Chocolate by the Rip-Off Artist

This originally appeared as a review in Yelp, and while I suppose I could use the actual name of the (and I use the term in the loosest possible sense) restaurant; since you could just get on Yelp and look through my reviews; it’s probably just easier if we go with an alias.
This story takes place over a year ago when I was still dating “that girl everyone hated,” we’ll call her: Cindy. Seriously, not a single one of my friends liked her; but she was hot and she was tiny and I’ve been known to be somewhat superficial from time to time, so that was fine with me.
Anyway, this takes place when she and I went to Ben Miller, Chocolate by the Curly Haired Rip-Off Artist. We went twice and the second time was even worse.
So the first time around, Cindy and I went in shortly after they’d first opened their Union Square location. We waited to talk to a hostess for about five minutes and then were told if we wanted a table, we were looking at about a twenty minute wait. We figured, okay fine; your restaurant just opened, you serve all things chocolaty, its nice outside, there are tons of couples here, my girlfriend and I will go smoke a butt and make fun of skateboarding hippies in Union Square Park for a little while.
When we got back to the restaurant and were finally seated Cindy and I sat there taking in the scene and staring at the menu...the full menu and we both decided on some drinks...ones with alcohol in them. The only problem, our waiter informed us, was the Curly Haired Rip-Off Artist hadn't been given his liquor license yet (maybe the kind of thing he'd want to put on his menu or notify people of when the walk in the door); so our options were smoothies or non-alcoholic beverages. Yeah, that’s what I want when I come to a restaurant looking for chocolate…is a smoothie! So then she and I decide, okay we’re not total alcoholics, we don’t need to have drinks to have a good time; we'll just split the chocolate fondue. Problem #2, our waiter informs us, “actually, we don't have the stuff to make our chocolate fondue yet.” Excuse me? You don’t have the stuff to make chocolate fondue? Forgive me for asking a seemingly obvious question but there is chocolate as far as the eye can see; and beyond that all you need is a bowl above pot of boiling water, and something to keep it warm. Our waiter shrugged at me and it was at that point Cindy and I decided to leave.
We went back several months later, after we’d broken up and in fairly quick succession gotten back together; much to the respective joy and chagrin of all my friends. We were going to see a movie at the Union Square Stadium 14 and had about an hour to kill, maybe a little more. We walked across the street and stood outside for a minute, the two of us looking at each other with the unsaid, “remember what happened here the last time,” passing between us. But we checked our watches and figured we had plenty of time to get a drink and share some fondue, right? Well, maybe not. We waited about fifteen minutes for a table, were seated and didn't even SEE our waiter for at least another ten minutes. Cindy and I decided we’d order exactly what we attempted to order our first time around: a Sergeant Peppermint Chocolate Martini for me, a Falling in Love Martini for her (we were so cute) and a Chocolate Fondue to share. Then we sat around and waited for our waiter…and waited and waited. When he finally showed up, and we ordered our drinks...with alcohol in them this time…and our chocolate fondue; it was at least twenty minutes before we got our drinks (if you're keeping score at home that's forty-five minutes gone when we originally had about an hour and change to spare and nothing to show for it but a drink we hadn't even started).
We inquired as to the status of our chocolate fondue, considering it doesn't take all that long to melt some chocolate in some milk or cream or whatever and cut up some fruit. He told us he'd check and by “check” he must’ve meant stand by the kitchen door and wait until it was ready because about ten minutes later, with our movie starting in another ten minutes, our fondue finally showed up. We tasted our Chocolate Fondue…the Chocolate Fondue we had waited months to taste and how do I put this besides simply saying that it sucked and we left? Ah yes, our Chocolate Fondue was more tasteless than your friend of five years waiting less than 24 hours before he jumps into bed with the girl who’s just broken your heart.
So Cindy and I dropped some money on the table and walked across the street to the theatre. Oh, and because it took so long for us to get our drinks and awful food we got to the movie after the previews had already started and had to sit on the stairs.

Mutant Tomatoes, Melty Cheese & Mean Ol’ Peppers

A few weeks back I decided to finally do something with the half a box of cherry tomatoes I’d had sitting in my fridge for about a month. I shit you not, I got those tomatoes back in January when Dopp and I were doing a tasting for the owners of our old restaurant…helping them style out the menu for their new place even tough they had no plans to take us over there. Anyway, those tomatoes sat in my fridge for weeks. I just never seemed to have a chance to do anything with them. Finally, I decided to shit or get off the pot and pulled them out of the fridge.
I had grilled cheese on the brain. Actually, I had, had grilled cheese on the brain ever since I went to visit my aunt (keep her in your prayers, if you wouldn’t mind) and she had given me some aged Gruyere, some smoked Gouda and a little hunk of goat cheese that didn’t make it back to my house. The cheese, like the tomatoes, sat neglected in my refrigerator…but not for long. One day, everything fell into place like the long rectangular piece in a game of Tetris. I took the tomatoes and poked some holes in them and got them on a sheet tray. I took a jalapeno (also from that tasting, and yet someone perfectly okay), sliced it thin and then crisped it in a little bacon fat. I set those aside, checked on my tomatoes and got the bread, the cheese and some ham out of my fridge. Now, I should mention that usually I like a grilled cheese sandwich on white bread, but since I’ve branched out into eating less traditional grilled cheese sandwiches, i.e. multiple cheeses, meats and or vegetables; I’ve found I like a heartier bread with a little more taste like a whole wheat or a Ciabatta. Now maybe technically, it’s not really a grilled cheese anymore, but then again, maybe technically I don’t really care what you think.
With my tomatoes sizzling and popping in the oven, I buttered the outside of two pieces of bread and started slicing my Gruyere and smoked gouda. I layered alternating pieces of cheese (Gruyere, then smoked gouda, &c.) across the bread, then put some of my thinly sliced ham across that. I pulled my tomatoes, fired to perfection, out of the oven and cut them in half. The tomatoes and the jalapenos went on next, followed by another slice of ham, more jalapeno & tomato, finally more cheese; and then obviously covered the entire thing with a second piece of bread.
Now remember that bacon fat that jalapenos crispified themselves in? Well, I kept it in the pan, because why the hell not? Spicy bacon grease to help flavor some grilled cheese? Why the hell not! So I added a little butter to my pan and got to work. I started the sandwich out on a high flame, got some nice colour on the outside, gave it a press, lowered my heat, flipped over my sandwich and domed it. As I understand it, or what I learned watching the irrepressible Bobby Flay on his show “Throwdown!” is that “doming” helps melt the cheese in your sandwich.
Essentially what you do is cover the entire sandwich with a bowl…to create a “dome,” and use the trapped heat inside to speed the cheese-melting process. Interestingly enough, after years of making grilled cheese sandwiches I’d never seen anyone dome a grilled cheese until I saw that episode of “Throwdown!” A buddy of mine from New Jersey knew all about it when I cooked at his place and made one for his girlfriend last Summer. The people Bobby beat in that episode had their store in New Jersey…maybe it’s a Jersey thing. I’d love it if someone could shed some light on this for me.
Anyway, I pulled the bowl off and got my grilled cheese on a plate. When it was all said and done, I can say that I had one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches I’ve ever had. Now before you jump down my throat about tooting my own horn, let me just say I think it was more a combination of the two different cheeses, the jalapenos, roasted tomato and the ham; than anything I did. It’s also a little strange, because like I said, those tomatoes had been living in my for somewhere in the neighborhood of over a month before I did anything with them and they were no worse for wear. So, ya’know, maybe those hothouse tomatoes, that are full of hormones and less natural than Jenna Jameson are good for something after all. Nonetheless, I’m thinking about making one right now.
Next up, I take on a certain hairless gentleman and his South American grown confection...

It’s Not Delivery, It’s Disaster

This piece is about ordering food and due to the embarrassment it may cause the company and the fact that they have attempted to placate me with a coupon and the fact that this headache is still ongoing for both them and for me; I have changed the name of the company to protect the guilty.
Even though I’m a professional cook, sometimes I don’t want to be bothered with cooking at home. I mean, I spend about an average of fourteen hours a day, five days a week away from my house; the last thing I’m interested in doing when I get home or when I wake up in the morning is spend more time next to a stove. Sometimes, I’ll make myself food, freeze it and heat it up when I’m feeling hungry; but for the most part my refrigerator contains condiments, water and the occasional beer…but I’m pretty much a wine drinker. Anyway, I’m much more likely to go get myself food rather than make it at home.
I live in Brooklyn and as much as some of my friends might try to compare it to beautiful downtown Tunguska, Siberia; it doesn’t actually take me three hours to get home and I actually do have options when it comes to what I want to eat. Because, in many ways, I am a wonderfully predicable creature of habit I usually end up going to the same places, ordering the same things and eating: General Tso’s Chicken, with white rice; a Chicken Burrito with the works, Habanero sauce and some fried Plantains; and occasionally a Sausage, Mushroom and Spinach Calzone. However, there are times when (its raining or snowing or I’m tired) I don’t feel like making the walk to one of the places I can get my food fix and in those times I end up ordering food. Usually, I end up ordering pizza because I have this crazy notion that the guys who work at the places I get my food from know my face, but don’t know where I live and the food will taste better if I show up in person, rather than waiting for it to come to me.
I usually (read, maybe once every eight weeks) order from Papa John’s and in some cases this other pizza chain, let’s call Triominoes. I know Triominoes isn’t very good, but when you’re tired and you’re hungry and the only effort you want to expend to get your food is making a phone call and answering the door, you take what you can get. So one night, a few months back, I was especially hungry and decided to order from Triominoes; and having recently seen a commercial of theirs touting their oven-baked sandwiches and how they were hot and tasty and beat Subway or Quizno’s or whatever in a nationwide taste-test and how they tried to get your food to you in thirty minutes or less, I figured what the hell.
So I got online, ordered my food and waited…and waited…and waited some more. I thought this was a little strange, especially considering Triominoes website has a feed that tells you what is happening to your food: when it is being made, when it goes in the oven and when it leaves the store on its way to you. I placed my order around 7:05 on a Sunday evening, the Triominoes website said my order left the store around 7:30 (missed my thirty minute window, but whatever) and I was confident I’d have my food in time for the Simpsons. The Simpsons came and went, and a second episode was half over when I decided to call the store and find out why the website said my order had left the store but I was home without food going through my cupboards like a crackhead digs through the trash behind Kate Moss’s house.
The person I spoke with told me the driver had other deliveries to make and that I would get my food shortly. My idea of shortly is about five minutes, but apparently the driver and person at the store had a different idea. Shortly before 9:00, the delivery guy finally showed up with my cold order in tow.
I opened the box to my oven baked sandwich and pressed my hand against its cold, clammy exterior; looked my gelatinizing wings and put my warm Coke in the freezer. I attempted to reheat the cold food and called Triominoes again, only to hung up on…twice. I ended up eating my cold food, because I was hungry and I ended up getting mildly ill, probably because I ate food that sat in the back of a car or under a heat lamp for the better part of two hours before being delivered to my door. When it was all said and done, I sent a complaint to Triominoes and waited…and waited some more. Currently, Triominoes has attempted to placate me with a singular coupon for a free large pizza and a bottle of Coke; and they claim that someone will be contacting me with a formal apology; but considering it took nearly four months and several phone calls and letter for them to even send a measly coupon, I’m not holding my breath. But what does it say about a company that will disregard not one, not two and technically not even three written complaints by a customer and then sees fit to call it all even by sending a coupon for a free pizza?
In short, if you’re going to order a pizza make sure it’s not from Triominoes, because from what it seems like to me they care more about besting their competitors and less about their customers. But never fear Triominoes Pizza, your secret identity is safe with me.

I’m standing in Five Guys, Wearing an In-n-Out Burger t-shirt

I like a good burger as much as the next guy. Actually, that’s a lie; I love hamburgers…good burgers, really good burgers, cooked medium-rare, that have a great meat-to-fat ratio so the juices and the perfectly melted cheese create a wonderful amalgam that slides off the edges of the burger, onto my fingers, but never makes it to the plate. I like nice round burgers that aren’t too hard and aren’t too soft, with a good bun, but one that doesn’t outshine the main attraction. In simpler terms, I worship at the Church of Hamburger.
I’m not the first person to write about burgers and god knows I won’t be the last; but I at least want to make a claim for some of my favorite burgers. I used to make the claim of X Burger Place has the “best burger I’ve ever had,” but I realized it’s nearly impossible. I could sit here and try to tell you that I’ve got a better palate or that I’ve tasted some of the freshest perfectly fatty beef turned into a burger and that I have had the definitive greatest burger ever. But then tomorrow I might end up in some little dive bar in Downtown Brooklyn, or Forest Hills, or Washington Heights eat there burger and have my theories blown to hell. Meat changes, recipes change, maybe you drank too much wine last night and your taste buds got fucked up, maybe the guy who was making your “awesome” burger at the Burger Joint last Thursday night isn’t there when you walk in with your best friend from college on a Sunday afternoon. And the whole walk over you’ll be telling her about how amazing the burger was; and then you’ll order and the guy’s not there and the stars won’t align and the wind will change and she won’t have the heart to tell you that it’s decent but that she could probably get one just as good at Bartley’s on Mass Ave.
If you asked me two years ago, who made the bust burgers in the City I wouldn’t have missed a beat and told you Corner Bistro had cornered the burger market (no pun intended) and that all others were imitators, impostors and ill-equipped to wrest the title of “Best Burger” from them. Now, I’m not so sure. I still think they are among some of the better burger places in the City, but I can’t call them the best (even though if you check my Yelp page you’ll see then ranked number one).
All of this started, by the way, because I got into an argument with a friend of mine about Five Guys Burgers. He claimed they were fantastic, while I said they were no better than a dressed up cafeteria burger. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not even the best fast food burger I’ve had. That honor goes to California’s In-n-Out Burger. No other fast food burger comes close to the burgers I’ve had there…not by a long shot. A quick word on Five Guys though: What is the big deal? Seriously, somebody tell me, because I just don’t see it and these fuckin’ yelpers are going gaga! I’ve tasted their burger patties and yay for me,

I can put jalapeños and relish and green peppers and barbeque sauce and grilled mushrooms on my burger, how awesome! As far as I’m concerned, a burger should be about the burger, not the toppings. Once you throw all that crap on your burger, how are you supposed to know what the meat tastes like? I don’t know how anybody with a good palate who can honestly say that Five Guys Burgers are the best in the City. Seriously? It’s a fast food burger, it’s a step up from Wendy’s for Christ’s sake. I know I’m ranting a bit here, but I’m a little upset (and my buddy Dopp agrees with me on this one) that every asshole with an opinion and an appetite can get on yelp or citysearch or where ever and pontificate about food when the large majority of them don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. I don’t know, maybe it’s the econo-sized peel-n-eat peanuts people can reach their grubby fingers in while waiting for their food that everyone likes so much.
Good burgers are about consistency. A “good burger” isn’t the one you had once that knocked your socks off and then was just okay the second time around. A “good burger” isn’t a one that you pile high with toppings. And above all, a good burger has nothing to do with your choice of curly or sweet potato fries or a gluten-free bun or the surly waiter who sassed you. A good burger is the one you can rely on, the one that no matter what day of the week or what time of day, tastes virtually the same as it did the first time you bit into it.
As a matter of fact, all this talk of burgers has gotten me thinking (read, salivating), and tonight; I’m heading in search of some ground beefy goodness.

photo credit: chowchowchow - flickr