The Best Burger in the 'Burbs

I like my burgers how I like my coffee: freshly ground.

No, I obviously haven't had every single burger in the DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia, so named for its perpetual car-park-style traffic). But I have had the best burgers Chicago has to offer (Edzo's and Au Cheval), and it is by those standards that I judge future burger greatness.

I bestow the honorific upon Red Apron Butcher, a boutique butcher shop located in the Mosaic Center in Merrifield, VA, for its attention to detail, simplicity, and quality meat. I apologize for the horrendous picture, but pictured above is their bacon burger ($10) made from ground beef and ground bacon. It's topped with boozy, beer-braised onions, American cheese, and the genius "island sauce". Though I kind of hate the name - "island sauce" conjures up images of crusty old salad dressing bottles loitering in the door of the fridge - it's actually a means of controlling the proportions of mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles, and possibly onion for swift and exact burger dressing; one condiment that hits all necessary notes in one fell swoop. The bun is pillowy and yeasty and unlike any other. If I had one criticism it'd be a lack of texture; everything is decadently gooey.

Their Red Apron Original ($10) is topped with cheddar instead of American cheese. They let the cheese melt over the patty and begin to crisp up on the griddle, resulting in deliciously crunchy edges (no issue with texture in this burger). It's then topped with the same island sauce, shredded iceberg (more texture), onions, tomato, and pickles. All their meat is sourced "from animals that are sustainably raised, without antibiotics or horomones and certified humanely treated." I also assume that since they are a butcher that they grind their meat as as freshly as possible. No gimmicks. No fried eggs (as good as those may be).

You can order fries separately ($3) and while they don't showcase the creativity that the fries at Edzo's do, they are fried in aged beef fat .

If you think that $10 is too much for a burger sans frites, check out this blog on the argument for the $10 bowl of pho and make the appropriate transpositions.

Poutine

So we all knew I couldn't go to Quebec without getting some authentic poutine. For those of you who don't know, poutine is comprised of french fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. It's beginning to take hold in the states as we move away from the calorie counting and towards the decadent.

Here in Cleveland you can get something similar at the Greenhouse Tavern if you order gravy fries. Order it "Animal style" and they'll top it with bacon, fried eggs, and whole mustard. With all that fat I was slightly surprised at how bland it was.

In Chicago you can order pig face poutine at the Barrelhouse Flat which is basically fries topped with delicious pulled pork cheek and caramelized onions. There's also the newly opened BadHappy Poutine shop, which I haven't been to yet, but can't wait to try.

With my love of all things french fried and fatty, I was eager to taste the real deal. The important thing to remember is that if you don't start with good fries, no matter how much stuff you pile on top, it's not going to be that good.

To my delight, at the foot of the Domaine Forget hill there is a roadside stand called Chez Ginette that serves fabulous poutine. Good fries, good gravy, good cheese curds, served steaming in a styrofoam container...eaten at a picnic bench on the side of the road. To drink, a case of Moosehead lager from the liquor store next door. Oh, Canada...how great you are!

Opera: Hansel und Gretel

The last few weeks have been filled with opera and a whirlwind trip to Chicago. I've also been trying some new recipes, none of them terribly original though.

CIM's opera production, Hansel und Gretel, was a huge success. After a long rehearsal last Friday, I drove through the wet snow with a few friends to spend 36 hours in Chicago with Jacob. It was a short trip and a tiring drive, but it was definitely worth it. We had a belated Valentine's dinner at m henrietta, a cozy place with unpretentious, but definitely delicious, food. It was a refreshing change to my usual unrealistic food requests when I visit. Usually it's "let's drive an hour and a half to the heart of the city to try this really expensive restaurant!" This place was on the north side, so the drive was much shorter, and we even found parking right in front of the restaurant.

We ordered a pancetta-wrapped shrimp appetizer which was surprisingly light and served on a bed of fresh avocado, grape tomato, and shaved cucumber with some slices of lemon and lime. This dish awakened my hibernating avocado-eater (something I never ate as a child, btw. I always picked it out of my california roll). I've been recreating this salad for lunch: avocado chunks, grape tomatoes, cucumber chunks, dressed with lime juice, salt, and pepper. You can't get any fresher than that.

Jacob's mom sent me some food magazines for Valentine's day. Some Bon Appetit and Food & Wine. I tried this recipe for sweet potatoes with mirin and honey, which basically turned into candy. I kinda wanted more asian-y flavor, maybe some rice vinegar instead of white vinegar and a dash of shoyu.

I also tried this pasta recipe from Tasting Table's winter collection, which you can download here. If you don't subscribe to Tasting Table, you should. It's less applicable to me now that I live in Cleveland, but they send me daily restaurant emails about Chicago (and other big cities). The linguine with cod, given the fancy name "Bavette in Guazzetto," was delicious and authentic. The instructions were kinda unclear on how small to cut the cod, and I probably cut it too small, because it all flaked, instead of staying in chunks. It still tasted delicious though, reminiscent of a spicy linguine with clams.

Maybe it was the subtle conditioning of the story of Hansel and Gretel, but something has activated my sweet tooth, and I can't get enough chocolate. Especially the toffee and almond variety. Yum.

The Slurping Turtle

In Cleveland I was craaaaving a big steamy bowl of noodle soup. And I don't mean a 10 cent pack of ramen. Since Cleveland's Japanese population seems to be surprisingly small (as far as I know), I made plans to get some in Chicago. The Slurping Turtle came to my rescue. It just opened a month or so ago, and the moment I saw the menu I knew that I wanted it and that it was going to be good.

The menu may look daunting, but the flavors are very traditional. We had shumai and gyoza that had little slices of pickled Japanese cucumber to garnish, which tasted just like the cucumbers with rice vinegar my mom makes in the summer. I had shoyu ramen (pictured below), and although I've never been to Japan and probably have never had real ramen, the moment I tasted it I knew it was exactly right. It was true comfort food and I can't wait to go back!

Zingerman's Deli

I am once again avoiding actual work by blogging. But it's ok because they are handing out free sugar at Starbucks, so I'm in for the long haul.

I escaped dreary Cleveland for the Great White North yesterday (and by that I mean Michigan), meeting Jacob and our friend Sam in Ann Arbor to go to the London Philharmonic concert that night. It's only a three hour drive but the minute I saw the first sign for Chicago the sky was somehow a lighter gray, and a dusting of snow covered the brown, corn-less fields. It was so nice to get a taste of what December weather should be.

I got in around lunchtime and we decided on Zingerman's Deli for lunch. I had no idea this was way more than just a sandwich shop. When we walked in we were greeted by a wall of cheese on one side and stacks of bagels on the other.

All the cheese are made in Michigan and the bagels and sandwich breads are made in-house. Behind the cheeses was a wall of smoked meats: links of smoked sausages, ham hocks, slabs of bacon, and lox.

A whole shelf just for mustard...

Fancy kitchen tools...

Jars of tea and spices...

A whole wall of oils and vinegars...

I didn't know so much awesome could be packed into such a small place. They had olive oil samples on one shelf where you could dip crusty cubes of bread into several different kinds. And so, so much bacon.

The sandwich menu was organized by meat-type to help you make your decision. Everyone working there was extremely helpful and offered us lots of free samples. I settled on a pressed Cuban sandwich with pulled pork and pickles. Jacob got a corned beef reuben (pictured above). And Sam got pastrami with scallion cream cheese.

We went "Next Door" to sit down and eat and discovered a room full of chocolate, gelato, and a coffee bar serving Zingerman's roasted coffee. They seem to have a monopoly on all the products served there. Quite the business.

And quite delicious too!

Faddy Foods : Food Trucks

Cleveland is growing on me! After visiting the West Side Market and being thoroughly overwhelmed by it, I decided Cleveland has some promise. I am thankful for my car, although I would rather live in a place where I didn't need to drive (ahem, Chicago). In my opinion the Chicago train system is far better than the buses here. Although I have never yet been late to class because my bus showed up late, I still find buses a more stressful means of transportation. And while I know there are big draw-backs to the El, I always lived near a train stop, and I was never in a hurry.

Thanks to an email from CIM's associate dean this week, I found out that Cleveland has food trucks and they come to University Circle every now and then. You'd think that food on wheels would make us lazy. But I like to think of it as food that meets you halfway. You have to find out where the truck will be and track it down, but it also comes to you. And because it's not around all the time, you don't get stuck in routines eating the same lunch everyday.

On Tuesday I had a some Massamun curry from Umami Moto and a delicious Thai peanut/BBQ pulled pork sandwich from StrEat on Wednesday. I ate my lunch at "the lagoon," which is probably one of the prettier parts of Cleveland. I think they call it a lagoon because it's somewhere in between pond and swamp, with lots of ducks and geese. There's even a very ugly duck.

These food trucks provide affordable, fast, quality food to the University Circle area. I would happily replace my lunch latte with real food if it's worth it. I hope they keep coming back!

Butter: An Argument for Whole Foods

Since acquiring a car, I have taken a few too many trips out to Whole Foods. I'm not one of those organic-obsessed folks, but I am making an effort to reverse Whole Foods' stigma of being more expensive than traditional grocery stores. Organic or not, Whole Foods just has fresher produce, which is what I really care about, and it's not always more expensive.

Yesterday, I went to a conventional grocery store and had a shamefully high bill, higher than any of my trips to Whole Foods. I think this is because when shopping at Whole Foods, you are in a sense shopping as your best self -- the frugal, health-conscious, non-wasteful self. At regular grocery stores, you are just another consumer, buying whatever is on sale, and with a lot more temptation. If at Whole Foods your indulgent snack purchase is a big bag of apples that are on sale and staring you in the face as you walk in, no harm done really. But at other places it might be a buy one get one free 12-pack of coke, or that 10-pack of buttered microwave popcorn that was only a little more expensive than the 3-pack. And pretty soon you have a $60 cart-full of junk food.

Back to Whole Foods being cheaper than regular grocery store prices. If there's one thing I make a point of buying at Whole Foods, it's butter. It sounds a little contradictory to make a point of buying what is essentially milk fat at a store where it's hard to distinguish between bird feed and people feed. However, at a normal grocery store, a pound of Land O' Lakes butter can be upwards of 5 dollars. A pound of Whole Foods brand butter is usually priced at $2.99. And it's rBGH free, if you care about the hormones you consume. If you want more growth hormone for your buck, go ahead and buy that Land O' Lakes butter.

At regular grocery stores leeks are considered a specialty item and are therefore more expensive. I got a huge leek for 89 cents at Whole Foods. Red bell peppers are insanely expensive wherever you go, usually priced by the pepper, not by the pound (a bit misleading because often grocery stores will use the same price-per-pound for green bell peppers, and when they're shelved right next to each other, it can be confusing). Whole Foods non-organic red bell peppers are $3.99 each, which I am pretty sure is a dollar cheaper than most stores. I can't prove this at the moment but when buying ingredients like fennel and celery root, Whole Foods is the way to go. I'll have to price check the next time I go and publish the results, but for sure, more people buy these specialty items at Whole Foods, meaning the supply is replenished more often, meaning that what you're getting is actually fresher.

One thing that Whole Foods lacks is a chicken stock or chicken broth that actually tastes good. I go with Swanson every time. I guess if you're shopping at Whole Foods you're going to be making your own stock from scratch, but I don't have time to cook anything that's not going to immediately gratify me.

I love that every store is different, showcasing local farms, breweries, and artisans. This particular Whole Foods seems to have an affinity for Icelandic products for some reason. Not exactly local, but I love Iceland more than the average person, so I'm ok with this. They have Icelandic lamb and Icelandic skyr (similar to Greek yogurt, which is more popular in the U.S.). The dairy isle features this Icelandic butter, which is quite flavorful. (Ok, so you can splurge a bit at Whole Foods too). The butter is $2.99 for a half pound, and tastes kind of similar to Kerrygold Irish butter. It's vivid yellow and has a kind of glossy, waxy consistency. Pick up some of this butter and a baguette, warm the baguette in the oven, and you have the easiest, most heart-warming snack ever. Carbs and fat! They sell those at Whole Foods too.

Girl in the Kitchen

Stephanie Izard, the girl of Girl and the Goat, just released a new cookbook which is as interesting to read as it is to salivate over. As I've read, I've discovered a fearless, spunky girl who uses traditional flavors connected to fond childhood memories and revitalizes them. Although I wouldn't call myself spunky, I feel like we connect with food in a similar way. We just wanna have fun!

The format of her book is actually very similar to the way I approach this blog: each recipe is preceded by a story of the recipe's conception or a childhood memory she attaches to certain ingredients. Not only that, but her writing style is so casual, it feels as though she's talking right to you.

I had to smile to myself when I got to a recipe for Fennel-Potato Soup with Butter-Poached Lobster and Blood Oranges (her chapter on soup is 40 pages long...A girl after my own heart). Her introductory paragraph was oddly similar to a narrative I wrote recently on this blog. I'll quote her here:

"I've never liked black licorice, so I thought it was strange that I fell hard for fennel while working at Spring restaurant -- the anise flavor is so much fresher than what you'd find in licorice. It adds a nice note to just about anything, but especially sauces, stocks, and soups. Now that I'm officially addicted to the stuff, I'm always trying to come up with new uses for it. I tend to think of it as an ideal partner for citrus, so I wind up using it more in winter when citrus fruits are at their peak."

I'm glad that we both share a love for fennel and a hatred for licorice. And if anything, this supports my claim that fennel+citrus is a match made in heaven.

I haven't made it past the soup chapter yet but I am already so excited to try some (or all) of these recipes! Unfortunately, for now, it's back to the research for me. It's going to be a long day!

Spring Fever

Anyone who knows me well knows to roll their eyes when I mention J.Crew. I'm obsessed. Or at least I have been for the last few months. I used to be a hard-core Express girl and even worked there for a summer. But, I guess one morning I woke up and decided that I didn't want to dress like a skank anymore. I wanted to be classy. Actually it wasn't so much a change in me, it was a change in Express. What initially attracted me to Express was its business wear - dress pants, blazers, button-up shirts in every color - but now Express is playing up its clubby/casual side and I don't like it. When you see a girl making an effort to be sexy in the way she dresses herself, it comes on a little too strong. People get the wrong idea. To me, there's nothing sexier than someone who is just confident and comfortable in whatever they're in.

That's where J.Crew comes in. J.Crew is the Volvo of the clothing world: clean lines, simply well-made, casual yet classy, and most importantly, COMFORTABLE. Draw whatever "soccer mom" conclusions you want. J.Crew is worth the price-tag (especially if you get things on sale, which I am all about).

Speaking of price-tags though, being the unemployed college student that I am, I really can't afford to go shopping at all! I've spent many a practice break "window shopping" on jcrew.com, fantasizing about what I would buy if I had money (100% of my money goes to feeding myself). Here is my perfect spring outfit, which I would buy in a heart-beat if money were not an option:











This is the part in fashion magazines where they show you what you should buy instead because it's cheaper. BUT this is The Finer Things. So, my plan is to go home for spring break and hope my mom is in a generous mood when I show her my grades. I'll settle for just the shoes.

Two Movies You Need to Watch

A long time has passed since leaving off with "Monologue Meets Dialogue." It's a new decade. I learned basic Japanese. I moved from the dorm to an apartment, and then to a different apartment. I traveled more than 25,000 miles (which is a story for another time). I turned 21. I have not, however, found a new movie to add to my list of favorites. Sure, there have been good movies made - blockbusters and indie films, alike - but nothing has really resonated with me.

When I added Rachel Getting Married to my list of favorite movies in 2008, I started to notice a trend. The majority of the movies I connect with (and thus, become my favorites) have just one main character, the protagonist, who is also somehow the antagonist. His struggle is an internal one, be it emotional, psychological, or otherwise. The plot is a realistic snapshot of his life. Garden State was one of the first, and the rest followed: On the Edge, Half Nelson, Rachel Getting Married. Donnie Darko and La Vie en Rose to a certain extent, but with less realism. Interesting...

Now, thanks to Netflix and a little free time, I've finally found two new movies that fit the bill: The Vicious Kind and Fish Tank.



The Vicious Kind was one of those movies I knew I was going to love before I even started it. I first stumbled onto it maybe as long as a year ago on my Netflix: Watch Instantly page. The opening monologue - at once hilarious, pessimistic, and colorful - is enough to suck you in. I won't quote it here, primarily because it's so...colorful, but also because I don't want to spoil anything about this movie. I will say that Adam Scott is amazing in this movie, but when I first saw it, I was confused as to why Netflix labeled it a comedy. Now, having seen Scott on Parks and Recreation as well as watching both seasons of Party Down, I can honestly say that there were some HILARIOUS moments in this. I recommend seeing Adam Scott in a comedy first to get used to his caustic wit before watching this movie.



By the time Fish Tank surfaced on my Netflix, I had long forgotten the trailer that had caught my attention more than a year ago. Widely avoiding "Juno" comparisons, this movie about a lower-class British 15-year old girl feels more like watching the movie Happy-Go-Lucky. Except there's nothing happy-go-lucky about it. Fish Tank is a true snapshot of angry Mia's adolescence in which the audience is kept at a distance. You're never quite sure why she does what she does. And the most you feel for her is when her outlet - hip-hop dancing - is taken away from her.

You should definitely watch both these movies on your own so you can really sink into them. Next time you need a little alone time, make yourself some tea or a hot beverage of your choice and crawl into bed to watch one of these movies. It'll be well worth your time, I promise.