Hello Again...

I confess.  I'm an awful blogger.  I've been doing a little bit on Yelp, but even that's been sporadic, at best.  But absolutely had to give a quick update here after I had some great eats on my latest adventure through I-10 the Great Republic of Texas.  Today, we'll cover San Antonio.  Down the road, we'll touch on some eats in Houston.  And I've got plenty to write about the far west end of I-10 in Texas (good ol' El Paso). 

So I live off of exit 18 on I-10 in El Paso, TX.  I jump on the freeway, and drive about 550 miles, and then take a left, and then another left, so that I could spend a few days out in San Antonio helping OD move into the new pad.  Apparently you need to get a bigger place when you have kids, and apparently when an Irishman marries a Mexican, multiple kids are inevitable.  In between moving boxes and furniture, and getting yelled at by pregnant Mexican woman, we got some food and drinks into the system.  And I have to give a serious shoutout to a couple places.

First of all, the Green Lantern in San Antonio is a bit of legit cool in a pretty suburban, strip-mall sort of city.  They are a cocktail lounge, and they do 3 house infusions: jalapeno tequila, strawberry vodka, and (my fave) sweet potato whisky, and build cocktails around these house infusions.  My favorite cocktail?  Double sweet potato whisky, neat, with a glass of ice cubes on the side.  If you add an ice cube, it becomes a cocktail :-)  Seriously, they chill the stuff, and it's actually very balanced by itself.  Give me one of those, and I'm happy.  And if you're a cocktail geek, you will love their ice cubes.  True cubes, no air.  Great, slow melt, to cool, but not water-down a drink.  Only negative?  They can't make a Ramos Gin Fizz (no orange blossom water - who carries that anyway?).  Next time, I'll probably just have them make a go of it, and splash in Cointreau or something.

 Pic via Wikipedia: It's like a frothy, boozy milkshake.  

And this is from the Sazerac Bar in the Roosevelt Hotel in NOLA, which I highly recommend.

And the other San Antonio shoutout goes to Auden's Kitchen.  These guys do modern American food, and while the menu isn't super cutting-edge, these guys can cook.  In fact, more and more, I'm finding that I really enjoy places that know themselves, and stick with things that are in their wheelhouse (and slowly expand their repertoires).  The fried chicken platter is great.  Juicy, crispy chicken, green beans cooked soft (like you'd get from grandma, and not frustratingly al dente for the "haricot verts" that everyone pushes on you now), mashed potatoes, and unapologetic, old-school white gravy.  Love it.  Their pizzas are reasonably large, and tasty.  They do a great Scotch egg.  They have great happy hour specials (cheap apps and pizzas at the bar, I think).  They have 3-course prix fixe specials.  Their servers are pros (and friendly).  Everything they do is executed well.  Even in a town like New Orleans, this place would've been in my rotation.  In San Antonio, it rises really, really high.  Been there twice, and I will make sure that I eat there at least once every time I'm in San Antonio.

This is in contrast to places that frustrate me by doing the whole "overpromise and underdeliver" routine.  For example, we had brunch at Tost Bistro, which had a very cool look to it, had all sorts of trendy, hipster-ish, 20-something, and a potentially cool menu that featured some classic bistro fare, with some modern additions.  Unfortunately, they also had a really lousy server that had the women in our party ready to attack, and a mediocre effort in the kitchen.  Braised short ribs?  Awesome.  Put them in an omelet?  Sounds great.  But when the short ribs are a little cold and the omelet is a lot rubbery?  Edible, but in all honesty, I'd rather have the Colorado Omelet at IHOP, for about half the price, more meat in the omelet, and 3 pancakes to boot.  Fried quail?  Sounds great.  Bacon waffle?  Dig that.  Together?  Conceptually, it's problematic (little bones make it hard to have fried poultry and waffle in the same bite).  And what happens when the waffle is dense and dry, and the bacon is chewy and gets lost in the waffle?  Not good eats.  At least the quail was fried pretty well.  I could probably be talked into trying Tost again, but would have to be really impressed on that trip to ever set foot in that place again...

Pic via Whitleytube.org: If your $12 omelet makes me want IHOP, then you lose.

Of course, this omelet is pretty damned good...

Final place in San Antonio is a bit of a question mark for me.  I love the idea of independent pizza shops.  I love places that do their own dough, and make a good pie.  I'm even amenable to a range of styles (NY, Chicago, California, Neapolitan, St. Louis, etc.).  But what drives me nuts is when the owners don't really understand that they have to differentiate themselves from Papa John's or Pizza Hut.  Hand-stretched dough is a start.  But you absolutely can NOT go cheap on your toppings.  If I get the same starch-laden "sausage" nuggets that bounce like rubber balls on my pizza, then I give up.  Even if you aren't making the sausage in-house, if you can't buy fresh sausage, grill it up, and slice it for your pizza, then my money should go to Papa John's...

Which brings us to Stout's Pizza Company.  The thing is, these guys are so close to getting it.  Great feel in the place - sports bar sort of feel, very casual and friendly.  Nice beer selection.  Super fresh salads.  Hand stretched dough, and a tasty pie that had a that great crispy/chewy combo... but also had Super Balls that they cut up and call "sausage."  And the other problem is the "cannoli" that they defrosted and served us.  I went to high school in upstate New York.  We had Italian bakeries.  I know what a cannoli should be.  It should be light, crunchy, have some cinnamon flavor in the dough, and should have a light, sweet, slightly tart ricotta filling.  What it's not is a dense, ricotta frosting, surrounded by a soft, dense layer of flavorless cardboard.  You can make your own cannolis.  And you can fill them to order.  This is why places like Angelo Broacto's in NOLA really got it, and this is why some places stay around for generations and generations.  Stout's is the sort of place that you want to get it, and have it become the spot you always go for pizza.  I really hope that they get it, because San Antonio (especially on the north end, past the outer loop) is full of strip-mall, suburban blandness.  These guys are the sort of place that you root for, but at the moment, I'm on the fence...

Pic via Pipsquex on Flickr: I'm actually at a loss for words, and just want a cannoli...

So why the vitrol towards mass-produced Sysco sausage and desserts out of a box?  I recently tried House of Pizza here in El Paso.  Everyone thinks that this place does the best pizza in the city.  Everyone's an idiot.  The first clue should be all of the Greece posters.  Nothing says great pizza like a poster of the Parthenon.  I should've trusted my instincts.  These guys mail it in.  The lasagna comes out of a box (sheepishly admitted by the server, when questioned - and side note, the server was super nice, and the drink refills came quickly).  The pizza is full of cheap meat toppings.  The crust is solid in the crisp/chew texture, but bland (and definitely needs some extra garlic butter or marinara on the side).  To be fair, their subs looked quite good.  Generous piles of cold cuts, topped with melty cheese.  If I end up out that way, I'll go with a hot pastrami (and avoid anything "Italian").

And for the record, the best pizza in El Paso?  So far, I'm giving it to The Pizza Joint (who I've got a soft spot for in my heart) that does a really nice NY-style by the slice, and a new joint called Tosca Stone Oven (casual, Panera Bakery-style set-up, hot oven, crisp pies)...  A place called "Crust" also just opened up.  We'll see how that goes.

In any case, next up?  A little discussion on some spots in Houston.  And finally some thoughts on what I've gotten myself into in El Paso, TX.

-foodgeek

Best Thing Since...

It's been a while, but with some harassment from CJ, I figure it's time to dust off the Foodgeek space, and talk a little about the great food that I've been eating here in NOLA. Today, I'm going to talk about simple food. Stuff between sliced bread. Here in NOLA, when you talk sandwiches, you're probably talking one of two things. Po'boys or muffulettas. Don't get me wrong, there are some really good sandwiches that aren't po'boys or muffulettas, but they're not special to NOLA they way these sandwiches are. Both of these sandwiches are meant to be blue collar food. Huge portions for reasonable prices. And that's right in my wheelhouse.

Po'boys are basically the subs, hoagies, grinders, heroes, that you get in other parts of the country. They allegedly get their name from an vendor back in the day, who used to sell these big sandwiches on the cheap to the blue collar workers who would come by at lunch. Apparently one day, he sees a couple of the workers walking toward the counter, and he says to one of the customers, "here come those poor boys again." And apparently the name stuck.

Po'boys come on this french bread, most popularly from Leidenheimer's Bakery, which make a very light bread (not the dense baguette that may come to mind), that's a little flaky on the outside, a little chewy, and can soak up a lot of liquid, which we'll talk about later. The loaves come large, maybe about 3' long. And at some shops, you can order a whole loaf, half loaf, or small sandwich, and you'll get a 3' sandwich, an 18" sandwich, or a 9" sandwich. The sandwiches come plain (no veggies) or dressed (typically lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayo) for a few cents more. And even now, you can go into one of the corner stores, and get a whole loaf po'boy for about $12. Po'boys come with a variety of fillings, and in the last few years, there's been a bit of an arms race at the different restaurants to come up with more and more interesting combinations. The old school po'boys are fried shrimp or fried oyster, ham and cold cuts, or roast beef (more to come on this). And more recent innovations have been things like fried green tomato and shrimp remoulade, cochon de lait (roast suckling pig), and oyster/bacon/swiss cheese.

Muffulettas are the NOLA version of an Italian sandwich, which come on a round loaf, about 12" in diameter, with sesame on top. The bread has a feel of solid, white bread. When you order a whole muffuletta, you get this gigantic sandwich that you probably can't polish off by yourself in one sitting (unless you're really motivated). The filling is pretty much the same, no matter where you go. You get some combination of capicola (cured pork), salami, mortadella (basically Italian bologna, with fat and pistachios), and ham. You get a layer of cheese, probably provolone and/or Swiss. So it's a lot like you would expect to see in an Italian hoagie that you'd get in Philly. But you don't put the normal vinegar and oil on a muffuletta. Instead, the signature of a muffuletta is probably the salty, tangy olive salad that covers the sandwich, which is basically giardiniera (pickled carrots, cauliflower, peppers, onions, and olives), with more olives, all chopped up. This gives you the oil and vinegar thing, plus more salty veggies on top. You can get muffulettas cold or hot.

Everyone in NOLA has their favorite places for po'boys or muffulettas. For muffulettas, the discussion tends to start at Central Grocery, which is apparently the place where they first started. I'm generally not fond of heading into the French Quarter, as the hassle is just too much for me. But there isn't a great muffuletta in the Uptown area in NOLA, where I live. When I'm in need of a muffuletta, I go with Nor Joe's, which is really an Italian deli out in the Metairie suburb. And I'll be honest, muffulettas are definitely my style - old school, really good, and totally blue collar. For $12-$14, you get a whole muffuletta, which can legitimately feed 2 people.

But in recent times, po'boys have gotten more attention, as they've been featured in New York Times articles, and on shows like Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. And you do see a lot of innovation. But I think that the prime example of a po'boy is the roast beef version. This isn't the sliced cold cuts that you'd see everywhere else. Instead, this is basically shredded pot roast, with a lot of gravy. And I really think that this where the Leidenheimer french bread shines. You can soak up a lot of those juices with this bread, and it manages to stay together for almost long enough to eat like a sandwich. And when people talk about their favorite places, the roast beef po'boy tends to be where they differentiate. Old school joints like Domilise's and Parasol's (which is now Tracy's) get some press, and make decent sandwiches. Mahoney's is another place that's a little bit more modern in it's menu. But my favorite place for po'boys is Parkway Bakery. They do a really good roast beef po'boy (they won the Food Feud - that show hosted by Michael Symon on Food Network). And they also do a really good fried shrimp po'boy. But the po'boy I tend to get is a little of both... well, actually a lot of both. It's the Surf 'n Turf po'boy. They put the fried shrimp, and then they put the roast beef on. I ask for swiss cheese, tomatoes, and pickles. The sandwich is just tasty, and becomes wonderfully messy as you eat it.

What's cool is that some nice restaurants also serve po'boys on their menus. College Inn does a slick oyster, havarti, and bacon po'boy, which sounds strange, but is really tasty. Crabby Jack's does an incredible duck po'boy, with shredded slow cooked duck and gravy. But I think that the one ridiculous po'boy that gets overlooked is the deep fried roast beef po'boy at Jacque Imo's (who also own's Crabby Jack's). Literally, it's a 9" roast beef and swiss cheese po'boy, that they lock in place with toothpicks, and then batter and fry. Tasty, meaty, and deep fried. The amazing part is that this is an appetizer that really should be a meal. I made the mistake of ordering it as an app, and then realized that half-way through that I was pretty much full, even before the entree was on it's way.

The thing is that all of these sandwiches that I've mentioned are huge meals, incredibly tasty, and are a pretty affordable meal. Muffulettas and po'boys originated as food for blue collar folks, which is how most of the great food of the world originated. Poor people find ways to stretch their money, and to make things taste great. Southern cooking, soul food, low-country cuisine, and Cajun food are all examples of this great pattern. And if you go beyond American borders, if you look at Mexican food, Chinese food, Italian food, Turkish food, Spanish food, and all of the great cuisines of the world, you see this pattern. And as much as I dig high end food every once in a while, I really dig this sort of stuff done well.

-foodgeek

Kitchen Happenings: Cajun Napalm

Boy, time flies when you're sleeping until noon. I think that's how the old adage goes. I haven't posted anything over here on NOLA Foodgeek since last September. This definitely isn't to say that I haven't been eating well. In fact, I've been eating too well. This is probably to be expected in a city like New Orleans.

I think that I definitely need to get you guys caught up on that stuff. But one thing that I want to share with you guys is one thing that I've been doing in my kitchen. Specifically, it's been cooking flour and fat on the stove until it turns nearly black. A while back, I posted this little nugget on my Facebook wall:

If you've ever cooked gumbo, it's just about the most counter-intuitive thing to anyone who cooks regularly... you cook flour and oil until it looks like brownie batter, and then you cook it just a little longer.

And really, that's what you're doing. They call this process of cooking flour and fat "making a roux." And it's been dubbed "Cajun Napalm" by Paul Prudhomme, because if it gets on your skin, you are going to catch a burn. The stuff will run hot (maybe 350 degrees), so you need to be careful. But it's not something to be afraid of, merely something to pay attention to. Folks take this stuff seriously. Not just for safety, but in how you do it.

Apparently the fat you use matters. Classic French roux calls for butter. Vegetable or oilve oil works, as does a blend of oil and butter. What I've been digging is bacon drippings. Especially since I feel wasteful just throwing out bacon drippings. So I go with bacon drippings, plus some of my homemade chili infused olive oil. Then I add flour. Then you cook it for about 5 minutes longer than you would ever think to cook a roux. The goal is to straddle that line between adding as much flavor (you'll hear the terms earthy, nutty, smoky) to that roux before actually burning the roux. I sort of promised pictures. Here's my picture of my roux.

If I told you that this was dark chocolate ganache, you'd believe me.

Now, as you think about the other elements, of gumbo, you think trinity. Basically, this is the cajun version of mirepoix (carrots, onion, and celery), which differs by adding bell peppers and subtracting carrots. In either case, the point is to use these aromatics to add flavor to your broth. I've never really felt the need to be constrained by a style of cooking, so I use both carrots and bell peppers. When I make soup, I like the idea of cooking some elements separately, so that your seasoning is appropriate. So, as I'm doing my roux, I've also got my veggies going in the pan.

I don't really have a smart-ass comment here. It's friggin' veggies.

I go with a very rough cut on everything. This is country food. No need for perfect dices here. You'll also notice some tomatoes here. The point is to just get everything together. In fact, after the veggies get their sautee on, I actually add the water to the pan to get the cooking started up (since the roux takes so ridiculously long). Also add salt, pepper, some some spices (onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, thyme, cayenne, bay leaves), and a little cheater bullion since I don't have stock on hand.

In any case, start adding the liquid from the cast iron skillet into the pot with the roux. Add a little liquid at a time, and keep stirring. Eventually, the roux loosens up, and starts accepting the liquid. Then the veggies go in. Then you add in some gumbo crabs (basically these small blue crabs that don't have much meat that you add in just for flavor, and then fish out, and maybe gnaw on). Add a little chicken in there. Then, you can start tasting and seasoning. Then add some sliced sausage. Then you taste and season some more. Finally, you add in the fast cooking ingredients. I went with some shrimp and some corn. Then you taste and season some more. And then you're in business. Gumbo is supposed to be this thick, stew. Now, I know that okra is normally a staple (and I like okra, actually), but I don't generally have it on hand. The other option is ground sassafrass (or file, "fee-lay") which is sprinkled on top. I haven't used either. I've been happy with just using the roux to thicken things. Regardless, this stuff is addicting. I'm okay with it over rice, but prefer it straight.

Love this dish. It comes together surprisingly quickly. And it looks like a similar technique will make etouffee, another classic Louisiana dish.

Like I said. I'm definitely eating well. There are some fine restaurants in this town, though not everything's been light's out. But to move from a place like Champaign to a place like NOLA? Wow. Until next time.

-foodgeek