Sara, Ruth and I

The picture above is Red’s Rite Spot on Maynard Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan, about 40 years ago. My apartment windows are on either side of the 1hr CLEANING sign, so you can understand that even though I formally did not study greasy spoons when I was a student at the University of Michigan, I did absorb a full measure of hash-house soul wafting up all day, every day. Red’s is long-gone and the city’s tallest building, a condo complex, now stands on this spot, but I got to reminiscing about my A2 days thanks to a story by author Colleen Newvine in the alumni magazine about Ruth Reichl, Sara Moulton and me. We all attended the U of M, all wound up at Gourmet magazine, and all got canned when Gourmet died last October. Colleen’s story talks about our future plans. Since it was written, Jane and I have joined up with Saveur magazine, which we believe is going to be a stupendous venue for Roadfood stories. More about that to come!

World’s Best Mac & Cheese?

Beecher’s is a cheese shop at 100 Pike Place in Seattle, across the street from the covered market. It’s an aromatic storefront that makes and sells everything from fresh curds to flavored varieties that include No Woman (jerk spices and brown sugar) and Marco Polo (dotted with green and black peppercorns). I love eating on the stroll around the market, and Beecher’s mac & cheese, made with penne pasta and billed as the “world’s best,” is available in small containers with plastic forks for stand-up enjoyment. It’s mighty good, but is it the world’s best? I would love to do a side-by-side comparison with some of these contenders, going clockwise from the upper left: Rocky and Carlo's, Hell's Kitchen, Mary Mac's Tea Room, Zingerman's Roadhouse and Lynn's Paradise Cafe.

Doctored Roadfood Redux

Last summer, we brought a jar of Howard’s Hot Relish down to Mt. View Drive-In in Hampden, Massachusetts to dress their foot-long hot dog, wonderfully prepared but woefully lacking in the condiment department. Now we’ve fulfilled another vision of gastronomic glee, wedding the sultry spicy chili from Orangeside Luncheonette in New Haven to the celebrated cheeseburger at Shady Glen in Manchester, Connecticut. No one looked our way when we pulled out our to-go container of chili and spooned it on the burger. The taste was astounding as predicted, though our favorite result of this brainstorm was unexpected: scooping up the excess chili on the plate with the crunchy flaps of cheese…heaven on earth! We extend extra-special thanks to the fine folks at Orangeside (who gave us the chili for free because there was only enough to fill half of the container) for helping us to reach chili cheeseburger nirvana.

Louis’ Lunch Wins First Place in Chowdown Countdown

Travel Channel just aired an intriguing series entitled 101 Tastiest Places to Chowdown, which counted down the finest Roadfood spots (reviewed and unreviewed) around the country. Not surprisingly, 14 of the Top 20 places have previously been reviewed by Roadfood, including Buffalo’s Anchor Bar, Boston’s Durgin-Park, and Kansas City’s Arthur Bryant’s, among others. But the humble Louis’ Lunch in New Haven won the coveted top spot as the birthplace of the hamburger, and we took this opportunity to revisit one of our favorite Elm City haunts for lunch. The place was packed with a large group of Chinese students on an Explorica tour of the city. While waiting for our “cheese works” (that’s a burger with Cheese Whiz, sliced tomato, and grilled onions on white toast), a grandfather and grandson plopped down next to us. “I’m 93 years old,” the old-timer explained, while his grandson recalled not too long ago when the burgers were $2.50 (now $5). The pattie was smaller than on previous visits, but it was incredibly juicy, down to the last morsel. T-shirts with the infamous “No Ketchup” logo are also available.

Come for the Strips, Stay for the Chips

Rhode Island is well-known for many Roadfood staples: hot wieners, Del’s Frozen Lemonade, and snail salad, for starters. But another unique item is the beloved pizza strip, and Borelli’s Bakery makes them perfectly. This is bakery pizza in large sheets that’s cut into strips for $1 each. Borelli’s offers a red strip with sauce and a dusting of parmesan cheese, or the no-sauce version with cheese, peppers, and onions. Pizza strips are sold in other variations throughout New England, but it seems that the Ocean State is the epicenter. Even more enticing are pizza chips (also $1 each), which are rounded squares of dough topped with red sauce and parmesan sprinkles. The edges are toasted by oil when baking, so that the texture does indeed have a chewy ‘crunch.’ Both pizza offerings are exactly as the cashier warned us: completely addictive. Borelli’s is located at 805 Charles Street in North Providence.

Twenty Questions with Tony Luke, Jr.

The name Tony Luke is certainly synonymous with great sandwiches, but it turns out there’s much more to this R&B-singing, spatula-slinging son of Philadelphia. In our inaugural interview of the “Twenty Questions” series with Roadfood restaurateurs, we talked with Tony Luke, Jr. about his passion for food, the craziness of life beyond the counter, and his plans for global cheesesteak domination.

1. Who served you your first life-changing meal, and what was it?

That would be my father and it was eliche with garlic and olive oil. It’s a very simple dish, but it was amazing. My father always cooked with a lot of spices so he added red pepper flakes as well. I really learned how to cook from my father.

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Roadfood At the Movies

We saw the movie Up last night and noticed the appearance of Fenton’s Creamery of Oakland (Roadfood.com review) in the film.  This got us thinking: how many other Roadfood restaurants have shown up in films?  We quickly thought of three others.  Perhaps the most famous example is Katz’s (Roadfood.com review) and the film When Harry Met Sally (“I’ll have what she’s having.”).  The Carnegie Deli (Roadfood.com review) of New York was featured in the Woody Allen flick Broadway Danny Rose, and if we recall correctly, the late Leo Steiner, who owned the Carnegie at the time, was also in the movie.  And we recall reading somewhere that Phillips Grocery (Roadfood.com review) of Holly Springs, MS was in a Robert Altman film.  We didn’t see it – was it Cookie’s Fortune?

There must be plenty of additional examples but none come to mind.  Something in Philadelphia at a cheese steak joint?  A Texas barbecue spot?  Got to be something in L.A., right?  Can anybody think of other Roadfood movie appearances?

Who Cares that Cupcakes Have Peaked?

I have been informed that cupcakes are passé, like red velvet cake (and soon, salted caramel-flavored everything). I confess I love them, even if it does make me unfashionable in the eyes of cutting-edge gastronomes. The cupcake pictured here, bought at my local diner/cafe, O’Neil’s, where a member of the staff regularly makes them, is particularly unchic, being plain, ordinary yellow cake with plain, ordinary chocolate frosting and broken Reese’s peanut butter cups on top. It’s not a recipe for ten minutes of culinary fame, but as soon as this photo was taken I joyfully consumed the fresh lovely with mid-morning coffee … and plan on going back after lunch in hopes that there will be one remaining for dessert. Perhaps the cream-cheese-frosted red velvet cupcake. (O’Neil’s Sandwich and Coffee Bar: 114 Greenwood Ave., Bethel, CT. 203-791-8121)

The Cook Beats The Meat

Roadfood.com asked the question, What's the Most Important Feature In Great BBQ?  Roadfood.com readers made it a two-way race, and The Cook edged out The Meat by eight votes out of the 955 cast.  There are a few ways to interpret the question, any and all of them valid (there’s only so much space for the poll – no explanations possible!).  Here’s how we see it: if you came up with a great barbecue sauce, how much would that define the great barbecue?  Could you take just about any meat and any pitmaster and turn the results into great barbecue through the use of the right sauce?  For us, at least, the answer to that particular question is no.

We’d say the same thing about the setting and the rub.  The other three are trickier.  Can you even have barbecue without wood?  Plenty of restaurants serve something called barbecue that never saw wood smoke.  Some of it can be pretty decent, too, but great?  Never, not in our opinion.  Which is why we voted for wood.  Of course, you can’t really have barbecue without the meat, but we don’t see the question as a choice between meat or no meat.  Rather, it’s a question of which particular cut of cow or pig or lamb or whatever is used.  And, for sure, that choice is important, but we think a great pitmaster could turn just about anything handed to him into top-quality barbecue.  Which is why we’d pick The Cook as our second choice, and maybe we’d even change it to our first choice.

There’s our two cents.  Anyone else care to weigh in?

Boutique Twinkie

Approximately once every 12 years, I crave a Twinkie. One or two completely sates the hunger. This afternoon, after chowing down on chicken wings at the Candlelight Inn in Scarsdale, New York (review to come), I walked into Lulu Cake Boutique and spotted some interesting snack cakes behind the counter. I asked, “What are those Twinkie-shaped things?” The response: “Twinkies.” Of course, they are not real Twinkies; they are Lulu’s artisan versions thereof, coated in chocolate and containing cream, not creme -- an East Coast cognate of the wonderful chocolate espresso Twinkies made at Bette's Oceanview Diner in Berkeley, California. The man behind the counter warned us to wait an hour until his pastries were at room temperature before eating them. A serious challenge, but good advice, especially for the other dessert we took home: a big block of salted caramel chocolate cake with milk chocolate ganache icing, which blossomed as it warmed.