Snack Cart: Restaurant bubble, spicy food, and one of the oldest barbecue spots in Selma
Snack Cart is a weekly newsletter of my favorite food writing from around the country.
Welcome to Snack Cart! We’re loaded up with some of my favorite content from across the Internet. So hopefully you’ll find something to enjoy. Apologies on the lateness — I’ll try not to make a habit of it in 2017.
A Thrillist article by Kevin Alexander prophesying a coming restaurant bubble burst has been kicking around for most of the month. It’s worth a read for the detail it goes into about the economic forces chefs and restaurateurs struggle with as they try to stay open. It didn’t convince me that offering health care and minimum wage to the guy washing dishes is bad, but it puts some real numbers around these challenges. Overall, I think it’s a bit too dour and overly glorifies a very specific kind of restaurant. It really seems like divorcing health care from employers will solve a lot of problems in our society.
We’ve done it. We’ve created the absolute worst restaurant website in history.
Mainstream media outlets were abuzz last month over Trump Fish, a new restaurant opened by four Kurdish brothers in Duhok, Iraq (click through for the amazing sign). Food Republic found someone who actually lives in Duhok to review the place. The review covers the food (bad) and the Iraqi tendency to name restaurants weird things (How did I not know there is a Restaurant Batman). There is a non-zero chance the next President re-invades Iraq to stop this place from using his name without paying royalties.
Last week, I included a story about how Taco Bell is quietly becoming the healthiest fast food chain. This week, they announced a taco made out of fried chicken. Clever girl.
If you’re depressed about the state of the world, read this absolutely beautiful profile of Lannie’s Bar-B-Q in Selma, Alabama. Change and fighting for what you believe in can work; just make sure you eat first.
Americans are drinking less milk but eating more cheese. This article is a reminder that the food trend stuff we read about roil massive industries whose scale boggles the mind.
In a long piece for Cook’s Science, Molly Birnbaum goes into the relationship between sound and food. She talks about how great chefs cook using every sense, how the sound our food makes affects how we think it tastes, and the sounds we find appetizing.
Boston
Starting this week, you’ll be able to drink a beer while shopping at the Boston Public Market. I feel like the Market doesn’t get enough attention. Not only does it have great local produce, but it’s also sneakily one of the best new food halls in America.
Scott Kearnan at the Boston Herald uses new Cambridge restaurant Pagu as a jumping off point to talk about the rise of prepaying for meals via a ticketing system. He also details Tock, the Chicago startup powering this trend. I had a meal in December using this tool, and it was great. Paying early meant I took the the hit when my anticipation was highest. When the meal was over, I walked away without haggling over the bill or feeling any remorse. I might have felt differently if I had to cancel and as the article mentions, it will be hard to see if this can translate to a less expensive tier of restaurant.
Besides Pagu, Boston ALSO got a new restaurant recently named Pabu. MC Slim JB reviewed Pabu, in Downtown Crossing, for the Improper Bostonian and found some standouts on the extended Japanese menu. I, on the other had, had an absurd “Who’s on first” conversation earlier this week discussing these new places.
I often forget that WGBH has a small but great food vertical. Writing for them, Elisha Seigal travels to Dorchester for a tour of some of the Carribean restaurants scattered around the neighborhood. The Boston food community doesn’t do a great job of writing about, exploring, and honoring these places. I’ll personally try to be better about that.
Ted Weesner, who usually does good work, turns in a not great review this week of Moona in Inman Square. I should clarify that the review is positive. A few dishes miss but he likes the place. It sounds like Moona would a great weekday spot (A whole fish for two for around $30? Yes please). However, the review itself is meandering, with some truly bad turns of phrase (“sounds like a UN meeting gone wrong”). Also, it’s 2017, you don’t really need to explain Hasselback potatoes. It seems like Ted’s better served reviewing places where he can bring his considerable historical experience to bear.
Ellen Bhang reviews Pressed Cafe, a Nashua Restaurant that has opened its second location in white-hot Burlington, MA. Bowls, sandwiches, and juice are all served with Middle Eastern accents. I feel like a place serving Yemenite hot sauces and from-scratch soups deserves better than to be called “fast-casual” in the headline.
New York
Fong Inn Too, the oldest family-run tofu shop in New York City, is closing this week. The Vanishing New York blog walks through the shop and talks to the family behind it. There’s no villain here, just a family business with no family members left to run it. It’s extra heartbreaking to think that one of the shops specialities, a kind of rice cake, will literally no longer exist once the shop closes.
But for every immigrant endeavor that ends, a new one begins. Ligaya Mishan reviews the Very Fresh Noodles stand in Chelsea market. Run by two second-generation Americans, the shop is a great place for chewy Biang Biang noodles. Get a bowl. Get them spicy. The main downside is that it’s in Chelsea market.
Both Pete Wells at the New York Times and Adam Platt at New York Magazine review Flora Bar on the Upper East Side. Based on both their reviews, chef Ignacio Mattos has succeeded in opening his third restaurant. Platt’s review highlights the restaurant’s challenging space, while outlining dishes that all seem pretty much what you would expect from any UES restaurant. Wells goes a bit deeper on just how good most of those dishes are (extremely).
The Brooklyn Food and Wine festival has been postponed with no notice or discussion of when it might happen. As someone who has postponed events like this, it’s usually the first step to cancelling them. I have wondered for a while if we’re in a bubble of these pricey celebrity chef and food events. Is this a fluke or a canary in a coal mine?
Los Angeles
Locol-gate didn’t quite die down, as J. Gold popped up to have his say. He doesn’t say outright that his friend Pete Wells was wrong, but if you read between the lines it’s pretty clear that Gold thinks Wells was off base. Gold also admits to the difficulty of reviewing a place like Locol, noting that he hasn’t attempted to. Still, he calls it completely unique and says it’s one of the few places he always takes out-of-town friends. That might be the highest praise one can muster.
Gold also manages to file a list of six restaurants for spicy food fans. The list includes both classic (Hi, Jitlada!) and newcomers. Whether you like the punch of Nashville Hot Chicken or the slow numbness of Chengdu-style soup, there’s something for you. It also waves in descriptions of the different varieties of spiciness different cuisines bring to the table.
Clarissa Wei at LA Weekly writes up a history of Boba Tea (aka bubble tea) and how it became part of the Los Angeles Asian-American experience. If, like me, you don’t really like Boba and are confused how it was suddenly everywhere circa 2006, this will be helpful. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, I’ll spoil the best part: Boba began as a Taiwanese slang word for a woman with large breasts.
A recent study shows that about half the time you order at a Los Angeles sushi restaurant, you are going to be served the wrong fish. It seems likely the errors are happening higher up the supply chain, so don’t get too angry at the chef. Besides, if it’s in a giant roll covered in avocado, kewpie mayo, unagi sauce, and trout roe you probably won’t be able to tell.
Chicago
I have no idea if this new Mexican all-day cafe/restaurant/bar in Logan Square will be good, but kudos to this Chicago Magazine headline: “Meet Quiote Later This Month”.
Phil Vattel reviews The Heritage in Forest Park and finds a new restaurant that already seems comfortable in its own skin. The small and tightly focused menu features Mediterranean dishes, which he describes as more ambitious than their simple descriptions indicate. I haven’t read a more personally appealing review in a long time.
For Fooditor, write Lisa Shames spends New Years Eve behind-the-scenes at steakhouse Maple & Ash. It’s exhausting just reading about how hard staff work on days like that. Tip well.
Out of Context J Gold Quote of the Week
you will be presented with an orange habañero salsa, which is hot enough to make a whole classroom of third-graders cry.
