All posts tagged: Torrisi Italian Specialties

Torrisi Turkey, Part 2

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Surely just a turkey sandwich could be replicable, right?  Try your best to copy the ingredients, get the good stuff, and voila–you’ll be a copy cat in no time.  What I discovered in this exercise, and I should have known better after gobbling them up 3 different times, is that when it comes to Torrisi Italian Specialities, it’s never JUST a turkey sandwich.  Or JUST chicken parm.  Or JUST anything.  It’s simple, yes.  Ingredient lists are likely short in this operation, but I think it’s the details and intangibles that might make this sandwich so good–the TLC in the technique–maybe it’s just that euphoria you get because “someone else made it for you.”  All of that being said, my copy was very good.  If you can’t get to Torrisi to try their turkey sandwich, by all means, make this at home.  But if you can get there, please do.  And do so soon.  It’s espcially good timing as they’ve just opened a new spot next door, appropriately called PARM.  Parm’s menu looks AH-mazing.  You can …

Torrisi Turkey, Part 1

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Torrisi Italian Specialties, located in Nolita (North of Little Italy) in Manhattan and owned by Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi, has quickly become a cult favorite.  Dozens of people, tourists and locals, are lined up at all time around lunchtime and dinnertime each day to get a look, feel, and bite of some of the finest Italian-American soul food in New York.  The shelves inside are lined with many of the grocery staples used in their house recipes, including Progresso seasoned breadcrumbs, breadsticks from Parisi Bakery, plastic Polly-O ricotta containers, and Stella D’Oro cookies.  Rock and classic soul and blues music flows through the air.  The cooks and cashier wear little white paper hats as they work an amazingly teeny kitchen, prepping and assembling to order.  All against the backdrop of old-school deli menus hung on white subway tile.  You can’t help but notice all of these things as you’re surely waiting in line, salivating, jealous as you watch others sitting at the hard-to-snag tables grinning as their orders freshly arrive.  But you find joy …