooked onion relish. This rich dish is not for everyone and, truth be told, we were not crazy about it. The marrow was not easy to extract and, once withdrawn, overwhelmed the onion relish and toast.
Burger Shoppe’s entrees include three kinds of burgers: the Shoppe Burger ($12), the Barroom Burger ($16), and a Kobé beef burger ($150). The Shoppe plate is actually two mid-sized burgers and are everything that a classic hamburger ought to be. (A single is available for $6). The beef is ground daily by Ottomanelli’s Meat Market in Greenwich Village and the freshness is evident in its hearty flavor. Charred on the outside and moist within, medium rare arrives not a touch over- or underdone. With cheese on top and fries on the side, this is an enticing value.
For those wishing to dine in first class, the Barroom Burger is a larger version of the Shoppe, topped with gruyère cheese, sautéed mushrooms and onions.
The Kobe burger exists, presumably, for that rare burger aficionado who owns his or her own jet, and we shall leave it to them to review it. If it is as well executed as its less opulent brethren (and we have every reason to believe it would be), they shall not be disappointed.
Wall Street Burger Shoppe also serves grilled chicken breast sandwiches ($7) for those calories counters and, for those who prefer their red meat whole, New York strip steak ($18) and the perennial steakhouse quartet of char-grilled dry filet with hash browns, creamed spinach and tomato-onion salad. Vegetarians are also thrown a bone in the form of a mushroom burger ($14), a lightly breaded portobello mushroom sandwich topped with cheese, lettuce and tomatoes, served with fries.
For residents of the Financial District who still feel they are living in the culinary equivalent of the Stone Age, the arrival of Wall Street Burger Shoppe is enough to make them cry “yabba-dabba-doo!”


Wall Street Burger Shoppe
30 Water Street
(between Broad Street and Coenties Slip)
212-425-1000
Mon – Sat: 11:00am– Midnight
Sunday: Closed (D’oh!)

Cost for Dinner: $16-25 per person, depending on drinks and exclusive of Kobé burgers.