What I Ate This Week

A bird's-eye view of Thanksgiving

But that’s not what I’m writing about today.  Today, we’re going to learn about wet burritos.  My friends and family from Michigan are probably already nodding their head in agreement, perhaps wondering what’s so special about the wet burrito?  Many of the rest of you (as if there were tons) might not be so properly educated.  I can understand why… www.wikipedia.org merely makes a passing reference: 

One common enhancement is the wet burrito (also called an enchilada-style burrito), which is a burrito smothered in a red chile sauce similar to an enchilada sauce, with shredded cheese added on top so that the cheese melts.”

A simple Google search, by contrast, reveled that “wet burrito” is more often used these days as a euphemism for an extremely filthy act.  So I don’t recommend googling it at work.  Take my word for the culinary definition!  It’s worth noting that this is NOT a Mexican dish– it’s as American as Taco Bell, Chipotle, Fajitas, and Pace salsa.  So set your expectations accordingly!

Anyway, wet burritos are extremely popular in West Michigan, an area not particularly known for culinary invention.  (It is an area also known for the “party store,” an establishment that is not quite as fun as it sounds, but similar to a convenience store.)  I don’t really know why wet burritos haven’t caught on in my lifetime in more places, but in my travels the only place it shows up with regularity is back home in West Michigan.

So this week, back in Michigan I had a hankerin’.  Up in the Flint area, I stopped for lunch at an establishment called Little Joe’s in Grand Blanc.  Now, Flint’s a touch east for being wet burrito country, but it called to me on the menu, so I ordered it.  Of course, keeping with tradition, I ordered it with ground beef (the original filling).

Quantity, yes! Quality?

As you can see, it’s really a pile of food, with the side dishes inside.  I salivated upon it’s arrival, but I’ll be honest when I say it wasn’t quite all that I had hoped for.  Now, it’s not atypically-sized, those are about the right dimensions.  You can see some red sauce, sure, and the cheese on top, sour cream on the side– all appropriate.  Heck, even the chips are acceptable.  But for starters, don’t put black olives on my wet burrito.  That’s inappropriate.

But what really keeps this burrito in the “bueno” range (rather than, say, “excelente”) is that the interior was far too dry and focused on the beef.  The “wet” in the burrito should come from both the inside and the outside.  But I still enjoyed it and goodness knows I left Little Joe’s full.  (By the way, this is no negative critique of the restaurant, which is quite good all the way around– get the stromboli!  www.littlejoesrestaurant.com).

"...famous Mexican cafe..."

But as I found myself wandering the streets of Grand Rapids on Black Friday, I needed a real fix.  So I went to the original source of the wet burrito (at least as far as my research in the area goes):  the Beltline Bar (no website, but easy enough to find online).  I’ll spare you the history lesson, but this place has been doing “Mexican” (read: Midwest Tex-Mex) for decades and has a devoted following– in fact, I bet I’m far from the only person from the area that knows their advertising jingle by heart!  It was packed on this Black Friday lunchtime, with people getting a little something for themselves at lunchtime.

So, I’ll jump straight to it.  The burrito was AMAZING, as it’s always been.

Now THAT is real Mid-Mex...

So what makes the Beltline’s so special?  It starts with the filling– a mix of ground beef, beans, a LITTLE rice, and a little bit of a gravy or cooking sauce– altogether it comes across as a unified whole with good-tasting parts.  Outside, it may look like Joe’s burrito, but the difference is the sauce (which they surprisingly don’t sell to take home!)– it’s zesty and adds meaningful flavor but doesn’t have the flat-base-with-chiles  quality that defines jarred enchilada sauce.  The ratio of sauce to cheese is also important– unlike my first burrito of the weekend I didn’t need to ask for extra sauce!  And yes, in addition to the sour cream, it’s got diced onions on top.  All told, perfection.

So that’s it.  I loved my chicken and stuffing, but I also enjoyed my wet burritos.  Another good week, I’ll say!  I need to plan ahead for my next Michigan trip, as I realized I’ve got lots of places on my list!

Side-Note:  Something I Made This Week

Thanksgiving came early this year.

So last night I had dinner at Boca, my absolute bar-none favorite restaurant in Cincinnati.  I’ll wax nostalgic about the place sometime, but suffice it to say I think Boca is the perfect combination of food, atmosphere, and service– the trifecta of dining out for me.  Go there!  http://www.boca-restaurant.com.

I’ll be honest, this was an all-star meal, starting with the incredible pancetta crispy pork belly all the way through my short rib entree (FALL-APART tender) and their amazing dessert sampler.  But the highlight for me (to my surprise) was dish number two between the pancetta and the short rib– it was a lasagna bolognese.  I almost didn’t even get it, intoxicated as I usually am by the diver sea scallop with caramelized brussel sprouts.  (That dish has reinvented sprouts for hundreds of diners in Cincinnati– if only the whole world could eat that dish!)  But something about the description of the lasagna brought me in.  And am I ever glad it did.  It was the best thing of the night.

Humble in stature, but with powerful harmony!

It came out after my fellow diners’ dishes (including that amazing scallop dish), and before its arrival I was having doubts.  Then, in a small ramekin comes this little powerhouse.  They loosened and plated it tableside and before I even dug in, I knew I had it right.  Always go with your instinct!

Several delicious layers of pasta with cheese and a bolognese sauce out of this world, topped with fresh chopped herbs and a little more cheese.  Amen, my friends!  This was a dish that got even some of my non-believing friends to nod and smile.

The verdict?  I’ve never eaten a dish so slowly in my life, wanting there to be just another morsel more.  It was paired with a lovely chianti classico by our incredible sommelier.  It was… perfect.  Steaming hot, with flavors that blended well.  It creates a competition for Cincinnati’s best bolognese sauce that I didn’t know was to be a battle– Nicola’s boar-meat bolognese has ALWAYS been my favorite.  But now… I’m not sure.  I might need to do a head-to-head progressive dinner soon.  Any takers?  GO EAT AT BOCA.  GET THIS DISH, just don’t forget the scallops. 

In case you’re wondering, here’s the pancetta and the lovely dessert from that night.

Pork belly divine

The Tremendous Twelve

Now THAT's catering!

VOLCANO!

So I’m in cooking classes at Midwest Culinary Institute, Cincinnati’s finest cooking school!  I’ve just started my final class I plan to take, Baking for Restaurants 2.  I’m sure I’ll talk more about it sometime soon.  It’s a great place and I’m learning a ton.  I’ll leave off this week with one parting shot of a delicious dessert I made.  It’s a bit like a chocolate molten cake, except that it’s almond cake and on the inside is molten chocolate and sauteed bananas.  I call this execution:  Chocolate Volcano.  Yum!  A look at the syllabus tells me that I’m about to really enjoy nine weeks of fun.  Until next week!

Oft discussed, infrequently visited

It’s been a good week!  Two dishes to talk about this week, a bumper crop!  And lest anyone think I live in Michigan, this time they’re both in my adopted hometown of Cincinnati.

Bi Bim Bab, Lunch-style!

First was a little lunchtime adventure across the river to Covington, Kentucky.  One of my best friends came with me to Riverside Korean Restaurant– one of those out-of-the-way places I’ve always meant to bisit.  After staring down the lunch menu, I went for dinner instead– how could I order anything but the bi bim bab?  It’s one of Korea’s most important dishes, so why not?

a feast for the mouth

As with most of the dinners there, the meal begins with a full set of ban chan– small, cold, tapas-style appetizers.  I was surprised by the real diversity of flavors, from the expectedly-good steak with peppers (lower-left) to the surprisingly sweet marinated potatoes (lower-right).  Of course, the kim chi (bottom row, left of the potatoes) was a delight– this kim chi was marinated cabbage and I could taste some garlic and chili.  I know it’s a polarizing dish, but this was prepared wonderfully.

Life is good when your food is sizzling...

And as for the bi bim bab, it was the right dish to order.  This feast of a bowl was brought to the table still sizzling, with undercooked beef and a raw egg on top.  In customary fashion, our server quickly mixed the food together, cooking both the beef and the egg in the process.  Mixed in was a sweet and spicy condiment (gochujang) which gave the dish a kick!  The meal is eaten with chopsticks, and the various rice, noodles, and strips of vegetables held up well.  Because the dish cooked so close to serving time, I could really sense the wide variety of flavors in the dish– I literally ate the whole thing, to my surprise!  The verdict?  Phenomenal.  The whole thing came together in a really charming, zippy way!

So why don’t we all take a moment, close our eyes, and think about wild game.  What comes to your mind?  I’ll admit, growing up a northern Midwesterner, I think of the woods behind my parents house, friends with bows and arrows or a shotgun, and the smell of fall leaves.  (For the record, I hate hunting.  It’s one of those oxymoronic issues I may never learn to deal with.  But there is something vaguely nostalgic about it given it’s role in my growing up.  After all, when every student at school gets an excused absence for the first day of hunting season… well, it’s a big deal.)

Anyway, when you think about wild game, chances are you think about fresh, lean meat prepared to really unleash the flavor of these unique meats.  But the thing about game is… it’s really all about the cook!

Camp Dining Hall... for grownups!

And so, game for game, I convinced a few friends to head to Camp Ticonderoga in Troy, Michigan (http://www.campticonderoga.com).  (No, I don’t live in Michigan, I just happen to have been there for parts of the last two weeks!)

Camp is one of my favorite places for game, and I’ve been going there for years.  I have noticed a disturbing tendency of the menu to be leaning less and less toward the game and more toward beef and chicken.

The meal overall was great (featuring a buffalo burger that was actually prepared to perfection– a rarity at restaurants these days), but this week’s dish is an appetizer.  I ordered the Wild Thang for the table, to try a touch of everything.  Here it is in all its splendor:

Wild, yes.. but also a bit domesticated.

The Wild Thang features:

• Buffalo BBQ balls (upper left)
• Rabbit ravioli (upper right)
• Duck tenders (center) with teriyaki sauce (right)
• Whitefish pate (lower left) with crackers, and
• Venison sausage (below the duck)

It really was an impressive platter of game all in one place, and I’ll admit it smelled great.

The Verdict?  Mixed Bag!

I started with the whitefish, because I’ll admit I tend to start with the thing I think I’ll like least– but to be honest, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.  It was definitely light-flavored and definitely whitefish.  The only downside is that it was just a touch heavy on the cream, making it taste almost to the point of fish salad.  But it was definitely this side of good taste.

Following this pleasant surprise were a few real downers.  I dove next into the buffalo balls, and this was a safe and reliable hit.  Buffalo has a nice flavor, although to be honest I mostly just got the barbeque sauce, in the ”sweet with a kick” vein.  The sauce was good, but it tasted like any bbq meatball you could get at any wedding receiption across Michigan.

So what about the duck?  It was here I was maybe most disappointed.  Both the duck and the rabbit were perfectly fine specimens– I knew because I extracted the meat to taste it for myself– but why were these tasty morsels covered, breaded, and deep-fried?  SO not necessary!  As a result, both the duck and the rabbit were nearly indistinguishable from Long John SIlver’s chicken (or fish!).  Too bad, too, because I could tell the meat inside was the real deal.

But thank God I saved the best for last.  The venison sausage was simply divine.  It was obviously (and appropriately) smoked, giving it a bit of a flavor most might associate with salami or summer sausage, but the meat was pure venison.  Balanced and somehow not too heavy, it needed no seasoning.

So my question isn’t just for the good folks at Camp (who have been courageous enough to go for the game– and do it well!– for years!), but for restaurants in general who are considering their audience:  why play it safe?  I can understand if you are American Chain #24, serving cheap cuts of meat swimming in oil and spicy sauces, but for those of you out there serving real food (which I know isn’t cheap!)… why not let your diners taste it?  I fear the reason is fear– you want to serve the alligator on the menu because you think folks will get excited and order it, but you think they won’t like it so you bread-and-deep-fry it to the point of being unrecognizable.  To this I’ll simply say “buyer beware!”  If you order buffalo, expect it not to taste like beef!

Anyway, I certainly recommend making a trip to Camp, and restuarants like it.  Look for something interesting, go safe and have it as an appetizer if you like.  But please… please… order something you might be able to taste.  You might get a taste for venison sausage!

Until next week…

It’s only appropriate that my first real review comes from the very dish that inspired the site– the Zingerman’s Roadhouse Doughnut Sundae.

I was with a good friend for a work event in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the event finished early enough to allow for dinner.  We share the same philosophy– meals are worth scheduling travel around!  (Never mind that the food in Ann Arbor isn’t generally as good as it should be for such a liberal, progressive town!)  We went to Zingerman’s Roadhouse, my favorite restaurant in Ann Arbor.  (http://www.zingermansroadhouse.com/)

Zingerman’s philosophy seems to be that good food is determined by ingredients and preparation, not by how “refined” the dish is.  They take foods like macaroni & cheese and fried chicken to another level.  Critics can’t seem to understand how a restaurant can charge the amount they do for this stuff, but I think you really can taste the difference.  Plus, the meal was on a work account.

The interesting thing about this meal is that we showed up not hungry, but just smelling the smoker outside provided a system override– it would be dinnertime after all!  After a feast of cheese, chili, and memphis barbeque pulled pork, I was fit to split.  To his credit, my companion asked for a dessert menu, knowing that he couldn’t eat a thing.  But then we saw it:

Ari’s Original Doughnut Sundae
A Roadhouse original: our housemade Dutch doughnut smothered in bourbon-caramel sauce, vanilla gelato, whipped cream, amazing Virginia peanuts and a cherry on top!

And here it is:

the sundae, moments before the gelato escaped its doughnut cell

It was exactly as delicious as you’d imagine.  I was so awed I had to take a picture with my phone, as I hadn’t thought to bring my camera!  (My photos are generally a lot better and more appetizing than this!)

The Verdict:  Incredible.  The doughnut was slightly vanilla-flavored, and the gelato was served just as its structure loosened enough to melt in the mouth.  Even the whipped cream tasted homemade.  If I had one complaint, it’s that it was awfully sweet.  (I know, it’s dessert.)  Thank god for those peanuts, as they balanced the flavor very nicely.  I expected to take 2 bites, and I ate nearly my whole half.  Go get it!

This next week keeps me in Cincinnati, so we’ll see what the week brings!

G