Critic's Review
I've thought about going in this place a few times, but I was never sure what it was. Usually small italian market type stores are so absurdly priced that they're not worth investigating. This place has been getting some ridiculously glowing reviews from out of towners (as if I had 3 days to spend in Fort Lauderdale I'd be coming to this place to eat), so it was time to find out what it was all about.
From the outside you can't really tell what it is. "Gourmet Food and Wine Market". Isn't that what everyone tries to call their place? On their website, they don't have a menu, but they have a bunch of tables where you can eat. I walked inside and started browsing the "market"; the stuff for sale along the wall.
They have EVOO in a big dispenser for $8.99 a liter. Nothing really of interest in terms of dry or canned goods. Bags of pasta for $4, $5 cans of tomatoes. I can get pretty good tomatoes for $2-3. If I want to pay that much for pasta I'll buy fresh pasta. I wasn't there 1 minute when a woman bounded over to me and asked me what I wanted. "I'm just seeing what you have", in a tone that should have made it clear that I didn't want help. She seemed to get the hint, for now.
The have a charcuterie display that I scanned to see if they had guanciale, but they didn't have any. Nobody has guanciale.
Ok, I'm not buying any groceries here, so maybe get some food. They have a big board with their paninis. $10.50 for a meatball sandwich. Is this Babbo's? Am I on 5th Avenue? I didn't want a sandwich anyway.
I asked the woman, who was now behind the counter "So you just have paninis"? Answer: "Yes".
They had all kinds of stuff in their display cases, with no prices, so I wasn't sure it was for sale. Their website mentions that you can have any portion you want, so I guess they sell everything by the pound. I don't like places where you just get a big bill at the end of the meal. I was about ready to leave.
I went back to the charcuteries to double check when the male owner came over. 'Do you have guanciale?" He corrected by pronunciation, typical Italian, and said that they did have it. He asked how much I wanted. I thought for a second, and then asked "How much does it cost?", figuring it might be as much as $18/lb in a place like this. He had no idea; he want back and checked. $26/lb. Holy scarecrows! Ok, well nobody else has it, so I asked for 1/4lb. The women lopped off a piece that ended up being about 1/3 of a pound.
This was over $8. To educate you a bit, guanciale is dry cured pig jowls. A very porky taste, and different than the smoked pork jowls you can buy in the supermarket for $3.50/lb that is used to flavor collard greens.
Now the problem with guanciale is that it's not really a food in that you can just slice and put it on a sandwich, and there are only a couple of dishes where you'll find it: Authentic Carbonara, Pasta All'Amatraciana, and Pasta alla Gricia are about all you'll find. I wanted to try it and didn't want pasta, so I tried an old Italian grandma trick; scrambled eggs (scrambled in the rendered fat of the guanciale) with pecorino romano and black pepper.
A pretty interesting dish. I'm not sure I've ever had real guanciale before (I'm not convinced that restaurants who claim to use it actually don't use pancetta instead), so I can't tell you if this was authentic or not, but this stuff has a very unique flavor. I'll be doing some Pasta Alla Gricia later in the week.
Conclusion
The top 5 "Food" places on yelp are all places like this; small places with limited appeal that somehow get more reviews than the most popular restaurants in town. Yelp has gone from a useful, interesting resource to yet-another source of misinformation that is just as likely to ruin your day as to help you find something good.
This place reminds me a bit of Corelli's; you walk into a small, cluttered room and the family that owns the business is omnipresent. Wildly overpriced, the entire experience is just plain awkward. Maybe some people like the equivalent of walking into someone's home to buy stuff, but I don't. And I wouldn't want to eat in here; No privacy. The sandwiches weren't much different than you can get at countless other places, and they're $3 more than newly opened Angelo Elia. And if you order "Matza-rella" there, they don't correct your pronunciation.
This place changed ownership in March 2016,so it's not the original owners, which may explain the confusion about exactly what the place is.
As for Italian specialties, I could have had guanciale shipped in from Arthur Avenue for less than the price here. But what would I do with a whole pound of guanciale anyway?