You Shouldn’t Be the Chef

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I wasn’t sure if it was a dream or a nightmare. I was in New Jersey (no jokes) with my family (really, no jokes) and I scanned the American-Italian menu. The usual suspects appeared: chicken parm, eggplant manicotti, veal marsella. And then I saw what should be the biggest kitchen disaster: customers allowed to create their own meal. There were no guidelines. No suggestions. No boundaries. Just boxed-in text suggesting the customer be the chef.

Maybe without a price range this option could be lucrative. But all I imagine are bitchy, bossy, hungry South Jerseyans ordering outrageous requests. Triple lobster. No butter. No Salt. Extra crab. No fat. No sugar.

This can’t be a step in the right direction in restaurant-patron relations, can it?

Related
100 Things Restaurant Patrons Should Never Do
Patrons Shouldn’t Have This Much Power

The Great Vegetarian Jerky-Off

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Editor’s Note: Our intermittent vegetarian correspondent, Alex, recently took on an epic (and tasty) assignment for ES, with some assistance from her eager crew of med student friends/taste testers.

You learn a lot of important things in medical school, but far and away the most useful skill you attain is the ability to snack like nobody’s business. Studying for finals? Almonds and chocolate-covered espresso beans. Bummed about a quiz? Ice cream and wine. Just a run-of-the-mill study night? Well, technically you’ve already eaten dinner, but popcorn is like basically not food anyway.

Now, being a vegetarian, I had never considered any meaty snacks, but it occurred to me awhile ago that back in my carnivore days, I used to love (LOVE) beef jerky. And heck, they do everything veg now, so it led me to wonder — is there a veg jerky option?

Turns out, yes, holy cow, there are about a zillion. And thus the Great Vegetarian Jerky-Off was born.

Fourteen varieties of faux beef jerky. Several hungry medical students. One night. Some beer.

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The setup was highly organized for impartiality: blind taste test, with ES rep BS serving up the samples (and monitoring for legitimacy). Med students were selected for their snacking prowess, jerky expertise and, um, being my friends. Jerkies were supplied by Vegan Dream, Tasty Eats and Primal Strips. (Tofurky tried to help us out too, but unfortunately nobody in the Upper Valley sells Tofurky Jerky. Sorry Tofurky, we tried.)

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The Crawl: Philly Beer Week

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A successful pub crawl is a work of art. It’s something that you can only plan out so much. There needs to be “feel” involved. You need to know when to stick around and when to beat it for greener pastures. But when you decide to put together a do-it-yourself crawl during the thick of the drinking festival that is Philly Beer Week, your chances of success go up quite a bit.

Of course, this sort of thing is never fun to do it alone, so I recruited Dad to tag along. Though not as big a beer nerd as me, he was up for the challenge. Plus, having someone else with you means you get to taste their beer, too, so good for me. FYI…times are provided courtesy of my Foursquare check-ins. It all kinda got blurry towards the end, so this is the best evidence I have of my travels.

1:40 Monk’s Cafe had to be the first stop of the day. World-renowned for its amazing collection of Belgian beer on tap, I was happy to find plenty of room at the bar, which isn’t usually the case. I decided to kick things off in style with a Petrus Aged Pale Ale. It was pleasantly sour (aged in oak barrels), aggressive and — at over $9 for a small tulip glass — pricey. I’m glad I had it early when I could still enjoy it.

2:55 – Soccer time, and it was on to McGillin’s! I’ve mentioned them before and I love the place because it’s fun and familiar. While they don’t have the exotic selection of beers like other bars in Philly, they do focus on having something from all of the local breweries. Eat locally, drink locally! I got to taste Victory’s new Summer Love, a special variety marketed in conjunction with Philly’s visitor bureau (yeah, we’re serious about beer in this town), which matched perfectly with some buffalo wings and onion rings. Also fun: Getting to watch the English goalie become a pariah in his home country.

After the jump, plenty more beer, I make a new friend and score some food from an Iron Chef!

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Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

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The third week of June somehow turned into recipe crowdsourcing week on ES and of course ya’ll were full of all sorts of suggestions — thanks!

Liza came through with some alcoholic popsicle ideas:

I was going to suggest a margarita pop or a mojito pop. OH you could try a sweat tea vodka pop?? Get some firefly and add some other stuff?? Beer Popsicles???

Yes, yes and yes. We had some disagreements in the comments about whether this is even possible, but we’re sure gonna try!

– On to the question of scapes, butter seems to be the popular choice. kate:

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ES Local: What’s Eating DC

Our weekly roundup of the best eating and drinking events going down in Washington, DC.

Event of the Week: With all the amazing Father’s Day events happening it almost makes me want to be a parent. I said almost. I have to give a notable mention to Co Co Sala’s Scotch & Chocolate tasting this Sunday, luckily you don’t have to be a dad for that one!


View ES Local: What’s Eating DC in a larger map

Remember, you can check out the constantly updated map any day of the week.

If you represent a restaurant or bar and wish to have your event listed on the ES Local: What’s Eating DC map, please write to me at britannia(at)endlesssimmer(dot)com

Top Chef Exit Interview: Episode 1

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Holy Poop Balls! Top Chef is back. (And so is Padma’s rack.) Season 7 will surely provide awesome chefs, over the top douche bags and horrible DC-related puns, as demonstrated by the first episode’s name: House of Chef-presentatives.

Here’s our chat with the first axed chef’testant.

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Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: A Taste of the Exotic East?

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The latest and greatest news about celebrity chefs, served up buffet style.

– Wait…there’s an Indian food show on television?  On American television?  Really?

– Easy Joke Alert:  People were angry when they couldn’t get in to a taping of Emeril’s show.  Even more angry?  The people who did get in.

After the jump…a Philly chef gets southern and stays local and Cat Cora gets herself some of that Oprah money.

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