Thrill on the Hill

Lately I've had a bad case of the Mondays. Every day. Especially in the evenings, when I've headed out to sample the latest restaurants to open their doors during the height of Sarasota's tourist season. Cookie-cutter menus, lame preparation and lackluster service have been dragging me down.

Best cure for the restaurant-critic blues? Head back to the tried and true. That's why I've been hanging out at Southside Deli lately.

It's been refreshing to sample the full extent of Southside's menu since I have, for the past five years or so, always ordered the same thing: chicken salad ($6.45) on toasted rye with lettuce, sprouts, a dash of pepper, and a side of tabouleh ($1.25). The tabouleh isn't very traditional -- parsley is a mere accent instead of the main attraction -- but dried cranberries pair with lemon juice to add a hit of tart sweetness to the salad of tender bulgur slicked with olive oil, with just enough flecks of bitter greens to wake up your tongue. It's one of Sarasota's culinary gems.

Chicken salad starts with breasts cooked in-house, then add mayo and salt. Simple. According to Southside's owner Joe Mancari, the deli cooks over 400 pounds of chicken a week, just for the chicken salad. "If all we had was chicken salad," he says, "we'd probably still be doing alright."

Mancari was the original owner of Nellie's Deli, but he sold that iconic sandwich shop more than a decade ago. He thought he was done with the restaurant biz. "Then I ran out of money," he says. "And I loved this location. I always said if I could get into this space, I'd get back into it."

Nine years ago, the opportunity presented itself.

For Hillview, Southside Deli's setting isn't that unusual. Not enough parking, room for a small front patio and, after expanding the restaurant in 2006, a kitchen big enough to support Southside's thriving catering business. Every day, Mancari provides the food that pharmaceutical reps use to get face time with local doctors. It's lucrative. "As busy as we are," says Mancari, "if it wasn't for catering, I wouldn't be making a very good living."

The location's biggest draw, though, is the drive-up window. Starting around 11:30 every morning, cars start streaming through the tiny alley on the deli's east side. Call your order in, time it just right, and you'll be on your way with lunch in hand as quick as at any fast-food place. Inevitably, though, someone gets a little too eager and shows up before their order is done, backing traffic up Hillview and turning fast food into a long wait. Still, it's better than trying to find a parking space.

Besides chicken salad, those cars are picking up expertly made sandwiches ($6.15-6.45) piled with Boar's Head meats on bread baked in Southside's kitchen, as well as serviceable cheese steaks ($6.40), handmade burgers ($5.75) and daily hot specials. On one occasion there was even homemade chicken fingers ($7.95) made from strips of breast meat coated in crisp breadcrumbs, turning a children's menu staple into something worthy of an adult feast.

Southside's other side dishes ($0.95) are almost a match for the tabouleh, like pasta salad accented with bright red wine vinegar and creamy potato salad with a hint of dill. Cookies and pastries are also made in-house (except for the morning Danish), and salads are fresh and packed full of fixings. Only the homemade soups ($2.15-2.40) are a disappointment, the daily array uniformly bland and often marred by clumpy cream or chunks of vegetable depleted of flavor.

Southside's food is typical, if largely above average, deli fare. In 2006, after polling neighborhood regulars, Mancari wanted to add something a little different: gelato ($2.25), made right there on the premises. The dozen or so flavors are luxuriously rich and packed with high-end ingredients like whole almonds or hunks of real fruit. "I don't rely on [gelato] for my bottom line," explains Mancari, "so I'm not afraid to spend a little more and put a lot of stuff in it."

The gelato hasn't turned Southside into the early-evening hangout Mancari hoped for, but it's gaining popularity. Even after sampling the menu, I'm still stuck on the chicken salad sandwich and tabouleh, but I'm sure I'll pick up some gelato every now and then.

Taking local to the next level

Have your friends jumped on the local-foods bandwagon, and you need an edge in "who's greener" one-upmanship? Harvest Cycle (726-8800, harvestcycle.com) might be your answer.

Picture it: local veggies and fruits from Jessica's Organic Farm, loaded onto a bicycle and pedaled to your home or office by fully renewable muscle power! It's the brainchild of Andrew Nouné, leader of the bike-friendly Alliance for Responsible Transportation (ART). "We wanted to provide a way for people to get their produce with the minimum impact," explains Nouné enthusiastically.

Harvest Cycle has two bicycle trailers designed to carry 14-gallon Rubbermaid containers. Clients can call in their order (website orders will be available soon), and Nouné's couriers will pack the tubs and deliver to your home on Friday evenings.

For Nouné, it's not all about modern angst over carbon emissions. "One in three people can't drive," he explains, "so food delivery services are important. If it works, we can [start delivering from] Publix, even pharmacies."

Providing a public service is important to him, but so is generating a little income. The ART put up some of the money for Harvest Cycle, and Nouné hopes that the delivery service will provide revenue for his bicycle advocacy organization. "It's hard to fund a nonprofit, man," he says. "We're running out of money."