The Unvegan » Travel

Dehydrated Deep Dish at Giampietro

The Unvegan — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:00:29 +0000

Sicilians (if they are real) are not happy about this.

For those of you unfamiliar with places of high altitude, allow me to explain the results of finding yourself far above sea level. The firs thing you’ll notice is a shortness of breath, when a short walk up the stairs leaves you breathless. Next, you’ll find yourself in a constant quest for water, as the altitude saps the water from your body and leaves you dehydrated. Such is the case in Breckenridge, Colorado, sitting at 9600 feet above sea level. While I had previously thought such altitude issues only applied to humans, a pizza from Giampietro taught me this was just not the case.

In the mood to just relax at the condo for the night, we picked up Sicilian Deep Dish pepperoni pizza from Giampietro and when I opened the box, I immediately saw danger. In transit, some of the cheese from the top of the pie had stuck itself to the ceiling of the pizza box. I can’t blame Giampietro for this, as I have no idea how my family handled the pizza in the car, but it was not a good sign.

When I took a bite from my first slice, though, I realized that this pizza was suffering from the same dehydration as me. The crust was way dry and if not for the copious amount of cheese, it would have been difficult to take down. The sauce and pepperoni were tasty, but the dough really broke this pizza. I usually love deep dish, too, so this is not some general complaint about deep dish. it is only a complaint about arid deep dish.

In strange twist, though, we had quite a mass of leftovers after this meal, so I microwaved some pizza the next morning for breakfast. I ordinarily hate microwaving leftover pizza, as it often winds up soggy, but that was just what this pizza needed. While I lamented the loss of some of the pizza’s crispiness, I welcomed the newly hydrated crust with open arms and mouth.

I didn’t linger in Breckenridge long enough to see if there were any other viable pizza options, but just be warned that if you order from Giampietro, you may want to have a microwave on hand to save your pizza from altitude sickness.

An Engaging Dinner at Michael’s

The Unvegan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:00:09 +0000

I did it for the ziti!

Well, you must have known the day was gonna come eventually. You know, the one where that lady I often refer to as “the girlfriend” in my reviews becomes “the fiance.” Yes, I’m sorry for not consulting you wonderful readers of mine ahead of time, but it was something that had to be done. So, while in Breckenridge, Colorado for a bit of a ski trip with the family, my parents decided to take everyone out to dinner to celebrate the engagement. We picked out a mid-range Italian place called Michael’s, thinking it would be a great place to make everyone happy.

And it certainly was.

For starters, while the menu was not terribly big, so many different things popped out to me. Finally, I settled on their Baked Ziti. And this was not ordinary baked ziti, but one filled with both meat sauce and alfredo sauce for a two-sauce punch.

Before the meal came, we were treated to a couple rounds of delicious, fresh garlic bread. It wasn’t the best I’d ever had, but still quite good.

When the ziti did come, I quickly found the punch of sauces was nothing short of delectable, with both working in harmony with one another rather than fighting each other for the dominion of the ziti. As for the pasta, it was ziti through and through, with little else to say. The mozzarella on top of the dish had been crisped and melted to perfection in the oven, and I was a happy man.

There’s not much else to say without getting too fluffy, but let it be known that Michael’s is a damn good Italian place and not one person at dinner had anything to complain about at the end of the night.

Old Western Eating in Temecula

The Unvegan — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:00:08 +0000

Like all those Old West burger places you hear about.

Temecula is a strange part of California. Somewhere between LA, San Diego and Palm Springs, it’s essentially the middle of nowhere. Except it’s not. It’s wine country, it’s gated communities and it is the Old West. Nowhere is the latter felt more than Old Town Temecula, which is a blend of truly old buildings and new buildings made to look like cowboys once had shootouts inside. Front Street Bar & Grill sits in Old Town, but doesn’t try to look like a cowboy outpost. Instead, it has the looks of colonial mansion, with a great outdoor patio.

Despite the 70 degree weather, the heat lamps were on in force and while this has just about nothing to do with the meal, I felt it was worth noting.

The onion rings are trying to escape!

Annnnnyyyyway, we were seated immediately and as I took a look at the menu, I instantly knew what I wanted. It was actually pretty easy, as Front Street had a pretty good burger selection. One of these was the Old Town Burger, topped with cheddar, onion rings and homemade BBQ sauce. It came with fries also, and just to be safe I asked the waitress if there were any other vegetables hiding between the lines. She told me it also came with lettuce, tomato and onion and I asked her not to let them go to waste.

I no longer want onion rings.

When it came, I was happy to find a plate devoid of vegetables and loaded up with fries. As has been my recent policy, I haven’t been considering onion rings vegetables until they’ve been tasted. If they retain a strong onion texture, they are banished, but otherwise they are cool with me. These particular onion rings were scattered atop the burger in a way not entirely conducive to eating, but I squeezed them in, threw the bun on top and got to work. What I found was exactly as I expected. All ingredients were good and basic. The patty looked and tasted preformed and the cheese was average yellow cheddar. I liked the BBQ sauce and definitely appreciated the homemade aspect of it, but ultimately it wasn’t a far cry from KC Masterpiece. This is neither a bad or a good thing, but it is a thing. The onions in the onion rings were still way too crunchy, which was the only actual disappointing aspect of the burger. The sesame seed bun did its job, but little more. While I ordered the burger cooked medium rare, it leaned a bit more towards the medium end, which was alright because the burger was still juicy, but could’ve been improved a bit.

And, of course, the fries were great. It’s hard to mess up fries, and Front Street did not.

Upon finishing, I felt as though I had just eaten a classier version of Carl’s Jr. It was definitely an improvement on Carl’s and was satisfying, but I’m going to have to eat at a few more places in Old Town Temecula before I send my loyal readers down to Front Street.

An Explosion of Flavor at C4

The Unvegan — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:00:26 +0000

Oh Arizona.

Remember playing Cowboys and Indians as a kid? Thankfully, there is a place in the world where that fantasyland still exists. It’s called Arizona, and while not everyone runs around with a gun or bow and arrow, there are places you could picture saddling up a horse just as easily as stopping by in a hybrid. One such place is the Cave Creek Coffee Company, affectionately known as C4 by locals. The facade is reminiscent of Tombstone, but the interior is pure class (not that Tombstone was lacking in class…).

All class.

And despite the name, there were no caves or creeks to be seen and the menu was not limited to coffee. Instead, the menu had a nice-looking selection of breakfast food, sandwiches and a little something called Lahvosh, described on the menu as traditional Mediterranean cracker bread. This stuff was served kind of like a pizza and one of them caught my eye pretty easily. It was called the T-Rex and was topped with genoa salami, pancetta ham, prosciutto, garlic olive oil, fresh basil and of course mozzarella cheese. I knew it had to be mine, and made it so.

Look out for the Meatosaurus Rex!

When it arrived, the thing certainly looked like it could feed a T-Rex. It was about the size of an extra large pizza, and despite the lahvosh being a lot less filling than dough, I knew I wouldn’t be able to tackle this beast in one sitting. Despite its size, though, the T-Rex was nothing short of beautiful. The evenly dispersed sprinkle of meats made my mouth water and I carefully separated out a piece before going to town.

Up close and personal with Rex.

In the T-Rex, I found an awesome mix of meaty flavors, which went great with the subtle cheese. Despite being loaded with meat, the lahvosh was not at all overwhelming. It could almost have been called a “lite” meat-lover’s pizza, and not “lite” in the way that usually means you’re giving up flavor. Nope, this T-Rex was full of flavor and that garlic olive oil made the cornucopia of meats taste even better. The use of lahvosh definitely made for an interesting experience very different from a normal pizza. The crust was hard like matzah, and was actually pretty tough to eat without shattering it into cracker bits. I wonder what it would have tasted like on a more bread-like crust, but also wonder if that might screw up the balance that the T-Rex had achieved.

With a couple slices left to go, I threw in the towel. I am no carnivorous dinosaur and the the T-Rex was too much food for me to handle. Nonetheless, the food was quite good. Local cowboys would be impressed with the delicious meats and I could easily imagine a T-Rex asking for a few more rounds.

Giordano’s, for Real This Time

The Unvegan — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:00:47 +0000

Thanks for the memories.

A long, long time ago, I was a fledgling meat blogger just getting his bearings. In a desperate attempt to eat Giordano’s and get it on the blog, I bought a half-baked pie in Chicago, packed it in ice and brought it back to LA to finish the baking myself. The result was delicious, and while I reviewed it, I always felt that it was unfair to judge a restaurant in which much of the cooking was up to me. Since those, very little has changed, but my desire for Giordano’s has only grown stronger. So on my last visit to Chicago, I made sure to hit Giordano’s for real, or to at least have some of my family pick it up for me in Evanston.

For those of you that don’t know, Giordano’s is the king of Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Some may dispute my claim and have valid reason to do so. After all, I am no resident of Chicago, but any claims of Lou Malnati’s or Uno having better pizza I can quickly rebuke. So in my limited visits to Chicago, Giordano’s is my go-to deep dish. Chicago-style deep dish is often called more of a casserole than a pizza, but whomever makes such claims are outrageous. It may be thick, the sauce may be on top, but it is certainly pizza.

Note the distinguished pepperoni.

On this Chicago outing, we ordered one pepperoni and one spinach pizza. I had no part of the spinach, but it is worth mentioning simply because the only thing distinguishing these two pizzas externally was a single pepperoni that Giordano’s had tossed onto the real pizza. I took myself a slice and got to work on the only style of pizza in the world that I condone taking a knife and fork to. It was as glorious as I remembered and brought back a rush of pizza memories. The crust and sauce are what make Giordano’s so good and these were spot-on on this pizza. The crust was hearty, but slightly crumbly and the sauce was just perfect. It wasn’t just some simple marinara, but a thick tomato sauce built for the sole purpose of being a part of a thick pizza.

Stop being so strong, gravity!

One thing that was a little strange to me was that the pizza wasn’t quite as thick as I remember. Sure, it was plenty deep, but in my memory a single slice was equivalent to at least three slices of any lesser pizza. Perhaps gravity was a little heavier that day or my memory is not what it used to be. Either way, there was no disputing that this was a delicious way to finish out my weekend in Chicago. No trip to the Windy City is complete without some true Chicago-style deep dish and Giordano’s is pretty much the best way to do it.

A Night in Province

The Unvegan — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:00:23 +0000

Provincial breads.

And now you may be wondering why an unvegan such as myself would choose to leave sunny Los Angeles for a December weekend foray into the Windy City. With very good reason, in fact, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of my sister’s birth. Yes, it makes me feel old to have a sister so old. But I was delighted at the opportunity to spend a special event with her and a good portion of my family. For the celebration, we headed to a restaurant called Province in downtown Chicago.

Despite the name, this was not a Canadian-themed restaurant as I had hoped. Instead it had a solid Latin American and regular American feel to it. While probably one of the nicest restaurants I had ever been to in Chicago, the prices were still pretty reasonable. A long look at the menu made a few different options pop out, but ultimately I opted for their Chicken as my main course with a bit of Tetilla Fondue to start and split with my sister.

Beer + Cheese = a need for more pretzel bread

But before the fondue could come, we were brought out a nice spread of round breads and bread-like crispy things. They were accompanied with a sort of white bean dip, which was quite tasty, but I was not going to fill up on such simpletonian food with fondue on the way. The tetilla fondue consisted of melted tetilla cheese with Three Floyds Beer (out of Indiana) and some pretzel bread for dipping. On top of the fondue was a sprinkling of pico de gallo, which would have ordinarily bothered me, but was acceptable as I was sharing my dish. As for the taste, the fondue itself was pretty stellar. I loved the slight taste of beer and the creamy sharpness of the cheese. The pretzel bread, though, was a bit of a letdown. It seemed to be a bit undercooked and was a bit doughy/moist in the middle. Plus, there wasn’t nearly enough of it and we had to dig into the original bread basket to make proper use of the fondue. But while the pretzel bread was a minor disappointment, the greater importance was the cheese itself, which was fondue-licious.

Death by shallot.

By now you’re probably wondering, “What is this ‘Chicken’ he ordered?” and that is a great question. It wasn’t just any chicken, but chicken topped with honey glaze and mojo-white bbq sauce, with Anson Mills grits forming a nice bed beneath the chicken. On top of that, and unbeknownst to me at the time of ordering, was a cacophony of fried shallots. I wanted nothing to do with these shallots, but fortunately these were fried to such a crisp that they were easy to brush away with a fork. When I got down to the eating, I found myself enjoying a huge, moist breast of chicken. Little of the taste of honey glaze was left, and in its place was a strong smokiness. I enjoyed this smoky flavor, which was also prominent in the grits, but a times it was a bit much. It would have been nice to have some other flavor to offer some more balance, but the chicken was pretty good nonetheless.

Province was a pretty tasty meal, but failed to blow me away. Fortunately, I am told their menu is constantly evolving and for all I know, my chicken no longer graces the pages of their menu and has been replaced with a chicken that will blow your taste buds off your tongue. Restaurants like that are great, and I commend them for being that way. As it were, though, the company at dinner that night was better than anything I could have possibly eaten, and for that I left the restaurant a happy man.

Yolk-y with a Chance of Hair

The Unvegan — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:00:50 +0000

Hairless, I'm sure.

In the Windy City for a cold and lovely weekend, some friends, family and other converged upon a brunch place called Yolk in River North. On such a cold day, I was surprised to find such a long line of people waiting to get a piece of Yolk’s action. Despite claiming to have a 20-minutes wait, it was a good 35 minutes until we were seated. It was not a good sign of things to come, but a quick glance at the menu made me immediately forgot the wait it took to get there.

What I saw screamed unvegan at me and despite the disconcerting screaming, I know what I had to have. It was their Bacon Waffle & Eggs. Note the lack of a comma there, which meant that the bacon was a part of the waffle and not just a part of the meal. The menu elucidated a bit and claimed to have “crisp applewood bacon mixed throughout the batter.” Basically, it sounded like a dream come true for anyone in love with sweet, salty and meat. I ordered up my two eggs over easy to our incredibly friendly waiter and then waited for my bacon delight to arrive.

Hair translates to free brunch.

And when it came, it looked like a gift from heaven. At least until one of the others at the table pointed out a hair sitting on top of my eggs (thank the lord for the others). It clearly belonged to none of us table dwellers and the next time I saw the waiter I notified him of the hairy surprise. Not only did he play it off nicely, when he brought me my replacement dish he told me it was on the house. And then his manager came out and apologized for the problem. This stellar customer service not only redeemed the hairy surprise but the long wait surprise before being seated.

Check out that central bacon.

Now hairless, I dove into my dish with the fury of someone who hadn’t eaten a bite in 12 hours. My fury was quickly sated by the awesomeness of the bacon waffles. This was not my first foray into the world of bacon waffles, but it quickly became my best. The waffle had been done up Belgian-style, which gave them a perfect fluffiness to contrast with the crispiness of the bacon. I am usually not a man to ruin waffles by adding the overwhelming sweetness of syrup, but when I added syrup to this waffle, the combination of flavors danced upon my tongue like a star. Then, as a kicker, the waffle took on even greater flavor when I combined it with the runny yolks of the eggs. If there were anything I would change about this near-perfect breakfast, it would be to get the bacon more evenly distributed in the waffle. As it was, the majority of that cured meat made its way to the center of the waffle as if compelled by some sort of Higgs Boson.

Yet, that complaint is quite feeble, as Yolk did quite the job of treating me to an unvegan-worthy meal. If only all brunch could have the same ingredients and customer service, the world would be a much better place for me to eat at.

Found at Lost Dog Cafe

The Unvegan — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:00:55 +0000

Mmm cheesy.

Out in Arlington, Virginia, a friend brought us to a restaurant called Lost Dog Cafe. Knowing quite literally nothing about the place beforehand, I was happy to see that it not only had a huge selection of beers, but also a vast selection of sandwiches and pizzas. And I do mean huge. The sandwich list had 53 options, and that doesn’t include the “Create Your Own Sandwich” section. Not only that, these were some pretty creative sandwiches and not just your simple pastrami and turkey. After a long deliberation and just a quick peak at the pizza menu, I settled upon a sandwich that I hoped would be worthy of an unvegan like myself.

It was simply named The Bird, and was a toasted sub roll loaded with garlic chicken, tomato sauce, then topped with melted parmesan and mozzarella cheese. I also got myself a side of their Italian fries (oven-baked waffle fries with some seasoning). That’s right, I have a weakness for waffle fries and will almost always order them any time they are available.

Pretty quickly, my bird flew out to greet me and looked beautiful. It actually looked like a lasagna inside bread more than a sub sandwich, but fortunately I could still pick it up and eat it. Well sort of. The juices had already seeped through the back end of the weak sub bread, cutting the sandwich in two, but I would not let this force me into a knife and fork. I dug in with hands only and came face-to-face with a beautiful mix of chicken, sauce and cheese. The chicken breast had been cut into small pieces and was juicy and easy to take down.

Stop waffling and get in my belly.

The oven-baked waffle fries were quite different from the usual waffle fry, but still damn delicious. The seasoning wasn’t very strong at all and these guys needed some ketchup, but that was just fine by me.

Having destroyed The Bird and fries, I was a full man, and happy. Lost Dog Cafe served me well and I could go back another 52 times without getting the same sandwich twice. But if I could offer any sort of advice, it would be to upgrade that sub bread. While it tasted good, it was just not up to snuff as far as containing the juicy delights within.

Ending on a Low Note at Tumunu

The Unvegan — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:00:49 +0000

More like the poo poo platter. Am I right?

Anytime you leave a place, you want to end on a high note. In the Cook Islands, we were planning on doing the same. After dropping off our motor bike and heading back to our hotel, we had one more meal in us before catching out red-eye back to the homeland. Fortunately, there was a restaurant in walking distance that had been recommended to us by a local and by a couple of travelers. It was called Tumunu and boasted a seafood platter as its house special.

Although we had eaten our share of seafood, we hadn’t eaten a seafood platter and thought it sounded like a good idea. It was described on the menu as “A seafood feast that can include: Prawns, calamari, fish, sauteed scallops, seasoned shrimps, garlic prawn twists, Local marinated fish salas (Ika Mata), grilled NZ green lip mussels, oysters, Served with garden fresh salad and fruit[.]”

Fried, fried and more fried.

It sounded like a hell of a feast and seemed that the food would be fresh, considering the ambiguity of the wording (“that can include…). And after the long, island time wait, I had high expectations for the platter. When it arrived, however, all hopes of a delicious culinary finish to the week seemed dashed. The platter gets points for presentation, but otherwise it was all a sad showing. Nearly everything on the platter was battered and fried. We all know I like things fried, but that is no way to treat fresh seafood. Then, when I bit into the few things that were not fried, I realized that this surely was not fresh seafood. In a word, it was gross.

Even the fried stuff that I would have normally liked, such as shrimp/prawns just tasted heavy and wrong. Truly, there was little on the platter worth going back for a second bite. Only the Ika Mata seemed remotely fresh, but it came in a small cup that hardly counted. To make matters worse, our waitress kept coming by and saying things like, “Isn’t it delicious?” No, waitress, it isn’t delicious at all, but you are too friendly for me to say so.

It was a sad ending to a vacation full of amazing food, yet the queasy stomach it caused would not ruin my impression of the food of Rarotonga. Perhaps their non-seafood platter offerings are more on par with my other delicious meals on the island, but if you can’t get your house special right, you won’t be doing very good business.

Currying Up at Tamarind House

The Unvegan — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:00:26 +0000

Another terrible view.

Situated in the village of Tupapa on Rarotonga is an old colonial home. Built back in 1910, at one time, it was even the home of the British Consul. But all that changed in 2004, when a couple of restauranteurs decided this old colonial home needed to serve up some food. Tamarind House was born, and has been dealing in Pan-Asian culinary delights ever since. When we got ourselves seated, we quickly learned that Tamarind House was going to be a unique experience, and not simply because we were in an old colonial home.

For starters, the specials are not printed on a paper or scrawled on some blackboard at the entrance of the restaurant. Instead, the extensive list of specials are written on multiple whiteboards, which the waiters place in front of each table while they are deciding what to order. After that decision has been made, the whiteboard is whisked off to a needier table or a corner. Perhaps not the most efficient means of conveying specials, but effective nonetheless.

Picturesque and full of surprises.

So effective, in fact, that I decided one of the specials had to be mine. It was a Balinese fish curry, with fresh coconut, tomatoes, ground spice and rice. It was definitely a smart choice, because this dish was a thing of beauty and amazing flavor. You know how menus often leave off vegetables that come with a dish? Well, this one did just that, but it also left off additional delicious ingredients, like bananas topped with coconut shavings and a chutney that I can only assume was tamarind. Combined, this made for one amazing meal. The fish tasted fresh and offered little of its own flavor, which was cool with me because the curry was delicious. It had a little kick to it, but nothing painfully spicy. Combined with chutney and the little tortilla that came on the plate, I had myself what could only be described as a Balinese fish taco (I smell a food truck idea!).

Say cheese and eat!

To top it all off, Tamarind House had a cheese plate on the regular menu that we ordered for dessert. This little guy consisted of three cheeses. One was blue, one was brie and the other seemed to be some sort of gouda. They weren’t amazing cheeses by any means, but they were definitely a delicious way to close out the meal and certainly better than your typical sweet dessert.

After years of serving as a home, I think Tamarind House has found itself in a much better state as a restaurant. I can’t speak for the authenticity of the Balinese food, but I can say that it was delicious no matter how you classify it.