If you saw something like this growing in the wild would your first thought be to eat it? Mine wouldn’t be, but I would regret that decision because this here is a dragon fruit. Originally from the Americas, the dragon fruit has somehow become a fruit much more associated with Southeast Asia. And while it is striking on the outside, it’s even more striking what it looks like on the inside.
While Toronto is a couple borders north of the border, it is an incredibly diverse city with food from just about everywhere. One of the foods we wanted to check out was tacos, and this led us to Grand Electric. Now, going into this we knew that Grand Electric wasn’t going to be serving up traditional Mexican fare, but the menu seemed good enough that it didn’t matter.
As a man who loves his burgers, I often try to find the best burger I can when I go to a new city. In Toronto, this meant a trip to Allen’s. Allen’s charges a hefty price for their burgers, but they come from a local farm, without hormones or antibiotics and all the other stuff that means great meat. Moreover, the butchering and grinding is done in-house, guaranteeing each burger comes from just one cow.
Beef on Weck may sound like some sort of disgusting mistake, but it’s really just roast beef on a roll with salt and carraway seed. Despite its relative simplicity, it’s a huge deal up here in Western New York. One of the supposed best is Charlie the Butcher, which has more than a few locations around town, including one in East Aurora. The East Aurora location, though, is is an express and resides within a gas station.
Over in Lewiston for a nice little night of music in the Artpark, I found my way to a food truck called Macarollin’. Interestingly enough, this truck wasn’t some old school taco truck, but more of a U-Haul truck, which I’m guessing had to go through some sort of crazing zoning board before getting to sell food. But I digress, Macarollin’ served only four things on their menu and they were all varieties of mac and cheese. This was a good thing, because I hate it when food trucks try to do to much.
In my continuing quest for Buffalo’s best BBQ, I made my way to Fat Bob’s Smokehouse with a few guys. Unlike Dinosaur, Fat Bob’s is a Buffalo native with only one location in Buffalo. Like some other BBQ places, Fat Bob’s doesn’t seem to have an actual specialty, unless you count their mac and cheese. Fortunately, this one has combo platters to ensure an unvegan like me can sample around.
Down in little East Aurora is a bar called Leo’s Pizzeria. Yes, I said bar. Yes, I said pizzeria. Because Leo’s is one of those rare breeds of drinkeries that just can’t be contained by one title. In fact, it would even be fair to call Leo’s a sub shop or a number of other things on the menu. But pizzeria fits, and I was looking forward to finding out just how good the pizza could be.
New York is known for many things. One of these things is not fries, especially the poutine variety of fries that is much more closely associated with Canada. So while driving through Ontario, Canada between Detroit and Buffalo, I was surprised to find a chain called New York Fries slinging poutine. Despite my reservations, I decided to give the place a chance instead of grabbing poutine at Wendy’s instead.
It seems like so long ago that I reported on the remarkable ability of plants to communicate with one another. But lo and behold, none other than the New York Times is finally following suit with news from the world of plants.
One thing that has been sorely missing from my life since packing up and moving to the more easterly part of the country is Middle Eastern food. You know, that and beaches. But seriously, I found Salem’s in Pittsburgh, but not so much in Buffalo. So when I took a trip back home to Michigan for a weekend Middle Eastern was one thing I craved more than anything else, even more than Coney.