New Brothers Restaurant

I love a Greek cafeteria style diner and one of my favorites is New Brothers in Danvers. It's run by Ted and Cary.  They're not brothers. They're brothers in law and they are two of the hardest working guys in the restaurant business.

It’s early morning cooking.  If you want a home cooked meal, you got to start at 4 o’clock in the morning. You got to do all of your sauces. You got to prep all your meats, your vegetables and then you start cooking so it’s a lot of work.  You got to put the time and the effort in.

When you come here, you want to have your tray in one hand your silverware in the other and by the time you arrive at this point, you need to decide do I want to get breakfast lunch or dinner? No Phantom Gourmet fan should be the person standing in line holding everything up trying to decide am I going to get pancakes or ribs?

All types of people come in here from politicians or athletes and if there’s a new customer.  We explain to them how it works and they go right into it.   You can get whatever cooked or we can cook something to order.  Sandwiches, salads. Pancakes, eggs, potatoes, toast.  From the Greek food to the American food.  Everything we make here.  It’s home cooking.

Let me warn you, there are so many choices, you're going to be overwhelmed especially as you go down the line and see all the delicious things you can have. You have to remain focused and discipline are you going to get two things that totally don't work together. Do me a favor. I'll have the spaghetti and meatballs.  That's how it's done.  Bring your food down here, pay, walk it to the table yourself via your tray. This is sort of like Greek food in the rough.

I love to go to a place like this and get eggs with bacon or sausage. But when you add a Greek style place like this, I think you want to order into the strength of the menu and get the loukaniko  sausage. This is made with orange peel and fennel. It's a subtle I think really interesting flavor that compliments eggs perfectly.

At Brothers you can get pancakes seven days a week anytime a day.  I like mine with a ton of syrup and butter.  Think as an adult you can't really get chocolate chip pancakes but blueberry pancakes that is socially acceptable.

This is more of a Greek style restaurant but they have a big Jewish clientele who love the Reuben. This is crunchy on the outside and real chewy on the inside with 1000 Island dressing coleslaw served on dark rye. This is a tremendous Reuben. But the number one seller is the turkey club. That's because they show up here early in the morning and roast that Turkey fresh every single day. There's three rounds of bread, lettuce, tomato bacon, of course on a club sandwich all held together by toothpicks. I find any food held together by toothpicks I like.

If you love Thanksgiving food you can get it here every day like this plate of fresh roasted turkey covered in a really tasty gravy.  It comes with Squash, Mashed potatoes, stuffing, even cranberries.

You might want to come here on Wednesday because that's when they do the American Chop Suey special.  You’ve got your elbow pasta or red sauce with some meat in it, they add some peppers. But what puts this one over the top is the layer of golden brown baked mozzarella cheese. Trust me Put your fork in there, mix that cheese all into the pasta and you've got a really comforting, delicious dish.  I love these guys and I love this dish but this has to be the worst spelling of Eddie Andelman I have ever seen.

New Brothers is really known for their comfort food but they're also known for their Greek food so I think you might want to try the pastitsio or the moussaka. Pastitsio is really like a Greek lasagna. You've got your ground meat and your pasta. They put the Bechamel sauce on top and they bake the bechamel into that golden brown so maybe it starts out sweet but as you dig into this dish with your fork and knife, it gets more and more savory. I love it.

It's not moussaka.  It’s moussaka.

Moussaka not Moussaka.  MOO-SA- KAH

This dish really comes in layers of flavor. The basement level is the potatoes on top of that is ground beef, then a thin layer of eggplant all topped with that delicious Bechamel sauce.  Put it in the oven, mix it all together and you have the ultimate Greek hearty comfort food.

At New Brothers  there is almost nothing on this menu that is $20 or more and the portions are gigantic. You get your food yourself at the counter so you're not paying for table service. Put all that together. And the dining bang for your buck is tough to beat.

You get a lot of food.  Most people don’t finish their portions.

For years my dad has been saying the cafeteria style restaurant is gonna come back. I now think he's right. And I'm excited about it and leading the charge is New Brothers in Danvers.