Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [2]
Big Dipper
91 Waterbury Rd.
203–758–3200
Prospect, CT
$
Two words to the wise: toasted almond. Inspired by the traditional Good Humor bar but infinitely more delicious, this creamy, nutty stuff has the luxuriousness of marzipan and the all-American appeal of a sunny Independence Day. It is but one of a multitude of Big Dipper flavors, which include plain vanilla, silky chocolate, silly cotton candy, and a shockingly sophisticated cinnamon-coffee Cafe Vienna. Because it is not cloyingly rich, Big Dipper ice cream begs to be eaten in large quantities or in such indulgences as a triple-dip fudge sundae. The line stretches far out the door on a pleasant night; and the staff is famously fun to deal with.
Blackie’s
2200 Waterbury Rd.
203–699–1819
Cheshire, CT
LD (closed Fri) | $
Blackie’s just may serve the best hot dog in Connecticut, a state with high hot dog standards. While there are a couple of other items on the menu (hamburgers, cheeseburgers), hot dogs are so entirely the specialty of the house that regular customers sit down at the counter and simply call out a number, indicating how many they want.
They are pink Hummel-brand plumpies that are boiled in oil to the point that they literally blossom with flavor as their outside surface bursts apart from heat. They are served plain in barely toasty buns, and it is up to each customer to spoon out mustard and relish from condiment trays that are set out all along the counter. That’s the really good part about dining at Blackie’s: dressing the dogs. The mustard is excellent, and we recommend a modest bed of it applied to the top of each wiener, all the better for the relish to cling to. The relish is transcendent: thick, luxurious, dark green, and pepper-hot enough that your lips will glow after lunch. Blackie’s—and its customers—are so devoted to this formula for frankfurter perfection that the kitchen doesn’t even bother to offer sauerkraut or chili.
Blackie’s is a charming dog house, especially in good weather when the long counter offers semi–al fresco seating. Service is nearly instantaneous, so if your preference is hot hot dogs, it is entirely practical to order them one by one until you can’t eat any more.
Note that Blackie’s is closed on Friday, a policy that dates back to when customers observed the Catholic prohibition against meat-eating.
Carminuccio’s
76 S. Main St. (Route 25)
203–364–1133
Newtown, CT
LD | $
Located in a yellow clapboard house by the side of the road, Carminuccio’s doesn’t look like one of the great pizzerias of the Northeast, but it is. At the small array of bare-topped tables or on the patio to the side, customers eat pizzas on a level with New Haven’s best.
The underside of the crust is a mouth-watering fright, tawny dough smudged and blackened and speckled with crumbs. “Sometimes right after we clean the oven, customers get mad because their pizza has none of that good grit,” says Eddie Martino, who, with former partner David Kennedy, opened the pizzeria ten years ago. Their ovens are common—no wood fire or brick floor—nor do they use a screen to keep air flowing underneath. And yet the crust on a Carminuccio’s pizza—patted out to about two-thirds the thickness of a traditional Neapolitan pie—has such a sturdy crunch that you can hold a hot slice by the edge and the center will not wilt. Even with meat and vegetables on top it stays sturdy from the outer edge almost to the point, and no matter what ingredients you get, topping slippage is rare. “Nobody wants a pizza where the cheese is floating in oil and the crust droops,” Martino declares.
He tells us that New Haven–made sausage, strewn edge-to-edge in countless little pinches, is cooked and well-drained of fat before a pie is assembled and baked, thus ensuring the cheese stays cheesy and the crust dry. Vegetables are precooked in a convection oven, a process