June 2012
 |
06/30/12Chef Andrew Adams: Roasting a Pig Acre-StyleAfter cocktails and dessert at Acre (try the raspberry pistachio cake), I spotted Chef Andrew Adams by the herb garden out back. I thought he was picking basil or taking a break. Nope. Adams was cooking a suckling pig with hot coals and a roasting box. He didn't seem to even notice the evening's 100 degree heat. I’ve been curious about how Acre roasts its pigs, part of a prix fixe dinner served family style in the restaurant’s private dining room. The chefs use something called a Cajun microwave or china box, and here’s how Adams explains the process: First, he injects the pig with a salty orange and pineapple brine, and it rests overnight. Roasting the next day takes about four hours. Charcoal is placed over the pig about a... |
 |
06/29/12Hog & Hominy: Cocktails, Contorni and Bocce BallHog & Hominy, the sister restaurant to Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen, is set to open as early as July 5. Then again, it might be as late as July 12 as permits are pending. I stopped by Wednesday after a caramel drenched Greek yogurt at TCBY and was delighted to find the restaurant buzzing with final preparations. Owners Michael Hudman and Andy Ticer were upbeat and excited about the restaurant’s menu and ambience. “It’s going to be the kind of food we want to eat when we go out,” Hudman said, listing Naples-style pizzas in the $12 range, house-made hotdogs and charcuterie and contorni made with seasonal vegetables. “We’ll cook whatever they bring us,” Hudman said about his local produce... |
 |
06/26/12Celebrating 68,267 Words At Sekisui Pacific RimThis is a post about a personal best and what we ate to celebrate. On Sunday, I filed the final manuscript for my book titled The Food Lovers' Guide to Memphis. Total word count: 68,267. Trust me on this: That's a lot of words. I've been working on the book since mid-January, a tunnel focus friends, family and colleagues know all too well. Thank you for putting up with all my whining. The book is a travel guide of sorts to restaurants, specialty markets and artisan purveyors. It has a nice local spin and is slated for a mid-November publication. It's already listed on amazon.com, and you can click here for a look. Now on to our celebration meal. Tony, Anna and I headed for Sekisui Pacific Rim, which is near our house and has been a... |
 |
06/21/12National Capital Barbecue Battle: Can D.C. Cook 'Cue?I owe my earliest memory of a chopped barbecue sandwich to the Dixie Pig, a roadhouse drive-in in Bladensburg, Maryland. My parents, aunts and uncles all grew up in Bladensburg, a small town near Washington, D.C. that's been around since its heyday as a seaport in colonial America. I think they all had first dates at the Dixie Pig, and the restaurant's barbecue has always been part of family story-telling. I mention this to point out to Memphis skeptics that southern barbecue traveled well beyond Tennessee. But does the nation's capital have enough cred to merit the National Capital Barbecue Battle? Apparently 100,000 people think so. That's the number of visitors expected to attend this weekend's competition, started 20 years ago when President Bill... |
 |
06/16/12Happy Birthday Las Tortugas!Today is Las Tortugas’ ninth birthday, and when I stopped by for a late lunch, Pepe was in a fine mood. “Nine years on June 16,” he said proudly. “And on March 17, we had our millionth customer. It’s a miracle.” If you’ve visited Las Tortugas in Germantown even once, you are bound to know Pepe Magallanes and his lively storytelling from a stool behind the cash register. On Saturday, he was particularly excited and lobbing praise for the restaurant’s success to his son, Jonathan Magallanes. “It’s Jonathan’s restaurant. I just work for food,” he said, beaming. “Jonathan says God gives us the opportunity to do something people will embrace. And that is why we are here.” ... Posted at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments: 3 |
 |
06/15/12The Whitton Farms Cannery Is Ready for YouAre you ready to get your cupcake truck on the road or to put up pickles from your over-productive garden? If so, the incubator kitchen at the Whitton Farms Cannery is a way to marry great ideas with a little practicality. The recently-opened kitchen annex is operated by Jill and Keith Forrester and located two doors down from the couple’s Trolley Stop Market. It is a full-service commercial kitchen with two bakery depth ovens, two convection ovens, prep areas and a ten-eye stove. “Right now we are using the kitchen in the mornings to bake the bread for the restaurant,” Keith Forrester says. “But we want to see people in the Cannery cooking around the clock.” Forrester envisions the Cannery as a place... |
 |
06/13/12Special Events at Felicia Suzanne'sFolks on gluten-free diets listen up. Felicia Suzanne's Summer Tasting Series in June includes a Thursday night dinner especially for you. The three-course meal June 14 will be served on the restaurant’s charming patio with optional wine pairings and live music from Two Mule Plow. The cost is $35 for the tasting menu and an additional $20 for the wine. Chef Felicia Willett’s interest in gluten-free cooking stems from repeated customer requests, explains staffer Krista Antonuk. In fact, Willett now uses rice flour to make her old-fashioned Baked Fudge with peppermint ice cream and is making similar changes in other recipes when possible. The summer patio series continues through the end of the month. Dinner on June 21 will... |
 |
06/11/12Rock 'n Dough Pizza to Open Pop-up Restaurant Behind Trolley Stop MarketRock ’n Dough Pizza Co., a food truck business run by Jeremy and Amanda Denno, is opening a pop-up restaurant in the lot directly behind Trolley Stop Market. The couple hopes to have the new business ready to go by July. Denno, who is a cook and kitchen manager for Trolley Stop, says his wood-fired menu won’t be served until 9 p.m. “We’ll start after Trolley Stop closes, and we’ll say open late,” he says. Wood-fired pizzas definitely will be served, but the rest of the menu will be seasonal and stay “in constant motion.” Denno won’t serve alcohol, but customers will be able to bring their own beer or wine. For now, he’s got an overgrown field to mow and a slab to pour for... |
 |
06/07/12Tamale Trolley: The Best Tamales You'll Ever EatIn the taco versus tamale debate, I typically side with tacos, especially if they are stuffed with grilled fish and cilantro. But Ken Hooper’s tamales might change my mind. I stopped by Hooper’s truck Tamale Trolley last week. It was parked at the top of Beale Street across from B.B. King's Blues Club. Since I’d already eaten lunch, I ordered tamales to go. They were so cute, wrappaed up with perfect ties. The tamales were still warm when I got home so I shared one with Tony. (They were, after all, supposed to be for him.) We stood in the kitchen and ate all three, dipping each bite in Hooper’s excellent red chili sauce. Hooper explained by email that the sauce is New Mexico style, which basically means it... |
 |
06/05/12Southern Dawgs on Poplar: A Coney Island Treat from Nathan's Memphis StyleI'm a little worried I'm starting a love affair with processed meat. On Saturday, I ate chunks of smoked bologna at Neil's Bar. This afternoon, I had my first Southern Dawg from Tommy Bourne, and I enjoyed it immensely. The photo to the left shows my choice of toppings: slaw, banana peppers, jalapeños, spicy mustard, and a dash of celery salt on an authentic Nathan's dog. I went with the celery salt because it's an ingredient for the trademark Memphis Dawg, engineered by Tommy's brother Todd, who started the hotdog business a couple of years ago with one cart downtown. If you're confused by the who's who of the Dawgs, click here for Stacey Greenberg's article that appeared recently in the Memphis Flyer. I... |
 |
06/04/12Neil's Bar: New Digs in East MemphisMidtown mainstay Neil's Bar moved to Yorkshire Square in East Memphis the day before St. Patrick's Day, and a few longtime employees like Jerry Deron came along. We had a nice chat with Deron Saturday evening, when we stopped by to see the new place. The last occupant of the space was a barbecue restaurant called Whole Hog Cafe, so it didn't take too much work to get the building ready for Neil's. “We put in the bar, a sound stage, and we're still working on the patio,” Deron said. The original Neil’s at Madison and McLean was destroyed about a year ago in an early-morning fire. The night before the fire, dozens of bands played a benefit for the daughter of a local musician who was injured in a car accident. The benefit and... Posted at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments: 2 |
 |
06/01/12Aldo's Pizza Pies: A Look InsideWhen Susan and I were walking back from lunch, we spotted huge shrink-wrapped benches inside the soon-to-open Aldo’s Pizza Pies, so we poked in to check out the renovation. The restaurant, owned by Aldo Dean of Bardog and Slider Inn, is located on South Main Street on the ground floor of Barboro Flats. Dean’s dad, also named Aldo, was patiently filling and staining the restaurant’s refurbished oak counter tops. The counter tops are beautiful, and he reminded me of my own Dad who also loved working with wood. The walls above the wainscot are papered with newsprint, another cool touch. The original idea was to work with Italian newspapers, but that didn’t work out, Aldo Senior said. “Since this is going to be a New... Posted at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments: 2 |
