Stuartblog2

hangar steak

Bodega’s restaurant week offer is simple: any three of their tapas. Fortunately, Bodega doesn’t seem to need an excuse to offer creative specials. On each of the three occassions that I’ve visited, there have been several specials. And each time I’ve been there the food has been good with at least one particularly memorable dish. The first time I went, I had fantastic short ribs. Everything was delicious on my most recent visit: hangar steak with a wonderful chimichuri, lamb “lollipops” and chocolate banana bread pudding. The hangar steak isn’t a tapas. As at Moxie, I chose not to take advantage of the Restaurant Week offer.

At fire, I finally went with the official Restaurant Week menu. Three course with two choices for each course. The appetizers and entrees are all from the regular menu.

soup
or
mackenzie blue goat cheese, poached pears, local lettuce and shallot vinaigrette
*
“steak and eggs” (tandoor roasted hangar steak, local fried egg, “tater tot”, spinach and anticucho sauce)
or
sauteed sea scallops (butternut squash puree, braised kale, maple butter, crushed hazelnuts and vanilla salt)
*
fresh popover with salted caramel ice cream and local maple syrup
or
parfait (roasted local apple, greek yoghurt, and candied almond)

The soup on Sunday was a delicious caramelized onion. The scallops were wonderful. I’ve had the hangar steak before and it is fantastic.

scallops, kale, squash, maple butter

Stuart added this event to his schedule at Upcoming.org. Click the post title to go there for more details.

Best Food Writing 2008 (Best Food Writing)

Tuesday, November 11, Dante will host a book signing. “Italian hors d’oeuvres” will be served. Copies of Best Food Writing 2008 will be available for signing by both Chef Boccuzzi and Laura Taxel. Laura Taxel’s article Dante’s Inferno, originally published in Cleveland Magazine and available online, is featured in the book. In addition to the complimentary appetizers, the restaurant is offering a special three course wine dinner. I added the event details to Upcoming.org: Dante’s Inferno, November 11, 5:30-7:30pm.

I’ve never been disappointed by Dante’s charcuterie. It’s always great. One of Dante’s chefs who was largely responsible for the charcuterie has moved on to fire food and drink. I hope Dante’s maintains the high standards of their charcuterie and I hope that fire picks up a little something, too.

Here’s the menu copied from their email announcement:

House Cured Charcuterie
pickled vegetables, apricot mostarda

Barbera, Dino Torti, Castelrotto, Oltrepò Pavese  2005
*
Truffled Tagliatelle alla Carbonara
5 hour poached egg

Tempranillo & Graciano, Luis Alegre, Rioja, Crianza  2004
*
Leg of Lamb Confit
rosemary rissotto, forest mushroom ragout

Corvina, Rondinella, Campagnola, Caterina Zardini, Valpolicella Classico Superiore  2004

The Dante restaurant web site was just updated. It’s not great. Annoying scroll bars, frames… And a condescending little “best viewed in Safari” sticker.

Duck prosciutto at Dante

I made it to two Restaurant Week participants in the first half of the two week event. I didn’t opt for either restaurant’s restaurant week special but I can still tell you what they’re offering. Moxie is offering a three course meal with choices from a subset of their regular menu. You choices are:

Entrees:

1. Roasted atlantic salmon, gigande bean & cherry tomato ragout, escarole, lemon and salsa genovese
   I haven’t had this dish yet but I’ve had salmon at Moxie and it is consistently excellent. Fish is one of their strengths.
   
2. Petite heffel farms beef “pot roast”, adam’s reserve cheddar scalloped potatoes, caramelized baby carrots and crispy brussels sprout leaves
   

   "pot roast"

3. Roasted butternut squash, pecorino & pepita risotto, aged balsamic and crumbled thyme croutons

Dessert:

1. “Nutter butter” - milk chocolate crunch bar, peanut butter and chocolate wafers, peanut butter fudge and marshmallow fluff
   

   "nutter butter"

2. Sorbet
3. Frozen vanilla crème brûlée, quick macerated mixed berries, brandy snap

Appetizers:

1. Soup du jour
   Soups are another of Moxie’s strengths.
2. Certified angus beef carpaccio, arugula, parmigiano reggiano, lemon vinaigrette and horseradish oil
   

   beef carpaccio

3. Baby spinach, warm medjool date vinaigrette, toasted hazelnuts, fourme d’ambert bleu and
   nueske’s bacon
   Salad is another of Moxie’s strengths. I can’t help it. They’ve got a lot of them.
   

   spinach salad

Stuart added this event to his schedule at Upcoming.org. Click the post title to go there for more details.

Stuart added this event to his schedule at Upcoming.org. Click the post title to go there for more details.

The New York Times “Wordtrain” is pretty cool. Go there and tell them the one word that sums up how you feel right now. Then check out their visualization of the nation’s mood. I saw it earlier this evening.

I didn’t cherry pick these screen shots. I went back to take a look because I wanted to point it out to a friend. When I saw “sassy” I decided to take a screen shot. It wasn’t hard to capture. It scrolled off while I was fumbling for my image editing program. But it reappeared quickly. It’s an hour later now and I peeked again and it only took a few seconds for it to reappear.

I

I took the second screen shot right after the first one. When I just returned to the Times Wordtrain a few minutes ago I noticed “insane.” I didn’t even notice it in the screen shot the first time. Like “sassy” in the Obama wordtrain, “insane” seems to appear regularly in the McCain.

Please don’t think that I claim to see any meaning in these screen shots. There’s enough bullshit in the debate surrounding this election. This is just a silly response to a facebook status post.

It’s incredibly frustrating when I find a concert announcement for an unfamiliar musician and the announcement doesn’t include a link to some music. An artist bio and band photo isn’t going to get me to a concert. Neither is a 30 second sample. Free (legal) music is everywhere now. This is nothing but laziness and bad marketing.

The most recent culprit is the Kent State Folk Festival (details on Upcoming). I saw the program in a copy of Scene. I was interested so I went to the website. No music. Even though I’ve been reading about online music issues I don’t really listen to it a lot. And I’ve never had a reason to embed it anywhere. I spent a few minutes slapping together a widget before I realized that I wasn’t entirely sure about the legality of that particular solution. Ultimately, I had to do a little googling but it wasn’t more than should be expected from the artist or the event’s promoter. I shouldn’t have to do it. It’s way too much work for someone on the fence about attending the concert in the first place. Why should all of us have to do it over and over when the organizer could just do it once?1

Now, I’ve pretty much run out of steam. Maybe I’ll come back when I’ve got a little more attention to devote to this and I’ll actually listen to some of this music and decide whether I want to check out the festival. But I didn’t last year. Or the year before that. Obviously, I’m not a folk music super fan. But I would go if I got hooked by one catchy song. People like me are the festival’s chance to 1) spread good music and 2) collect a little more money.

This is a perfect illustration of why, despite some chaos and panic, the digital revolution is a tremendous boon to an overwhelming majority2 of musicians. I’m continually surprised when I see people who aren’t taking advantage of it.

1. Also, if someone with a vested interest had done this they would hopefully have done a better job. I just picked the first thing that worked which has advertisements. Perhaps this can be avoided, with the cooperation of the artist if necessary. Also, I just picked the first song I found from a small list of what was available. I have no idea whether it’s representative of what you might expect at the concert because I have no idea what that is.
2. All musicians? All types of music? What about classical music? Yes, I think so. But that’s another post. Trust me. I’ve spent way too much time trying to shoe horn it into this one. Don’t expect that post any time soon. It will wait until I’m looking at the Cleveland Orchestra’s website and once again frustrated at having to choose from so many completely unfamiliar performances.

Stuart added this event to his schedule at Upcoming.org. Click the post title to go there for more details.

Stuart added this event to his schedule at Upcoming.org. Click the post title to go there for more details.