Friends, Romans, unvegans…what is true food to you? Is it gluten-free? Is it meaty? Is it kale? The answer is likely all of the above, because true food is what you make of it. Yet, a growing restaurant chain is trying to change all that. Calling itself True Food, it already has an air of pretension about itself. True Food tries to follow Dr. Weil’s anti-inflammatory diet, which actually isn’t as bad as it sounds. Yes, it mistakenly loads a ton of vegetables into foods, but at least the menu at True Food had some remotely meaty options, even a Bison Burger.
Some people just can’t be satisfied until they have made everyone else unhappy. Neal Barnard is one of these people. Not only is he an advocate of the vegan (malnourishment) diet, he has now taken his attack upon humanity to the billboards.
In an all out attack on cheese, Barnard and his Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine have unleashed a couple of billboards purporting to show the “negative” affects of cheese.
Situated right across the walking street from Pizzeria Bianco in downtown Phoenix, one has to wonder how many patrons of The Rose and Crown are people who tired of waiting for Pizzeria Bianco and decided to eat at the next closest place. We ended up in a similar situation, in which a reservation miscommunication led to us without ample room at the pizzeria. So off we went to The Rose and Crown for some British Pub food. A quick look at the menu revealed that this was no ordinary British Pub and it actually had some unique-looking options.
Up in the valley is a place called Stanley’s that I have been hearing about pretty much from the day I started dating my fiancee. Very little about the valley is exciting, but Stanley’s is in a stretch of Sherman Oaks on Ventura that’s pretty cool, so I found myself surprisingly excited to go. Previously, I had heard they have delicious wings, but we were in a rush and I am not a man who rushes wings. Instead, I went with my arch-nemesis.
Sausages are all the rage these days, and why shouldn’t they be? Who can turn down a good old fashioned tube and a nice brewski? For once, I could. You see, while I headed to Wirtshaus in Mid-City fully intending to tackle some sort of “wurst,” I surprised myself by going in a different direction. This direction was that of pretzel and schnitzel (and never fear, for I made sure to take down a brewski as well).
Da Burger Boss is part of the newer wave of food trucks and while they aren’t brand new, they’re still plenty new to me. Their schtick is naming burgers after mob terms like The Strongarm, The Collector and so on. It’s an interesting schtick that has produced some interesting-looking combinations, but the sole reason I found myself waiting for Da Boss was to partake in The Patrolman.
You see, The Patrolman is no ordinary burger. Sure, it’s filled with a half-pound patty, bacon and blue cheese dressing, but after that the burger goes in a frightening and exciting direction. First is the cran-apple reduction, which is not crazy on its own, but when you throw in the grilled glazed donut bun, things get goddamn nuts. Yes, I said a grilled glazed donut bun. I was unsure of how any degree of this would be pulled off and figure it was worth the 9 bucks to find out.
Last week, an unexpected parcel arrived. I immediately suspected anthrax and was ready to detonate it in the street when I noticed it was from my future brother-in-law. For some, this may be further reason to suspect anthrax, but Dustin has never me reason to believe he’d want me dead. I opened it up and found a pair of sausages with an awesome letter welcoming me to the family. Truth be told, had I known sausages were in the mix, I’d have popped the question long ago.
The letter also informed me the sausages came from a friend of a friend of his in New York who had recently started up a sausage company called Charlito’s Cocina. I was excited to try them and although it took me a few days to get to it, I was safe knowing the dry-cured sausages could handle it. But aside from being dry-cured, what kind of sausages were these? The answer is Trufa Seca, which means they were full of black truffle. Aside from that, these were pork through and through with sea salt as the final flavoring ingredient. According to the website, the pork was a heritage breed and pasture-raised, which made me feel even better as I sliced off my first bit.
You can’t throw a stone* in LA without hitting a Mexican place that someone happens to call their favorite. It could be a shack, a hole in the wall or even an old-fashioned sit down restaurant. The variety seems only limited by the amount of physical space in LA and those damn zoning laws. As I’ve eaten my way through the city, I’ve creativity galore and more Mexican foods than I knew existed growing up on Taco Bell in Michigan. Some have been delicious, while others have failed me. On my latest foray into someone’s favorite Mexican place, I ended up at El Abajeno in Culver City.
One benefit of getting married is the tastings. Not so much tasting food that the guests will eat, but traveling back and forth between Arizona and LA to plan things, and knowing there will be food in need of eating. On my most recent foray into the Grand Canyon state, we went out to dinner at a place called Tonto Bar & Grill in Cave Creek. Tonto is quite the popular place, with an outdoor patio looking out onto a golf course and an old Western eclectic interior. The menu ranges from some fancy salads to super fancy steaks, but somewhere in the middle there is burgers. And having gone at least a couple days without crushing a burger, I felt it was time.
Somewhere along the way, someone figured out that sex sells. I don’t know when this time came, but I’m pretty sure everyone in the room looked at each other and nodded in agreement without a word. In the ’80s, Hooters took that genius concept to the restaurant industry and became a household name. And while Hooters is still going strong, the look has become a bit dated. Enter Tilted Kilt, which has taken the Hooters concept, splashed it with Scotch and trimmed the uniforms significantly so that even flat girls have cleavage and they all show some midriff. In other words, the girls at Hooters almost look like nuns in comparison. Yet, while Hooters is gimmicky, they still have pretty tasty wings. Would Tilted Kilt have good fare to offer with their good looks?
