SLOP PRESS | Ready To Dine: May 2011

Steaks Is High: A food science article giving you the skinny on beef.

The Philippines: They have not marketed themselves very well as a destination spot but the service is amazing, the beaches are world class, amazing surf, tons of history, good food and very affordable.

A TASTE OF CANADA'S LITTLE-KNOWN FRESHWATER FISHERY

VANCOUVER SLOP: HIDDEN

2:41 PM Reporter: the clutterer 4 Responses

Hidden, the latest reincarnation of the Westin Grand's restaurant, is a concept that works in context: a hotel restaurant that offers its guests all the familiarity of comfort food, but with enough tweaks to remind you that you're not in Kansas anymore.

The restaurant, aptly named considering its near non-existent street presence, obviously isn't the first to offer a "unique take on comfort food," now a generic modus operandi that means little to anyone. The menu is divvied up into categories like "Earth," "Land," and "Sea" (the first two, while confusing, are meant to separate vegetarian options from the meat options), and features Hidden's take on classic chain-restaurant fare.

The most notable is the chicken and waffles ($12; picture above). The former is a buttermilk battered and fried chicken breast, served atop the latter, a savory cheddar waffle, with a watermelon relish to accompany. There's not too many places that offer chicken and waffles in town, and so any entry - tweaked or not - is welcome. Hidden's version is crisp and miraculously light, with the watermelon relish giving the whole plate a clean finish.

The other dishes aren't quite as successful. The lobster poutine ($10) is really a bowl of enormously cut potato wedges, hollandaise sauce, some melted cheese curds and a couple chunks of lobster sitting atop, all of it an awkward marriage. A bay scallop mac and cheese ($15) comes with the mac in one bowl and the scallops, served with a raisin and onion relish, on the side, without a clear connection between the two (the server observed that most people end up eating them separately). Neither are interesting on their own, but mix them together and you've got a curiosity.

It seems that no restaurant of this sort is comfortable these days without offering sliders of some sort. Hidden has decided not to do much out of the ordinary with their's ($13), except, perhaps, for serving it on an overly dry brioche bun.

What's the attraction then? For $15, you can try any two items (albeit in reduced portion sizes) on the menu for lunch. Coupled that with a much more quiet venue, with hotel level service, and Hidden's got most chain restaurants beat. It's for those wanting something familiar...even in their quirks.

Joe.

Hidden Tasting at the Westin Grand
433 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC
(604) 647-2521

restaurants, Vancouver |

SEATTLE SLOP: SPINASSE (EXPANSION)

2:28 AM Reporter: supermouthhappy 1 Response

Spinasse, in Seattle’s Pike/Pine Corridor, focuses on the cuisine of Piedmont in northern Italy, but highlights seasonal ingredients from the Pacific Northwest.

my table view in the original dining space

I was invited to a Friends & Family event to celebrate the new expansion of Spinasse, a doubling in size that’s expanding both the kitchen (including a new pasta-making station on display) and the dining room. Spinasse Chef Jason Stratton has been a close friend of mine for nearly 15 years (we were friends in high school and roommates in college) and I’ve become good friends with many of the staff here, both front of house and in the kitchen.

The restaurant has been open approximately three years now in a relatively small space that attempted to encourage a communal dining atmosphere and concentrated on pastas shared family-style. Jason was brought in as head chef just over a year later and made some swift changes: the focus on pasta remained, but the emphasis on family-style sharing and communal dining he allowed to fade away. In its place, he expanded the restaurant’s antipasti (appetizers) and secondi (mains) menu offerings and created new dishes constantly so the menu would change and have new offerings every few days. As the restaurant began receiving some local and national (and recently international) acclaim, the physical, spatial constraints of the restaurant became more and more apparent. Reservations needed to be made not days but often weeks in advance even with expanded hours; the 10-seat bar looking into the kitchen, which remained open for walk-ins, was constantly packed (and tightly!) with customers being turned away on a regular basis.

About a year ago, the possibility of expanding into the space next door (some sort of home furnishing/glassware retail shop) began to set an expansion plan in motion. Spinasse hired the architecture firm ZeroPlus (conveniently located just around the corner from the restaurant), and whom Jason was familiar with from their designs for the restaurant Poppy (where he worked and helped open before coming to Spinasse) located on the north side of Capitol Hill.

old bar looking to new bar/new dining room

new dining room (glassed-in pasta station in the background)

new kitchen looking to old kitchen

Needless to say, the expansion of Spinasse has been a long time in the making; construction finally started a couple months ago on the other side of the wall, while Spinasse proceeded to be packed, business as usual. Finally, last weekend they broke through the wall of the kitchen into the new, additional kitchen space and over the past three days the restaurant has been closed while the rest of the walls were removed to connect the entire kitchen with new glassed-in pasta station, the expanded bar and expanded dining space. I think the greatest compliment to be paid is that the new space feels as though it has always been there; as if discovering some Egyptian tomb that was partially caved in has finally been revealed for the first time. I’m not sure that my photos really do the new Spinasse justice.

Oh, and the food (and wine and orangecello) were exceptional.

pickled radish w/ ricotta (please excuse the giant bite)

foie gras w/ tripe and chickpeas

poached trout and asparagus

Barbaresco, a wine associated with Piedmont. I'm terrible at describing wines, but it was sort of like if plums grew in the forest. It paired great with all our later dishes.

taglietelle w/ duck ragu and marjoram

tajarin w/ house ragu

rabbit w/ olives and raisins

capunet (pork and potato roll) wrapped in chard (traditionally uses cabbage)

In additional exciting Spinasse-related news, adjacent to the newly expanded section of the restaurant they will be opening a new wine and aperitivo bar, Artusi. Artusi will have its own small satellite kitchen and separate menu from Spinasse, concentrating more on the combination of influences that make up regional cuisine throughout all of Italy. I'm very excited. Its been sort of a pet project of Jason's... Expected to open in one week!

Spinasse

1531 14th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122

- Jordan

Italian, Seattle |

LA LA BIG CITY OF DREAMS - FOUR NIGHTS IN LA

1:09 AM Reporter: Gyromite 0 Responses

Equipped with the Los Angeles Edition of Saveur courtesy of Joe, and a ton of Internet references including Jonathan Gold - Laweekly, (Pulitzer Prize winner and the man who wrote Nate Dogg's Eulogy), Chowhound, Grubstreet and various other references we set out to sample the best the city has to offer.

The Chowhound forums with confirmation from the La Weekly directed us in our breakfast search to Square One for buttermilk pancakes which were extremely light and fluffy and also to Nickel Diner for some country biscuits and gravy.

Mexican Food

LA is about three hours north of Mexico and the large latin population is clearly evident when walking the streets which means there are going to be some fantastic food spots and trucks. We had our local Mexican friend take us to her family favourite spot in east LA. Mariachi bands welcomed you as you entered and one lady stood behind a booth making fresh corn tortillas using a wooden press. We ordered some flautas and a dish which was essentially a stone bowl sarlacc pit containing beef, chicken, cactus and cheese (Molcajet). Amazing, the fresh corn tortilla makes such a difference. The next day we wanted more Mexican food so we used our GPS to get back into east La to eat at La Estrella taco shop. Inside we were the only non Mexican people and the staff didn't even speak English. We butchered some words and finally managed to order a couple of glasses of horchata, an assortment of tacos and some taco durados. All fantastic and cheap. They even had cow brain to eat but I had to pass and enjoyed the beef tongue.

K-Town

LA's Koreatown, is massive and vibrant. Here we ventured out and had some double fried chicken wings from Kyochon and some Korean BBQ at Parks. I smelled like Korean food but still ventured on for some comedy at Upright Citizens Brigade.

Celebrity Chef Restaurants

The eating highlight of the trip was the stop at two sister restaurants, Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza, which are owned by Mario Batali, Nancy Silverton and Joseph Bastianich. At Osteria Mozza, I had to check my lactose in tolerance at the door and I went to town on some burata imported from Puglia, an amazing pasta and a porcini crusted 24 oz steak. The pasta had such an amazing complement of flavours and the crust on the steak was remarkable and put every steak I have previously had to shame.

Loving our meal so much, we made sure we went back to try out the Pizzeria Mozza. We ordered the squash blossom pizza with burata ($23) which had an exceptional crust thanks to the recipe created by bread queen Nancy Silverton. I must say though that the sauce from Nicli Pizzeria in Vancouver may be more to my liking but the crust at Pizza Osteria was definitely the star of the show.

We visited a few other spots like In N Out Burger, Mikawaya Mochi Ice Cream, Pinks for some chili cheese fries and a hot dog and Urth Cafe with hopes of seeing Vincent Chase or at least one of the broads from the show. Unfortunately, the kogi bbq taco truck and Langers escaped me (the traffic was too much).

With all the cheap fares on Allegiant Airlines, and the ability to rent a car for ten dollars a day on Priceline.com, a quick trip to LA can really satisfy some of your food cravings for a reasonable price.

Matt

CELLULOID CALORIES: AMADEUS

1:15 AM Reporter: the clutterer 1 Response

PRÉCIS NO.4: Amadeus (1992, dir. Milos Forman)

Culinary delights, gustatory pleasures, divine sensations, passionate embraces. Years ago I delighted in such interests during my travels across Europe and distant, faraway lands. In my magnificent carriage drawn by six horses, built by Rudolph Ackermann before he went on to establish the Repository of Arts, I dashed through lightning storms, glided softly through idyllic countrysides and dirt lanes lined with plane trees and witnessed the changing scenery so representative of a nation.

My companion on these journeys was the young Eva, who I had met one inky night amongst pine trees and the blare of a foghorn, as though she had caught me in a dream.

Eva.

Celluloid Calories, cinema |

CO-PARENTING A VANCOUVER FOOD CART

10:29 AM Reporter: the clutterer 2 Responses

Ed. - We're huge fans of Re Up BBQ, both for the great sandwiches they offer and because they're just really nice folks. We asked them for a behind-the-scenes account of what it's really like to operate a food cart: here you go.

On August 9th 2010, five Vancouver kids became the proud, un-planned parents of a bouncing, baby mobile food cart.

Michael Kaisaris, Lindsay Ferguson and Chester Carey, with three weeks to create and open the business, teamed up to serve authentic Southern BBQ at the Vancouver Art Gallery as part of the City of Vancouver’s street food pilot program. The Re-Up BBQ was born.

Buzz was instantaneous and soon the three found it too much to handle. Jose Rosales- Lopez and Briana Buckmaster flew in to help with the round-the-clock parenting. In a too-small “apartment”, pulled pork, coleslaw and sweet tea were furiously prepared overnight before the cart (affectionately nicknamed Agnes) was dropped off at the Vancouver Art Gallery for day care with Michael and Briana.

In the heady, early days of the Re-Up BBQ, all the parents took turns sleeping at the kitchen, babysitting both the slowly smoking meat and “Agnes.” After one month, the howling infant was demanding a metric ton of locally raised, natural pork every two weeks. Re-Up had created a monster! But, this behemoth was the most popular sandwich on the streets of Vancouver, and the crew had to keep up with demand. Lindsay, while balancing a full time job, went out to look for a bigger home. She found one, and at the end of October, the Re-Up moved Agnes into the kitchen of the former Wild Coyote Nightclub down on South West Marine Dr. Now, with space and a yard to play in, the team could breathe a little easier.

Then November hit.

November hit like the Terrible Twos. Temperatures dropped to -12oc. It rained; it snowed; it hailed; it rained again. The beautiful, Portugese buns from Calabria bakery (delivered fresh to the kitchen) froze on site. Where did all the customers go? Everything -- the buns, the napkins, the staff -- was wet all the time. Only those most dedicated to their lunch would venture out of their offices for the Re-Up’s signature pulled pork. Not even the promise of a ½ rack of ribs would entice the bankers, lawyers and executives of the summer past. One cold day, Agnes threw a typhoon of a tantrum and burst her water pipes. Michael pulled an all-nighter, emergency surgery plumbing session, outside in -50c. Chester yelled at Michael yelled at Lindsay yelled at Jose yelled at Briana. They were ready to snap. The Re-Up crew knew they had to do something, something big to provide for their poor baby, Agnes.

In the depths of dispair, they made bacon.

They brined the bacon in ancho, bourbon and beer. They smoked it in pecan wood.

And, they brined and smoked local turkeys for Christmas dinner. They sold them fresh from the food cart, as the weather continued to deteriorate. Vancouver couldn’t get enough! Agnes was finally going through a growth spurt. She was starting to provide for herself and the parents breathed a little easier.

Chester could go back to work and his passion: beer. Lindsay put her career on hold to focus on parenting the food cart and Michael found time to travel for a month. Good thing too, because the crew found out in early April that they were expecting a sister for “Agnes.”

The due-date for “Susan” -- Re-Up’s Beef Brisket and Chili cart -- is May 17th, 2011. She’ll be found playing near Agnes in the middle of Robson Square. Agnes will continue to serve Pulled Pork Sandwiches, and Re-Up is proud to report that their house-smoked bacon will be available daily at both carts.

The crew will be adding some extra-curricular activities to “Agnes’s” schedule this summer, so look for her as they let her free-range around the city stopping to sell sandwiches and bacon on the West-Side and in East Van. Also, she’ll be teaming up with legions, pubs and beer stores to offer dinner and drinks as soon as she is of age.

Michael, Lindsay, Chester, Jose and Briana are so grateful for the opportunity to become parents together, and hope their kids grow up to be a great and ever-evolving addition to Vancouver’s dining scene.

Post Script: The whole family is still very much together. You can often find them all in one place enjoying cask ales at any of the many CAMRA cask nights around the city. If they’re not there, they’re probably at the bar at l’Abbatoir chatting over cocktails and a bottle of Rippon Riesling.

barbecue, street food, Vancouver |

BLOOD, BONES & BUTTER

11:16 AM Reporter: the clutterer 0 Responses

I suppose it’s easier to review Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones and Butter from the other side of the continent, miles away from her restaurant Prune, for which she just won Best Chef, New York City, at this year’s James Beard Awards. There’s no inclination to review both at once, to mistake them as being parts of the same, because, from all other accounts, the book is much more. That’s mostly because the memoir is touted to be one of the best from chefs-turned/stayed-writers, a claim I’ll accept on face value considering I can’t remember there being an overly large amount of chef memoirs around.

books, food writing, New York |

SEATTLE SLOP: MARINATION STATION

10:54 PM Reporter: supermouthhappy 0 Responses

So I’d been hearing a lot about Marination Mobile since I moved back to Seattle last summer. It’s one of the city’s premier food trucks; their Hawaiian-Korean tacos even won them national recognition as “America’s Best Food Truck” from a Good Morning America competition last year. Their truck has a weekly schedule, setting up shop in a different part of the city each day of the week, yet I've never seemed to be in the right place at the right time.

So I was quite happy to learn they were opening Marination Station, a new brick & mortar location (which just opened a few weeks ago) along the Pike/Pine corridor on Capitol Hill.

The space is small, about 8 counter seats that look out the windows and a bit of room to line up, place orders, and wait. We got there just before the lunch rush, but 5 or 6 people were already scattered across the counter seats eating. Some seats freed up while we were waiting in line and seats seemed to open up pretty steadily while we were there (they have a few seats outside, but the weather was still too cold, grey, and breezy at 11:40am). The place was packed by the time we left though, with close to 20 people either eating, waiting in line, or waiting for their order to come up.

Kalua Pork Slider – tender, sweet/spicy shredded pork, topped with slaw
on a Hawaiian sweet roll.

Tacos (Kalbi Beef Shortrib, Pork Bulgogi, Miso Ginger Chicken) – in two corn tortillas and topped with slaw. Served with limes and thin-sliced pickled jalapenos.

All of the meats were remarkably tender and moist and with good flavor. I thought overall things leaned more towards the sweeter Hawaiian side rather than the Korean spiciness, but everything was quite tasty. They have bottles of rooster sauce (sriracha) for those looking for extra kick, but I decided to just stick with the pickled jalapenos. Their signature slaw, which happened to be garnishing my entire order, is less southern BBQ sidedish and more like a lighter version of ‘do chua,’ the pickled daikon and carrots you find on Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches. I love slaw but I may love do chua even more so I was more than happy to have the slaw everywhere. The four items came in under $10 and was plenty of food.

I’ll definitely be making some future visits to Marination to try some other menu items like the SPAM sliders and the kimchi fried rice with fried egg. They serve beer too (no beer at the truck apparently), so when the weather warms up this place will be perfect for summer.

Marination Station
SW corner of Pike & Broadway (above QFC)
Seattle, WA
marinationmobile.com

- Jordan

Hawaiian, Korean, Seattle, taco |

JUST SAYIN'

10:08 PM Reporter: the clutterer 0 Responses

James Oseland (Saveur Magazine, Top Chef Masters) & Scott Thompson (Kids in the Hall)

How AWESOME would that show be?

Joe.

tv |

CARTESIAN CALORIES

1:30 AM Reporter: the clutterer 0 Responses

Scientific American recently ran a short piece on amateur cartographers and "food deserts," urban areas where the markets and grocery stores sell mainly packaged foods of low nutritional value instead of fresh produce. As one might've guessed, these areas have generally shown up in low income areas within cities, and there are a number of theories as to how that came about: higher rents within cities relative to suburbs; supermarkets following the general migration of people from cities to suburbs; and the increased rate of closures amongst urban grocers due to competition from suburban supermarkets.

Stephen Von Worley's map of distances to the nearest McDonald's
(brightness indicates proximity to closest McDonald's)

But I couldn't help but think of another food map that Stephen Von Worley wrote about on Datapointed last year: the McFurthest Point. Von Worley mapped every McDonald's location in the US (see above), and was then able to determine the one geographic point in the continental US that was the furthest from any given McDonald's. It's 115 miles away - "as the crow flies," for those tax/map nerds out there - from any of the Golden Arches, nestled up in the deserts of northwestern Nevada.

Got a yearning to get your Casey Affleck/Matt Damon on and rid yourself of the Fry Guys? Here's a video of Von Worley actually traveling to the McFurthest Point:

I still think there's only one of these around though:

Next time: how Grimace was an evil multi-legged milkshake monster.

Joe.

foraging, gut rot, obsessions, research |

SITKA AND SPRUCE - SEATTLE SLOP

6:42 PM Reporter: Gyromite 0 Responses

With the strong dollar and the variety of shopping (nevermind Trader Joes) it makes it worthwhile to take a trip down to Seattle. In my opinion the one thing that Seattle does a lot better than Vancouver is West Coast cuisine. With a little internet research, and some GPS programming, we were off.

First brunch, Sitka and Spruce.

First of all, this place is damn cute. Sitka and Spruce is co located amongst a few other food shops in a space that used to be an autobody shop. The autobody shop is now home to what appeared to be an amazing butcher, a cute flower shop, a bar/wine store and a coffee shop. Essentially a cute little market with amazing product.

It appears the brunch menu is constantly changing but on our visit the four of us had the following:

Sheep's milk feta with oliver oil, heirloom navels, fennel, honey, pistachio and dukkah ($8) - Incredible, and pretty simple. A great dish to try and recreate at home.

Seattle |