Offbeat Eats

On occasion, you run into little joints that have some culinary heritage to their offerings in addition to the food. Examples include Phillipe’s in Los Angeles (a leading contender for the invention of the French Dip) and Matt’s Bar in Minneapolis (one contender for the invention of the Jucy Lucy), although like any sort of invention claims, both of these come with some controversy. When it comes to the idea of who invented the modern hamburger, Louis Lunch is one credible claimant. Now located on Crown Street in New Haven, Louis Lunch has been around since 1895 (in locations ranging from a street cart on Meadow Street to the current permanent location), and has been serving hamburgers for most of that time. Regardless of primacy, however, Louis Lunch is interesting since they haven’t made any significant changes to their menu or hamburger preparation the entire time, and are still serving hamburgers prepared pretty much the same way they were done the beginning of the last century.

Back in late April, due to competing obligations and business travel, Carol and I weren’t able to celebrate her birthday on its actual date, so we decided instead to meet up in Manchester and give Cotton another try. I like Cotton, since they are a nice combination of “old school” cuisine (steaks, chops, and the like) along with some new and funky ideas, of the sort that are usually labeled “New American Cuisine” these days. The result is usually quite impressive, yet familiar…

If there’s one thing that’s obligatory about a trip to the Carolinas, it’s that you must have some Carolina-style barbecue. Someplace near (but not identical with) the borders of the Carolinas, barbecue starts to take on it’s own regional identify, with the use of primarily pulled pork, usually rubbed with a spice mixture before smoking, mopped with a spice and vinegar liquid during smoking, and served up with a thin, spicy, vinegar-based sauce. It certainly makes for a good pork sandwich, or a nice plate of pulled pork. So earlier this month, when work travel had me going down to Raeford, NC, we had an overnight stay in Fayetteville, so we packed in the car and decided to find some decent BBQ. While there are more barbecue joints in the Fayetteville area than you can shake a stick at, several places (my Ft Bragg contacts as well) recommended Barbeque Hut (with Ft Bragg and Owen Drive locations) as the best place to get a pork sandwich, although interestingly, there is no consensus on how to spell this place’s name (most directories insist it’s Bar-B-Que Hut, even though the sign spells it “Barbeque Hut”. Oh well, to each their own…

This trip to Minneapolis also allowed me to indulge in another of my favorite Twin Cities culinary treasures: Kramarczuk Sausage Company on East Hennepin in Minneapolis, right where Marcy-Holmes and Nordeast meet up. When I first moved to Minneapolis, Kramarczuk’s and the nearby Surdyk’s liquor store were the only major attractions in an otherwise tired out neighborhood of old furniture stores and former car dealers. In the years since then, Surdyk’s moved from a storefront to their own giant building up the road, the neighborhood has been almost completely rebuilt (the old IGA and strip mall are now a Whole Foods, etc). I barely recognize the neighborhood, but Kramarczuk Sausage Co is still alive and well, dishing all sausages and all varieties of eastern European food…

Many areas have a particular food item that is well known locally, be it Philly’s cheesesteaks, St Louis’ toasted raviolis, or the Upper Peninsula’s pasties. One of the local equivalents for the Twin Cities is the Jucy Lucy (and how to spell that is an issue it’s own). Basically, a Jucy Lucy is a cheeseburger with the cheese stuffed inside the meat patty rather than on top, with two patties of meat crimped around a molten core of cheese. While having some cooking challenges (like getting thoroughly good melting of the cheese and cooking of the interior of the burger without completely killing the meat), it’s a combination I rather like. It, however, also has some consumption issues: aside from the obviously unhealthy nature, the Jucy Lucy is also well-known for burning peoples’ lips and chins on the hot liquid cheese as it bursts out of a burger, so warning about the cheese are common at Jucy Lucy joints…

(Closed) Revolutionary Burger is a bit of an interesting experimental concept, in that they don’t have a storefront, and aren’t their own restaurant, they are basically a sub-restaurant of the local Lebanon restaurant, Gusanoz. Apparently, one of their employees recently went on a trip to Southern California, and really enjoyed a trip to iconic In-N-Out Burger, and decided to try making a similar burger here. So they invented the Rev Burger, which is their rendition of the basic In-N-Out-style California burger: 100% real beef, never frozen, char-broiled over open flame, a toasted bun, lettuce, tomato, onion and, of course, the “special sauce”. You can order it with american cheese as well, making a “Che Burger” (Anyone else chuckling at the irony of having the Che Burger made with American cheese?). You can even order them In-N-Out style, for example, ordering a “2×2” which is two patties and two slices of cheese. They also offer fresh-made fries, shakes, and beverages (basically, a similar small menu to the In-N-Out they are copying).

If you look over my history of postings, it’s obvious that I like Vietnamese food, and like pho in particular (having done at least three postings on the topic). I’m still waiting for that magical day when some Vietnamese people decide to move to the Upper Valley and set up a good Vietnamese restaurant (if you’re somehow thinking about it, let me know, I’ll invest… And be one of the best customers). Until then, I have to get most of my Vietnamese food when traveling. This time, it was Pho Dao #1 in Murrieta, CA…

One of the big questions I get from people is “How do you find the places you eat?” There are many answers to this, but the primary two answers are “research” and “happenstance”. Mad Madeline’s Grill was a good example of the latter. We were visiting Temecula with Carol’s sister and her boyfriend, and walking down the street we passed by Mad Madeline’s. I didn’t even need to look inside to know that this was going to be a good burger joint. Walking by on the sidewalk, I walked through three successive bands of smells. First was the smoker. Second was the smell of nicely seared beef. The third was a fry cooker. It certainly smelled like a good burger joint.

(Closed) On our recent trip to Montreal, on the way back to our home in Grantham, NH, we decided we needed to stop for lunch someplace near Burlington. While the Burlington area has many establishments we rather enjoy (including Hong’s Chinese Dumplings, Sneakers, and Penny Cluse Cafe, the last of which I realize I’ve never blogged here. I’ll have to correct that), we decided to try another area establishment, finally settling on checking out Libby’s Blue Line Diner, just off of I-89 in Colchester, VT. Libby’s sits up on a hill right off of Route 2, and is your basic Worcester diner (Worcester Diner #838, to be exact), although like almost all extant Worcester diner cars, which suffer from a lack of facilities, when it was moved from MA and installed in Colchester, the owners build some additional seating area, an entryway, and an expanded kitchen onto the building. But they did an outstanding job with the interior restoration, so this particular Worcester Diner’s seating area isn’t as worn and tired as most (the exterior, however, looks like it could use some paint and mild repairs)…

(Closed) Cleveland continues to be good to me on my regular visits here. On my last visit here I had an outstanding evening at Greenhouse Tavern, and learned that a substantial fraction of the culinary professionals there know and respect each other. Indeed, one of the last pieces of advice from the bartender at Greenhouse Tavern was that if I wanted some good beer and pizza, I should check out Bar Cento (where Greenhouse’s Jonathon Sawyer was chef before opening Greenhouse). Interestingly, I also got a recommendation for Bar Cento from my friend Rick in Vermont, who happens to know the new chef at Cento, Michael Nowak, from his days as a culinary student at NECI. So that was two reasons to head to Bar Cento on this trip…