Chains, Chains, Shackles, and Chains

As twitter increasingly becomes my photoless-in-the-moment medium, I've become neglectful of my non-twitter devotees. My sincerest apologies. Anyhoo, nothing specatacular to report except maybe a post-childbirth class Chili's excursion (I saw one of those giant red chili peppers sitting on a gurney in the hospital, so we had to go). In these economic times (which are still totally going on), the chain gangs are now offering meals under (insert piddly dollar amount that will only serve to make you drink more) bucks. This turns out to be a blessing in disguise, because cheaper chain food means smaller portions means not having to ask, "Why did I eat this?" after eating a giant burger with bacon that looks more like roof shingles than food. In fact, our expectations were so low from the post-it's a girl Chili's excursion that we were pleasantly surprised with our tiny little burgers and buffalo chicken sandwiches (although my Miller Lite was miles away from being crisp and refreshing). Buen provecho.

We went to the Chili's on City Ave. Service was okay. One appetizer, two $7 meals, and a brew doggie came to $33 including tip. I hope Chili's doesn't sue me for using the image above

Chifauxtle

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then El Fuego must really want to impress Chipotle. Then again, maybe they just want to capitalize on the silent-but-deadly cash cow that is the burrito boom, which, by all accounts, is alive and well in Philadelphia (we took the detour to El Fuego because the Qdoba line was out the door). There were a few missteps, but the next time D-Tron says, "You're coming with me to get burritos. Pick a place," I'll probably pick El Fuego.

Decorated and set up almost exactly like Chipotle, El Fuego has the same spacious and minimalist feel without the "hurry up and eat so others can sit down" vibe. I probably could have stayed there all afternoon (they serve beers, so I may have to make this happen one day). Going down the burrito assembly line, you have your usual suspects: grilled peppers and onions, grilled chicken, grilled beef, stewed beef, chorizo (I suppose they have to separate themselves somehow), and hot, medium, and mild salsa offerings. I went with the chorizo and immerdiately regretted it. I have a very specific idea of chorizo in my head and it's not the kind that looks and tastes like Hillshire Farm smoked sausage. Same foil, same basket, same price (same rice!), but when I peeled back said foil, the damn thing was cold, and the tortilla was brittle. The flavor was as you'd expect from the other guys (a very good thing), but eating a burrito is no fun if it falls apart on its way to your mouth. I'm hoping the next time will yield much better results. Until then, I'm going to tuck into the burrito lethargy that is par for the course with such a huge lunch. Buen provecho.

El Fuego is located at 2104 Chestnut St. and also at 723 Walnut St. I got way too much much food for $7.50. The tap water was free. And yes, that's a crappy picture.

These Economic Times

Looks like McDonald's has scaled back on sesame seeds. Too bad they haven't scaled back on how disgusting their food makes me feel. Buen provecho.

Why Did I Eat This?

This has been a very long time coming, and it took plenty of whining on my part to convince Mrs. Gastro to give in, but finally, months after the ad where all those (paid) idiots gush over how deliciously non-pizza hutty it tastes, we ordered the Tuscani pasta--one half Bacon Mac 'n' Cheese, one half Chicken Alfredo, one whole piece of shit.

With that, the bad news:

1. The "chicken" is of the hyperprocessed-and-molded-into-strips variety. I'm surprised that it's not breaded, but the release of the Domino's Bread Bowl Pasta may just be the boost Pizza Hut needs to up the ante in the "kill you faster" race.

2. The rest of the Chicken Alfredo mess had a 10:1 ratio of garlic flavor to everything else.

3. The pasta is a bunch of diminutive spirals that are better fit for spooning than forking.

4. You're eating pasta from Pizza Hut.

But there is a silver lining:

1. Bacon (or the bacon flavored chewy chunks of who knows what) truly does make everything better.

2. Since you're getting half portions of each, you feel slightly better about eating the whole thing in one sitting.

3. Delivery means that the work effort involved is reduced to walking from the couch to the door and calculating the tip. Even better, the pasta's congealed enough that you could probably eat it with your hands, eliminating the need to use any utensils whatsoever.

4. I have managed once again to line the pockets of the ad men (good news for them, at least).

If those people really were convinced that this pasta came from a fancy restaurant, I feel sorry for them, but I feel even more sorry for myself. I knew that the pasta was coming from Pizza Hut, and I still ordered it. To my darling Mrs. Gastro, I'm heartily sorry. I should have heeded your warning. Buen provecho.

Cheesesteak Tally

Pat's: 6

Geno's: 0

Delassandro's: 2

Steve's: 1

Street Meat: 4

Other: 8.5

Total: 21.5

One must lower their expectations when it comes to ballpark food. Case in point, the Tony Luke's in left field at Citizens Bank Park. Steak-umm quality meat that tasted boiled, not grilled, and less salt than a sugar factory. I wish I would have opted for "The Heater" over at Campo's (cheesesteak with hot sauce and pepper jack, I think), but by the time I saw the 6'x3' airbrushed sign, the cheesesteak runners were already pretty far up the line and not very patient. It's a very good thing, then, that the night would inevitably lead to multiple cabs to Pat's, where the line wrapped around the building almost twice thanks to the Dead concert (aren't hippies supposed to be vegetarian?). Entirely worth the wait, especially when you're brown bagging Schlitz and discussing with Al Roker's brother whether or not you think touring without Jerry is sacrilege. Buen provecho.

Me and Food Are In a Fight

Dear Food,

Please refrain from being so delicious as to render me incapable of ceasing to shove you in my mouth.

Regards,

Fidel

Dear Metabolism,

Please refrain from being so slow as to render me incapable of enjoying aforementioned food.

Regards,

Fidel

A very uninspired week for me and food. Buen provecho.

Why Did I Eat This?

If eating healthy is right, I want to be wrong. Dead wrong. Faltering once again on the 5 day fast, I tried to keep it a bit healthier with this disaster of a salad from Orewa Deli in Suburban Station, the Tuscan Tuna (Romaine, tuna, tomatoes, red onions, and chickpeas). It was a plastic clamshell full of disappointment and banality (although the onions are definitely sticking with me). They didn't even give me a piece of bread to soak up the unforkable bits of tuna caught in the clamshell ridges. Why I would buy a salad from one of the dumps in Suburban Station is another one for Robert Stack, and now I'm seven dollars and twenty-seven cents poorer, still hungry, and a little sad. I have managed to completely ruin my afternoon. Shit. Buen provecho.

Come for the Wings, Don't Stay for the Burger

Snug pants wishlist:

1. I wish I could wear them with little to no discomfort.

2. I wish I could fulfill that wish without having to resort to the extreme measure of starvation.

3. I wish I didn't belly flop off the starvation wagon last night, but at least I finally got to try the wings at Union Jack's in North Hills (Glenside).

4. I wish I would have stopped at the wings and not continued on with a burger.

I decided that my suit would fit marginally better if I limited my caloric intake to less than one hundred per day. As an alumnus of the Master Cleanser, I was confident that I could manage a 5 day hunger strike with the occasional bite of steamed spinach or gulp of fruit smoothie. And to be honest, after this past weekend, my body could definitely use some respite from the food abuse. I was doing just fine until Mrs. Gastro and I took a trip to USA Baby to test out a few gliders and pick up a toddler rail. To be more precise, I was doing just fine until I realized that Union Jack's was on the way home a little earlier in the day (although the lousy salesperson did absolutely nothing to take my mind off my mounting hunger with her stupid mouth full of stupid rice cakes and her stupid hard sell and empty threats about glider lead times and her stupid annoying voice. Honestly, who gives a sales pitch with a mouth full of rice cakes?).

Our home inspector let me in on this townie secret of a pub and their magical wings a few weeks earlier. After a gaggle of google results whose main theme was "best wings I've ever had," there was little doubt that this hunger strike had precious few hours left, so after Mrs. Gastro punched the USA Baby salesbitch in the face*, we raced there as fast as the traffic lights and our compact SUV would let us. When we arrived, the first good sign was that the parking lot was full. Even better, when we walked in, there was a booth waiting for us. Brief hiccup with the slow service, but understandable with the bartender doing double duty as the waitress. And then the wings arrived. A brief moment of knuckle cracking and expectations lowering (just in case), and then the gnawing commenced. This wing is classic. No breading, ample hot sauce (we compromised with medium), not the puny kind you get during a 25 cent wing night, and definitely not overcooked (as great as these wings were, some of them had a not-so-appetizing pinkish hue). In addition to the standard, Union Jack's also whips up sauces like honey Caribbean and Mexican jalapeño. Since this place is only 9 minutes from where we live, there's no question we will be back to try these.

But (big but here), we will most certainly not be back for the burgers. It could be guilt for breaking the fast, or it might just be that burgers are not the strong suit at Union Jack's. Feeling adventurous, I ordered the Big Ben, a bacon cheeseburger topped with HP Sauce, the English A-1. The patty was way overcooked and without salt, and because it was left on the grill too long, it was as dry as the kaiser roll it was served on. I am also a fool for thinking that HP Sauce on a burger is a good idea. Looking over at Mrs. Gastro's turkey burger, it was apparent that the same lack of care was taken in its preparation as well. Two huge disappointments. As an afterthought, I looked around to notice that the other tables were full of wings and nothing else. Maybe I should have taken my cue from the townies. Buen provecho.

Union Jack's is located at 2750 Limekiln Pike in Glenside, PA. Without drinking, we were able to get 10 wings and two burgers for $25 including tip. Cash only, but there's an ATM by the Golden Tee machine that you can use for the outrageous price of $2.00 plus whatever your bank fleeces you for.

*Actual punching may not have occurred

Food Bender

If a stray ninja star doesn't kill me, my diet surely will. I spent an entire weekend asking myself not only, "Why did I eat this?" but also, " Why am I unable to stop eating this?" It was a miracle that I could actually get the words out of my mouth with all the food in it. Here's a rundown of the delicious death that was my weekend:

Friday, lunchtime: Ronny's Roadside. The intern at my office swears by the sausage & peppers from this food truck on Temple's campus. So what do I do? Go for the chicken parm and an order of fries. The reason why I would get an order of fries to complement a chicken parm escapes me, especially when I knew the fries had to travel 20 minutes to get here. Wait, I remember now, because I'm a fat ass. Do you ever eat fries so fast that they get stuck in your throat and then it hurts to swallow? Do you ever make it even harder to swallow by taking huge bites of a foot long sandwich that is bready and cheesy to the point where you actually have to chew 30 times to swallow?

Friday, dinner: Uno Pizzeria. Whatever reserves were left in the tank from lunch were completely exhausted by a crazy stroller lady who derailed what would have been a quick registry run to Babies 'R' Us with an inundation of upselling information delivered in the sleepiest of monotones. Waiting to eat is dangerous, because it usually results in ordering too much (or at least eating too much). I went with the parenthetic option, not wasting a single bite of Uno's Shrimp and Crab Fondue, a cheesy and seafoody glop of deliciousness floating in a sea of grease (that's a good thing). I even topped my pizza with it.

Saturday, breakfast: A healthy break from the madness. Mrs. Gastro lovingly prepared a delicious smoothie and pancakes, perfectly portioned and presented.

Saturday, lunch: Four Red Stripes, leftover Uno Pizza.

Saturday, dinner: A pre-Flight of the Conchords meal at Dahlak. I haven't been here since college. Ethiopian (actually Eritrean) food is great, unless your jeans are already snug and you order a third entree to get some vegetables and then when the second round of injera comes you feel bad not eating it even though you're finished. If I were a tad more shameless, I would have unbuttoned the top button of my Levi's.

Saturday, post concert: Having made it home and into bottoms with an elastic waistband, why not eat the rest of the leftover pizza?

Sunday overall was pretty tame. The one item of note is this: It's not the food at Wendy's that makes you fat. It's your inability to resist the 99 cent value menu that makes you fat. Since when do you need to order a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger to supplement your Spicy Chicken combo? Good lord.

I'm not eating this week (we'll see how long that lasts). Buen provecho.

I Am a Mexican Grandmother - The Tamale Marathon

In my formative years, Ma and Pa Gastro spent much of my youth trying to hide my Hispanicity (is that a word?). I'm lucky that it was only on the surface. Behind closed doors, we ate beans and green chile every night, sopping up whatever was left on the plate with freshly made tortillas. Now that it's cool to be Mexican, I've come out of hiding, and my Gastro-in-laws have welcomed me and my culture into their family with open arms. As a gesture of gratitude, I agreed to make tamales, something traditionally reserved for a busy kitchen full of old ladies. Lacking the old lady support, I enlisted the help of a Texan who married into the family, and we began the arduous yet fruitful task.

It all starts with a hefty order of pork and chicken. We used a Boston butt and a whole roaster (6 lbs each) from Haring Brothers, an old school country butcher just outside of Doylestown. The meat preparation is simple. Boil until tender (each took about 2-1/2 hours), cool, debone, and shred (and don't forget to reserve the broth). Mix in some secret spices and corn oil, and you have your tamale meat.

Next, make the masa, a dough made using specially treated cornmeal (sold under the name Maseca in the "ethnic foods" aisle), corn oil, secret spices, and the reserved broth. I mixed this by hand (as a Mexican grandmother should), but next time I may opt for the stand mixer.

The end result will be spread into dehydrated corn husks soaked in water (these are also located in the "ethnic foods" aisle), topped with the meat, and rolled up like one of those herbal cigarettes that the long haired kids used to smoke in high school. This is where things begin to resemble a sweatshop, because you've already logged eight hours, and there's no chance you're going to stop with ingredients begging to meet their tamale destiny. So you roll on and stack up, and just when you think there's a light at the end of the tamale tunnel, you still have to steam them. Another two hours--fueled by Pacifico and Jim Beam--and a silent prayer that your Mexperiment doesn't turn out to be a disaster.

Then, as hour thirteen silently passes, you burn your hands removing the first tamale from its husk, cut into it, and rejoice at your accomplishment. A midnight snack so deliciously addictive that my late abuelita would be proud. One hundred tamales later, I survived, along with my Texan Gastro-in-law, the marathon. Buen provecho.

Special Request

Local Pizza Shop: Hello, Dominick's.
Fidel: Yeah, I haven't ordered it for a while, but a couple months back you guys made me a sandwich that was a cheesesteak with mozzarella sticks, french fries, and marinara sauce.
Local Pizza Shop: Um, I don't think we make that anymore.
Fidel: Well can you make it one more time?
Local Pizza Shop: Hold please. (2 minutes pass. An eternity in this moment) Okay, it's a cheesesteak with what? Mozzarella sticks?
Fidel: And french fries and marin, er, pizza sauce.
Local Pizza Shop: 25 minutes.
Fidel: Thanks.

Believe you me, it's worth the extra effort to get a Fat Knight without having to drive the hour and a half up to New Brunswick. Buen provecho.

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

Of the many options available to soak up the $3 Bud Light drafts at Drinker's Pub, their Buffalo Fries take the blue ribbon (probably because they were the only option sampled). The perfect storm of fried potatoes, Frank's Red Hot, shredded cheddar, and a blue cheese sauce fit for both sipping AND dipping was an excellent pre-Pub & Kitchen appetizer, but I couldn't tell you the reason why, aside from the fact that it gives me a nice segue into my review of the much buzzed about gastropub. What I can tell you is this: from the bar snacks to the mains, two out of three in each category ain't bad.

Bar Snacks:
Winner: Duck liver on toast. As smooth as meat butter gets. A schmear so perfectly schmeared that you didn't lose any with the inevitable toast crumble after the first enthusiastic bite.
Honorable Mention: White anchovies. Cured to perfection, with a wonderful vinegar finish that was an excellent complement to the Riverhorse beer special.
Loser: Potato pancake topped with smoked salmon and creme fraiche. I know it's passover and all, but much like the angel of death (great Slayer song), I would have been just fine passing over this one.

Appetizers:
Winner (tie): House made French style gnocchi. Everything about this dish (even the hint of mint) made me want to jump in a vat of it and eat my way out. The preparation was brilliant. The little pasta peeps were pan seared and tossed with olive oil and queso fresco, and every bite was a bittersweet reminder that eventually the bowl would be empty.
Winner (tie): Scallops in a rich sauce that made me wish I was at home so I could lick the plate clean (no joke). It's hard to fuck up a scallop, but I think it's even harder to elevate it past being just a scallop. The latter applies here.
Loser: Mussels. Shame on me for thinking, for whatever reason, that the advertised beer and sausage broth did not contain whole links of sausage.

Mains:
Winner: Steak with hotel butter, roasted potatoes, and arugula. I normally don't like to order steak outside of a steakhouse, but this turned out to be a great call. Expertly seasoned and cooked, the melt-in-your-mouth texture was only made richer by topping it with hotel butter.
Honorable Mention: Oysters on the half shell. Rhode Island sent a great batch of oysters over to Pub & Kitchen. As mild as the calm just before Saturday's storm.
Loser: Fluke with roasted asparagus and risotto. The mint from the gnocchi showed up again in the risotto, but it didn't work this time. The fluke needed salt, and the asparagus was a sad few limp spears.

An excellent meal from start to finish. The service was of the "your-water-glass-will-never-be-empty" caliber. The soundtrack was current, loud enough to sing along to (if you're cool enough to know the songs), but not too loud so as to drown out the conversation. Mrs. Gastro would definitely approve, and we plan to eat here in the very near future. Buen Provecho.


Pub & Kitchen, if you don't already know (meaning that you should) is located at 1946 Lombard St. in Philadelphia. Budgetwise, I'd wait until you have an out-of-town guest or other similar occasion where you'd like to show off. If you're still into that whole debt thing, they take major credit cards, but not reservations.

Cocktail Guide

The placemats* at Oscar's Tavern in Philadelphia provide this handy little cocktail guide in case you're in the mood for a Planter's Punch, Gin Rickey, or any other assorted cocktail your father used to drink before he switched to Popov straight from the plastic handle.

*My apologies for the crappy B&W scan. It's the best I can do at my office.

Why Did I Eat This?

I wholeheartedly regret having an egg roll for lunch for the second day in a row. This one was a greasy mess of overcooked cabbage stuffed into a chewy shell (that's a bad thing). Buen provecho.

Cheesesteak Tally

Pat's: 5
Geno's: 0
Delassandro's: 2
Steve's: 1
Street Meat: 4
Other: 8
Total: 20

Mrs. Gastro and I refilled our culture tank last night by taking in a documentary screening at Philly Cinefest* Being in West Philadelphia, and being that we were a block away from Abner's, the night really wouldn't have been complete without stopping in for my on campus classic from back in the day: cheesesteak with fried onions, American cheese, and mayo (yes, mayo). I don't do whiz here because it's not really whiz. It's a pretty standard steak of the chopped variety, albeit much greasier than others. What used to set this steak apart was the cook manning the flat top. Such a nice (and stoned) guy. I recall one evening when he was willing to deep fry a cheesesteak, saying, "hell, for an extra five bucks, I'll step on it" (too bad we chickened out like a bunch of drunk chickens). Not that I expected him to be there after all these years, but it was still sad to see that the Dave Chappelle look-alike has been replaced with a shorter, rounder, less bald, and more mustachioed steak slinger. At least the cheesesteak hasn't changed, nor have the waffle fries. Buen provecho.

*The documentary was called Heart of Stone and it's about an inner city school with some unconventional but effective ways of dealing with the students. Mrs. Gastro and I loved it. Check it out if you get chance. I think you can watch it on IFC.com on 4/16/09.

Photo Challenge!

Set Dinner Here, a great home cooking blog written a little further down the Atlantic coast, is running a photo challenge. Send in photos of your homemade goods and anxiously await the verdict. The winner gets their photo posted next Friday. If you're not a home cook, it's a great excuse to dust off the pots and pans, especially in these economic times. Buen provecho.

Why Did I Eat This?

In the future, digital cameras will have a setting called "pocket dust." Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I just can't bring myself to don the hip holster. In any event, I slept in again, breezed by the Fruit Salad cart (I imagine a fleet of these sitting in a parking lot at dusk. Anyone have photos of this?), and opted for bacon, egg, and cheese on a long roll from the cart on 17th and JFK. This is never a bad choice, but my plate-tectonically slow metabolism always makes me feel guilty, so it falls under WhyDIET? And here is your list of reasons why you should/should not follow suit:

1. Lots of bacon, although concentrated at one end of the sandwich and stuck together. One bite and most of it was gone.
2. By the time I got to it (a pre-breakfast phone call held me up), the cheese was nicely melted into the eggs. I like eggs in principle, but egg flavor's not really my favorite. Processed American cheese slice flavor is much better.
3. Sriracha. I like it just as much as D-Tron does.
4. Hoagie roll. Breakfast hoagies are the shit.

I think I ruined lunch, but it was definitely worth it. Buen provecho.

¡Me pasaron por la piedra!

Very loosely translated (or not at all because it's an entirely different term), this means highway robbery. In my native English language, I just say "bullshit." Five bucks for a printer friendly version of a tamale recipe? It's likely that I won't even use the computer version on principle. Buen provecho.

The Funniest Thing I Heard Yesterday

D-Tron sez:

"I want another steak w/Sriracha. Sriarcha goes well on anything. Sometimes I put it on itself and eat it."

Amen, D-Tron. Amen.

Cheesesteak Tally

Pat's: 5

Geno's: 0

Delassandro's: 2

Steve's: 1

Street Meat: 4

Other: 7

Total: 19

Even after four hours of open bar (with two of those hours dedicated solely to vodka and energy drink. Where do I think I am, studying abroad in the year 2000?), a later dinner at Bar Ferdinand that involved tapas, locating a missing Gastro-in-law (then forgetting he was located and attempting to locate him again), and vomiting in the bathroom (sorry, Barf Erdinand, er, Bar Ferdinand), and an even later show at Johnny Brenda's, it's never too late to hop a cab over to 9th and Passyunk. Buen provecho.