Posts from the ‘United States’ Category

Sep 19

Napa Valley Sunday

The San Francisco trip was semi-impromptu so securing a French Laundry reservation just wasn’t going to happen. Besides, I’m not a “people who have BMWs or are looking at BMWs”.

After a few winery pit stops (photographic evidence) we did poke around Yountville and ate at Bouchon, instead. I didn’t feel inclined to blog my meal because I wrote about the Las Vegas location before, and I’ve been trying to wean myself from the practice. It’s like smoking; I technically quit in 2003 but you might see a cigarette in my hand a couple times a week.

However, I did photograph macarons from Bouchon Bakery. I could really take or leave the cupcake of the foodie world. It’s just a cookie, but I’m a sucker for rainbow hues.

And the blueberry wasn’t just pretty to look at—there’s no way the interior shade of azure is naturally derived—the texture and flavor was dazzling. Only a white cream layer is obvious at first glance, but there’s also a swipe of deep blue chunky jam in the center of the substantial macaron. The pistachio one was fine, but couldn’t compare to the boldness of the blueberry.

I’ve never been to the Napa Valley, and wasn’t sure what to expect. Yountville, a mini neighborhood constructed around the presence of the French Laundry, was peculiar in its manufactured quality. I wouldn’t say Disneyfied, if only because I loathe that shorthand, but intentional despite its nothingness like an outlet mall planted off a highway exit, a far flung Ikea on a street called Ikea Lane. It felt about 12 blocks long, which is about right if you look at the patch on a map.

The rebellious suburbanite in me wanted to wreak havoc on the pseudo tiny town. For one, I couldn’t figure out how French Laundry’s garden, directly across the street from the storied restaurant, could be open to the public without people snatching produce. What’s to keep someone from pocketing a souvenir Jerusalem artichoke? “That’s so Brooklyn” James chided, even though he had the same thought. Humans are not that good. If they’re stealing serving vessels from Alinea, plundering gardens is a step down.

Greenhouse tomatoes and herbs begging to be picked.

Melons being my most loathed food, it took restraint to not bop one of these cantaloupes lazing under foliage on its webby noggin.

After a charcuterie plate, black cod and lobster with accoutrements that reminded me a lot of this tete de cochon from Eleven Madison Park, a cheese course including a Fleur du Maquis that tasted like pee-soaked hay (not saying that’s a bad thing) and a few glasses of un-California riesling—oh, and a sherry—we set out to explore Yountvile after dark.

I rest secure knowing that while it’s not something I’d do in NYC, I appreciate that public libraries exist everywhere. When I get older and move away to become more hermitty, I’ll always be able to find work traumatizing the community from behind a reference desk. I wonder what kind of patrons use the Yountville public library?

If you cross back over the main entry road from highway 29, the neighborhood tapers off into trees and half-standing houses in mid-construction. The bad part of town? That’s where you could sneak off and get high if you were a teen. I wanted to nose around the new development but a security guard was on patrol.

Instead, we trespassed into the over 55 community. As someone who’s trying to escape the stroller-and-toy hegemony that plagues the foyers of every shared building in Brooklyn, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only place I could live in orderly peace would be in a complex of empty nesters.

And apparently, Rancho de Napa is a “grape place to live.” What I love about the west coast is the normalcy of trailer parks. I’ve spent much time in mobile homes of various family members over the years. It’s not trashy, it’s thrifty. And this collection was comprised of more polite manufactured homes, many tricked out with multiple stories, showy panels of windows and manicured yards. It was dark, however, and I didn’t want to use a flash lest we get run out of town. On a Sunday around 8pm, the whole village was practically in bed anyway, BMW-less visitors heading back from whence they came.

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Sep 18

Haltun

Burritos get all the attention in San Francisco (and I did get one the size of tube sock filled with al pastor at El Farolito, which served as midnight snack and substantial breakfast) but Cal-Mex is hardly the only regional style available in the Mission.

Yucatecan food was on my agenda, so I was thrilled to hear that my friend Todd had moved from Portland to an apartment around the corner from Poc-Chuc. Actually, he just said, “a Mayan restaurant,” but because I am obsessive I knew which one he meant even though I haven’t been to San Francisco since 1995. He was raving about a black turkey dish that sometimes had a mystery meatball floating in it. I loved the idea of random spongy meat showing up with your poultry.

With that said, we went to Haltun, another restaurant in the Mission, to see if they too plopped Mayan meatballs into the mix. Yes, they do. I must admit that my knowledge of this Caribbean-influenced style of cooking only comes from one meal at Coox Hanal in Mexico City, perhaps the equivalent of trying Southern food in NYC (which we seem to have an awful lot of lately), and from an episode of One Plate at Time. Clearly, I’m not an expert.

I do know that this dark, brothy dish gets its spooky color from charred chiles, often a mix of arbol and ancho. Charred is putting it mildly; the chiles are burnt and even the ash is incorporated into the mole paste. The meatloaf—it’s much more than a ball—is made from pork. Apparently, Poc Chuc’s version is less oily and more inky than sienna.

Relleno blanco is the good twin, similar ingredients minus the darkness.

Me, I just wanted a big plate of grilled pork, the so-called poc-chuc de puerco. This wouldn’t be out of place in many parts of Mexico; the Yucatecan touches were present in the pickled onions and potent salsa—habanero-usage is exclusive to this cuisine—served in a small glass dish with the circumference of thumb and first finger making the OK sign.

I’m pretty sure that’s crumbled cheese in the red salsa even though it looks a little like Thai roasted rice powder.

While it’s no LA or Chicago, I’ll always defend NYC’s Mexican cuisine (I’d say San Francisco fits somewhere in the middle). Still, we rarely get thick and pliable corn tortillas fresh of the comal like this. Handmade tortillas make all the difference, which reminds me that it’s very neglectful of me to have not visited Corona’s Tortillería Nixtamal yet.

A banner affixed to the exterior wall described a happy hour and “Mayan tapas,” my favorite abused word. We were outside this time frame, but tapas meant appetizers so we tried a few at full price. Pol-can was a lima bean and pumpkin seed fritter made out of corn-based dough. Very new world.

Salbutes, or salbut’ as spelled at Haltun, are like tostadas. These fried tortillas were topped with chicken. I haven’t seen these in NYC, but panuchos, a close kin, are served at La Superior in Williamsburg.

Haltun * 2948 21st St., San Francisco, CA

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Sep 12

Vientian Café

My final vacation meal was small and slapdash, a zero hour take out excursion I barely managed to squeeze in before Vientian Café closed at an early 9pm. Burmese (which I never got to), Mayan and Laotian are three cuisines lacking in NYC that the Bay Area has aplenty. (Only the latter made the recent Village Voice “Nine Cuisines Missing From NYC” list. Burmese is iffy here–I’m not even sure which restaurants if any are in business anymore. La Superior does serve panuchos, pavo escabeche and cochinita pibil, but it’s not strictly a Yucatecan restaurant. Laotian is completely absent.) I wanted to try them all.

Oakland, only a short car ride from our hotel in Berkeley, seemed to be the epicenter of Lao cooking. After a late lunch/early dinner at Tadich Grill and a nap induced by a few too many afternoon glasses of wine, it was already 8:30pm, too late for Green Papaya Deli, my first choice, but potentially ok for Vientian Café.

My only concern were the Yelp reviews, which I never take seriously for food quality but find useful for service quirks or issues not related to eating. Everyone mentioned how unsafe it was to park near the restaurant and how sketchy the neighborhood was. I don’t tend to take these cautions seriously; I read similar nonsense about places in Puerto Rico that were perfectly fine. Then again, I always think back to Vancouver, B.C. and getting everything stolen from our rental car because I didn’t take bad vibes seriously.

The door was locked when I ran up hoping for takeout. I was let in and the door was re-locked. I’m not sure if this was because it was the end of the night or if they always keep the door locked. The only other time I’ve seen this practice was at La Peniche in New Orleans where they also kept a machete near the door—if I’m correct, because there had a been a rash of robberies not because the Marigny is a particularly dangerous area. James insisted he heard gun shots while waiting in the car. Who knows? Maybe we’d just been in Berkeley too long and had gotten all soft and jumpy.

Knowing we were flying out in less than 12 hours, I only ordered two things from the menu, which was overwhelmingly Thai. The only thing I knew I had to try was the beef larb. Very different from the Thai style, the meat is raw, tripe is mixed in and there is nearly an equal amount of whole mint leaves and fat rings of green onions to irregularly chopped beef bits. Spicy for sure, herbal, and also bitter, much more so than the Thai style I’m accustomed to. I don’t know what that’s coming from, if it’s an unidentified herb or a side effect of the fermented fish sauce.

I almost never lame out on food, but after days of popping Pepto-Bismol tablets to keep the inexplicable nausea that started on the flight to San Francisco and lasted the entire trip under control I went with the counter woman’s suggestion of rare beef instead of raw. After reading up a bit, I don’t think cooked meat was the abomination I originally thought it was. Here’s a fancy version of the larb from a great blog I’d nearly forgotten about, written by a Laotian chef in Spain.

There is no doubt where the papaya salad gets its predominant funk from, and that’s the above mentioned padaek. Thankfully, we were checking out the next morning. I can’t imagine our hotel’s housekeeper being pleased with the foul, dirty smelling Styrofoam container left in the garbage (wrapped in plastic). As is often the case, the taste is much milder than the smell, more of a robust saltiness you associate with the sea. “Five or six chiles?” the counterwoman asked. “How you would eat it,” was my response hoping she wasn’t a baby palate. The heat was sharp and forceful, but nothing that a blob of sticky rice couldn’t temper. The most unusual part of the Lao style salad was that it came with a separately bagged up pile of fresh rice noodles, which provided the same softening effect as the sticky rice. I liked the contrast between crunch and chew.

I only regret not being able to order more things like the duck salad and Lao sausages…and having to toss out the unfinished remains of this meal. I just couldn’t justify packing such messy food in our suitcases even though we did do just that with Sichuan leftovers from our last lunch in Hong Kong.

Vientian Café * 3801 Allendale Ave., Oakland, CA

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Sep 11

Humphry Slocombe & Assorted Beverages

1/2 Two things I like about vacations are drinking in the middle of the day and eating lots of sweets. My dull workaday life is sugar-free, and cocktails are relegated to the weekends. I satisfied both loves my first day in San Francisco, a Saturday when good foodies are supposed to be at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, when instead, I met up with an old Portland friend who now lives in the Mission.

He was already acquainted with popular ice creamery, Bi-Rite, so we chose to immerse ourselves in weirder flavors at Humphry Slocombe. We all were swayed by Secret Breakfast, a wink-wink blend of cornflakes and Jim Beam. Second scoops included Peanut Butter Curry for me, which tasted as advertised and had the bluntness of turmeric-heavy curry powder; Olive Oil for Todd, which he said was orangey, not olivey; and a mistaken Salt and Pepper for James (he’d ask for Cayenne Cantaloupe and I screwed up the order because my brain couldn’t retain three combos of two).

The unexpected thing was that the flavors weren’t wildly distinct. I don’t think I would’ve guessed either of the two ingredients in the Secret Breakfast, which was more creamy and vanilla-ish. The cracked pepper definitely stood out because I thought it was my bowl and not the curry flavor I’d been expecting. However, I didn’t taste any salt and would’ve liked the contrast. I don’t think we converted Todd from Bi Rite, but I’d give Humphry another chance if I lived nearby. Plus, the prosciutto flavor is back on the menu today.

Odd for someone who eats ice cream like never, I also had a scoop of nectarine at brand new Mission Hill Creamery in Santa Cruz, a company started by my boyfriend’s sister’s husband’s childhood friend. Apparently, he is of the same purist, seasonal school as Bi Rite and learned from the same master somewhere in the Northeast. I thought it was interesting that he claimed that Humphry Slocombe quirks wouldn’t fly in Santa Cruz. I was just reading about a place in Maine, which strikes me as a more conservative locale, doing flavors like Thai Chile and Chocolate Wasabi, so you never know. I did not take any photos because I tend to reserve food paparazzi behavior for company who is used to it.

I wasn’t sure if Dirty Thieves, around the corner from Humphry Slocombe, was a true dive or a facsimile, but the booths were ripped up enough and while PBR tallboys and a shot of whiskey are hip in their own way, it’s not like housemade horehound bitters and lavender-infused Plymouth Gin. In fact, my long list of to-try mixology dens (Albemic, Bar Agricole, Comstock Saloon, Smuggler’s Cove, Hogs & Rocks, Beretta, among others) completely got top shelved once I set foot in San Francisco.

Instead, we mingled with tourists swaying to Ray Charles covers banged out on the corner piano at Gold Dust Lounge, and nursed a few beers at Li Po on a Labor Day night in Chinatown so silent we tried not to disrupt the homeless man sleeping in the doorway next to where we parked. He continued his buzzsaw snoring, perhaps the only thing keeping Lo Pan, who we kept imagining would float by in the dark, at bay.

I also couldn’t pass up Eddie Rickenbacker’s, a prototypical fern bar of the let’s put crap and Tiffany lamps all over the place school of décor that only now Applebee’s and Ruby Tuesdays are trying to move away from. We really wanted to see Mr. Higgins, the obese, three-legged Katrina rescued cat who lives in the bar, but he’d died three weeks prior to the date we arrived to say hi. I drank a shot of Maker’s Mark in his honor, though he was probably more of a Harvey Wallbanger feline.

Dirty Thieves continued the refreshing San Francisco tradition of warm service, irony-rich PBR or not, an antidote to the dourness I’ve just come to expect as normal in Brooklyn. In fact, our bartender was so friendly he practically apologized for not offering us free peanut butter and banana sandwiches that he’d been grilling out back. Full of Mayan food (another post) and ice cream, we still couldn’t turn down such kindness—and enthusiasm—it was as if he’d invented the combination himself.

Humphry Slocombe * 2790 Harrison St., San Francisco, CA

Dirty Thieves * 3050 24th St., San Francisco, CA

Li Po * 916 Grant Ave., San Francisco, CA

Eddie Rickenbacker’s * 133 2nd St., San Francisco, CA

Why does no one in the Bay Area have webpages?

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Aug 14

Cochon

There’s no escaping pork no matter where you travel in the US. Cochon is The Publican of New Orleans, right down to the prominent pig paintings. Or maybe The Publican is the Cochon of Chicago. Cochon Is two-and-a-half years older. I’m currently planning a Labor Day trip to San Francisco and Incanto is high on my list—are they cut from the same porcine cloth too? Bah, I’m still waiting for goat to go mainstream.

While scanning the menu and having a hard time deciding what I wanted as a main (I still think it’s odd that we were never told the specials and didn’t realize there were any until I started seeing a mysterious fish dish topped with an egg on tables appear on tables near us) since James claimed the namesake cochon, I also began wondering if the number of fedoras in the city shrinks drastically after Tales of the Cocktail is over. I also wondered if young men realize you’re not supposed to wear hats indoors—thank god the Wall Street Journal has taken up my cause.

The food is so rich and distinctly flavored that you could just order a bunch of the smaller dishes, share and be sated. My favorite might have been the paneed pork cheeks. They were so unique because if you hadn’t read the menu—or temporarily forgot like I did—you’d think you were eating al dente beans, curiously textured and pleasantly mealy. The little nubs were softened peanuts like you’d get boiled in the shell in the south. Add sharp radishes and unctous pork cheeks, and you have a combination not likely found elsewhere.

The mushroom salad also went down the unexpected pairing route by incorporating fried beef jerky, hints of cooling mint and thin wagon wheels of preserved lemons. Now that’s a way to serve vegetables.

Fried rabbit livers on toast got a lift from a savory, not terribly spicy pepper jelly.

Not feeling like embarking on one of the larger entrees, I ordered a bacon and fried oyster sandwich (not pictured) then regretted my choice after seeing the bowl of suckling pig, wintry cabbage and turnips (I actually like root cellar vegetables more than fresh warm weather ones) garnished with curled cracklings. Thankfully, it was too much meat for one person in one sitting and I was able to try a good portion of this delicacy.

Cochon * 930 Tchoupitoulas St., New Orleans, LA

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Aug 10

Domilise’s

While sweltering for close to 30 minutes on the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Poydras, waiting for the phantom bus 10 to whisk me to my po’ boy destination, I had two inclinations: one, to faint (not from hunger—the problem with vacation eating is that I can never conjure up enough appetites to cover all the meals I have in mind); two, to give up and get in the line at Mother’s, the tourist fave we were standing in front of. I’d already had po’ boys at Mother’s on my previous two (pre-digital photography) New Orleans visits, though. That would be pathetic.

After walking a few blocks down Tchoupitoulas to the next bus stop to see if a change of scenery would change our luck, we caved and flagged down a taxi to take us the five miles east around the bend to Domilise or Domilise’s, depending on what you read. (Yes, we could’ve just taken the St. Charles streetcar, and we did on the return, but I thought we were outsmarting it because that involves a long sweaty walk, the trolley isn’t air conditioned and using Tchoupitoulas is more direct.)

I haven’t eaten enough po’ boys in my life to have stringent standards. I would hope to recognize if I were eating a bad version. These were not that. Roast beef is popular, but to me that isn’t much different from a hoagie, sub or your sandwich parlance of choice. What I don’t often encounter in the NYC area are fried seafood sandwiches. These I associate with New Orleans.

Of course, there was that little matter of the Gulf oil spill. I did not anticipate shellfish being on menus they way it was. Either the local seafood wasn’t affected or they’re not using local product. I hate to say it’s probably the latter and may have always been the case (you can never assume that the food you’re eating–even in places known for their cuisine–came from the immediate area). I did not ask. I can enjoy my fried, breaded nuggets without getting all locavore about it.

Yes, Domilise’s derives much of its charm from its frozen-in-time digs. You order at the counter where the women in the family seem to man the cooking station, and order drinks at the bar where a spry, older gentleman hands you beverages amidst faded ads for Jax beer and Manning brother memorabilia. More than a few businesses in New Orleans were using mechanical cash registers.

A dressed shrimp po’ boy full of shrimp nuggets. I’d read complaints that they skimp on shrimp, but this isn’t paltry to me. Dressed at Domlise’s means lettuce, tomato, pickle, mustard, lots of mayonnaise…and ketchup. I don’t recall ketchup on others I’ve eaten. Very American flavors. Yep, it’s a sloppy mess, though the sludge layers well with the warm, crispy shrimp and crackly crusted, fluffy bread.

The oyster version happens to looks a little more dressed at this angle, but in all, not much different in appearance from the shrimp. Meatier, moister and flatter than than the shrimp, the oysters meld a bit more with the sandwich. This is a small. Large is four slabs.

Domilise’s * 5240 Annunciation St., New Orleans, LA

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Aug 8

Willie Mae’s Scotch House

1/2 I was recently talking with a trade mag writer and got on the topic of pizza, burger and fried chicken mania. He didn’t get it and was of a burger is a burger why overanalyze it mentality. I tend to agree (says she who photographs 85% of her restaurant meals). I just can’t get into the nuances of a pizza slice, and frankly, don’t have strong opinions on these American classics. I’m forgiving on the mediocre end—I can’t think of a particularly bad burger that I’ve eaten.

But on the rare occasion that I encounter an exemplary version of a foodstuff, I certainly recognize it. Willie Mae’s Scotch House, the no-secret-to-anyone restaurant just a handful of streetcar stops from The French Quarter, squeezes in the crowds during their narrow four-hours-a-day operating window. And it’s not just touristy hype.

I ate a lot of fried chicken over our long New Orleans weekend: fast food-style at Popeye’s and even lower brow at Brother’s, a 24-hour convenience store near our hotel. It was all pretty good. But nothing matched the pure golden perfection of this three-piece plate.

The crust is substantial, but not superfluous or heavy despite its strong presence. I don’t know if it’s the seasoning (neither too salty or peppery) or the cast-iron pan frying that makes the skin and batter meld into a single, flaky entity. Greaseless is often an adjective used to describe stellar fried chicken. These drumsticks and breasts were oily, grease was present (James wrapped up my third uneaten piece in napkins and stuck it in his bag and it soaked right through its paper wrapping) and there was nothing wrong with that. The meat stayed juicy. Normally, I’m ho hum on chicken breasts but the one I saved to eat in the middle of the night was still moist and the skin hadn’t turned blah and flabby.

Soupy butter beans are a classic side. I regret not ordering a biscuit, too.

So, now I have a benchmark and I’m spoiled. I’ve yet to eat any fried chicken in NYC that matches Wille Mae’s. Ok, that’s not saying much since I actively avoid crowds and long waits, particularly in one corner of Brooklyn. I will build up my tolerance and see if Pies ‘n’ Thighs and The Commodore deliver the sublime experience everyone says they do.

Willie Mae’s Scotch House * 2401 Saint Ann St., New Orleans, LA

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Aug 1

Commander’s Palace

Bold turquoise with turrets, white trim and jaunty stripes like a birthday cake of wood and shingles, as popular with men in bowties as with visitors flaunting the jackets preferred rule (purposely or not, I'm not sure), Commander's Palace is exactly the type of Tavern on the Green restaurant I avoided on my previous two visits to New Orleans. Now older and more nuanced, I can respect frippery. My last trip in 2004 I stayed at loft 523; this time, Le Pavillon, where I'm still marveling over a fireplace being employed in sweat-drenching July to evoke grandness, air conditioning bills be damned.

And the food wasn’t bad. It’s way over the top, though. When people ask, “What was the food like in New Orleans?” I think of this appetizer. The brunch includes a starter, entrée and dessert. I only ate this last weekend and I’ve forgotten the exact components because the fat clouded my brain (or maybe all those sazeracs caught up with me).

It was all a bloody mary-fueled blur of creamy, starchy foundations, eggs and multiple sauces crowned by fried bits. What I distinctly remember is that the hollandaise is made with bacon fat! Take that. And I did (which is why I’m trying to eat light and fresh as possible during August—I need to lay low nutritionally so I can overindulge again while in San Francisco over Labor Day). There is also cheesy garlic bread served with more butter.

That would’ve been plenty, but the main dish was still to come. Shrimp and goat cheese grits. What I wasn’t expecting were the mild hoisin and ginger flavors.

Eggs cochon de lait—a signature brunch dish—hits all the decadent notes, and hard: suckling pig “debris,” gravy, flaky biscuits, poached eggs and…bourbon-bacon fat hollandaise. I couldn’t even try one bite of this because my shrimp and grits had knocked me into a savory stupor.

I rarely order dessert anymore. Declining isn’t an option at Commander’s Palace, though. If I am going to do a sweet course, New Orleans is the place to do it because they showcase my favorite flavors. I’ll always choose nutty and caramelly over chocolatey or fruity. Ok, there was chocolate in this pecan pie, but it was all about the buttery goo and the fleur de sel caramel sauce added just enough dimension to keep me from dutifully eating one bite and calling it a day.

The balloons in the garden room (definitely worth requesting for the tree house effect) weren’t for a party. It’s always a party at Commander’s Palace. The roving jazz trio played “Happy Birthday” twice, and I didn’t have the heart to make them play it a third when they asked if I had any requests. I’m afraid that I came across New York brusque when I said no, but it was more a matter of having no idea what would be appropriate to ask for. After they broke into “Blue Skies” I had a better idea of their repertoire.

Commander's Palace * 1403 Washington Ave., New Orleans, LA

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Jul 20

Bud’s Hut

I now understand the fear of the unknown and how it drives suburbanites to chain restaurants. It's one thing if you live in a metropolis rife with thriving unique eateries or dwell in a cutesey smaller city like Portland (my favorite whipping boy) where the indie ethos is pervasive. Local is likely better. But when franchises are the norm, as with most of the New Jersey townships within an hour's drive from NYC, non-chains can be a scary prospect. Just what are you getting yourself into?

For years, I've had a fondness for the US Route 1 corridor spanning Linden to Edison. There is not a single mall store or chain restaurant you can't find along this strip. I particularly like the northern chunk just off the Goethals Bridge because it reminds me of 82nd Street in Portland, or at least the 82nd Street of my youth.

I intentionally drove along it all the way to Clackamas Town Center last Labor Day weekend instead of taking the freeway (I love saying freeway, not turnpike, expressway, parkway. It's free!) and it still appeared to be a blur of car dealerships, taverns, motels, thrift stores, vendors selling rugs out of vans. No gentrification yet (Portlanders aren't so desperate and crushed by rent prices to expand the borders of acceptable neighborhoods into the hinterlands—right before I moved to NYC I lived on 55th and Glisan and that was really pushing it, 39th being the invisible line between cool/uncool neighborhoods) just new unexpected businesses like a drive-thru banh mi shop.

Along this multi-laned road sits Bud's Hut, a sullen, windowless, dark wood anomaly that would be just at home in the Pacific Northwest. Its impenetrability implies bar or something more illicit, but it's advertised as family friendly. In the three-second glimpse I get in the passenger seat, there never appears to be many cars in the parking lot. There is no hint that it's a dive harboring a specialty like Rutt's Hut, the better known New Jersey establishment sharing half a moniker. In this era of user-generated content, not a single peep online only made me more suspicious. A restaurant untouched by Yelpers and Foursquarers? I'd have to take matters into my own hands the old fashioned way.

Saturday at 9pm James and I met up with three others that I'd coerced into solving the Bud's Hut mystery. It actually wasn't all that mysterious, as a member of this party only lives a few towns over and had been before, some time ago (and got food poisoning).

The décor was more nautical than I'd anticipated from a hut, a little '70s colonial with firm sweepable carpet, faux Tiffany lamps and boats and ships galore. Not seedy, just faded.

Only two other tables were occupied in the dining room and soon enough we had the place to ourselves. Our friendly waitress, who was as interested in the new Dee Snider reality show as we were, announced, "You can be as rowdy as you want now." After a few glasses of Yellowtail Shiraz, I was getting there. And really, Bud's Hut is probably better suited for drinking. The bar and outdoor patio still had decent crowds when we left.

The menu is based on favorites: steak, seafood…and a bloomin' onion with Italian-American staples like chicken parmesan and linguini with clam sauce (I think that's actually angel hair pasta). Garlic crabs, another New Jersey Italian thing, were also being advertised but cracking crustaceans is always such a hassle and better suited for the outdoors.

We started with Bud's Triangle, which is to say, a trio: loaded potato skins, mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers just like you'd find at a chain restaurant. Bud's Hut is a little Outback Steakhouse and a little Red Lobster with prices in the same range. They also have a mud slide on the drinks menu, so I'll add a dash of T.G.I. Friday's for good measure.

I had the stuffed shrimp, split and packed with buttery breadcrumbs and crab, and a baked potato with butter and sour cream because that seemed like the thing to do. I only eat baked potatoes in restaurants like this. The only thing missing was the bacon bits.

A steak and seafood combo served on an iron fish-shaped plate.

A bull memorialized in stained glass.

While the latest Best of Central Jersey awards are littered with chains, Bud's Hut appears to have swept a few categories in 2007 and 2008.

The parrot kind of breaks with the maritime theme. He would be more on trend at Cheeseburger in Paradise, a little farther down Rt. 1.

Bud’s Hut * 906 US Rt. 1, Avenel, NJ

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May 30

La Casita Blanca

While El Jibarto served solid Puerto Rican food I was familiar with, La Casita Blanca offered unique dishes and a welcoming, cookbooks and knick-knacks setting that I didn’t encounter elsewhere in San Juan. I hate to overstate the just like grandma’s house vibe (especially since my grandma wasn’t particularly known for her cooking—she did have lots of owl tchotkes, though).

Perhaps the character of this pocket of the Santurce neighborhood changes after dark, but I had been expecting a rougher area based on a smattering of online reviews. I only encountered bodegas, men working on cars outside, roosters on the loose (heard, not seen) and incongruously, a brand new luxury condo building at the top of road. (The only two times I’ve even been a crime victim were both in the Pacific Northwest, mugged in Portland and robbed in Vancouver, BC. Nothing bad has ever happened in Asia, Latin America or Europe, so I don’t worry about these things when traveling and I suggest you don’t either.)

When first seated you are given a little brown bag filled with strips of focaccia, and chicken rice soup in a paper cup. A pile of thin fritters colored with bits of green onion also show up. They were just like mini scallion pancakes and were exactly the type of thing that lend the home cooked feel. No one else in Puerto Rico provided a greasy snack while deciding what to order.

No English is spoken and the blackboard menu carried table to table is written in Spanish. I would just take a chance on something if you weren’t sure. The only word that threw me for a loop was tenera. Not fish, beef, chicken, goat, duck, turkey, lamb, rabbit or pork, what else could it be? I was kind of hoping it was goat. I know that meat as chivo; maybe they use a different word in Puerto Rico? I asked about it in Spanish and our waiter tried responding in English but the only word he could say sounded like beer. Beer?

Ah, beef, I later realized. Tenera is veal. Instead of the mysterious fricase de tenera, I went for the fricase de pollo just to be sure. Ok, I just violated my advice to take a chance on something unknown.

The food is simple with colorful presentations. All that annatto orange looks inviting when completed by shreds of purple, framed by two lengths of sweet plantain. One of the only reasons I fear stewed dishes like this is that I worry that the meat will be bland and dry, but it’s never the case, not with chicken adobo or this fricase served with the classic mound of rice. Rich, tomatoey with added salinity from the green olives and capers, the stew transcends a plate of boiled chicken parts.

You are sent off with a shot of anisette and coffee beans. Like I said, I didn't want to to overstate the granny vibe, but get an eyeful of that lace tablecloth topped with plastic.

La Casita Blanca * Calle Tapía 351, San Juan, Puerto Rico

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