It's hard to know what to make of this Nation's Restaurant News graphic, which shows that Asian food, and therefore Asian restaurants, significantly outpaces all other restaurants in consumer satisfaction by six different metrics; even "accuracy of order" in a sector of the industry notorious for its employment of non-native English speakers! In case anyone thinks this is a statistical anomaly, NPR points out that "[t]here are about 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States — more than the number of McDonald's and Taco Bells combined." Add to this the smaller but burgeoning population of Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean restaurants, and you've got yourself a story. (By the way, we can only assume they just mean East Asian and not also South Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants. Because that would be ridiculous.)

So what accounts for the apparent superiority of Asian restaurants? It's hard to approach this question without making the types of sweeping generalizations that NPD did in constructing this poll. But if we had to paint with broad strokes, we'd say:

1) Immigrant work ethic: many Asian restaurants in the United States are owned and operated by recent immigrants. The common narrative about new immigrants to the United States is that they work really hard to attain their slice of the American pie (literally, in this case). Hard workers run better restaurants, provide better service, and perform better on surveys.

2) Heavy competition among similarly structured restaurants: your average Chinese take out spot does not resemble a top-end Japanese fusion restaurant, but within the categories, there's substantial repetition. We go through a lot of Chinese take out menus and they hew very closely to a model — thirty different preparations available with four different proteins. Egg rolls, spare rib, wonton soup? Name a Chinese restaurant that doesn't offer those. Southeast Asian restaurants behave in a similar fashion, although their canons have not been normalized to nearly the same extent as Chinese restaurants. Now, Asian cuisines are as complex and diverse as any on Earth, but only a limited selection of dishes have become successful in America, and those are the ones you see on menu after menu. The point of all this is that, if any given Chinese restaurant's menu is the same as the other, it creates a highly competitive system that rewards quick, competent service. Restaurants that do not meet a certain ever-increasing standard disappear within short order. Overall quality is high in such an environment, and the consumer recognizes that.

3) Lack of frame of reference: statistically, most people who participated in this survey did not eat home-cooked Asian meals growing up. If all you know from Asian food is what you get in restaurants, that will tend to bias you toward what Asian restaurants make. Not having to compete against Mother is certainly a leg up.

4) Asian food is especially delicious: this is not exactly an objective opinion, but let's (optimistically) call it an expert one. Boy do we love Asian food! Perhaps more of a confirmation of the survey's results than an explanation of them.

We're not all that surprised by the results, even if the magnitude of difference is striking. The good news is, now that a discrete subgroup of restaurants has been identified as successfully meeting consumer expectations, it should be easy enough for the rest of the pack to emulate it.

Chinese Restaurant Workers in U.S. Face Hurdles [NPR]

[Graphic: Nation's Restaurant News]

While listening to NPR and slowly getting ready for work this morning, we got to thinking: Could one judge presidential candidates by the amount they tip? Answer: Hell yes.

Turns out there is plenty of information online, not only about the tipping practices of our presidential candidates, but about celebrities in general, and even average Joes. More on that in a minute.

To answer the initial query, here's how the candidates stack up, gratuity-wise:
-According to TMZ, Barak Obama recently tipped $18 on a $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon in North Carolina.
-There's some debate over whether Hillary Clinton did or did not tip a waitress who may or may not have given her and her staff a free meal in a Sioux City diner.
-Virtually no serious information exists about John McCain's tipping habits, but Johnmccainisyourjalopy insists he tips 9%. Whatevs.

On the non-political side, a couple sites dish the dirt about celebrities and, like we mentioned, normal people. According to Stained Apron, Willie Nelson is a good tipper, but we could have told you that. Derober, which has a celebrity tipping database, reports that Kirsten Dunst stiffed a server after receiving a free meal: "I guess she multiplied 20% into zero and screwed me."

And finally, in case you ever get tempted to pull a similar stunt, there exists www.lousytippers.com, which keeps a database of bad tippers' names and cities. Be careful you don't end up on there.

Holy Schlitz - Obama's a Big Tipper! [TMZ]
Tempest in a Tip Jar [Washington Post]
Johnmccainisyourjalopy [Official Site]
Celebrity Tippers: The Saints and the Scum [Stained Apron]
Kirsten Dunst should go to tipping rehab too [Derober]
Lousy Tipper Database [Lousytippers]
Photo: Consumatron [Flickr]

The Smoking Rabbit is closed, according to a commenter over at consumable Joy. That sure didn't take long. Given how empty the place was when we visited, we're not surprised that they couldn't survive an economic downturn. Still, we'll miss those shoestring fries.

The same commenter also noted that it's been replaced by Bellini Italian Bistro. No details yet, but we should have them shortly.

Poof Goes the Restaurant: More Every Day [consumable Joy]
Can The Smoking Rabbit Survive On Ocean Drive? [MP: South Florida]
The Smoking Rabbit [MenuPages]
The Smoking Rabbit [Official Site]

Cafe Tu Tu Tango in Coconut Grove, a fun spot for tapas and drinks, always offers something a bit unusual to complement your dining experience. This weekend we headed out for drinks and a light dinner to celebrate graduation, and were treated to a samba show as well. The feathers and tight white pants weren't the only things shaking. Tu Tu Tango is also promoting a Domain de Canton's new Ginger flavored liqueur as a margarita, a mojito, or a martini. We tried the Canton Ginger Mojito and found it to be just as refreshing as a regular mojito with a warm finish that tickles the back of the throat.

Cafe Tu Tu Tango [MenuPages]
Cafe Tu Tu Tango [Official Site]

• Burma's junta, large and evil as it is, hoarding all the good food aid [AP]
• Did you know the junta forced everyone to plant semi-useless jatropha nut? [AFP]
• Food science's new artificial mouth to make tastier products for you [NYTimes]
• Liberia bans food exports in a move sure to go over well with its neighbors [RTT]
• McDonald's has decreed that you will eat more fried chicken for breakfast [Trib]
• In antipodal Australia, beer trumps children in battle for seat belts [BBC]

The logical follow-up to black metal sweets, which are hilariously evil in spite of the fact that they are cake, would be those sweet things that look like other things. We laughed right in the middle of our crowded office when confronted with this picture, from Serious Eats, of a reversed caja china scenario:

And we just kept laughing as we perused other non-sweet-looking sweets...

Continue reading "Cakes That Are Other Things, Too" »

The intersection of food and pop music provides some of the best cocktail party conversation / refreshment fodder. Be it the Janet Jackson breast cupcake that helped launch the Amateur Gourmet to national fame, the amazingly large collection of Beatles-themed candy or the web-TV phenomenon Cookin' with Coolio, food-themed pop and pop-themed food are always delicious.

But we felt transported to another, darker realm when we read about the website The Black Oven, a Nordic black metal-themed baking blog featured today on Boing Boing. With recipe titles like Where The Chocolate Beats Incessant, Le Petit Gateau du Les Legions Noire, and Frostbitten Molasses Cookies Entombed with Ginger, even your most devoted metal head can now enjoy a sweet treat without losing his or her edge.

Our mother likes to point out how nobody can really look all that scary while holding a pink bakery box. Well, Ma, that may no longer be true. If this evil baking trend catches on, we'll soon be feasting on "bloody elves hearts" and "shattered black souls" instead of plain old jelly donuts and chocolate chip cookies, and the pink bakery box will fall in line right behind the upside down cross as a symbol of the black metal underworld. Muahahaha!

The Black Oven [Official Site]
Black Metal Cupcakes [Boing Boing]
Janet Jackson Breast Cupcakes [Amateur Gourmet]
Beatles Incredible Edibles [Rarebeatles]
Cookin' with Coolio [My Damn Channel]
Photo: Courtesy of The Black Oven

Continue reading "Buenos Aires: A Photoessay" »

We spotted this "coming soon" sign this weekend at Coconut Grove. From the looks of the inside (no tables yet, but a bench and a counter), this restaurant is still a ways from opening. But we look forward to having a sushi spot in the Grove. Although after reading what the Coconut Grove Grapevine had to say, we are questioning just how soon we will be eating sashimi in the shade.

What's up with Akashi? [Coconut Grove Grapevine]
Akashi Japanese Restaurant - South Miami [MenuPages]

With the spring semester finally over, it is time to get out and try a few things out of our Coral Gables/South Miami comfort zone. This week, Jen the Carnivore, a fellow grad student, joined us for a leisurely bite at the Lost & Found Saloon on NW 36th street in Wynwood. We were looking for a little culinary adventure and decided to heed the sage advice of Paula from Mango & Lime who first tried Lost and Found Saloon in December. She raved about the saloon’s fresh Southwestern cuisine and Sea Dog Blueberry Wheat Beer, which is delicious by the way — a nice blueberry nose with a clean wheat finish, really a tasty beer to complement the smokiness of the chipotle — but I digress. Not only is it a fantastic place to eat, but the décor is a feast for the eyes. As you first walk into the saloon, you feel caressed by an array of textures and colors each carefully selected to complement the quirky and casual atmosphere. A long bar stretches the length of one room of the restaurant and features blonde wood and leather upholstered accents that contrast with the terracotta walls. Behind the bar, a full size cowhide, carved cacti, and longhorn beer taps finish off the eclectic look. The tables, bar stools, and chairs are crafted from rough-hewn wood and are not only aesthetically pleasing, but surprisingly comfortable. We sat in the long back room next to a nearly life-size poster of John Wayne marveling at the sliding bathroom doors (a stroke of genius in the tight space) and jamming to the Cherry-Poppin’ Daddies as we waited for our food. The feast for the eyes turns into a party for your mouth when the dishes arrive. Jen opted for tacos with chipotle-seared chicken and steak add-ons. I started with the Baja Chicken Enchilada soup, a hearty tomato-based soup which sparkles with the saloon’s signature cheese mixture (shredded manchego, monterey jack, and cheddar cheeses), as well as the crabmeat-stuffed endive: a savory mix of crab meat, chipotle mayonnaise, corn and tomatoes. The portions are just the right size and left us both feeling pleasantly full. The saloon offers quite a few vegetarian options and a variety of egg dishes, making the saloon a good choice for a morning brunch. Take-out and delivery are available as are a variety of micro-brews, wines and homemade desserts.

Happy I found Lost and Found Saloon [mango&lime]
Lost & Found Saloon [MenuPages]
Lost & Found Saloon [Official Site]

• Now that Congress finally finished farm bill, Bush to veto it [USAToday]
• Maybe a million Burmese storm victims going largely without aid [Bloomberg]
• In Canada, gov't support for ethanol subsidies waning rapidly [G&M]
• Rice production rising globally, but it won't stop rising prices [CNA]
• Crop dusting in California a lot more dangerous than it sounds [NYTimes]

Why don't you...

•...treat yourself to a nice dinner before the symphony? [MP: Boston]
•...speedily prepare a monkfish? [MP: Chicago]
•...shop at a posh new gourmet store? [MP: Philadelphia]
•...check out a new art exhibition? [MP: San Francisco]
•...jaunt off to Buenos Aires? [MP: South Florida]

Although West Kendall is most well known as a morass of strip malls and mega-marts, surprisingly it offers some excellent and hidden dining gems at discount-store prices. Take Off the Grille Bistro, for one. This storefront café is wedged in an unassuming strip-mall between a Christian bookstore and a Peruvian food market, just spittin’ distance from a CVS. However, behind those sheet glass windows, an unsurpassed culinary experience awaits. Founded by two brothers with culinary school training, the café offers made to order gourmet meals at fast-food prices. Inconceivable, you say? This food has flavor and flair. The presentation never disappoints. The steak fajita wrap (pictured), a generous portion of beef, peppers, onions, and cheese, is grilled perfectly and served with artfully cut plantain chips and a side salad. Our personal favorite (so far!) is the Mediterranean salad with grilled shrimp. One of the rare times that you will find shellfish and dairy paired, the salad perfectly contrasts the saltiness of the feta cheese with perfectly grilled succulent shrimp, hot off the barbie. If you just can’t get enough of Off-the-Grille, the café also offers a catering menu.

Off the Grille Bistro [MenuPages]
Off the Grille Bistro [Official Site]

If you're a regular visitor to these pages, you've probably seen a little of our coverage of the recent struggles to keep street food a part of the culture in Los Angeles. Though Menupages doesn't have a Los Angeles blog (yet), we pay attention because an attack on street food there could be a harbinger to other attacks on street food in the United States. And we love street food, be it tacos, bacon-wrapped hot dogs or just good old pretzels and roasted nuts.

That's why we were thrilled when Epicurious directed us to this lengthy article in Concierge.com: The World's Best Street Food. From safe stalwarts like Mexican tacos and Vietnamese Banh Mi to culinary adventures like Moroccan sheep's head, we found this in-depth guide to be some of the best in armchair traveling/eating.

Epi-Log's James Oliver Cury takes a shot at it for not including pizza or kebabs, but c'mon, the freaking Lonely Planet will direct you to those things. Guidebooks tend to skimp on things like tripe sandwiches, however, which is why we're thankful for the weird and subjective nature of this list.

World's Best Street Food [Concierge.com]
World's Best Street Food? [Epicurious]
Photo: Gerard Van der Leun [Flickr]

• Burma changes its mind about letting in foreign aid workers [NYTimes]
• After the junta was caught stealing supplies, WFP halts shipments [AP]
• Just as a reminder, most of Burma's farmland is under water [Bloomberg]
• New idea: lacking air power, the junta can't stop food drops [AFP]
• It's really Hate On Food Aid Day: WFP worker killed in N Kenya [Reuters]

Pabst Blue Ribbon, the beer that's somehow turned from a working class standby into a hipster fashion accessory, has made it into two separate news stories lately.

First: The PBR Coffin (shown above). Bill Bramanti, a 67-year-old beer fan in suburban Chicago, ordered a coffin shaped like a Pabst Blue Ribbon can to use when he dies "100 years" from now. To celebrate, Bramanti threw a party for his funeral home and his friends — a party centered around showing off his coffin. Of course, he also used the coffin to store the beer cans at the party:

"The silver coffin is laminated with the design of a red, white and blue PBR beer can. The inside contains a black liner to prevent seepage so Bramanti can store cold brews in it until he winds up inside. On Saturday, it was filled with ice and PBR. Bramanti thinks it can fit about 15 cases of beer and 150 pounds of ice.

"I wouldn't expect anything less for my dad," said Bramanti's daughter Cathy, who was one of about 25 people munching on roast beef sandwiches and sipping PBR inside a 2,000-square-foot barn Bramanti built in South Chicago Heights for parties. "He's a man that loves to entertain. He likes it when people are happy. This is what he does. There's all kinds of things in here."

USA Today has more.

Meanwhile, a certain Mr. Barack Obama has publicly declared his love for PBR. At a campaign appearance at the Raleigh Times pub in North Carolina, Obama proudly quaffed a Pabst — and thereby upstaged Hillary and the Boilermaker one last time.

Man plans to be buried in Pabst Blue Ribbon coffin [Southtown Star]
Illionis man designs beer can coffin [USA Today]
Obama woos blue collar voters with his beer taste [The Telegraph]

[Image via Southtown Star]

This Friday, Bruce Springsteen and the world-famous E Street Band finally returned to Fort Lauderdale for their tragically deferred, but well-worth-the-wait concert. Getting another chance at a tail-gate, we decided to upgrade our fare with soup, salad, and sandwiches from 1909 Café. The savory chicken bayou sandwich on crusty French bread paired nicely with the soups of the day: lobster bisque and creamy carrot. The carrot was our favorite, nice and buttery with lots of beta-carotene, essential for belting out vibes at the concert. We also enjoyed a lovely pasta salad with artichoke and sun-dried tomatoes, perfect with the lemony-ness of our Blue Moon beer. The culinary adventure didn’t stop at the parking lot, but continued at the Bank Atlantic Center (background). It was our first visit to the BAC, and we were sufficiently awed by the posh-setting. Its array of concert/arena fare well exceeds the usual pretzels, pizza, and popcorn found at other venues. These favorites are there to, but the BAC boasts a dessert bar with chocolate cake, cheesecake and key lime pie, as well as several swanky bars featuring premium drinks. The leather seats are just the place to enjoy your concert goodies as you sit back to enjoy the show.

1909 Cafe [MenuPages]
1909 Cafe [Official Site]
Bank Atlantic Center [Official Site]

So here it is months after publication and you still haven't read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. Everybody else seems to have at least skimmed it, but you're still working on Omnivore's Dilemma (and haven't made a particularly impressive go at that, either).

Never fear. Those tech-savvy gluttons at Google got him to come by for a talk, and have posted said talk on their very own Youtube. It's about an hour long, so don't start it up in order to put off that next project for five more minutes. Maybe watch over lunch. That's what we're going to do because we've got a penchant for guilt.

Michael Pollan At Google [chayday Food Journal/Accidental Hedonist]

• With over 100k confirmed dead, Burma finally accepting food aid from...everyone [Yahoo]
• 2m people in Sadr City running out of food and other supplies no good for anyone [NYTimes]
• North Korea, as out of food as anyone, ended negotiations with US for aid "sincerely" [RadioAU]
• India's banned commodities trading of several foodstuffs, for all the good it'll do [Bloomberg]
• As drumbeat against ethanol intensifies, corn state senators keep plowing away [AO]

We're leaving tonight for a short jaunt to Buenos Aires. It's been five years since we've been to the city of good air, or anywhere in South America for that matter, so we are very excited about returning. We're especially excited about the food, and we expect to return with tales of excellent beef and triple dulce de leche gelato. (The latter was our favorite mid-afternoon snack when we studied abroad there; yes, we were a bit chubbier back then.)

We'll be back on Monday morning; in the meantime, posting will be just a bit lighter than usual.

Photo: Lucypassos [Flickr]

The hole that Burger King was in after the failure to agree to a penny-per-pound increase for tomato workers has just been getting deeper and deeper. Last week, we learned that a vice president in the company wrote some blog posts criticizing the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. There's also talk of some e-mails sent from the BK server that were sympathetic to the group.

And today we learned that Burger King actually hired someone to spy on another group, the Student/Farmworker Alliance, that works with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers:

In March, a woman named Cara Schaffer contacted the Student/Farmworker Alliance, saying she was a student at Broward Community College. Her eagerness aroused suspicions, but she was allowed to join two of the group’s planning sessions. Internet searches by the alliance revealed that she was not a college student.

Ms. Schaffer is the 25-year-old owner of a private security firm. Her company, Diplomatic Tactical Services, seems like the kind of security firm you’d find in one of Carl Hiaasen’s crime thrillers. Last year Ms. Schaffer was denied a private investigator’s license; she had failed to supply the Florida licensing division with proof of “lawfully gained, verifiable experience or training.” Even more unsettling, one of her former subcontractors, Guillermo Zarabozo, is now facing murder charges in United States District Court in Miami for his role in allegedly executing four crew members of a charter fishing boat, then dumping their bodies at sea.

According to the company, the spying was done for security purposes in an effort to prevent any violent acts and ensure the safety of its employees and assets. Which would be justified if the group had a history of violence, which it does not. At all.

So, this could be fun. Sit back, relax, and watch the corporate backpedaling.

Burger King probes e-posts [Miami Herald]
Burger with a Side of Spies [New York Times]
Coalition of Immokalee Workers March Today On BK Headquarters [MP: South Florida]
Burger King [Official Site]

Thank goodness nobody was hurt so we can make jokes like that. Seriously, though, the thought of hundreds of thousands of chili peppers going up in flames is kind of awesome (in the traditional sense, meaning awe-inspiring, not the slang sense meaning good). Here's the story:

HYDERABAD, India - A fire has broken out at one of India’s largest chili markets, burning hundreds of thousands of pounds of chili peppers.

Residents and officials say the burning chili smoke is stinging the eyes and throats of people in Guntur in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

One local official says 150,000 bags of chilies have been destroyed across a 20-hectare area in Saturday’s blaze.

Officials have evacuated nearby residents, and firefighters are still trying to control the flames.

No casualities have been reported. It remains unclear what started the fire.

Continue reading "The Hottest Chiles Ever" »

Diners at Moon Thai & Japanese, across the street from the University of Miami, now have a sleek new menu featuring pictures of all of the restaurants signature rolls, appetizers, and entrees. The handy little flipbook is a new take on the restaurant menu and a clever marketing ploy. We went to lunch yesterday for Moon Thai’s fantastic Red Thai curry and just had to order the Popeye Roll, spinach, cucumber, and spicy mayo after seeing it on the menu.

Moon Thai & Japanese [MenuPages]
Moon Thai & Japanese [Official Site]

• UN finally starts moving food to Burmese cyclone victims [ET]
• WFP: let's rebrand it as a "global hunger emergency" [VOA]
• Have you noticed ingredient shifts at your local diner? [AP]
• Attention urban vacant lots: you will be farmland [NYT]
• Ghrelin's role in eating more pervasive than ever! [SD]