Audio By Carbonatix
The street scene in Gili’s neighborhood may be super glam when the new Performing Arts Center a few blocks east is up and running someday, probably in our lifetime. It’s already somewhat hip during nightlife hours, with Club Space and I/O drawing crowds, and if rumors that crobar or Automatic Slim’s will open in Space’s old spot prove true, the nabe will get hipper fast. Right now, though, “transitional” is perhaps the most tactful way to describe the ambience of the downtown area known rather optimistically as Park West; more accurately, one might call it Vacant Lot Central, the Creepy Old Warehouse/Depot District, or the Jimmied Parking Meter District.
It’s still not easy to find a meter that works. But you can get a great sandwich at Gili’s.
Open last spring, the small 36-seat space has the cool, rough underground look and feel of an East Village hangout before that area got yuppified: retro diner booths, a few tables for those not lucky enough to grab a booth, and a loooong industrial-treated concrete food bar all down one side of the place, manned by super-friendly servers. There’s also a nice outdoor garden patio, but it was hard to figure out its dining function since there were no tables or chairs. “A guy comes in after 10:00 at night Thursday through Saturday and cooks barbecue,” a server explained. Odd, since Gili’s closes at 6:00 Thursday and Friday — but hey, creative oddity is one of the traditional bohemian charms of personalized pioneer places in transitional neighborhoods everywhere.
Besides sandwiches, Gili’s serves breakfast baked goods (which I didn’t try), pizzas (nope: crust too thick despite characterful herby sauce, and at $8.50 for a plain cheese twelve-incher, too much), and “create your own” salads (any four items from a list of 26 veggies and garnishes, atop mixed greens or romaine, with fresh-baked bread, for $5.95; cheeses, meats, or tuna toppings $1 to $2 extra). For the same price there are also four chef-created salads, including a Mediterranean plate (hummus, eggplant purée, and tahini and spicy salsa — the latter like a very hot but refreshing rough-chopped Turkish salad — served with pita) that was authentic and excellent.
But don’t miss the sandwiches ($5.95). You can combine ingredients to create your own or else go with 23 chef’s suggestions. Trust this chef. Some combinations sound weird, but they work — Italian prosciutto and mozzarella with spicy salsa a prime example. One would expect the super-hot salsa to overwhelm, but it did not, perhaps because the prosciutto was not the typical delicate prosciutto imported from Italy but chewy, thick-cut substantial slices — frankly a dead ringer in taste and texture for Boar’s Head prosciutto, imported from Canada. Another winning balancing act was a combination of flavorful, firm but elegantly thin slices of grilled eggplant, hard-boiled egg, tomato, potent raw onion, breath-freshening parsley, and sesame spread (the same fabulous light tahini as in the Mediterranean salad combo). An ultraherby vinaigrette made the roasted red pepper-garnished sandwich of chopped tandoori chicken, house-cooked (though not in a tandoor), taste like an imaginative Middle Eastern take on Chinese chicken salad.
The only disappointment was a sandwich of nonhousemade roast beef, Swiss cheese, and chopped southern slaw. It’s a great, if hardly unique, combination, but since I only like extremely rare roast beef — and had been told it would be so — I was not amused to find the bread packed with well-done gray beef. But the bread, spongy-textured just-baked focaccia, was fabulous, definitely Worth A Special Trip … and five quarters lost in busted parking meters.
