• Nothing says "thirst-quenching" like Italian soda! [MP: Boston]

• Top Chef scandal! Were frozen scallops planted by producers? [MP: Chicago]

• This secret firehouse bar story is amazing. [MP: Philadelphia]

• San Francisco needs more healthy delivery! [MP: San Francisco]

• A French oasis in a Cuban oasis in an American state. [MP: South Florida]

It's Friday and we're on the road again, heading to a graduation near Santa Barbara, CA. Jealous? It's cattle country down in the Santa Ynez Valley and we'll be going to Mattie's Tavern, one of the better steakhouses out there. The meal's going to be great, but it's hard for us to visit a steakhouse, even a high-end one, without thinking of the Patton Oswalt skit about Black Angus. Most likely, we won't be subjected to a gravy pipe at Mattie's, but hey, you never know. Happy Friday!

Brothers' Restaurant at Mattie's Tavern [Offical Site]

• High energy prices have stoked the theft of restaurant grease [NYT]
• High organic fertilizer prices are rocking Peru's guano industry [NYT]
• It is somehow possible to predict high food prices through 2017 [TheStar]
• S. Korea holding a "tasting" of N. Korean food to raise awareness [hani]
• Also, the S. Korean minister who OK'd US beef imports to be fired [hani]

Celebrity chefs Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller are on a mission. The pair are teaming up to find a chef to represent the United States at the Bocuse d'Or, a Lyonnais cooking contest widely regarded to be the world's most exclusive. Over the past few weeks, the following email has found its way into the inboxes of hundreds of American chefs:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Twenty one years ago, Chef Paul Bocuse created the Bocuse d’Or in Lyon, France. As the most rigorous international culinary competition, the Bocuse d’Or provides a platform for talented young chefs to represent their countries on the world stage. Together with Thomas Keller, Jerome Bocuse and many of America’s best chefs, we have established a not-for-profit organization to recruit and train a USA team to compete at the Bocuse d’Or. Our goal is to promote a team on par with the culinary status this country has earned. With the generosity of our sponsors, including All-Clad/Krups, Diageo, Moet & Chandon, American Express, SYSCO, Acqua Panna/San Pellegrino, Avero, Chefwear, Crystal Cruises, and OpenTable, we hope to create a legacy of support that will extend beyond this year’s competition for many years to come.

Today we are launching our website, www.bocusedorusa.org, and our appeal for candidates. In our efforts to attract competitors from across America we are sending applications to top restaurateurs, chefs, culinary educators and members of the media so that they will encourage the best young chefs in the country to apply.

I hope that you will help to spread the word about the competition. Applications are due by June 30. Potential candidates will need to begin working on their applications immediately.

The USA Committee for the Bocuse d’Or looks forward to seeing America win the international culinary recognition that it so rightly deserves. We are in search of the best USA team ever, and we know that our country’s talented young chefs are up to the challenge.

Best Regards,
Chef Daniel Boulud
Chairman of the Board
Bocuse d’Or USA

In case you're wondering, the application [PDF] is quite rigorous. Qualifying candidates will be called to compete in the USA Bocuse d'Or Competition in Walt Disney World this September before going on to the contest in Lyon, France in January.

Bocuse d'Or [Official Site]

Good news for sweet toothed vegans everywhere: Hydrox, the cookies our dairy-eschewing college friends used to call "Orthodox," are coming back after their January disappearance from store shelves.

The Wall Street Journal broke the news yesterday that the main competitor to Nabisco's Oreos will return to store shelves, to the delight, we're sure, of adolescent vegans everywhere. But the reinstatement seems to have more fuel behind it than just that specific counter-cultural subset. According to the Journal:

Bowing to more than 1,300 phone inquiries, an online petition with more than 1,000 signatures and Internet chat sites lamenting the demise of the snack, Kellogg Co. has decided to temporarily relaunch Hydrox, the left-for-dead cookie.

"These loyalists can be proud to know they've been heard," says Brad Davidson, head of Kellogg's snack division.

But will that affinity come from the same places? The constituency with which we're most familiar--the college vegans--may be out of luck. Apparently Kellog is changing the recipe somewhat from the original Hydrox:

[Davidson] doesn't guarantee the relaunched version will have the same recipe. One difference: no trans fat. "We maintained all the good we could and took out a little bad," he says, noting this year marks Hydrox's 100th anniversary.

Breaking News: Hydrox Cookies are coming back! [Slashfood]
Hydrox Redux: Cookie Duals Oreo, Again [Wall Street Journal]
The Hydrox Cookie Page [Official Site]

[Photo: via The Hydrox Cookie Page

• UN: global food prices may dip but will stay high [AFP]
• German dairy farmers dumping milk to boost prices [NYT]
• Spam sales soar as food prices rise while wages don't [AP]
• No more free peanuts on USAir as fuel prices rise [Trib]
• OMG Rachael Ray is some kind of donut fashion terrorist!!!1! [ABC]

We had a splendid 3-day weekend, one that included wistfully wasting away a Saturday morning in bed. Just when we were beginning to wonder why we don’t do this every weekend we started getting hungry and remembered why: San Francisco needs to work on its delivery options. Now, fellow writer Adam Martin has previously discussed delivery spots in SF a while back, but what we really wanted was something healthy. Or at least something in the guise of healthy. Pizza and Chinese food is not always the solution.

We did some research and didn’t come up with much, but we did discover an entire world of meal delivery services that we didn’t really know existed. Here’s the scoop:

Planet Organics seems to be the perfect solution for the food conscious person that wants to buy local, organic produce and grocery items, but doesn’t have the time to go to farmer’s markets and specialty grocers. They’ll deliver what you want to you home once a week and all you have to tell them is how much and what you like (or don’t like). Oh, and of course pay them. Now, if you’re busy to the point that you can’t cook for yourself and eating out every night feels like a bit much, it looks like Wally’s Food Company or Dining In might be good bets. Both prepare meals fresh and use natural, local and seasonal ingredients and both deliver fully cooked meals to you home (Moroccan Orange and Olive Salad? Sounds good to us).

We’re pleased to see so many services for over-worked food enthusiasts like us, but we’re also kinda sad that we seem to be in need of such services. When’s the last time we actually made a home-cooked meal after work? Couldn’t tell you. But maybe these businesses will help us take a step in the right direction.

Planet Organics [Official Site]
Wally’s Food Company [Official Site]
Dining In [Official Site]

[Photo: via Brad & Sabrina/flickr]

It's taken us a while to get to the latest copy of Gourmet, but we finally did last night, and we were struck by a brief note on Community Supported Fisheries. Community Supported Agriculture has been here for a while and has really taken off in the past few years, but only recently has the same idea been applied to fish in an effort to save the dying fishing industry, just like CSAs have helped save many a small farm.

There are still a few issues: there's a lot of confusion about what exactly are sustainable fishing practices, and while it's one thing to deal with a head of lettuce that's full of dirt, it's quite another for the average home cook to gut and scale a whole fish.

Still, it seems like the idea is catching on. The CSF mentioned in the Gourmet piece, Catch a Piece of Maine, offers the entire catch from one lobster trap for $2,995. That's at least 40 1.5-lb lobsters, although each trap usually catches 50. They've currently got 150 subscribers.

The Island Institute, also in Maine, offers 12-week shares of 8-12 lbs per week of haddock, cod, flounder, hake, dabs, grey sole, monkfish, pollock or redfish for $360. For those who can't quite see themselves going through that much fish, half shares are $180. North Carolina also boasts some CSFs, though they seem less organized; we get the sense you just call up a fisherman and negotiate how much to pay up front for a portion of the season's catch.

Small Fishermen Borrow a Page from Small Farmers [Christian Science Monitor]
Catch a Piece of Maine [Official Site]
The Island Institute [Official Site]
Community Supported Fisheries [Project Green Leaf]

Photo: herons/flickr

A couple of major brewery merger stories came across the RSS over the last couple days, leaving us wondering what the future will look like in the beer cooler at your corner store.

First, we read on Realbeer about a possible takeover of Anheuser Busch by Belgian brewing giant InBev. Then, a story went up on Epicurious about the future of Miller after that mega-brewer merged with Coors (hint: it might leave Milwaukee).

This has us wondering whether to be sad or glad. It's not like Budweiser, Miller and Coors exactly set the standard for good brewing. In a blind taste test could you tell them apart? Perhaps it makes sense to have the beer cooler eventually consist of one watery American brand and scores of micro-brews.

Except that it turns out these mega-corporations own a lot of the ubiquitous "boutique" brands that go for a few dollars more a six-pack than your standard domestic cans. What will a future of consolidation mean for Stella Artois (an InBev brand), for example? Will Budweiser become more Stella-like, or will Stella become more Budweiser-like, or will both stay the same?

We're not sure what to think about this trend yet, but as long as local brands like Anchor Steam and Brooklyn keep going strong and independent, we're not going to shed too many tears. Of course, it will probably be hard to get Milwaukeeans to share in that opinion.

InBev, A-B Rumors Hot [Realbeer]
Wisconsin: Plenty Of Brats But No Miller [Epicurious]

[Photo: via Vulcan Beverage]

• How can we turn high food prices into poverty relief? [APO]
• How can we turn high food prices into massive profits? [Philly]
• Canada's adoption of food origin labeling going alright [Gazette]
• U.S. defunding research on approaching deadly wheat fungus [AP]
• Child obesity levels off as...standards for obesity drop? [NYT]

In this annoying Slate piece that came out yesterday — on a day we were supposed to be remembering our fallen soldiers, no less — Christopher Hitchens assaults us with his huge pet peeve about waiters pouring wine for him, unbidden. What audacity must one's server have to top your glass off in a Machiavellian scheme to get you to buy more wine? And boy, does he go on about it, for nearly a thousand words, coming up with non-reason after non-reason concerning "snobbery and insecurity" and other imaginary foes.

There's an extent to which this piece is tongue-in-cheek, and Hitchens ultimately determines that you can simply ask your waiter or waitress not to pour your wine for you (this is, of course, if the bottle is even stored at your table; in really fancy places, or where they're pretending to be really fancy, your 750ml is chilling/staying warm with its half-drunk buddies in Pernod purgatory or something).

Interestingly enough (or not really because it's so obvious), Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle and Helena Echlin of Chow's "Table Manners" both came to the same conclusion late last year, when this issue was on everybody's mind for some reason. Perhaps holiday-induced-but-lifelong control issues surfacing in the most effete, bourgeois manner possible?

At any rate, all three disregard the obvious, if lopsided, advantage to this practice: the fast-drinking lush gets a disproportionately large share of the vino without having to betray any boorishness by constantly refilling his or her own glass! Woe to the light — or worse, slow — drinker in this scenario, but so goes evolution: the meek shall not inherit the wine. Consider this the...glass half full perspective.

Wine Drinkers of the World, Unite [Slate]
Stop pouring my wine! [Between Meals]
Stop Refilling My Wineglass! [CHOW]

[Photo: "I want two glasses half full" via spiky_simon/flickr]

So this year Dine About Town seemed to be scaling back as the traditionally month-long celebration was only two weeks this past January. But don’t worry, they weren’t scaling back, they were just spreading out. Dine About Town returns with part two beginning June 1 and running through June 15. You know the deal—a 3-course prix-fixe lunch for $21.95 or dinner for $31.95 at one of San Francisco’s most talked about and usually most expensive restaurants. We suspect this segment of the new two-part plan will see robust participation with June marking the start of SF tourist and festival season so we highly recommend making reservations now if you haven’t already. Open Table has a special section of their site entirely devoted to Dine About Town reservations.

And if you can’t get the table you want when you want, check out the Dine About Town launch party, Wednesday June 4 at the Union Square Macy’s. A $10 donation to Meals on Wheels gets you free samples from some of the featured Dine About Town restaurants, a cooking demo and a wine tasting (complete with souvenir wine glass).

Having browsed the list of participating restaurants we’re happy to see some new names this June and we’re having a hard time figuring out where to place our final bets for the fast approaching fine dining extravaganza. The good news: we don’t have to choose just one. The bad news: we don’t have to choose just one.

Dine About Town [Official Site]
Open Table [Official Site]

A disturbing article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer last week reported that nutrition information on many chain restaurant menus is just plain wrong.

Now we know you, discriminating MenuPages reader, don't make a habit of eating at Chili's, but just in case you do get by there, or Macaroni Grill, or Taco Bell, or the Cheesecake Factory, or Applebee's, or any of the other restaurants mentioned in the article, wouldn't you like to think that the nutrition info. you're getting is even close to right? Well, according to the Scripps News Service study, the actual calorie and fat counts can be several times the posted numbers.

While some items contained only as many calories and fat as the restaurants claimed, many dishes were found to have several times as many calories and fat as the companies stated

Unlike packaged food, restaurants are not required by the Food and Drug Administration to provide nutrition information, Wootan said. But if a restaurant decides to publish such information, it cannot be misleading.

The FDA did not return multiple calls for comment.

To test the food, Scripps ordered dishes from restaurants in Phoenix, Kansas City, Mo., Tampa, Fla., Detroit, West Palm Beach, Fla., Cleveland, Baltimore and Tulsa, Okla.

Items were packed in coolers and sent to Analytical Labs in Boise, Idaho. Technicians performed nutritional tests, determining the items' caloric and fat contents. They did so by breaking the food down in a simulated digestion process.

The lab separated fat and other molecules, then measured them. After determining the amount of fat, protein and carbohydrates in each meal, the lab was able to calculate the overall number of calories.

The Macaroni Grill sample showed the widest variance from the menu's claims. Its "Pollo Margo Skinny Chicken," which was supposed to have 500 calories, actually had 1,022, according to the testing. The chicken dinner was supposed to have 6 grams of fat. It had 49.

• After immigration crackdown, farmers decamp to Mexico for legal cheap labor [NYT]
• Are private food safety labs cheating for unscrupulous food importers? [Trib]
• McD about to be priced off the Champs-Elysees, Paris' priciest strip [IHT]
• Food banks around the country crunched by increased demand and prices [AP]
• Restaurateur thinks he's being moral by serving shark and not shark fin [Reuters]

• Vegan ice cream comes to the Hub, complete with Big Lebowski jokes. [MP: Boston]

• The Chicago farmers' market is full of appealing veggies. [MP: Chicago]

• An urban farm is rocking it in the City of Brotherly Love. [MP: Philadelphia]

• This video is intense. And awesome. [MP: San Francisco]

• Who doesn't love a gourmet salad, especially in diet-conscious South Beach? [MP: South Florida]

It’s Memorial Day Weekend and beyond the three days of rest most of us will get, this is also a time where many will honor those who have died in the name of our country. This Monday there will be a Memorial Day parade at the Presidio Main Parade Ground at 10:30 AM followed by a ceremony at the San Francisco National Cemetery at 11:00 AM.

If you will be in Presidio this coming Monday and are looking for some place to eat, you’ll have a few options. For something more formal there’s either Pres a Vi in the Letterman Center or the Presidio Social Club. Pres a Vi is global fusion and most dishes are under $15. The last time we were there was for brunch and we had shrimp benedict on brioche. Not too far away the Presidio Social Club serves upscale comfort food (think mac & cheese and flank steak). They have a retro 40’s décor and they’re known for their classic cocktails. If you’re looking for some place to grab a cup of fair trade coffee and a fresh, organic sandwich then the The Warming Hut over on Crissy Field is a good option. They were closed most of last year after a fire caused severe water damage, but they reopened this past December and all seems to be well.

While we’re happy for the holiday, we wish just the same that it wasn’t necessary. That said, we are grateful to those who have risked their lives so that we might keep ours.

Pres a Vi [Menupages]
Pres a Vi [Official Site]
Presidio Social Club [Menupages]
Presidio Social Club [Official Site]
The Warming Hut [Official Site]

Photo: Official logo of the Presidio Social Club

This weekend being the semi-official kickoff of summery activities (if not actual summer), it seemed appropriate to join the blogging hoards and do a barbecue post. But what's there to be said about barbecue that hasn't already been said, or that could be at all construed as original?

Nothing from us, that's for sure. We've been using the same recipes for 10 years. But the Cupcake Project has you covered, in the originality department, with its weird recipe for smoke-infused chocolate barbecue cupcakes (with cream cheese-corn frosting!). Yeah, we think it's kind of gross, too, but there's a chance it could be really good. And at least it will be a conversation piece. All the feedback in the actual blog post indicates these are tasty, so we think you've got even chances of receiving oohs versus eews.

All American BBQ Cupcakes: Smoky Chocolate Cupcakes with Sweet Corn Cream Cheese Frosting [Cupcake Project]
Here, Have A Smoky Cupcake [Slashfood]

[Photo: BBQ Cupcakes via Cupcake Project]

• Congress passes farm bill again, or at least part of it [WaPo]
• Evil Burmese junta finally allows in any and all foreign aid [CBC]
• Japanese rice aid row leaves U.S. looking like the bad guy [NYTimes]
• S Korea: probably no massive famine in N Korea this year [AP]
• McD keeps a stiff upper lip on (mediocre) premium coffee sales [Trib]

The annual Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Contest is one of the highlights of the national barbecue contest circuit (and yes, there is one.

But this year's Memphis in May was notable for its high percentage of foreign contestants. Over at the Washington Post, reporter Joe Yonan wrote an interesting piece on the trials & travails of international contestants at a barbecue contest.

The culture shock, after some initial clashes, wore off.

A Belgian team from French-speaking Walloonia got into trouble by using a staggering cord and a half of wood for their rapid-fire pig barbecue — a no-no in an American culture that values slow cooking:

The Belgian team, called Deominox, made no apologies for its unconventional approach. "We're going to explain the best we can and hope the judges like it," Stephane Deom, 39, the sole English speaker on the team, said Thursday as the event started. "We're not trying to change the way we do it." His cousin Christophe Deom, a butcher and caterer in Libramont, a town near Bastogne, is the team's head cook.

Because of the unique miniature-airplane-hangar look of its 1,500-pound cooker, Deominox drew far more than its share of crowds at its tent, right across from a daiquiri stand topped with a giant blow-up bottle of Southern Comfort. The most common questions from the stream of onlookers: Where'd you get that setup? What temperature are you cooking at? And when can I have a taste?

Meanwhile, American expat Craig Whitson led a Norweigan team in barbecuing rack of lamb and Norweigan salmon. There was even an Estonian team, the Firemen from Tuni serving pork accompanied by vodka. In the end, everyone was happy... as Estonian barbecuer Roland Ounapuu put it, "barbecue is sex, hogs and rock and roll."

Taking it Slow [Washington Post]
Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Contest [Official Site]

While cruising around on Bon Appetit this morning we found this rather unexciting little How-To on filling deviled eggs using a pastry bag. The instructions are the basic steps that anyone in possession of this kitchen tool would already know.

We're here to provide you with a far more useful technique. By way of establishing credibility, believe us when we say we've made more deviled eggs than maybe any other dish. We've made up recipes for Japanese ones, Mexican ones and curry ones, and are known in some circles as "that guy who always brings those great deviled eggs to parties."

Unless you're entertaining at home or are on a very weird diet, you won't be eating deviled eggs in your own house. Here's how to bring them to a party as intact as possible. This technique can also be used in the home if you don't want to worry about dealing with a pastry bag:

1) You make your eggs and the filling, and put the whites on a plate, egg carton or whatever else you're carrying them in.

2) Fill a Zip-Loc bag with the filling (a rubber spatula works well for this) and zip it shut. Put the whites, the bag of filling and a container of whatever garnish (like paprika) you intend to sprinkle on the done eggs, in your car or backpack and go to your party.

3) When you get to the party, ask the host if you can have five minutes in the kitchen to assemble your eggs. Take your bag and sort of smoosh the filling into one of the lower corners. Cut that corner off to create a maybe 1/4-inch (or however wide you want) opening. Then use the bag like a pastry bag to fill the whites. Garnish that mess and you're done. Go get your oohs and ahs.

How To Fill A Deviled Egg [Bon Appetit]

[Photo: Deviled eggs under wraps, but you don't have to live like this any more! via htlvhwy/flickr]

Dennis Richmond permanently signed off from KTVU Channel 2 this week after over 40 years of broadcasting. Being such an icon, it’s difficult to think of Bay Area news without thinking of Dennis Richmond. He will be missed.

Naturally, his retirement has us thinking about our own job departure (don’t worry, we’re still here for you at Menupages) and as we prepare to switch day jobs, we can’t help but look forward to better pay, better hours and of course, our farewell dinner.

We love farewell dinners. Good food, good company and no tab. Ours is all set and we’re excited to report that we’ll be heading to Khan Toke Thai House (24th and Geary) in a couple of weeks to say our goodbyes and to eat some of the best Thai food in the city. Seriously. It’s good. But really it’s the ambiance that makes it something special. Shoes come off at the entrance and you’re led to beautifully appointed back room with gorgeous woodcarvings and sunken tables--your feet, if short like us, dangle in an airy hollowed out space beneath the table while you eat. What’s more, if you can negotiate a table by the window you get to admire one of the most serene and lush garden patios in San Francisco while you eat. In terms of food, everything is good, but we recommend the Tom Kha Gai (coconut milk & lemongrass soup with chicken) and the any of the curry dishes. Just make sure you leave room for dessert.

What’s the only thing better than a farewell dinner? A welcome dinner. We’re getting one of those, too. Not sure where we’re going, but if we have anything to say about it, we’ll make sure it’s worth the fuss.

Khan Toke Thai House [Menupages]

Photo: Khan Toke By Henry

• House overrode Bush's farm bill veto by large margin, on its way to Senate when... [SFGate]
• ...it was discovered that 34 pages were missing from the version Bush signed! [AP]
• (and legal challenges and embarrassment and wrangling and recrimination ensue)
• Tide turning more strongly against ethanol subsidies [AFP]
• Meanwhile, restaurant grease biofuel industry roaring [Trib]
• Chick-fil-A launches entertaining campaign against McD's new Chicken Sandwich [NYT]

In honor of National Waiters and Waitresses Day, we present "Waiters Who are Nauseated by Food," a skit from the Dana Carvey Show featuring Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell way back in the mid-1990s. On this day in which we honor those who bring us our food in restaurants, let's all thank God that they don't act like this pair.

Waiters who are Nauseated by Food [YouTube]

Did you write this down on your calendars? It's National Waiters and Waitresses day today. Oh noes, you forgot? Well, according to Holiday Insights, you really didn't need to do much preparing:

You already recognize your waiters and waitresses every time you go to a restaurant. That recognition comes in the form of a tip. The tip should be commensurate with the quality of the service.

You can recognize your waiters and waitresses on National Waiters and Waitresses Day by giving them a little something extra. In addition to a generous tip, a card or simple verbal recognition is sufficient.

Wow, even the Waiter at WaiterRant doesn't ask for a card. His only input: "If you go out to eat today you have to tip 30%" that seems fair enough. As a former server, take it from us, unless you're a regular who servers really know and like, a card is going to wind up in the same place as your chicken bones and paper napkins. Drop a couple extra dollars on the table and try not to be a jerk while at the restaurant and we guarantee you it will brighten your server's day.

National Waiters And Waitresses Day [Holiday Insights]
It's National Waiters Day! [WaiterRant]

[Photo: vebate/flickr]

• Burma finally lets in WFP helicopters, too little too late [AP]
• Agr. Sec'y finally calling for ban on slaughtering downer cows [WaPo]
• S. Korea, once a major US beef importer, avoids our old cattle [Reuters]
• Substantial E. coli-contaminated beef product recall underway [WebMD]

Back in February of last year, the whole internet was abuzz with talk of the Miracle fruit, a West African berry whose active ingredient, Miraculin (yes, really) causes the user to interpret sour tastes as sweet. There were underground Miraculin parties where large groups of foodies would chew up a bunch of berries and for the next thirty minutes or so, lemons and grapefruit would be sweet as the morning sun, and chocolate stout beer would taste like Yoo-hoo.

Much later (like, two weeks ago), we were invited to a Miraculin party hosted by our friend Ben. He reasoned, why buy the berry when you can get the extract in powder form from England ? (You can't buy it in America because the FDA is fruity like that, but there's no prohibition against consuming it.) So it showed up in a vial, and after spreading it out on a piece of paper, one guest aptly likened it to "terracotta cocaine" (it's reddish in color). We had all the citrus fruit you'd want and more, plus pickled cucumbers and lemons, sour candy, Greek yogurt, and various beers, wines and liquors.

The correct application of Miraculin involves dumping the powder onto one's tongue, letting it sit around for two or three minutes (much saliva will leak during this period, so have paper towels handy), spitting or swallowing what doesn't get absorbed (Miraculin does not, itself, taste sweet), and then cutting up limes. It takes a few minutes for the Miraculin to reach full strength, but when it does, that lime will taste like no lime has ever tasted to you before: sweet.

Sure, a slight bit of tang remains, but some of that is from the bitter, which Miraculin does not block and can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from sour under normal circumstances. But under the influence of Miraculin, limes tastes like apples, if apples had the texture of oranges and sort of tasted like lime. The sensation of biting into something that has tasted like it's supposed to taste for your entire lifetime and suddenly tastes completely different is unsettling to say the least, but the quest to experience new gustatory sensations is an all-consuming one.

The biggest winners of the night were the chocolate stout beer (it really does taste like Yoo-hoo) and the Greek yogurt. We sampled the yogurt — FAGE's Total 5% if you're interested — at the beginning of the experience and at regular intervals until it faded completely, around ninety minutes in. The first time, it was like heavy whipping cream, and we had visions of starting an incredibly successful diet dairy company (except for that pesky FDA legalese stuff). The second time, we could swear it was sour cream, because sour cream is secretly pretty sweet (in the literal sense. In the colloquial sense, it's no secret). Finally, it tasted like yogurt again.

All of this gave us food for thought: if we ever did it again (or indeed, if you ever do it at all), what kind of restaurants would be good to try? Obviously, we'd have to get some of that new-fangled tangy frozen yogurt the likes of which is sold at Pinkberry and Red Mango or any local third-wave frozen yogurt shop (Oko Frozen Yogurt in Brooklyn, Berry Chill in Chicago, or Red Kiwi in Miami, for example). No toppings necessary!

On the savory side, we were thinking about fish and chips, what with the vinegar and all, but if you want a total mindjob, consider Ethiopian food. Ethiopian cuisine's main starch is the unavoidable and often distastefully sour spongy pancake called injera. Can you imagine turning doro tibs wrapped in a injera pouch into a dessert item? Whoa.

As far as chemically-induced sensory-altering experiences go, this one is cheap, temporary and proven to be harmless (not to mention legal). Throw a Miraculin party; you'll be the hero of your foodie circle, and you'll learn a thing or two about taste.

MiracleUK International Orders [Official Site]

Oko Frozen Yogurt [MenuPages]
Oko Frozen Yogurt [Official Site]
Berry Chill [MenuPages]
Berry Chill [Official Site]
Red Kiwi [MenuPages]

[Photo: at the Miracle Fruit Cafe in Tokyo, Japan (of course) via TheseEyesOfMine/flickr]

As everyone is more than aware Benders Bar & Grill, has risen from the ashes and returned to serve stiff drinks and beer to an eclectic Mission crowd. However, everyone may not be aware that they serve free barbeque on Sundays. Now, we were explicitly instructed by our drinking (and dinning) partner this past Sunday not to post anything about the free barbeque for fear the novelty and freeness might cause a hipster outbreak, but we take our reportage very seriously here at Menupages and we feel it is our duty to let San Franciscans know where they can get free food and drink. We are, after all, in the thick of a recession.

Luckily Benders isn’t the only bar in town that likes to feed its patrons. El Rio dishes up free BBQ and oysters on Friday and then just the free BBQ on Saturdays. And for you happy hour lovers, Sugar Lounge in Hayes Valley pulls out all the stops and gives out free food from Hahn's Hibachi every happy hour (4-8); Free teriyaki chicken, shrimp tempura and cream cheese wrap sandwiches make for a pretty satisfying meal when your sipping discounted cocktails.

There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but we certainly believe in free bar food. Now go spend those stimulus checks!

Benders Bar & Grill [Menupages]
Benders Bar & Grill [Official Site]
El Rio [Official Site]
Sugar Lounge [Official Site]
Hahn's Hibachi [MenuPages]
Hahn's Hibachi [Official Site]

[Photo: BBQ at El Rio via KUSF/flickr

Well, folks, today's the last day of the National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel trade show in Chicago. Seems like it was a lot more fun to attend than to read about, but Let's look at some highlights anyway:

• John McCain (remember him?) gave a speech that MenuPages Chicago Editor Adam Peltz found just a little politiciany and unspecific.

• "Bite-sized desserts" were rated the no. 1 hot item by a 2007 NRA survey, so vendors clamored over one another to offer what the Onion AV Club described as "food... designed for Homer Simpson:"

• Eli’s offered full slices of cheesecake dipped in a chocolate shell.

• Junior’s Cheesecake topped that in the innovation department with a cake/cheesecake hybrid: a center layer of cheesecake sandwiched between layers of regular, flour-based cakes, all of it encased in frosting.

• Too many varieties of bacon to name or eat without needing one of McCormick Place’s wall-mounted Automated External Difibrillators.

• ConAgra Foods—owners of everything from Pam spray to Manwich to Van Camp’s and more—offered Biscuit & Gravy Sticks, these fried rectangular bars filled with a biscuit-like substance and sausage gravy, which practically guaranteed a 500-point increase in cholesterol. Also available: a similar bar with baked potatoes and fixins inside. All of this was served under a banner for ConAgra sub-brand Gilroy Foods, which proclaimed “health & wellness.”

• ConAgra also offered the Macatini: macaroni and cheese topped with beef brisket soaked in Manwich sauce. Because why the hell not, America? Why the hell not?

• Chicagoist explored a bunch of gimmicks on display, including the BevWizard, which softens tannins in wine, Bacon Salt, which makes things taste like bacon (duh), and Alcohol Killer energy drinks, which claim to actually sober you up. [An aside: would you want to eat at a restaurant, other than as a novelty, that had any of these things available?]

• And, jumping on a bandwagon that we definitely support, the NRA announced a program called Conserve, which it says will encourage members to be more eco-friendly. At least one news item about the show indicated that environmentalism is a trend into which the industry is sinking big bucks, so that's good, we think.

[Photo: What's a restaurateurs' convention without an ice sculpture? National Restaurant Association]

• McCain agrees with Bush on subsidies and would veto farm bill... [Reuters]
• ...but McCain is against Bush's foolhardy ethanol push [AP]
• World Bank: 2-3 more years of high food prices, and then...? [Forbes]
• UK pushing for liberalized, free market CAP...will the EU oblige? [BBC]
• Subordinate female monkeys can't get enough junk food! [NYTimes]

We're getting a little tired of the whole "bacon makes it better" mantra. Not that it's not true, but come on, hasn't the novelty worn off? No, apparently.

Just as restaurants don't seem to be in any rush to remove things like maple bacon ice cream from their dessert menus, bloggers aren't really worried about over-using a meme that should have expired two years ago. We're thinking of Boing Boing's recent Web Zen bacon roundups, which featured this bacon bra, allegedly cooked en seins, from Loona.net:

There's also the Hover Bacon song on Rathergood, which we dare you to listen to just once. An aside: Rathergood's Spongemonkeys were the outfit responsible for that really weird Quizno's commercial a few years ago, based on their video "We Like The Moon."

Even MenuPages has helped further this weird cured product's greasy, salty mystique.

It makes sense that bacon's natural weirdness and natural deliciousness have combined to make it a fad on a national level, but who could have foreseen that the trend would last this long? The folks over at the bacon lobby must be happier than pigs in slop.

Web Zen: Leftover Bacon Zen [Boing Boing]
Al Can't Hang's Bacon Of The Month Competition [Loona.net]
Rathergood [Official Site]
Viewing Pleasure: Bacon Bloody Marys [Menupages Chicago]
National Pork Producers Council [Official Site]

It's Monday. After a very well-attended Bay To Breakers and several other high-energy weekend events (did anyone make it to the Beer and Oyster fest?) we don't think anyone has much room to process anything beyond a few cups of coffee and maybe a pastry. Possibly a sandwich. So we offer you Mindless Entertainment Monday.

This somewhat disturbing children's video was sent to us from Foodie Friend #1. While we think it's good to get kids thinking about eating good food at an early age, we're not so sure about food having a dance party in a large, green monster's stomach. Maybe we're wrong. For the record, right now there is no party in our tummy because we haven't had a chance to grab that coffee and pastry...

We love this heady time of year. The long coats are back in their mothballs, tasteful patches of skin begin showing up in people's outfits, though it's not yet gratuitous. But one of the deepest-resonating harbingers of spring is the crop of new vegetables. By this time, it's no longer a surprise to see ramps and asparagus in the produce store or farmers' market. But we're entering the height of the season and the time has come to start consuming these little miracles with gusto before they're gone for another year.

To that end, Accidental Hedonist presents this little photo essay with ideas for a spring feast that includes morels, ramps, asparagus and rhubarb. There's also some eye-candy in the spring vegetables slide-show on Bon Appetit. But what are our local restaurants doing with the bounty?

• One of our favorite spring treats is the artichoke, which New York Times Magazine contributor and San Francisco chef Daniel Patterson (Coi) treats with a green garlic dipping sauce.

• In Chicago, the seasonal greats are sprouting all over Charlie Trotter's menu, which includes Rhubarb Stewed with frozen white chocolate yogurt and coriander shortbread, and French White Asparagus with fava beans, sorrel and morel mushrooms.

• Boston favorite No. 9 Park is making the most of the season by including artichokes, asparagus, seasonal mushrooms or other veggies in seemingly everything on the menu. In particular, the Maine Crab Salad with asparagus terrine black trumpet mushrooms caught our eye, as did the Loin of Colorado Lamb, with polenta, artichoke, and Greek yogurt.

• In Florida, the accelerated semi-tropical growing season is grinding to a halt, and the vegetables the rest of the country associates with spring and summer are are either beginning to go or are fully out of season. But the menu at Michael's Genuine Food & Drink still features both, with quite a lot of local heirloom tomatoes as well as asparagus, artichokes, and an enticing grilled whole local pompano with grilled spring onions, grilled lemon, garlic oil, and provencal vinaigrette.

• Finally, Philadelphians in search of seasonal greens should head to Marigold Kitchen, which has briefly seasonal fiddlehead ferns on the menu right now, as well as a rhubarb shake for dessert. Another good option is Ugly American, where asparagus and mixed spring greens abound.

Morels, Ramps, Asparagus And Rhubarb — a spring feast [Accidental Hedonist]
Spring Vegetables Slideshow [Bon Appetit]
Garlic Defanged [New York Times Magazine]

• U.S. chucks 1/4 of the food it produces [NYT]
• Hateful McD CEO decries consumers' rights [Trib]
• 14T of 2x-stuffed Oreos spilled on I-80! [WQAD]
• Rest of the world hates our farm bill [TheStar]
• Filipino rice crop loss preventable [UPI]
• Korean food aid politics heating up [AP]

The impromptu dance party in the Castro last night has us all excited and hopeful. It was down right embarrassing that California passed a law in 2000 banning gay marriage and it was actually even more embarrassing that gay marriage rights had to be taken all the way to the California Supreme Court, but now that it’s done and California reigns victorious (at least for now), we feel a lot better about California’s political future.

So with the sun shining, people dancing in the streets and Bay To Breakers this Sunday, we’re thinking this weekend is going to be a great one. And a great weekend calls for brunch. And we think this weekend may call for Saturday and Sunday brunch (after we cross the B2B finish line on Sunday, of course).

Our brunch crew exchanged a slew of emails this morning about where we’re headed tomorrow and our Foddie Friend #1 came up with some new places for us to try. Verbatim, here are her recommendations:
Chouquets: “Mon dieu! French waiters at a French restaurant! I might marry their homemade croissants one day. Warning: Restaurant inspires dreadful Inspector Clouseau-type accents.”
Town’s End Restaurant and Bakery: “Out of the way, but the cutest mini-muffins ever. I always try to get people to go there since I love the bakery so much.”
Judy’s Homestyle Cafe: “Huge plates. They give you mimosas while you wait outside. I went here with a party of 12 that called ahead and we didn't wait long.”

Really, our only requirement is good company and free flowing mimosas so it sounds like we’ll be in good shape with any of these options. As for the rest of you, we expect to see all of San Francisco out in good form this weekend celebrating everything there is to celebrate, so find a brunch spot on Open Table, a costume for Bay To Breakers and some rainbow paraphernalia in honor of our Supreme Court victory and let’s get ready for some fun!

Chouquets [Menupages]
Chouquets [Official Site]
Town’s End Restaurant and Bakery [Menupages]
Town’s End Restaurant and Bakery [Official Site]
Judy’s Homestyle Cafe [Menupages]

Photo: By scarletdivison15

• Can truly authentic Southwestern food be found in the Northeast? [MP: Boston]

• One Chicago hotel restaurant has gone buck wild for pastrami-smoked salmon. [MP: Chicago]

• File under "strange interpretations of regional specialties": vegetarian scrapple. [MP: Philadelphia]

• Rest in peace, airline bags of peanuts. [MP: San Francisco]

• Let's all go to Buenos Aires! [MP: South Florida]

There's an amazing news item making the rounds on the interwebs about this Atlanta-area woman who can feed a family of five on as low as $10 a week by being the world champion of clipping coupons:

The family's grocery bill was $200 to $250 dollars a week. She began clipping coupons, trying to match them up with sales in the weekly fliers from grocery and drug stores. As Crissy's husband Joe puts it, "At first it kind of blew my mind because she'd bring things home and I'd be like is this legit or what? Are we going to get in trouble?"

It was legit alright.

And it took a bit of research and work. It still does.

Crissy says it takes her about an hour a week to get ready for her shopping trip, a trip that takes three to four hours and involves three to seven stores in the area...

Over the course of the article, Crissy buys $140 worth of household stuff at the CVS for less than $5 and about $50 worth of groceries at the Publix for about $15, using coupons combined with sales and promotions.

This kind of extreme money-saving discipline is very impressive, especially with the price of staples like rice skyrocketing lately. But is it worth it? This kind of lifestyle necessarily means being subjected to the whims of retailers and their stock. As much as we hate shelling out $6 for in-season asparagus, we would hate more to feel like we couldn't buy that asparagus this week because it wasn't on sale. But then, we don't have three kids.

Another troublesome thing about this shopping method is the amount of time and travel it requires. Crissy drives all over town. Did you catch that part where she spends about five hours a week at this and hits three to five stores per trip? We simply wouldn't have the patience or the gas money. Though, the idea seems to be you do this extreme money saving shopping so that you can have gas money.

Would it be way too San Francisco hippy of us to suggest that Crissy ditch the car and ride her bicycle to the farmers' market to buy cheap, in-season stuff, then do her extreme money saving at the CVS on the way home? Probably. Not everybody can live like that, we know.

But doing errands sans car is more feasible than it sounds, we learned when our car died in 2006. We never replaced that ancient Saab, and the combination of a large messenger bag and 16-speed Fuji has served us fine ever since. Why pick up another reliance (on coupons) to pay for the gasoline reliance you may not need anyway? Divorcing the car has left us free to spend more money on higher quality goods in other areas. Like $6 asparagus in May. No, that's still ridiculous.

Coupon queen spends $10/week on family groceries [Boing Boing]
If I Didn't See It With My Own Eyes... [11Alive]

[Photo: Jimforest/flickr]

• Shh don't tell anyone, but global food prices fell in April [BBC]
• Bush farm bill veto to fail; BigMac, Bama & Billary miss the vote [WaPo]
• Blind item: which country on the brink of civil war faces starvation? [NYTimes]
• Wal-Mart to bravely start serving food in its small-format UK stores [Reuters]
• Food purveyors too economically fragile to display at restaurant show [Trib]
• Dry dog food has been identified as a potential salmonella vector [FOX]

All right kids, we’ve got ourselves some sun! What a perfect setting for Bike To Work Day. If you didn’t bike to work today we suggest you do the next best thing, which would be to leave the office early (sick hours don’t roll over), grab your bike and head out to the China Basin and find a table at The Ramp.

The Ramp is the go-to spot for sunbathers and bikers in search of refreshment after touring the city. Situated like a small oasis on the decrepit southern waterfront, the outdoor patio sets the mood with umbrella-sheltered tables and an al fresco bar. They have a full menu that features the kind of things you’d like to eat when it’s hot out: chicken sandwiches, fish tacos, specialty salads and our favorite, stuffed avocado with bay shrimp. Lunch is served until 4 during the week and they serve dinner on Thursdays (today!) from 5 to 8.

Something worth noting for you regular Ramp-goers—word has it that they recently got a new chef and he’s been kicking things up a notch with “Dinner & Music” nights as well as introducing new menu items. What this will mean for this popular, yet somewhat secret watering hole remains to be seen. Nonetheless, we do know that when it’s over 80 degrees in San Francisco, nothing beats an icy margarita, an order of chips and salsa and a sunny patio when you want kick back, chillax and be glad that Thursday’s the new Friday.

The Ramp [Menupages]
The Ramp [Official Site]

Photo: The Ramp by JasonUnbound

Of the many tragicomic sidelines to the 2008 election, two bargain-basement bourbon makers are fighting a publicity stunt "war" over presidential candidates.

Connecticut's Jeremiah Weed Bourbon, a cult favorite of United States Air Force fighter pilots, recently accused fellow bargain whiskey Evan Williams of playing favorites in the 2008 election by sending complementary bottles of bourbon to noted shot lover Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Via the "Mr. Jeremiah Weed Speaks" blog, the distillery accused Evan Williams of trying to sway Kentucky voters:

"It has now come to my attention that my good friends at Evan Williams Bourbon have sent bottles of their product to Senators Clinton and Obama in the hope that they will be seen drinking Evan Williams when they come to Kentucky in the coming weeks for the Presidential primary election. [...] Evan Williams bourbon is clearly distraught over the fact that in Indiana, Senator Clinton chose to sip a whiskey that was not Evan Williams bourbon. This obviously caused Evan Williams to resort to political ploys to try to win the favor of Senators Obama and Clinton when they visit Kentucky, and in turn, unfairly influence the fine citizens there."

Naturally, Jeremiah Weed decided to launch a Bourbon Primary that happened to ignore Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Maker's Mark and... err... every other brand of bourbon besides Jeremiah Weed and Evan Williams.

So how did Evan Williams fire back? They decided to dismiss Jeremiah Weed's salvo as "erroneous and disingenuous":

"Craig Beam, 7th generation Master Distiller at Heaven Hill, America's largest independent family-owned spirits producer, recently sent bottles of Evan Williams, America's second-largest selling Kentucky Bourbon, to Democratic Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and presumptive GOP nominee John McCain. [...] Mr. Weed, or the blogger that assumes his identity, accuses us of trying to 'unfairly influence' Kentucky voters by 'trying to win the favor of Senators Obama and Clinton' [...] They fail to mention that we also sent a bottle of Evan Williams to Senator McCain, specifically to make the gesture evenhanded and bi-partisan. So clearly the only favor I'm trying to win is preventing the appearance of a bottle of Canadian Whisky on the Kentucky campaign trail. This also all sounds a bit suspect, considering that the folks with Jeremiah Weed also sent bottles to the candidates, according to their spokesman in an April 17th article in Advertising Age."

In case you're wondering, Craig Bea