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by Roo de Loo

Top 10 Things to Eat Before the End of the World

It’s no secret that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day—the end of the world—as so eloquently articulated (or do we mean ridiculously predicted?) by Family Radio Worldwide’s Harold Camping. Here at ES, we think the best solution to eminent annihilation is to indulge at one of our favorite foodie destinations. And if some of us survive, at least it’ll be easier to get a reservation.

10. English Pudding All Night

The stickiest way to finish up your time on Earth is at the Three Ways House Hotel in Gloucestershire, England, where they have created the Pudding Club, an “end of the world” experience where you can indulge in a tasting of no less than seven puddings, from oriental ginger to jam roly-poly, and even stay the night in a pudding-themed bedroom. Talk about going out with a bang.

9. Salt-Baked Fingerling Potatoes with Bacon Butter and Anchovy Mayo

Chef Megan Johnson at Elsewhere Restaurant in New York City has created a deceptively simple dish combining the best of all things fatty, starchy, salty and creamy—all the palette pleasers you’ll miss when forced to live on dirt and ants if you’re lucky enough to survive.

8. Mexican-Style Street Corn with Cotija Cheese and Ancho Chile Powder

Austin’s La Condesa restaurant not only serves up more than 100 varieties of blue agave tequila (an essential for pre-Judgment Day partying), but also offers this signature south-of-the-border street corn side dish. If the world really were ending soon, we’d start covering every vegetable we eat in cotija cheese and chili. (Photo: Shelly Roche)

7. East Mountain Pork Live Paté

A beautifully decadent house-made paté is accompanied by onion confit and rye toast at Mezze, a classic bistro and bar nestled in the Berkshires with views straight to heaven. (Photo: Gregory Nesbit)

6. 1949 Chevalier-Montrachet Maison Leroy

Our bomb shelter of choice would have to be the St. Regis Deer Valley’s wine vault, stocked with more than 1,000 different rare labels. Acclaimed sommelier Mark Eberwein recommends popping one of these 60-year-old whites for your last night on earth. (Photo: My Wines and More)

Next: Top 5 Things to Eat Before the End of the World

by BS

Top 10 Ways to Eat Mac ‘n’ Cheese Before You Die

Is mac ‘n’ cheese the new bacon? Everyone’s favorite comfort food has suddenly gotten a lot more versatile, showing up in everything from burgers to desserts. Here are ten insanely creative ways you should try mac ‘n’ cheese at least once (and probably only once).

10. Mac ‘n’ Cheese Sushi

Who says you can’t eat macaroni with chopsticks and sriracha?

Recipe: The Food in My Beard

9. Mac ‘n’ Cheese Burgers

One comfort food stuffed inside another.

Recipe: The Food in My Beard

8. Mac ‘n’ Cheese Grilled Cheese

The ultimate addition to any grilled cheese sandwich? More cheese.

Recipe: Endless Simmer

7. Mac ‘n’ Cheese Hot Dog

A crucial stop on the ultimate New York hot dog crawl is this bad boy at Ditch Plains. (Photo: Ditch Plains)

6. Fried Mac ‘n’ Cheese

Then there’s mac ‘n’ cheese state fair style: battered and deep-fried.

Recipe: Always Order Dessert

Next: Top 5 Ways to Eat Mac ‘n’ Cheese Before You Die

in Bacon / Cheese / Eggs / Featured / Lists / Red Meat / Restaurants / Top 10 Lists 2 comments

by forkitude

If Only I Could Have Eaten My Way Through School

That cartoon light bulb sometimes appears over my head when I eat certain things; food is strongly connected with my memories. Ask me anything about high school calculus and I will probably stare at you blankly. But let me eat my way through Little Italy in NYC to find that amazing, hole-in-the-wall joint where I had that lasagna on our high school trip to the city, and I am sure I could tell you (or I would at least have fun looking for it).

Most of my memories of eating studying around Europe are connected with food. It was not only the food itself, but what was happening around us, the weather, how we were feeling, the people we were with, whether we were upset or happy or sick or drunk. Cantaloupe gelato in Bergamo, Italy. Proscuitto wrapped melon in Venice. And I can’t forget the bus ride out of Venice and the urgency with which I asked the bus driver to stop at the next exit. Too much vino and partying the night before? Of course not. I just needed some air. Ah-em.

I remember the potato soup and “mean green bean salad” (as I called it) that I cooked at a friend’s apartment while her French host parents were on vacation. American girls shopping for ingredients and cooking in a French kitchen. Yep, dream. What I learned in school that day? I couldn’t tell you. But every time I make potato soup, I think about that French apartment. It’s a memory so clear, it was like it happened yesterday.

Top Chef All-Stars Exit Interview: Episode 10

Top Chef All-Stars is really getting down to the nitty-gritty, with just seven chef-testants left this week. But one of them ended the episode about as happy as cookie monster at a make-your-own-salad party. We find out what went wrong, after the jump.

Show Me the Playbook

“Do you know the name of the large black bean?” I asked our waiter, shoving my arm into my winter jacket’s sleeve. BS and I had finished our Rancho Gordo three bean salad at Flatbush Farm, a Brooklyn restaurant focusing on humanely raised animals and vegetables, and we were steps away from the door. But I had to ask. It was the best bean salad I’ve ever had.

A warm and tender polenta base, as smooth as hummus, provided the backdrop to lovingly cooked beans. Soft but not mushy, like the pillows in a furniture showroom.

The waiter, having taken an American Apparel ad too seriously, sported perfectly cuffed trousers showing just the right amount of white sock. “I can find out for you,” he answered back.

He walked behind the bar and pulled out a binder, or what Flatbush Farm refers to as its playbook. Along with the slim binder, filled with printed pages and handwritten notes, the waiter brought out a glass with a variety of dried beans. Feeling his way around the beans, he simultaneously flipped through the binder’s pages.

“Scarlet Runner Bean,” he answered.

We thanked the waiter and walked out. “Holy crap that was cool,” I blurted out as the door closed behind us. “He just whipped out a book and told me exactly what kind of bean was in that salad. He didn’t have to ask the chef or anything. Do you think other restaurants have that kind of book? I’ve never seen it before.”

“Maybe you should start to ask to see the playbook everywhere you go,” BS replied.

in Restaurants / Trends 0 comments

by BS

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

– Reaching back to an old Friday Fuck Up, erisgrrrl confirms that cooking kale chips is easier said than done:

I have tried to make kale chips twice and both times it was fail city! They looks so easy and tasty! I have no idea what I did wrong but it was no good! So, I totally feel your pain!

Why is this so hard? Some tips please? Anyone?

– In another oldie-but-goodie, real live French-Canadian Jean-Guy Bourque approves of our NYC Tour de Poutine:

I am a French-Canadian who left Montreal for a 6 month visit to the USA 42 years ago, and I’m still here in New Jersey…I am very happy to see that you can finally get a taste of Montreal here in the NYC area! Bravo! What I really hope for is for “smoked meat” to also catch on here…You’ll forget about NY style pastrami once you’ve tried Montreal’s smoked meat! Also the Montreal style of BBQ chicken that you get at places like Chalet BBQ, Benny’s or St Hubert BBQ…

Consider us on board the smoked meat bandwagon!

– Finally, star ES commenter erica offers up some more ideas for what to cook with lentils:

America’s Top 10 New Sandwiches

Forget who piles pastrami highest or fits the most varieties of cold cuts onto one hero roll. A great sandwich has come to mean more than just bigger, better and meatier. Across the country, a new breed of sandwich artisans are taking lunchtime to a whole ‘nother level. From California to New England, here are Endless Simmer’s top ten favorite new sandwiches.

10. The Spuckie — Cutty’s, Boston

Spuckie is a term used by old-school Bostonians to identify any sub sandwich, but it’s increasingly associated with this year-old Brookline shop. It’s also probably the one sandwich that most successfully merges the old-school method of overdoing it on Italian meats with the new world of artisan, veggie-centric goodness. Super-thin slices of fennel salami, hot capicola and mortadella are layered on an oversize ciabatta, then topped with gooey, hand-pulled mozzarella and a fresh olive-carrot salad. For even less traditional sandwich-lovers, there’s also an eggplant spuckie available.

9. Bulgogi Steak Sandwich — Koja, Philadelphia

At the risk of outraging an entire city, we’re going to say it: the Philly cheesesteak is boring. With no disrespect meant to the age-old art of slathering fake cheese on top of a mound of meat, we just think this is one classic sandwich that is ready for a creative update. Enter University City sandwich truck Koja, where the chewy cheesesteak meat is replaced with bulgogi, Korea’s signature thinly-sliced, spicy BBQ beef. It’s served on a hoagie roll that’s coated in sweet chili oil and accented by sauteed peppers and onions. Koja also offers bulgogi pork and bulgogi chicken variations, but the best part is the unbelievable price — $3. Read more about this amazing sandwich at My Inner Fatty.

8.Crispy Drunken Sandwich — Baguette Box, Seattle

Have you ever dug into a steamy styrofoam container of General Tso’s chicken and thought, “this is delicious, but it would be even tastier on a bun?” Of course you haven’t, that’s the most insane thing we’ve ever heard. But crazy is sometimes genius, as is proven at this tiny Seattle sandwich shop, where hunks of tender chicken are deep-fried and glazed in a tangy brown sauce, then served on a crispy baguette with caramelized onions and cilantro. The result is a supremely sticky, but utterly satisfying sandwich. (Photo: Sevius)

7. Cheesy Mac and Rib — The Grilled Cheese Truck, Los Angeles

Another new West Coast outpost that achieves genius results by thinking outside the bun, LA’s great cheese-on-wheels purveyor offers several list-worthy grilled sandwiches, but none is more awe-inspiring than this. Sharp cheddar mac-and-cheese, strands of sweet BBQ pork and caramelized onions are all stuffed into two perfectly buttered-and-fried slices of white bread. Yes, it sounds like the horrifying 3 a.m. creation of a stoned college student. Yes, it actually works.
(Photo: Grilled Cheese Truck)

6. Pibil Torta — Xoco, Chicago

Upgrading Mexican street food has suddenly become a hot task of haute chefs around the nation, although the results often have us pining for the real thing. Not so at Rick Bayless’ Chicago sandwich shop, where tortas baked in the wood-burning oven take Mexican to levels we didn’t know existed. In this sandwich, silky strands of roasted suckling pig are served on crusty bread spread with black beans and achiote paste, then finished with a layer of pickled onions and habanero salsa. The Pibil may be one extra ingredient away from being a Top Chef disaster story, but as is, it’s perfection on bread.

Next: The top 5

in Breakfast / Cheese / Featured / Fowl / Lists / Pig / Red Meat / Sandwich / Veggie 49 comments