The 614ortyPlatter - Rhythm Kitchen 1811

The sign outside Columbus's Ace of Cups, one of the many music
venues/bars which has managed to eke by during the pandemic

I must say, these food-meets-music playlist have all played off the various food themes from last week's chocolate to holidays to "dumpster fire" foods to local neighborhoods have been very fun for me, and in many ways it's the perfect intersection of two things that have been my main pathways of exploration the past several years. 

However, one theme that hadn't occurred to me until it was pointed out to me (and I thank Bethia of Columbus Food Adventures for doing so) was the very obvious intersection of music business and food ventures.  Some of the ventures familiar to many include Sammy Hagar and his Cabo Wabo Cantina, Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, and the Wahlberg Brothers and their Wahlburger fast food chain. 

In many ways, this diversification works on both the celebrity and the local level.  For the celebrity (musician or otherwise) restaurant owner, it offers exposure to the public in another multi-billion dollar industry. For those whose fame is more locally based, there's a sense of community ties as well as an added source of income (this article from Inside Hook has a nice perspective on this side of things.)

Interestingly, if I had just known a little more about the local music scene, I could've had even had a Columbus-based band represent in the Italian Village playlist I released not too long ago. So I figured this would be the perfect week for hitting on that theme for this week's playlist, with a perfect split of local Columbus flair blended with some familiar (but not TOO familiar) musicians and their ties to this intersection of food and music.

Day of Gluttony, Columbus Style - Part 2

(Note: This is Part 2 of a blog post proposing our 24 different dishes from 24 different venues inside of 24 hours quest within Columbus, Ohio, based on the Tastemade TV Show "Day of Gluttony".  For details on the challenge and the first 11 spots on this quest, please check out Part 1 at this link.)

1:15 PM - With our Las Maravillas tacos (stop 11) leaving us with a nice spicy feel in our mouths, we figure it was time to find some beverages to cool things off a bit. We head across the Olentangy River to the 5xNW neighborhood and stop at 12) Bonifacio, one of two Filipino restaurants in the area. This eatery from Krizzia Yanga has proven to be a successful trailblazer of sorts, introducing the public to their combo of modern and traditional takes on the cuisine. This includes some very delicious fancy cocktails, so we grab an Oooh Bae! (featuring plenty of Ube/Purple Yam) and a Lychee Martini for some pleasurable sipping.

2:00 PM - Creeping into the Northwest neighborhood, we decided to up the spice level back up again by stopping at one of the numerous Indian restaurants in the South Indian/vegetarian-oriented 13) Dosa Corner.  By now, we've actually earned back some space in our stomachs, so we go for a double-appetizer of the Mirchi Bajji (spicy green peppers stuffed with masala) and Dahi Wada, deep fried lentil doughnuts dipped in yogurt & cilantro.

Day of Gluttony, Columbus Style (Part 1)

If nothing else, cutting the cable cord and going to streaming has increased our viewing options several dozen times over.  At times, the sheer number of options overwhelms, but at other times, something unexpected gets us both intrigued enough to invest our viewing time, or when we have an unexpected bunch of time to burn on the couch (such as recently, when the cold bug hit us both.)

Admittedly, both of us are well past our prime food gluttony years (our waistlines still seem to think we're being pretty gluttonous, but that's a whole another future blog post.) Thus, a food show like "Day of Gluttony", originally produced by Tastemade and currently showing on Hulu, didn't hold much promise when we clicked it on a couple weeks ago, but it turned out to be a more fun way to blow an hour than we ever figured.

Bruce Aguirre and Harry Yuan, hosts of Tastemade's "Day of Gluttony",
is available for viewing on the Hulu streaming service

First, the hosts were Asian (Harry Yuan and Bruce Aguirre, of Chinese and Filipino descent, respectively) something that I just don't see all that often.  Second, the first episode was shot in a place I know pretty well in San Francisco, where I worked and lived for a number of years before moving to Ohio. Also, the show's concept was pretty simple - finish 24 dishes at 24 different venues in a span of 24 hours or less.

We dove in and found ourselves entertained, with great chemistry between the hosts, rapid-fire coverage of places visited, efforts (intentional? perhaps...) of various venues to derail the hosts with extra dishes, and liberal use of old-school arcade graphics, enough so to put it on our current rotation to get through its ten-episode run (we found no indication of a season two as of now.)

Loafing Around Encouraged: The Whitney House

The humble meatloaf has graced numerous household dinner tables
around the world in one form or another

Many dishes come to mind when it comes to American classics: hamburgers, apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, and so forth. Often times, these dishes are adaptations or variants on more traditional dishes, like American spaghetti or Tex-Mex creations like Fajitas or Chile con Carne.

A dish that in many ways reflects the melting pot that is this country lies in meatloaf. While meatloaf has competing origin stories, its concept is pretty clear cut - a collection of culinary odds and ends combined into something not necessarily elegant, but assuredly comforting.

And indeed it was; my parents’ rendition was fairly standard (ground beef, onions, stale bread, eggs, and seasoning) but one my favorite things to eat with ketchup and rice. In addition, many parties hosted by relatives, friends, and family allowed me the chance to eat another favorite variation in the Embutido, a Filipino take which mixes a variety of meats with somewhat unique ingredients such as raisins, carrots, bell peppers, and hard-boiled eggs.

The Nostalgia Bin: Columbus and Beyond

As this The Book Loft shelf shows, plenty of travel guides exist to places people
wish to go, such as Paris and the country of France in this case

Walking around a place like German Village's Book Loft, I almost always am drawn to their Travel section. But as much as I am drawn to far off places my spouse and I would love to travel, I have never seriously thought about buying one of those books. Perhaps more than many reference books, travel guides have a built-in depreciation factor: attractions, lodging, and eating establishment invariably change or even close outright over time.

However, an older such guide can act as a bit of a snapshot in time. Couple that with a city like Columbus that isn't really a focus of the travel guide producers (I checked Amazon.com - that's a negative, ghost rider) and you have an interesting find from one our recent estate sale excursions: "Columbus and Beyond: Travel Tips and Topics," a 1986 book authored by Fred and Anne Zimmer.

The Beans Are Not Always Greener...

The Carquinez Bridge, gateway to Vallejo and Benicia in San Francisco's east bay

It may be less evident to more and more people as time inexorably marches forward, but there was a time where Starbucks Coffee shops didn't occupy every town, or at least seem that they did.

I can remember a time when the chain was conspicuous by its absence. Vallejo and Benicia are neighboring cities along the Bay Area's Carquinez Strait along Interstate 780, but I can remember when the more highly populated (but less economically well off) city of Vallejo was mermaid-less, but the much lesser populated (but more well-heeled) town of Benicia sported a branch.

With all Starbucks being mostly corporate-owned (save for locations inside airports, supermarkets, etc.), I myself wondered at the time what Starbucks didn't see in Vallejo, or perhaps, did see. Vallejo has one of the more diversely populated cities in the Bay Area (since 1980, the percentages among White, Black, Hispanic and Asian populations have steadily equalized) and I pondered if corporate minds thought that wasn't a money-making formula.

Eventually, Vallejo's residents did get their Starbucks and proved that they as much as anyone can boatloads of Frappuccinos and Unicorn Lattes. Nowadays, the Seattle-based chain is more of a constant (with close to 30,000 branches worldwide, with half of them in the United States) versus a buzzy novelty for which many would clamor. Interestingly enough, while Vallejo currently hosts more locations than Benicia, the higher per capita still resides with the latter (roughly one for every 7,000 residents for Benicia vs. 1 for every 20,000 residents in Vallejo.)

Hitting the Grounds on Indianola: Yeah, Me Too

Baba's, where coffee is brewed with Thunderkiss Coffee beans and pairs
up well with their excellent breakfast sandwiches

For all the traffic that travels the Indianola Avenue/Summit Street corridor to and from the Downtown Columbus core, places to grab a cup of coffee are somewhat scarce.  Yeah, a couple of United Dairy Farmers (I personally have not had their coffee) and other random convenience stores lie along the route to do a quick grab-and-go, if you're so inclined.

A number of food establishments, from the diner level (Wildflower and George's Beechwold Cafe) to more formal dine-in type places (Baba's, with their coffee brewed with the excellent Thunderkiss Roasters, and The Crest Gastropub, although there coffee isn't highlighted much) also exist. However, for the person simply traveling through, merely grabbing a cup of coffee at these places isn't really an option.

That leaves some interesting three-pack of contenders for that potential cup of joe. Number one is pretty straightforward: Portia's, one of the first area restaurants to concentrate exclusively on Vegan dishes, now offers up a breakfast option with their Next Door Cafe, opened up, well, next door to their original restaurant on Indianola. Here, one can grab a cup of coffee brewed with Crimson Cup beans and, if one chooses, a bevy of breakfast food items.

Number two is might actually be the most interesting of the three, but really isn't a practical option unless cats are forefront on your mind. The main draw for Eat Purr Love Cat Cafe is not the java but the felines themselves: appointment fees to visit the store's cats and cafe sales go toward the nonprofit Columbus Humane, a nonprofit geared toward aiding animals in need.

Where The Weather is Wacky and the Forecasts Don't Matter

Yes, Comedian/Host Drew Carey knows what's up with Ohio weather

I've been in the Midwest long enough to get the joke about Ohio (and other surrounding states) having eleven or twelve seasons rather than the traditional four.

This year proved to be no different, starting off with a (way) early Spring in early January, which was quickly displaced by brief spell of Polar Vortex, and then followed by an elongated period of the "Big Snow coming - psych!" season, where seeming promising big snow days were turned into groan-inducing "mixed precipitation" slushfests.

Winter hung around like a drunken sailor late March well into May, never allowing Spring to gain a solid foothold and keeping the soils exceedingly soggy - I recall I didn't get a chance to mow the well overgrown back yard until just before Memorial Day.

Visions of Noah and his ark came to many in June, when deluge-type rains threatened to drastically cut into the state's prized corn crop and overwhelmed quite a few basements.  Then, a not overly hot but often humid summer season took over, drying things to the point where some parts of the state reside in mild drought status. Despite a few head fakes from the Autumn season, this has remained the status quo into October, so much so that some folks are wishing Summer completely away. If all the forecasts are correct, those cooler vibes will have arrived to this region the same day this blog post was published.

In Sync With The Shack?

My first visit to Shake Shack came at an advantageous time - on a weekday, just after the prime lunch rush. Even better: most of the electronic kiosks were open, and seeing a tiny bit of a line at the front counter, I figured this would be as easy-peasy a time of ordering the ballyhooed ShackBurger, a creation hyped to outdo all other burgers in this whole wide world.

Shake Shack's touch-screen menu ordering kiosk gave me a bit of a rude
surprise during my first visit into their Easton Town Center location

I slid my payment card in the slot, and punched in my order: a Double ShackBurger and a side of fries. I wanted a milkshake badly, but seeing I'd be pushing 2,000 calories with that trifecta, I figured I'd give my waistline a break by ordering a Fifty/Fifty, a half lemonade/half iced tea combo that sounded pretty refreshing on what was a fairly warm day.  After punching in my personal info, I submitted my order, ready to start my countdown clock for this first time experience

The screen went black, that familiar white swirl holding court in the center. And then, puzzlement, as I tried to decipher the message in front of me.

"Your Order Is Out of Sync"

I duplicated the order again, this time starting without the card in the slot and then inserting it at the end. Again, no dice. I tried again a third time at a different kiosk, and again, the Shack would not abide. Were the burger gods sending me a warning message of some sort?

Brimful of Dishes on the Northwest Side

The regional cuisines of India were, through circumstance, not something I explored a lot while living in the Bay Area. That changed for the better when I moved to Central Ohio, where the dishes of the numerous Indian restaurants here have quickly become favorites for me and my spouse.

For the most part, the Indian restaurants here, from basic curry joints to more fancy establishments and most recently Indian-fusion places (Indian-themed bowls, wraps and salads from places like Curry Up in the Sawmill area and Lewis Center's Rollz Rice) aren't chains. The Indian-fusion chain restaurant actually has become a more prevalent sight around the US as noted in this May 2016 Eater.com article, but Columbus's biggest Indian chain arrival decidedly does not follow that fusion route in the Michigan-based Neehee's.

Could it be...Seitan?

The inside of the tasty Seitan Shawarma from Pittsburgh's B52 Cafe

For all the hype meat substitute like the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat have received in the past few years, perhaps the most original of O.G. meat-substitutes, seitan, has been creeping into more menus as well. Essentially wheat gluten, this has been used in Asian countries in cooking for centuries, though the word itself dates back only sixty or so years to Japan, where George Ohsawa coined the term. For many vegans, seitan is a pretty standard staple in their diet.

Also, while it would be easy to pronounce the term like the name of the oft written about Prince of Darkness Satan, most folks I’ve chatted with state that say-TAN or say-TAWN (emphasis on the second syllable) is the accepted pronunciation.

We probably wouldn’t have paid this bit of trivia any mind even a few months ago or so - we had an occasional dabbling here and there, but it never made an impression on us until this year’s trip into Pennsylvania. Our visit to Lawrenceville’s B52 Cafe opened our eyes wide to seitan’s possibilities, with dishes like their tasty Kofta Tofu Scramble and the even better Seitan Shawarma. On this meal, we didn’t miss the traditional meat or pork proteins one bit.

As it turns out, two Columbus culinary entities, one spanking brand new and one well-established, have come out with their own seitan-based items. Would they fulfill our dreams of something just as tasty here as we had that morning in the Steel City?

It's Easy To Trace The Trucks of My Cheers (Summer 2019)

As mentioned in a previous blog post in the Autumn 2018, I have veered toward notable experiences with the area's food trucks instead of comprehensiveness due to the sheer number of food trucks that roam Central Ohio these days. With that said, two of the three trucks featured here are well-established veterans of the scene which my spouse and I have had the chance to visit numerous times, while the other reflects a culinary trend in the local area that I hope is a continuing one.

Fetty's Street Food - my spouse's niece, who had spent some time studying in South Africa near Durban earlier this decade, mentioned one her favorite dishes she ate there was something called Bunny Chow. Originating with the Indian population of the area, this popular dish involved a nicely spicy curry poured into a hollowed out portion of a bread loaf.

Columbus Iconic: Whither The Lettuce Wrap?

Iconic eats?  P.F. Chang's has made it three years in a row topping the
(614) ColumBest Reader Poll for "Best Asian Restaurant"

I acknowledge that the winners of many of media-sponsored reader polls are as much about name recognition and popularity as it is food quality when it comes to restaurants. That is certainly case with the fairly recently released 2019 edition of the (614) Columbus 2019 ColumBest poll.

But some results just sort of make you shake your head, and perhaps none does it more for me than the now three-year run of P.F. Chang's winning the "Best Asian Restaurant" category in the in the (614) ColumBest poll, claiming the top spot in 2017 when previous winner Haiku closed its doors in late 2016.

Conventional wisdom would make you think a national chain like P.F. Chang's (which has its origins in California in San Francisco and, later Beverly Hills) shouldn't be coming close to placing in these types of polls. Columbus's culinary scene has made wonderful strides over these past three years, with burgeoning coffee, craft beer and now distillery scenes (the latter sporting some great food components); the increasing emergence of upscale and creative eateries; and an increasing palette of international cuisines in general. This evolution has garnered its fair share of national notice - prominent media outlets like Food & Wine, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and Forbes have featured the city in the past six months alone.

The Fifty and The Familiar

Theoretically, buzzy and busy places with communal seating like the area's
Fox in the Snow locations will fall off the radar for me soon

My quest to expand my food horizons came relatively late in my life.  I can't do much nowadays about several dozen too many pursuits of Mickey D's Big Mac combo meals and other items I chose for frugality and convenience (but not necessarily taste) in my younger days, but I'm still firmly in "making up for lost time" mode.

However, like someone who's just pulled his fifth beer from the lone six-pack in the fridge, I've realized my time in this mode might be limited. As much as I'd like to be like a Simon Majumdar (who just celebrated his 55th birthday and is still going strong exploring the world and its cuisines), my body has sent signs it's ready to slow down a bit. Big portions, while nice, haven't been mandatory for my culinary pleasure for awhile.  Eventually, the doc will tell me that caffeine from my 1-2 cups of caffeinated coffee must go the way of the dodo bird, and my insides will eventually convince me that capsaicin and all its blazing, sweat-inducing glory isn't a good idea.

Interestingly, a recent opinion piece in the New York Times by Frank Bruni encapsulated this feeling quite well, saying that reaching the age of fifty has changed his perspective on dining.

Bundles vs. A La Carte: Cutting the Cord and the Pies

After numerous years of just being lazy about dumping our cable TV, one more cable bill increase last month provided the necessary momentum. Not only did it lessen our bills, the change has also added a ton of things we've never even had the chance to watch. It has also added the dilemma of the so-called "Paradox of Choice", where the number of options makes it difficult to choose just one.

One show we've delved into initially is Netflix's "Ugly Delicious", featuring Chef David Chang of Momofuku fame. Built around a general food theme (pizza, fried chicken, etc.), the show proves unafraid to branch off on numerous tangents during any particular episode. One notion Chang attempts to relay is that authenticity in food should not be the ultimate be-all end-all goal.

Chang states authenticity is fine, but not at the cost of creativity nor if it restricts future generations from adding their own authenticity to create something entirely novel.  Here, the Cajun-influenced Vietnamese dishes of Houston provide the ultimate example of this, and Chang bemoans the fact that the authenticity factor has prevented it from moving to places like New Orleans.

We're Going To Give It 101%

The Meat Cut chart at Columbus's The Pearl Restaurant that
started the whole 101% Cow Conundrum

In the big-wide world of sports cliches, the phrase "He/she gave 110 percent" is both overused and rather nonsensical from a mathematical standpoint. I imagine most would feel the same if the cliche used 101% instead.

However, would you look more quizzically at me if I said that it was a cow that was giving you that 101%?

Our encounter with the 101% cow conundrum came, at all places, The Pearl Restaurant. One of several Cameron Mitchell concepts which occupy the southern section of the city’s Short North neighborhood, The Pearl is touted as a seafood-oriented gastropub supplemented with fancy cocktails and a international beer list.

During our meal, my spouse was drawn to a chalkboard drawing of a cow which outlined the traditional primal butcher cuts (round, chuck, sirloin, etc.) and the corresponding percentages. After a long glance, she motioned over my shoulder. “Look behind you...does that all add up to 101%?”

I turned, spotted the cow diagram, and mentally added the numbers. “Yep, that’s 101%. Those are some pretty productive cows,” I chuckled.  Of course, I knew the diagram was wrong, but that brought me to thinking: was there such a thing as a definitive meat cut by percentage chart out there?

Well, I decided to look into that topic and came up with a few surprises.

You Can't Spell Nostalgia without L-A-G

Just one of the numerous albums put out by Jandek, perhaps the most
cultiest of cult artists in the music world today

Does owning one album from a cult artist count as nostalgia?

Back in college, my favorite place on campus was not the outdoors and most definitely not the classroom, but rather either of the two listening rooms deep inside the bowels of the college radio station. I couldn't imagine much better than cozying up by my lonesome a couple hours with a few dozen vinyl albums, both new and the previously unexplored, prepping for the week's show.

One day, a colleague of mine asked me if I had heard of Jandek.  The Jam, John Lydon and Jesse Johnson, sure. The Jesus and Mary Chain? Joy Division? Yep. But Jandek? I shook my head no.

My colleague's eyes rounded like large saucers. He touted his love of Jandek (almost certainly one Sterling R. Smith), his reclusive nature, and his rambling, weirdly bluesy compositions. In fact, Jandek, who sports Texas roots, might be the cultiest of all cult artists; through his Corwood Industries label, over 100 albums have been produced since the first LP was released in 1978.

An inquiry from an interested party might be reciprocated with a bundle of copies of his latest work, and generally his work can be obtained at relatively low prices. Before I knew it, a copy of his latest album, "You Walk Alone" (the album pictured above) was in my hands.  He looked a bit like Beck, though I would not reach this conclusion until several years later when Beck released his 1994 debut "Mellow Gold." Best of all, the album was free: for a broke-ass college student like me, anything free was indeed gold.  And now for nearly three decades, I've owned a piece of Jandek.

Playing The Host: A Kid-Friendly Tour of Columbus (Pt. 2)

A bloom hangs on against the impending winter cold at Columbus's Park of Roses

As noted in the last blogpost, we don't get to play host very often to family members, so when we do it becomes a special occasion, especially when there are kids (in this case, a 10- and a 13-year old) involved. This kid-friendly (though, in reality, an all-ages-friendly) excursion continues in this blogpost with another German Village staple.

Playing The Host: A Kid-Friendly Tour of Columbus (Pt. 1)

There's more than macarons to titillate the taste buds at Pistacia Vera,
a German Village standout and family destination

While we do not have any children to call our own, we both have gaggles of nieces and nephews with whom we play favorite aunt and uncle to whenever we can. Due to circumstances established well before we became a couple, we don't often get to host to other family members. However, when we do (in this case, my wife's sister and her two kids aged 13 and 10), it adds something special to the mix and also adds a rather fun challenge in catering a Columbus-based itinerary pleases all ages.

Food Truck Roundup: Autumn 2018 Edition

A little blast from the mobile food past: the colorful truck of Horn OK Please

To paraphrase from my previous Food Truck roundup, the local food truck scene has become a tough thing to keep tabs on.  New ones are popping up all the time (one of them, Hisham's featuring tasty dishes derived from the highly unique Cape Malay cuisine, was featured in its own blogpost in October.) Likewise, with all the businesses utilizing and places designated for hosting food truck operations in the metro, it's pretty easy to not encounter the same food truck for months at time.

Thus, I implemented a change of strategy - instead of comprehensiveness (which isn't as huge a factor with a medium like a food truck), I thought a roundup of some of the most notable experiences I've had with food trucks and carts would be a good way to go forward.  Interestingly enough, the autumn brought some long timers I hadn't encountered in awhile back into the fold, as well as a blue collar entrant that reliability is often most of the battle in the world of mobile cuisine.