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There once was a thing called “Meatopia” (If I was a radio DJ I would be punctuating with air horn blasts the spaces between paragraphs, so imagine one sounding off now if you will.)
Don’t believe the hype. DON”T BELIEVE THE HYPE. I’m speaking for the little guy here. If you read a good thing about this farcical festival of food, you read an untruth.
Mista Bee buzzin with a review of the first annual “Meatopia” a so called food festival.
You’ve never seen a bee, a little flying bee, wait in a line of people to get some food before have ya? But wait I did in several lines, waiting for a meaty morsel patiently, waiting waiting, and then as each food vendor ran out of food, you read that right, (food vendors out of food?) I was told along with all the people in line waiting “sorry we’re out of food.”
As each of the 30 “Meatopia” food vendors ran out, so on it went each line getting longer, and before a taste of food the vendor would inform the line “sorry all out.”
For two and a half hours I waited and was not fed a scrap. The bullshit of it all was the food was pre-paid for, I’d paid 45$ for 6 tastes. I thought innocently “Meatopia…six tastes…hamburger…hotdog..ribs…pulled pork…lamb…maybe some meat i’d never tried like rabbit?Yumms! I’d bought a ticket online and I showed up hungry and with 3-4 hours left of this so called Meatopia. I expected to eat, heck I’d spent 45$, anybody living in Cleveland can feed their two kids for a week on that much cash. TRUE.
I’d say there was a hell and I was in it if I wasn’t a bumble bee.
Sad and Hungry, if it was Meatopia I’d witnessed the fall of it.
Final notes, I’d like to say damn Meatopia’s creators, kiss my bee hind now and in the next years to come jerks, and I’d also like to thank Meatopia for ruining my afternoon. lucky I don’t sting ya.
A couple of weeks ago while trying to enjoy myself in the Lower East Side a friend of mine and I went to get some post drink snacks at Mikey’s Burger, the latest offering from lower Manhattan’s leader of Vietnamication, Michael “Bao” Huynh, the guy behind Baoguette and Bia. A smallish, tiled greasy spoon, Mikey’s Burger just sells burgers, hotdogs, fries and shakes, mixing in elements of Southeast Asia with the classics of American fast food.
My friend Steve and I, after glancing over the menu, decided to go with the The Mikey, which is a burger topped with onions, corned beef, and pickled mustard seed. We perched ourselves on two stools by the fryer and watched as the cooks took out and shaped fresh hamburger patties and cooked them to order on the grill. I also took note that the precooked fries were kept oiled in a tray before they hit the fryer, which, while I dont know much about frying, struck me as a pretty interesting approach as I always assumed blanching was the way to go when making fries. Either way if and when I ever decide to make my own french fries, I might give that approach a try, but then again we didn’t get the fries so I have no idea if they were any good. Anyways, after about 5 minutes, we got our burgers, served in little paper tries. I proceeded to pour some Sriracha on the burger and dig in. The first thing I noticed was that the burger itself was juicy and thick, as they went with the more patted down ball of meat approach as opposed to the patty. But beyond that I didnt really taste the corned beef or the mustard seed. All in all it wasn’t a bad burger, and it really hit the spot at 3AM, however it’s a tad bit pricey ($5.50…I guess it could be worse), but when you’re drunk at 3AM, everything seems like a great idea.
So online I stumbled upon Dr. Carl Winter’s website Food Safety Music. This guy is great! Essentially he does food safety themed covers a-la Weird Al.
The Elvis of Ecoli
With songs like “Who Left The Food Out”, “Fifty Ways to Eat Your Oysters”, and my personal favorite ” I Will Survive”, where he basically breaks up with salmonella, this guy is a real class act.
Hey guys! Who wants to know what kind of food I’ve been eating? Well I don’t know, it’s the usual crap. BUT soon I WILL be eating the plentiful product of today’s pickling party with Peter van Hyning. Today we made dilly beans, pickled carrots, pickled garlic, and pickles. Justin Stewart was here too.
How today went, first I slept in and then Peter and Justin went to the store to buy the vegetables, garlic, and cans for pickling. In addition to finding the necessary pickling parts, they met a beautiful and enchanting pickling goddess. So lucky they were to bump into her before she left the city this very night to pickle and can at an enchanted and beautiful farm upstate. Justin got her number. She knows everything about pickling and canning and had some great recommendations for them about pickling today. I personally don’t know what those recommendations are, I’ve heard only of her beauty, not of her practical pickling knowledge.
Anyways, in the meantime I went to buy dill flowers at the farmers market and I filled out a survey on sexual assault in Williamsburg in exchange for a hotdog (a ho hum hotdog). I also got a shit ton of vinegar. Peter and I then went to a Polish deli to get some pickling spices. As far as i can tell the Polish pickling secret recipe is mustard seed, coriander, bay leaves, whole nutmegs, and crushed cinnamon sticks. We also tossed in the dill flowers, a clove of garlic, and some crushed red pepper. Right around this time Justin Stewart left. To contemplate the beauty of the picking goddess in the privacy of his own home, I assume. I had a lunch of canned fish and Peter ate cheese and crackers.
So when you pickle you have to boil everything except the food and spices. You boil the cans and the lids. You boil the water and the salt. You boil everything after it’s sealed. But never the vegetables or seasonings. It’s totally wild. It’s like opposite cooking. Another opposite thing we did was like Peter was talking out of his ass. How very BACKWARDS! fun! For dinner we made a tuna noodle casserole and Peter spent my money on Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk. Soon we’ll watch The Fireman’s Ball. I think it’s funny that the porno version would be The Fireman’s Balls.
(I’d also like to add that this was actually LAST week’s activity but I was missing my camera cord and we just can’t post a blog without a visual hm? What I’m getting at is that those pickles are f*cking delicious. So flavorful. Now for the pictures…)
So a little while ago there was a big buzz in the fast food world about KFC’s Double Down sandwich, which if you don’t know is a sandwich where fried chicken is the bun and bacon, cheese, and some mystery sauce is the filler. However it was then revealed that it was only being sold in select markets and those of us not in those markets were left with only our imaginations as to what this monstrosity could taste like and just how many of them we could eat before dying.
Well, what was also sort of causing a little buzz, granted only in the midtown lunch world, was Midtown Lunch’s Sandwich Challenge. Sort of a competition, the idea was for midtown lunch spots to come up with a sandwich under $10 that is, in Zach’s words, “Bold. New. Unhealthy. Wrong (but oh so right.)”. Some entries included a Mexican Cheesestreak from the El Rey del Sabor cart, a Fried Calamari Hero from Lazzara’s, and a Duck Pastrami Sandwich from Free Foods. Sadly enough, a lot of these places are a little too far out of my jurisdiction here in midtown east (the El Rey Del Sabor near me didnt have it), so I didnt get around to trying any of them…until now. And which one did I try? The winner of the Midtown Lunch August Sandwich Challenge, The Colonel’s Heart Attack from Cer Te.
Located a little bit of a walk from my work, Cer Te is a place Id been meaning to check out for a while due to the many entries about on Midtown Lunch. So with today finally being a slow day here in magic TV land, me and my usual lunch companions Phil and Delancey made the trek and got 3 Colonel’s Heart Attacks to go. Oh what’s that? What’s a Colonel’s Heart Attack? Well I’m glad you asked. It’s 2 pieces of boneless fried chicken breast, topped with mac & cheese, and collard greens sandwiched in a biscuit with a side of gravy. How can you go wrong? Well first off, upon ordering the guy told us they were out of collard greens, but they had sauteed spinach. Ok, fine, even though I would’ve rather have had the collard greens. And then we ended up waiting for honestly at least 15 minutes. Ok, whatever. Like I said, it’s a slow day at work. And it’s a $9.75 sandwich. Look as long as it fills me up and is good, fine. We get our sandwiches after slowly depleting their supply of free brownie samples and made the trip back to the office. Everything looked good, it was a good size, and I dug in. Shit was crumbly. Crumbs were flying all over the place so I switched to a fork and knife. Still crumbs, so I put it on a paper plate and went to town. It was good, but I noticed that it was also somehow a tad bland and dry. But no problem right? They gave us gravy on the side…no they didn’t. It turned out to be a little container of cole slaw and some bullshit pickle (I hate pickles). But whatever, I dumped some hot sauce on and finished that thing.
The moral of the story: conceptually it was a good idea, but, but what I think this is an issue with a lot of these Frankenstein Foods is that as you start to combine all these foods, shit just gets too convoluted and next thing you know you’re not really tasting one thing or the other. And in the case of the Colonel’s Heart Attack, not only did flavors blend into each other, they blended into each other in a bland way. I mean right now it feels like I just ate a biscuit and spinach sandwich that had some crusty stuff and yellow glop in it. Now before this ends with me sounding like I’m damning the Colonel’s Heart Attack, I still want to commend Cer Te for making a creative sandwich, and I will definitely consider going back to check out some of their other sandwich specials such as the Thanksgiving Dip (I’ve always wanted to open a year round Thanksgiving restaurant that just served Thanksgiving food), as well as what looked like quality desserts.
It’s also summer 2.0 outside, so you should just do yourself a favor and go for a walk regardless.
Enjoy!
