‘Meat’
Growing up in the Detroit area, it was pretty easy to take Greek food for granted. There is literally a Greektown in Detroit and Greek food can be found in every suburb. LA, however, is not so fortunate in this Mediterranean fare. Thus, I was pretty excited when I was invited out to the Good Greek Grill‘s new location in Hollywood for a free sampling of their food.
While meat is easily the greatest food in the world, there are a few special people that not only need it to survive, but actually need to eat solely meat to survive. Oh, and not just any meat — raw meat. That’s where Derek Nance comes into play.
At the ripe age of 29, I can proudly say that meat has only positively affected my aging. And now there’s even a study supporting my mostly-biased claim. The study comes from Japan, and we all know to trust the people that brought us Nintendo.
One of my favorite books of all time is The Catcher in the Rye, so when I heard there was a new restaurant in downtown Pittsburgh (as of November 2013) calling itself Butcher and the Rye, I was immediately interested. The place does take its name from the book, but rather than be some sort of gimmick, the restaurant is essentially devoted to meat and whiskey. And it’s from the people behind Meat and Potatoes. So, yeah, this was my kind of place and a perfect spot to take my wife for her birthday.
We can probably all agree that aside from silt, floods are pretty bad. But if there is one thing that can make a flood better, it’s meat. More specifically, moose meat.
You know that whole “tastes like chicken” thing that was popular back when The Matrix came out? Yeah, I thought it was annoying too. However, when it came to eating guinea fowl (also known as bush chicken), I was eager to put that old adage to the test. My opportunity to dine on this fowl came in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and perhaps the best part of eating guinea fowl for dinner was the fact that I saw flocks of wild guinea fowl wandering the grounds of the restaurant earlier in the day.
Down in East Liberty is a barbecue joint that has been infused with a fair amount of hipster twist. It’s called Union Pig & Chicken, and its minimalist tables and whiskey/bourbon oriented bar do a good job of selling that intersection of barbecue and hipsterness. The menu is full of meaty offerings that go beyond the animals known as pig and chicken, but I suppose Union Pig, Chicken and Cow simply didn’t have the same ring to it.
Usually the food we eat is relegated to the herbivore variety. There is simply something appetizing about eating animals that eat plants, as opposed to those that eat other animals. This probably came from the fact that herbivores were more plentiful and easier to catch, but a restaurant in Tampa, Florida has other ideas.
Although they border each other and both speak English, South Africa and Zimbabwe couldn’t be more different. Granted, my only basis for comparison are Cape Town and the town of Victoria Falls, but you know, they seemed pretty different. Essentially, Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe are poor. Like dirt poor. As in, so poor that their own currency has no value and they use American dollars instead. So with all this poverty, we were surprised to find a tapas restaurant called Lola’s in the middle of Victoria Falls.
It’s not often you get to eat one of your favorite characters from childhood, but on my trip to South Africa and Zimbabwe, that’s exactly what I did. I took down Pumbaa, at the first possible chance. And I didn’t just do it once, it was so good I kept coming back for more.