Road (and food) trip across Georgia

After a whirlwind 10 days through Georgia (with, impossibly, four stops in Milledgeville, home of "Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo"-?!?) and into South Carolina, I think I could go at least 48 hours without eating or feeling hungry!  But despite the bloat, I wouldn't have skipped any one of the amazing meals I ate on the road:

Strong coffee and a homemade giant cookie, to keep me awake until Athens at Blackbird Coffee, 114 W Hancock St, Milledgeville GA











A veggie and hummus sandwich on homemade marble rye and Louisiana voodoo chips tucked away in an industrial park at Southern Sweets Bakery, 186 Rio Circle, Decatur GA

Poached salmon with pesto and an appetizer of the tenderest escargot on the planet at Circa 1875 Gastro Pub, 48 Whitaker Street, Savannah GA





Penne pasta in red pepper and goat cheese sauce and fried green tomatoes drizzled with Vidalia onion-bacon buttermilk dressing at Last Resort Grill, 184 West Clayton St, Athens GA

Pulled and ground pork sliders and a delicious Moo-Hoo draft brewed locally at Trappeze, 269 North Hull St, Athens GA






Spicy peel-and-eat shrimp and mussels with fennel at Pearlz Oyster Bar, 936 Gervais St, Columbia SC

A pork chop the size of my torso and a mini shepherd's pie made with pulled pork at Manchester Arms Pub, 1705 Virginia Ave, Atlanta GA (College Park neighborhood)








The only delicious banh mi I have every eaten, made with ground pork and served with a side of fish sauce for dipping at Immaculate Consumption, 933 Main St, Columbia SC

True soul food served on the line: fried chicken, butter beans, collared greens, a biscuit, and of course, sweet tea that hurt my teeth at The Bears Den Dine In, 1191 Oglethorpe St, Macon GA









Virginia oysters served with a housemade cucumber dressing, light-as-air gnocchi with octopus and lobster, and fizzy vinho verde at Seven Lamps, 3400 Lenox Rd, Atlanta GA (Buckhead)

A giant tamale made with pork shoulder and served with green chile-mole sauce and inventive bourbon cocktails at Alma Cochina, 191 Peachtree St, Atlanta GA (downtown)

Another homage to Brazil

The last night I was in Brazil, I was entreated to a night at the local Samba bar, which I was assured was a "very Brazilian experience".  The band was very loud and people were boisterous, not so different from a good bar at home.  But Samba music is for carnival, which would be sort of like partying in New Orleans, and interestingly, although the dance floor was a reasonable size, many people chose to merely stand up behind their chairs and dance, thereby maintaining conversation with their table mates. I can't universalize this experience since it was the only Samba bar I visited, but I describe it to you because it effected the atmosphere; dancing was not cordoned off to an appropriate place, it was everywhere!  And therefore the dance floor sort of came to us, whether we were standing or sitting.

Buckets of that weak, weak beer were kept full at all times throughout the bar, and at some point a large sizzling platter (think fajitas) arrived on the table filled with meat, veggies, and cheese, with a little crusty garlic bread on the side.  Everyone took nibbles between sweat-inducing dances and still felt full of energy at 2am when we left! I tried out this recreation on my meat-loving family when they visited last week and it was a hit.  We probably could have stood some exercise afterward, though...

Brazilian Sizzling Plate

Serves 6

For the meat:
2.5-3 lb. flank steak or similar cut
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon mustard
2 shallots, finely minced
other ingredients:
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 small butternut squash, peeled, cubed, and boiled until al dente
4 white potatoes, peeled, cubed, and boiled until al dente
3 bell peppers, cut into 1/2-inch strips
4 oz. white mushrooms, sliced
salt to taste
8 oz. shredded or thinly sliced cheese of your choice (I used Irish cheddar), optional

Grill the meat outside: The night before you make this, combine steak and all marinade ingredients thoroughly in a gallon zip-top bag.  Refrigerate overnight and turn occasionally.  Grill over hot coals 3-4 inches from the heat; cook 4 minutes on each side for mid-rare or longer if you want the meat more done (it will cook a little more on the grill pan). Cover in foil to keep warm while you...

Toss the veggies with a little bit of olive oil and salt.  On a well-oiled grill pan inside, cook everything until it chars (if you have to do it in shifts, just keep what's been cooked on a baking sheet in the oven at 250 F so it stays warm).  Slice the grilled meat into thin strips and toss with all of the veggies on the grill pan (add anything that's been sitting in the oven).  Sprinkle cheese on top and cover with a large heat-proof bowl; cook just until cheese is melted.

Plop the grill pan on the table, serve with crusty white bread, hot sauces, and forks.  Plates optional.

Lobster-like Bisque

As promised, here is the first of three Vegas-inspired recipes from my recent trip.  This is nearly as good as the Lobster Bisque I had at Caesar's Palace, and a whole lot cheaper. A special thanks to Tyler Florence for help on some of the particulars.

Lobster-like Bisque

Serves 4

1 - 2 cups cooked lobster meat (you can now find lobster meat frozen or canned in most supermarkets)
½ cup dry sherry or dry white wine
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
½ cup onion, diced
¼ cup celery, diced
¼ cup carrot, diced
Salt and white pepper, to taste
½ teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning, or to taste
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cups whole milk
1 cup half and half
1 cup chicken stock 

Combine the lobster meat with the sherry. Cover and refrigerate.

In a hot pan over medium heat, melt the butter. Once it stops sputtering, add the onion, celery, carrot, salt and pepper and Old Bay. Stir and let cook until the vegetables are translucent and are getting soft.

Add the tomato paste and cook for another couple of minutes. Add the flour and cook for two to three minutes, stirring all the time. While whisking, add the cold milk, half and half and stock and bring to a boil. Let boil for about 1 minute, still whisking constantly. Turn the heat down and let simmer until slightly reduced.

Then, 

Option 1: using an immersion blender, blend the soup until smooth.

OR 

Option 2: Strain the soup through a fine mesh strainer, pressing down on the solids.

Taste, and add more salt, pepper or Old Bay, if you think it needs it. Add the reserved lobster and sherry to the pot and simmer for just a couple of minutes, so the lobster is heated through.

Suggestions: Serve with crusty bread and maybe a little sour cream on the top. If you want to be really fancy, sprinkle on a little chopped tarragon as garnish.

I went to Las Vegas, and all I got was...broke.

Travelling back in time to Ancient Rome would have been way cheaper.

Eleven years ago, when I last visited Vegas, there were cheap rooms, free entertainment walking along the strip, and breakfast buffets that cost $3.99.  When I went to Vegas last week, there were discounted rooms in overpriced hotels who nickeled and dimed you for everything, 20-minute walks just to cross the street, and $14 breakfasts of scrambled eggs and coffee.  It's not totally fair for me to say this: I was staying at in-love-with-itself Caesar's Palace.  I suspect that, on the outskirts of The Strip, things are still more reasonable.  I have also heard that the downtown area (Fremont Street was recommended, but I never made it that far) yields some great restaurants at much better prices.  I cannot speak to this experience because I was dutifully trying to attend the convention I was supposed to be dutifully attending; all I can say is, if you stay on the strip, expect to get gouged (or at least inconvenienced if you search for alternatives).

Caesar's Palace, by the way, has given up trying to keep customers happy.  There is no uniform policy on anything--check-in time, what's included in the hotel room price, and even the hotel room price itself is all negotiable, depending on who you talk to and how good your social skills are.  I happened to have hitched my wagon to a very sociable star while I was there, but otherwise, I would have been screwed, as I possess no amount of social finesse whatsoever.

So, blah blah blah, the food was too expensive.  But I did manage to find a couple of little gems in the midst of the cigarette smoke and sad gambling people who didn't know what day of the week it was or whether it was night or day.

I think this guy made my noodles!

Beijing Noodle No. 9 

You can pay a lot to eat to eat some pretty mundane Chinese food, of you can stick to the first page of the menu and have one of their noodle dishes with homemade, hand stretched, traditional noodles.  I paid $12 for a big bowl of carb-o-riffic magic that got me through the night and allowed me to skip breakfast the next morning.

Warnings: the service is slow and bitchy.  Bitchy as hell, actually.  The restaurant is loud and all a blindingly bright white, so just go ahead and wear your sunglasses indoors.  It's not the weirdest looking thing they'll see.

payard PÂTISSERIE & BISTRO

This place is a bit more expensive but also offers a much more varied menu in terms of consistent acceptability.  Execution is fine, the bread they bring to the table is actually amazing, and the wine list is quite good.  At dinner (but be forewarned, not at lunch), the lobster bisque suffices as a fine meal, and the quiche and side salad is a satisfying, safe choice.  Portions are large.


Warnings: the service is just as shitty as Beijing Noodle No. 9.  I asked if they could split the check for lunch, and I was actually told, "well, you shouldn't do that if you're not planning on paying separately" with quite a bit of attitude.  So, shitty and incredibly stupid is a more accurate way to describe the service that day.

Rao's
I occasionally buy their jarred sauce as a jump start for a quickie lasagne at home.  The prices were too steep to justify a plate of pasta and tomatoes, but their wine list was not any more expensive than the cheaper in-house restaurants, and they had some real gems.  The cheapest red on the menu, the Primitivo, was quite good--full-bodied yet fruity--and the Prosecco was just right.

Warnings: no complaints about service--they were perfectly lovely.

Flamingo Pizza

When you get sick of the terrible service and overpriced food, it's time to get some carry-out.  Be forewarned, you will have to walk out to the far lane of shuttles and taxi service and meet some sketchy dude in an unmarked, 1990 red Honda Civic and sneak it back up to your room while no one is looking, but it will be worth it.  The pasta with garlic butter and mushrooms is ridiculously simple and good.

Warnings: I think they might be getting stoned at work here.  You will wait a loooong time to get your food, and then it will not come with utensils.  Ask ahead for forks or whatever the obvious choice for eating is, because it will not be obvious to them.

Now that I've recovered from the cigarette smoke and low self-esteem I developed in these restaurants, I've come up with some pretty convincing replications of these dishes (which are all pretty basic, anyway); stay tuned in my next posts for recipes for Chinese noodles with eggs and tomato, Lobster-like bisque, and fettuccine with garlic, butter, and mushrooms.

Le Craperie Fort Collins

This cost me $12.

OK, it is juvenile to call a "creperie" a "craperie"--I apologize for that.  But really, this place kind of sucks.

You may know of my penchant for French goodies from reading my reviews of Le Central, one of my favorite restaurants in Denver, and Cafe Panache, one of the few edible restaurants in Greeley.  The way I see it (and I'm not in the food industry, just picky), great French food is about the ingredients.  It's also about technique if you're dealing with haute Parisian cuisine, but here in Northern Colorado, we just seem to keep getting the same southern French, down-home food.  Fine by me--it means I can get a good egg dish wherever I happen to be.  But all I'm saying is that, when it comes to crepes, omelets, and the occasional plate of mussels and fries, the best dishes are a product of terrific ingredients and minimal alteration by cooking.  The seasoning is not particularly exotic or complicated, either, so you can't hide if you use canned crap (though you should take some care in seasoning, too).

Having said this, I'm pretty sure La Creperie and Bakery of Fort Collins is using some canned crap, or old crap, or something not up to par.  When you look at the menu, it sounds exciting, doesn't it?  And there is no one else satisfying these tastes in Fort Collins right now, so I really wanted to like the place.  Despite the fact that they charge a whole lot more than the fabulous Le Central, I went in with an open mind.  At $12 for a crepe, I wasn't going to become a regular customer, but I would certainly tell you about it if it was tasty.

The galettes are made with the traditional buckwheat flour, and they are lovely--thin, spongy in the middle, crispy on the edges, and quite salty.  The filling is the problem.  The scrambled eggs are inoffensive, but get a bite by itself and you find there is little seasoning added.  Likewise, the spinach was unsalted and not properly drained, creating a big wet ball of slime here and there.  These are cheap and simple ingredients (and a staple of southern French cuisine), but they deserve respect.  Make them delicious--it's not difficult!

Smoked salmon features heavily on the menu, but it was quite fishy the day I visited.  I realize that we are not exactly living near a supply of fresh coho, but other restaurants manage to offer well-balanced fish, and at these prices, La Creperie can do it, too.  Or if not, then they need to cut the salmon from the menu.  It was incredibly unpleasant.  Likewise, the brie is thrown in unevenly in thick hunks, so one bite might be a nice balance of egg, caper, and cheese, but the next mouthful is nothing but a block of chalky, oozing brie and fishy salmon.  Doesn't sound too pretty, does it?

La Creperie also boasts its own bakery, and the croissants are quite nice--fluffy, buttery, and rather salty.  So are the baguettes, though I detected a slight burned flavor to the crust which was a little off-putting.  The coffee is also pleasant--medium-bodied with a pleasant nuttiness--but at $2.25 for a mere cup of the unadorned stuff, it's a pretty expensive way to enjoy a cup of coffee and a pastry in the morning.

Finally, the service is unapologetically slow, and they make no effort to bring meals out together.  They even say in their menu, "They are  made fresh to order and served immediately– hot and delicious – Perhaps not all at  once but don’t worry you won’t have to fend off your tablemates for long."   And then they direct you to eat your galette right away, even if everyone else at your table is still waiting for their food.  I don't understand this--do they only have one crepe maker?  Perhaps they could use some of that $15 I spent on lunch the other day and start saving up to order another one.  


Obviously, I don't have much to say that is positive about this place.  I would like for there to be a charming, delicious French bakery/creperie in Fort Collins, and I would even be willing to pay a little more once in a while to keep a great creperie going.  But La Creperie of Fort Collins is collecting  high fees for a low-quality product, and I can't wrap my brain around the notion of rewarding such behavior.  Perhaps, like Cafe Panache in Greeley, they need to create a smaller menu that they can consistently recreate every day.  But for the time being, I'd put my money on some nice Indian food down the street instead.

I had crepes for breakfast and you didn't, nya nya...

Does this hat make me look offensively stereotypical enough?

I stopped in at the local new place in my neighborhood, Cafe Panache, at 821 10th Street in Greeley. CO.  They've barely been open a week, which means they shouldn't have their act together yet, so I was prepared for things to be a little clumsy while they develop a routine.  But you know what?  I already love the place. Simply put, they do crepes--the kind you buy on the street in Paris, neatly folded and and wrapped in paper--that you can eat at the table or carry back to work.  Fillings range from the very French-sounding (apple, walnut, & bleu cheese; mushroom & leek) to child's fair (Nutella), to the slightly adventurous (banana, peanut butter, and bacon), and they are delicious. The price is right, too: $3.75 or $4.25 for one of the more adventurous ones.  It's filling, reasonably fast, and definitely the most interesting sandwich you're going to get in Greeley.

We stumbled in for breakfast this morning just as they were opening, and as an apology for being slow (they weren't), we got a free macadamia nut biscotti drizzled with chocolate while we waited.  I am not normally a fan of these dreadful things, which amount to a long crouton with some hard chocolate on top.  But this one actually had some moisture to it, reminding me more of a nice piece of shortbread.  And the coffee was pleasant, too.  No high-powered acidic Starbucks brew, but it was roasty, flavorful, and a soothing, gentle compliment to my mushroom-leek crepe.

If you are in the area, please go.  I hate to see this place struggle, because they're doing everything right.  And I rarely say that with such wild abandon here in Greeley.  7am-2pm M-Th; 7am-10pm F.  

Great French food in Denver--it exists!

Think French restaurants are out of your price range?  Let me introduce you to Le Central  in LoDo, Denver.  The food is great, the prices are right, and it’s a charming building in a charming neighborhood (parking kinda sucks during the week, but it’s Denver).

Le Central opened in 1981 with the mission of bringing authentic Provençal food to the little people (my wording, not their’s).  They have their own in-house bakery, make their own paté and sausage (eew), give cooking demonstrations the last Tuesday of every month, cater weddings and host small parties in the restaurant, offer special menus for holidays and Prixfixe menus as well as a constant menu that’s huge, and…and…oh, you’ll just have to visit the website.  It’s too exhausting to list everything they do.  Suffice it to say that if you live nearby, you could get away with never cooking again.

I have had brunch and mussels for lunch (yes, mussels have their own menu).  I’m glad that I live over an hour away or I would be very fat by now.

For brunch, the egg section of the menu (Oeufs) can’t be beat.  For $7, you’ll get so much food you won’t need to eat for the rest of the day.  Oeufs Sardou is a take on Eggs Benedict, but with succulent braised artichoke hearts in lieu of meat and tangy Béarnaise instead of Hollandaise sauce.  (The Benedict is also delish.)  Each dish is served with a heaping pile of mashed potatoes and a roasted potato.  Try not to fill up on the beautiful, perfectly crisp outside, fluffy inside homemade bread they bring when you first sit down or you might not make it.  The mimosas and Bloody Marys are also $3 on Saturdays.  This place beats Yolk in Chicago, and that’s saying a lot.

Oh, I also got escargots en brioche at brunch.  Beautifully garlicky and buttery, my only complaint is that the perfectly nice bread that came with the escargots was not quite as amazing as the bread that came in the basket.


The mussels I had for lunch (this was on a different day--don’t worry) come in a big bucket--more beautiful garlic and butter, more perfectly chosen herbs and spices (really, check out the menu; the choices are mind-boggling).  And if you didn’t love Le Central enough for giving mussels their due on the menu, every order comes with unlimited pommes frites--thick-cut, golden, rich and crunchy--need I say more?

Oh, I can say more.  The atmosphere is cozy and welcoming, the service (always French waiters, it seems) is impeccable, and I dream about eating there every day.  Le Central teaches us about the best aspects of French culture: good food and drink, good manners, and joie de vivre!