Hot Wings Galore!!!

So this is my first review post to the blog.

The last 2-3 weeks I've been having fun letting Google Places choose my lunch location each day. I get in the car, fire up the phone, go to Google Places, type in restaurant, and see where Google is taking to me to eat. The only places I skip over are three dollar signs places because my oh so refined palate couldn't tell the difference in $$ food and $$$ food. My wallet however can. I also skip over places where a lack of clothing on the waitresses are supposed to make up for lack of taste in the food (sorry, Bikini's).

Why do you ask? Well the biggest reason is one man can eat at the same 5 restaurants for so long. I've tried well over 20-25 restaurants in the last 3-4 weeks. I've discovered a lot of hidden gems along the way. Taqueria Datapoint and Lorenzo's are among the best of those gems.

Well I've recently discovered hot wings. I don't mean to say that I'm now fanatical about hot wings. I only mean to say that I've eaten hot wings twice in the last 2 weeks. Once at Wing Zone then at Wing Stop today. I actually ordered the same flavor wings at both places specifically so I could compare.

Round 1: Garlic

Garlic Libido - Wing Zone

Garlic Parmesan - Wing Stop

Obviously just looking at the pictures you can tell the styles are slightly different. The Wing Stop wings are just drenched in parmesan and much drier. The Wing Zone wings coated in wet sauce. I love parmesan but there was a little too much on the Wing Stop wings. Its one of those things that when you put it in your mouth you resist sneezing a billowing column of smoke. WS wings were really not that hot at all. I felt like the WZ wings for me were just hot enough. I think the edge on this one goes to WZ.

Round 2: Cajun

Wing Stop - Cajun

Wing Zone - Ragin Cajun

Let me start by saying I am not one of those guys who have to prove my virility or machismo by bragging about eating the hottest peppers or sauces. Everyone knows I prove it by beating 13 year olds playing Call of Duty. That being said I don't like food that is sooooo spicy that it stops me from tasting the food. Unfortunately that was the case with the Wing Zone wings. When halfway through the dish you think "holy crap, let me hurry up and finish this so it stops hurting" then you know it may be too spicy. I don't like that. I' sorry. I know that is supposed to be like a hot wings "thing" but its not me. Sorry. I know they're called "hot" wings. I just don't think putting "food" in your mouth should result it in burning through you mouth, the table, and the floor as if it was made with Alien acid blood. The Wing Stop wings on the other hand were much drier and still palatable. Edge - Wing Stop. 

One of the biggest differences between the two places is that WZ was wetter with a much thinner breading. The WS wings were downright crunchy even when covered in sauce. WS though bordered on being too crunchy like a super hard fried chicken bit that scrapes down your gums when you least expect it. 

I will say that Wing Stop is more of a fast foodie place picking up the order at and drinks at the counter. The Wing Zone is more of a sit down place. Why do I mention that? Because those on a budget know one requires a tip to be added on to the cost of the meal. The other doesn't. Do the math. C'mon my fellow cheapskates you know you were curious. 

So far it is a tie. So whose the winner between these two wing restaurants? The winner is....

Wait for it.........

I have no freakin clue. C'mon, I told you guys these were the first two times I've had chicken wings.

I am not a wing purist. I just know what I like. Both were edible (except the Ragin Cajun) and both were Ok. Maybe I'll pick a winner when I know something more about wings. 

Until then, try them out and see what you like.

Ribeye Balsamic Reduction

Last night's entree du jour was ribeye steaks with a balsamic reduction. I've tried doing reductons before and they've turned out horrifically. Luckily, this time it was terrific instead of horrific. I've figured out that I'm my culinary Achilles heels is flavor combinations. I really just don't know what goes together or what flavors and food compliment each other. I feel like I am just randomly throwing shit together like a six year old playing mad scientist. 


I mean after all I am the knucklehead who once experimented with putting cinnamon in scrambled eggs.  A fact that my wife will never ever everrrrrrrrr let me forget. 


So I've learned to review a lot of recipes before I try something new. I don't always follow one specific recipe but try to get an idea of what is most commonly combined.In this case I opted to run with balsamic vinegar and port. I like balsamic vinegar and ...well....port was about the only other thing I could think of to add.  I resisted the urge to try soy sauce, worchestshire, or other sauces I had seen a reduction recipe.....once.......about a decade ago. 


It turned out to be a pretty good choice. The other thing I did right was to actually allow the liquid to "reduce". My typical MO is to throw the liquids in the pan and three minutes later whine about it not reducing fast enough. This time I was determined to put on my patience hat and wait it out. To make myself feel better about actually having to wait more than 2 minutes for magic to happen I watched a lot of videos on balsamic reductions to see just how sticky and non-runny the reduction should be. 


This time I may have still taken it off too early but at least this time I was significantly closer to a reduction than I have been in the past. I did have to cover my nose with my shirt while the reduction was boiling off. The fumes were way stronger than I had anticipated. I'm still not sure if it was the balsamic vinegar or the alcohol in the port that was making my nose burn. The reduction itself turned out quite well. The balsamic gave it kind of a smokiness and acidity. (At least I think it did. Acidity is one of the fancy words I have learned on Top Chef and just been looking for an excuse to use).  The neat thing though was the flavor the port brought. As it reduced the sweetness and the fruitiness of the reduction kept increasing. You can actually taste the "grapiness" of the port. 


Of course, I have so little background in this I really don't know what I'm talking about. It could have very well been the balsamic that made it sweet and fruity. But I think anyway it was more likely the port. If I truly wanted to stick with only what I knew beyond a reasonable doubt then this blog would sound like Frankenstein wrote it "Reduction Good. Cinnamon Eggs bad."


In tasting it at the end of the night it really was remarkably edible. Not inedible at all. LOL, OK, it was pretty good. When my wife came home from work she commented that the house absolutely stunk and I'm pretty sure it was the reduction that stunk up the place. 


I used about 1 cup of balsamic vinegar, 1 cup of port, and 2-3 tablespoons of butter. I mixed the balsamic vinegar and port in the measuring cup  before adding it to the cast iron skillet. I pre-empted that combination with the butter to help lift the ribeye fond. The nice side effect of doing the reduction in the same cast iron skillet you've cooked you steaks in is that it helps tremendously with cleaning up the skillet. All the stickie bits have already been scraped off. 


I was worried about reheating the reduction though. After I had made the reduction I poured it from the cast iron skillet into a small saucepan then into the fridge. For some reason (feel free to tell me why) when I reheated it on the stovetop it almost separated. It separated into a clear watery substance and a fond riddles clumpy dark liquid. After a few more minutes it seemed like it got its act together and was reintegrating. 


Overall I would say dinner was a win. Ribeyes from L&M beef were delish as always. The roasted asparagus and fresh made salsa were good too (Salsa was stunningly good according to the wife) and the reduction was more than adequate for the first semi-successful attempt at reductions. 

Top Chef Tour

So this past Saturday the Top Chef Tour was in San Antonio at a local grocery store. I was super excited at the possibility and likelihood to see a couple of my Top Chef favorites. Who would it be? Stephanie Izzard? Antonia Lofaso? Jennifer Carroll? Or the awesome Casey Thompson? 

Not quite. The Chefs on the San Antonio stop were Dale Talde and Ryan Scott. Both were on Season Four of Top Chef and of course Dale Talde came back from Top Chef All Stars

Chef Dale Talde

So this past Saturday the Top Chef Tour was in San Antonio at a local grocery store. I was super excited at the possibility and likelihood to see a couple of my Top Chef favorites. Who would it be? Stephanie Izzard? Antonia Lofaso? Jennifer Carroll? Or the awesome Casey Thompson? 

Not quite. The Chefs on the San Antonio stop were Dale Talde and Ryan Scott. Both were on Season Four of Top Chef and of course Dale Talde came back from Top Chef All StarsSorry, Dale, unfortunately this was the best picture  had of you. I swear folks he really didn't look this drunk. It was just a bad picture. I was just at a bad angle for all the other better pictures.

Chef Ryan Scott

Pretty boy Ryan Scott was the other chef. I would definitely have to say of the two chefs Ryan was the real crowd pleaser. He was very talkative outgoing funny. He played the audience to a tee. Dale on the other hand started out much more quiet (at least initially). 

Bravo TV was of course shilling all their Top Chef branded items. T-shirts, books, and even wine. My wife watched the Bravo website for weeks up to the event hoping tickets would go on sale but to no avail. It was a first come first serve event. We got there a little too late to get a seat inside the tent. But, remarkably, the event (at least at the 1200 show) was really not that crowded. 

Of course the heat may have played a factor in the low attendance. Being in the upper 90's might have played a factor. 

I despised Dale during his first season. He was overly competitive to the point of being obnoxious and a tantrum throwing baby. Even then I didn't doubt his prowess in the kitchen but still felt he was one of the lead villains of his season. His second go around though during the recent All-Star session was an entirely different experience. Dale was likable from the start. You knew watching that he was a great chef and then to also see him be a team player and talk openly about his anger management issues made him instantly likable and respectable. 

Even though he was sooooo much quieter than Ryan Scott during the start of the show he opened up later. He talked about the three years of therapy that took place between his first appearance on the show and his second. He (and Ryan Scott) both joked Dale spent $58k on therapy after his first appearance on the show. 

The whole show lasted maybe 20-30 minutes. It was a cook off that gave both chefs 15 minutes to cook a meal for the three local "judges". In this case the local judges were the food and wine columnist for the local newspaper, one of the top chefs for the grocery store hosting the event, and Chef Johnny Hernandez from La Gloria (at Pearl Brewery). 

I did enjoy seeing Chef Dale Talde (though I hardly remember Ryan Scott) and as he walked around between signings and shows it really seemed like he was everything the show painted him to be (energetic, competitive, funny, etc.). 

Don't get me wrong I did enjoy the show. I think though I could have enjoyed it more if HEB employees had not bogarted all the seats inside the tent (the guys who get to actually taste the food). I also think it was a remarkably brief show. 

It was fun. I was just glad I didn't go all the way to another city to see it. 

Review: Magnolia Pancake Haus

My Mom is in town this week so my wife and I decided to take her out to breakfast at Magnolia Pancake Haus (found here). 

The breakfast was fantastic as usual. There is definitely a reason that this is one my absolute favorite breakfast places in town. Their food is consistently excellent and I can so that over than two dozen times I've been there that I've never had a bad experience. Magnolia Pancake Haus is only open for breakfast and lunch. They are always packed on the weekends but a little slower on the weekdays. 


My Mom had the regular buttermilk pancakes and my wife had the apple cinnamon pancakes. My wife's dilemma is always whether to get eggs or pancakes. If she gets eggs she wishes she had gotten the pancakes. If she gets pancakes she wishes she got the eggs. 


I had The Magnolia Breakfast which included three eggs cooked anyway (I had them sunny side up), hash browns, and a choice of one of their "signature meats" (I had the applewood smoked bacon). My breakfast pictured below. I also got a short stack of buttermilk pancakes. 

The eggs were excellent. Perfectly cooked. In the past I would have never gotten sunny side up eggs. I have always been a tried and true scrambled eggs kind of guy. It's only after the last 2 years or so as I have been experimenting with learning more about cooking that I've come to appreciate a warm thick well cooked runny yolk. 


The hash browns at Magnolia always have an odd taste to them for me. It is not a weird enough taste to ruin the hash browns. Just enough to make me wonder what the taste is. 


The applewood smoked thick cut bacon is always one of my favorite things about eating here. It is always cooked the way I like my bacon. Slowly cooked so that the bacon is crunchy and crumbly. A far cry from the soggy noodle microwaved bacon you find at other restaurants these days. 

The buttermilk pancakes were also great. Light and fluffy. Just all around awesome. 


I highly recommend Magnolia Pancake Haus. Its quickly becoming a San Antonio institution. 

Mustard Bonanza

Yesterday's post was the bacon showdown between the Czech and English bacon with the results being a dead on tie. Today it is another showdown. This time its mustard. 

In this corner we have Caraway Seed mustard. Weighing in with ingredients including caraway seeds, beer, white wine, salt and "spices".

Caraway Mustard

In the other corner we have Bavarian Sweet mustard. Ingredients include mustard seeds, beer, dark cane sugar, salt, and "spices". 

Sweet Bavarian Mustard

Just like the bacon challenge both mustards were from Kocurek Family Charcuterie. As a matter of full disclosure I receive no compensation from Kocurek.

Though I would like to. 

Seriously, free sausage would rock my world. 

Just saying. 

The first time I tasted the mustard I just about choked. It had nothing to do with the mustard and everything about expectations. My loving wife who said she was getting some ice cream and wandered off into the kitchen came back with two spoons and told me to open my mouth. Being a good blindly obedient husband I opened my mouth anticipating a cool creamy treat. Instead she had put the mustard on a couple of spoons. My reaction was instant and repellent.

I know those with a refined palate can easily taste condiments by themselves. OK, well my palate is not that refined. I think the initial shock of the ice cream/mustard substitution stuck for a few minutes because even when my wife put a little on wheat thins the taste didn't agree with me. 

So I though about what fine dining dish would best allow me to analyze and break down the flavors and subtle undertones of the two mustards. Would it be prosciutto, roast beef, braised pork belly? No, I knew I would need something more substantial. I would need something that hands down would be the true measure of mustard. 

I knew there could only be one food I could use....

Hot dogs with Caraway Mustard (left) and Sweet Bavarian Mustard (right)

That's right. For me, regular ole' hot dogs are the true measure of any mustard. Again, I make no pretensions about having a super refined palate. In this case I just used Ball Park beef franks. Over the last couple of months I've tried to steer more away from processed foods but when we got the mustard I knew I needed regular processed hot dogs. 

I could have gotten frankfurters from Kocurek also ( I hear they are really good) but I was concerned having both new hot dogs and new mustard wouldn't let me sample the mustard. I wouldn't know how much of the taste came from the franks and how much from the mustard. 

Looking at the pictures above it looks like I caked on the mustard and you might have expected the mustard to completely overwhelm the hot dogs. Surprisingly not. The taste of both was remarkably restrained considered how much I put on. I liked both. You might also suspect (based on the pictures above) that both would be "seedy" to the point of ruining the texture of whatever was eaten with mustard. Also, surprisingly not. Neither was seedy to the point of being distracting though the Caraway mustard was slightly more seedy than the Bavarian. 

Both have that slightly bitter taste with the Bavarian having a stronger bitterness than the Caraway. Probably (or maybe) because the Bavarian has both beer and vinegar. In many cases the beer substitutes the vinegar instead of both being used. 

The Caraway taste in the Caraway mustard really comes out when eating it and sifting through the mustard with your tongue. That sounds kind of gross and what I really mean is rolling the seeds aside while swallowing then really tasting the Caraway. 

Both were good and I would recommended both but if I was on desert island with only one mustard (and hot dogs) I would probably go with the Sweet Bavarian. The great thing about the Bavarian was it was only slightly sweet and not the overwhelming sweetness you find in store bought brands. 

Overall I would give both mustards a big spoon up. 

Baconfest

This weekend at the Pearl Brewery Farmer's Market we picked up two different kinds of bacon from Kocurek Family Charcuterie. We got Czech bacon and English bacon and decided to have a BLT off between the two.

The picture below shows the Czech bacon on the left and English bacon on the right.

The Czech bacon was definitely more akin to traditional bacon than the English bacon. Even looking at the picture above you can see the difference in the marbling. The English bacon seemed more like slices of ham when a thin cut of fat along the outside. The Czech bacon though had the same traditional streaks of fast.

Smelling both bacons before pan frying them it was apparent these were definitely not Oscar Mayer over processed cuts. They both smelled truly smoked and cured. It was a distinct heavy smokiness that made my mouth water. I started cooking the Czech bacon first since I felt like I needed to cook it more like traditional bacon. I heated it up slowly so I could avoid the inevitable under cooked curls that pop up when you throw cold bacon into a hot pan.

Taste wise the Czech bacon didn't have the over powering saltiness of store bought bacon. Some might say that lack of saltiness is a minus. I would disagree and say the lack of saltiness is a plus. It lets you actually taste the bacon instead of eating a fatty piece of salt lick.

I wasn't sure how long to cook the English bacon. Since it was more like a slice of ham than traditional bacon I didn't cook it nearly as long. I just waited until it got some good brown spots and the whole piece started to curl again. The thin trim of fat around the English bacon disintegrated within a minute or two of putting it in the skillet.

The taste and texture of the English bacon was exactly what I expected based on how it looked. It tasted like a slice of ham minus the heavy salt. The texture though was more "meaty" than sliced ham from the grocery store.

We tried both hams on BLTS and as individual strips. Both were good but my personal preference was the English bacon. It may just be the fact that I've been conditioned to salty bacon but (as a sandwich topper) the Czech bacon didn't quite do it for me. I think some of that may have been that I just overcooked the Czech bacon.

As a side with eggs I would probably lean more towards the Czech bacon. Both bacons were great and it was really fun to try something other than Oscar Mayer processed pork.

Oh, A Blog.

Well, as I wrote in my first post I got kind of distracted and wandered off from the blog. I have some extra time this week since I'm on vacation so I thought I might touch base with everyone again. 


Since my last post my wife and I have started going to the Farmer's Market at the Pearl Brewery every Saturday. I'm really starting to enjoy the fresh vegetables and getting to actually know and be familiar with the farmers we're buying our food from. I'm not a hippy type at all. I don't insist on purely organic and completely pesticide free food. For me the best part of the Farmer's Market is a combination of the freshness and kind of fun aspect of trying to use the food that is currently in season. 

There is an odd mix of people at the Farmer's Market. They generally fall into one of a couple of categories. There are the hippy types. Most easily identified by their long hair, minimal make up (on the ladies), tie dye, and the baby wraps they carry their younguns in. A good 99% of them have t-shirts that somewhere somehow some way include the work "green" or "eco" on them. They aren't full blown Haight Ashbury hippies but they are as close as San Antonio conservatives get. 


Then there are the yuppie types. While the hippies use the minimalist baby wraps the yuppies go with the full blown over priced European baby strollers. I know they are overpriced because my wife who works retail constantly points them to and says "that one cost $700" or "oh my gawd, that piece of crap is $1200." They are also spotted because they roll up in their SUV's with a "Think Green" sticker on the back. 


I tease though. It really is a good mix of folks and I wouldn't want it any other way. It is actually that odd mixture of folks that makes the Farmer's Market a good time. 


I've made some discoveries since we started going to the Farmer's Market. 


One being that despite an unfortunate and tragic experience with Hickory Farms smoked sausage when I was 11 I am finally at the point that I can eat and enjoy sausage again. 

Kocurek Family Charcuterie, who makes a weekly appearance at Pearl Brewery, makes some absolutely fantastic sausage and pates. They offer a terrific variety of sausages, pates, mustards, terrines, and other items. We haven't bought anything from them so far that we haven't loved. I think the only exception is the pork belly boudin we got but I don't blame that on them. We hadn't ever had boudin before and I think it was just a little different than we expected. We've gotten everything from spicy Italian sausage, coq a vin sausage, czech bacon, andouille, and a crazy good Currywurst that they told us Germans eat as street food. 


I've also learned that (at least at Pearl Brewery) the Farmer's Market is equal parts market and an event. The market runs 0900-1300 every Saturday. At least every other Saturday there is some type of event.


There are cooking demos from local chefs most Saturdays at 0930. Chefs from some of San Antonio's best known restaurants show up to teach us a little something. 

Even more often there is live music from local musicians. Well, I assume they are local. They range from the adequate to the very good. Folk, zydeco, bluegrass, and country tend to dominate. There is often a little jazz thrown in as well. 

Overall the farmer's market at Pearl Brewery is a terrific time. A hodge podge of personalities, amazing fresh food, entertainment, and delicious samples.