→ May 5, 2026
→ By
→ 4 Comments

Arkansas eats, 2026 edition.

I did not expect to find stellar sushi and well above-average pizza in northwest Arkansas, but that region contains multitudes. It was my second trip to the reason and I have to say it’s one of my favorite places in the U.S. to visit.

Pizzeria Ruby is an artisan pizza shop with a sign from Fenway Park hanging up over the bar, for some reason. (My server didn’t know why. He also thought it was from New York.) Their pizza style is somewhere between Neapolitan and coal-fired Brooklyn or New Haven styles, crispier than Neapolitan on the outside and the undercarriage, and they use Bianco tomatoes for their red pizzas. I got their version of a margherita, which has more sauce and a few other Italian cheeses in addition to the fresh mozzarella, and would land in my top 30 for sure. I didn’t actually love the sauce, which I think might have been a little too salty, or maybe there was just too much of it relative to the cheese. Their pizzas are huge, 18”, so go with a friend. I also loved their anti-ICE and pro-people signage.

Junto is a sushi restaurant inside the Motto hotel, a boutique hotel in the Hilton chain that seems like an extremely cool place to stay. I know you can get high-quality fish shipped anywhere at this point, but I was still floored to get fish this good in the middle of the country, nowhere near a major airport. The salmon usuzukuri was as tender as I’ve ever had it, and the ponzu sauce paired well with its inherent fatty texture. The miso soup, despite being just miso soup, was also a big hit, mostly because of the dashi – someone’s making that from scratch. The pressed rainbow roll was my server’s suggestion, and it was good for what it was – again, really fresh fish – but probably not ideal for me because those rolls blur all of the different flavors.

Songbird Sandwiches is a food truck located by the 8th Street Market, serving 5-6 gourmet sandwich options along with fancy sodas and kombuchas, because this is actually California, not northwest Arkansas. I got the turkey sandwich which, to their credit, had so much slaw and lettuce and turkey that it probably could have fed me and my wife (had she been there) comfortably. I love their focaccia as well, although focaccia does struggle to hold the fillings when you use it for sandwiches. I’m not complaining one bit about the cost, but I was surprised that it was just over $25 for a sandwich, soda, and 20% tip. Thanks, Donnie!

Hail Fellow Well Met is a restaurant from the owner of Onyx Coffee, which is my favorite coffee roaster in the country and has been for a few years now. HFWM is located next door to Pizzeria Ruby and has a gorgeous space with a ton of natural light and multiple distinct seating areas. It’s counter-service, with a full coffee bar including a pour-over option from Onyx, and I went for brunch on the recommendation of the same person who suggested Junto. I thought I was being boring by getting the “HFWM Simple,” which is just eggs, bacon, potatoes, avocado, and one piece of toast. It is neither boring nor simple: The potatoes are in a rosti/knish sort of combination patty, the eggs are softly scrambled (and served in a cute clay cup), the bacon is thick rashers of pork belly, there’s also a dressed herb salad, the avocado has seeds and spices on it, and also there’s a piece of toast. The only hiccup, if that, was when I asked for hot black tea. You would think I ordered the world’s most obscure cocktail or something, but they did eventually figure it out. I was going to eat there and then go to an Onyx shop to work until my flight, but loved the space so much that I got the same coffee I would have gotten at the café and stayed there the whole morning.

Wright’s BBQ is an Arkansas chain doing Texas-style BBQ, which does mean their signature item is something I don’t eat – brisket. (I gave up eating cow about 7-8 years ago for medical reasons.) Instead I went with a quarter rack of ribs and the smoked chicken, with collards and cole slaw as my sides. The ribs were solid-average, maybe a touch better than that, good flavor, meat that was almost too tender inside, a little toughness around the edges. Probably just average. The chicken was a waste of time – I don’t understand why anyone smokes white meat. It just dries out – dark meat loves slow cooking, white meat needs something fast because it has so little fat. The cole slaw was really vinegary, just right to cut into the sweetness of the rub on the rubs, and clearly fresh because it was so crunchy. The collards were also pretty good, and I appreciate that the pork they used in them was still in large chunks so I could avoid them (just for health, I don’t need to eat what is essentially just more bacon) while still claiming I ate a lot of vegetables.

I stopped by Ozark Mountain Bagel Co. for a quick breakfast one morning, and, well, I got about what I expected. It’s just round bread, and the egg on the egg sandwich was one of those pre-cooked discs.

Finally, Onyx. I’m obsessed, especially with their space in downtown Bentonville, where the line wraps around the bar and out the door for hours on weekend mornings. Their coffee is superb – I’ve probably tried five or six single origins from them and at least two different blends, and I’ve loved all of them. They hit the right roasting level for me, at least, so the tasting notes come through, and with enough coffee to get some good body in the cup. (I’ve been to a few places recently where the flavor was good but the coffee itself felt thin.) Their pour-over menu this weekend included a Rwandan bean that was good enough for me to grab a bag on the way out, after which I walked around the Saturday morning farmer’s market for a while just to take in the atmosphere. If the rest of the state wasn’t somewhere to the right of Gilead, I could easily live there. As for Onyx … it’s still undisputed.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
→ April 20, 2026
→ By
→ 2 Comments

Charleston, Atlanta, and Athens eats.

I’ve been Charleston a few times, and I can never run out of new restaurants to try there. I don’t think any city of its size is this dense with quality places to eat (and drink, both coffee and cocktails). This time around, I finally tried one of their two famous barbecue places, Lewis BBQ, which also has locations in Greenville, SC, and now Atlanta. Their ribs were some of the best I’ve ever had, with the perfect texture to the bark and the interior, sliding off the bone while still retaining some bite, and the rub has a rich brown sugar flavor. The pulled pork sandwich has maybe two servings’ worth of meat on it, also with excellent texture, although I didn’t get a lot of bark there so the flavor was more muted. The collard greens are solid, but the corn pudding is a star, almost dessert-like because it’s so rich and the corn gives it so much sweetness. It’s got to be among the top five BBQ places I’ve ever tried, although that list isn’t growing as much now that I’ve stopped eating beef and eat much less pork than I used to. (I’ve still yet to get to the other Charleston institution, Rodney Scott’s.)

Dave’s Carry Out is a tiny Black-owned shop that mostly does just one thing: fried seafood. It looks like it’s closed, or even abandoned, and the interior is bare-bones with only a few places to sit, but man is that fried flounder good. It was more than a serving’s worth, two large fillets, fried to order, perfectly crisp with plenty of seasoning. The sandwich comes with basic white bread, lettuce, tomato, and mayo. They also offer fried shrimp, red rice (which was fine), and sometimes special sides like lima beans.

I’d wanted to go to EVO, a pizzeria in North Charleston, for probably a decade or more, and finally got there on this trip. They offer wood-fired pizzas that sit somewhere between Neapolitan and New York styles, with a crispier crust than the former, and they use mostly locally grown and sourced ingredients. The pizzas are small, and the crust itself is more texture than flavor – it’s crisp, but without a whole lot of interior to it, so you don’t taste the dough very much, and it’s more a vehicle for the toppings than a part of the whole. We also got their version of a caprese salad, which was some early tomatoes (so their flavor wasn’t close to peak) with a small amount of crumbled mozzarella on top. I’d call this a disappointment, given how long I’d heard that they were one of the best pizzerias, if not the best, in Charleston.

For coffee, I went to my downtown favorite, Second State, twice, getting a pour-over once and a macchiato the other time. The pour-over was a Colombian Sidra that was fermented using the thermal shock process, so the beans are rapidly heated and cooled, described here. The barista said there were guava notes, and she wasn’t kidding – this coffee is a guava bomb, from the aroma through the first note you get on every sip. That won’t be for everyone, but I thought it was outstanding, with some more complex notes in the finish that were less overtly tropical. I also spent some time writing at Mudhouse over on King, as they have a better loose-leaf tea selection (and above-average coffee). My favorite coffee roaster in the area is Prophet up in North Charleston, but I didn’t get there on this trip.

I had lunch at Sorelle, a restaurant inspired by Italy’s all-day cafes, which has a take-away market with seating available for lunch before the tables turn over to the fine-dining dinner menu. The excellent spicy chicken Caesar sandwich isn’t actually that spicy, with a little ‘nduja in the dressing, and includes some roasted peppers and lemon, so it’s much more interesting and complex than the typical Caesar salad. The Sicilian pizza was a little disappointing, as there wasn’t much cheese on it and there was way too much garlic (a phrase I very rarely use in my life).

Portrait Coffee in Atlanta’s West End is a Black-owned roastery/café – very rare in the specialty coffee space, unfortunately – that recently did a collaboration with Big Boi to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Outkast’s Stankonia. I didn’t try that coffee, as it’s a darker roast than I typically like, but did have a lighter roast Honduran coffee that was excellent with the honeyish notes common to that region. I also loved the café space itself, which was decorated with LPs, books, and art from Black artists of the last half-century.

Portrait happens to be next door to one of Eater’s top restaurants in Atlanta, the all-vegan Tassili’s Raw Reality, which mostly sells wraps and salads built around their dressed kale, which you can get as mild, spicy,  or a mix of the two. I went for the mixed, which was just the right spice level for my tepid palate, in the South of the Border wrap, which has black-eyed pea hummus, couscous, avocadoes, and tomatoes on a chili-pepper tortilla. I got the half size, which was more than enough for a meal for me. After my first bite, I thought I’d made a huge tiny mistake; it was a little bitter, which definitely happens with raw kale if you don’t dress it properly, and seemed underseasoned. I ended up eating the whole thing, because it clearly got better the more I ate – or maybe I just got the end of it without as much dressing and other toppings in that initial taste. So if you go there, don’t give up after a bite or two. It was all good enough that I’m going to try to replicate the concept at home with my own dressings.

Moving along to Athens, I got out of the Friday night game just in time to get into Puma Yu’s right before their kitchen closed at 9:30. It’s a “non-traditional Thai” restaurant and cocktail bar in what is otherwise mostly an industrial park, with a pergola outside and a dozen or so tables inside that help wall off the distinctly un-homey vibe of the rest of the complex it’s in. I was looking for something lighter, so I ordered their spring salad and tuna crudo. The salad had mixed local greens, including chard, little gem, and spinach, with crushed peanuts, fried shallots, several herbs, chili flakes, and a tangy tamarind dressing. I’d go back just for that salad – it was ridiculously good, from the quality of the greens themselves (mostly ‘baby’ greens so they were still pretty tender) to the balance of salt, acid, and sweetness in the dressing and the shallots, to the texture contrasts from the peanuts, shallots, and the crisp greens. The tuna crudo in lemongrass vinegar and makrut lime leaf oil ended up a little overshadowed because its flavors were milder, and I probably should have eaten them in the reverse order because the acidity of the salad’s dressing ended up muting that of the tuna. The fish’s quality was superb, though. For a cocktail, I tried the Retirement Plan, which, hey, I’m 52, it’s never too early to think about retirement, right? It’s made with rhum agricole, which doesn’t always play well with mixers, along with cachaça, both spirits made from sugar cane juice (rather than molasses, like traditional rum). The drink is finished with maraschino liqueur, melon (I think honeydew), lime, and Thai basil; it was pleasantly alcoholic but not overpowering, and the Thai basil was prominent enough to keep the drink from tasting too much like a beach resort cocktail.

White Tiger is a small barbecue & burger spot in a converted house a stone’s throw south of Puma Yu’s; I zagged a little here and got the seared salmon sandwich, thanks in part to their employee’s recommendation, and the grilled vegetables of the day. The sandwich comes with cream cheese (which I omitted because that stuff is gross), capers, cucumbers, organic field greens and lemon vinaigrette dressing, on a toasted ciabatta, and my only complaint is that ciabatta isn’t strong enough for that much stuff in the middle. The salmon was dead-on medium, which is how I like it (probably more than most folks like it cooked, but I either want salmon raw or close to cooked through, not the in-between gummy-bear consistently of rare), and vegetables on top added plenty of bright acidity and salt to help balance the fattiness of the fish. The grilled vegetables will vary by season; I got primarily broccoli and cabbage, which were really smoky and a little charred to bring out some sweetness, although they needed a little acidity so I ended mixing them with some of the toppings that fell off the sandwich.

My one coffee stop in Athens was 1000 Faces, which I’d actually been to before, when I went to UGA in 2020 to see Emerson Hancock and Cole Wilcox. It’s a great space, busy both times I’ve been there, and their pour-overs are just $5.

Mama’s Boy comes up on lots of lists of the best restaurants in Athens, particularly for their biscuits. The biscuits are good, but not elite, and everything else was just okay or worse, particularly the “hashed potatoes,” which tasted like they came out of a freezer bag.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
→ May 16, 2025
→ By

Chicago eats, 2025 edition.

I had a short run through Chicago last week, with some disappointing scouting looks at a trio of high school players, but I managed to hit a couple of spots on my wishlist, and found a great local diner out in the suburbs.

Robert’s Pizza & Dough Company is located downtown, right by the Navy Pier, and appeared on this list of the 50 best pizzerias in the United States, compiled by an Italian outfit and skewed towards Neapolitan-style pizzas. Robert’s isn’t Neapolitan, though – it’s thin-crust, but crispier rather than doughy, without the wet center, and damn is it good, about as perfect a marriage as you’ll find between Neapolitan and New York-style pizzas. Robert is Robert Garvey, who chatted with a number of customers and explained to me that the dough was the result of years of experimenting in his home oven, so it’s really not any style but his own. I’d read on that same Italian site that they loved the sausage topping; it’s made in house and has a strong fennel flavor, and paired well with mushrooms (my favorite make-your-own toppings). The pizza was about $30, but really could have fed two people; I ate maybe ¾ of it, mostly because I knew I wasn’t going to eat for seven hours or so afterwards. It would definitely make my top pizzerias list, somewhere in the top half.

I didn’t love Rose Mary when I tried it last year, although it’s widely acclaimed and a few of you said you loved it, but I read that Chef Joe Flamm had opened a second place, Il Carciofo, featuring the cuisine of Rome, and managed to slip in there when the player I went to see on Tuesday was pulled after one at bat (I think because his team was already up 6-0). The best dish I had was the gnocchetti, which my server said was brand-new to the menu; despite the name, these were typical gnocchi (not small ones), with morels, asparagus, and Vacche Rossa Fonduta, the historical precursor to Parmiggiano-Reggiano. The gnocchi had just a little chew to them, while the sauce that formed around and from the other ingredients was a salty umami explosion. I also loved the fried artichoke – “carciofo” is Italian for artichoke – which was surprisingly light and delicate in texture. The filetti di baccalà, fried chunks of salt cod, came in a tempura-like coating, but were greasy, and the dessert I tried, maritozzi, sweet bread filled with whipped cream, had almost no flavor at all. (They often have a coating of crushed pistachios or chocolate to give them some kind of kick; this one didn’t.) I tried one cocktail, staying on theme with The Art of Choke, a combination of Cynar (an artichoke-based amaro), green Chartreuse, Flor de Caña rum, and mint, which was just a little sweet with a heavy herbal-vegetable undertone.

I tried Chicago tavern-style pizza for the first time, picking up a pie from Frank’s on Belmont Avenue to bring to a friend’s house for an impromptu game night. (He taught me Tiletum, which I liked, and we played 1987 Channel Tunnel, which I loved, and which finally got off my Shelf of Shame.) As much as I rag on Chicago pizza because I don’t like deep dish, I’m a fan of tavern-style pizza – it’s not too far apart from the Brooklyn coal-fired crust, crispy with enough structure to hold its shape when you pick up a square, and it practically screams for a cold beer.

I stayed out near O’Hare because it saved a ton of money, and happened on the Lake St Cafe, a fairly new diner in Addison that’s family owned, and serves huge portions for breakfast and lunch. I went there twice, the second day getting the veggie omelet, which was enormous. The menu says three eggs, but those had to be ostrich eggs or something. Anyway, it was one of the best diner omelettes I’ve had … maybe ever? They’re clearly using good eggs, and it had plenty of feta to give it some saltiness and acidity. The breakfast potatoes, however, had clearly been sitting for a while and were unchewable. The day before, I tried their chilaquiles, which came with a delicious, mildly spicy green salsa, but had what seemed like half a party-sized bag’s worth of tortilla chips, so after I ate the eggs (correctly cooked over medium, always a sign someone’s cooking things to order) and the chips with cheese on them, I had still had a giant plate of soggy chips in front of me. They may still be fine-tuning some recipes, but the foundation is good.

Maybe five minutes away is one of the locations for Brewpoint, a coffee roaster with a huge space in Elmhurst that is perfect for sitting to work for an hour or two. Their spring blend, The Botanist, is a little darker of a roast than I like, but if you like a medium roast it’s quite good. At Jack Bauer’s game, Caleb from Connect Roasters came by to watch the local flamethrower with me (I didn’t see the triple digits, unfortunately), and he brought me a cup of Guatemala La Colina that I desperately needed at that point; like most of the Guatemalan beans I’ve tried, it has cocoa notes with some small berries like raspberry.

And near Brewpoint in Elmhurst is a little sandwich shop called Zenwich, where I tried the fried shrimp sandwich with garlic, arugula, cilantro, and spicy mayo. It was sort of like a po’ boy by way of Vietnamese cuisine, and the shrimp had clearly just been cooked – and they were perfectly done, squeaking past the line between undercooked and done.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
→ May 1, 2025
→ By

Atlanta & Tuscaloosa eats.

One of my last draft scouting trips of the spring brought me to Atlanta for the weekend with a detour to Tuscaloosa, my first-ever first to Alabama’s home stadium as they’ve generally been one of the weakest SEC teams for draft prospects.

In Atlanta, I hit Varuni Napoli, which would now make my top 50 pizzerias list if I revised it today. It’s Neapolitan pizza but just stretched a little differently, so the pizzas are larger with less of a puffy exterior ring, while they still have the wet centers that are the hallmark of the style. I went with their sausage, mushroom, onion, and red pepper pizza, a standard option that happens to be one of my favorite combinations as is. The dough was still airy around the edges, and the sausage, which is sliced like pepperoni so it cooks more quickly, had a peppery kick and strong fennel-seed note. The sauce was excellent, slightly sweet and slightly tangy. I haven’t been to Antico in a decade or more, so it’s tough to say truly that this is better … but I think it might be.

Buttermilk Kitchen showed up on some list of the best brunch spots in Atlanta, and I saw they 1) had homemade biscuits and 2) promised they made everything from scratch while using local ingredients where possible, which, coincidentally, are my two main criteria for breakfast when I’m in the south. The biscuits are enormous drop biscuits and very, very buttery, while also a little sweet even before you try the blueberry-basil jam it comes with. One of those and two eggs probably would have been a full breakfast for me on any day, although this was Sunday and I knew this was essentially breakfast and lunch in one, so I ordered the daily special omelet with butternut squash, onions, and fontina, along with hashbrown fritters as the side. The fritters were more like little knishes than hashbrowns, with the center more akin to mashed potatoes. The omelet was a gamble because I don’t normally care for butternut squash, but it looked like the best choice to get some vegetables without resorting to the lunch part of the menu (it was 10 am, I can’t eat “lunch” at that hour, it’s uncivilized). I wouldn’t have even thought to put winter squash in an omelet. It worked, though, I think because the eggs were so fresh and there was so much cheese that the squash was a supporting player in the whole dish. That had to be at least three eggs’ worth of omelet, and it was seasoned perfectly as is. I ordered a cortado, which is on their menu, but they seem to think that means a full-sized latte instead. I will caution you that parking there is complicated, although on weekends they share some of the neighboring lots – check their website for specifics.

I met some board-game world friends for dinner at Miller Union downtown, not too far from Georgia Tech, for a meal that reminded me in the best possible way of FnB in Scottsdale, one of my favorite restaurants in the Valley. The menu was heavier on small plates with a small number of larger entrees, and the smaller plates weren’t all that small, anyway. The smoked trout with spaetzle and mushrooms was the consensus winner at the table, with the pasta (it’s pasta, I know it’s not Italian, so what) a sponge for all of the umami coming from the other ingredients, and the smoky notes from the fish well-balanced by other flavors so it didn’t overwhelm the dish. The farm egg with celery cream is apparently a longtime standard, and it’s definitely one of the weirdest things I’ve eaten in some time: it shows up in a soup bowl with the yolk barely set in a pool of what looks like a latte, and you break the yolk and swirl it into the cream before dipping the crusty bread into it or spooning it on top. It’s good, just unusual; I kept expecting a different flavor profile, because I’m used to dipping bread into a pasta sauce, while this is rich and more muted. The butter-poached shrimp with English peas, salsa macha verde, and benne (sesame) seeds was on the quieter side, with delicate flavors even in the sauce, with particularly sweet peas since they’re in season now. I had the duck breast entrée, which was cooked medium rare (as it should be) and remained tender, with a blueberry mostarda, creamed greens (spinach and maybe mustard greens?), and corn pancakes. That last bit wasn’t great – they were dry, and there wasn’t anything for them to sop up elsewhere on the plate – although that’s nitpicking. I had two cocktails since I wasn’t driving, first a Last Word and then their gin-lemon-thyme syrup cocktail, which one server said was their riff on a gimlet, but a gimlet is gin/lime without sweetener so I don’t know if that’s apt. I was afraid a second Last Word (does that make the one before it the Penultimate Word?) would put me on the floor, so the latter drink was a sound compromise and much lighter on the palate. They have an enormous wine menu, if that’s your beverage of choice.

I had coffee at Spiller Park the other two mornings I was in town, visiting their newest location in Midtown and the Moores Mill store, so I’ve now been to all four spots. The biscuits at Midtown are solid – that’s a rolled biscuit, so very different from Buttermilk Kitchen’s, and while I like both varieties I’m definitely in the rolled camp (think Biscuitville or Cracker Barrel’s kind). The Moores Mill shop offers bagels; I had the Controversial Vegan, with mashed avocadoes and sumac onions, which was very sharp and highly spiced with sumac.

I only ate one meal in Tuscaloosa, and that had to be Dreamland BBQ, which scouts have been telling me about for years. I’d been to the Birmingham location, but I’m a believer in trying the original whenever possible, and it’s better in terms of the food and the atmosphere. The ribs were solid but a little tougher than I expected; the smoked sausage, though, was fantastic, perfectly moist, smoky, just faintly spicy, no sauce required although I did as I was told and tried the dipping sauce it came with (I wouldn’t bother). It’s a bare-bones menu – ribs, sausage, pulled chicken or pork, with platters or sandwiches, and just four sides: cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans, and mac & cheese. I picked the first two, because I was already out on a ledge eating that much pork, and believe it or not, the cole slaw was excellent. It’s so often an afterthought at barbecue places – sometimes it’s a goopy mess, sometimes it’s clearly not that fresh and so it has no crunch, and sometimes people put weird shit in there – that it was a delight to get a very basic, straightforward version that was fresh and not overdressed. Also, if you get the sweet tea, be prepared for a sugar rush. It was all great but I don’t know that I’ll go back, just because I don’t eat like this any more and certainly shouldn’t eat like this any more at my age.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
→ April 9, 2025
→ By

Nashville and Knoxville eats, 2025 edition.

The last two weekends saw me head to two different spots in Tennessee, so here’s my food roundup, starting with Nashville…

Rozé Pony is an all-day restaurant, café, and bar maybe ten minutes southwest of downtown Nashville, and it was packed with day-drinkers when I was there, including one very large party there for some sort of celebration. I had just come from Florida, where eating reasonably healthy food is a challenge, so I ordered a fish sandwich with a side salad. The sandwich was called, unfortunately, the sloppy salmon. (They can’t stop you from ordering a glass of water.) It was tremendous, with salsa negra, a lemon mayo (aioli, whatever), and charred or roasted peppers. It was pretty sloppy to eat, but I inhaled the thing, and the leaves in the salad looked and tasted extremely fresh.

Maiz de la Vida is a food truck turned high-end Mexican restaurant in the South Gulch neighborhood; what I had was very good, but I really wish 1) I’d ordered differently and 2) I could have tried some of their cocktails, but I never drink before games, obviously. I tried the chips with three salsas at my server’s recommendation, and two of the three salsas were excellent, especially the salsa norteña with habaneros; the chips were house-made, but some were too thick or just otherwise greasy and not that pleasant to eat. The duck breast in mole was outstanding, perfectly cooked, with a rich, smoky, just faintly spicy mole negro, served on a very small bed of diced sweet potatoes with a dry cracker made from egg whites and sesame seeds. On its own, it is delicious, but the dish needs something else besides the meat – I expected more vegetables/starch on the side of it, and had no idea that’s all I was getting, or I would have ordered something else. It’s not how I prefer to eat, and because of my metabolic disorder it’s not great for me to eat a meal that’s very high in protein relative to everything else, so it’s a me problem, not a Maiz problem. I’ll go back, after a game, and I’ll order a bunch of different things.

Little Hats pitches itself as an Italian market & deli, and they do have the dry goods you’d expect, but the sandwich I got was all wrong. They have a prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomato, and basil sandwich, a combo I usually can’t resist, as it’s basically a caprese salad on bread with a slice or two of prosciutto crudo, which adds salt and fat to the equation. Little Hats’ version treats the prosciutto like it’s deli ham, stacking it over a half-inch thick, so it overpowers everything else on the sandwich, and it’s also really tough. Prosciutto crudo, which is cured for months and never cooked, is sliced extremely thinly because the extensive dehydration from the curing makes it tough to chew if it’s thicker. I couldn’t even finish this, which seemed criminal.

I resisted the urge to go to Barista Parlor as I usually do, meeting a colleague at Steadfast Coffee instead; it’s a local roastery that appears to be mostly wholesale business (at least based on their site), and unusual for a third-wave (or -adjacent) shop in that they offered free refills on drip coffee. Unfortunately, I didn’t write down what blend they used that day, but it was pretty balanced, medium-bodied trending towards the lighter end, without any really distinctive notes.

Attaboy is a second outpost of the speakeasy-ish cocktail bar of the same name in Manhattan, founded by Sam Ross, creator of the paper plane and penicillin cocktails; and Michael McIlroy, creator of the greenpoint cocktail. You have to knock on the door and someone will take you in if there’s room, although there’s no secret password required. The bar has no menu; your bartender will ask what sort of spirits or drinks you like and will make or create something for you. I had two different bartenders and tried two different drinks. The first was a rum-based drink with an amaro that was like Averna, but not actually Averna, and the drink ended up a little too sweet for me. The second was a riff on the last word, one of my absolute favorite cocktails, called a Wordsmith, made with rum rather than gin, and in this case using an aperitivo called Doladira that has rhubarb in place of the green Chartreuse. I’d drink that every day until my liver gave out.

The following weekend found me in Knoxville, where I got to walk around downtown for the first time even though I’d been there twice before. It’s a great and booming downtown core, with quite a few restaurants, a ton of coffee shops (I counted six within a two-block area, I think), and bars.

Kaizen was on Eater’s list of the dozen best restaurants in Knoxville, but it was really disappointing. The menu is great, and I ordered three items since I hadn’t had lunch while traveling, but the best of the three was actually the salad: arugula, beets, carrots, a soft-boiled egg, with a sesame-ginger dressing. I tried one of their steamed buns ($3.50 a pop), with fried chicken, but it was really chewy, and the kimchi smeared on it didn’t add any flavor at all. The duck leg fried rice seemed so promising, with duck confit deep-fried till crispy, an over-medium egg, and the rice, but the rice was DOA with the cause of death drowning by soy sauce, and they fried the duck for too long so it started to dry out. Great concept, poor execution.

Stir is an all-day restaurant, at least on the weekends, and their brunch came recommended by multiple people. I’m definitely less adventurous first thing in the morning, but also, seeing Waffle Houses everywhere made me just want a waffle, and not one from a Waffle House (or, worse, a hotel lobby one). Stir’s are good, clearly just made, pretty tender, although it’s odd that it came with the syrup already on it. I got the version with eggs and potatoes, rather than the version with fried chicken, and the over-medium eggs were spot on. The potatoes were nicely crisped but could have used more salt.

For coffee, I hit up Awaken, which is also downtown, around the corner from Kaizen and Stir. They use coffee from Quills in Louisville, a good roaster albeit not my favorite up there (that’s Sunergos). Cute space, solid espresso, credit to the barista for asking if I liked more foam in my macchiato (it was just right).

I stopped at The Vault, a cocktail bar downstairs from the restaurant Vida, where I’d eaten last year, and ordered a Last Word … and that was enough for one night, as it was larger than I expected and a second might have knocked me out. Their house versions of classics all contain too many extra ingredients, though; you don’t have to modify the Negroni or the Manhattan with three more spirits, they’re classics for a reason. It’s a cool space and I was disappointed it wasn’t busier on a Saturday night, when you’d think more people would be out and might appreciate a higher-end place to drink.

I also returned to A Dopo Sourdough Pizza, since I loved it last year; I changed it up a little, going with their “rucchetta” pizza, with arugula and Parmiggiano-Reggiano on a margherita, and added prosciutto crudo. Believe it or not, there was way too much Parmiggiano on it to the point that I scooped some off with my fork because I couldn’t taste anything else. It may be the king of all cheeses, but it’s also basically a salt-fat-umami bomb, and I could barely make out the other flavors. It’s such an odd thing to do because that’s such an expensive ingredient, too. The dough was outstanding, though. I skipped the gelato this year, as I’ve kind of been off desserts while traveling now.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
→ March 29, 2025
→ By

Florida eats, 2025 edition.

Atmosphere Pizzeria is located in a strip mall in Sarasota and looks like absolutely nothing from the outside – I wasn’t sure I was even in the right place – but this is real Neapolitan pizza. They ferment their dough over three days, and the oven is right there in the front of the bare-bones restaurant. The menu has a variety of red and white pizzas; I went with the red one with mozzarella di bufala, mushrooms, basil, and prosciutto di Parma. The dough and the prosciutto were the stars here; there’s a ton of air in the dough and the texture is almost exactly what you’d find in Italy, while the prosciutto is sliced to order and is almost translucently thin. The pizza itself actually needed a little salt, and I think it was because the mushrooms weren’t seasoned – they were clearly cooked before they went on the pizza, as they have to be, since the 90 seconds or so that it takes to cook a Neapolitan pizza isn’t enough to extract the water from a sliced mushroom, let alone cook it. Whenever I go back, I might just go for the margherita and let the dough carry the day.

Sage Biscuit Café seemed to be the best-regarded breakfast spot in Bradenton, and, I mean, it has “biscuit” in the name … but I can make a better biscuit than that. This was more like a scone, really, crumbly and dry. I give them credit for cooking the eggs somewhere close to over medium and erring more on the easy side than the overdone side.

Orange Blossom Café looks like a disaster for coffee, since you walk in and it seems to be about everything but coffee. They use beans from Banyan Roasters, however, which is probably the best local roaster in this part of Florida, and have two varieties available in airports, a medium roast and a dark one. Banyan has a shop here but it was well out of my way, the opposite of the way I needed to go on my way to IMG.

Indigenous comes up on any list of the best restaurants in the Sarasota area, and they’re particularly known for their fresh fish dishes, which change daily based on what comes into the kitchen; their parmiggiano beignets; and their mushroom soup. I ordered the beignets, and then chose the lentil-mushroom Bolognese with pappardelle after asking the server whether she’d go with that or the red snapper. The beignets were excellent, if a touch greasy, but the Bolognese was disappointing on two levels. The obvious one is that the pasta was overcooked. The pappardelle itself was rolled too thinly, but it was well beyond al dente, to the point that the ribbons were coming apart as I picked them up with my fork. The less obvious one is that, at least in my opinion, pappardelle isn’t ideal for a chunky, heart sauce like Bolognese – real, which would contain pork and veal, or imitation like this one. Thick ribbons can stand up to the thickness of the sauce, but the ribbons aren’t really capable of picking up all of the bits in the sauce, whether they’re lentils and finely diced vegetables or ground meats. I haven’t made the dish in ages, but I’d opt for something like rigatoni or conchiglie, something that can trap the sauce so you can easily get both pasta and sauce in each bite. That’s not a universal opinion – pappardelle with Bolognese is a common combination – and maybe I wouldn’t have minded if this was thicker and not overcooked.

ofKors is a Ukrainian-owned bakery in downtown Sarasota that serves filled crepes, bagels, and a massive assortment pastries along with espresso drinks. The bagels looked promising – obviously looks can deceive, even in food, but you can usually spot a round-bread imitation with a little experience – and this was about as good a bagel as you’re going to find outside of greater New York. They cook the eggs to order on the crepe maker, which was kind of mesmerizing to watch (I was sure it was all going to run off the sides, but I shouldn’t have doubted the woman working the station, she’s a professional). I don’t know where they get the smoked salmon, but I’m guessing it’s a local vendor – it was excellent, with a soft texture and pronounced smoke flavor. I didn’t get coffee there because I wanted to go back to Perq, where I hadn’t been since before the pandemic; they were clearly understaffed that day, so it wasn’t quite up to my memories of the place, but the coffee itself is still excellent. I’m usually a macchiato fan, but I wanted to stick to the listed options because they were so harried (I wonder if someone called in sick), so I ordered a Gibraltar, which is basically a cortado but British.

Pangea Alchemy Lab is a tiny cocktail bar accessible from an alley just south of Main Street in Sarasota, and it’s fantastic, exactly what I want in a cocktail bar – it’s small, intimate, with a small menu of custom cocktails and riffs on classics, with a well-stocked bar of liquors and liqueurs. The custom cocktail list changes seasonally; when I visited, there were two rum drinks on the menu, and I tried both, naturally. The first had Brugal 1888, a double-aged rum (meaning it’s aged in two types of casks) from the Dominican Republic, with Licor 43 and cocoa bitters. The second was their riff on a Maitai, but much less sweet, thank goodness – I don’t think I could drink an actual Maitai any more unless I was on a tropical beach somewhere. It also had Brugal 1888, along with yuzu liqueur, demerara syrup, and orange juice.

Moving on to Fort Myers… Shift Coffee is a tiny spot in an apartment building in the northern part of town, and it’s legit, with beans from two small roasters, one from Florida and one from New York, available as drip coffee or espresso. The blend they were using the day I was there was better as espresso, at least. The space is small, with three two-tops and a couch.

McGregor’s is a perfectly fine breakfast spot that cooked the eggs I ordered perfectly to over medium, but everything else was kind of meh. The server – who saw me doing the Spelling Bee and couldn’t wait to tell me about how she does Strands and Wordle but the Connections puzzle is too hard – recommended their biscuits, which they make from scratch every morning, but that was a hard miss. It was drier than a scone, and I do not understand how so many places fuck up a simple southern biscuit. Alton Brown’s got a great recipe. So does my employer’s Cooking site, although I think biscuits are best with a shortening/butter mix. Just don’t overcook them.

Backyard Social is a great concept for a space – there are eight food trucks ringing the building, which is open on all sides, with a huge bar in the middle and some games for families to play, although the crowd definitely leaned a little older given all the alcohol involved. I got a blackened grouper sandwich at Atlas Dock Company; the fish was fantastic but for some reason they sliced the fish instead of serving the whole fillet, which meant it was constantly falling out of the sandwich. I don’t know if it just fell apart on the grill and they were trying to salvage it; it tasted great but I must have looked like a lunatic while trying to eat it. (I’d read that Dixie’s was the best fish spot in Fort Myers, but when I called before driving down that way they said the wait was an hour and a half.)

Cubans Be Like is hidden in an outdoor mall, tucked back off the main walkway, and there are enough empty storefronts there that I’m impressed they get any business at all. I saw they had lechon asado (Cuban roast pork) on the menu and I hadn’t had that in years, so I figured I’d give it a shot, and the plate easy had two servings’ worth of pork on it. I am not a large man and I don’t eat a ton of red meat any more, so maybe my scale is different, but that was a ridiculously generous portion. It was well cooked, but oddly a little underpowered; the pork is marinated in a garlic-citrus base and tends to be sharp, tangy, and salty, but this lechon was the mildest thing on the plate – I got the black beans & rice and sweet plantains as sides, and those were both much more flavorful. I’ve had much better.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
→ March 21, 2025
→ By

Arizona eats, March 2025 edition.

The best thing I ate at any new (to me) restaurant this week was chicken, oddly enough. Mister Pio is a small Peruvian chicken spot in Arcadia that has a barebones menu: half chicken, quarter chicken, chicken sandwich, fries, drinks. The chicken comes with a side salad and aji verde sauce. The chicken is really incredible; I read online that it’s dry-brined with a mix of 21 spices (and then some) for two days, then it’s cooked for an hour and a half on a rotisserie over coals, but man, it’s just about perfect. It’s salty and deeply savory, and any fat under the skin has long rendered out, so the skin itself is paper-thin and just covered in flavor from the dry rub and the smoke, while the meat itself is extremely tender and juicy. The fries are fried to order (or at least mine were) and they’re properly salty. Mister Pio is only open noon to 8 pm, Tuesday through Saturday. Make a point of going if you’re anywhere in the vicinity – they’re less than 15 minutes from ASU’s park and not that much farther from Scottsdale.

Mensho Ramen is a Japanese chain that has three locations in California and now two in the Valley, one in Phoenix (where I went) and one in Mesa. Their menu is very simple, with just two broth types, one from chicken and one vegan, although the predominant protein across the entire menu is beef, specifically A5 Wagyu. I had their signature ramen, replacing the Wagyu with extra duck, although the pork was the best of the three proteins (there’s also chicken). This is really about the broth, which is as rich and savory as a typical tonkotsu broth, and the noodles, which are a little thicker than you might normally find, and are truly al dente. There’s less extra stuff in the bowl unless you chose more add-ins, but it doesn’t need anything more than the noodles and broth if the goal is flavor – and I say that as someone who likes all of the stuff you can typically add to ramen, like fish cakes or mushrooms or bamboo shoots. This is just exceptionally good, umami-rich broth, and I would guess it’s hard to mess up when you start with a base that good.

Uchi recently opened an outpost in Scottsdale, the seventh location of the award-winning sushi & Japanese restaurant by Beard winner Tyson Cole, whose first location is still going in Austin. (Now-disgraced Top Chef winner Paul Qui got his start there as well.) It’s a splurge meal to put it mildly, but this is some of the best raw fish I have ever had anywhere, and the best dishes I had during the omakase were generally the simplest. Highlights included the flounder, the Tasmanian ocean trout, the New Zealand king salmon, and their signature dessert called “fried milk,” which has a dark chocolate ganache, sweet cream ice cream, chocolate wafers, and little fried orbs that taste of coffee and whatever cereal they use that day as the coating. The worst dish was the grilled hamachi collar, which was an enormous portion but slightly overcooked and lacking much flavor on its own. It’s one of the most expensive meals I’ve ever had, so even saying “it was worth it” seems hollow, but at the least I can say that you are getting exceptional quality of ingredients for the cost.

Sfizio Modern Italian Kitchen is up north on the 101 just off the Tatum Road exit, run by a Calabrese chef named Rocco (of course). They make their pasta in house, so even though the pizzas looked good (baked in a giant oven right off the dining room), I had to go with the rigatoni alla vodka, which was delicious and different than any version I’ve had before. The sauce was extremely light in color and totally smooth, so I assume it used tomato paste or passata, and had no pork in it, coming with a dollop of fresh ricotta on top. I make it with onion, pancetta or guanciale (or bacon), hand-crushed tomatoes, and basil, so it’s a chunkier sauce with more texture. Vodka sauce isn’t a traditional Italian dish, and there’s a dispute over whether it’s even Italian in origin, so there’s no “right” or authentic way to make it. As long as you don’t overdo the cream, I’m probably going to like it. My friend and I split the focaccia starter, which comes with a delicious pesto-ricotta blend, but the focaccia itself was obviously made that day and served its primary function, sopping up some of the sauce that remained when I finished the pasta. The chef more or less forced me to try the tiramisu for dessert, and I appreciated the fact that it was less sweet than most varieties, with a little more kick from the rum. I do want to go back to try the pizza, though.

The Nach is a food truck parked inside the patio at the bar Sazerac downtown, around the corner from Futuro Coffee and the original (ish) Matt’s Big Breakfast location, serving al pastor, chicken, and shrimp street tacos, burritos, and quesadillas with a few additional items and sides. The chicken was better than the shrimp, with much more flavor to the meat itself, and I would definitely get the $2 guacamole as an add-on, which is more than enough to add to all three tacos and maybe have a little left over. The chicken was salty and slightly tart from its sauce, while the shrimp was perfectly cooked but under seasoned.

Beginner’s Luck is a new all-day outpost from the folks behind Citizen Public House and the Gladly, and eater.com recommended their breakfast in particular. I had their breakfast sandwich, as the server wavered when I asked whether she recommended that or the shakshuka, and it was fine, a good breakfast sandwich, a better iteration of the kind you get at First Watch or the like. I want to try a different meal there before coming to any real judgment but this wasn’t worth returning for breakfast beyond the cool space tucked in an alley just around the corner from Old Town.

I did play more of the hits, so to speak, returning to some old favorites. I went to Citizen Public House for the first time at least since before the pandemic; the menu has changed – the crispy salmon was outstanding, especially the sherry beurre blanc, and they still make the best Negroni for whatever reason – but the vibe is the same. Tacos Chiwas still has the best tacos I’ve had out in the Valley, but I went to Cocina Chiwas again and was disappointed in the food this time around. The menu is more beef-centered than I remembered, and the more vegetable-forward dishes I ordered were underpowered. Pane Bianco is now serving New York-style pizza by the slice, although the day I got there they had already sold out, so I had to suffer through their focaccia-style pizza, which was outstanding as always. Pizzeria Virtu was solid, although everything was maybe a half-grade down from the first time I went there. was I stopped in to Los Altos Public Market for one of their giant shortbread cookies and an agua Fresca, something I haven’t done in years but that I used to do every visit when I first went to ESPN and started coming to Arizona once and then twice a year. I did breakfasts at the Hillside Spot, Crèpe Bar, and Matt’s, as usual. I had coffee at Cartel (twice), Futuro (once, great space but you get some characters in there), and Giant (once), which is my favorite space to sit and write anywhere in the Valley, and Giant’s now using their own beans after they’d switched to ROC, a local roaster that goes darker than I like. I didn’t get to Valentine, which was recommended to me by two different baseball people, but that’s on the hit list for the next trip.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
→ April 1, 2024
→ By

Knoxville eats.

This was just my second trip to Knoxville, ever, since the Volunteers weren’t that relevant for a huge portion of my career, and it’s not as easy to get to some of the other SEC schools. The first time I went was a barely 24-hour trip in 2022, too short for a writeup, and the one meal I had on that trip was at a restaurant that closed last year (Olibea). So this is my first-ever Knoxville post.

Last time through, I wanted to try A Dopo Sourdough Pizza, but couldn’t make the timing work around the game, so this time I was determined to give myself two shots to go but got in after the Friday game, possibly with the last dough of the evening. It is Neopolitan-style pizza in the baking and the thickness, but the dough is different – it is noticeably tangy, clearly made from a sourdough starter rather than commercial yeast as most Neapolitan doughs are. I went with the margherita and added mushrooms, because their white pizzas all have a sauce of mascarpone & cream on them, and that’s more lactose than I really need; the tomatoes were out of sight, blasted with sweetness and just a little acidity, while the mushrooms were mixed wild mushrooms rather than just cremini. I didn’t quite finish it because the menu demanded that I save room for gelato, and I do listen to orders, at least at restaurants. The dark chocolate gelato was not dark in the least, but the texture was excellent. I probably should have ordered the pistachio instead.

Last trip, I tried Remedy, a local coffee shop that served Intelligentsia beans, so I planned to try another coffee shop this year after going for breakfast … and then I went to Paysan, a bagel/bakery window that, I realized as I pulled up, is right next to Remedy. This turned out to be a bit of serendipity, as Remedy now uses Rowan Coffee from Asheville, NC, so I got a chance to try a new roaster. Their Peru San Juan Pueblo Libre was on pour-over, with some raw cocoa and caramel notes. The Remedy space is really great – it was busy but not noisy, there’s plenty of light and seating, and it’s not as sparse as a lot of coffee shops (with no subway tiles). Paysan’s bagel was very good – it’s probably an average New York bagel, maybe a high 45, but on the non-NY scale it’s at least a 55. I actually was more disappointed in the egg on the sandwich, which was a square of scrambled egg that had no taste and a texture that was oddly homogenous. I’d just get something else on a bagel next time.

The best thing at Sweet P’s Barbecue is actually the “greens n’ things,” which is slow-cooked collard greens sauteed with black-eyed peas, carrots, celery, and bacon, although I barely saw any of that last thing. I like collard greens, and if they’re made well I love collard greens, but they almost always have a little bitterness left in them. These had none. It was all of the good of collards, without that bitter note, and because they were cooked and then sauteed they were really tender. The pork ribs were fine, with good bark and a nice salty-sweet rub, although they weren’t as tender as they should have been, and the cole slaw is vinegar-based so it’s a good complement to the meat. It’s fine as Q goes, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.

My least meal was downtown at Vida, a cocktail bar and Latin American restaurant, and I am afraid I just ordered the wrong things. I was debating between just getting ceviche and getting two smaller plates; I ended up with the latter because it meant more things to write about, but those smaller plates are definitely better for eating with a group because even two of them didn’t really add up to a meal. I ordered the panko-breaded shrimp and the corn croquettes, each of which was fine on its own, but it was too heavy as meal in total. The shrimp were in a combination of two sauces – a smoky adobo aioli and a sesame-sambal vinaigrette – with what they called a daikon and carrot “kim chi” that I think was just pickled with vinegar. The plus side was that it had a ton of flavor and it all worked well together, with smoky, salty, sour, and sweet elements, and if there’d been more umami from fermentation it would have been even better. It also needed more of the kim chi/slaw, but that’s part of my mistake in getting small plates rather than a more complete meal. The croquettes were extremely soft inside, tasting mostly of Manchego and the cilantro-lime crema underneath with just a hint of corn, and some ‘marinated avocado’ (I’m not even sure how that works, what on earth is absorbing the marinade here?) on top. The food was just okay, but the cocktail I tried was kickass; I asked another served who was picking up drinks next to my seat – sitting at that end of the bar can be great because you can ask servers what they like – what I should get as a rum drinker, and she said the Trinidad circuit race was her favorite. It contains two Trinidadian ingredients – Scarlet Ibis rum, a blend of column-stilled rums from 3 to 8 years old; and amaro di Angostura, a dark, potable bitter liqueur with strong notes of cinnamon and clove, a little like a fancy root beer. These are finished with passionfruit and lemon juices for the fruity Caribbean punch flavor profile, but without the cloying sweetness of more common mixers like pineapple juice or coconut or straight-up sugar in simple syrup or Grenadine. I’d really like to try Vida again and either just get the ahi ceviche or go with a group and try a bunch of smaller things. I’ll get the same drink, though.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
→ March 22, 2024
→ By

Arizona eats, March 2024.

So the most interesting meal I had on the trip wasn’t because of the food, but because two days after I ate at Cocina Madrigal, a kitchen fire broke out and closed the restaurant indefinitely. There were no injuries, and the structure was intact, so I’m hoping they won’t be closed for long. It’s a taqueria and tequileria that just does what it does exceptionally well – scratch tacos, enchiladas, and a few other items with very high-quality inputs. The tropical fish tacos came with a roasted salsa, a slaw of coconut, cabbage, and mango; and a mild chipotle aioli, and the fish was grilled, not fried, so I stumbled into the most healthful meal I had all week. I think the fish was mahi-mahi, but they didn’t identify it on the menu; it was very fresh, whatever it was, as were all of the vegetables, and the corn tortillas were some of the best I’ve had. Nana in Durham has long held that particular crown for fresh corn tortillas, but they have some competition here – these were still soft and tender even with some browning from the grill. I’m not even sure I’d even try anything else on the menu. Good luck to Chef Leo Madrigal in reopening soon.

Cocina Chiwas is the new full-service restaurant from Nadia Holguin and Armando Hernandez, the owners of the wildly successful Tacos Chiwas mini-chain in the Valley, and this rivals Bacanora and Barrio Café as the best high-end Mexican restaurant in the Valley. I went there with a pair of friends, so I tried quite a few dishes, with zero misses in the group. The elote is straightforward, but also a perfect exemplar of the popular grilled-corn dish. The asado de puerco (pork spare ribs) come with a rich, earthy chile colorado sauce along with beans, rice, and tortillas, but honestly I would put that sauce on anything. The oysters come with a jamaica and habanero mignonette, less spicy than you’d expect, more like a strong red wine vinaigrette because the astringency of the hibiscus. The “chile con queso” was not what I expected – it was roasted peppers, tomatoes, and onions with a topping of two mild white Mexican cheeses, and even as someone who’s not a huge fan of cow’s-milk cheese, I was all over this because the vegetables were so good and the cheese was an accent rather than the dominant flavor. And the carrot-cake tres leches with candied pecans and a berry compote was superb – by that point, I’d had enough to eat and drink that I needed a dessert with some punch to get through, and this offered it with plenty of sweetness plus some tang from the berries and bitterness from the cajeta (caramel) sauce. If I have a nit to pick, I didn’t love either cocktail I tried – their takes on a Manhattan and an Old-fashioned, both of which were fine but didn’t improve on the originals. Both drinks had a smoky flavor that overtook the rest of the ingredients.

Espiritu Mesa is the new East Valley outpost from the folks behind Bacanora, which might be the best restaurant in the Valley based on locals’ opinions plus my one time eating there. The drinks here were well ahead of the food, for better or worse. Their ceviche changes often, so what I got may not be what you get if you go this week, but I will vouch for the freshness of the fish and a tangy soy-lime base; it came with sliced radish and a lot of cilantro. The aguacate was just a big ol’ thing of guacamole, served with enormous chicharrones that were really hard to break or chew. I’d either skip that or ask for tortilla chips. You could have made a coat out of all of the pig’s skin on that plate. You’re really here for the drinks – you get a little book of their various signature cocktails, with lists of ingredients, descriptions of the flavors, and ratings by bitterness, booziness, sourness, and sweetness. I had two cocktails, the Maduro and the Desu Notu. The Maduro has charanda (a white rum from Mexico), reposado tequila, crème de banana, cocchi Americano (a bitter aperitif), and blackstrap and chocolate bitters. The Desu Noto (Death note) also has charanda and crème de banana, along with bacanora, an agave-based spirit similar to mezcal, along with palm sugar and chocolate bitters. I preferred the Desu Noto, which wasn’t as sweet and let the flavors of the two liquors come through more, although I’d gladly have either again.

Vecina calls its cuisine “Modern American, Latin-inspired,” and I have no idea what that even means, but the food was good so they can call themselves Tralfamadorian for all I care. This was my last meal before departing, so I was trying to keep it light after eating and drinking too much all week. The ceviche was classic Peruvian-style, marinated in leche de tigre (lime, garlic, onion, chile, fish stock) and tossed with some grilled pineapple and other veg, served with tortilla chips. I’m an easy mark for ceviche as long as the fish is fresh, and this was. The charred broccoli with cashew crema, fermented honey, and Thai sauce (again, not sure what that means other than that there was definitely fish sauce involved) was a new way of serving what is probably my favorite vegetable to cook at home, something I’ll try to adapt for the family. The broccolini were indeed lightly charred, but the combination of the other elements made for a sauce that was sweet, tangy, heavy on umami, and slightly fatty to cut any bitterness in the brassica itself. I had debated that versus the shaved Brussels sprouts, but that dish had dates and I have had two very odd allergic reactions to date syrup so I’m a little wary of them. I made a good call here. One note – parking is scarce and you may end up in a nearby lot.

Hodori is in a Mesa strip mall that’s a sort of ASEAN of food – there’s a Thai place, a Chinese place, two Japanese places, as well as this bare-bones Korean restaurant that serves various bulgogi and soft-tofu dishes. I went with some friends and we shared four dishes – a kimchi pancake, a seafood-scallion pancake, pork bulgogi, and seafood bibimbap. The seafood-scallion pancake won out for me, primarily because the kimchi pancake was so tangy and didn’t have enough to balance out the spice and the sourness. The pork bulgogi was also pretty spicy but the sauce had enough sweetness and umami (there’s usually soy sauce and some fermented product like gochujang in bulgogi) that the heat didn’t overtake the dish, and the pork was extremely tender. The total tab for all three of us, including some shoju and beer, was about $70 before tip.

I’m loyal to my breakfast spots – the Hillside Spot, Crepe Bar, and Matt’s Big Breakfast, all of which I hit while in Phoenix – but did try one new one in Ollie Vaughn’s, meeting my longtime friend (literally – I think we’ve been friends for 15+ years now) Nick Piecoro there. Their sausage and biscuit sandwich, with egg, cheese, and jalapeño marmalade on a buttermilk biscuit is a tremendous amount of food, and the biscuit just fell apart by the time I was halfway through it, but I have zero regrets. They use Schreiner’s sausage, the best sausage vendor in the Valley that I know.

Lom Wong was the one mildly disappointing meal of the trip, although it’s more about my palate than the food at this acclaimed northern Thai restaurant, where many of the recipes come from the chef’s extended family across Thailand. The green mango salad was pretty incredible, better than any similar dish (usually green papaya) I’ve ever had, with fried shallots, toasted coconuts and peanuts, a dressing of coconut milk, lime, and fish sauce, and “hand-torn” shrimp, which, well, I hope they were dead first? I ordered the arai kodai, in which the server picks dishes for you based on what you indicate you do/don’t like and your spice tolerance, but even after saying mine was pretty low, I ended up with a chicken dish that had just been added to the menu, very similar to larb gai, that tasted only of chile pepper and a little of cumin, which gave it the overall vibe of spicy dirt. I did enjoy the Three Kings cocktail, with dark rum, dry curaçao, fernet (an Italian amaro that’s very herbal), guava, palm sugar, and what I assume is a bitters from Som, founded by the chef-owner of Portland’s legendary Thai restaurant Pok Pok. It’s reminiscent of Caribbean rum cocktails, but far less sweet and cloying.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
→ December 13, 2023
→ By

Nashville eats, 2023 edition.

Lyra was by far the best meal I had on the trip, serving “modern Middle Eastern” food along with a solid menu of wines and cocktails. I followed my server’s suggestions and ordered the hummus with roasted jalapeños, the octopus with big-ass white beans (not the actual name) in tomato broth, and the cabbage fattoush. The hummus was actually the best dish, in part because it came with a very warm, soft pitta that I carefully parceled out so that I wouldn’t end up with either pitta or hummus left over at the end. The octopus itself was perfectly cooked and had that flavor of the grill top that I think octopus is uniquely able to capture, but the astringent broth didn’t work well with it and the beans were just unnecessary. (I realized I just don’t love shellfish with tomato sauces or broths. They fight each other too much.) The cabbage fattoush was excellent, served with a date vinaigrette, feta, caraway seeds, and walnuts, a cold dish that worked well with its balance of saltiness, acidity, and a little sweetness in the dressing, although the toasted pitta on top of it, which you crush into the dish, never softened because there was just enough dressing for the vegetables. It’s located right next to the Pharmacy and across from Mas Tacos, two of my other Nashville favorites.

Joyland is a fast food-inspired spot from Sean Brock of Husk and Audrey, serving burgers and fries in a sack along with breakfast sandwiches on massive, buttery biscuits. I did indeed get a breakfast sandwich, which came with some sweet/peppery bacon and a brick of eggs scrambled with cheese that stood out as the one part of the sandwich that wasn’t freshly cooked. I’d go back for the biscuits, though.

I went with a basic tuna salad sandwich from Eastwood Deli, as this trip promised to have me eating about twice as much meat/poultry as I usually would, and it was … a solid tuna sandwich, just on very good sourdough bread. It’s in a whole complex of restaurants and such where you’ll also find the great izakaya Two Ten Jack and an outpost of Jeni’s Ice Cream.

HiFi Cookies has two locations, serving a handful of large cookies with interesting ingredients and flavor combinations, named after legends of rock, soul, and jazz. I went with the Etta, a peanut butter cookie with peanut butter chips and Cap’n Crunch peanut brittle; and the Johnny, a fudgy cookie with dark chocolate chips and a Cocoa Krispies/cacao nibs topping. These are good, rich cookies, and both screamed their core flavors; I think in the end I’d pick the Etta, because it was more than just a peanut butter cookie in flavor and texture, while the Johnny was just a chocolate chocolate chip cookie with crunchy but flavorless stuff on top.

Zulema’s Kitchen is buried among office buildings and hotels quite close to the airport, but does a perfectly cromulent lunch, although I would concede that here it was much more about taste than anything more hifalutin – I got a “chipotle chicken” sandwich that had chopped, grilled chicken, grilled peppers and onions, and a mildly spicy mayo on ciabatta bread. I don’t know what cuisine it was supposed to be, and maybe I was just famished after the flight but it was delicious – just the right amount of salty and spicy. I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here, but if I worked in one of those buildings I’d be there pretty often.

I went to Hattie B’s for the second time and went with Hot, which I think might be my limit. I’m ¾ Italian and the rest is Irish and English, none of them cuisines known for our heavy use of capsicum. I think it’s an achievement that I’ve gotten this far. Damn Hot! might be beyond my capabilities.

Two duds from the trip: Sky Blue showed up on some list of the best breakfast spots in Nashville, but it was kind of a big disappointment; the home fries I got were cold and the “omelette” was nothing more than a scrambled egg folded over some barely cooked fillings. I also grabbed take-out on the first night of the meetings from a Thai place called Bit-a-Bite that was similarly underwhelming, as the pad see ew didn’t have a lot of flavor and came with more carrots than anything green (broccoli or gai lan would have worked, or even bok choy).

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,