"I find more people want to eat a little less. My generation, we're all watching our figures ... They want to go to the bar and eat a few snacks, have a couple of cocktails or glasses of wine, and go home. People don't sit down at the table and have a whole three or four courses." —Todd English, who clearly won't be one of the 50 percent of Americans battling obesity by 2030. [Boston Globe, Earlier]
Mike Royko once cracked something about how we'd be better off as a society if a lot of guys with humanities degrees were slicing corned beef instead. But if the last few years have demonstrated anything, it's that the proper contemplation of cold cuts is an act of a philosophical, even a literary bent. To wit: Rob Levitt, of The Butcher & Larder, in a local art and culture journal called Jettison Quarterly, on the subject of Kuma's Corner:
The servers and bartenders are, for no particular reason, a band of tattooed, pierced, edgy-looking, badass women who really don't care that you saw them on Check, Please! They could be, and some are, on a roller derby team. The menu is almost entirely burgers. Monster-sized burgers that are all named for metal bands. Someone who didn't know might think this is a theme restaurant, a kind of Johnny Rockets in hell. But Kuma's is no theme park and that sentiment is evident in the air of the place.
"Death Metal Hamburger," as it's called, is largely a profile of head chef Luke Tobias, and his metal-themed burgers, and it's the kind that takes someone with intimate knowledge of life in kitchens to write. Levitt tells us he has another piece in the works for Jettison, but for now, read all about those crazy heavy metal burgers and the man behind them here.
I'll pay a king's ransom tomorrow for a burger today.
The pump isn’t the only place where you’re going to be spending more money this summer: If your summer plans involve heaping piles of burgers sizzling away on the backyard barbecue (and they should), you're going to have to shell out more of your hard-earned pay for those all-beef patties, too. And you can blame the weather.
He didn't do it.
A receipt from Mr. Chow in New York could save John Travolta a lot of embarrassment, as it indicates that he was far, far away from a kinky massage table in Beverly Hills at the time and date in which a masseur says that Travolta groped him. Additionally, there are photos of the actor in New York at the time, proving that this is just another case of Pulp Fiction meets penis fiction ... and also, that Travolta is a good tipper. [Daily Mail UK]
The new Hot Chocolate.Photo: Sky Full of Bacon
So if you read the Time Out Chicago piece we linked the other day, you know that Mindy Segal came close to moving out of Hot Chocolate's space into a bigger one in response to a sense that her seven-year-old Bucktown restaurant had sort of fallen behind the times epitomized by the big, brassy restaurants on Randolph. In the end she didn't... but the problems she was responding to didn't go away, and even finally winning a James Beard award for best pastry chef isn't enough on its own to make a familiar restaurant new again. Now Eater has more details on how Segal has rethought her restaurant to make it fresh again— and starting at lunch tomorrow, you can see and eat it for yourself.
Robots are concealed within.
Students at U.T. Austin can now buy coffee made by "robistas" (robot baristas), thanks to a kiosk installed recently on campus. Just think: No need to agonize over etiquette, no lines (since you can order online or on your phone), and it's pretty cheap, too — $2.80 for a basic latte. Java-heads can indicate sweetener and milk preferences and a screen flashes your name when the drink's ready, so you can still get a kick by claiming you were christened Myrtle, like we used to never did back in the day. [Singularity Hub]
Reminder: Grease is for food, not customers.
She'll probably grow up to be a vegan: A 5-year-old girl in Clarksville, Tennessee, is too traumatized to even pass by a Sonic Drive-In, her parents claim, after the child took a major spill into one of the chain's grease pits. Lily Clark was leaving the restaurant with her family in late April when she stumbled into a vat of grease positioned just feet from Sonic's patio, which was obscured by landscaping. Normally guarded by a cover with a "Warning" sign, the barrier was dislodged when Lily fell, plunking her into the spent cooking grease.
Up in smoke.
Everyone has kitchen gadgets sitting around that they never use. But the flip side is that we may have other gadgets sitting around that we could use for cooking, but never do. Up until now, this column has focused on secret ingredients, but there's no reason why new techniques can't also pump up the flavor of your food. And so I started wondering if it was possible to cook with a vaporizer. As it turns out, yes, you can. And it's awesome.
Swirly!
That M.I.A. is so multifaceted. Paper mag has it that the musician (who's also evidently a visual artist) was tapped by Beck's to design a beer label. You can see the swirly specimen at right, which practically oozes peace, love, and harmony — totally how it feels to drink beer, man. [Paper via Spin]
The Sweet & Snacks Expo at NRA.Photo: courtesy Anthony Todd/Chicagoist.
We've never been to the Sweets and Snacks Expo part of the National Restaurant Association show, but we hear from people like Louisa Chu that it combines the psychedelia of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the good, Gene Wilder one) with the desperate flesh-ripping hunger of Dawn of the Dead on the last day, when people get into a free-for-all for samples the exhibitors don't really want to lug home. (Chu has an elaborate strategy for sample-grabbing you should definitely check into before you go next year.) Anyway, like Wonka they don't allow cameras in the expo itself, but Anthony Todd of Chicagoist came back with plenty of samples and filed a report on them, so you can know which candy produced hacking coughs, which one leaves you looking like you just ate a Smurf, and which one is allegedly used by Angelina Jolie. [Chicagoist]
Baby got back.
Drop that honey-dipped doughnut now ... because half of us are turning into future fat-asses within the next twenty years. A new study predicts that 42 percent of Americans will be hugely rotund by 2030; but then again, "obesity forecasting" — which uses variables like unemployment rate, fast-food prices, alcohol prices, and fuel prices — isn't always on point, especially since horizontally challenged subjects tend to tell fat lies to researchers. [Slate]
Mourad Lahlou of San Francisco's Aziza put Moroccan cuisine on the fine dining map in the Bay Area; he won Iron Chef America, has a PBS show in the works and has just published his first cookbook, Mourad New Moroccan. And he's the inaugural guest for a new series beginning at The Bristol highlighting chefs and cookbooks, starting next Tuesday, May 15. Lahlou will join The Bristol team in preparing a five-course meal of dishes from his coobook; the evening will begin with passed appetizers and a signing, then proceed to a seated dinner beginning with Warm Lamb’s Tongue, Dates, Ras El Hanout; then Creamed Game Bird Soup, Voudovan Spices, Almond, Foie Gras; a seasonal vegetable course; and Rhubarb Cumin Glazed Chicken, followed by dessert of a Tahini Semifreddo. The dinner is $125 including beverages and a copy of the book; see the menu below, and call (773) 862-5555 to make a reservation.
To put it mildly, New York exports do not have a good track record in Chicago, as the recent closing of BLT American Brasserie demonstrates. So why are we so excited about Eataly— as in our story yesterday of their reported choice of location (the former ESPN Zone)? Well for one, Eataly's concept seems much more exportable than many, being as much retail as dining. But beyond that, Mario Batali's and Joe Bastianich's Ikea of Italian food-slash-Italian food court simply raises the bar for quality Italian ingredients in every category you can think of, and its various restaurants would each be, if not the absolute best of their type in town, at least worthy contenders that would add a first-class choice to their category and especially to an area where thousands work and eat out every day. There's no telling how precisely the New York Eataly will predict what the Chicago one will be like, but we assume they're not coming to town to dumb it down, either, and that most of what is working in New York will be replicated here. So come with us on a tour of the New York edition of Eataly in the Flatiron District, and start getting hungry for ours when it comes, most likely sometime early next year.
“I love TBK”
Open super late and great food especially for the intoxicated!
“Try the Steak & Potato Pizza!”
Can you say philly sandwich on a pizza?
“Good Overall, just that greasy smell”
The problem is that my clothes smell like grease after every visit. They need to do something about that.
