Category: travel

Categories
travel treats

Williams Plum St Snowballs (New Orleans)

After our lunch at Liuzza’s By the Track, Jay took us to Williams Plum St Snowballs. Looks cool, I guess because it old …since 1945. This place is officially called Plum St. Snoballs (without the “w”), but I’ll call it Snowballs, because the sign on the building says so.

A group of older college professors enjoying snowballs outside. Two excited teenagers taking orders and making snowballs inside.

Snowballs can come in a paper cup or a Chinese take-out carton. I got the Orchid Cream Vanilla. It was really creamy and cheap!

Williams Plum St Snowballs – 1300 Burdette St. New Orleans, LA 70118

Categories
travel

Liuzza’s By the Track (New Orleans)

Our buddy Jay picked us up at the airport and headed straight to Liuzza’s By the Track based on his recommendation. This place is cool. It’s very laid back and they have a bar. But I guess there’s always a bar in New Orleans.

Their signature dish is the BBQ Shrimp PoBoy. But it’s not really a sandwich. It does have bread, but it’s really a plate of shrimp with their heavy rich buttery garlic sauce over bread. It’s good, but way too rich for me. Plus I’m not supposed to eat so much shrimp because of the gout.

I really did love the Oyster PoBoy. I can’t tell if it’s really anything special here, but I know it’s just good.

I feel like I’d come here a lot if I lived in New Orleans.

Now to be clear, there is another Liuzza’s in New Orleans that not related and has a different menu (Italian food and Muffalettas). This one By the Track is more PoBoys and Fried Seafood plates. Who is Liuzza? Why did two restaurants name themselves after her?

Liuzza’s By the Track – 1518 N Lopez St. New Orleans, LA 70119

Categories
restauranting travel

3 Stacks Smoke & Tap House

Went to Dallas to visit my family for Thanksgiving. Pretty cool city. I posted a lot on Facebook how I couldn’t wait to some Dallas BBQ. I’m not sure my family got my joke. I was making reference to the NYC chain, Dallas BBQ (which has nothing really to do with Dallas, except that they have Texas-sized Margaritas …which I also made a joke about.) So we ended up getting some BBQ in Dallas and also a bucket of Margarita mix while I was there. My Facebook statuses were manifested!

I over-ordered on the phone with 3 Stacks Smoke House. Only because I got confused with the different sizes of sides in particular. It says $3 for the sides a la carte on the menu. So I had already planned out okay, they are small little things and I’ll order 2-3 of each thing. But then they asked me if I wanted a small or large (pint and quart), which I kind of knew a quart was big, but then in my mind, that meant the small or pint is the size of the small sides at KFC or Popeyes. Then I started second guessing myself if pints and quarts were based on volume or weight. Then I figured well, if the pint is $3, let’s just order all quarts. But I don’t think the pints are $3, because it ended up costing a lot more.

Anyway it was pretty good BBQ food. I’ll blog about the bucket of Margarita mix next!

3 Stacks Smoke & Tap House – 4226 Preston Rd Frisco, TX 75034

Categories
interesting travel

Harrah’s Casino (Philly)

Harrah’s in Philly is interesting. There’s no hotel or the glitz and glamour of Vegas or Atlantic City. The casino is next door to a prison and you have to go through the ghetto to get to it. We actually took a limo through the ghetto to get there. But once you get there, it is definitely a casino.

Now I don’t mean to already talk down on Harrah’s Philly. Hear me out throughout the rest of this post. For one thing, I can see if I lived in Philly as a 30-something year old hipster, I’d come to the casino to check it out. Have some drinks. Gamble some cash. I don’t think it would necessarily be as an ironic adventure, but that I think it would be just plain fun –like how I think Disney World is fun. At the same time, I couldn’t tell if the place seemed more sad because it had less of the glitz and glamour of what I think casinos are supposed to be …and just watching people throwing their money away with a push of a button felt weird to me.

I can tell though, they are trying to make strides to make it more fun or family (non-family) orientated. Like, there are events! We were there during their Food and Wine Grand Market, where local and national vendors/businesses were giving away free samples (food and alcohol). Also there were live demos, including from celebrity chef, Lorena Garcia (Taco Bell spokesperson).

02 Philly Cheesesteak Potsticker - Mien Noodles

We had lunch there at Mien Noodles –an Asian Fusion Restaurant, right in the middle of the casino floor. We had a lot of different stuff. The most interesting was the Philly Cheese-steak Potsticker. It’s exactly what you think it would be. And to be honest, it was pretty good. And the Tempura Fried Ice Cream was great.

Now back to the casino. It definitely is a different crowd than what I’m used to. It reminded me of OTB (Off Track Betting) that used to be all all over New York. Heck, I live off the L train in Williamsburg, Brooklyn –probably the most trendiest hipster neighborhood in the world right now. Also, this wasn’t the type of casino where half of the people are there for a bachelor/bachelorette party like Atlantic City. But as we were about to get ready to head back to our limos, Todd pointed out this couple to me in front of us, who were arguing then had a moment of understanding of each other. He said he thought that was him and his future wife in thirty years. Then it kind of hit me. Yeah, these people are people too. Not that I thought they were any less than me in the first place …but I couldn’t relate until that moment.

12 Philly Harrah's Couple

So maybe I was the most Asian hipster at Harrah’s casino that day. But I did have that moment of realization that everyone might not wear skinny jeans or have cool hair like me, but everybody is a person too. They all have feelings, emotions, and their own lives they live. Maybe they used to be hipsters a long time ago. Maybe I will be hanging out at this casino in thirty years …or maybe in the prison next door. Only time will tell.

Harrah’s Philadelphia Casino & Racetrack – 777 Harrah’s Blvd, Chester, PA 19013

Categories
tio wally travel

Tio Wally Eats America: Al’s Chickenette

I’m happy to have Tio Wally (long-time Me So Hungry reader) aboard to send in his eating adventures from across America. Here he is in Hays, Kansas.

Greetings from Hays, Kansas
N 38° 51.8428’ W 099° 19.0759’ Elev. 1985 ft.

Al’s Chickenette was recommended by my friend Tony. He’d recommended another place once before — Gray’s Coors Tavern in Pueblo, Colorado — that was spectacularly funky and spectacularly good. Needless to say it didn’t take much faith on my part to follow his lead once again.

Along the way I got a song stuck in my head. I kept hearing the Lambert, Hendricks and Ross version of a Cannonball Adderly tune, Sermonette. It turned into a real ear worm, one of those songs that keeps playing over and over in your head. I just couldn’t shake it.

Al’s Chickenette is located 2.5 miles south of I-70 on US 183 (Exit 159). By the time you get there you think you’ve missed it and you’re about to leave town … because you are. Al’s is one of the last places on the left. It’s easy to spot by the vintage late ‘50s/early ‘60s-style sign out front. I’d love to’ve seen it lit up at night as it has all the requisite neon and 100 light bulbs to render it truly representative of the sign design of that era. I like to believe it flashes.

Inside is equally reminiscent of ‘50s-‘60s “modern” design, with wood floors and a low-rise, 4-stool formica counter. The decor has a look and feel so evocative of that simpler, duck-and-cover time that the only thing missing is the zzzzzzzzz-ing whir of a vintage stainless steel Hamilton Beach commercial milkshake mixer.

Al’s serves soft-serve ice cream but no shakes. But as sort of a throwback they offer 25¢ coffee, which, curiously, is a dime cheaper than the price listed on one of the old menus posted in the foyer. And it’s okay coffee.

It’s an interesting place and the staff is exceptional. I was greeted heartily and my server, Allison, (I hope that’s how she spells it) was vivacious and kind. In fact, I had her help order for me; I always do that because they know.

After I ordered I was walking to the bathroom (I ended up choosing the door with the cock, er, rooster on it) as one of the other servers brought out his lunch, a bowl of chicken noodle soup ($2.95/$5.95). It looked so good that I had to take a picture of it. I first thought it was chicken and dumplings. “No,” he said, “I put some mashed potatoes in it.” Mmm, mmm good idea.

I experienced a most pleasant olfactory blast from the past in Al’s bathroom. It’s a commercial hand soap I run across from time to time. It smells much like Jergens Lotion, which, to me, smells faintly of cherries. Every time I smell it I’m reminded of my childhood. My mom used it when I was very young and when she did I’d often ask to smell her hands. I love that scent. Oh, the fond memories. But I digress.

I had THE WIZARD ($9.95), three pieces of dark meat chicken with two sides and a somewhat silly name; yet another example of Kansan’s ubiquitous habit of linking to The Wizard of Oz. Seriously, they’ll link anything to The Wizard of Oz. It’s just a matter of time before I find a Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean or, hell, a Swiss restaurant in Kansas serving The Toto. But I digress, again.

The chicken — two legs and a thigh — was very, very good. I read on one of the old menus that “Our chicken is fried by a Special Method …”, whatever that means. Al’s chicken has an unusual outer “crust.” It’s very thin, the thickness of the shell of a dipped ice cream cone, and very crispy, crackly. It was spiced interestingly, in a good way, and the chicken was very moist and perfectly cooked.

I only ate the legs while I was there. When I nibbled on the thigh later that night I thought the breading tasted distinctly of pork rinds — cracklins, y’all. I was dumbfounded enough that I saved some to try again later. But then it didn’t taste like that at all. I was confused; I’m always confused. This may explain why some of the fine folks in Kimmerer, Wyoming (scroll down to the Comments section) don’t cotton to my opinions too much.

The real highlights for me were the real mashed potatoes and real pan gravy, though the gravy had a somewhat unusual taste to me. I think I was expecting it to taste exactly like the chicken pan gravies I’ve eaten so many times before. Cracklins? Still, it was pretty good. And the mashed potatoes were the real thing — they actually had lumps in them — so I was in love. The cole slaw was truly fantastic, a blast from my childhood. Drenched in an old-school mayonnaise-vinegar-sugar dressing, it was sweet, crunchy, and heavenly. Just the way I like it.

In all Al’s Chickenette was a great visit, with great people. Truly a really great experience.

Next month Al’s Chickenette will mark its 65th year in business. To commemorate that milestone I made a really bad slideshow/ad, replete with yours truly singing really badly. I rewrote the words to “Sermonette” and, well …

My apologies to Mr. Adderly and the other American Treasures that are Misters Lambert and Hendricks & Ms. Ross.

And so we roll.

Al’s Chickenette, 710 Vine St., Hays, Kansas

Tio Wally pilots the 75-foot, 40-ton(max) land yacht SS Me So Hungry. He reports on road food from around the country whenever parking and InterTube connections permit.

Categories
breakfast brunch travel

The 5 Spot (Seattle)

In Seattle, we went to The 5 Spot as a family, including my baby nieces. They do an alternating city themed menu and restaurant decor. We happen to be there for New Mexico. So they had UFOs hanging up.

I got the Adobada and Eggs (Chile braised pork served over spiced red potatoes, with flour tortillas, avocado and eggs $9.75). Pretty good. I also liked my sister’s hash browns and her husband’s griddle cakes.

I’m surprised that the babies slept through it all.

The 5 Spot – 1502 Queen Anne Ave N. Seattle, WA 98109

Categories
latino tio wally travel

Tio Wally Eats America: Pupuseria Salvadoreña #2

I’m happy to have Tio Wally (long-time Me So Hungry reader) aboard to send in his eating adventures from across America. Here he is in Rogers, Arkansas.

Greetings from Rogers, Arkansas
N 36° 19.0368’ W 094° 7.6424’ Elev. 1355 ft.

I seem to be going in really loopy circles lately. I guess that’s just how my mind works. What’s weird though is I’ve also been eating at many of the same restaurants I’ve written about previously. Or so it seems. Today I’m back at Pupuseria Salvadoreña #2.

I’ve hit this place a few times over the last couple of years. In the past I always had Chile Rellenos because they stuffed them with meat. Evidently I’ve not been here for much longer than I knew. The meat-stuffed rellenos are history, 86ed from the menu. That’s bad for me. But business has picked up, which is good for them.

Due to the absence of my usual fare I decided to put my fate in the hands of my teenaged server. What would you get, I asked? “I really like this,” she said, pointing to the Caldo de Pata ($7.70). I thought that would be good; after all, “Shank Soup” was written in English underneath, and I like shank. So I ordered it. “I hope you like it,” she said.

Now, it’s understood that the shank is the shin or lower leg portion of an animal’s leg, right? It’s analogous to a pork hock. Right?

Well, not here. Not at all. Here it turned out to be a cut from a little lower on the leg: a Freakin’ Hoof! Gadzooks!!

I don’t want to criticize what other cultures might find delicious, but a freakin’ cow foot is not really the tastiest, much less meatiest, part of the animal. Indeed, the “meat” is a bunch of fatty, cartilage-ish, semi-gelatinous gunk wrapped in and around a hell of a lot of bone. Moreover, the “meat” doesn’t even have the courtesy of being the consistency of stewed chicharrón (essentially pork fat, which I like). In short, it’s largely flavorless and not worth messing with.

The rest of the Caldo was damn good, however. Indeed, it was muy rico y muy sabroso (very rich and very tasty). I liked it very, very much. I just wish there’d had been some edible form of meat in it, like in a Caldo de Res (beef soup).

The soup was served with the obligatory lime quarter, and fresh chopped onion and cilantro. I also got a large Agua Fresca de Melon (cantaloupe fruit juice) for $2.

As I was waiting for my server to hoof it out with my hoof soup I kept staring at a handwritten sign on the wall. The sign was written in Spanish; Si quiere tamales o pollo oreneados aga su orden con tiempo para Thanksgiving. The part I could translate with my remarkably bad Spanish reminded people to order tamales in time for Thanksgiving.

I knew Pupuseria Salvadoreña didn’t previously offer tamales. Now they’re on the menu — pork or chicken — for $1.25 each! So I ordered three to go. They came with a bag of pico de gallo (latino cole slaw) and a little thangy of salsa.

While people may be familiar with tamales, there are actually two very distinct versions of these latin delights: Northern and Southern. In the North they wrap the tamal — It’s called a tamal, damn it; tamales is plural — in corn husk. These tend to be dry, dense and somewhat grainy in texture.

In the South they wrap them in banana leaf. I don’t know if the recipe for the masa (dough) is markedly different. The end result, however, is like day and night. The banana-wrapped ones are cake-like, light, fluffy and, to me, a bit sweeter tasting.

While I’ve had a few tamales I didn’t care for (mostly because they were dry, stingily stuffed, and little more than masa tubes) I’ve never had a bad “Southern” tamal. Does that mean that Salvadoreños (or any other Central Americans) make better tamales than Northern Mexicanos? Hell yes! But hey, they work with what they’ve got.

After all was said and done at Pupuseria Salvadoreña #2 I was fat and happy but disappointed. The soup part of the Caldo de Pata was great but the Pie (Spanish for “foot”) sucked. To make it worse, all the latinos were ordering some chicken deal that came with a bowl of chicken-and-rice soup, a side of rice, pupusas, and half a grilled chicken. F#@K ME!!!!!!!!!

More proof: It’s tough being a white guy with few smarts, armed with even less discernible knowledge of other cultures. Pero trato. Está todo bien.

And so we roll.

Pupuseria Salvadoreña #2, 1601 South 8th St., Rogers, Arkansas

Tio Wally pilots the 75-foot, 40-ton(max) land yacht SS Me So Hungry. He reports on road food from around the country whenever parking and InterTube connections permit.

Categories
tio wally travel

Tio Wally Eats America: Mr. Fuel

I’m happy to have Tio Wally (long-time Me So Hungry reader) aboard to send in his eating adventures from across America. Here he is in Spiceland, Indiana.

Greetings from Spiceland, Indiana
N 39° 51.064’ W 085° 25.056’ Elev. 1051 ft.

Mr. Fuel has me kind of flummoxed.

I have no idea how many locations there actually are. I know there are three in Missouri, three in Indiana, and locations in Ohio and Virginia. But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is what the hell they’re selling for food.

You see, the ones in Missouri always have a different sandwich special every month. The deal is a sandwich, chips and a drink for $2.99, and they are consistently pretty awesome sandwiches. So good are these deals that I usually call them on the first of the month to find out what to look forward to.

In the past I’ve had great meatloaf and pork chop sandwiches, Ruebens, San Francisco Clubs (turkey, ham and bacon on sourdough), and one of the best double cheeseburgers I’ve ever had. Last month I had a few French Dip sandwiches (roast beef with provolone cheese) that came with the best au jus I’ve ever had. The au jus was remarkably rich tasting without a hint of the usual saltiness au jus is often noted for.

This month they’re offering a Bavarian something-or-other that was described as a ham sandwich dressed with some sort of horseradish sauce on a croissant. At least, I think that’s what the lady said when I called. It sounded kind of weird … so it’s probably pretty good.

A great thing about the sandwich specials at Mr. Fuel is they always have quality fresh veggies that they’ll gladly hop up your sandwich with. But again, they only offer the monthly sandwich specials at the Mr. Fuels in Missouri.

Now I’ve discovered yet another incredible deal, this time at the Mr. Fuel in Spiceland, Indiana. They just completed construction of this location earlier this year. I finally stopped in about a month ago for coffee and there in the hot deli case they sat — 99¢ Pulled Pork sandwiches. They also offer a chicken sandwich for $1.59, which I haven’t tried yet.

Figuring they couldn’t be very good at that price I only bought one and drove off. Big mistake. The things are really good. They contain a pretty decent amount of meat in a tasty, sweet barbecue sauce.

This Mr. Fuel also has a complete hot deli set-up. Another driver told me that he regularly takes his breaks there just so he can have the pot roast. I’ve seen the pot roast and it looks really great. Heck, all the food they had looked pretty great.

When I stopped this time I was surprised that they were just setting everything up even though it was nearly 11 a.m. I don’t know if they were running late or they don’t set it up until lunch time. Thus, the pictures are sort of incomplete.

I do know this, though. I went in at about 3 a.m. one day and they didn’t have any of the pulled pork sandwiches. I whined, naturally. “Not a problem,” said the nice lady. “How many do you want?”

A few minutes later I was on my way, sailing through the darkness, blissfully smearing barbecue sauce on my face. What a deal!

And so we roll.

Mr. Fuel #8, I-70 Exit 123, 5679 S. Indiana St. Hwy. 3, Spiceland, Indiana

Tio Wally pilots the 75-foot, 40-ton(max) land yacht SS Me So Hungry. He reports on road food from around the country whenever parking and InterTube connections permit.