Geno's Steaks, Philadelphia

For all of the people who are fans of Pat's King of Steaks, I'm deeply sorry, but your opinion is wrong. In my opinion and many other's opinions Geno's is the best. The two Philly Cheese-Steak stores (Pat's and Geno's) are located directly across the street from each other on Passyunk St. in South Philadelphia; and as they would, they have rivaled each other since their doors opened to the public. All of the customers to each have their own opinion on which is the best, but instead of not giving my taste, I decided I'll share which of the two is the best.

As I said before, Geno's is the best and there are many reasons for that. They have to be pretty good to have me coming from New York to get a steak, I did of course have other reasons to be in Philly at the time, though that was one of the three things that I did do in the day and a half in Philadelphia.

Hear are my reasons:

1- Geno's is much cleaner than Pat's. You see that it is much cleaner when you're over at Geno's store, everything was shiny and there were a lot of showy lights to draw a crowd there. When you're going over to Pat's steaks, it's not really filthy, though it's not spotless either, it's enough to draw you over the other store which is cleaner.

2- Geno's smells better- Geno's draws a crowed every day throughout the year that is bigger than Pat's and I think (besides all of the tourism adds) it's because of the smell of the steaks that are constantly made quick at the window and oh the Cheese Whiz. Yes, I'd pick Cheese Whiz over American Cheese any day!

Salt Lick BBQ, Driftwood TX

Another place where I would go to Texas just to get this food. In this case instead of doughnuts, we have pit BBQ which is so artfully made over one of the only indoor open pits in the country. I know that might seem like something that doesn't make a difference to the lay-person, but for someone who cares a great deal about BBQ like me, it's a BIG deal. All you can basically get are plates with certain BBQ meats (ribs, brisket, sausage, and turkey) and with that you have you're average Texas sides as well as you can order a side of chicken.

Above you'll see me in the picture eating a half pound plate of ribs and brisket with a slathering of house made BBQ sauce that they as well caramelize on while they are in the BBQ process. It was so unbelievably good. Just imagine perfectly tender and flavorful beef brisket and ribs that fall off the bone and melt in your mouth. I was in BBQ heaven and trying have as much as I could before getting completely stuffed. And then came dessert.

For dessert, there were four options to have: you can have pecan pie, peach cobbler, black berry cobbler, or a peach-black berry mix cobbler and you can all have it with ice cream on top of it. After we were finished with the meat portion of our dinner, both me and my parents were pretty full and my father called it for the night. My mother and I however decided to share one of these heaping portioned desserts. We chose the peach cobbler and my goodness it was so perfect beyond belief, I was so upset when we couldn't finish it. My dad of course had to have a taste since we were drooling over it ourselves.

Driftwood was a small, obscure town that was about 45 miles outside of Austin and we had to work very hard to find it. I ended up passing out all of a sudden because of the extensively long day at Clarinet Fest. Most certainly it was worth trekking all the way to find the place, I had some of the best, if not THE best BBQ I've ever had. I just might have to head back to Texas to go on an eating excursion, however, I might end up gaining way too many pounds to take back on the plane.

Round Rock Doughnuts, THE BEST!!!

This is to say that Round Rock Doughnuts is the face of doughnut heaven in Texas and on Earth. They were by far the best doughnuts that I was blessed to eat, better than any other special doughnut that I've tried, which means that I will have a hard time finding excellent doughnuts anywhere else. In this box that you see above is a collection of 3 Original Round Rocks, 2 Chocolate, and 1 Cherry Bismark. There are so many great compliments that I can give to this establishment that I might just go on and on!

For one thing, these doughnuts were so perfect that I had to make my way there twice and I remembered it so well, it was the only thing that I didn't have to use a road map for over the whole trip. When we got to the shop the first day, it was lunch time so there wasn't much of a line there and we got to chat it up with one of the people taking orders. Once we told her that we came all the way from New York, we experienced some true Texas hospitality, after ordering six doughnuts, she went into the back and she brought three more original doughnuts to have right away. In the picture below, you'll see me eating mine in front of the store.

Another thing about this doughnut shop is something quite surprising; you see that they have many of their doughnuts in front of you in a display case and you're expecting them to go into the case after you order and put your doughnuts into a box, but no! Once you order, the host/hostess takes the order into the back of the restaurant and once you go up to the counter to the left and pay, someone comes out with you're order in a box made fresh and personally hands it to you!

So, not even are these sweet, fluffy (the politically correct term), flavorful doughnuts the best I've ever tasted in my life, but they have excellent, friendly service. Clearly, I would fly all the way back to Austin just to go back to Round Rock Doughnuts!

Why Would Doughnuts Run Away From Me?

Oh wait, I know why! I'm a doughnut fanatic, that's why doughnuts are running away from me. I had two chances to get doughnuts today, one from Starbucks and a few from The Doughnut Plant established on the Lower East Side. Unfortunately for me, I've never been more disappointed when it comes to my favorite types of food being conveniently available to me ever. I don't really know how all of these opportunities for good doughnuts were taken away all in one day... I do know the story though, and I'll tell you.

Today, I had an appointment at Mannes with the director and it was going to be mid-morning, so I had a chance to get breakfast at Starbucks (a doughnut and iced tea, healthy right?) and then go to get a doughnut from The Doughnut Plant after the meeting. I started the morning heading to Starbucks only to find that they were all out of doughnuts AND apple fritters. I still got my drink and ate a ham and swiss sandwich for breakfast on the way heading into the city. I looked forward to getting my doughnuts after the meeting because those were going to be the real important doughnuts of the day.

Once the meeting was over, I headed down to Zabar's to get the doughnuts since they carry Doughnut Plant doughnuts, hoping that my disappointment from this morning would be remedied by the two or three doughnuts that I'd pick up. Nope. They ran out, or just didn't get them over to the store today, but most likely they ran out because they don't usually have a ton of them, but it was still early in the day and Monday. How do they run out of that many doughnuts under those conditions?

So, sad and without lunch, I ended up wandering around on Broadway a little bit going into the places I usually eat when I'm on my lunch break on Saturdays, though they were filled with incredibly long lines. However, the day didn't end badly, I went out to lunch with my mother in Garden City at this restaurant, Asian Moon which was surprisingly good and inexpensive for a great lunch which remedied the day.

Now I know I'm just going to have to wait until Wednesday to go to Round Rock for doughnuts.

My Makeshift Philly Cheese-Steak

This picture isn't what I'm mainly going to tell you about today, this is the real deal.

I haven't been down in Philadelphia for a while and I'm a big fan of the real Philly Cheese-Steak as well as some of the high-end, fancy food such as the food of the acclaimed Spanish Restaurant Amada. This was our last day at the beach house this weekend and planned to return after lunch. My mother and I were planning on going down to Philadelphia one of the days of the week that we return from Texas. While discussing this trip, I was starting to crave a Philly Cheese-Steak.

I was tired of waiting for a real Philly Steak and I felt that I needed to make one for myself for lunch in sort of a makeshift, fancy fashion. What would I do for a Philly Cheese-Steak? Make my own out of ingredients that I have lying around the house from the past days of the weekend. I also unfortunately had to use a microwave because I wanted my food fast from being hungry.

What I did was I took a baguette that we bought yesterday, cut off a long piece and cut it down the middle to make the sandwich on. Then, I took the left-over meat from a beef London Broil that we had the day before and placed it on one half of the sandwich. Then I started to do weird things with adding ingredients. On top of the beef, I placed slices of mozzarella that other family members were using for lunch and then I sprinkled on top of that grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese on top of that.

On the other side of the sandwich I dripped some extra-virgin olive oil and then set it in the microwave for a short time. In less than a minute I had a makeshift, fancier version of the Philly Cheese-Steak which I enjoyed after it cooled down. I'm showing here that when I want some particular food that is difficult to get, I'm willing to go out (or in) and do what I need to do to get that food for myself. I might make a version of it with ingredients similar to the original which I did today, or I may run across Penn Station for a box of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

Sort of Bad News and Bad News

Well, Clarinet Fest is not really coming to a start until the second day since all of the exhibitors have to set up on the first. That's upsetting, though it's not a complete problem because, now I can lounge around the amazing Barton Creek Resort and eat as much as I can at my own pace instead of scarfing it down on a packed schedule. I also will get a chance to get an extra day of going to Round Rock Doughnuts on the way down. I think I'm going to be able to make the best of my lack of a day of trade shows which I am upset about.

*I promised several times that I was going to post while I was in Texas both here and on The Clarinet Blog. Unfortunately from the standings of amenities that I have, I'm not sure I'll be able to post while I'm there without paying for some form of internet. I'm no longer promising, however I will try to post.

I will still cover what I said I would if I can't in Texas, that might also give me a chance to take my own pictures so it's a plus to the post. Again, I'll see.

The Art of London Broil

I've always considered the London Broil to be a large piece of steak the is sliced thin and (unfortunately) served cold to my massive Italian family. I've never had a problem with it since I am a massive fan of beef products, and now I've been helping my grandfather with the steak since we make it often because we have such a large group of people and they're easy to make. Now I'm figuring out the internal temperature the London Broil should be and that there are different kinds of London Broils such as turkey (yes, turkey) and pork. I'd assume that you can get something like ostrich as well, but I'm not messing with that. Now I'll talk a little about what I've learned this summer.

BEEF: The internal temperature for the perfect beef London Broil is 130 degrees. When you're making a beef London Broil on the grill, you really don't need to do much to it to give it flavor, you can just throw it on the grill until the internal temperature makes the cut-off and then take it off. You can salt it and pepper it if you like, but generally, the beef has enough flavor to stand on its own.

TURKEY: I just recently learned about the turkey London Broil as well as the pork. It's a big enough bird to make a large steak out of. However, since it's poultry, it needs to be treated completely different from the beef. The internal temperature should be 170 degrees and it's turkey so it needs flavor. What I have done is have it marinade in an orange-teryaki glaze for about four days before I grill it. While on the grill, you can brush it for the extra marinade over it for extra flavor.

PORK: Pork cannot be raw, that would taste awful and be bad for you. The internal temperature of that pork should be 160 degrees for it to be cooked perfectly. The problem with pork is that you can't under-cook it or over-cook it just a bit because it will get tough and dry. Treat the pork like Southern BBQ when you are going to grill it. Use a dry rub for the before it hits the heat and then slather it with your BBQ sauce on the grill but make sure the temperature is right or else it's inedible.

I hope you've enjoyed my wisdom on the "Art of London Broil" and maybe will apply it to you're grilling lifestyle. I'd go out of my way to get this food and cook it on my own even if no one else is interested. Like last week, I fought with my cousin for the last small piece of turkey and it almost ended up with us both having forks in our arms... You get my point; if you do it right eating it can become a "Things I do for Food" moment.

Where's Breakfast in Texas?

I'm back, and I'm doing some research to figure out where to eat breakfast before I head over to the university for Clarinet Fest. It turns out that all of the places to eat are outside of the city (ie: Salt Lick BBQ). Of course for those who are extremely into traditional Mexican, Austin has some great dining. However, I'm looking for breakfast that I usually get in most Southern venues; what I mean is a plate of very nice, heavy pancakes that are made in a unique, homey restaurant. I can't find any of those places in Austin.

All of the big places for breakfast in Austin City are mainly breakfast taco restaurants. Now believe me, I would love to complete the Juan in a Million Don Juan Challenge and post about it. However, I'm on vacation and I don't really feel like making myself sick, I'll eat a ton of different foods instead of stuffing myself full of breakfast tacos. I know that of the two mornings in Austin, I won't need to explore for breakfast because I don't have time, I thankfully have a wonderful resort to get formal breakfast at.

I would love to find a great breakfast in Austin no matter how good the resort's breakfast looks. Ultimately I'm going to keep looking but I'm going to end up eating the breakfast at the hotel because it's convenient and I have a feeling that I'm going to fall in love with it. After breakfast on my last day, I'm going to head to Round Rock Doughnuts and post as promised to add to all of my doughnut adventures.

Now I'm going to start to look for breakfast places in Dallas because I feel that I'm going to have more luck in that huge city as well as having the city of Fort Worth and the Stockyards. However, once again, I'm going to be staying in the Fairmont which is part of a hotel chain notorious for having excellent breakfast. I'm going to do my research and I'll see what I come across, but you never know, I might just end up in the hotel...

Planning is Important.

I don't know how I can stress this enough, though whenever you are going out or going on vacation, you need to know where you are going to eat and you have to plan in advance. Tomorrow, I'm taking a trip upstate which was pretty much planned spontaneously, but I needed to make sure I planned out where I was going to eat. All I really care about right now is breakfast since we're driving up in the morning. Doing plenty of research about good breakfast places in towns along the way, I've come to the conclusion that there are no places good to eat period.

Plan B: every road trip that I go on has a universal backup plan for breakfast. I generally make the effort when I don't have any plans, where I'm going to Hilton Head Island or Quebec. That one place can be seen on the highway on the east coast from North to South and it is called: CRACKER BARREL! Not an out of the ordinary place, though I never, ever see people from New York going there, it's all locals. That was my first part of the plan that I incorporated into my Google Maps directions.

Even though I have Cracker Barrel to go to, my road trip isn't complete until I can satisfy all of my traditions. I also made sure that there was a Cinnabon on the way so that I can enjoy sugar and fat all in the same ride (I usually do that on road trips though). I plugged one of the locations into my map directions and low and behold, both the Cinnabon and the Cracker Barrel are on the same route that we are taking and every mark is about 50 minutes apart which is good for digesting.

Now, because of my diligence in mapping out the road and finding my staple food stops, it will make tomorrow's road trip much better. Keep note, that a little bit of researching restaurants, any trip can be made much better. Now I need to figure out lunch.

Frizzled Onions

Here's one of those perfect "Things I Do for Food" moments, and yes it does have to do with frizzled onions. Thankfully, it's not something stupid like going through two frying sessions to make them, the first where I burn down the house and the next I make them successfully. When it comes to frying, I have the ever so helpful "FRYDADDY" which is completely electric so I don't have to worry about explosions or anything like that. So let me begin my story.

Here I am back at the East End beach house watching The Food Network because I just got here and I want to relax, and I normally don't like the cooking shows that they have during the day, I mostly watch the stuff that The Food Network has at night such as "Chopped" and "Iron Chef America." However under the unusual circumstances that there was nothing good on any of the other channels that I watch, I got stuck watching the end of one of Ina Garten's cooking shows. After that show ended, "Down Home with the Neely's" came on and as they usually do, they were making Southern food, which is some of my favorite, let me add.

They were going through some extraneous recipe to make these hamburgers (which is something that I would do), however, in the process of making their marinade and what not, they began to fry up some frizzled onions, which always catches my attention. Watching them do this, I'm thinking to myself, I haven't had frizzled onions since I gorged myself with that burger at the Brooklyn Diner outside of Carnegie Hall.

From there, I began to briefly research places for dinner in the area that would serve up frizzled onions with some sort of beef dish. Low and behold, I managed to find out that the Sound View Restaurant in Southold has a flat iron steak with frizzled onions. So, we took the half hour drive over to the restaurant just to get the onions and I tried to get my mother to get them as a side so I could pick off of her as well, but that had no luck.

I have to say that just going for the onions, I had a very good steak too, it was cooked perfectly and it was a good cut of beef. I also managed to have really good fried calamari (not the best, the best was at Jean-Georges, though that's another story worth telling) and a nice chocolate cake for dessert. So all and all, not wasted efforts for the one side dish (or topping depending on how you look at it), but a good meal in general.

Texas Plans

This is what you've all been waiting for. I know it's weird that I'm sharing this but I take pride in the fact that I work for a long time before a trip to devise eating plans. Some of these as well may be a bit peculiar (or normal if you relate it to my bad eating habits) but it's the "Lone Star State" that has me eating double my weight in fried food. It's not only big meals, it involves snacks too, and I've done a lot of work researching the best local places to eat.

HERE WE GO:

Day 1:

Not the fattest day at all, though I picked out a restaurant for the first night since this is the day that we are flying in and are going to be staying at the University most of the day for the convention. The restaurant I picked is called La Condesa, a Mexican Restaurant located in Austin. It may not seem like much but it has surprisingly great ratings for the low prices.

Day 2:

Another day at the University, however, even though I haven't picked any place to go for lunch, I've located a brilliant looking BBQ joint that we'll have to travel about 25 miles out of Austin to get it. That's how good it looked. It's called "The Salt Lick BBQ."

Day 3:

Up to Dallas, though on the way up we are going to take a stop at Round Rock Doughnuts to wait on a long line for some great looking doughnuts and maybe even the 14 inch "Texas Doughnut." I'm still working on finding a place for dinner, I know that Dallas is a town where beef is important and I'll check up for something having a great deal of beef. Maybe BBQ again...

Day 4:

My plan is to go and visit the Fort Worth Stock Yards for a day consisting of not sight-seeing, but DOUBLE STEAK. Now, I'm not having all of that all at once, though I plan on having lunch at this place called The Star Cafe and have a large plate of chicken fried steak and for dinner, I plan on going to Riscky's Steakhouse for traditional Texas steak prepared well!

These are my plans so far. I might give some updates depending on if there is anything notable to say.

Vacation Philosophy.

I was pondering this as I was looking on Zagat.com for restaurants in Dallas and Austin for my trip to Clarinet Fest and to visit my Uncle. There is only such a short time you have when visiting anywhere on vacation that you have to enjoy yourself. Sure, there is sightseeing and everything, but most importantly there's the food that you can only get in the place you are visiting. Depending on where it is, there can be a huge amount of specialty foods; or just certain cooking styles done right because the methods were originated in that place.

In addition to finding restaurants, I found a great deal of stops to eat at that look good (because as I said before, I have an eye for that) such as the Round Rock Doughnut Company (which I promise to blog about when I eat there). There are a lot of places in those areas in Texas where I plan on eating. I was also having this conversation with my Grandfather about my eating habits in Italy and that is where I finalize my philosophy.

Now what you've all been waiting for, here is my brilliant theory:

"When you're on vacation to someplace that is quite far from where you live, you know that you won't be back there for a while after you leave, so why watch calories? When you take a vacation, you need to have fun and eat as much as you can since you won't get what you're eating again for a long time, if not ever again. So EAT, EAT, EAT, as much as you can or like, but don't make yourself sick doing it and expand you're palate."

I think I should write a book, though this is the philosophy I've been following to get as much good, unfamiliar flavor as possible. I love food and I won't stop eating when I go down to Texas or anywhere else for that matter. I plan on eating as much as I can, particularly BBQ. Tomorrow, I'll post about my crazy eating plans for when I go down to Texas, and when I carry them out, I'll be sure to post about it.

As for now, enjoy your time off and eat as much as you can when you won't be able to get that food again, it's a good philosophy to follow.

Sorry.

I apologize for not posting for the past few days, my computer had a problem and I just received it back from the shop. However, it did give me a chance to follow the World Cup a bit more. Don't worry, nothing big happened in the past few days anyway.

I Still Manage to Eat Shrimp...

Unfortunately, because of the oil spill in the Gulf, people are losing their livelihoods and their is going to be a stop of the exporting of the best shrimp all around the country. However, just because of the loss of the Gulf Shrimp, it doesn't mean that I can't enjoy some shrimp (even though they're imported from God knows where). I've returned to the bay house where we have restaurants all around getting the freshest seafood from the LI Sound.

I took a stop at Braun's Seafood again for dinner. If you remember in my past post that mentioned Braun's, it was just a fish market, however, after being closed for a week for getting organized, the take out restaurant has been reopened for business where you can get a plethora of incredibly well prepared fish and shellfish. In addition, they also offer land food, meaning chicken fingers and really, really good burgers. Of course with the title of this post, one might be able to guess where I'm going with this, but it's not any ordinary shrimp I'm talking about.

I'm talking about Braun's signature coconut shrimp and they don't get anything already prepared, it's all done on their own. They have a last bit of Gulf Shrimp that they are using in their restaurant and selling in their shop and that is what they use to make it this time (I'm sure it will still be good with different shrimp, just not as good). After they make their own batter with coconut that they shave on their own and then they fry it for the perfect brown on the shrimp.

Including the shrimp all of the menu items are popular amongst the locals and some tourists who manage to find the place and my family has had to wait close to an hour for our fish. Being the patient people that they are, I always try my best to stand my ground and wait for the food to get out and that doesn't always work. Luckily for me, I got there at the perfect time and as we got to the counter, a massive line formed behind me. Consider me lucky to get some of my last tastes of gulf shrimp.