Sweet and Sour in Boston

Man, it’s a long 6 hour flight from BOS to LAX. It’s even longer when you are in the middle of 30 or so Marshfield High cheerleaders on their way to route for their Rams playing the Beverly High School football team. Reason 3,489 why I am not ready to have kids: dealing with 14-17 year old girls….yikes! Talk about getting no sleep on a flight at all.

Anyway, we get into LAX, get our rental, and immediately head off to our first destination: the famous Pinks Hot Dog Stand in Hollywood.

Pinks Hot Dog



Everybody knows Pinks is the place where the cool hang out. (Actually, everyone except Sir Mix A Lot, who’s posse hung out at Dicks in Seattle.) Every time you see a travel show going to LA, they always stop over at Pinks to showcase off Hollywood’s favorite hot dog stand. What I didn’t know was that Pinks was known for their chili more so than their hot dog. This was a pleasant surprise, because I love chili dogs!

We get to Pinks and park on La Brea. There’s parking in the back, but some construction was going on. The line didn’t seem that long, only wrapping itself a couple of times around, so we were pumped. We’ve seen the pics and heard the stories about how the line can go all the way down La Brea. When we get in line, others around us are commenting on how short the line is today. Lucky us. Pinks serves chili dogs, chili fries, and hamburgers. Typical hot dog stand fare. Along the menu wall there are hot dog creations that were originated by celebs: Rosie O’Donnell, the TODAY show, Three Dog Night, and even a Martha Stewart dog. I went with the Huell Howser Dog (I have no idea who Huell Howser is) which is two hot dogs in one bun with chili, cheese, mustard and onion. Abby went with a regular chili dog and Guadalajara dog, which had relish, onions, tomatoes and sour cream.






Once you order, you go inside and watch as they get your dogs together. We get the dogs, along with a root beer for me and a diet coke for Abby, and paid and sat down inside. There are the photos of all the famous people who have eaten at Pinks. I see Huell Howser is a celeb. Again, no idea who he is. I’m disgusted by the cheating Pete Carroll photo who is beloved by all in southern California….well maybe not UCLA fans, but either way he’s a douche and a prick and that goes for his Trojans too. (Except the Song girls…they are cool, well hot, but you know what I mean.)

The hot dog itself was pretty good. Slightly better than a street vendor dog. The chili though was kinda average to below average. Nothing special going on there…it was watery and didn’t have any great flavor. Abby’s Guadalajara dog (that’s fun to spell) was pretty good though. No chili on it, but the tomatoes and relish and sour cream made it a nice light hot dog.

Overall, it’s worth experiencing the famous Pinks hot dog stand, and if I lived in the neighborhood, I’d come here every so often for a hot dog. I give Pinks a 3 out of 5.







Rehearsal Party

My sister’s wedding rehearsal party was one of the coolest events ever, mainly because of the food. In a back yard of a rented house in Santa Monica, my sister had rented a taco stand for the evening. As readers of this blog know, I love taco stands! For those of you lucky enough to live on southern California or Texas, taco stands are everywhere and are awesome. Normally around $0.50-$1 you will get the best tacos ever. But my sister did not stop there, no she also had a bunch of Vietnamese sandwiches brought in, along with some other Vietnamese catered food and also a few boxes of In-and-Out burgers. Talk about food heaven!

The tacos were incredible…better than anything you will ever find in Boston. Taco Loco is a good spot in Somerville, but it might as well be Taco Crapo compared to this taco stand. After six tacos, I attacked a double double burger from In-and-Out. (This is why, this is why, this is why I’m fat, fat.)

The night also included a lot of drinking and trying to get the future bride and groom completely shit-faced. My sister was getting mad at us for making the groom take shot after shot after shot. It was all good.






Vietnamese Tea Ceremony

The morning of the wedding is the traditional Vietnamese Tea Ceremony. It’s when the groom side introduces themselves to the bride side and brings along gifts in hopes that the bride side will accept the groom side and allow the bride to get married. Whatever…It’s all about the pig in my eyes. Do you not see the pics of the pig? Look how amazing that skin is! And believe me, it was even crispier and tastier than it looks. God I love pig!





Wedding and After

A lot of things happened at the wedding and afterwards at the reception, but those tales aren’t really necessary for this blog. The dinner was either sea bass or steak (I of course got the steak) and it was good, but nothing special really though. After the reception, a bunch of us went down to the bar where we did shots of Irish Carbombs and hung out until last call. Abby and I made friends with the bartender a couple of days earlier and so we took a photo with him.

The next morning, we all went to the Santa Monica Farmers Market for brunch. It’s a very nice farmers market, with tons and tons of food stands and local produce. I got breakfast from some Mexican grill and it was a pretty decent breakfast. Eggs, potatoes and sausage.



There were some oysters being shucked that were calling my name, but being hung over from the night before, I just didn’t have the appetite. We sat along the grass and right behind us was our first celebrity sighting: Helen Hunt. Let me tell you, I wish she was still married to Hank Azaria and I would have been excited. Helen Hunt does nothing for me…she represented Oklahomans in a bad light in Twister and I also think she’s kinda hideous to look at. My mom though was impressed and kept staring at her.

We went to a big dinner at a place in Garden Grove (which is the little Saigon area of LA…and by little I mean enormous.) It was a Bo 7 Mon place (which literally translate to “Beef 7 ways” in Vietnamese.) Basically you order different cuts of beef or seafood, and you cook it on a cast iron domed skillet in front of you. Then you wrap up the cooked protein up in a rice paper wrapper with some lettuce and some pickled carrots and maybe a slice of cucumber and eat it. It’s always good, but it takes a lot of this to feel me up.

Home and Monday Dinner

We finally make it home on Monday and did not want to leave the house at all. Some friends were meeting at The Point to watch Monday Night Football and have some cheap wings and while that sounded fabulous and tasty, we just didn’t have the heart to leave the condo. Wings really did sound good though, so we took a quick block walk to Foodies and grabbed some chicken party wings. I quickly made up some fried rice while I fried up the wings and dinner was done. With the fried rice, I cut up some picked thai eggplant. Nice and easy and tasty! (The pics aren't the best because I didn't take them until after we started eating.)







That was basically our long weekend away in a nutshell.

No posts in a while, mainly cause we have been busy. Here’s a recap of our long weekend starting with a review of South End Butter for dinner. (There are no pics for any of the food related topics because we were just too damn lazy to take any.)

South End Buttery

Friday night with no friends in town, we decided to go for a nice romantic dinner somewhere. We couldn’t find anything that looked interesting when we were looking through open table for any 1K restaurants that fit our time and need. We knew South End Buttery just opened a bistro at night, and since it’s near our place, our decision was made.

I called up during the day to make a reservation (sadly, South End Buttery is not on open table so we couldn’t use the newly acquired gift certificate we got in the mail) and was told that only parties of more than 6 can make reservations. No biggie, we’ll just head there around 7:30 and hope to beat the dinner rush.

If you have never been to South End Buttery, located on the corner of Shawmut and Union Park, it’s a nice bakery/coffee shop that serves sandwiches and salads during the day along with award winning cupcakes. There are two parts of the Buttery, the front half being the bakery, coffee shop area, and the back being the bar/dining area. We’ve never been at night, but figured all bistro related activities will be held in the back area.

We were wrong.

We arrived and all the tables in the front half of the Buttery were setup for dining. The entire back area was filled with bar goers and diners. Only one table in front had guests, two ladies awaiting their food. We were seated right away in the front area next to the glass counter that holds all the pastries that were left in the day. Now the Buttery bakery portion is suppose to be closed at 6:30 or 7pm. It was after that time and people were still coming in casually dressed in work out clothes, or flip flops and cutoff shirts, and walked right up next to us to peer into the glass windows to pick out the best cupcake for them. This I wouldn’t have minded if it was 2pm on a Saturday and we were just having a coffee or sandwich…but we were trying to have a nice dinner on a Friday night. Abby wasn’t having any of this and when our waitress came back to take our drink orders, she asked if we could be moved in the back bar area where it’s more intimate and away from the busy central walkway of the bakery. We were told it would be a 45 minute wait and that we could come back or wait at our current table and have an appetizer and drink and wait there. We decided on the later.

We started with a carafe of sangria (red wine style, there was an option for white wine style) and Moules Frites (mussels and fries). Our sangria came out quickly and as far as sangria goes, was pretty average to me. No floating fruits in the carafe, which I always deem a nice touch. It had a weird aftertaste…very herbal, like basil or mint that just wasn’t sitting right with me. But it was booze and cool and refreshing and I was getting warm sitting with all these people walking past me constantly. After not a long time, we were told that a table was open for us and we will be seated there and our appetizer will be sent to that table. SCORE!

We get seated in the bar area on a high top next to the windows. It’s very cozy in the bar area with our neighbors barely an elbow length apart. The noise level was high, but I tend to like that at some restaurants…obviously if we were at the French Laundry I wouldn’t want to hear the person next to me mention how much her athlete foot was bothering her that night or that the dude two seats across thinks LSU is going to repeat, but for a small bistro the noise level was very acceptable.

Our mussels came out along with the fries. The mussels floating in their saffron infused broth was incredible. I love mussels, and feel they are an easy dish to make well, but just because they are simple do not mean restaurants will always make it well. This was beyond good. We used up all the bread trying to soap up the broth, and began using the fries. The fries were very good fries, nothing more nothing less.

Our entrees came, and in a reversal of fortunes, Abby went with the hanger steak and I got the lamb loin. My lamb loin came out as a sort of deconstructed gyro. Romaine, tomatoes, olive and feta laid atop a pita bread with sliced loin of lamb aside it. There was tzatziki sauce on the other side. (Tzatziki sauce, or Greek cucumber sauce as I like to call it, might just be my all time favorite sauce. So light and refreshing, I normally order extra sauce whenever I get a gyro.) The lamb itself was cooked medium rare and was good, albeit a little salty. I had a bite of Abby’s steak and that too was a little salty. Luckily for me, the tzatziki sauce really helped tone down the saltiness of the lamb and I was able to enjoy my meal.

We were both stuffed and passed on dessert. The meal was not expensive, all entrees being below $20. Overall I feel like South End Butter Bistro is a decent spot with above average food. If you go, please wait to be seated in the bar area. Eating dinner while people in sweaty shorts are ordering cupcakes and standing around waiting for their pastries does not make a pleasant dining experience. I give South End Buttery Bistro a 3 out of 5.





Las Ventas

Having the day off on Friday allowed me to run some errands (oil change) and relax at home with my new surround sound system. It also allowed me the chance to try out Las Ventas (Food from Spain) at 700 Harrison. This is a Spanish market shop that sells Spanish made items, like Iberico jamon and canned seafood. It’s located on the street level of the 700 Harrison condos adjacent to Estragon tapas restaurant, created a mini-Spanish themed corner of South End. Las Ventas, along with various items like aprons with the Spanish flag on it, serves bocadillos starting at $7.50. I spent a dollar extra and got the bocadillo with Serrano Jamon. (I forget the name of the sandwich right now.) Once I got home, I bit into it, and 3 minutes later my entire bocadillo was gone. Not because it was small (it’s probably 9 inches or so, which is a good size sub for lunch) but because I couldn’t stop eating it once I started. It was that tasty. Now it was more bread than substance, but that still didn’t mean it wasn’t a great sandwich. The salsa de Estragon along with the Serrano Jamon distinguished this from the run of the meal subs you can get in various pizza shops in the South End. They had a tuna fish sandwich as well as other Spanish-flavored bocadillos that I will definitely have to come back and try. I give Las Ventas a 4 out of 5.



Saturday Cookout

A coworker of mine had an end of summer cookout at his house in Foxboro, so Abby and I headed out to the burbs to see how they live it up on the weekends. My coworker Craig lives in what I would have to call a mansion in Foxboro. It’s really not a mansion and it is probably a typical sized house for a man with a wife and two adorable daughters. But seeing as our condo is not even 750 square feet, any time we go to a friend’s house and their kitchen or shed or living room is larger than our condo, I feel like it’s a mansion.

Earlier this summer Craig told me his wife bought this inflatable water slide for his kids, and I definitely was excited to see this. Growing up, we didn’t have toys like this for sure. His is similar to the one in the following link, but did not have the water cannons. It was very impressive.

http://www.amazon.com/Banzai-Sidewinder-Blast-Inflatable-Cannons/dp/B000RP5DAK

Craig cooked some really good food. All grilled up on his nice deck. Something I’m regretting a little bit about our condo is the lack of balcony or deck so that we can grill. Damn I love grilling, and I’m not that great at it so I would really love to perfect the art, so to speak. The best thing Craig had was his steak tips, which he marinated in Coke (no, not llelo), good seasonings and ketchup. Now I’ve never heard of steak tips before I moved to Boston. From what I’ve read and seen at butcher shops, steak tips are cut from the upper part of the sirloin. I dunno why every restaurant/bar in Boston serves it, but my guess is that it’s because steak is more expensive here so they have to market the cheaper cut, whereas in Oklahoma or Texas you can get a piece of filet for the same price as these sirloin tips. In any case, these grilled marinated steak tips were awesome.

All of their friends brought desserts (and their kids too…boy I am not ready to have kids, I don’t think I’ll ever have enough energy or patience like my brothers and sisters or like Craig and his friends to deal with kids…don’t get me wrong, I love kids, especially my nieces and nephew who I get to see tomorrow in Santa Monica, but they are a lot of work) and I was addicted to this one dessert known as Icebox cake. It’s basically chocolate wafers surrounded by homemade whipped cream. DAMN!!!

My other coworker Jorge showed up with his two boys and we drank some beers and played around with all the kids for a while. Then Abby and I had to leave, we had Steak Night plans with our buddies the Carstens.

Steak Night

As written about before in this blog, steak night is when we all gather together at someone’s house and drink a crap-ton of wine and eat a crap-ton of steak. Very simple, and very fun. This was Tom and Cindy’s first time doing steak night and they were using a virgin cast iron skillet (a lodge 12 inch one we gave them as a thank you present for helping us move). Not much to be said about steak night other than YUM! Tom did have over two friends (or one friend and his classmate) who were vegetarians….not by religion or by family beliefs, but by personal choice…YIKES!!!! If you do not know, I am a (to steal a line from a commercial) meat-atarian. I only eat meat, and boy do I love it. Now I’m not going to go all Bourdain on vegetarians or vegans, cause while I disagree with them for not enjoying the fact that we are on top of the food chain, that’s not a reason for me to dislike them. However, when you start preaching to me about how being a vegetarian helps lower your carbon footprint, well I got an issue with that. Oh, you say there are studies out their proving that being a vegetarian actually does lower your carbon footprint? Well, there are studies out their saying that the world is flat and floating along on the back of four elephants that are on top of a turtle, but I sure as hell don’t believe that. (Shout out to Terry Pratchett!) You can make a study prove anything you want, just by limiting your sample count, etc. It doesn’t mean a gosh-darn thing! If you are so worried about your carbon footprint, that’s all well and good, but to say to me that I should stop being a meat eater because of my carbon footprint, well I’m going to just turn on the grill and start marinating your stinking vegetarian ass in some coke and good seasonings and ketchup. I really have nothing against those that want to believe Al Gore and stop global warming, I really don’t. Just don’t get all preachy, scary Christian activists on me. It’s your life, do as you wish. That’s just leaving more steak, pork, and dog for me to eat.

Anyway, steak night was still a blast. Tom and Cindy are the shit and always good company. I was able to follow the OU game on my phone and saw that we were up 50-0 at halftime. Then I went home and watched my beloved Huskies give up 30 unanswered points to the hated, cheating Oregon Ducks to lose 44-10. Oh well…at least OU won.

Sunday Night Dinner

We stayed in on Sunday, choosing to relax and enjoy the time off. (Abby made from scratch an apple pie while I played with my surround sound.) For dinner we decided to go anti-meat because of all the meat we at on Saturday. We grabbed a bag of spinach, some brown pears and I made a kick ass pear and spinach salad. I eyeballed the measurements, but the ingredients are as follows:

Spinach
Pears (Bosch if possible)
EVOO
Balsamic Vinegar
Honey
Kosher Salt
Lemon Juice

Slice up the pears and combine it in a bowl with a tablespoon or so of lemon juice. Then, with a basic 4-1 ratio, add the EVOO and Balsamic vinegar. A pinch or two of salt and then a few tablespoons of honey and mix it all up and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Add the spinach and toss around until coated. You can add pecans or walnuts as you wish. We forgot to get them at the grocery store, so ours was sans nuts.

Also, I boiled up some corn that was so freaking cheap. As I’ve said in a previous email, corn has been freaking amazing this season. And these were no different.

Santa Monica

We are leaving tomorrow for LA/Santa Monica for my sister’s wedding. We’ll be critiquing her food at the rehearsal dinner and at the wedding reception.

Last night a friend was in from out of town and we grabbed some dinner. I've never gone to Union before, and seeing as it's a couple of blocks away, we decided to give it a try.

I always thought Union was a long and narrow restaurant, but once we entered I soon realized I was wrong. It's a decent size place. The bar area was mostly full, which is pretty good for a lazy Monday night. The dining area had a few open booths and we were promptly seated even though we didn't have any reservations. (Not that I thought we would have troubles, but you just never know, ie, BBC.)

Union apparently is extending restaurant week so we were all going to go with that menu. There was also a special tonight, a steak tare tare appetizer that sounded really good. My buddy Joey and I looked at each other, trying to decide if we would get it or not. I decided no after I was told I couldn't switch it out with any of the appetizers in the restaurant week menu, but he went with it anyway.

My order was:

Deviled Eggs with Spiced Toasted Pecans, Spinach and Arugula Salad
Grilled Wild Striped Bass Sweet Corn Succotash and Smoked Paprika Vinaigrette
Black Bottom Cupcake Sundae Hot Fudge, Fresh Whipped Cream, Walnuts

Luckily everyone else ordered differently so we were all able to snack on the other items of restaurant week.






My deviled eggs came out and I was pleasantly surprised. Deviled eggs aren't normally something I see on a restaurant menu...usually it's for picnics or catered affairs. It's also an item that I feel should probably taste the same no matter who is making it, and these were no exception. The salad was also nice, with the pecans adding a nice sweet touch. I tried some of Joey's tare tare and it was pretty good, but not mind-blowing in any way. Abby's soup wasn't very good at all. It was a watermelon gazpacho soup and I don't think I could have more than 1 spoonful.




We then waited quite a bit for our main course. And the appetizers really made us more hungry. It's one of the few times I've had an appetizer and completely finished the plate and was immediately wanting the entree. I guess it was an epidemic because Nabeel, Joey and Abby all felt the same way. Maybe we were just extremely hungry that night...who knows. My striped bass came out and it looked like it was perfectly cooked: a nice brown, crispy sear on the skin and flaky to the touch. The bed of veggies it was lying on top of were very good, especially the corn. (This must be a good season for corn, because any corn I've had has been really freaking good.) The bass itself was, while perfectly cooked, a little under seasoned. The crispy skin had decent flavor, but the flesh was slightly bland. There sauce/vinaigrette provided some nice flavor, but I'd rather have the fish speak more for itself. Abby and Nabeel both got the cornflake crusted chicken and that too was slightly bland. Maybe the chefs ran out of salt...



Again, we waited a long time for our desserts. Right now we were all tired from a long day of work (or in my case still recovering from Vegas) and wanted our dessert immediately. Finally it came...and I'd give it a meh. It wasn't bad, nor was it great. Just a nice simple cupcake sundae. I ate it all and it pleased my sweet tooth, but it wasn't anything memorable. Joey's pineapple upside down cake had a very strong rum sauce, that was basically straight rum.

Overall not a bad place, but nothing special either. Looking at the prices (which weren't too bad) Union seemed like the classic place to try restaurant week. You get a little of everything, and it seems to be from a selection not far removed from their regular menu. I give it a 3 out of 5.

***Pics will come soon. We forgot our camera, so Nabeel used his blackberry to take pics and will email it to me when he has a chance.

Eating dinner with a large group of guys is tough. We are loud, make bad jokes, and probably extremely offensive. Seeing as this was Vegas and a bachelor party, multiply all of that by 1 million. Why, oh why, did we choose to eat so nicely, instead of choosing the Hooters or ESPN Zone or some other cliche spot? Who knows.

Bouchon

I first went to Bouchon with Abby for an Oyster meal a couple of years ago. It was incredible. Everything about the place, from having to enter through an elevator behind the main lobby to the clean marble bar that stores all the fresh seafood, is so unbelievably classy. That experience was limited to only the oysters and a few items that included the greatest sandwich of all time (Croque Madame). Bourdain mentioned that the fries were the best he's ever had and was pissed that they were better than his own restaurant's frites. Well, I've had both Les Halles and Bouchon's fries, and it's a tough call, but Bouchon barely wins.

This time I was going to dinner with 6 other guys. (The rest of the bachelor party crew haven't arrived yet.) I was nervous because I was hyping Bouchon up like no other, explaining that the food, at their prices, were a great bargain and that the fries were to die for. I kept telling them how great the steak frites were suppose to be and how it's the greatest on the strip. (I would have said how I was surprised how the restaurant didn't even get a sniff of a Michelin star, but not sure if I wanted to food-geek myself that much.) I think I hyped the restaurant a little too much.

We arrived a little early and sat in the parlor room and had a drink. $10 belvie and tonics aren't a bad start. (Side note: apparently our bar waiter looked like Adam from The Office. I don't watch The Office, so I had no idea if this was true or not, but the bar waiter seemed to find this humorous.) We were seated and explained that our menu was also our napkin wrapper. Neat...but probably one of the reasons this didn't get a Michelin star.






Bread was just thrown onto the parchment paper on the table and was joined with the most amazing homemade butter ever. Also, there were two containers of pistachios and some mustard. While the bread was crispy and warm, and the pistachios were a nice addition, I began to see why this glorious bistro struck out with the stars. 4 of us ordered the steak frites, while the others ordered the Gnocchi a la Parisienne, Gigot d'Agneau (roasted leg of lamb) and Plats de Cotes de Bosuf (prime beef short ribs). Jim splurged and got the caviar as starter (he never had it before and wanted to try it out.) Jason and Jobby got the sweet corn soup as a starter as well. The caviar was very good, if not pricey, but that's to be expected. It came with some very nice accompaniments in ground up egg yolk, egg white, and creme fraiche. Tasty, though not everyone at the table enjoyed it. The sweet corn soup had a great consistency and seemed to be a nice palate starter. Jason wished it had more salt though, while the couple of spoonfuls I had could have used a little pepper.

Now we waited....it seemed to take a very, very long time for our dinners to arrive. For someone who's enjoyed the service at a Thomas Keller restaurant, I was very disappointed by the service here. His restaurants are notoriously known for how much attention to details their waiters have. I noticed other tables getting asked if they wanted pepper in their soups and other waters being refilled promptly. Food seemed to be coming out of the kitchen, but not to our table. Every time the waiter came by he looked like he came from a sauna with sweat coming down off his face.

JJ and I had a long talk about how to cook steaks, and how he was trying to perfect the art of cooking a steak on the grill. I never met JJ before (he's going to be my boy's Jason's new brother in law) but this confirmed the fact that he was cool as shit. Gotta love steak lovers. Our food finally arrives and everyone seemed happy. The steaks were perfectly cooked, but not to the doneness that everyone was expecting. They were all medium rare, but I was the only one to ask for medium rare...the others asked for medium. Syam and JJ weren't blown away from the fries, but I still thought they were damn tasty. I love the fact that the side of fries you get is equal to nearly two extra value fries from McDonalds. It's a lot of fries. The steaks had this layer of garlic and onions over it with a nice slab of butter melting onto the flatiron steak. (Side note from wiki: "The flat iron steak is a cut of steak from the shoulder of a steer, also known as the Teres Major.") The first bite, the sauteed onion and butter were a great addition to the steak...but after a few more bites, it was a little overwhelming and I had to scoop the onions off. Overall...a really great steak, but not the best on the strip probably. I have a feeling craftsteak has a great steak and fries on their menu.

Jason's short ribs were insanely good. I'm gonna get that or the famous chicken next time I'm at Bouchon. The beef just fell right off the bone and were so very moist and tasty. I didn't try Jobby's lamb or Jim's gnocchi, but they seemed to be very pleased with it.

Service was nice enough to split the bill by 6 credit cards with no hesitation. Roughly $80 a person, and I think it's a great price. I'll always go to a Thomas Keller restaurant when I can have the chance and afford it, but a little of Bouchon's mystic wore off on this visit. Maybe it was because I went with a bunch of dudes instead of a nice romantic dinner with my lady, maybe it was just a off Friday night, who knows. That being said, it was still a great, great meal. I give Bouchon a 3 1/2 out of 5. (I'm sure it'll get back up to the 4 or 4 1/2 after my next visit though.)



Il Mulino Vegas

Tucked up on the 3rd floor of the immense Ceaser's Palace Mall is this highly regarded Italian restaurant. New Yorkers rave about their flagship restaurant, saying it's the best Italian in all the 5 boroughs. That's some high praise in a city known for their Batali's and Rocco's, etc. The Vegas location receives some of the same praises, but some critics claim that this is another watered down branch of a brand being stretched too far. Regardless, they accepted 11 guys for dinner on a Saturday night and we were all hungry.

Once we were seated, we were served bread, salami, fried zucchini and everyone had a piece of Parmesan cheese on a small plate. This is a great start and a crowd pleaser for sure. Free food will always make a group of 11 guys happy. We hear the specials and I was going to get the gnocchi but once the waiter said "homemade pappardelle bolognase" it was done and done. I won't repeat what everyone else ordered, but once the meals arrived no one's plate was unappetizing at all. We used small plates and passed around what each other had...and the meals were really, really good.

My homemade pappardelle was incredible. I love homemade pasta, and you can easily tell when pasta is homemade or not. It's so good that you don't need any sauce at all, but I was very please mine came with bolognase. I think I make an incredible bolognase sauce, but this put mine to shame.

Jason started recalling the Italian places he visited when he came to kick it with me a few times in Boston. This was when I lived in the North End and this restaurant reminded me again how great the North End is. While Il Mulino Vegas hit on nearly all cylinders, give me a small mom and pop Italian place any day. When I think Italian, I don't really think ultra fine dining. I think Mario Batali has this same issue when he tried his hardest to get one of his restaurants in NYC a 4-star rating. It's tough to get people to get over pasta and sauce...such a simple dish that when done right, is still a very simple dish about great ingredients. This however did not take away from the food at Il Mulino, which again was top-notch. I also have to say that the whole fish I saw being delivered to another table looked to die for....I'd like to give that a try one night.

So what wasn't working at Il Mulino? I didn't like the service one bit. Again, maybe we shouldn't have been so drunk before we came. Sure we might have been screaming obscenities out in such a fine-dining establishment...sure we might not have ordered as much wine and food they might have expected from such a large group. But damned if I didn't see other tables get offered shredded cheese or a grind or two of pepper and we didn't get any of this. Damn if I didn't see the waiters giving us dirty looks as they talked near the cash register. I dunno...maybe it's just me who thought this, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Would I go back? The prices were actually really good. There is a balcony that has many tables and a great romantic view of the strip. The food was really, really good. I might give Il Mulino another chance, but there are so many other places in Vegas I'd like to try first. I give it a 3 out of 5.

Back from Vegas and am now broke. Will post review of Bouchon and Il Mulino soon.

Found this Good Eats fan page while trying to find smoking points for oils today. It has some good info that the fan created from Good Eats episodes.

http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/GEFP/index.htm

Thanks to Abby and JP for letting me guest blog. Also, many thanks to Abby for an amazing birthday dinner!

We started off the evening at a free concert at Government Center. It was the English Beats, a very fun band that my boss likes. There was so much awesome old white people dancing, I mean, they were just letting lose, shakin' it with abandon. However, they didn't start until pretty late, so 3 or 4 songs in, Abby and I were STARVING so we had to say goodbye to my boss and leave. We headed to the North End.

Now, I have a very big problem with making decisions, so Abby and I strolled the North End for awhile checking out menus. I knew I wanted seafood/Italian. I had in my head a dish called cioppino. It's like a stew of seafood in a tomato broth, so I kept my eyes open for that, but didn't see it on the first 4 or 5 restaurants we checked.

Then we happened upon 5 North Square and the creepy old man/maitre'd standing outside told us to check out the menu. They had cioppino on the menu, and it said it was their specialty, so I was sold. We went in and were shown to a cute table for two. The service overall was very friendly and relatively attentive. It was strange, because they were absolutely not rushing us. We weren't exactly sure what we wanted at first, so we ordered an app, and then it wasn't until after we got our app and ordered wine that they even took our entrée order.

For the appetizer, we got the pomodoro. Thick slices of tomato topped with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, and basil, on a plate of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with roasted red peppers on the side. Just…wow. Everything was very fresh and very tasty.

We ordered a bottle of Chianti, which was very good. I don't remember what it was called, but we enjoyed it. We had to wait awhile for our entrees, but luckily I had good wine and good company, so it wasn't that big of a deal. The restaurant is small and quiet, and very conducive to conversation. A little too quiet almost, since sometimes our conversation can border on the inappropriate!

Finally our dishes arrived. Now, before when I've gotten cioppino, it's been a bowl of seafood and broth, with maybe some rice on the side, or a piece of bread. Now, this time, they set a bowl of heaping seafood in front of me. On the menu, it said that it came with a side of linguine. I imagined a small bowl of pasta on the side that I would ignore. I didn't expect a whole other platge of pasta also topped with seafood. It was like two meals in one! A veritable bounty of seafood: mussels, clams, scallops, shrimp, calamari, and a crab leg. The seafood was AMAZING. Everything was perfectly cooked and tender (especially the calamari--just spot on texture-wise). The broth was just extremely flavorful, slightly spicy, and amazing. I have to admit, I ate almost the whole thing! There was some pasta and maybe a few mussels left. I felt kind of bad since Abby probably has 2 days of leftovers from her puttanesca! But not that bad. It was amazing.

After our plates were cleared, and we sat finishing our wine, we were brought a complimentary tiramisu since it was my bday. This too was very good. Moist and tasty, and either semisweet or bittersweet cocoa powder sprinkled on the plate kept it from being too sweet. All in all, I couldn't have been happier. Granted, we were a little taken aback by the pace of the meal, but I think this was just a matter of NOT being rushed as opposed to poor service. I would definitely come here again—I left completely satisfied. Good portions, nice staff, nice atmosphere. Thanks again, Abby!



I'm at work right now, but when I get a chance this weekend I'll upload our pictures! ~Abby

Updating the look of the blog and it's kinda going slowly. Hopefully it'll all be settled and finished soon.

JP is heading out to Vegas today, with reservations for Bouchon on Friday. Pics and review will follow.