Offbeat Eats

Almost five years ago, one of the very first reviews on this site was a review of one of my favorite burger joints, Miller’s Bar in Dearborn, MI. Since then, I’ve reviewed a total of 25 additional burger joints, and have plenty more scheduled for the near future. However, since I try (and usually succeed) at visiting Miller’s every time I’m in or near the Dearborn area, and recently had a trip to Detroit, I figured it was worth writing up Miller’s again…

On the last day of our visit to Ireland, I had a spare hour in my schedule, so I decided to walk up from Temple Bar to Lower O’Connell Street to check out the An Post Museum (central location of the 1916 Easter Rising) and the fairly new Spire of Dublin. Neither of which really impressed me much; the An Post museum is more of a “room” than a “museum” (although it is neat to see gunshots and mortar damage to the building outside), and the Spire is basically a giant steel toothpick that’s already showing a bit of corrosion. But on the way back down to my hotel in Temple Bar, about a block south of An Post, I noticed the smell of…. fresh donuts.

Recently, my job had me heading off on a short trip to Dublin, Ireland (for those curious about my day job, I was attending the AIAA 21st Aerodynamic Decelerators Conference at Trinity College Dublin), and while almost all of my time on my work trip to Dublin was tied up with, well, work (and work-related outings), I did have a long lunch break on my second day to try and rustle up some local food. So I decided to see what I could find that was actually Irish, since actual Irish cuisine is quite challenging to find in the US, especially in predominantly Irish areas like Boston, since the Irish-American culinary traditions have diverged a fair bit from the mother country (for example, while “corned beef” is pretty much a staple food of any Irish-American place, it’s virtually unknown in Ireland), with little reference to the original. So I wanted to get out and find a place that at least was trying to do justice to the Irish culinary tradition. Well, a quick search of several sources led me to The Pig’s Ear…

(Closed) As those that know me locally can verify, I’ve often complained that there’s just not a lot of BBQ action out there around the Upper Valley. Sure, there’s “Barbecue reformulated for New England Tastes” at Big Fatty’s, but that shouldn’t count (and doesn’t, the only thing salvageable on their menu is the pulled pork). Similarly, I’ve had a gazillion recommendations for Curtis’ BBQ in Putney, but I’ll agree with PigTrip.net that it’s disappointing. And I’ll let my review of Sweet Fire BBQ in Claremont speak for itself. I’m getting used to the fact that people up here don’t really know what BBQ is, but heard about it once and decided to make up something similar. And my recent trip to Texas didn’t help, either, since it just reintroduced me to what I’ve been missing. But, I’ve always held out hope that someone around here could figure out the basics of running a smoker, so when I hear of new BBQ places, I usually still feel compelled to give them a try… So, about a year ago, up in Fairlee, VT, the owners of the Whippi Dip ice cream stand decided that on the first Saturday of the month in the good weather months of the year they’d do the BBQ thing by setting up a tent in the parking lot and making some decent BBQ…

(Closed) After an April filled with trips to Austin and San Francisco, it was time to take a break and spend a little more time exploring my local area. In this case, it meant heading down to Stonewall Farm in Keene, NH, for their annual “Dance of the Ladies”. Having been in the barn all winter, this is the first time the cows have been in the pasture all year, and they generally respond with manic bounding and “dancing”, as well as the occasional head-butting and just hanging out. It was rather a cool sight, actually, and you can check out flickr photos of the event. But afterward, we were craving a breakfast, and decided that this would be a good opportunity to cross the river and see what we could find in Brattleboro, VT. After driving about a bit, we happened across Elliot Street Cafe. Nestled into a small building that, from the presence of a large pizza oven, apparently used to be a pizza joint, Elliot is a modest little neighborhood cafe with a decent breafast menu, with a selection of burritos, omelets, biscuits, bacon, and other breakfast sandwiches and wraps…

While my trip to Humphrey Slocombe left me a little bit disappointed, that wasn’t the last of my San Francisco ice cream forays. While doing the March, our route took us through the north end of the Mission, we headed over to Dolores Park and Bi-Rite Creamery for another snack. This was my first trip to Bi-Rite Creamery, but I’d been to their parent store (Bi-Rite Market, just down the street) several times to indulge in various delicacies, like a few slices of some good Iberian jamon. And I’d always known that Bi-Rite’s ice cream stand was well-regarded, but both times I had previously thought of stopping there, the lines were long and scared me away…

(Closed) Checkpoint #3 on the March was the famous Ferry Building, which was also a good excuse for a Second Lunch, since the Ferry building has all sorts of wonderful little food vendors, ranging from a mushroom vendor, Prather Ranch Meats (where I bought a “Praise the Lard” t-shirt), a Rancho Gordo stand (where I bought 5 lbs of beans to bring back), beef sushi from Delica, and a wonderfully sinful strawberry cream cupcake from Miette. But my most-craved stop for this trip was Boccalone. Boccalone’s motto is “Tasty Salted Pig Parts”. Besides, who can go wrong with a motto like that…

(Closed) When discussing some of the activities around the Death March, one of the participants mentioned that he’d been craving a good burger, and was going to go make a pilgrimage to In-N-Out while in San Francisco. I responded that while I’m quite the fan of In-N-Out, there are a lot of unique burger places in San Francisco, and most of them better and more interesting than In-N-Out. Indeed, without even having to look anything up online, I easily came up with a list of 10 San Francisco burger joints worth checking out. Of the places I’ve actually been, there’s Burger Joint, Whiz Burger, Rosamunde Sausage Grill, and Pearl’s. Additionally, Burger Bar, Joe’s Cable Car, Big Mouth Burgers, Burgermeister, and Urbun Burger have been on my hit list for a while as well. Since I had met up with two other Death Marchers, Steve and Kevin, for another trip to Dynamo Donuts, that put us in the Mission, so we could easily knock off Burger Bar or Urbun Burger. We ended up deciding on Urbun…

One of the nice things about visiting Steve and Emily is that they enjoy playing the roles of culinary tour guides. After Emily showed me Dynamo Donuts for breakfast, and Mission Cheese for lunch, for dinner Steve and Emily decided to take me to one of their favorites in Noe Valley: Contigo. So we set off for dinner. A short walk (about a mile or so from their place in the Mission) later, we arrived at Contigo. Nestled into a converted residential house (a feature common to most of the Noe Valley restaurants I’ve been to, actually), Contigo is a modest sized restaurant focusing on tapas, particularly those from Catalan…

When Emily took me to visit Dynamo Donuts, on the way back passed by Humphrey Slocombe Ice Cream. I’ve heard of Humphrey Slocombe several times (it’s one of the most yelp-ed places on the planet, and has gotten exposure on several TV shows), and it’s been a place I’ve been wanting to try. However, they don’t open until noon, so I had to make it a point to come back later. But after visiting Mission Cheese earlier in the day, I decided that a good walk was in order, and went on a pleasant little hike up to Bernal Heights Park, through “downtown” Bernal Heights, and then coming back to the Mission by ealking around the park. This route very nicely passed me by Humphrey Slocombe again, so I decided to stop in and give them a try…