Wait... What?

So when I finally got around to firing up the Philly cheesesteak episode of Food Wars that aired a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that it pitted Pat's against... Tony Luke's? How on earth do you do an episode about cheesesteak and not have it be Pat's vs. Geno's? I mean, those are pretty clearly the two most famous places (if you Google "philly cheesesteak" you get the Wikipedia article, Pat's, and Geno's, in that order, as your top three hits), not to mention the fact that they're right across the street from each other would make for good TV. I almost didn't want to watch the episode because this seems so wrong, but I had to see whether Geno's even got mentioned - they didn't, and the shots of Pat's were framed so as not to show it either. I can only assume there must've been a contract dispute or something.

By the way, they changed the format (no longer a blind taste test, the owners of the two places come out and talk to the judges while they're eating; the host is now one of the judges and they structured it so that she cast the deciding vote, rather than a local, which was also odd), and the winner was Pat's, but that almost seems secondary to the strange choice of contestants.

(I should add that this has also been discussed on the show's official discussion forum, where multiple astute viewers also noted that Joey Vento of Geno's was in the show's introduction prior to the changes mentioned above.)

I Told You So

Food Wars and I were right: Duff's has the best wings in Buffalo.

Want proof? That's where the President goes.

Ah man, now I want to eat wings.

Detroit Part 3: Coneys

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one thing I was looking forward to doing in Detroit was trying out some Coneys, especially since the two places that will be featured on the forthcoming Food Wars episode, Lafayette Coney Island and American Coney Island, are right next to each other and only a few blocks from the hotel where we stayed. (By the way, the new Doubletree is quite nice.)

We didn't make it to either place the first night we were there, but the second night, after some adult beverages, we decided to give it a whirl. The bartender at the last bar of the night, Pappy's (also recommended), recommended Lafayette, so that's where we headed. I ordered (if I recall correctly) a loose meat coney, pictured here:


Excellent, excellent post-drinking food, though that practically goes without saying. Tasty hot dog, tasty chili, mustard, raw onions, what could be bad?

Of course, intrepid culinary explorers that we are, we decided we couldn't let the night end without doing a compare-and-contrast at American while Lafayette was fresh in our mind. For the sake of consistency, I ordered the same thing, pictured here:


After a few bites and a pause to consider, the natural question was asked: which did we like better? As luck would have it (since we we wouldn't want to have to split up on subsequent trips), a consensus was reached: American was the winner of our personal food war. We thought the casing had more snap (though both are natural casings, we're told), and the chili had a better flavor. (Chopped raw onion and plain yellow mustard can't and didn't really vary much from one another.) Once that had been determined, it seemed only natural to return to American, and return we did for our remaining two nights in the city.

One more photo (this time taken with an actual camera, rather than the camera on my phone) of a pair of coneys at American:


But really, it's a hot dog with chili on it; you can't go wrong at either place, nor, presumably, at other places around Michigan that make the same thing.

Dear Washington DC,

It doesn't matter how big the slices are, pizza does not have provolone cheese on it.

Love,
Everyone else

P.S. Oh shit, Katz's and Second Avenue Deli do battle over pastrami next week. I was wondering what they would pick to do an episode in New York, and this seems like a great choice. Send a salami to your boy in the army, because it's ON.

Jucy Lucy

So Food Wars was in Minneapolis this week, to taste test the Jucy Lucy. I was in Minneapolis about... a year and a half now, I guess, and sampled the Jucy Lucy at Matt's Bar, one of the two restaurants featured on Food Wars (both of which claim to have invented the delicious concoction).

This post really could use a picture in order to illustrate the deliciousness of the Jucy Lucy, so I'm going to borrow one from Wikipedia:



Let me tell you, it was a glorious experience. The cheese is inside the burger! I mean, how great is that? I've tried to make that for myself, but it never works, so I appreciate the technique in addition to the great taste. I didn't get to go to the 5-8 Club, the other contender for the best Jucy Lucy, but I'll be back in the Twin Cities about a year from now, so I'll have to do my own taste test. (If you're curious, Matt's Bar was pronounced the winner, with the Minnesota Vikings' mascot casting the deciding vote.)

No Detroit episode before my trip next week, but no matter - we're going to eat some hot dogs regardless!

Food Wars

Recently, the Travel Channel debuted a new show called Food Wars. During the course of an episode of the show, host Camille Ford (who is quite telegenic, it must be said; par for the course for this sort of show, I suppose) travels to a city having a cuisine that's a local specialty and two top-rated establishments serving that specialty. She visits each establishment, speaks with its owner and learns about its history and its method of preparing the cuisine. She also speaks to some of the most passionate fans of each establishment. The owners meet, and the terms of a taste test are agreed upon: the location, as well as the specific item to be judged (e.g., for the episode about fried chicken, the leg was selected). Then a blind taste test is conducted with five panelists trying the selected item: a designated "super fan" of each establishment, as well as three local personalities. The panelists vote, and a winner is determined. It's great TV, except for the fact that I always end up craving whatever it is they're eating by the end of the episode. In short, I'm not sure whether I want Camille Ford's job or whether I want to marry her.

Anyway, so the first episode of Food Wars was filmed in the bustling metropolis of Buffalo, New York, where, as we all know, the local specialty is wings. I can say, without hesitation, that I love wings. I could eat them all the time if they weren't fried and coated in delicious, spicy, buttery sauce, but if they weren't fried and the sauce weren't buttery, they wouldn't be nearly so good. (Trust me, I've tried.) It's quite the dilemma.

Moving on, Buffalo is, of course, the home of the wing. The wing, as we know it, originated at the Anchor Bar; the story of its creation is told better elsewhere, so I won't attempt to rehash it here. A few years ago, not long after college, my friend Mike was living and working in Buffalo, and during the course of a weekend trip to visit him, I was able try the wings at both the Anchor Bar and at Duff's, the other establishment featured on Food Wars. (For some reason, while their franchise locations in Toronto have a website, the original Buffalo location doesn't, so I'm sending you to Yelp instead.) Before that trip, I had heard of the Anchor Bar as the place where wings were created, but wasn't familiar with Duff's; fortunately, Mike, living in the area, knew that both were worth trying. To shorten the story a bit: since that weekend, I've gone to Duff's every time I've been back to Buffalo, but haven't been back to the Anchor Bar, so I was quite pleased to see that Duff's was declared the winner on the Buffalo episode of Food Wars.

Since the premiere, Food Wars has also done episodes in Chicago (Chicago-style beef sandwiches; I wonder whether maybe they had too hard a time narrowing it down to two places serving Chicago-style pizza or Chicago-style hot dogs, both of which would sooner come to my mind), Pittsburg (the one in Kansas, not the one in Pennsylvania, for fried chicken), and Lockhart, Texas (for barbecue). I don't have much familiarity with any of the places they went, though one of the places in the Texas episode, Kreuz Market (pronounced like the word "rights" with a K on the front of it) is the inspiration for Hill Country, one of my favorite BBQ restaurants here in New York. I do know they've got an upcoming episode in Detroit to eat at coney islands, which I hope airs soon since I'm going to be in Detroit in a few weeks. Definitely a show worth keeping an eye on.