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I am arguing the thing that comes after the colon in your partial quote - namely, that Bari does not have much of a track record of people posting about the sandwiches. There's hardly anything about those sandwiches in the main thread, and mentions elsewhere are, for the most part, merely that: mentions.

I'm also arguing that Bari is a mediocre-at-best store, not a restaurant. But I'm losing that argument, so I've moved on to a new one

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

Trixie-pea,

I was saving the 'Bari's sandwiches suck" argument for argument #3, to be used only if first 2 mentioned above fail

Kenny

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

... on a shitty roll that they bought last week.


And I still haven't tried Bari!

I really enjoy Bari subs. But, upon reflection, I will qualify that more than half of my enjoyment comes from the bread which they get next door.

Still an awesome sandwich in my neighborhood. Not where I shop for raisins.

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blog E-Dogz

LTH,

Simply walking into Bari makes me smile, old school grocer feel, whole greater than sum of parts subs, hot hot giardiniera and a semi cranky grandma at the register who I can barely resist hugging.

I like the barese and hot Italian fresh sausage, have gone well out of my way to get an Italian w/giardiniera and/or marinated artichoke for lunch and even score the occasional deal on bottles of olive oil.

Count me a Bari fan, thumbs up on the GNR nomination.

Enjoy,
Gary

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Sauce on the side, always, implied, axiomatic..........never a doubt, BBQ sauce without.

Low & Slow

Thanks to the generous work of Happy Stomach/Sharon B, I had an Italian, hot jar-di-nare, delivered to me while in the thrall of eating-in with Slow Food Chicago. In gratitude of such effort to provide me delicious sustenance on this wet day, I warmly endorse Bari for its long over-due GNR.

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Think Yiddish, Dress British - Advice of Evil Ronnie to me.

The Local Beet's very big list of 2013 Farmer's Markets

Bari gets my vote for GNR for four things they do make up in house.

1. assembled Italian sandwich with D'Amato's bread and hot giardiniera
2. the hot and superhot giardinieras themselves, fiery beyond reckon with pleasing rosemary complexity
3. vin cotto (seems to be most available around the winter holidays)
4. Italian sausage, may be the best in breed in the city

These are staples for me (and anecdotally keep both the staff and diners at GNR Coalfire going). This is a welcome and long-expected nomination.

Santander,

So, am I correct to understand then that the GNR committee will be looking beyond the sandwiches when conteplating Bari's worthiness? You will also be considering packaged goods for sale, and items intended as at-home pantry staples?

Kenny

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

The GNR Committee shouldn't be considering the products offered at any nominee, but rather the opinions about the place by LTHForum members.

I go to Bari occasionally because they carry a fantastic aged balsamic vinegar that I can't find anywhere else, but I have the exact opposite reaction to Gary's upon walking in. I dread it, it pisses me off, and I want to shake some sense into the staff rather than hug them. My vinegar is kept right next to one of the saddest produce counters in the universe, and hard as I try to avert my eyes, I simply can't do it. Fresh produce is vital in Italian cooking, and I just can't understand how a place that is supposed to be of Italian mind can have no shame in carrying the crap that Bari carries. Add the fact that the "fresh" mozzarella they carry makes a mockery of the term, the shelves are littered with stale, old trash, and the staff have very little knowledge about Italian cookery, and you end up with a place I'd be embarrassed to call one of Chicago's best. They put processed meat onto store-bought bread, and that's special enough to compensate for disasters within the rest of the establishment? I sure hope not.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

Yeah, but the portions are large.

Kenny, obviously we are on opposite sides of the fence here, which is a good thing. Be boring if we all liked the same things.

Speaking of dreadful produce, whenever I used to go to Minelli Brothers I was aghast at the produce, never understood how a place with good to very good meat and deli department could allow weeping tomatoes and flaccid cucumbers. I should note I have not been to Minelli Brothers since the move to Oak Mill Mall and they may very well have better produce on hand.

Enjoy,
Gary

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Sauce on the side, always, implied, axiomatic..........never a doubt, BBQ sauce without.

Low & Slow

Kenny- You're from the East Coast. You know that it is dotted with ramshackle Italian grocers like Bari that focus on sandwiches and a smattering of prepared foods, but also contain a serviceable, at best, grocery goods area attached. Bari, and places like it that I just mentioned, are not about some faux Disney-esque attempt to recreate a Tuscan grocer and have a store that completely services anyone who wants to cook Italian at home with perfect, seasonal finocchio and the best artisinal olive oil, cured anchovies just flown in from Sicily and sweet aged balsamics from the best producers in Modena. Bari is the real deal, from an Italian-American standpoint. That you want it to be something else, i.e., the best Italy has to offer, kind of makes me sad. What sandwiches with processed meats? Those with Prosciutto? Salami? I guess those meats are processed, sure.

I don't think anyone who takes two steps into Bari will be confused as to what their business is about. Anyone who's there at 5:15 and sees the guys there who play softball during the summer at nearby Eckhart Park and are picking up trays of sandwiches; or the old Italians in from the suburbs on a Saturday afternoon to catch up and pick up a sangwich; or the lines going down the aisle from the back sandwich counter. I can't imagine that, if it gets a GNR, people will be disappointed to learn that Bari is not, in fact, the finest source for Italian home cookery in Chicago.

To me, Bari is one of those dying, urban neighborhood gems and I would be very sad to see it go away and replaced with some chef-of-the-moment attempt to do exactly what you're advocating. It would be boring, less soulful, and probably not that much more satisfying, food-wise, at least to me. That's why I support Bari as a GNR. To me this is a shoo-in for its sandwich operation, but also for some other prepared items, like its vin cotto. I'm not as enamored with their prepared giardiniera as others, or their peppers, but so be it. They're also my (and, I believe, Coalfire's) primary source for Italian sausage.

Anyhow, Bari has been expressly nominated for its prepared foods, so why do we keep talking about its produce and its packaged goods and produce?

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Local Beet

Because the nominator and select supporters are not the only one who get to weigh in with opinions. You can keep asking essentially the same question, and I'll keep giving essentially the same answer: I think judging Bari only by its ability to place processed meat inside a store-bought roll is the wrong thing to do. We should judge the place as a whole. If the forum believes that the subs are special enough to compensate for the other aspects of Bari, then so be it - but that does not mean that the other aspects have to be completely discounted.




Exactly. And there is not a single one of those places that I would call a GNR. They're useful places to have on your block, because you can stop in and get some milk or a sandwich if you're in a hurry. They're convenience stores, not Great Neighborhood Restaurants. Bari is an awful lot like every deli on every street corner in NY, except the bread is better and everything else is poorer.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

And if we lived in Lexington, North Carolina we could raise a similar question about Honey 1, but here we are in Chi-town. And I like Bari's subs.

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Toast, as every breakfaster knows, isn't really about the quality of the bread or how it's sliced or even the toaster. For man cannot live by toast alone. It's all about the butter. -- Adam Gopnik

Not the same thing. In Lexington, I'm sure there are passionate opinions about who makes the best BBQ in town, and people probably even travel beyond their closest BBQ joint just to have what they think is the best, and wax poetic about why their choice is superior. No one in NY is having an impassioned debate about which convenience store most deftly places processed meat onto sub rolls.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

Kenny,

You obviously have not taken part in the heated debates over which Manganaro's (Ninth Avenue and 38th Street in Manhattan) makes the best subs. It can be brutal.

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Toast, as every breakfaster knows, isn't really about the quality of the bread or how it's sliced or even the toaster. For man cannot live by toast alone. It's all about the butter. -- Adam Gopnik

Actually, Gary, I have. But that debate has little to do with this discussion about Bari. Both Manganaro's are trattorias, not convenience stores. And a big part of the debate of which you speak comes from the fact there is familial-type strife between the owners of the two places.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

Kenny - if you view Bari as merely a "convenience store" (akin to a 7-11), then chalk it up to perhaps that, you're missing something here with Bari because Bari is as far from a 7-11 to me as it could possibly be. If , however, you have a problem with a convenience store (as opposed to a trattoria) getting a GNR because its not a "restaurant" in the literal sense of the word, I think that ship sailed with Da Riv, Freddy's and La Unica.

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Local Beet

I don't have a problem with a convenience store getting a GNR. I have a problem with a crappy convenience store that doesn't do anything special getting a GNR.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

Gentlemen - my comment was 100% from personal experience and does not reflect any guideline or direction in committee decisionmaking.

I happen to support Bari's nomination. But I think Kennyz is raising important issues. In particular, I agree with this:



My view is that those things that Bari does great outweigh the things they do poorly. Others disagree. But I think this is how the issue should be framed, rather than judging them solely on one aspect of the establishment.

I wish. In Manhattan (which is not NY, I know) this is no longer true, even in Chinatown's northern reaches (a/k/a Was Little Italy). Bari is the dusty sandwich place that exists mostly in memories about NY, Chicago, Philly, etc. I face the same reality when I go to Tampa looking for my old Cuban sandwich places these days -- one more reason to love La Unica.

Is the new "Restaurant" or "Resource" option for nomination getting in the way here? I believe that I specified upthread that my primary criteria for this nomination is the quality of the sandwiches, which as stated by several others here, is obviously the heart of the entire business. While I do buy several grocery items from the deli case, the original allure to Bari for me was the sandwiches. For many years I viewed the grocery as sort of merely ambiance- decoration if you will, surrounding a kickass deli counter. Kenny, can we discuss the sandwiches, its clear to me that this product is at the center of Bari's business and the main source of fondness for the board. I am not nominating Bari as a grocery, convenience store, or whatever you want to call it, not a "Resource". It is a business in which I purchase a prepared foodstuff and it seems to me that this is in synch with the board criteria in which to qualify a "Restaurant".

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blog E-Dogz

Jefe,

People who want to discuss the sandwiches can discuss the sandwiches. I can understand why you want to limit the discussion to that. Though it's hard for me to imagine how this could be possible, maybe the subs are good enough to overshadow the failings in other departments - but I see no reason that discussion of those other departments should be off limits.

Kenny

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

I assure everyone this is true, though the choice of the word "vote" in this context pretty much assured a misunderstanding. The GNR Committee ratifies the decision of the posters, nothing more or less. Matt knows and abides by this, so his use of the word vote meant he likes Bari and personally thinks it deserving, not that he has pre-decided that this nomination is going to be successful, which would be impossible for him to do in any case.

Sorry for the confusion. Please feel free to return to your focus on whether 7/11 can be a GNR. Perhaps it depends on the neighborhood... Sorry, I could not resist.

d
for the GNRs

Worst. Choice. of Words. Ever.

David's entirely right. That's one of my commonest turns of phrase (look at my post history and delight in how few words and phrases I actually possess). Apologies for the confusion to all.

I have been eating Bari subs for many years, and would have nominated them myself, if someone hadn't done it for me. Last week, I had the privilege of eating both a Riviera sub and a Bari sub within days of each other. I really liked them both, but they were very different. I love the homemade cappacola and soprasetta at Riviera, although they were out of the soprasetta when I was there a few days ago (a new batch will be ready in about 6 days according to the owner), but I have to give Bari the sandwich nod here. Although the bread definitely is the highlight of the sandwich, overall, I think the Bari sub has a better flavor balance (maybe less oil and more cheese?). Anyhow, the notion that Bari should be judged on the variety of packaged goods they sell is absolutely absurd. Should Uncle John's be judged on the selection of pop in their machine? There are plenty of GNR's that have a single specialty that earned them the award, and between Bari's sandwiches and Barese style sausage, I think they are more than deserving of it. As far as the quantity of commentary, I didn't comment on Bari's sandwiches, because I just assumed everybody knows about them, and knows they are good. I have probably eaten a dozen of them in the past year alone. I suppose I could have obsessively posted about every one (with pix), however I never felt the need. I assure you though, there was not a clunker in the bunch.

Yesterday I strode past the apparently-irrelevant shriveled peppers, unripe tomatoes, and brown lemons, and headed right to the deli counter for a sub. I ordered a few subs for friends, and a prosciutto and fresh mozzarella with eggplant and hot giard sub for myself. I stood to watch as my subs were prepared alongside those of another patron.

Oh the artistry! The finesse! It would take hours, perhaps days of employment at Quiznos to master what these gentlemen have down pat! To slice a piece of bread so precisely in half! To lay the pre-sliced deli meat over the bread just so, then top that with the pre-sliced cheese as if it were a simple task! And to demonstrate such humility by paying homage to the competition in the form cardboardy tomatoes and Subway-style shredded lettuce, well that just shows divine sentimentality. And then, oh and then... to scoop some marinated vegetables with just an everyday spoon so that they land directly on top rest of the ingredients! Bravo!!!!

Are you people kidding me? They slice a store bought piece of bread in half and top it with processed, pre-sliced deli meat. It is admittedly a good sandwich, but if Bari wins a GNR, I am nominating Yogurteria next year. The frozen stuff sucks, but every time I have asked for a glass of tap water, they put in just the right number ice cubes, and fill it to a perfect 1/4 inch from the top of a paper cup.

Bari sub:

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

I am squarely behind Bari's. The Italian sausage/green pepper sub is the best. I have never been interested in anything else from the store, but the sammiches are the best.

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trpt2345