You know a store is good when you have to take a number from the old-school ticket dispenser and wait your turn. Fish King has one too. 'Nuf said — 20 grown-ups clutching shards of numbered paper like winning lottery tickets, afraid to look away from the lighted number above our heads, but mesmerized by the delicacies in the case before us. Buzz!
“No. 84?”
I'm in.
“I'll have a quarter pound of imported prosciutto to start,” I tell the sommelier of small bites.
She pulls from the case a 10-pound cured ham hock that's been pampered by chaste monks under vows of silence in Parma, Italy, for the last 18 months, and begins slicing.
“I want to be able to see through each slice,” I warn her. She nods and adjusts.
I can see I’m making her nervous, so I wander off to peruse other delights. There's a tray of marinated black olives with herbs and cubes of cheese.
“What kind of cheese is in that?” I ask an attendant of antipasti.
“Feta,” he says as he lovingly caresses the olives with a long spoon. “It's very good.”
His eyes close a little, as if holding back a dream he wants so badly to fall into.
“I'll take a half pint of that, my friend.”
He approves, knowing these morsels will be rightly appreciated.
A nice, dry salametti, some vibrant red roasted bell peppers in olive oil and a quarter pint of the spicy, marinated artichoke hearts. Yes, that's it. But don't forget the cheese!
“How's the Los Cameros?” I ask. My mistress pulls the half-wheel, milky white flesh and ashen, dusty, intense rind, from the case as another clerk watches over.
If Monte Carlo had a cheesemonger, it'd be this guy.
“That's new,” he says.
