• 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]

South Miami has its own little French Quarter under the blue roof just south of Sunset Place on 57th avenue. You can culinarily channel Paris for a day and have breakfast, lunch, and dinner in French style.

Start your morning off with brioche and coffee at Le Royal French Bakery, or if you are feeling indulgent, have a fruit tart (these are best in the morning when the shortbread crust is still crispy). Take a baguette and croissant for an afternoon snack.

After shopping at Country French and the boutiques across the street, come back to La Crepe Bistro for lunch. Their sweet and savory crepes are individually made to order and their hot chocolate is made the old-fashioned way by melting chocolate morsels down into slowly simmered milk. We recommend the vegetarian crepe, loads of creamy goat cheese with savory portobella mushrooms and tomatos.

Savor your baguette and croissant as an afternoon snack and take a long walk to build up an appetite for Cafe Pastis. We recommend the steamed mussels in white wine sauce. Bon apetit!

Le Royal French Bakery [MenuPages]
La Crepe Bistro [MenuPages]
Cafe Pastis [MenuPages]
Cafe Pastis [Official Site]

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]

• Chowhounds try to define "Florida cuisine" and come up with all sorts of interesting things. [Chowhound]

• The antipasti at Fratelli Lyon are a hit. [Chowhound]

• Sara heartily recommends the sauteed grouper at Pacific Time 2.0. [All Purpose Dark]

• We think every good home cook should be able to roast a chicken. If you haven't yet mastered that, here's a quick guide, with photos and links to the Thomas Keller recipe.[Daily Cocaine]

• 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]

The Coral Gables Restaurant Week is almost upon us, so now is a good time to peruse menus and start making dinner reservations. There are quite a few restaurants participating, so in order to save you a little time, we went through each and every one of the menus and picked out the ones we found most interesting and provided the best bang for your buck. (Note: The menu links following each entry are .pdf files.)

• Caramelo: This, in our opinion, is one of the better deals. The $20 lunch menu only offers one option for each of the three courses, but it's $20 and it comes with a glass of wine. That's especially good considering the entree includes Florida grouper. Dinner, which is $35, also comes with wine included. [menu]

• California Pizza Kitchen: Lots of choices here. For $25, you get a half-portion of your choice of three salads, plus any of the pizzas on the menu and any of the desserts. [menu]

• Caffe Abbracci: The restaurant week menus don't give you too many choices, but at $24 (lunch) and $35 (dinner), they're good deals, considering the prices on the regular menu. Still, we weren't terribly excited about the offerings. [menu]

• Fleming's Prime Steakhouse: Three courses, $33.95. The first and third courses don't sound all that exciting, but those mains look good: tempura shrimp in chile aioli and pineapple mango salsa; bleu cheese-glazed filet mignon with cabernet butter sauce; and beef short ribs with herbs, spices and pan juices. [menu]

• Fritz & Franz Bierhaus is offering the same options for lunch and dinner, both for $25. Our choices would be goulash for appetizer, sausage sampler for the main, and definitely the sacher torte for dessert. [menu]

• Le Provencal definitely wins in the "most choices for entree" category. Eight entrees for lunch, ranging from the traditional Caesar salad ($9.50) to the couscous with lamb shank, lamb sausage and vegetables ($15.95). No competition there — we'll have the lamb. Appetizer options are soup of the day, salad with homemade dressing, or salmon terrine, and the dessert is whatever the kitchen has decided to make that day. [menu]

• Given the regular prices at Ortanique on the Mile, the $35 restaurant week dinner menu is a steal. Appetizer options are soup, mango salad (yes please!), or curried crab cake. For entrees, choose from jerked chicken penne pasta, butterflied spiced pork chop, or curried shrimp and diver scallops. As for dessert, there's rum cake, mango sorbet or guava cheese cake. [menu]

• When it came to the Por Fin menu, all we wanted to know was whether or not the "eggs at Por Fin" were on it. They are: only on Mondays on the lunch menu, but always on the dinner menu. That short ribs entree sounds good too. The dinner menu is $38. [menu]

• You can get mango risotto (arroz con mango!) at Two Sisters as a lunch appetizer. Entree options are skirt steak, with chimichurri of course, seared mahi mahi and roast chicken, all for $24. [menu]

Coral Gables Restaurant Week [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

The Fish House just opened a new restaurant off of Dixie Highway between Kendall Dr. and 104th Street (the same shopping center as Trattoria Luna and Hooligan'sr). The waitress lured us in by promising us a 10 percent discount on our meal for being the first customers of the day. The restaurant has been open for a little over a week and offers the same fresh seafood of its two other locations, one on 8th street and 121st avenue and the other on Miller and 100th avenue. Instead of the customary rolls and butter, The Fish House serves their signature smoked fish dip with saltine crackers. We both loved the dip and crackers, but missed having some fluffy bread around to soak up the remains of our lobster bisque (creamy and delicious) and the garlic butter sauce from our mussels.

The Fish House [MenuPages]
The Fish House [Official Site]

• 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're leaving you again. This time, we're jetting off to Atlanta for a few days in the city and in the northeast Georgia mountains. We're at the age when many of our friends are getting married, and the weddings are scattered all over the place. Not that we mind; it gives us an excellent excuse to get out of town for a few days. (We don't usually need much of an excuse anyway.)

Among the restaurants that we will be visiting:
• Smith House, Dahlonega
• Tomlin's BBQ, Rabun Gap
• Home Restaurant & Bar, Atlanta
• Harold's Barbecue, Atlanta
• The Varsity, Atlanta
• Mary Mac's Tea Room, Atlanta

Much fried chicken and pulled pork will be consumed. We may need to start some sort of diet on Monday. See you then!

Photo: The Blissful Glutton/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]

The girls and I stopped in at Abokado for a late night bite of sushi while enjoying a night out at Mary Brickell village. When we first walked down the stairs and over into the quieter interior pavilion, we were confused by the merging outdoor seating of Blu and Abokado. Italian sushi, anyone? Both restaurants had no tables left outside, but the insides were relatively empty. We decided on sushi instead of pizza and were soon seated inside Abokado's posh dining room. The menu is innovative and extensive, but a bit pricey for the amount of food you receive. We opted for the chilled soba noodle salad. The buckwheat noodles soaked up the tasty poblano-miso viniagrette and julienne vegetables and sprouts added a nice crunch. At $8.00, this item doesn't break the bank and leaves you with room for an entree or a roll. The girls all ordered rolls from Abokado's list of signature rolls named playfully in the Asian Pan-Latin style of the restaurant — Amaya, Revolucion, Malinche and Bossa Nova. The Temptation roll was particularly tasty bringing together to of our sushi house favorites, shrimp tempura topped with spicy tuna.

Abokado [MenuPages]
Abokado [Official Site]

• 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]

Remember when Paula at Mango & Lime provided us with a sneak peek of Fratelli Lyon back in February? Well, it's finally opening today for lunch and dinner. Check out Paula's post for descriptions of the food; here, we're just going to give you a sampling of a few items from the menu which we think are interesting. The entire menu will be available on MenuPages South Florida tomorrow.

• We're salivating just reading the "antipasti - salumi" section: mortadella, coppa, sopressata, bresaola, prosciutto di parma, finocchiona and speck. The "antipasti - formaggi" features cheeses that hail from Lombardy, Piedmont, Tuscany, Parma and Val D'Aosta. We're intrigued by "la tur," a slightly-aged triple milk cheese (cow, goat and sheep) from Piedmont.

• Where there is good cheese, we expect there is good pizza. The menu offers four pizzas: margherita, quatro formaggi, ligure and amatriciana.

• And we haven't even hit the primi yet; this menu takes a while to peruse. Looking for something filling? We'd opt for the tagliatelle with braised beef and veal ragu. On the lighter side, there's spaghetti with breadcrumbs, zucchini and olive oil.

• Secondi options include roasted young chicken, calf liver, grilled hangar steak, grilled duck breast, sea bass and a seafood casserole.

The wine list is extensive too, featuring only Italian wines (of course); many are offered not only by the bottle, but in 100 mL or 250 mL portions.

Fratelli Lyon, 4141 NE 2nd Ave in Miami; 305-572-2901

Sneak peek: Fratelli Lyon [Mango & Lime]

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.

Chef Jonathan Eismann recently re-opened Pacific Time, a longtime South Beach landmark, in the heart of the Design District. We had a chance to catch up with him between the lunch and dinner rush to ask a few questions about his new restaurant, its new home, and his favorite places to eat in Miami.

MP: How does it feel to be opening again in Miami?

JE: It feels like it did when I opened on Lincoln Road. It’s very similar. In 1993, Lincoln Road was kind of desolate; the design district is kind of desolate. You know, the best thing to happen to the Design District is Michael's. It really opened the doors. The Design District is becoming a great place for dining. There are a lot of good restaurants there.

MP: What do you consider a must try item on your menu? If we were to eat there, what couldn’t we pass up?

JE: I would say the butter-grilled asparagus or the roast leg of lamb with green herbs and goat’s milk yogurt.

MP: I know that you use a lot of local produce in your menus like Florida tomatoes or Key West pink shrimp. Have you been able to find any local beef or chicken?

JE: Not yet, I know there is some Florida beef, but I haven’t checked the quality of it and quality is very important to me.

MP: What is one ingredient you can’t live without in your kitchen, at home or in the restaurant?

JE: Well that is really two questions. Which one is it, at home or in the restaurant?

MP: How about both?

JE: Restaurants: really good olive oil or really fresh produce. At home, Red meat and vodka.

MP: Together?

JE: Of course.

MP: When you go out to eat, where do you like to go?

JE: Michael's, of course. Versailles. I like to go to Garcia's on the Miami River.

MP: I know you are a dad as well as a chef.

JE: I have two little girls.

MP: How do you balance being a chef and being a dad?

JE: No sleep.

MP: Has this had an influence on the new Pacific Time?

JE: It did on the old Pacific Time. We have a really great kids menu and interactive items on the menu for kids to do while their parents are eating. Like the big cookie. Kids get cookie dough and decorations. They design their own cookie and we bake it for them. We also have the little pizza or calzone. We put out a variety of toppings and the kids make their own pizza. Or calzone.

MP: Thank you so much for speaking with us and good luck on the new Pacific Time.

JE: Thank you.

Pacific Time [MenuPages]

• 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]

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]

• Pacific Time still needs to work out some kinks. [Chowhound]

• You can still catch the final Monday night dinner at Sardinia Ristorante that highlights a different region of Italy. This Monday: Sicilia. [Chowhound]

• Seems that there's a rumor floating around that Michael Schwartz might be opening up another restaurant. [Chowhound]

• Looking for a good sushi splurge? Check out Bond St Lounge. [All-Purpose Dark]

• A photographic food essay of the opening of Little Haiti Park, including an instructional video on how to fry a corn pancake. [Daily Cocaine]

Friday night is date night for many couples and this week my fiancée and I set off for The River Oyster Bar in search of some much needed private time. The restaurant space is open and airy and the bar features prominently when you walk in through the South Miami Avenue entrance. It was happy hour, so the space was loud, but the waiter seated us at a cozy corner table without too many distractions besides the menu. We did notice, and love, an oversized signed poster announcing Johnny Cash’s performance at the Jackie Gleason, hanging just beyond the curtain behind our table.

But enough about the décor, and on to the food. We ordered a variety of small plates and dessert rather than choosing an entrée. For starters, we opted for something heavy, the charcuterie plate with jamón serrano, olive salad, and cubes of manchego cheese, and something lighter, the tomato and Napa Valley goat cheese salad with arugula, walnut-basil pesto and balsalmic syrup. Both of these plates were winners, but the tomato and goat cheese salad was a knock-out. It won points for both presentation and an elegant balance of flavors. Round two of dinner was something of a disappointment. We ordered the grilled flatbread with pepperoni, fontina cheese and tomato, which seemed promising, but turned out to be greasy and bland. The second small plate, steamed mussels with coconut milk, chile, cilantro and lime, had the opposite problem: too much flavor for the delicate mussels. The heat from the chiles and the acidity of the lime just didn’t seem to complement the natural sweetness of the mussels. The River nevertheless redeemed itself with an excellent warm berry tart with strawberry ice cream and great service. I regret that we didn’t try any of the oyster dishes, but we will just have to come back.

The River Oyster Bar [MenuPages]
The River Oyster Bar [Official Site]

• 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]

• Interesting review for Andu Restaurant & Lounge today from Lee Klein. He seemed to enjoy a number of dishes there, but chides the restaurant for not going far enough cuisine-wise to match the cutting-edge decor. There also seemed to be a number of inconsistencies between what's written on the menu and what actually appears on the table. [Miami New Times]

• Enrique Fernandez really, really loved Por Fin Restaurant and especially recommends the fried eggs with potatoes. [Miami Herald]

• There's French fare at reasonable prices at Buena Vista Bistro. [Miami Herald]

• Everything sounds wonderful at Greek Express in Fort Lauderdale. So wonderful that we may have to go satisfy a falafel craving right now. [Miami Herald]

• No chance you'll leave hungry from Del Vecchio's Italian Fishery in Deerfield Beach, according to Gail Simmons. [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

We had heard rave reviews about Lime Fresh Mexican Grill on Alton Road in South Beach for years, but could never spot the place on trips to South Beach. The tiny storefront and unobtrusive sign never seemed to catch our eye. This week, we swore we would find it, and thanks to a little lunch time traffic, we did! When we got there, the line stretched out the door, which isn't a huge indicator, since the actual restaurant space is quite small, but it gave us a chance to scope out the clientele. People of all walks of life happily munched away at burritos, tacos and salads, while listening to Y100. Feeling guilty for a week of indulgent eating, we opted for the South Beach burrito — a low-carb wrap, lower-fat jack and cheddar cheeses, pico de gallo and fresh lettuce. Our friend Catherine ordered the same and we were handed gigantic plastic lime slices (order numbers) to place on our table. While we waited, we soaked up the ambiance of Lime's airy and cozy outdoor patio. White and pink oleander lines the Chicago brick patio and an absolutely enormous lime green umbrella blocks the South Florida sun. Catherine summed up the laid-back atmosphere best, saying “I feel like I'm in Mexico." The burritos promptly arrived on cast-iron skillets with a side of "hot" chips, which were actually a bit soggy and lukewarm, but they served the purpose of transporting the excellent guacamole to our mouths. The South Beach burrito tasted a bit bland, but that may have been a result of our ordering choice rather than the cook's skills. In the future, we'll opt for a higher-fat entree and skip the chips.

Lime Fresh Mexican Grill [MenuPages]
Lime Fresh Mexican Grill [Official Site]

• 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]