Ideal Restaurant Supply in Carle Place

Ideal Restaurant Supply

125 Voice Rd., Carle Place, 516-482-7000, idealrsc.com

Here's my favorite holiday cookware-buying strategy: Spend those hard-earned dollars at a restaurant supply store. Ideal Restaurant Supply, one of my favorites, closes at 5:30 on weeknights, but there are few more pleasant ways to spend a few hours on the weekend than wandering through this cavernous wonderland of kitchen equipment. (The store is open till 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays, 4 p.m. on Sundays.)

At Ideal, you can engage in your most outrageous culinary fantasies: a carbon-steel wok big enough to bathe in, a three-tiered steamer the size of a Manhattan studio, a gas-fueled 55-cup rice cooker. But on a recent visit, I also satisfied more quotidian kitchen needs: a gorgeous Boos maple cutting board for $52.50; a set of four stainless mixing bowls whose largest, 16 quarts, was $9.95, the smallest, 5 quarts, was $3.95; a set of three cork trivets for $5.95; a vegetable peeler for $2.50. For Hanukkah, my parents got a heavy-duty stainless-steel saucepan. (Don't tell them it cost me only $29.95.)

Ideal started out more than 100 years ago as a restaurant-equipment supplier on Manhattan's Bowery. In 1987, Ruth Yeh took over the business and, in 2005, moved it to Carle Place.

Unlike many restaurant-

supply stores, Ideal is very welcoming to what Yeh calls the "residential customer." "We designed the store for maximum display," she said. The front of the store is dominated by a "command center" where a couple of folks are always happy to help. Aisles are wide -- the better to navigate one of Ideal's shopping carts through -- and everything is clearly labeled and priced.