Otakon 2009

I'm in Baltimore this weekend attending Otakon, the huge anime/manga/video game conference that attracts tens of thousands of cosplayers, fans, and otaku to Charm City every year around this time. Those guys in the picture below are dressed up as characters from the popular video game Team Fortress 2.

Unfortunately, there's not much in the way of food to write about at Otakon, unless you count crappy reheated chicken tenders for $9.00 a serving, or a 10-ounce bottle of Japanese Ramune soda pop for three bucks. So let's step outside the Baltimore Convention Center - right across the street, actually - to The Nest on Pratt Street for lunch, where we can get an ice-cold beer and a delicious sandwich and watch the world walk by our shady outdoor table.

Check out this BLT. They call it a "Brother Pudge" for good reason. Crispy lettuce, delicious locally-grown tomatoes, and about half a pound of perfectly cooked crispy bacon.

Yeah. Otakon is fun, but half a pound of bacon in a BLT? That's reason enough to come to Baltimore.

Banquet Chicken Fried Chicken

Congratulations, ConAgra. You've managed to give one of your Banquet meals perhaps the stupidest names I've ever seen. "Chicken Fried Chicken." Nice going.

The Chicken Fried Chicken Meal consists of a boneless fried chicken patty with country-style gravy, mashed potatoes, and corn. It's a fairly standard lunch plate and should be easy for Banquet to get right. And yet, the far weirder Banquet Smothered Burrito was actually better in many ways.

The boneless chicken patty in this meal is a strange thing. It's nicely breaded, and flavorful in it's way, but it's got a strange texture. Very artificial; it reminded me of the really cheap chicken "cutlet" thingies they used to serve in the school cafeteria when I was a kid. It's not really recognizable as "chicken" when cut open. There's ground meat in there, and blobby-looking stuff, and the inside sort of fades into seasoned crumbs as you get closer to the surface. The patty sits in a pool of "country-style gravy" which isn't too bad, there just isn't enough of it (not enough to cover the patty, not enough to have some on your mashed potatoes, and especially not enough to keep the microwave from cooking it until it turns into some strange sort of gelatinous resin in the tray.)

The corn was fairly decent. Don't look for meltingly tender kernels or candycorn sweetness here: Banquet chooses a manly corn indeed, dense and chewy with deep corn flavor. It's actually pretty good, despite needing a sprinkle of salt. The mashed potatoes were also up to par though, like I mentioned earlier, it would have been nice to have enough gravy to dress them up a bit.

Overall, worth every penny of the $1.25 I paid (damning with faint praise, as they say.) Too bad that the weak point in this frozen meal is the main course.

McDonald's Angus Third Pounder

After extensive test marketing in California and New York, McDonald's has introduced their Angus Third Pounder burgers to the rest of the Northeast. I tried one today: the Bacon and Cheese variety. Here's a screencap of the official McDonald's Serving Suggestion burger on their website:

And here's an actual photo of the burger. As usual, it's a little less glamorous than the illustration - but unlike so many other fast food burgers I've reviewed - the real life burger does come close to the ideal picture, for a change.

McDonald's starts with what they advertise as a 100% Angus beef burger with a pre-cooked weight of one-third pound. The bacon-and-cheese version gets topped with thick slices of bacon, a slice of cheese, a few rings of red onions, and a generous layer of crinkle-cut pickles.

I liked the thick-cut bacon. There was a generous amount of it, too, more than one usually finds on fast-food burgers, and the combined flavors of burgers and bacon is always a winner, especially when paired with McDonald's cheese (which is a special mild cheddar made under contract for McD by Kraft.) I'm certain that they're crinkle-cutting the pickles to emphasize the difference between them and their standard pickles. This crinkle-cut ones taste almost like deli half-sours. And the red onion slices, sharper and more flavorful than standard yellow onions, were a good choice as well. The beef seems to be a slightly coarser grind and has a heartier mouthfeel than the familiar Quarter Pounder. It's a pretty decent burger - not decent enough to make McDonald's my first choice for a fast-food burger, but certainly better than almost anything else on their post-breakfast menu.

Unfortunately, there's more to the Angus Third Pounder than meets the eye.

Every other McDonald's burger sandwich starts with the same ingredient, listed in the McDonalds ingredients list as a "100% Beef Patty." The ingredients for said beef patty are "100% pure USDA inspected beef; no fillers, no extenders. Prepared with grill seasoning (salt, black pepper)." Beef, salt, pepper, that's it. But the Angus Patty is very different:

"100% Angus beef. Prepared with Grill Seasoning (salt, black pepper) and Angus Burger Seasoning: Salt, sugar, dextrose, onion powder, maltodextrin, natural butter flavor (dairy source), autolyzed yeast extract, spices, garlic powder, vegetable protein (hydrolyzed corn, soy and wheat), natural (animal, plant and botanical source) and artificial flavors, dried beef broth, sunflower oil, caramel color, partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oil, gum arabic, soy sauce solids (wheat, soybean, salt, maltodextrin, caramel color), palm oil, worcestershire sauce powder [distilled vinegar, molasses, corn syrup, salt, caramel color, garlic powder, sugar, spices, tamarind, natural flavor (fruit source)], beef fat, annatto and turmeric (color), calcium silicate and soybean oil (prevent caking)."

Wow. Damn. That's quite a shopping list. How come McDonald's has to put all that stuff into their Angus patties?

Well, part of the reason is because they're using the term "Angus Beef" to coattail on the well-known and very familiar Certified Angus Beef® advertising by the American Angus Association. "Angus" is not a cut of meat, it's a breed of cattle which can be raised by anyone interested in keeping a beefer. Only a small percentage of beef from Angus cattle is selected by the American Angus Association to carry the Certified Angus Beef® brand. The Association has been almost too successful in their advertising campaign - it seems to have raised consumer awareness of all beef from Angus cattle, whether or not that beef is the Certified brand. So McDonald's - and Burger King, and the rest - buy generic Angus-derived beef, make a big deal of labeling it as "100% pure Angus beef" and trust that most consumers aren't going to notice the difference in taste or wording. I suspect that the extra seasoning cocktail Mickey D's dumps into the mix is to create a flavor difference between the "Angus" and the standard patties, helping reinforce their "special" status in the minds of consumers.

McDonald's Links:

McDonald's Angus Third Pounder website.

McDonald's USA website.

McDonald's USA Ingredients Listing for Popular Menu Items. This is a PDF file, so you'll need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to check it out.

Learn About Certified Angus Beef®:

The Certified Angus Beef® website explains what makes the brand special.

The American Angus Association website. More technical and business-related, but loaded with great resources about Angus cattle and beef.

Salami Fighting Association

Remember when you were in school, how much fun it was when you got to watch a movie or a video instead of doing actual school work? I do. So today, allow me to present the following movie I found on YouTube. It's even food related. Sort of. Well, as food-related as a video of two bacon-skirted gladiators duking it out with sausage links can be. Enjoy.

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Pork Bits

One of the reasons Stop & Shop has become my favorite local supermarket is because they are "sausage-friendly." Unlike any other store in the area, they always have sausage casings available in the meat case. And I never have to go from store to store looking for pork fat trimmings because the meat department at Stop & Shop packages their trimmings and sets them out in the meat case for .79 a pound.

I get a lot of mileage out of a couple packages of those trimmings, too, because most of the time they have lots of meaty parts that I trim from the fat and use for various pork dishes. The first time I did it, I simply seasoned the pieces of meat and pan fried them with garlic and onions. It was delicious, and quite a hit with my daughter, who dubbed them "Pork Bits." Since then, I've found Bits to be very versatile: they're great strung on skewers and done on the grill, or simmered in pörkölt, or made into a great chili verde.

When I was a kid, my mom used to make pork chops by covering them with barbecue sauce, placing a slice of onion on each one, and baking them until done. It was one of my favorites - still is - and it's easy to do with Pork Bits for a quick-to-prepare main course. Now, I realize that your local store might not carry Bits. No problem, just get "boneless country-style spare ribs" and cut them into roughly one-inch cubes: instant Bits!

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Put the Bits in a shallow baking dish and pour in about half a cup of your favorite barbecue sauce for every pound of Bits you have. Stir them around to coat them well, and then arrange them until you have a single layer in the dish.

Cover the Bits with thin slices of sweet onions. Vidalias are great for this; so are sweet Spanish onions. You'll need at least one full onion for this, but you might end up needing more.

Put the Bits in the oven for about 45 minutes.





Delicious. The Bits will be nicely browned and glazed with your sauce, and the onions will be kind of a soft, sweet "al dente."

Oven-baked Bits are great served with leafy greens like spinach or beet greens, and they go good with potato salad, too.

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Clam Chowder

Every now and then I get a jones for New England clam chowder. Sometimes I order it at restaurants, but restaurant chowder is too often overthickened with gluey gums and wheat-starch pastes that lets the commercial commissary serve a "thick" chowder that is pretty damn thin when it comes to real ingredients like milk and potatoes and clams.

No, the best way is to make it yourself. It takes some time but the end result is so much better.

The recipe that follows is what I made this past weekend. We'd had a Fourth of July party and when all was said and done I had leftover corn on the cob and a bunch of baked potatoes. So instead of a straight clam chowder I made this kind of hybrid corn/clam/mushroom chowder that was outstanding.

Dave's Clam and Corn Chowder
Makes about 2 quarts

6 HUGE quahog clams
1 quart water
2 ears leftover corn on the cob
2 tablespoons bacon fat
1 large onion, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
3 or 4 Baby Bella mushrooms, finely diced
1 sprig of fresh thyme, or 1/4 tsp dried
1 bay leaf
2 leftover baked potatoes
3 to 4 cups milk
2 tbsp butter
1/3 cup flour
Salt, pepper, and paprika to taste

Steam the quahogs in the quart of water just until they're opened. Reserve the clam broth. Remove the clam meats from the shells and chop them coarsely. Set the meat aside separately from the broth.

Cut the kernels from the ears of corn and then scrape the cob. Set the cut and scraped corn aside and discard the cobs.

Melt the bacon fat in a large heavy stockpot. Add the onion, celery, and mushroom and cook gently over medium-low heat until the onions are tender and amber, but not browned. Add the reserved clam broth to the pot with the thyme and bay leaf and simmer for a few minutes to bring out the flavor of the herbs. Add the corn to the pot and continue to simmer over low heat. Meanwhile, pare off the skin from the baked potatoes and cut the spuds into more-or-less half-inch cubes. Add the potatoes to the pot and turn off the heat.

With the heat off, stir in the milk and the clams and set the chowder aside for a few minutes.

In a small sautee pan, melt the 2 tablespoons of butter, and over low heat, work the 1/3 cup butter into the flour until the mixture is well-combined. This roux will be dry and crumbly. Cook it over low heat for a few minutes, stirring it frequently, to cook out the "raw flour" taste. Put the chowder back over the fire and slowly bring it up just to the simmering point. Don't boil it or the milk will curdle and separate out. With the chowder barely simmering, sprinkle in most of the roux, stirring all the while. Continue to cook and stir for three or four minutes until the chowder thickens slightly. It should be thinner than a gravy but still have some body. Add more roux if necessary but you might not need to use it all. Add salt, pepper, and good Hungarian paprika, seasoning to taste.

Omit the corn and, perhaps, the mushrooms for a more standard clam chowder.

Mama Miro's Restaurant, Enfield CT

Mama Miro's, on Hazard Avenue (CT Rt 190) in Enfield is a recently-opened Italian restaurant and pizza joint. After hearing good things about the food and service from friends, my wife and I decided to give it a try last weekend. We weren't disappointed.

From the outside, the building looks barely large enough to hold a commercial kitchen - much less a full restaurant - but looks can be deceiving. Inside, Mama Miro's is cozy and inviting, with lots of warm wood tones, ten roomy and comfortable tables, and an open view of the pizza prep area and ovens. We were greeted as we walked in by owner and hostess Kathy Miro, who offered us a menu and chatted with us as we made our selections.

The menu has a decent variety. The appetizers are fairly standard (fried mozzarella with sauce, chicken tenders, cheese fries, garlic bread, calamari, etc.) but there are a lot to choose from, and the salad selection shows quite a bit of variety for such a small place. The pizza menu highlights 16 different specialty pizzas, or you can "build your own." There's also a wide variety of "Italian sandwiches," which in most of New England are normally called grinders. On Mama Miro's menu, though, they're called heros, probably a reflection of New York origins. The prices are reasonable, especially on the kid's menu (for 12 and under) - all kid's meals are $5.50 and include an 8-ounce soda.

We wanted to get sort of a general idea of what the food was like, so we ordered Mama's Sampler for an appetizer (chicken tenders, beer-battered onion rings, fried ravioli, fried mozzarella with sauces) and a World's Fair Pizza (fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, sweet sausage, mushrooms, peppers, meatballs, bacon, olives, and onions.) We always try to get an appetizer like fried mozz when we're trying a pizza place for the first time. Not very exciting, I know, but it's usually served with a dipper of the house marinara sauce, and the quality of the marinara is usually a good indicator of the overall qualtiy of the food.

After a few minutes, Karen came to our table and told us that they were out of chicken tenders on the Mama's Sampler - would we mind if they subbed Buffalo wings? We agreed immediately, and I was glad we did. We got five big, meaty wings in an excellent mildly hot sauce which I enjoyed for what it was: a well-balanced blend of vinegar and sweet with a spicy kick that my non-chilehead wife thought was pretty hot (hahaha.) The two fried cheese ravioli in the sampler were huge and tender and lightly breaded with seasoned crumbs. They quickly became a favorite of my daughter. The fried mozzarella was a generous slice of loaf mozzarella, equal to perhaps three mozzarella "sticks" as served by most other places. That made it harder to share, but it also allowed a more delicate crumb coating, since the bigger piece of cheese was less likely to get too melty in the fryer and burst out all over the plate. And the marinara sauce that was offered for dipping was very good - fresh-tasting and tangy and nicely spiced. The only thing that was less-than-optimal were the beer-battered onion rings, which we thought were a little too heavy with oil. Maybe the fry-o-lator wasn't hot enough?

Our pizza was great as well. We were pleased by the New York-style thin crust, which held up well under the toppings and didn't get too soft in the center. There was a generous amount of toppings as well. The sausage was flavorful and the meatballs very much like homemade.

We're definitely going back again. Good prices, good food, and friendly service.

Mama Miro's Pizzeria Restaurant
117 Hazard Avenue
Enfield CT 06082
860-265-3800
FAX: 860-265-3801

Lunch and dinner, delivery available.

Mama Miro's didn't have a website at the time of this review.

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Job Lot Watermelons

I'm used to finding all sorts of foodstuffs at the job lot stores I haunt, but today was the first time I've ever seen watermelon.

Black Jewell Microwave Popcorn

I'm not really big on microwave popcorn. For me, the best popcorn still comes out of a pan on the stovetop, shaken over the fire until the lid of the pot lifts off from the volume of the fluffy, steamy popped kernels.

Occasionally, however, a microwave popcorn comes out that is pretty decent. Black Jewell Premium Microwave Popcorn is one of them. The actual kernels in the bag are very small, with inky-black hulls; they pop up fairly fluffy and as starkly white as anything you've ever seen. They're not a perfect substitute for traditional popcorn - the kernels are still tougher than kettle-popped - but they're pretty good.

Link:

Black Jewell's website.

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Zevia "Carbonated Stevia Supplement"

When is a soft drink not a soft drink? When it's sweetened with stevia leaf. Stevia, despite a long and world-wide history of use as a non-sugar sweetener, is not approved for use as a sweetener in the US, but has been grudgingly approved by the FDA as a "supplement." So stevia-sweetened beverages like Zevia Natural Ginger Root Beer have to be sold as "carbonated stevia supplements."

If you think this is stupid, consider this: the FDA has approved steviol glycoside-based sweeteners Truvia and PureVia for use as an additive (i.e. okay for companies to use as an artificial sweetener) even though the plant itself isn't "safe." Maybe that's because Truvia is backed by Coca-Cola and PureVia by PepsiCo. No, that couldn't possibly be it.

Anyway. This post wasn't intended to be a rant against ridiculous government regulations, it's a review of Zevia Natural Ginger Root Beer, albeit a somewhat mixed review.

The flavor is very good. Somewhat herbal and not very gingery, it's immediately identifyable as a root beer. But it lacks the thickish body we've come to expect of a good root beer, the color is more of a dark amber than a true brown, and there is virtually no head when it's poured out. Zevia is best served cold, because the flavor seems to be fragile and easily diluted out by melting ice (personally, I don't consider that a defect because I rather prefer a more subtlely-flavored beverage.) Sweetness is just about right for a root beer - that is, sweeter than a cola but not quite as much as a fruit flavor (orange or grape, for example.) There is a hint of bitter aftertaste to the stevia leaf sweetening, but far less than saccharine or aspartame; to my palate it's comparable to Splenda or Ace-K.

I like it, and I'll buy it when I find it.

Link:

Zevia's website. Product information and some info about stevia as well.