the road | the food | a new direction
Chili dogs and deep-fried pierogi: that’s your lunch. Where are you? If you answered Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, count yourself among the LAF cognoscenti. What French fries are to most of the fast-food eating populace, fried pierogi are to the Lehigh Valley. And what Yocco’s is to Allentown, Pete’s is to Bethlehem. Continue reading
No regional qualification necessary: Pig Feathers makes damn good barbecue. We admit to being surprised by this fact. Coastal Oregon is not considered a hotbed of great Q, and we’ve come to expect smoke parlors with goofy names like Pig Feathers, and goofy mottos like their trademarked “Everyone loves a great rack!”, to churn out the kind of ordinary barbecue found in shopping malls across the country. Beware of hasty judgments. Continue reading
The dining room is packed and virtually every table is covered with brown paper and Callinectes sapidus in various stages of disassembly. These are old-hand locals, capable of locating the choice crab nuggets while devoting only half their attention to the hard-shelled creatures, the other half devoted to watching their beloved Orioles clobber the Red Sox on one of the TVs perched on the walls around the dining room. We love tearing apart steaming hot Old Bay-plastered crabs as much as the next guy but, today, we’re feeling lazy, and tired from the long drive. So crab cakes it is, without shame. Continue reading
If you choose to eat at Food at Fishers Station, you will wait in a line. Absolutely, no doubt about it, you will. If it’s your first time, and you let that be known, you’ll receive all kinds of info from your fellow standees: “they always have a special called 2-2-2, which is supposed to be two pancakes, two eggs, and two sausage patties; when it arrives there are usually way more than two pancakes, and they’re the best pancakes you’ll ever have”; “oh, great, now it’ll be even harder to get in” when we let slip that we might write about it on the net; “everything they make here is fantastic.” It’s all true. Continue reading
Harold’s Deli is a large, brash restaurant that serves enormous portions of food. Don’t be fooled by those comically large servings; quantity is not all at Harold’s. Owner Harold Jaffe, once of the legendary Carnegie Deli in New York, sells some of the finest Jewish deli dishes to be found in the New York City area. Continue reading
Cacio e pepe is another Roman pasta favorite. It’s made with pecorino and black pepper but, again, no cream or butter. Moisture comes from some pasta cooking water and perhaps a little olive oil. This is a perfect example of how simple combinations of good ingredients can make Roman dishes so transcendently satisfying.
Triple XXX was once, decades ago, a thriving chain of restaurants, serving their own Texas-made root beer throughout the South, Midwest, and West. This particular Triple XXX, near Purdue U in West Lafayette, opened in 1929 and is one of two remaining (and independently owned) Triple XXX restaurants left in the U.S. (the other is in Issaquah, WA). Lafayette’s Triple XXX has a commitment to quality that is readily apparent. Their motto, “On The Hill But On The Level,” refers to both its levee location and the honest food they serve. They grind their own sirloin for burgers (or, as they call them, chop steaks). Shakes are made with real ice cream. Much of the food is made from scratch. It shows. Continue reading
When we’re on the road, we enjoy spending our mornings at a town café where the locals meet, the sort of place open for breakfast and lunch only, a place where there’s no need for the waitress to introduce herself as she already knows all the customers. And also the kind of place where the food is good. Oddly though, we’d never found such a place near home. Until now, that is. Continue reading
The bayfront in Newport is where all the action is, split about 50/50 between the fishing industry and the tourist industry. There are plenty of restaurants, including the original Mo’s and a branch across the street, and a couple of locals-only fishermen bars and groceries. At either end of Bay Boulevard sit the best of the seafood restaurants: Local Ocean in the east and the awkwardly named Ocean Bleu @ Gino’s near the western terminus (more about that name later). Continue reading
Pusties, riggies, and hats: if those words mean nothing to you, you’re not a Utica native, in which case you should make a point of visiting Upstate NY to sample some classic regional Italian-American food. Riggies refer to the Utica fave chicken riggies, aka rigatoni. Hats are the pasta known elsewhere as orecchiette, often served baked in tomato sauce. Pusties are the subject at hand. Continue reading
We (meaning Bruce, along with Chris and Amy of ayersian fame) made our way up to Fiore’s counter, where we asked for the special hero of the day: house-roasted beef and gravy with house-made mozzarella on Hoboken bread. Anything else? We eyed gorgeous mozzarella braids directly in front of us, both regular and smoked. Half a braid, please. The gentleman at the counter informed us that it would be just a few minutes — the new batch was almost finished, and it needs to cool down a bit in order to “set.” Continue reading
The famous Creole restaurants of New Orleans – Galatoire’s, Brennan’s, Commander’s Palace, Antoine’s, Arnaud’s – are long-operating, historic institutions. Some of them, like Galatoire’s, are among the finest restaurants in the country, while some of the others are less so, but what they have in common is a traditional approach to Creole cooking. Upperline also serves Creole food and we think it is as necessary to a visitor’s survey of Creole cuisine as the best of the old-line restaurants, but it’s only been around since the 1980s and it takes a more modern approach to Creole cooking. Continue reading
The Italy we encountered, from Rome north to Florence, is pretty much devoid of street food as we know it in urban America. Which is not to say that Italians don’t love to snack on the stroll, because they obviously do. They just don’t snack from street carts, and the menu is limited mostly to gelato and pizza, purchased from storefront shops and bakeries. There’s one notable exception to this pattern. Continue reading
Smack in the middle of the industrial/residential area west of the White River is a working man’s bar that serves an unforgettable double cheeseburger. The glass-brick-fronted Workingman’s Friend draws crowds at mealtimes, but our visit on a Monday night found the bar empty save for a small group of men quietly sipping beers and ignoring a TV tuned to a ballgame. We ordered Buds and double cheeseburgers from the no-nonsense bartender, who then went into the kitchen to prepare our meals, as we brought our beers to a table. Continue reading
When we think of Chicago hot dogs we think of Vienna Beef, the Chicago company that produces the snapping-good garlicky franks used all over the city. Wouldn’t it be something if you could actually visit the factory and get a Chicago dog right there? Well, it turns out you can! Continue reading
Located in a strip mall. No place to sit; take-out only. They make nothing but hot dogs. Want something on the side? Have a drink and a bag of chips. Nothing else is available. Yet there’s a line of people waiting to pick up their bags of 8, 10, even 12 dogs to go. Service is quick and businesslike at the small counter, but this place, with its quirky personality, does not in any way resemble a chain restaurant. Continue reading
Morgan’s Country Kitchen has been a hearty-eats oasis on the Oregon coast for decades. It has not changed a lot over the years – we recommend you arrive hungry. Our chicken fried steak platter was enormous. Continue reading
Palermo street-snacks in Brooklyn! Yes, in the Italian neighborhood of Carroll Gardens, Ferdinando’s serves Sicilian specialties not commonly seen on this side of the Atlantic. Continue reading
How has this escaped our notice through the decades of living in The Garden State? Here in Camden is one of the great cheesesteaks to be found anywhere, in a soulfully satisfying setting to boot. Continue reading
Shoreline candy shops are a dime-a-dozen, and few are worthy of any serious attention (though, for sure, we’ve purchased our share of pastel-colored taffy, and tooth-achingly sweet fudge). An exception is Monica’s Chocolates, located a few hundred feet from the Canadian border in the Maine town of Lubec. Lubec is probably best known to travelers as the point at which one crosses by bridge to Campobello Island. Let it hereafter be also known for world-class chocolate. Continue reading
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