→ May 15, 2008
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Georgia eats.

On the first season of Feasting on Asphalt, Alton Brown and his crew stopped at a tiny place in Toccoa, Georgia, called Shirley’s Sole Food Café. Ethan Martin, a likely first-rounder in this year’s Rule 4 draft, goes to school in Toccoa, and when I finally put two and two together the night before I flew down there, I figured I had to eat a meal at Shirley’s as sort of a pilgrimage. Unfortunately, I was there on a Friday, which is all-you-can-eat fish fry night at Shirley’s, meaning I didn’t get the menu that Alton et al got on their visit. The meal was slightly disappointing, although I was impressed that nothing tasted fishy. The fish is fried in large batches and placed in warming trays up front; you walk along the counter and point to what you want. The fried shrimp were the best option, in a crunchy crust (like panko, but can you really get panko bread crumbs out there?), while the fried tilapia ended up a bit chewy. It was $12 for the fish fry, plus another $8 if you wanted fresh steamed crab legs … which I did, receiving more crab legs than I could eat. They were fresh and had a lot of meat, but the meat itself was a little bland, lacking that distinctive undertone of sweetness that, for me, has always separated crab from lobster.

This week, I was driving down 19/41 to Griffin to see Tim Beckham when I passed McGhin’s Southern Pit Barbecue and saw the parking lot was pretty full for lunchtime on a weekday, so I pulled in. It certainly looked the part, and the menu was pretty straightforward without a lot of descriptions – the type of place that assumes you know your Q. However, it turned out to be more evidence that, as JC Bradbury told me last year, there is no good barbecue in Georgia. I went with a pork/beef platter, which came with piles of shredded meat plus two sides and “cracklin’ cornbread.” That cornbread was the only item on the plate to which I’d give an average grade (it was plus, plenty of fat in it and no sugar). Both meats were very dry and more chopped than shredded; I hate to be forced to add sauce to pulled pork or beef because it needs the moisture, and it was worse because the sauce was North Carolina style, heavy on the vinegar, which to my palate means one-dimensional. The baked beans were also too vinegary and more like a soup than actual baked beans. I didn’t even touch the coleslaw because it was sitting in a pool of a mayo-based dressing; God only knows what microbes might be living in there. For dessert – I had room – I got the peach cobbler, when in Rome, etc. It was more of a deconstructed peach pie, with a pie crust mixed in with the filling of a peach pie. (A cobbler dough is more akin to a biscuit dough than a pie crust dough, lighter and a little cakey rather than the flaky and tender and very fatty characteristics of pie dough.) The filling was overcooked and had way more cornstarch than needed to thicken it. I have to give the waitress credit, however; when I said I didn’t know what Brunswick stew was and, after she described it, decided not to order it as a side, she brought a tiny dish of it to me anyway so I could try it. I wish I could have said better things about the food, but I’m not going to lie to you – it just wasn’t good.

It’s also time for another update on Paschal’s. I went to the original location on MLK Jr. Drive in downtown Atlanta for breakfast, and the food was generally quite good and was made to order. I decided to branch out and try the salmon croquettes, a platter that comes with two eggs cooked to order, home fries, and a biscuit. The waitress actually asked me whether I wanted my eggs scrambled hard, medium, or soft, which is the first time I’ve ever been asked that; I went with soft, and they were perfect for me, although if you like ‘em runny they may seem overdone. The biscuit was excellent, very soft, but without much of a crust – the top was golden, but it was like a thin layer of parchment paper rather than the traditional semi-hard crust. The supposed star of the dish, the croquettes, were obviously made from tinned salmon and had a fishy taste that couldn’t really be avoided.

I also revisited the Paschal’s in the Atlanta airport before my flight home, and at the suggestion of one of you, tried the collard greens. They had a strong cured-pork flavor – I’m assuming ham hock – and the sweetness of a little sugar, although nothing can disguise the fact that collard greens, even cooked properly for hours, are bitter. And this time around, I got my quarter-dark fried chicken, which could not have been more perfectly cooked.

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→ January 19, 2008
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Disneyworld eats (second trip).

So before I get into new places, let me reiterate how much I like Raglan Road. We went twice, and I had the shepherd’s pie and Guinness both times, while my wife and I split the bread-and-butter pudding once. Other dishes I can recommend: The Guinness and onion banger is delicious, served over mashed potatoes and topped with a ladle-full of their beef stew, making it ridiculously hearty; their chicken and sage banger is also very good and a bit lighter than the pork banger, plus it’s a more reasonable portion than the prior dish; and the “pie in the sky” (chicken and mushroom pie) is hearty without being heavy, although it could never reach the heights of a proper steak and mushroom pie. We ordered a side of chips at lunch, and they appeared to be hand-cut. One caution: The Dunbrody Kiss dessert may sound delightful, but the cornflake layer on the bottom turns into a chewy, icky mush, and ruined the dish for me the one time we ordered it back in ’06.

Other than Raglan Road and a couple of breakfasts at Boma, we ate in the parks this time around. Most pleasant surprise was Flame Tree BBQ in Animal Kingdom; it’s real Q, complete with pink smoke ring. They offer pulled pork, shredded beef, ribs (St. Louis), and smoked chicken. My wife went with the pork sandwich; the meat had a mild smoke flavor and was just a little bit dry (unavoidable given the quantities they must smoke and serve). I went with the ribs, which were a little tough but were covered with spicy-sweet bark, the most glorious part of barbecued ribs in my book. The baked beans that came on the side had a smoky molasses flavor, but the corn muffin was nothing more than mushy corn cake. It’s easily one of the best values anywhere on the property.

The Prime Time Café at Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM) had good food, but was way overpriced. We both went with the pot roast, which was very nicely done, with most of the fat cooked out and plenty of well-browned surface area; it sat on top of some ultra-smooth mashed potatoes that served mostly to soak up whatever ran out of the pot roast. At $17 for lunch, it’s a bit dear, and large portions at lunch aren’t a big plus to me. They do make a good chocolate shake, though.

Get the smoked turkey leg if you have to eat at Magic Kingdom, or maybe the tuna on multi-grain bread at Columbia Harbour House. The Kingdom really doesn’t offer much for full-service options, and their quick-service selection isn’t great, either. The Sleepy Hollow stand, tucked in a corner in Liberty Square, has funnel cakes and Mickey waffles, two guilty pleasures.

We ate our way around Epcot, as usual, but hit a few new places this year:

  • The Biergarten in the Germany pavilion, offering a dinner buffet at $27 per adult (not including booze). Dinner buffets don’t usually thrill me, but the selection at this one was excellent, and our server, from northern Germany, told me that most of what was on the tables was authentic German food. The various sausages were all fantastic, as was the warm German potato salad (cider vinegar, mustard, and bacon … seriously). The salmon in dill sauce was solid, although I’d bet I got a piece that hadn’t been sitting under the lamps for long. The beef roulade tasted great but had dried out, while the pork schnitzel (breaded and fried!) was outstanding. Desserts were a disappointment. Live music is part of the appeal, with your typical goofy Disney humor.
  • The Rose and Crown in the England pavilion served straightforward versions of some of what you’d find at Raglan Road. We went twice; I wasn’t blown away by the pot roast, which was fattier than the one I had at Prime Time, but the bangers and mash were excellent, with outstanding color on the sausages. My sister got the fish and chips the time she came with us, and the breading on the fish was ultra-crisp and golden brown. Guinness on tap here is a bit colder than I’d like.
  • The San Angel Inn in Mexico was a disappointment. The menu seems less geared towards authentic cooking than other Epcot restaurants, and the prices here were out of line with 1) what I expect at a Mexican restaurant and 2) the quality of the product. I ordered the pescado a la ranchera, seared tilapia served over rice with an avocado cream sauce and roasted poblanos. The tilapia was quasi-blackened; the fish was almost certainly frozen at some point in its post-life life. I did like the avocado cream sauce, which was about as smooth as soft-serve ice cream.
  • We did the “princess dining” dinner at Askershus in the Norway pavilion. It’s steep at $29 per adult, but you are paying for the characters (your kid gets a photo with one of the princess characters, and the remaining princesses walk around and visit all the tables). The food was very good, probably the best of any place we hit at Epcot. Dinner starts with a koldbordt buffet of cold cuts, smoked fish (the smoked salmon was ridiculous, ultra-smooth with a sweet smoky flavor), and salads. For the entrée, I went with the baked salmon with mustard; I was disappointed that the mustard was yellow mustard, which I think is kind of nasty, but the salmon was perfectly cooked and the potato pancakes underneath it were fresh and crispy. My wife went with the braised pork shank, a huge portion where the meat just slid right off the bone. Dessert is family-style, with three desserts coming on one plate: a “rice cream” (pudding) with sweetened strawberries, a cappuccino cheesecake that tasted more like mousse than cheesecake, and a “princess cake” with a white chocolate mousse. All three were delicious. Note that this restaurant’s menu appears to change seasonally.
  • We hit the quick-service restaurant at the Morocco pavilion, the Tangierine Café. The “lamb wrap” was a gyro in all but name, with very juicy lamb shaved to order and served on a hot fresh flatbread with just a little bit of yogurt sauce (can I call it tzatziki if it’s not a Greek restaurant?). It’s a bit messy to eat while you walk, but either it was delicious or I was starving, because I inhaled the thing.

Finally, I can’t discuss Epcot without mentioning the Patisserie in the France pavilion. Their chocolate mousse is dark and very smooth; I can’t imagine that they’re making a true mousse with an egg white foam, a labor-intensive and fussy preparation, but that sure as heck is what it tastes like. Their éclairs are solid, with chocolate pastry cream inside, and the strawberry tart has a hard shortbread crust filled with sweetened whipped cream. I just wish you could get a proper espresso somewhere around there, but the only coffee they serve is Nescafe.

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→ December 6, 2007
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Nashville eats.

So before I get to the food, let me talk about the hotel that Minor League Baseball likes to force down the throats of the major league clubs (you know, the ones who make minor league owners’ insane profits possible) and the media covering the event, the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. You’re probably familiar with Hell’s Kitchen; this place is Hell’s Outhouse. I’m a pretty hardcore capitalist, and even I’m offended by the existence of this hotel. It’s enormous, large enough to get its own ZIP Code, with more wasted space than a banana plantation in the Yukon, and it’s overflowing with fake plastic trees and fake waterfalls and other crap straight from the mind of a designer who was clearly very, very mad at society when he came up with the concept. It takes about fifteen minutes to make a full circuit around the hotel, and can easily take upwards of twenty minutes to go from the lobby to certain guest rooms. Every restaurant and shop in the hotel is outrageously overpriced – $2.75 for a 20-ounce bottle of Dasani – and non-guests are charged $16 to park with no in-and-out privileges. There’s no central lobby area for the winter meetings’ standard evening congregations, and the hotel itself is located a good fifteen to twenty minutes from downtown or any area with non-chain sit-down restaurants. I’m tempted to go for a career switch, train as a munitions expert, bribe a county official to condemn the building before the meetings return to this scar on America’s landscape and culture in 2012, and (with the government’s permission, of course) blow the damn place to oblivion. I have yet to find a front-office exec, scout, or writer who likes the place. But hey, outgoing Minor League President Mike Moore loves it, so it’s been there every four to five years for forever now, and we may be stuck with it even after the door hits Moore square in the ass on his way out. Thanks for nothing, Mike.

First meal had to be quick, so I stopped by Fat Mo’s, a small Nashville-area fast-food chain along the lines of In-n-Out and Five Guys. The burger was excellent by fast-food standards, a wide half-pound patty with plenty of salt and some black pepper in it; it was well-done, of course, and it would have been nice if my “no cheese” request had been followed. (It wasn’t a big deal – I just peeled off the one slice of yellow crap.) Their French fries are very good, although not up to the hand-cut standard of the other two chains, although again Fat Mo’s gets credit for understanding the culinary value of salt. A burger and fries plus a bottle of water came to just over $6.

Whitt’s Barbecue shows up on a number of “best barbecue in Nashville” lists I found online, and their Q was solid. It’s a bare-bones joint and the menu is sparse. I ordered the cornbread dinner with pork, which comes with one side and fried cornbread, a Nashville specialty that elsewhere seems to be called a “corn cake.” The pork had a mild smoke flavor and no hint of dryness, meaning that very little sauce was required. The beans were fair, perhaps a bit too sweet, and the corn cake had a good crumb and savory taste but wasn’t very hot, so it had started to dry out.

Swett’s is a classic meat-and-three joint (which means you pick one meat item and three sides) in southwest Nashville that’s been open since 1953. Service is counter-based – you stand in line, get your order, pay at the end, etc. There’s a full list of items sitting on the top of the counter before you get to the food. They offer five standard meat items plus a couple of items from a list of five non-daily meat items, including pigs feet (not available the day I was there, darn it). I ordered the turkey and dressing, one of the non-daily meat items, as well as just two sides – pinto beans and okra – and baked corn bread (a muffin), as well as blackberry cobbler for dessert. The turkey and dressing was over-the-top good; I’m a sucker for cornbread dressing, and theirs was moist with a great mix of cornbread, onion, celery, and herb flavors, while the turkey was moist and the gravy was smooth with a good but not overpowering chicken-stock flavor. The pinto beans were classic southern-style with chunks of ham hock, while the okra was steamed (I was hoping for fried and didn’t see the okra before ordering it) and had little flavor. The cornbread was too sweet but had a good crumb; the cobbler was probably made from frozen blackberries and the cobbler dough was greasy, although neither fact stopped me from eating almost the entire thing.

The Yellow Porch is a sort of casual fine-dining restaurant on the southern end of town, with a strong emphasis on fresh ingredients, local ones if possible. The menu isn’t long but the dishes are layered – Calvin Trillin’s “something served on a bed of something else” expression comes to mind – and despite the obvious quality of the inputs, my meal didn’t add up. A perfect example of their too-clever-by-half philosophy is the oil served with the bread (which was, by the way, an outstanding soft sponge bread): Olive oil with chopped fresh herbs, with a pool of balsamic vinegar (might have been a reduction, but it wasn’t sweet) in the middle, with a small pile of fresh feta cheese in the middle of that. It was a taste overload, and the tart-with-tart combo didn’t work that well for me.

For the entrée, I went with grilled shrimp with “grits custard,” sautéed spinach, roasted red pepper coulis, and a “caraway spiced napa cabbage salad.” That last part, the cabbage salad, proved the undoing of the entire dish. The shrimp were outstanding, fresh, Cajun-spiced (but not blackened as the menu said), and the coulis was delicious. But in the center of the dish was a ring-molded grits custard, which was grits mixed with beaten eggs and what I think was parmesan cheese (not the real stuff) and baked. The texture was a bit odd, not firm like custard or smooth like grits/polenta. But the killer was the cabbage, which was shredded and drenched in white vinegar, which dripped down into the grits below it, rendering both items inedible. (Vinegar and parmesan cheese ≠ good eats.) To the restaurant’s credit, when I told the server that I was “disappointed” and explained about the excess vinegar, he took the entrée off the check.

For dessert, I had a slice of flourless chocolate-espresso torte with a raspberry coulis. The coulis was excellent and the texture of the torte was great, but it could have been darker. They get big points for having a wide selection of loose-leaf teas.

The next day’s lunch was at another meat-and-three with my comrade-in-fork, Joe Sheehan, who is also a frequent comrade-in-pork. Arnold’s Country Kitchen seems to be the consensus pick for Nashville’s best meat-and-three, and once we saw a diner with the pork barbecue on his plate, our lunchtime destinies were sealed. I paired mine with black-eyed peas and green beans. (Note: If the menu was posted somewhere, we didn’t see it, but there’s an image of it on their website.) The pork is a Wednesday special, and we picked the right day to go, because it was amazing, moist with a good smoky flavor, and the sauce had a nice molasses base without overpowering the flavor of the meat. The black-eyed peas sucked; there was no hint of ham hock or salt pork or, frankly, any flavor other than onions. The green beans were a little bit overstewed but otherwise solid. Arnold’s serves both baked cornbread and fried cornbread with every meal, and these were probably the best I’ve ever had, with no sweetness, plenty of fat in the recipe to keep them moist, and an absolutely perfect crumb. For dessert, I tried their “chocolate pie,” a thick chocolate pudding that tastes a lot like brownie batter topped with meringue. The filling was delicious and the meringue helped cut the richness of the filling, although the crust was too greasy and not very tender.

Last stop – with Sheehan, Kevin Goldstein, and Will Carroll in tow – was Calhoun’s, a Tennessee-wide chain of barbecue restaurants. They’re known or claim to be known for their ribs, so I went with the half slab with smashed red-skin potatoes and beans on the side. The hickory-smoked ribs were smoky but didn’t have a lot of hickory flavor; the best part was the top and end bits, with that indescribable pork taste and just the right amount of tooth. The mashed potatoes were good but generic – definitely made in a huge batch – and the beans were more like a chili than baked beans, which made a fan of Joe but was a little less of a hit with me. Pre-meal cornbread was on the sweet side, although the buttermilk biscuit was solid-average. They do get points for having Newcastle Brown Ale, which was about the last beer I expected to find in Nashville.

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→ July 14, 2007
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San Francisco eats.

My first meal in San Francisco was a dud, a sushi/Japanese place called Hana Zen. The fish was fresh, but totally tasteless, and the prices were on the high side. Skip it.

Breakfast on Saturday was at an upscale but very tiny restaurant called Canteen that does a simple weekend breakfast. I went with my standard plate. The scrambled eggs were really perfectly cooked, not runny but still soft, and the eggs were obviously very fresh. The hit for me was the home fries, made from red potatoes that were parboiled and then finished on a flat-top with just enough oil (or butter) to keep them from sticking. They’re not home fries, but they’re good. The chicken-apple sausage was either homemade or locally made, but it was not cooked enough for me. They do get extra points for nice presentation and for having green tea available as an option.

Saturday’s lunch was a visit to a sushi joint I hadn’t hit in six years, and wasn’t even sure I knew how to find. I stumbled across it while wandered around on Friday afternoon. It’s called Akiko, and it’s on Mason Street, not far from the Powell Street BART station and near Union Square. The place is tiny – four chairs at the sushi bar and maybe eight tables – but the fish is really fresh. The salmon was awesome, deep pink with a great texture, soft but not too soft. The unagi was great, although I’ve rarely run into bad unagi. Even the miso soup was good, tasting fresher than any I’ve had in ages. Just when I thought I was too stuffed to eat anything more, the last item I’d ordered, a spicy tuna hand roll, arrived. The thing was enormous, a good four inches or so long, with a generous serving of spicy tuna that had just enough sauce to flavor the tuna without ever making me think, “ugh, mayo.” And their prices are reasonable for sushi.

Memphis Minnie’s – The smoked andouille sausage was to die for, easily the best Q’d sausage I’ve ever had. It was like butter, but it was still thoroughly cooked, and even though it was a little spicy for my tastes, I ate every last bit of it. The pulled pork was good, smoky, just lacking a little bit of that sweetness that I’ve had in good pulled pork in the South, although it was easily remedied with any of the three sauces (North Carolina vinegar, South Carolina mustard, and Texas red) on the table. The texas beef brisket was good, but definitely a little dry, and it was the only meat left on my plate when I was done. The sides were a little disappointing; the cornbread (comes with every meal) was very sweet and had coarse-grind corn meal, which has a great taste but really needs to be cooked thoroughly (like polenta) before it’s added to cornbread batter. The baked beans were solid, with a heavy smoke flavor, but light on the brown sugar. I went for the French fries because they were hand-cut, but they weren’t any better than, say, In-n-Out’s hand-cut fries. Oh, forgot one thing – the sweet iced tea, named the best in SF in the most recent issue of Where magazine (or whatever that thing in my hotel room was), was like candy. Granted, I like my iced tea unsweetened, but this was practically iced tea syrup.

Dottie’s – This place was worth the visit for one thing alone: The scone. They make their own baked goods and the varieties change every day. I went for an apricot oat scone and was treated to a piping-hot wedge the size of a slice of a deep-dish pie. It was unbelievable – just slightly moist (like a scone should be), with huge chunks of avocado and the nice, complex sweet/nutty flavor of an oatmeal cookie. The meal itself was so-so; the scrambled eggs were cooked properly but were light on salt, the bacon rashers were thick and a little undercooked (I like ‘em crispy), and the potatoes were really light on salt. All of their egg plates come with two slices of homemade buttermilk dill bread, which was a very high-quality bread with a dense crumb, although I’m not big on dill.

My last meal in San Fran was a bit upscale, at a place near my hotel called Fino. I ordered a special, a grilled salmon with artichoke hearts and mushrooms, served in a white wine sauce with whipped potatoes. The salmon was fresh, clearly Pacific, cooked perfectly, and the sauce was light and thin so the fish’s flavor could come through. The “chocolate Fino” dessert, however, was a complete waste of time. It’s a chocolate pudding on a little raspberry sauce, and it’s bruléed before it’s served. Aside from the fact that I burned my finger on the glass bowl, the chocolate pudding was milk chocolate. Why bother? If I wanted a glass of milk, I would have ordered one.

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→ April 8, 2007
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Florida eats (part three)

Cleaning up from that Florida trip last month…

One of my favorite restaurant types is the barbecue shack. Not the barbecue restaurant, mind you – those are fine as long as they’re not chains – but the actual shack, something I’ve only encountered in Florida to date. The usual model is two small buildings by the side of the road, a small smokehouse where the actual Q happens and a shack nearby where orders are taken and food is served. There is never indoor seating, and the menu is extremely limited, as it should be. My all-time favorite barbecue shack is Big Ed’s in Dunedin, right near the Blue Jays’ spring training ballpark; the late Bobby Mattick tried it once and raved about it, so I tried it and was hooked. Big Ed’s still serves the best pulled pork I’ve ever had, anywhere.

Less than a mile from our hotel on this trip stood another barbecue shack, this one called McCray’s II. I went with my usual meal, a pulled pork sandwich and a side of barbecue beans. The pork was good, with a light smoke flavor and plenty of moisture left in it, so that the sauce was just for added flavor rather than to cover up the fact that the meat is dry. The beans were a disappointment – one trend I noticed in Florida was the tendency to cook many foods to within an inch of their lives so that their texture blows by al dente and ends up mush. Perhaps it’s a nod to Florida’s older population. Perhaps people down there just overcook everything by habit. Either way, it’s not good eats. But the pork was worth the trip.

Found a surprisingly good New York-style pizzeria in Palm Beach Gardens, called Giovanni’s, just off I-95. I’m a big fan of pizza in general – anything except Chicago/deep-dish, which is just a typical (dare I say it) American more-is-more approach to pizza – but having grown up in New York, I have a particular fondness for that style of thin-but-not-too-thin crust. Giovanni’s was solid, good crust with a crisp bottom below a soft dough that still had some softness to it; a sauce that didn’t taste like sugar; and the right amount of cheese. They also do a very nice garden salad, with artichokes, roasted red peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes on top of field greens. A medium cheese pizza and the salad (which serves two to three) came to about $17.

While down in Miami Springs to see a high school player I stumbled on a Thai place that was actually about to close for the afternoon, but turned out to be a gem. Rama Thai and Sushi appears to be mostly Thai, with a tiny sushi bar with only 3-4 stools, so Thai was what I went for. I had a lunch special, which was a huge bargain: $7 got me a miso soup, one fried spring roll (vegetarian, I think), and a just-right serving of pad thai. The pad thai was different, less sweet than I’m used to (that’s fine) with an earthy undertone, which I think came from cumin. I wanted to be polite and let them close up for the afternoon, but I have to mention that the cop sitting at the next table went for a very intriguing dessert of fried dumplings. He knocked off two plates, amazing since he looked like he weighed about 120 pounds.

Couple of not-so-great places to report on: Greek Taverna in Vero Beach looked promising, but the food was lousy. I went with a chicken kabob – I know, the gyro might have been a better choice – and the chicken had a bizarre texture, as if it wasn’t fully thawed when it was placed on the grill. Back in West Palm Beach, Jasmine Thai over on Haverhill Road promises “authentic Thai cuisine,” but while the tom yum goong was outstanding, the sauce on the pad thai clearly had peanut butter in it, making it sticky and way too sweet. The best part of that restaurant was the clientele, which that day included a man from southern China who was haranguing the waiter with descriptions of China and monologues on why people in Fujian never get sick (part of it is that they eat soup twice a day, or so he said), and an apparent heroin addict who had a loud conversation on his cell phone about some TV station that wanted to interview him that night. Good stuff.

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