Food

402 posts

Restaurant Review: The Range

The Central Coast area of California runs roughly from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz giving sweeping ocean views, vast areas of open grasslands, rolling hills and little secreted away hideouts where you can find the best that California has to offer. The Range is just such a place. It does not have a website, is located in Santa Margarita which is between San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles, a town of less than 1,300 residents and Google Maps will misdirect you if you’re not careful.  But it’s the food that make people find it despite all of that. Continue reading →

Seven Best Hangover Foods

The pounding headache, the stomach full of bile. The sweats, the farts, the poops. All across the world, Saturday morning comes and the cry of “Never again!” shouts from bathroom stalls everywhere as we hug our toilets, retching out another successful night.

Well, most of us don’t drink until we puke every weekend, so what’s the next best thing after getting rid of all the alcohol you put in your stomach? Putting greasy food in there to counteract the hours-old fermented beer! Sometimes this works to your advantage and you feel like a million bucks, and other times, well – see the first paragraph. It was going to happen anyway, so might as well have some substance to the puke, right? Continue reading →

I Hosted an Eating Competition

Watch the first Kalbi Burger Challenge and listen to me read the rules.

On Sunday, July 24th, I was drafted to be the host of the first annual Kalbi Burger Challenge. Six competitors at my favorite Koreatown burger place were going to try to eat 4 Kalbi burgers in ten minutes for glory and the potential to be in a plaque on a wall. Since I was the Foursquare mayor of this fine establishment (seriously guys, I love food) I was asked to be the emcee and judge. Continue reading →

Eating Your Way Through the Lower East Side

The Lower East Side has always been food-centric with its pickles and bialys and kosher bakeries. But only in the past few years has it become foodie-centric.

The biggest changes to the neighborhood have occurred below Delancey Street, which used to be a ghost town but is rapidly becoming a destination. Below are a few places that I recommend your taste buds get better acquainted with: Continue reading →

Recipe Sunday: Tortellini with Arugula Pesto and Tomatoes

This is my second tortellini recipe for Crasstalk. You may say I have an obsession, and you would be correct. This recipe is adapted from the Weight Watchers cookbook, but I upped the amount of olive oil, and substituted some of the arugula with basil. The result is sublime, and just light enough for a summer meal. Make sure to accompany the dish with crusty bread. Continue reading →

The Cult of Westvleteren and the World’s Most Sought-After Beer

It’s not easy to buy a case of Westvleteren 12, the world’s most prized beer (and according to many experts, the world’s best-tasting). It costs only 28 Euros but it doesn’t matter how much money you have. You could have your own oil-rich principality in Middle East or a few million shares of Google stock and the brewers of Westvleteren wouldn’t ship any to you.

The brewers of Westvleteren are actually a group of Trappist monks from the St. Sixtus Abbey in Westvleteren, Belgium. And they don’t give a shit how bad you want their beer.

Continue reading →

Chicken and Olive Salad with Homemade Marinated Artichokes

In the early to mid-1990s there was a restaurant in Burlington named Carbur’s, and it was a place where people in the service industry hung out. Or at least where my co-workers and I would go after waiting on people all day – when we could afford to go there. If I was feeling somewhat solvent after the rent was paid, I would splurge on their chicken and artichoke salad. Continue reading →

Geoducks Coming Soon to Red Lobster?

I’d like to think that I have a very middle-of-the road palate. And by middle-of-the-road I mean not eating a lot of outrageous stuff like Sardinian maggot cheese or various forms of Cheetos (bar-b-que, ranch, honey mustard et al). Yes, I like my gourmand stuff mixed in with more pedestrian offerings. Think goat cheese and pears with pasta in a balsamic reduction, or an awesome bacon, egg and cheese from the deli on 5th Avenue and 16th Street in NYC… things like this, you know, foodie-lite if you will. But every now and then you come across something that just baffles the mind, and like a kid, once again you can’t get beyond what something looks like, even if it tastes amazing.

I offer you the Geoduck. Continue reading →