HUNGRY GERALD

Sammy’s Roumanian, where schmaltz (chicken fat) gilded everything from steaks to chopped liver and  eggplant salad, was HG’s favorite New York restaurant. There was an abundance of garlic enhancing the food and ice enclosed bottles of vodka on every table  (plus pitchers of schmaltz). Located on the Lower East Side,(Corner of Delancey and Christie), Pete Wells (NY Times) called it “the most wonderful terrible restaurant in New  York.”.  It was in your face Jewish. Loud,raucous, drunken. Jews danced between courses to Yiddish tunes from a piano player.   As Wells put it in a 2014 review: “Sammy’s is a permanent underground bar mitzvah where Gentîles can act like Jews and Jews can act like themselves.”  BSK went once and hated it. HG went often with SJ, the late beloved Adam Schlesinger, and male frênds and business colleagues.     Sammy’s closed three years ago. HG was tearful as a part of HG ‘s New York disappeared. HG is 94.  What’s left of the city’s old time culinary Jewishness? Some dairy restaurants, an eatery in the jewelry district –and stalwarts Katz’s, Zabar’s, Barney Greengrass, Russ &  Daughters, Murray’s. And, at 94, HG can’t last forever…But wait!!!  It was recently reported that Sammy’s will live again! Sammy’s owners have leased space on Stanton Street in the Lower East Side and promise an unchanged schmaltz heaven, frozen vodka fresser paradise. It will open soon. HG hopes to,be alive to eat, drink and exaggerate his inherent Jewishness.