Restaurant Review: KO Fusion - Faulty Science?

Back in 1989 a couple of scientists named Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann out in Utah issued a huge press release. They had discovered cold fusion, or the ability to generate almost limitless energy at room temperatures. Of course, there was a huge backlash against cold fusion after attempts to replicate their discovery failed. Flash forward to spring 2005. The "science" of cold fusion was thrust back in the headlines after some scientists at UCLA were able to perform a very small scale experiment that supposedly suggests nuclear fusion is possible at ambient temperature. Is cold fusion "back"? Or had it never left? Or is this just a passing trend?

Who knows? But here in Champaign, the revitalization of the downtown area continued with the opening of

***insert drum roll here***

KO Fusion.

This is not to be confused with Konfusion. Or even Confucious. (Warning, politically incorrect comment coming up) Think of it as someone with an Chinese, Korean, or Japanese accent trying to say, "cold fusion."

The restaurant looked pretty cool, chic, and trendy. Think dark lighting, stainless steel environment, and splashes of color here and there coming from alternative light sources. It looks a little cliche, but in Champaign, that's still about 10 years ahead of the game.

So, a couple of weeks ago Darren and I ventured out for a taste of the new, trendy spot. We got outside seating, and the server was pleasant. Overall, the server did a great job. She got us drinks very promptly, checked on us at the right intervals. There was a minor mix-up when the kitchen forgot one of our appetizers, but she corrected that very quickly. So, a thumbs up for the server. Now the manager doesn't get quite as high marks, and we'll talk about that later.

The food looked like it had potential. There was a sushi bar, as well as a kitchen, so that was promising. I figured that I could try to introduce Darren into sushi a little at a time. We opened up with a sushi platter and a couple pieces of toro (fatty tuna) and uni (sea urchin). We started with the more luxurious items first. I still haven't been able to really appreciate toro as much as I should. It just doesn't really carry any more flavor for me than regular tuna. Now uni is a different story. I describe it as the fois gras of the ocean. You get this addictingly rich, creamy texture that tastes like a visit to the beach, without the Coppertone. The rest of the sushi platter was solid, though nothing spectacular. Everything tasted fresh and of a good quality, but there wasn't anything different than going to any of the other older, more traditional places here in town.

Now, I know that sushi isn't supposed to be a huge rice ball, but the amount of rice here was just a little bit too small. I've been to some places that just overwhelm you with the amount of rice they put into their sushi, which isn't good. But there's something in between which is hard to find, apparently.

So, we took a little break after the sushi and just hung out, enjoying the night breeze and the pretty girls at the next table (okay, okay... I enjoyed the pretty girls at the next table; Darren has a girlfriend and isn't allowed to look at other girls). This was when the night took a turn for the... well, different.

Champaign-Urbana is still a pretty rural town, once you take away the university and the tech industry that has been brought in by the university. You still have more trailer parks than condos. And of course, some of the locals want to wander and check out that new place. Which generally is fine. But when your outside, people don't think that they don't have to use their "inside voices." And when a restaurant is trying to sell a 30% premium based on ambiance, it makes for a pretty annoying situation. We had a table that looked that they had just gotten done at the bowling alley and needed some more Coors before they headed home. We had another guy get into an argument with some stranger off of the street that almost evolved into a fistfight. And during all of this, no one from the restaurant came out to apologize, though our server did come out with a smile and a little joke for us.

But, we survived and continued with our tasting menu. Next up was an order of the baby octopus salad and an order of the pan fried shrimp cakes. The octopus salad was tasty (a little sweet, a little sour, a little spice, a little crunch, a little chew - just nice), though the octopus was shredded, rather than left whole, which would've been awesome. The shrimp cakes were also solid. Served over some greens, topped with a sweet chili sauce.

The entrees that we went with were the sweetcorn and duck confit risotto and the the stir fried veggies and soba noodles with scallops and shrimp. Again, both were solid dishes. The seafood stir fry had good crisp veggies, really solid seafood, soba noodles that were cooked well. The sauce was a little bland (tasted like standard Oyster Sauce like you would get in beef and broccoli at the local takeout joint). But overall solid. The risotto was creamy and rich, with little sweet bits of corn, though the duck was a little bland. This dish needed some more salt (or better yet, some grated parmaseano reggiano on there).

Of course, this sort of begs the question, "Where's the fusion?" I didn't see any dishes that took Western techniques into Asian foods, or vice versa. There's a lot of potential in this area for food that's genuinely different, but still of high quality. How cool would beef bulgogi/Wellington have been? Or how about sun-dried tomato and Sichuan peppercorn cream sauce over soba noodles? Or Coq au Sake? How about teppanyaki steak over daikon frites? I think that my little brainstorm has potential.

KO Fusion's desserts sounded rather plain - different ice creams (green tea, red bean, mango, etc.) for the most part. We drew a pass on that. Again, there was a lack of fusion (or at least to the depths that I was hoping for). A green tea creme brulee would have been interesting. Red bean and white chocolate moon cakes could be a real winner. Frozen lychees stuffed with marzipan cream have me just wondering why desserts need to be so boring.

At KO Fusion, there was a good looking menu that had dishes from different parts of the world. Of course, so do TGI Friday's and Applebee's. The place has only been running for about a month or so. We'll give it some more time before we try it again. But for now, there's an incomplete. I think that there's potentially 1 or 1.5 stars to be given out here down the road, if they clean some things up, remove the confusion, and find the fusion in KO Fusion.

-foodgeek

Restaurant Review: Tracks - Going to the Other Side

The other side of the tracks was usually a term that described the poor neighborhoods that were situated near railroads. It always carried a negative connotation - poor, dangerous, and not us. Even today, you see some remnants of truth in this term. Here in good ol' Champaign-Urbana, there's a train track that runs parallel to and just north of University Ave. To the south, the beautiful brick buildings of the U.'s world renowned engineering campus. To the north? Largely African-American residential neighborhoods. Some of them are government subsidized. Others are just normal middle class housing. But it's definitely the other side of the tracks for most of the students here at the U.

So why is this little nugget here at Foodgeek?

Well, there's a new bar/restaurant in town, called Tracks that is situated, appropriately enough, right by those railroad tracks, in the heart of downtown Champaign. Tracks has gotten the Foodgeek seal of approval, which was sort of surprising, given the biases that I had going in. The major thing was the location. While the old train station is a cool place to have a bar, it had been empty for the last couple years. Also, this is on a corner without a lot of parking, and multiple bars between the majority of parking spots and Tracks. I'd figure that a lot of peple would just park, and as they started to walk to Tracks, just stop off somewhere along the way and sort of forget about getting to their original destination.

But, I figured that I had to visit the place so I could get a decent review in here, and I've been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food. So much so, that I've actually gone back a couple times to sample a little more. They actually have a pretty large menu - a handful of entrees, probably 15 or so sandwiches, a few different salads, a handful of appetizers, and a few surprisingly good desserts. You don't go to sports bars for dining experiences, but you do go for good portions, reasonable prices, and solid food. Tracks does this well.

I haven't gone after the entrees, yet, but have sampled a good number of the appetizers and sandwiches. The one conclusion that I've come to is that frying isn't as easy as you may figure. You see so many places get it wrong. Limp french fries. Heavy onion rings. Burnt food in general. Happily, I am very impressed at how Tracks gets this very simple act down well. The calamari was crispy and fun to eat. (who doesn't like eating the tenticles? Communists, I bet). The frog legs, while being a little fishy, were fried just right in a nice batter. I think that the one surprising fried treat was the potato cheese puffs. While not really a puff, but rather little fried pucks of hash brown and cheese casserole, it was so darned addicting.

Of course, for those who are somewhat health conscious, they have plenty of non-fried options. For those of you into the soup and salad sort of thing, Tracks delivers surprisingly well for a bar/grill. The onion soup isn't earth shattering, but it's solid - how can you go wrong with onion soup, a crouton and a layer of melted cheese? The chili is also good - not the absolute best in town, which would probably have to go to Crane Alley, but this is a solid effort. The salads are generally well executed, though not revolutionary. The oyster and spinach salad is very good. Slices of egg and red onion accompany cornmeal breaded oysters atop a surprisingly tender spinach salad that's dressed with a very tasty bacon vinagrette (think German potato salad dressing). The balsamic steak Caesar salad is also done well. Thin slices of grilled steak, go on top of romaine tossed in a balsamic Caesar dressing. Rich and tangy, and a little changeup from the usual effort.

The sandwiches are generally ample in size and are solid fare. The southern-style catfish was excellent. A nice cornmeal breading that was crunchy and seasoned just right covered an incredibly tender catfish fillet. With all due respect to my old friends at the Seaboat, this is probably the best southern style fish sandwich in town. The burger was a solid effort, though not transcendent. They also serve a muffuletta that is probably the best fascimilie of the New Orleans classic within 100 miles.

The desserts at Tracks draw an incomplete, for now. The banana bread pudding is excellent - caramel and pecans top a creamy bread pudding made from banana bread, all served warm. Very rich and decadent. The chocolate cobbler has been spotty. I describe is as being a medium rare brownie, topped with a chocolate crumb topping, a la mode. I'm still not sure if I like it. It's rich, warm, and chocolatey. It's also messy, and perhaps a little too sweet, and not enough of the chocolate's depth is brought out. The first time, it came looking like a mound of chopped up flourless chocolate cake, topped with a scoop of vanilla. You couldn't really tell what it was. For not, we'll just leave it as an incomplete.

Of course, that is not to say that there weren't any misses. As mentioned before, the frog legs were a little bit on the fishy side and the meat was somewhat bland (though it was fried well). The other obvious miss was the chicken wings, oddly enough. They were seasoned pretty well, but they were tiny. And that made them a little bit tough. Considering that they cost more than my catfish sandwich, it was disappointing when the server brought them out.

The other miss is in the service. The servers were all friendly, and seemed competent enough at first. But then you look around. The first thing that you'll notice is that Tracks is a pretty big place, with a good sized patio. And on the nights that I've been there, the crowds have been somewhat sparse. While I'm not all that concerned about seeing and being seen, I am concerned about this for a different reason. You end up with spotty service. Servers get bored when they don't have enough customers, so they hang out at the bar and chat with each other. So, oddly enough, if a server had 4 tables, I'd get a visit every 10 minutes or so, if I'm the only table, there's a good chance that I'll see my server only about 15 or 20 minutes. Which is fine when I'm not needing anything. But when I need another drink or a condiment that was forgotten, then it becomes annoying. I think that we may have caught our server on a bad night, but she dropped glasses on two separate occasions, which sort of jarred our attention. But she was pleasant enough to joke about it with us later when she came back to the table. One thing to note about the patio - trains actually run by every so often, so you'll be distracted then. Also, sometimes they're passenger trains, that will actually stop and let the passengers out to stretch and get some fresh air (and the engineers to use the bathroom and to get a scotch and soda). One time on the patio, some of the passengers came out, and started chatting with us while we were out on the patio. Now, I sort of dig that randomness, but that may note be the most appealing thing for everyone, so this is fair warning.

So, no stars offered to Tracks, yet. It's only been open a month, and it's still working out the kinks. We'll see what happens with the entrees. I think that if they're solid, a little tweak of the menu and a little emphasis on service, you could have a quality 1 or 1.5 star grill on our hands. Which is more than what you'd expect to find on the other side of the tracks.

-foodgeek

Restaraunt Review: Antonio's - Thick or Thin?

Now pizza can be a dicey thing, particularly on a college campus. The University of Illinois is no different. Certainly, we have our share of national chains. We have a couple places that make good thin crust (Jupiter's comes to mind) and a place that makes a good deep dish or stuffed pie (Papa Del's is the exemplar here). And there are the "college" pizza places where cardboard, ketchup, and cheap cheese served warm passes for pizza. Of course, this isn't to say that I haven't ordered a 3 pound calzone from one of these places at 2:30am for $6 delivered. But what I haven't really had out here is a good slice of New York-style pizza here. Being a kid who spent his late teenage years near Albany, NY, it's definitely been something that I've missed.

And now there's been a change. We have a new pizza joint in Campustown. I can actually get a reasonable replication of New York-style pizza here on campus. So with that, welcome, Antnoio's. What's wonderful about Antonio's is that it's open late. Until after the bars close. And it's right in the heart of campus. That right there gives it syle points in a college town. Add in the fact that you can get a huge slice (1/8th of a 24" pie is a meal for many folks) for $1.50, and you're golden.

It's pretty fun to go in there. First, you see this big white board that lists out like 30 different pizzas. Next you notice that they have racks of like 30 pre made pizzas ready to go. You go into line, and call out what you want (or just point to the examples that are on the counter), and they go and grab a slice that's already made, and run it through an oven to warm and crisp it up while you go pay. It's a little different, a little louder, a little less civil, and a little more salt of the earth. If you're not ready to go, someone who is will call out what they want. They'll have a few guys working during the rushes so it's not like you'll lose out with the Soup Nazi and get sent back to the end of the line. It's more like working on the floor of the stock exchange. You may miss your shot now, but it'll come again shortly.

As for the pizza itself? Well, it all starts with the crust. You can watch the guys hand stretch the dough, and even let gravity do the work. You see a ball of dough turn into this huge sheet of soon-to-be pizza. What I didn't see was them toss the dough into the air. Which I'm just fine with. I think that most pizza guys will acknowledge that the toss is really more for the show than for the dough. It looks good, but doesn't really help anything.

Then, a ladle full of sauce goes on, and is spread out over the dough. And they get it right. There's enough so that you can feel the sauce (and not eat the pizza too quickly for fear of losing a layer of skin from the top of your mouth), but not so much that it oozes out of the slice when you bite in. The sauce is solid, though not spectacular. I doubt that it's made in house, but it serves its purpose.

The layer the top with cheese, and whatever toppings are needed for a particular pizza. As for the toppings, Antonio's has a blend of old school and new school. You can get all of the traditional toppings, or just a nice slice of cheese. Or, you can get some more "gourmet" toppings for a little more (they do a pretty good version of margherita (tomato, basil, and fresh mozzarella, make some good pesto pizzas, and white pizzas). They also do some interesting theme pizzas like a steak burrito pizza where instead of sauce, there is a layer of bean, cheddar, some rice, tomatoes, peppers, and steak. Now, no pad thai or peking duck pizza, so we haven't gone California, yet, which is good for a college place.

So how does it taste? Wonderful. The crust is crispy and still chewy. The sauce does it's job as an accomplice. The cheese is ample, but not overwhelming. The rest of the toppings can be overwhelming, but only if you want to order it that way It's nice now you get this huge slice of pizza, fold it over at the corners of the crust, and just start eating it from the point. No silverware needed. Here's the thing. If you want something simple and traditional, go with just a slice of cheese, pepperoni, sausage, or tomato. It'll give you the feel of what New York-style is. Then branch out and try some different topping combos.

With 30+ varieties, I haven't gone with them all, yet. But I am happy to report that so far, I've had no bad experiences, and have really enjoyed the BBQ steak pizza (steak, cheddar, bacon, onion on BBQ sauce) and the Meatcravers (sausage, pepperoni, beef, bacon, etc., etc. on red sauce) when I need to indulge the carnivore. The neapolitan pizza (spinach, tomato, feta on red) was also a good bet when I felt the need to pretend to eat vegetables.

Now some traditionalists will hold that you should only have cheese, or something traditional like the margherita. I'm much more liberal in my interpretation. Happily, Antonio's allows for both conservative and liberal thinking in pizza. They're a uniter, not a divider. After all, you can't really go wrong with stopping in, grabbing a slice or two, and not breaking the bank while getting a good meal. Particularly when it takes me back to my time back East.

-foodgeek