Food
April 4th, 2011
Steak Night II
Perhaps you’ve wandered by the meat case at Costco and seen massive pieces of USDA Prime Beef and said to yourself, “That looks like an incredible piece of meat at a very reasonable price, but there’s no way I could eat it all.” Well there’s an easy solution: Gather some friends and have Steak Night.
On Saturday, 10 people converged on a lovely Humboldt Park condo for a feast for the ages. Here’s the star attraction:
We took this drop dead gorgeous hunk of beef loin AKA NY Strip, put it on the smoker and began the evening.
This artichoke/cream/parmesan/garlic dip was freaking delicious. I tried to focus on watching the Butler-VCU game but kept finding myself back at the counter, scooping up obscenely large quantities of this stuff on Triscuits. With the hors d’oeuvres finished, the group moved to the table for dinner to begin.
The meal began with a peppery pureed cauliflower soup with potato and leek that was refreshing and served to whet the appetite for the main event of the evening. It was followed by a salad topped with a poached egg that I forgot to photograph, largely because it was a salad. I was also distracted by a little break I took to during that portion of the meal to help the host tend to the meat.
That sexy meat was smoked atop a bed of lump charcoal and pecan wood until it reached 110 degrees, when it was taken off the smoker to rest. While the steak took a nap, we opened the vents on the smoker, which magically turns it into a very hot grill. When the temperature got over 700 degrees, we put the inch-thick steaks on the grill for a couple of minutes to sear a nice crust onto the beef.
Yes, it was every bit as good as it looks. And there was only one possible way to finish a meal this spectacular. Two pies from Hoosier Mama (which you might remember from here). We had a chocolate cream with bananas (fresh inside and dried on top) and a key lime pie. Both were extraordinary.
You know those feelings of jealousy you’re feeling right now? They are all justified. If there is a steakhouse in Chicago that can put out a meal this good, I haven’t had it.
March 28th, 2011
Pie Day Year 1: Spring Edition
Three months ago, four friends and I headed to Hoosier Mama for Pie Day, a breakfast feast of 10 different slices of pie. It was almost certainly the best breakfast I’ve ever had. Well, until yesterday.
That wonderful morning in December, a blood pact was made at the end of the meal. The participants pledged to return to Hoosier Mama every three months to do the exact same thing. And so it was that we met at Hoosier Mama just before 10:00 yesterday morning to indulge once again.
I’d love to write a thousand poetic words on the greatness of the pie at Hoosier Mama, but that’s beyond my skill set. Basically, the pies are like the pies everyone has eaten elsewhere, only significantly better. The flavors are stronger, more balanced, and born of better ingredients than pretty much every pie around.
Baseball stat geeks have come up with a bunch of new ways to measure performance in recent years. One of those stats is VORP, which means Value Over Replacement Player. VORP quantifies the number of runs a particular player contributes beyond what a league average replacement player at the same position would give a team. While eating at Hoosier Mama, I was thinking about a way to rank different best foods in Chicago when the concept of VORP hit me. There may be other foods in Chicago that I would rather eat, but there is no category of food in which the difference between best and second best is close to as large as the gap between Hoosier Mama and whatever place makes the second best pies in town.
Apple Pear Cranberry
Buttermilk
Espresso Cream
Ginger Custard
Maple Pecan
Passionfruit Meringue
Pear and Fig
I still can’t get over how great these pies were. Two of them were repeats from last time – Maple Pecan and Pear Apple Cranberry. They’re both too good not to include. Passionfruit Meringue has long been my favorite pie at Hoosier Mama, but I don’t know if that’s true anymore. That’s not to say that it was not a magnificent slice of pie, because it most certainly was. It’s just that the other slices are so freaking delicious that I don’t know if I can pick a favorite. The other cream pie, the Espresso Cream, made with coffee from Metropolis, is just exceptional. Because I am an excellent wordsmith, I will tell you it explodes with coffee flavor. Lesser writers would just tell you it’s full of coffee flavor.
The remaining three pies were not only new to me at Hoosier Mama; they were pies I never imagined existed. The buttermilk pie was a simple custardy pie made with buttermilk. Conversation at the table focused on how amazing it was that the pie featured what is normally an overpowering flavor and kept it subtle while still standing up to the much more full-flavored pies we ate with it. It was a culinary marvel similar to the Vinegar Chess pie we had on our last visit. Carrying on in that theme was the Ginger Custard pie which married a gentle ginger aftertaste with Hoosier Mama’s always amazing custard.
My favorite pie of the day, partly earning the title since it was just so different, was the pear and fig pie. New to Hooser Mama less than two months ago and only available when shipments of fresh fig are available, this pie was loaded with large pieces of fresh figs.
Now, you might have noticed that only 7 pies have been discussed so far. This time, we decided to mix things up a little bit and get some savory pies, selecting all three that were available on Sunday.
Mushroom Gruyere Quiche
Quiche Luann
Chicken Pot Pie
The first quiche is mushroom and gruyere and the second is Quiche Luann (bacon, onion and cheddar). The day I get excited about quiche is probably never going to come, but the mushroom and gruyere was easily the best quiche I’ve ever eaten. Now, there’s really not much competition for that title, but the strength of the gruyere was really amazing.
The chicken pot pie, on the other hand, was truly astonishing. The flavors were remarkably balanced and the ingredients were top notch. But it was the crust, which could possibly have more butter than flour in it, that absolutely blew me away. The various crusts on all the fruit pies I’ve had at Hoosier Mama have been uniformly awesome, but for me the filling is what makes the pies. On the chicken pot pie, as good as the filling was (and it was fantastic), the crust stole the show.
So apparently it is not exactly normal for a group of people to come in and get 10 slices of pie at Hoosier Mama. Our enthusiasm was rewarded with a gift of four hand pies (two were eaten before I remembered to snap a picture). There were two kinds, sweet potato and lamb. The latter, shown cut in half, was really delicious. It had well-seasoned ground lamb and some kind of fruit (we think apricot). And, of course, the crust was sensational.
Pie Day Year 1: Spring Edition was an overwhelming success. It was the best breakfast I have ever eaten, a title I expect it to hold for three months when our little group returns for Pie Day Year 1: Summer Edition AKA Berry Time.
March 21st, 2011
Indianapolis 2011
For the second consecutive year, I went to Indianapolis for the Bulls game at Conseco Fieldhouse, the best basketball stadium I’ve seen since Chicago Stadium died. This time, rather than rush back after the game, I stayed overnight. There were a few benefits of that: I wasn’t exhausted when I got home, I got to explore Indy’s night life a little, and I got to eat a lot more.
First, a story about the tickets. As all three readers know, I usually prefer to buy tickets on the street outside of whatever sporting event I attend. The tickets are cheaper that way and the haggling is fun. But after my trip to Milwaukee for the Bulls game a couple weeks ago where having tickets ahead of time was relaxing, I decided to poke around on eBay and Stubhub a few weeks ago. And on the former, I found an auction that was designed for me.
A young fellow named Brandon lives in Missouri where he grew up in the same town as Tyler “Psycho T” Hansbrough, a player on the Indiana Pacers. Friday night was Tyler Hansbrough bobblhead night. Unlike most bobblehead giveaways, wherein the first certain number of fans who enter the stadium get a doll, the Pacers actually sell certain tickets with coupons to pick up a bobblhead on certain nights. Young Brandon bought tickets with plans on traveling from Springfield, Missouri to Indianapolis to see his hero play and get a bobblehead. But plans changed and Brandon would not be making the trip.
He turned to eBay where he put up an interesting listing. For a mere $5.50, Brandon would sell his two tickets, face value of about $70 after Ticketmaster fees, if the buyer would pick up the two bobbleheads and ship them to Missouri. Amazingly, the auction was up on eBay for over five full days without a buyer when I stumbled across it. The purchase was a no-brainer.
Tickets in hand, Psycho P picked me up at 8:00 AM on Friday and we headed towards Indiana. First stop breakfast at Old Fashioned Donuts. We arrived just in time as there was just one apple fritter left.
With most of the fritter and a couple of donuts behind it, we were sufficiently satiated to cross state lines and head to Indiana. Some of you may remember Psycho P from Burger Day 2.0. Given the importance of that food category to our relationship, our first stop in Indiana was at Schoop’s. I covered Schoop’s last year for A Hamburger Today. The place has won raves all over the place, but other than the milkshake, my meal there was shit. I gave it another try on Friday and was very glad I did.
Honestly, this was about as good as fast food burgers get. I did take off some of the lettuce and mayo because there was just too much for a single patty to handle, but everything else was flawless. Schoop’s is famous largely due to the cooking style: Smashed burgers! The textural benefit of the style are the crisp edges that form around the burger. Last time, there was nothing crisp about the oil-soaked patty. This time, it was cooked to perfection.
After leaving Schoop’s in Merrillville, we went ahead and finished up the boring drive to Indianapolis. Well, boring except for this sign:
There are certain places in most cities that I consider mandatory stops when I visit. I wouldn’t visit Milwaukee without going to Kopp’s, Los Angeles without going to Stan’s Donuts, or to Cincinnati without going to Graeter’s Ice Cream. In Indianapolis, my must-visit is actually a savory choice: Shapiro’s Deli.
More to come sooner enough on Serious Eats about this magnificent sandwich, but for now I will simply say this is outstanding corned beef on the best rye bread I have ever eaten. I miss it already.
Shapiro’s has been pleasing Jews in Indianapolis for over a century. I decided to honor my roots with my first can of Cel-Ray in years. For those unaware, this is a kind of pop only enjoyed by old Jewish men. And it sucks. I had two sips, and the second was only because I was really thirsty and out of water.
Shapiro’s also has a fine baked goods section and we tried a macaroon and a peanut butter whoopie pie. The latter was good but not great. The coconut macaroon was, by a wide margin, the best I’ve ever had.
After finishing up at Shapiro’s, we checked into the Embassy Suites in downtown Indianapolis. After a short rest in the room, we decided to balance out our two days of gluttony with a quick trip to the gym where I ran for the first time in months. I ran longer and faster than I planned and my foot still hurts as I write this 3 days later. Sweet.
After the gym, we quickly showered and drove over to Napolese, a relatively new pizzeria that sells Neapolitan pies. More coming on Slice next week, but they were pretty good. The flavors were very good, but undercooked crusts were a problem. We wolfed down the pizza and then headed back to the hotel to take advantage of the free drinks before the game. Note to self: when getting free booze from the Embassy Suites, choose mixed drinks over straight alcohol; they’re not using the good stuff.
We got to the stadium, picked up the bobbleheads, and headed to our seats. The first three quarters sucked. The Pacers are not very good and the Bulls played like crap. Derrick Rose took over in the fourth quarter and pretty much single-handedly brought the Bulls back from a double-digit deficit. With less than 2 seconds to go and the Bulls down 3, Rose drew a foul while shooting a 3-pointer. The man who could not make a free throw in the NCAA Championship game a few years ago showed how much he’s grown a a player when he calmly drained all three to force overtime. Unfortunately, that’s where the good times ended. The Bulls were terrible in overtime and lost the game. On the bright side, I have adopted Keith Bogans as my choice for the most counterproductive pile of steaming shit to don a Bulls uniform since Kirk Hinrich left.
After the game, we dropped off the bobbleheads and headed to Ball & Biscuit, a craft cocktail spot in downtown Indy. I counted 3 douchebags and no hipsters in the laid back bar. I don’t know booze well enough to comment intelligently, but my Pimm’s Cup and the other 2 drinks were all excellent. In each drink, the bartender took some liberties with what was printed on the menu, and every twist was successful.
On Saturday, we got up and made two decisions. First, our planned return to the gym was not going to happen. Second, even though we had two more eating stops planned on our way out of town, we would not miss out on the free breakfast at the hotel. I took two bites of my crappy omelet (Egg Beaters suck), but I did enjoy a couple of yogurts. After breakfast, we checked out and headed to the post office to ship some bobbleheads before making our way to the glorious wealthy suburb of Carmel.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so we didn’t mind the half hour wait at Bub’s, a burger joint in downtown Carmel. More to come on this place on A Hamburger Today, but these were some outstanding basic burgers.
Psycho P contemplates the meaning of a road trip with me
Our final stop of the trip was at Pizzology, which was Indianapolis’s first foray into a pizza scene that includes little things like caring deeply about the ingredients. The review has been written and will appear on Slice on Wednesday.
After Pizzology, the sad moment was upon us when all that was left was to drive home. The uneventful ride was highlighted with this message of truth:
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March 3rd, 2011
Milwaukeeeeeeeee
On Saturday, I headed to Milwaukee to see the Bulls take on the Bucks. And since we were making the trip, we decided to tack on a full day of eating.
I’ve been to Milwaukee about a dozen times and I’m pretty sure that every time but once I’ve stopped at Kopp’s at some point. This trip was no exception.
Kopp’s always offers four flavors: chocolate, vanilla and two flavors of the day. The three of us split a vanilla, a grasshopper fudge and a heath bar. All were delicious. The difference between custard and ice cream is pretty simple: custard is ice cream that is made with at least 10% milkfat and 1.4% egg yolk. What that basically means is that custard is necessarily creamier like gelato. Also like gelato, there is far less air in custard than in traditional ice cream. The result is a particularly rich and creamy treat. Want to see a close up?
And because we were there and we were hungry and Kopp’s butter burgers are awesome, we went ahead and split one of those too.
Because I’m so devoted to Kopp’s, I’d never once tried out another custard shop in Milwaukee even though there are a number of local favorites. I decided to take advantage of the day of eating and directed us over to Leon’s to see how it stacked up. There are plenty of Milwaukeeans who think Leon’s is better than Kopp’s. I’m here to tell you that every last one of those people are idiots. We tried the vanilla, butter pecan and raspberry.
The vanilla and butter pecan were fine, though neither was as creamy or as flavorful as Kopp’s. The raspberry was simply atrocious; it tasted like cold wax. Leon’s has no room inside and since it was cold out we ate in the car. If I had been outside, I would have spat out the raspberry. I am officially a permanent devotee of Kopp’s.
After the custard, we moved along to an old school sausage shop: Eastern European Sausage. This place, which was open for decades, closed up shop a couple of years ago, and reopened a few months later after customers kept nagging. I learned about the place on LTH and it was a cool little shop, but there’s better stuff to be had at Gene’s and Paulina right here in Chicago.
Here’s a few sausages I picked up:
The shop did have a cold cut that might not exist in Chicago:
That there is “Blood ‘n Tongue,” part blood sausage and part tongue. This one did nothing for me; I ate one slice and tossed the rest. Fortunately, like all of the food at this place, the prices were low.
It was a snowy day in Milwaukee but kitty-corner from the sausage shop was a little taco stand. We asked the people in the sausage shop and they said they’d never tried it but there was a line at the stand every day. That was all we need to hear; it was time for an unscheduled stop on our eating tour.
The taco didn’t rock my world, but it was damn good. The lady running the stand made the tortillas to order. I don’t mean she took tortillas out of a package and tossed them on the griddle. I mean she took some dough out of a bowl, pressed it, and then cooked it. It was 20 degrees out and snowing and I got a homemade tortilla cooked to order. I opted for the barbacoa and the dude there helping out had to go inside to get the meat. It was tender and flavorful, but there was no question it could have been fresher. Still, at $1.50, I was very happy I made the stop.
From there it was on to the stop I was most looking forward to: Jake’s Deli. Jake’s is a Milwaukee institution but the two times I’ve been to Milwaukee since I heard of it were both on Sunday and this Jewish deli closes on the Lord’s son’s day.
Let me cut to the chase here: This was the best corned beef I’ve ever had. This thick hand-cut mouth-watering, jaw-droppingly tender meat was just extraordinary. There’s a lean version available, but there is simply no good reason to pass on any chance to get this perfect meat.
I split the corned beef and a pastrami sandwich so I could try both. The pastrami was awesome and every bit as tender as the corned beef. I would have liked more seasoning on it, but that’s not a major complaint.
I also got to try the medium salami and was very impressed. It paled in comparison to the corned beef and pastrami because, well, it’s salami. But on the salami sandwich scale, this one knows few peers.
From Jake’s it was on to the part of the trip I played no role in planning: the Milwaukee Art Museum. It was a museum and it had art. Want to see some pictures?
That’s right boys and girls, finger paint!
This piece was dedicated to the person who thought it belonged in an art museum. Soon to be displayed is my upcoming masterpiece, which will spell out DUMBASS in a counterclockwise circle.
Okay, this one I liked. There was also a Frank Lloyd Wright special exhibit that was good. I learned that as cool as his buildings are, the ones he designed that never got built were even better.
The real highlight of the museum is the new building itself, designed by Santiago Calatrava, the man behind the never-to-be-built Spire in Chicago. You can see the exterior above. And here ‘s a picture of the inside ceiling featuring my traveling companions the Hip Hipster and Zeus.
We weren’t hungry but we had a couple of hours to kill before the game so we headed over to the Milwaukee Public Market. After some coffee and browsing, we settled in at the St. Paul Fish Company.
I had a grouper sandwich that I was very happy with. Nice crisp batter around a well cooked fresh slab of flaky fish.
We also snuck in some cheese curds from the cheese shop. Like all fried cheese, these were excellent. And after dinner, it was time for the main event of the evening.
We bought our seats a few weeks ago and got three of the cheapest in the house – $10 without Ticketmaster fees, $17 or so with them. At the time we bought them, there were a ton of empty seats and our plan was to find some unsold seats when we got there to move into. Unfortunately, a shit ton of Bulls fans decided to follow us to Milwaukee and the game was pretty much sold out. We spent the first quarter in our seats.
Thanks to my trusty binoculars, we found a sweet set of five seats to move into for the second quarter. About halfway through the quarter, some douchebag and his four kids from Chicago showed up. We were ready for that and moved into the three seats one row up. With about three minutes to go in the quarter, three more Chicago douchebags strolled into the stadium and we had to move.
We moved over a couple of sections for the rest of the half and I spotted some seats across the way pretty much at center court that were open. A lot of seats actually – pretty much two empty rows. At halftime we went over there to discover a bunch of coats on the seats – apparently some high school cross country team was sitting there so we headed back to our lovely corner for the third quarter.
Found some sweet seats on the other side of the stadium for the fourth quarter. So at the end of the night, we saw a Bulls win and got to enjoy a variety of views from the upper deck. All in all, an excellent time at the Bradley Center. The only way it could have been better is if Brian Scalabrine had gotten into the game, something that seemed likely until that midget Earl Boykins had the quarter of his life and brought the Bucks a bit too close for Scalabrine time.
And so a completely fulfilling trip to Milwaukee came to a close. Good times.
January 26th, 2011
Four Thumbs Up for Mexique
A few weeks ago after seriously miscalculating the secondary ticket market for a Blackhawks game, I was left with a night with my father with nothing to do. Usually when we go out, I propose a series of restaurants and he rejects a few before either giving in or hearing a place he’s heard of. But once we settled on getting some Mexican food, he called for a visit to Mexique. I’d heard of the it, but I had some doubts about a restaurant that billed itself as Mexican-French fusion (Frexican!). He’d been and said it was great. It turned out that Father Knows Best. I ate at Mexique on December 30 and it was one my best meals of the year.
My meal started with a sangria that was simply the best I’ve had. It’s kind of hard to pinpoint why, but I suppose it was a combination of freshness (it’s made in-house) and the chef knowing how to pick a great wine that will mesh well with the various sweeteners and fruit added. I didn’t detect anything particularly unique, but it was a really refreshing drink. Get one if you go.
The first appetizer was beef tartare, which was wrapped with some kind of avocado sauce and topped with pickle red jalapenos, onions, cilantro, capers, and boiled egg. The flavor from the meat was great and the various random toppings all went well, but I didn’t get the avocado which diluted the meat flavor.
This is my half of the tartare. It was really good. It was also the worst dish of the night.
The second appetizer was a much better blend of French and Mexican: cochinia rillettes. Cochinita pibil is a Yucatan specialty that is traditionally pork marinated in achiote, sour orange juice and a mix of spices which is then wrapped in a banana leaf and baked, often in a fire pit. At Mexique, the pork is braised in achiote and tequila and then Frenchified by turning it into a rillettes, which typically consists of cooking it in a whole bunch of extra fat.
The result was some ridiculously soft, fatty and flavorful pork. Served with pickled pearl onion, a celery sald and a mango-habanero couli, this dish was the epitome of French-Mexican fusion and featured some of the absolute best of both those worlds.
The bar had now been set very high and it was time to see if the entrees held up. I won’t make you wait: they were. Up first was the Cordero, which was a duo of lamb. There was a magnificent herb-crusted rack of lamb and a tender lamb shoulder barbacoa braised with coffee. Both were insanely good, but the most memorable part of the plate was the sweet & spicy eggplant. I don’t think it had anything to do with Mexico or France, but that tangy mess of vegetables was pretty special.
Remember when I said the rack of lamb was magnificent? That’s your proof. Sometimes I think lamb needs a good PR campaign because it really should be a lot more popular.
Keeping in the duo theme was the pato al tamarindo, which came with duck leg confit and duck breast along with swiss chard and a corn and cranberry tamale. The breast was rare and served atop a chipotle-tamarind sauce that was a shade on the sweet side (as tamarind always is), but not overwhelmingly so.
It’s quite possible that every confit of duck leg ever made is delicious. The one at Mexique was certainly no exception. That French classic was Mexified by what the restaurant calls a corn and cranberry tamal. It didn’t look like any tamal I’ve ever seen, but it tasted about as good as I’ve ever eaten, which was a trade-off I was happy to make.
I couldn’t let a meal this good end without dessert. To satisfy my sweet tooth, I went with the enchiladas, crepes filled with chocolate ganache and topped with melted ancho chile chocolate and toasted walnuts. It was ridiculously rich and while that’s never been a problem for me, I did like that it was served with a bowl of vanilla bean ice cream.
January 25th, 2011
The Answer is Awesome
The question is: How does a freezer-burned pastrami taste that I’d smoked in early September and steamed last week?
December 31st, 2010
Detroit, Day 2
It should surprise absolutely nobody who knows me that in a weekend trip designed around attending a sporting event, I arrived in Detroit without tickets to the game in question, the Packers at the Lions. I had no fears at all about getting tickets for less than face price and when I woke up Sunday morning, I was even more confident. See, it started snowing at some point the night before, it was still snowing, and the weather report predicted snow all day. Even though Ford Field has a roof, snow would keep people from leaving their homes. The Lions sucked, the Packers were without Aaron Rodgers, and a day full of snow meant it would be a buyer’s market.
Before the game, we had to eat. We weren’t going to top In the previous day but we had a decent line-up of eateries to get through. We started in the downtown neighborhood of Greektown at Niki’s, another Detroit style pizzeria that was hyped in Alan Richman’s GQ article. You’ll have to wait for my forthcoming review on Serious Eats or just be happy with the conclusion: good, but not great, and certainly not nearly as good as Buddy’s or Loui’s. After our pizza brunch, with time to kill before the scalpers would be sufficiently desperate, we went to the Greektown Casino to rock the nickle slots for a bit.
$2 or $3 later, we braved the snow for our walk to the stadium and it quickly became clear that we were getting into this game for $20/ticket. After a little dancing around with scalpers, we found some non-scalpers with extra tickets they were about to eat and took them off their hands for $20.
We didn’t really care where the seats were as we planned on finding seats in what we rightly suspected was going to be a stadium with plenty of empty ones, but we actually got a pair around the 20 yard line in a low row in the upper deck. We were happy enough with our seats that we stayed in them for the whole game.
The game was pretty boring. No points were scored in the first half, the Packers kicked a field goal in the third quarter and the Lions scored a touchdown midway through the fourth quarter. On the last drive of the game, the Packers threatened to score but an incomplete pass to the end zone on 4th down with seconds to go sealed the Lions first win against a division opponent since 2007.
After the game, it was still snowing and now it was really starting to stick when landing. Detroit’s budget troubles have apparently affected the city’s ability to get an adequate fleet of snow plows, but we pushed ahead and made our way to Motor City Brewing Works to have some drinks, eat some pizza and watch some late afternoon football.
Unfortunately, this was apparently the only brew pub in America without a television. So after a round of drinks and a couple of good and fairly unique pizzas (forthcoming on Slice), we headed out to find another venue where we could watch the games. Driving through the snowy streets of Detroit, it was apparent we were in a part of town that was lacking a comfortable football-watching establishment, so we got on the highway and headed towards our next suburban eating destination.
After a quick stop to watch some late afternoon football at a brew pub chain whose name I can’t remember, we arrived at Tomatoes Apizza, the fourth pizzeria we visited that Alan Richman named to America’s 25 best pizzerias and the sixth place we tried pizza at in two days in Detroit.
We started with a pepperoni pizza for a couple of reasons. First, Richman identified it as the best pepperoni he’d ever had on pizza. And second, pepperoni is clearly the king of toppings in Detroit. All three classic Detroit-style pizzerias featured pepperoni the way old school Chicago places do sausage. Ordering this pizza turned out to be a very good idea as the pepperoni, which was a little thicker cut than is typical, was delicious, fatty, crisp and chewy.
Bonus Picture
This really was an exceptional pizza all the way around. Cooked in a coal oven, the New Haven style pies are very thin but still maintained some crispness.
Cooking in a coal or wood-burning oven is clearly a major challenge. When dealing with high heat that routinely exceeds 800 degrees, it’s easy for pizza-makers to cross the line from charred to burned. On other other hand, there are people so scared of burning (or worn down by complaints from idiot customers who think any black at all means burned) that they consistently undercook the pizzas. Take a look at the picture above; that’s perfection.
I wouldn’t say we were still hungry at this point, but this pizza was so damned good that we went ahead and got a second one, this time a Magherita with buffalo mozzarella. It was missing a little something known as meat, but this was one sensational pizza.
We were well past full at that point, but on the way back to the hotel, we stopped at two more places known for putting out top quality sliders. The one above is from Bates.
And this one is from Greene’s. All sliders will appear in a post on A Hamburger Today once I’m able to figure out something interesting to say about them. They all use the same buns and use steam to make low grade beef delicious.
Anyhow, that was the end of a food-filled football trip to Detroit. Perhaps two of the most productive days ever spent in Detroit by tourists who did not set foot in a government building, a museum, or a automobile company headquarters. Good times!
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December 27th, 2010
Detroit, Day 1
I’ve been to Detroit a few times and have seen every museum there that I need to visit. Raj has no interest in museums. So when we went to Detroit for the weekend two weeks ago, we had two goals: food and football. Before going on, a special massive thanks to Raj for taking a break from his normal 95% vegetarian lifestyle and for rocking an automobile with GPS to make a spectacular two-day event possible.
Megabus was awesome once again, getting me to Detroit in just under 6 hours, which included a 20 minute break at a truck stop. A car would have been about an hour faster, but I don’t have one. And if I did, it would have cost me more than the $18 bus fare in gas money. I got to Detroit just before 3 in the afternoon on Saturday. I left my hotel at 6:30 in the morning on Monday. In the less than two days in between, I tried pizza from six different places, burgers from five (4 were sliders), bought some excellent candy in Canada where I also made my first visit to Tim Horton’s, and went to the Lions game.
Coney Islands
Raj, who drove in from Cleveland, picked me up at the bus station and we went a mile away to taste a duo of chili dogs.
Lafayette Coney Island
American Coney Island
There may well be no food that Detroiters love more than their chili dogs, which they inexplicably call Coney Islands. These things are all over the city and I don’t fully understand why. They’re not bad – all beef hot dogs in a natural casing and covered with a chili that’s typically made from beef heart – but they’re not too exciting. Perhaps it’s one of those things you need to be raised on to truly crave. The two oldest purveyors in Detroit, Lafayette Coney Island and American Coney Island, were started by two brothers, are fierce rivals, and are right next door to each other so we tried both.
There are fierce loyalists for each place amongst Detroiters. I ate half a dog from each place within three minutes of one another and I can say this: anyone who tells you there’s a major difference between the two is a goddamned liar. Oh, and anyone who tells you either place is must-stop when in Detroit is wrong. Well, they’re kind of right because any culinary tour of Detroit has to include a Coney Island for the sake of thoroughness. But anyone who says you need to try one because they’re delicious is deeply confused.
Buddy’s
The next stop was in Hamtramck to check out the original location of Buddy’s, a classic Detroit pizzeria. For those unaware, Detroit has it’s own style of pizza, one with a thick crust similar to Sicilian or sheet pan pizza, but one that is crisper thanks to some extra fat of some sort worked into the recipe.
Before getting to Buddy’s at around 4:00 in the afternoon, the hot dogs were all I’d eaten all day as I was saving myself for Detroit. I worried that my hunger was playing tricks on me when the pizza arrived because it looked absolutely sensational. It was no mirage; this pizza was outstanding.
The sauce was a little sparse for my tastes and the sausage was merely average, but everything else about the pizza was outstanding. Great crust, loads of cheese, and some extra special greasiness made it every single bit as good as it looks.
Detroit style pizzas are sold in two sizes, four squares and 8 squares. Since there were only two of us, we got the smaller size, but I think if I were to return with 4 people, I’d get two smalls rather than a large. The reason? Every single piece on the smaller pizzas are from a corner, which means they have two sides that get the extra crunch and chew that comes from touching the edge of the pan.
Loui’s
As we continued north on our way to our hotel, the sweet ass Red Roof Inn in Troy, MI ($91 for two nights, including tax!), we stopped off at Loui’s, a second famous purveyor of Detroit style pizza. Check out the awesome decor:
The place is decorated with old wine bottles, the menus look like they haven’t been updated for years, the seats are covered in sweet pleather, and on a Saturday night in the winter, the line was out the door by 5:30. Guess why?
Because the pizza is absolutely exceptional. It had all of the positives of Buddy’s and none of the negatives. There was plenty of sauce and we got pepperoni, which is much more popular in Detroit than Chicago.
It was a mess, but it was a sensational mess. The cheese is not mozzarella, but rather a secret blend that is a shade tangy. It really was a flawless pizza; and definitely one of the best I ate all year.
What really catapulted Loui’s past Buddy’s was the crust, which was chewier, crispier, and greasier than Buddy’s. Every style of pizza has one place that makes it better than anyone else and I’m convinced that for Detroit style, that place is Loui’s.
Bray’s
Detroit has a great tradition of sliders, a food that in Chicago is only available at White Castle. Understand that when I say sliders, I mean traditional thin pieces of crap beef steamed into oblivious and covered with grilled onions and served on a soft, soft roll.
Bray’s is about a block from Loui’s and with that donkey statue on the roof, there was no way I was going to miss it. Unfortunately, the statue may signify what the meat is made out of. More likely, the jackass represents any customer who goes into the place. Everything about this slider was crap. The meat and onions were overcooked and devoid of flavor and the bun was stale. Fortunately, the rest of the sliders I had in Detroit were considerably better.
Oh, Canada!
Completely full of pizza, the night still young, and only one meal remaining, Raj and I had to figure out something to do. We were both recovering from colds, so drinking was out. And as tempting as it was to lie down in the hotel, we willed ourselves out. With nothing we could think of to do in Detroit, we decided to head south (yes, south) to Canada! This idea turned out to be stupid and brilliant.
Stupid, because the line to get into Canada took us about 45 minutes, giving us just about half an hour in Windsor before we had to head back. Brilliant because, in addition to checking out Tim Horton’s (good coffee, mediocre doughnuts) and a Canadian casino, I got to indulge in some awesome candy. See, due to its membership in the Commonwealth, Canada gets access to British candies. Mass produced candy in England is substantially superior to the American equivalent. Canadians also have Macintosh, a toffee I’ve been infatuated with since I first went to summer camp in the Boundary Waters.
The Mars, which is actually much more like our Milky Way, was multiple times better than what we get here in the U.S. All of the flavors, the chocolate, the caramel and especially the nougat, are all significantly more intense and natural-tasting than what we get. Similarly, the Werther’s toffee is richer and and substantially creamier than the American version. But the biggest star of the candy portion of my adventure was the strawberry “yogurt & fruit” candy that’s also made by Storck, the company that makes Werther’s. This hard candy tastes like a bowl of fresh strawberries and cream. Next time I’m in Canada, I’ll be getting multiple bags of this stuff.
Back to the USA
Remember that 45 minute wait to get into Canada? The wait to get back to the U.S. was about two minutes. There was literally one car in front of us and there were 3 or 4 open lanes. After successfully answering the border guard’s trick questions (what state is your car registered in?), we headed to Forest Grill, the restaurant I’d been dreaming of since I first made plans to go to Detroit months ago.
Chef Brian Polcyn is on the national map thanks to his mastery of charcuterie. He is the co-author of the book, Charcuterie, although his co-author Michael Ruhlman is largely referred to as the author for reasons I don’t understand. We don’t, after all, refer to the translator of Homer as being by the translator rather than Homer. I digress. The charcuterie plate comes with three meats, selected by the chef. One of them was cured pork shoulder that was really lightly seasoned. It was exceptionally tender, but not what I was hoping for from the master. Same goes for the paprika-spiced Hungarian salami. But the pork confit, friend and served with tomato confit, was worth the price of the while platter. It was one of those things you eat and are just amazed at how good food can be.
Almost as delicious as the pork confit/tomato confit combination was the lobster, apple and pancetta risotto. I’m not even that big of a risotto fan; I almost never order it. But the combination of flavors forced me to get it and I don’t regret a thing. I ate a little over half of it that night even though I was full beyond belief, and finished it off the next morning when it was even better.
I also had pizza and a burger at Forest Grill, but you’ll have to wait for the reviews on Serious Eats to hear about them. In the meantime, here’s a preview:
One more stop
From the “are you freaking kidding me files” comes one final stop. There’d been so much talk of sliders that we had to stop at Hunter House Hamburgers, one of the best places in town, on the way back to the hotel from the restaurant. It was awesome and because it too will be part of a future Serious Eats post, I will only offer you a preview:
December 24th, 2010
Tac Quick
When I was in LA last month, I had an incredible Thai meal at Jitlada. I left convinced that it blew away anything comparable in Chicago (by which I mean, excluding the ridiculously expensive Arun’s). I’d been to Sticky Rice enough to know it doesn’t hold a candle to Jitlada, but I hadn’t been back to TAC Quick for quite some time. On Sunday, I fixed that.
There were six people but one was a vegetarian which meant for ordering power there was five. Here’s the meal:
Seaweed Soup
I opted for the seaweed soup, which came with shrimp, chicken, seaweed, celery, carrot, mushroom and onion. It was okay, but more than a little too bland for my tastes.
Crispy on Choy
This dish, billed as tempura Chinese watercrest, shrimp, and ground chicken with spicy chili paste lime dressing, was pretty spectacular. According to the menu it’s supposed to be pretty spicy which makes me think they dulled it down a bit for us, but the combination of heat and acid in the sauce was still pretty special.
The noodle dish was Pad Mee, which is stir-fried vermicelli noodle with barbecued pork, tofu, shrimp, sprouts, onion, chili paste and some egg. I didn’t get much of the pork, but this was a fine noodle dish. Were it up to me, there would have been no noodle dishes on the table, but whatevs.
Pad Prik Khing
This dish was another excellent one, but also another one I’m unqualified to describe in any kind of detail because I have no idea what those seasonings are. I can say they were some moist pieces of nicely fried pork.
Kao Khaa Moo
When our server came back to tell us the beef roti I’d dreamed of wasn’t available, there was mad confusion at the table; we had no replacement dishes lined up. Our server suggested the Kao Khaa Moo. Had I looked at the translation on the menu and seen red-braised pork hock, but I had blind faith in the server and okayed the suggestion. The flavor was excellent and the dish managed to have a flavorful meaty taste despite having almost no meat at all. But this was basically a massive pile of fat with tiny bits of meat. Delicious if you can handle the texture, but any more than a couple of bites is asking for death.
Here’s how we ordered: there were 5 of us sharing food and we settled on ordering 8 entrees. Among the 8 were the five items listed on the specials board, none of which were written entirely in English. One such dish was the plate of grilled snails. Grilled was in English but snails was not.
The texture of the snails were a shade rubbery, but that was not the problem. These not so little critters were just unpleasant to eat. For the most part, they were bland, but that was only after scraping off the dirt (poo?) at the end of the things. They came with a spicy sauce that was very good but not flavorful enough to cover up the unpleasantness. In TAC Quick’s defense, other than the French butter bomb known as escargot, I don’t think I’ve ever had snail before. So, as they say in the internets, YMMV.
Brisket
So it turns out that more than Texas barbecue pitmasters and Jewish mothers know how to make some awesome brisket. Add TAC quick to the list.
Naem pork ribs
They were not remotely meaty and I still don’t know why they are served with peanuts and the rest of the accoutrements, but the salty and sour pork ribs were among my top 3 dishes that night.
Pad Pong Kari Talay
The second dish we ordered in the mad dash to replace the beef roti was Pad Pong Kari Talay, which I take full credit for picking. It’s a coconut milk curry with shrimp, squid, jalapeño and onion. Once again, ignorance gets in the way of me adequately describing this plate, but the blend of chewy and crunchy textures and sweet and spicy flavors was truly remarkable and was my favorite dish of the night.
So altogether, it was a successful meal but it was not on par with Jitlada. But in fairness, I went to Jitlada armed with most of menu choices planned out by some dude from the interwebs whose knowledge of Thai food is extraordinary. That said, Crispy on Choy and the pork ribs are widely praised as two of TAC Quick’s best dishes, so I feel confident that my initial assessment is accurate. That’ said, I’d gladly go back to TAC Quick tonight.
December 21st, 2010
Hot Doug’s Continues to Bring the Awesome
At this point it’s hard to imagine that anyone in Chicago with even a passing interest in delicious food who hasn’t been to Hot Doug’s. Hell, with the ease of access to information that the interwebs provide, if there’s anyone in the country who claims to have a serious interest in stellar inexpensive food, a lack of awareness of Hot Doug’s exposes them as a fraud.
On the off chance someone reading this doesn’t know the story (and on the off chance anyone is actually reading this site), here’s some background info: Doug Sohn is a culinary school grad who opened a sausage joint in Roscoe Village in 2000. He does sell regular hot dogs and sausages, some with some interesting toppings. But what put him on the map is his use of sausages made from just about the widest variety of meats available anywhere. He doesn’t make the sausages himself, but he is responsible for some really creative toppings combinations that elevate the place from simply a great sausage shop to a staggeringly good dining experience.
On Friday, I made it over there for lunch with Andrew. It was about 20 degrees out and, of course, the line was out the door. On Fridays and Saturdays, duck fat fries are available, but we made the decision to just split 3 dogs. Here’s what we had:
The Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage is topped with truffle aioli, foie gras mousse and fleur de sel. This one might be the most famous sausage at the place thanks to Sohn serving it in flagrant disregard and violation of Chicago’s colossally stupid foie gras ban a few years ago.
Each week, Sohn has a special Game of the Week and last week that animal was wild boar. Specifically, it was a three-chili wild boar sausage with chili-garlic mustard, raw milk-garlic cheddar spread and crispy fried onions. This thing was a fantastic flavor explosion designed for people with at least a moderately high heat tolerance. I realize that there has to be a limit to the size of the regular menu, but this thing really should be served all week.
As good as the first to were, the one that carried the day was this smoked crayfish and pork sausage with creole mustard and moody blue cheese drizzled with honey. This thing is a magnificently well-balanced high-quality meal on a bun. I have no idea how I hadn’t tried this one before, but I intend to make up for lost time soon.