Buffalo the First...

On his Travel Channel show, No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain usually features food and establishments which, saving a monstrous inheritance from a likely non-existent rich relative, I'll likely never find my way to: rooftop BBQs in Colombia replete with a live chicken imbibing grain alcohol before being shuffled to the cooking pot, desert dinners of slow cooked camel in Saudi Arabia, the myriad wonders of Singaporean street food, on and on until I am green with envy and desolate with disappointment. I'll never get there from here.

So it was with a great deal of interest that we watched his show touring through the areas hit hardest by the recent economic downturn: Baltimore, Detroit and BUFFALO, NY! Buffalo, NY as in the Buffalo we drive through on our way to see relatives in Hamilton, Ontario. Buffalo as in an hour's drive from Hamilton. Buffalo as in, we CAN get there from here without planes, trains or connecting camel rides.

Per Mr. Bourdain's recommendation, our first stop on Le Tour de Buffalo was Schwabl's for the old Western New York standard, roast beef on weck: thin sliced beef on Kummelweck, a heavily salted and caraway seeded roll.


The sandwich alone was worth the drive with the salty, heavily seasoned roll perfectly complementing and flavoring the beef. Be sure to slather a healthy amount of the fresh horseradish onto the meat before diving in, it adds a great, sharp, crisp note to the sandwich.

One note, you're likely best served having the roast beef cooked well done. Blasphemy I know, but my medium rare proved a bit tough and caused the familiar, terrible "Meat Pulled out from Bread Syndrome." Meanwhile, Agnes' well done sandwich was juicy, just as flavorful and cured the MPoB issue.

As a man devoted science and numbers, I look forward to future visits to Schwabl's and testing my well done vs. medium rare hypothesis. No doubt we will need several trial before attaining publishable results that will stand up to the scrutiny of peer review.

Thanks to Anthony Bourdain for bringing the show closer to home and giving us an opportunity to eat something new and visit a place we've never been.

The Schwabl's Scorecard

Steve recommends:

1. Beef on weck. Order two, eat one and take home the other for dinner. Your call on the well done vs. medium rare hypothesis.

2. The side dishes. In the name of tradition God said, "Abstaineth thee from the french fries and cole slaw (although Agnes gave both a thumbs up) and get the hot German potato salad and pickled beets."

3. The birch beer. A time machine in a glass, when sodas were mildly sweetened with strong flavor. I had three. Piggy.

Steve does not necessarily recommend:

The service. Curt, gruff and slightly indifferent, in a word absolutely Germanic. I say this with love and props to my roots. My guess, if you're not an out of town interloper who watched that damned TV show, the results might be different. Maybe not.

Steve wishes:

1. Our visit did not fall between "punch seasons." We were too late for the Ebenezer Punch (Memorial Day through Labor Day) and too early for the Tom and Jerry (Thanksgiving Eve through St. Patrick's Day.) Dammit!

2. He would have tried a cocktail from the bar. No fake drink powders/mixers, no BS, all fresh ingredients. Huzzah! Next time!

Read More

Update: Our Quest for Lindeman's Peche Lambic...

as it turns out was extremely short and involved walking into the local adult beverage distributor where it was prominently displayed near the door on a rack with sundry other Belgian malt offerings. O sweet Global Economy!

I still have yet to decide if it's truly worth 7 bux a bottle, which seems steep in these days of enforced frugality, global economic collapse and canned beer budgets, but there is no doubt it is one truly unique beverage. Peachy with a definite dry, malt finish so you never forget you're drinking a beer and not some too sweet even for kids, fruity, wine cooler, malt beverage concoction from some insidious multi-national beverage conglomerate that should have been left in 80s with skinny ties and Member's Only jackets.

A beer connoisseur friend of mine indicates that Lindeman's Raspberry/Framboise is an even better offering. Now...where the hell will we find that one? The quest...is on!

Read More

A Friday in NYC

Before we hit The Pogues show at Roseland Ballroom, there was a specific need to get in the mood for said concert with a few pre-event beverages and dinner. Given the Irish theme of the evening and St. Patrick's Day just a few days hence, I was thinking Guinness both as beverage and perhaps if things progressed poorly, dinner.

So it was odd then that we ended up at Mi Nidito, a Mexican cantina on 8th Avenue just around the block from Roseland, a convenient commute for the show. I suppose it wasn't odd, since we didn't do our usual homework before setting out this time. Occasionally, it's better to throw caution to the wind and see what happens...magic or mayhem.

To the plus side, Mi Nidito keeps their Coronas iced to perfection; Agnes enjoyed her Maragarita rocks; the complimentary chips and salsa (spicy with cilantro accent) were excellent and I was beginning to think less about Guinness and more about the perfectly American experience of having Mexican food before attending an Irish punk rock show. Melting pot, oh yeah!

Until I noticed the slow and disinterested service. I hate slow, disinterested service, especially from a bartender at a very SMALL bar. It's a pet peeve of mine when, at an EMPTY SMALL bar, the bartender would prefer to re-organize the cooler and force me to flag him down for another beer.

A good bartender asks about the next round before his customers drink even approaches the dregs and promptly fires up another round when given the nod. It ain't rocket science son! And instead of selling me two beers, he could have doubled that and we would probably have taken a table, had dinner and another 100 bux would have been coming into the house in the process.

But...he couldn't be bothered, so I settled up, left him a guilt tip (I'll define this another day) and set out again seeking a more attentive place for drinks and dinner.

And luck was with us this time as we managed to find the House of Brews on West 46th Street. I'll admit, I was a little skeptical because let's face it, that's just a terrible name for a drinking establishment. It smells like a soulless, cookie cutter, corporate America, IPC version of a pub, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The upstairs bar was cozy and the perfect place to hunker down for a few pints. Indeed, if we didn't have The Pogues show to go to, we could have easily sat there until closing and walked back to Penn Station slightly sideways.

I kept to my pedestrian, perhaps unimaginative, but dependable Guinness while Agnes sampled the Kronenbourg and Lindeman's Peach Lambic. The Kronenbourg got an unsurprising thumbs up (Agnes is a huge Stella Artois fan) but she truly enjoyed the Lindeman's. So much so that we are now officially in quest of a beverage distributor that can order it for us. As Agnes noted, it was more reminiscent of a peach cider than a beer, but tasty and exceedingly drinkable.

The food was passable pub fare and proved mostly edible. Though it was uncharacteristically topped with a melted Cheddar cheese crust, Agnes' Shepherd's Pie was the highlight. I'll likely order it, when we return for the next Roseland show.

My fish and chips was predictably disappointing (more about my quest for good fish and chips another time.) In this case, the dish was comprised of shoestring French fries instead of chips, Tilapia filet in place of cod, a beer batter crust that was limp, spongy and rather tasteless and an out of place mesclun side salad that I didn't even bother with. Malt vinegar cures many fish and chip ills, but this case was terminal and I finished the fries and half of one of the fish fillets.

My disappointment was easily soothed away with another round of Guinness, a Jameson's rocks for dessert and the gathering glow from previous pints. We were, after all, heading to see one of my favorite bands, the tickets for which comprised one of the best Christmas gifts...ever.

Read More

The value wine maven...

I love the back of wine bottles:

"With flavors of black raspberry and pomegranate, our experienced winemakers have crafted this Shiraz into an enticing full flavored wine with medium body and impressive finish."

Sure...why not? As I am fond of saying, "It ain't magic if it don't spin, brother."

Honestly...I can't say I tasted pomegranate (I don't necessarily remember the last time I actually ate pomegranate) or raspberry (black or even red for that matter,) but this was a damned fine bottle for 8 bux and the perfect complement to the meatball hero, eggplant parmesan and large antipasto from Roadhouse Brick Oven Pizza here in fabulous River City.

So...I suppose I'll have to give up on my career wish as a wine label blurbiste. Dammit! At least until I figure out what pomegranate tastes like OR someone in the industry wants a label that reads:

This is a damned fine bottle for 8 bux and the perfect complement to Saturday nigh meatball heros, eggplant parmesan and antipasto.

I'm not holding my breath or taking wagers.

Also, a swift, smacking high five to Roadhouse for actually knowing the definition of antipasto (a course of appetizers consisting of an assortment of foods, as olives, anchovies, sliced sausage, peppers, and artichoke hearts) and executing to well nigh perfection (black and green olives, sliced salumi, mozzarella, provolone, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, pickled mushrooms, gardinera and cappicola.) Not a leaf or shred or torn pieces of wilted lettuce in sight.

A real bargain at 10 bux and you'd probably drop a couple of twenties just putting together the ingredients.

But...the fussy side of me still contends that it would have been perfect with those salty, delicious little fishy bastards, the anchovies.

Read More

A soda bread of sorts...

We had our first round of "Irish soda bread" yesterday from Junda's Bakery in Jamesport.

And...it was just as delicious as I recall it from last year, if a bit on the dry side perhaps, but this is the first week they've had it available and Agnes made me promise to buy a loaf a week until the end of March when they file away the recipe for another year. So we'll check out a few more loaves to see if this was an aberration or they've begun to cook their loaves too long.

Also, as I am inclined to do, I started to read a bit about the history of Irish soda bread (Wiki will give you good background if you're interested,) but my favorite read had to be here, at The Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda bread:

http://www.sodabread.us/
It's so perfectly Irish: combative, humorous and witty.

And according to the site, we weren't eating real Irish soda bread when we downed the loaf purchased yesterday in less than 24 hours and I won't be eating real Irish soda bread the next four weeks either.

To which I say...so what? Was I really expecting a true Irish soda bread when I walked into a Polish American bakery on the East End of Long Island? Since Jamesport is not Dublin, probably not. While the raisins and sugar glaze (caraway seeds optional) certainly break with tradition, it's a perfectly sensible and logical extrapolation on the original.

Was it the "best Irish soda bread on Long Island" as one customer was overheard saying to the clerk? It depends on who you ask (and likely your definition of Irish soda bread, if you have a traditionalist bent,) but we enjoyed our round and will return to buy more before April rears its confused, wet head.

Just hold the caraway seeds!

Read More