Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays Volume 4 — DABA Dan

This is a restaurant review, originally published in 2016, of a place now long closed, in Hudson, NY. It was called DABA. Its chef de cuisine and owner was called Daniel. The piece was published in a local magazine, and shortly thereafter DABA Dan died suddenly and tragically. I’m still broken up about it. We miss DABA. It was synonymous with Daniel, and Hudson has never been the same for us, and many. Love to the Nilssons.

When we first moved up to the Hudson Valley from Brooklyn, a young-ish couple with a baby, looking to steer our stroller with the big wheels away from the smooshed chicken wings and syringes in the park near our then home, DABA was one of the first places we went to. My ex husband knew Chef Dan from high school in the Westchester area, they had a hilarious story about finding some random portable tape player during a feral-child-walkabout one random high school era night (yes we are Gen-x’ers). They innocently picked up the tape player, and when they pressed play, it was a recording of someone saying: “Anthony F****o (my ex) smells like salami.” They laughed and laughed about it, so cute and happy for the reunion. Chef Dan whisked our then seven month old baby out of my arms, he himself was a father of three, and bounced him around the room, showing him to other tables he knew, so we could eat our meal without holding the baby. It was a…