Careful What You Ask For

Last night I took my beautiful better half out for a celebratory evening.  January is birthday month in our household and we celebrated its conclusion with a fancy dinner and a show at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.  For dinner we went to a nice new place that has been getting great reviews, called Henri.  We are not really high end restaurant fans, finding ourselves thinking “I could have made that…”, so we tend to more casual places.  That said, next time you are in Chicago, go to this restaurant.  Excellent food, beautiful room, attentive service and above all a first class fine dining experience without the pretension. 

When we do go to a really nice place, we usually order things we would not cook at home.  I won’t go into all the details of our meal, but on the menu as a first course was steak tartare.  When I see this dish it reminds me of the 1970s—you know the deal: raw hamburger with a raw egg on top.  A salmonella and E. coli cocktail.  Yikes.  It never really appealed to me, but I have seen it a lot lately and figured “If not here, where?”, “If not now, when?”   

Good choice.  Great choice, as a matter of fact.  Wow was that tasty.

Henri’s Steak Tartar:  (source: Henri website)

When Mrs. B and I were younger we would often go to Paris for a few days during birthday month.  January is a very slow time in Paris, so it is cheap to get there and cheap to stay (especially where we stayed).  The museums are empty and restaurants not busy.  That old hotel, still there, has a great location in the 7^th arrondissement, in an area called Invalides, near metro lines, the Eiffel Tower and, especially, near the foodie heaven rue Cler.  

Rue Cler is not a restaurant, but rather a street full of food stores – a bakery, a butcher, a cheese shop, wine store, fruits and vegetable stand, sausage shop, etc, etc..  We would often shop for dinner on the rue Cler and bring it back to the room for a cheap feast of the best of Paris.  To this day we still have a framed butcher paper wrapper from a long gone charcutier (sausage maker) hanging on a wall in our kitchen.  I think it held a slab of pâté:    

One night during a birthday month trip to Paris we ventured into La Poule au Pot, a typical Parisian brasserie located right in the neighborhood.  Zinc bar, rushed service, slightly faded.  This place is the Paris of Parisians.  We review the menus, only in French of course….  Some items are obvious what they are, others not so much and we were a bit unsure what to order.  Then the table next to us received their order.  Some sort of meat chunks in the most delicious smelling mustard cream sauce.  When we asked what that was the waiter indicated it was “something-something-de veau sauce moutard”.  

OK, we did not understand the first part, but it is some sort of veal dish in a mustard sauce.   Anything veal in that sauce must be great—we’ll take two of those…

Our food arrived.  As expected, a delicious mustard sauce.  The hunks of “meat”…well, not quite sure what it was.  Tasted a bit…musky.  It’s not liver, we decided.  But what IS it?  We did our best to eat what we ordered and went right back to our room to look it up in our guide book. 

“Rognons de veau” = Veal Kidneys. 

So that night we had a “delicious” meal of veal kidneys in a Dijon mustard, crème fraîche and cognac sauce served with crispy french fries.   If you are feeling adventurous, here is a recipe (with great photos):  http://blog.deluxe.fr/cuisine/rognons-veau-moutarde.html

Good luck with that.  And be sure to dip your fries in the sauce.   

Food Trucks

Here in Chicago we have a movement about regarding food trucks.  These are the mobile food vendors that park on downtown corners during weekday lunch hours and sell (generally) high end sandwiches and such to loop office workers for two hours, then depart back to their lairs.  Chicago is clearly behind the curve on this movement and needs to decide how (legally) we will treat this innovative approach to catering.


Recently, I posted my first encounter with the Gaztro-Wagon in downtown Chicago: On the third day of Christmas, the sandwich I had to eat, was a Naan-Wich with confit of beef, blue cheese, dried cherry, pecans and onion from the Gaztro-Wagon (a Michelin starred food truck), moving all over Chicagohttp://www.gaztro-wagon.com/ and on Twitter @wherezthewagon

Many established restaurants in Chicago are fighting the licensing of these food trucks (just watch the video link above).  Personally, I believe as long as they follow good sanitation rules and are monitored in the same was as brick-and-morter establishments, they are good competition that benefit consumers.    


Your thoughts?

I'm the Emperor, and I want dumplings!

Weißwurst Frühstück

When flying to Europe I try to take Lufthansa whenever possible.  Say what you want about how great Singapore Air and the other Asian airlines are, my money is with the Germans.  The planes are new, cabins clean and seats comfortable.  There is a great selection of entertainment on a modern system.  They fly on time, the food is good and they don’t charge you for a glass of wine in coach (hello, United).  They also have great airport lounges—always stocked with hot food and never too crowded. 

While I don’t care much for the Frankfurt airport, I love Munich airport and find it a great place to connect through.   You can get a very quick and efficient flight connection in Munich if you need it, but I always make mine a little long so I have time to visit the BEER GARDEN. 

One of the great pleasures of being jet lagged and in Germany is that your stomach is not thinking about the time of day.  I take advantage of this dissonance and order the great Bavarian breakfast, Weißwurst Frühstück (literally "white sausage breakfast").   First time I had this, my bride and I were connecting through Munich on the way to Genoa.  We had a long layover and were completely jet lagged because we had such an early afternoon departure from Chicago that, although local time was 7am our bodies thought it was midnight. 

Looking for a bite to eat, we sat down in the café Dallmayr (an outpost of the famous Munich delicatessen that dates back to the late 1600’s) and, looking around, noted an exceptional number of people drinking coffee AND beer with their sausage breakfast.  I thought “Hey, I like this place!”

The waiter told us what was going on.  As they say, when in Munich, do as the Münchner do, so we ordered the same.  For each of us: two veal sausages served in a tureen of hot water with parsley, a jumbo soft pretzel, dark coffee and a hefe-weizen beer.   

Three critical pieces of advice from the waiter: 1) peel the skin off the sausage, and 2) don’t drink the water in the tureen.  It’s not soup.  And 3) never, ever even consider ordering this after 11am.  It is strictly a breakfast item.  More details on proper etiquette for serving and eating weisswurst can be found here.

The Dallmayr store in the airport sells canned weisswurst, and I bring a few home with the special sweet mustard every time.

I’m telling you this because today is my birthday, and if I want German sausage for breakfast, I’m having it.  

Geburtstagfrühstück : 

Banh Mi = Vietnamese for "Yum"

On the second day of Sandwiches, the sandwich I had to eat, was a Vietnamese banh mi (pate, ham, headcheese, pork roll, mayonnaise, house pickle daikon & carrot, cilantro, jalapeño, onion, soy sauce, salt & pepper) from Ba Le Bakery 5016 N. Broadway, Chicago http://www.balesandwich.com/

Cheese

Fat, cholesterol, salt, milk, rennet, mold. Yum.  My favorite food, and one I will write about often.  Some people have a sweet tooth, some go for the salt, (nobody seems to want to claim a bitter tooth or a sour tooth, and for that matter, have you ever met a person with an umami tooth?  Didn’t think so). 

One of the most surprising discoveries I made when I first started traveling to Asia was that they really don’t eat cheese in most areas.  There is a total lack of a cheese culture. <<pun intended>>  I’ve read various explanations for this—lactose intolerance, rarity of dairy cows, the rule "don’t serve cheese with fish"...  Who knows, but this site points out some exceptions to this observation, (it’s a British food site, so believe what you like.)

”This tastes a whole lot worse than it looks.”

One of my great favorites is cheese, or as they call it in Switzerland, cheese.  Not just the stuff with holes that you buy at the deli, but the vast array of cheeses on offer.  Switzerland melds three cultures to form their own– German to the north, French to the west and Italian to the south.  While there are regional differences in language, food and such, they all have their cheese.  Melt it in a pot under a fire at the table, and you get the greatest Swiss invention since the army knife, Fondue. 

Last year I tagged along with my bride on a business trip to Geneva, Switzerland.  It was last minute, and just for a couple of days, so we were intent on making the most of the free time we had together to find some great Swiss meals.  This meant a lot of cheese—fondue, raclette, fondue.  She has a friend in Geneva that we met for dinner our first night.  It was at a traditional, if perhaps a bit touristy place.  Dark and rustic with a fireplace and bubbling cauldrons of cheese fondue on every table.   A pot of fondue with crusty bread and boiled potatoes (no green veggies to dip in the fondue here), a terrific plate of bresaola (I’ll get to my other food favorite, cured meats, in another post), and several bottles of wine later, we were sated. 

The next night we decided to try a more local place.  Not quite the same cozy atmosphere when we walked in, but soon we felt as if the owner welcomed us into his home, had an even better fondue (see picture above) and the service (from the proprietor himself) was excellent.  Two for two.

Day three, we took a train to Montreux for the local Christmas market.  An hour on the train for raclette served outdoors along Lake Geneva like this:

Worth every minute.  Luckily I have a few more weeks before the cholesterol test.

  

Fit for The King

Saturday January 8^th marks what would have been Elvis Presley’s 76^th birthday.  To honor the anniversary of his birth, I decided to finally try making the famous PBB&B sandwich.  For those of you unschooled in the ways of the King of Rock and Roll, the story goes that some time in early 1976 Elvis was hanging out at Graceland with some of his buddies (presumably in the Jungle Room), when the topic of the Best. Sandwich. Ever.  came up.  Next thing you know, they are all boarding his private jet the Lisa Marie, headed for Denver to fetch this sandwich, the Fool’s Gold Loaf, from the restaurant that invented it.  You can read the whole story here.

Admittedly I had to stray from the commercial recipe to adapt to the home kitchen.  I just could not figure a way to deep fry a whole loaf of bread at home.  Here are the key ingredients:

To make it, start with the peanut butter,

Then the bananas.  There are two schools of thought—slice lengthwise or crosswise.  I think you can cover more territory this way:

Next, the star ingredient.  Three slices of crispy bacon.

Put it all together and you have my version of the Fool’s Gold Loaf, the Fool’s Gold Express:

You know how the story ends.  18 months after the fateful trip to Denver, Elvis expired on the toilet. 

Don’t try this at home. 

TCB <flash>

Breakfast of Champions

In an earlier post I told you about my policy against eating in the hotel when traveling on business.  I don’t always stick to it, but am happy when I do.  Breakfast is probably the meal I am laziest about-- either I skip it altogether or I eat one of the Balance Bars that I always travel with. 

A few months back I was in Tokyo, spanning a weekend due to some work needs.  Saturday morning I got up and out in search of breakfast.  To a western palate, Japanese breakfast looks exactly like Japanese lunch, Japanese dinner, and Japanese late-night-after-the-bars-close snacks.  Think rice, seafood and fermented beans.   Add to that, it seems to be a home-based meal, so there was not much open at 9am on a Saturday. 

Wandering around Akasaka, I ran across a McDonald’s.  To be clear, I often go into a McD’s in foreign countries to check out the menu—see what is local and unique.  Say what you will about the golden arches, they do adopt local flavors with some unique offerings along with the standard McFood.  It is always interesting to check out.  And sometimes I can’t resist giving it a shot.

So on this particular occasion, I was drawn by the breakfast menu advertising this:

Sold.  Who can resist a hot dog?  When offered at 9am? At a McDonald’s?  In Japan?

It did not disappoint.  Here is a pic of my meal, coffee, hash brown and all:

Must be a Japanese thing, though.  I really do not see myself pulling into the drive through on my way to the office to down a quick coffee and wiener in traffic.

Eating Local

Those of you who know me know that I travel a lot for business, all over the globe.  This sounds really cool, and it is fun for a while.  Then it can get pretty monotonous if you get lazy and let it – the lobby of the Hilton in Buenos Aires looks exceptionally similar to the lobby of the Hilton in Prague.  The Trader Vic’s in the New Otani hotel in Tokyo serves pretty much the same food as the Trader Vic’s in the Radisson Blu in Hamburg.  

One of the ways that I try to keep things interesting is to not eat in the hotel if at all possible.  Nearly everywhere locals are proud of their food traditions and when asked are happy to send you out for some of their favorite local dishes.  This has led to some **interesting** meals (more on that in another post), but most often I have had a memorable time and learned something about the food and culture of the place I am visiting.  When you order a Marriott Burger from room service in Heidelberg you won’t learn much, other than that you can get the same burger in Detroit.    

So this all leads me to a recent trip to Santiago, Chile.  I will start by admitting that I broke my first rule and had breakfast in the hotel (it was included in the room rate and I was running late…).  Hoping for some interesting Chilean breakfast specialty, I checked out the buffet.  Right there with the scrambled eggs, potatoes and fruit salad that I find everywhere, was this:

Yep, that is cut up hot dogs.  Nothing more.  The kind of thing you might mix into some mac and cheese for the kids.  Of course I had to try them, hoping that there was something more to this.   Nope.  OK bad sign, but I figured, shame on me for eating in the hotel.

At the office that day I asked a few local colleagues about Chilean food-- what are the specialties, what is good, where to find it.  Generally I was answered with a question: "Have you tried a pisco sour?"   Apparently there is great rivalry between Chile and Peru over the best and proper way to make a pisco sour.  Essentially it is a drink made with Pisco (a liquor distilled from grapes, much like grappa), lime juice, simple syrup, an egg white and a garnish of bitters on top of the egg foam.  (Chilean and Peruvian recipes here) Local pride being strong, they insisted theirs was the true recipe.  Still no word on the food though.

On my last night in town, my hosts wanted to take me out to dinner.  They asked if I had any preferences and I once again inquired about Chilean food.  With furrowed brows they looked at each other and responded in unison, "mmm, no.  Chilean food is terrible.  Let's have Peruvian."   OK that was settled, but they agreed to stop at a bar first to let me try a Chilean Pisco Sour.  

At the Peruvian place we had a great meal.  Lots of seafood, terrific ceviche, tasty empanadas, and a couple Peruvian pisco sours.  Best meal I had in Santiago.  And the Peruvian pisco was better, too. 

New Year, new herring

Years ago, my beautiful wife introduced me to the tradition of eating pickled herring at midnight on new year's eve, in the name of ensuring good fortune for the coming twelve months.  (It's no 12 grapes, but it's our tradition now...)  I think it was introduced by our German or Polish ancestors as a practical joke, but we fell for it and every December 31 we forget to buy it, then go out scrambling to find some before it is too late and the year is ruined.  Through years of testing this hypothesis, I can attest that this is not an effective way to ward off bad luck, but I don't take any chances and eat it every year regardless.

This year, our good friends Chris and Pauline hosted us for a new year's eve dinner at their home.  Chris comes from the same good northern European stock as my dearest spouse and he made sure we had the herring ready and available.  Chris also knows how to do things right, and so the herring he set out was not the little chunks of Vita that can sneak by your tongue with a wash of the right beverage.  No, these were the whole little (headless) fishes straight from Poland, skin, bones and all:

I ate mine.  This better be a really good year. 

On the first day of Christmas...

(To my fbook friends, I am starting this blog with my Christmas sandwiches.  Over time I will periodically add new food experiences and reminisce about past meals I have enjoyed around the world.)


On the first day of Christmas, the sandwich I had to eat, was an Arabes Cemita (sesame seed bread layered with avocado, spit roasted pork and onions, adobo chipotle peppers, fresh Oaxacan cheese and papalo) from Cemitas Puebla, 3619 W. North Avenue, Chicago

http://www.cemitaspuebla.com/