Offbeat Eats

Sometimes I really worry about the state of donuts these days. Most of the local donut places have closed and been replaced by Tim Hortons or Dunkin Donuts. And worse yet, most of those don’t even cook the donuts on site anymore, they truck them in (it’s no longer “time to make the donuts”). So most donuts these days are stale, pale imitations of what a donut should be. But every once in a while I find a local donut place that shows that some people still care and try and make a good product. One of these is Allie’s Donuts in North Kingstown, RI. I went there several times a kid with my grandpa, but in recent years I’ve either never been around at breakfast time, or it’s been a holiday and Allie’s was closed.

I’ve covered a lot of hot dogs on this list. Chicago Dogs. Pink’s Hot Dogs in LA. Coney Island dogs. Rochester White Hots. And even the hot dog’s cousin, the Half Smoke. You’d think I’d be running out of hot dog varieties, but, really, I’m only barely scratching the surface (God bless the fine folks at Wikipedia for gems like this). Which brings me to the latest variety, the “New York System” hot dog, native to Rhode Island (and not, as the name would suggest, New York… but then again, you won’t find a Coney Island hot dog anywhere near Coney Island, NY, either. Sometimes, you just gotta roll with it). For those that have never heard of the style, New York System Wieners (or, in a regional mispelling, several places use the mispelling “Weiner”, such as today’s entry) are similar to a “Coney Island” or a “Michigan” hot dog. It starts with a slightly smaller veal and pork sausage than your normal hot dog, served in a steamed bun with meat sauce (sweeter and milder than Coney Island sauce, and definitely way too mild to be called a “chili”), mustard, onions, celery salt. The last of these is what makes the style unique, since while celery salt is a standard Chicago Dog topping, it’s not often seen on a Coney Island dog. In any case, there are several “Hot Wiener” joints in Rhode Island, including Olneyville New York System, Saugy’s, and today’s entry, Cranston’s Wein-O-Rama…

A quintessential part of the New England dining experience is the Worcester Diner Car, and quite a few New England towns have at least one Worcester Diner Car-based diner, typically with a long service counter, stools, tables, and lots of chrome. And, despite being designed on a wagon and/or train car style chassis, they typically don’t move. What a lot of people don’t realize is that the earliest Worcester Diner Cars weren’t this way. Early Worcesters had the stovetop, food prep, and service counter in the end of the car, with seating at the other end. And the cart was mobile, typically stored during the day and pulled out at night to serve factory workers. However, it’s extremely rare to find examples of these early Worcester Diners. Gilley’s PM Lunch in Portsmouth, NH is, however, a good example…

My recent trip down to New Haven had me passing right through Meriden, CT, so it was time to visit Ted’s Restaurant again, and this time take some photos and blog it. Ted’s is an interesting place, mostly since it is famous for an unusual variation of a cheeseburger: the steamed cheeseburger. Yes, you read that right, the steamed cheeseburger. Unless you’ve spent a fair amount of time in New England, you probably haven’t seen one of these (off the top of my head, I can think of only one other place with steamed hamburgers, and that’s Comet’s in Tyngsborough, MA), but it’s an interesting enough variation on a burger that it’s worth a try.

(Closed) One of my favorite breakfast item is corned beef hash. And, as I mentioned recently in my review of Bode’s, it’s one of those dishes that’s easy to do poorly, but hard to do really well. It’s also one of the food items that I get a lot of recommendations for. I’ve often had people recommend places to me for good CBH, and a majority of the time, I’m disappointed, since I usually end up with something that’s either canned CBH, or a faithfully executed homemade replica of canned CBH. So when one of my homebrewing friends gave a strong recommendation for the Gold Star Restaurant in Worcester having the “best hash ever,” I responded with some skepticism, but put it on my hit list.

An unfortunate fact of life if you’re driving across New York State is that there aren’t a whole lot of good food options near the Thruway. Usually, I try to stop someplace decent in Syracuse (like Dinosaur BBQ), but this time, when we were finally hungry for dinner, we stopped in Herkimer. Let me tell you, there aren’t a lot of options at 8pm on a Sunday in Herkimer, NY. But on our drive through town, we did see one place that looked worth checking out: Yetty’s Pizza on Mohawk Street. Yetty’s is your basic NY family pizza joint, with several pizzas with different toppings, your various Italian-American pasta and sub dishes, and a small selection of cheap beers. We ended up getting a large sausage and mushroom pizza (my standard pizza at most places)…

While returning from our Christmas vacation, we again passed through the Buffalo area around lunchtime, making it pretty much obligatory that we stop and try one of the classis Buffalo foodstuffs. After debating the relative merits of Buffalo wings, Ted’s Hot Dogs, and Beef-on-weck, we decided to do the last of these, and picked Charlie the Butcher’s since it’s quite close to the Thruway. Charlie’s is one of the places that has a reputation as being a good place for Beef-on-weck. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s a fairly Buffalo-specific food: roast beef and horseradish piled on a crusty roll resembling a kaiser roll, but topped with kosher salt and caraway seeds.

What does the word “ramen” mean to you? Unfortunately, for 95% of American diners, “ramen” means those 5-for-a-dollar cheap noodle packages at the grocery store. That’s really, really unfortunate, since true, fresh ramen noodles are a classic example of good Japanese food, and they are serve as a wonderful foundation for ramen soup. Unfortunately, outside of California, there aren’t many good ramen shops out there. One notable exception to this I’ve found is Matsu Chan in Canton, MI. Having been in existence well over 15 years, Matsu Chan is nestled into a small storefront in one of those mostly-vacant strip malls you see all over the Detroit area, and has a very humble storefront. However, once you pass through the doors, Matsu Chan is pure ramen shop.

When it comes to breakfast, one thing I really like is a good Corned Beef Hash (CBH). It’s one of those breakfast items that really tells you how good a kitchen a breakfast joint really has. Some places just serve pre-made canned CBH right out of the can (which can actually be quite good if cooked well with a nice sear, actually). And many places make their own. Sometimes the result is ambrosial (Al’s Breakfast in Minneapolis). Sometimes the result is mediocre (I’m talkin’ to you, Denny’s!). And, sometimes, inexplicably, a restaurant will go to all the trouble of dicing potatoes, grinding meat, and making spices, going through all the right motions, but somehow end up with something that’s nearly indistinguishable from the canned stuff. It truly baffles me, since I’ve been to all sorts of places that people have highly recommended for their homemade hash, and gotten something that easily could be mistaken for Hormel.

(Closed) While visiting Carol’s relatives in Michigan, we decided to meet up with my college friend Ben up in Royal Oak. He recommended Cafe Habana, which is one of the older Cuban places in Royal Oak (with other locations in Ann Arbor and Traverse City). Cafe Habana has quite the nice Cuban-decorated interior, with a heavy emphasis on the chandeliers and Cuban-themed travel posted. However, the menu is less Cuban than “Latin American”, with Tacos Pastors and Beef Chimichurri alongside the Ropa Vieja and Cuban Sandwiches. Don’t get me wrong, I like Argentinian food and Mexican food, but they are both very, very different in their ingredients, flavors, and cooking techniques. Indeed, a major strike against Cafe Habana is that they’ve gone and reinforced the “Cuban food must be like Mexican food since they both speak Spanish” stereotype that I’m all too familiar with. Sorry, that’s been a long-standing gripe of mine. I’ll get off my soapbox…