Pig

by BS

Plate It or Hate It

Recent food world discoveries the ES crew is loving and hating

Plate It: Flashlight Grill Tongs

Problem: 60-degree February days means grilling season has started six months early, but it still gets dark outside at 5pm. Solution: Put a light on it! Available from homewetbar.com.

Hate It: Cup-a-Cake

Problem: You need to carry a single cupcake around with you all day, but just hate how the frosting gets all over everything in your purse. Wait, no…Really? Did this need to be invented?

Macaroni and Cheese Hot Dogs. Seriously.

Here’s a shocker for everyone: I’m here to report yet more breaking hot dog news! Two of my favorite trashy bar foods, mac & cheese and hot dogs, have found each other at last. Then they found my mouth.

We’ve covered the existence of macaroni & cheese hot dogs before on ES, but I’d never seen them in the wild… until now. During one of my many bar-hopping benders last week, I cruised into Po Dogs in Seattle for a late-night meat fix, and discovered the accurately named Mac ‘n’ Cheese Dog: Homemade macaroni and cheese topped with Tillamook cheddar cheese. As a professional food writer, I advise you to order barbecue sauce on this as well.

For those of you who demand yet more cheese-drenched meat options, feel free to order the Dub-T Dog: creamy cheese sauce, crushed potato chips, topped with mustard and ketchup.

I mean, why not? Frankly (no pun intended!), I would like to cover most of my meals in melted cheese. This is a step in the right direction.

Previously: Peanut Butter Bacon Hot Dogs. Seriously.
Octopus Hot Dogs. Seriously.

in Cheese / Pig / Red Meat / Restaurants 1 comments

by Emily

And in Today’s Disturbing International Candy News…

Amsterdam has provided the world with a lot of great things. The chance for drunken American college students who are “studying abroad” to get waaay overly excited about legally smoking a cheap joint in a coffee shop, for example. Now we have one more gift to add to the list: really creepy candy.

My friend Caitlin recently returned from a trip to Europe, and this was the souvenir she brought back for me. Weirdass pig gummy candies. “These just made me think of you! I had to buy them!” she said. I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted. Either way, they have the dubious distinction of being one of the most bizarre and upsettingly packaged foods I’ve seen in awhile. Those pigs… yikes. It’s like they’re staring into your soul with empty, lifeless eyes. And laughing at what they see. Don’t judge me, pigs!!!

Yes, that pig head is balanced on a wine glass.

Of course, if porcine gummies don’t do it for you, there’s always the candy Caitlin brought back from Spain, featuring a fat, bald, flying Casper on the package. Yum!

Sadly, these are just chocolate-covered peanuts. I was expecting something much more exciting, like… chocolate-covered ghosts. I guess just like you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t judge a candy by its entertainingly bad packaging. All of this makes me wonder: what American treats would freak out the Europeans? The Trix rabbit has always struck me as a bit creepy…

in Desserts / Food Travel / Pig 2 comments

by forkitude

Artsy Photo of the Day

This is what bacon should look like. Just FYI.

in Bacon / Photos / Pig 2 comments

by Emily

Octopus Hot Dogs. Seriously.

Earlier this week I attended an event called Foodportunity (don’t read that as Foodporntunity as I originally did), a networking party for Seattle-area food journalists and restauranteurs. I had an enjoyable time mingling and chatting, but let’s get real. I was there for the food. Washington restaurants, farms, and local markets were catering the event and handing out generous samples. Clearly I could not pass up the chance to stuff my face with a bunch of snacks I wouldn’t ordinarily get to try.

As we’ve already covered here on ES, I love unusual hot dogs. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw what James Beard Award-winning chef Tom Douglas was offering: Octopus chorizo & pork belly hot dogs with pickled fennel and lemon aioli!

How were they? Do you even have to ask? They were spicy, sweet, and slightly oily. The buns were soft and buttery (ugh, I feel like I am writing about actual food porn now). That doesn’t come as a surprise since Tom Douglas is known to have some of the best baked goods in the city, at Dahlia Bakery and all his other restaurants. Would I have guessed the meat was made from octopus? And how do you make octopus into chorizo? I don’t know the answer to these questions, I just know this was one of the best damn dogs I’ve ever put in my mouth.

in Pig / Trends 1 comments

by BS

America’s Best New Sandwiches — 2012

You want sandwiches? We got sandwiches. Last year, Endless Simmer’s post on America’s Top 10 New Sandwiches was our most-read story of 2011, and even helped turn The New Luther into a bit of a sell-out phenomenon. But America’s sandwich artisans haven’t stopped innovating, and we haven’t stopped salivating. So here we go, for your drooling-at-work pleasure, this year’s list of America’s top 10 craziest, loveliest, cheesiest, most creative new sandwiches.

10. The Noble Pig — Noble Pig Sandwiches, Austin

Texas may be best known for its beef, but perhaps not for long, if chefs John Bates and Brandon Martinez have anything to say about it. Their year-and-a-half-old Noble Pig serves up a namesake sandwich that somehow combines everything that is beautiful about pork products on one truly outstanding sandwich. Tender pulled pork, spicy slivers of ham, and crispy bits of bacon are all mixed together, topped with provolone cheese, and served on toasted, house-baked bread, for a porky trifecta that hits all of the spots. (Photo: Marshall Wright)

9. Pane et Panelle — Bar Stuzzichini, New York

Chickpeas may get typecast as functioning only in falafel form, but it turns out balls aren’t all they can do. Panelle is actually an old Sicilian street food snack—chickpeas and flour formed into light, airy strips and fried in olive oil. Stuzzichini‘s sandwich revives that classic and perfects it, layering crispy strips of panelle on a sesame-studded bun, in between levels of soft ricotta and caciocavallo cheeses. The result is a light-but-addictive sandwich that will make you curse every overly dense falafel wrap that has crossed your lips.

8. Chicharrones Banh Mi — Ink Sack, Los Angeles

There are a million banh mis in American nowadays, but we were most swept away by this version from Top Chef champ Michael Voltaggio. At his new Ink Sack sandwich shop, tender slices of pork belly and pork butt are topped with pickled vegetables, plus the kicker — crispy chicharróne fried pork rinds, creating one incredible multi-culti pork bomb.