Forking Tasty

Jay and I headed out to Huntington Long Island to meet our family on the night of the past big storm. Driving was not the safest that night. The wind was blowing the truck all over the place and the rain was coming from all directions. However, we knew when we finally made it to Huntington we were in for a treat. Bravo Nader is a small restaurant that our family loves to go to. The food is always outstanding. We never order our entrée’s off the menu, EVER. Their specials are just that, special. We call ahead usually to make sure they have the Ossobuco special, seen above, because someone at the table has to have one so we can all try it. It’s Killer!! This table had the entire special list that night including two gigantic Prime Rib’s that Mr. Nader himself told us about on the down low. Here is a rundown of the special specials. There are so many I had to put them in a slideshow.

Special apps, dinner, and dessert

After we left the rain was still coming from all directions. Long Island was starting to flood and was loosing their power left and right. We spent the rest of the night in the dark playing a board game. No, I didn’t win but had fun playing one of the games I haven’t played since I was a kid. I wasn’t on my game. My mind was probably still focused on the delicious meal we ate at Bravo Nader.

Sometimes you eat in a place because you like it. Sometimes you eat in a place because you are forced to. And, sometimes you eat in a place for both of those reasons. Silicon Valley is a sea of tech complexes and campuses that do not promote leaving once you arrive. Because of this, many of the cafeterias are like visiting Epcot Center. You can eat Indian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican or American all at the same meal. In the many years that I have been visiting one very special spot in the valley, I have found several staples that keep me excited about my next meal. Above is the grand winner and it is not what you expect.

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 116 | Post-meal (1 hour): 94 | Insulin: 5 Units

After my parents delay travels to get in the city and brunch at Penelope’s we lounged around the city. I took them to Madison Square Park to do something that we never do as a family. We just sat on a bench and chatted while doing some people watching. I think as New Yorkers we forget to just sit and relax sometimes. I know I am guilty of that. I’m always trying to use every minute of the day to get things done or make each moment of the day a productive one. I forget sometime to just relax in a park and absorb New York City. We had a good time but it was getting late and we needed to fill our bellies before my parents went to their show.

With in the first five minutes of meeting Chris and Andrew I felt I’d known them for three hours. Three solid, carnivorous, men-hanging-out-talking-food-smack hours. And, that is precisely what followed. Let’s back up a bit.

NYC sees a new restaurant open ever day. In this mid-recession restaurant boom, which defies rational economics, these newbies try everything from a celeb chef to locally grown everything just to occupy a little mind share and influence choice. This has left my mind scrambled when it is time to actual choose a restaurant. What happened to the simply days when we would thumb through a slim, burgundy book and reserve a table for 2 with a telephone call? Enter the internet and everybody-is-a-foodie craze. You can’t open a magazine, a browser or a television without some new, hip joint claiming to be BETTER than the best meal you ever had.

Chris Stang and Andrew Steinthal have brought me back to the days of Zagat bliss by giving me one stop for all my NYC restaurant needs. Through their fairly new site, Immaculate Infatuation, they give me the non-foodie run down on such over hyped spots as The Spotted Pig and Char No. 4. Chris and Andrew come from the music biz. The site was born from the sheer number of restaurants they ate in while entertaining clients and bands. Deciding to put this experience to use, they started writing basic, human, reviews of the places and foods they consumed setting the “Infatuation” on fire.

A few weeks ago I met up with them at Tom Colicchio’s refurbished Craft Steak spot, Colicchio and Sons for a prix fix throw down. In those first five minutes I mentioned above, one of us dropped an F-Bomb, we jumped through four different conversation topics and it was determined one of us would NEED to order a diet coke. (a test to Tom’s very public endorsement deal for the beverage) Quick friends are made from those with similar passions. In this case talking to people and eating. After the meal it was clear that we had the same opinion of each other and of Tom’s NEW restaurant so we decided that more Immaculate Infatuation/Forking Tasty chow downs were in the near future. Until then I will simple pick from their ever expanding list of reviews and block out the hundreds of PR, money driven, in the know, swank, green, sustainable, celebrity-hyped reviews that give me more A.D.D. then an ex-vegetarian at a hipster butcher shop.

Thanks guys for simplifying at least part of my life. Now if I could just figure out my overstuffed inbox problem.

What we ate: But trust me, the guys tell the story better.
Gnocchi with Chestnuts
Squid with Cavalo Nero
White Bean Agnolotti
Spice Roasted Lola Duck
Pancetta-Wrapped Monkfish
Braised Loup De Mer
Roasted Sirloin
Coconut Cream Doughnuts
Beignets with bourbon panna cotta
Banana-Pecan Upside-Down

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 118 | Post-meal (1 hour): 130 | Insulin: 5 Units

My parents were coming in to visit me because they had a show to see later on in the evening. They have not been to my apartment in a while so they decided to come in a little early. My parents like to be on time and that morning it just was not going to happen for them. I wanted to have some brunch with them when they arrived because I know they would be starved. I told them to meet me at Penelope’s, a cozy brunch place near my apartment…

Here is a closer look at my 10pm burrito from San Francisco last week. Eating a super burrito and then going to bed is not the smartest thing in the world but I am a real SUCKER for NorCal taquerias. I’d do it again in a heart beat.

View SF March eat tour in a larger map
Follow the food with this map

Not surprisingly I was in San Francisco a week ago. If there is a place on earth that is my home away from home it is SF. Shhh, but I secretly hope to make it my “real” home again one day. My short, two year stint definitely left me with a bug to move back. This trip was a fast paced barrage of work, research, catching up with friends and eating that started with a 7am Saturday flt and ended with a Thurs redeye. I thought I swore those off last year?

Rather than dive deep into the stories, friends, reasons and circumstances which placed the food shown below in front of me, I thought I would “food porn” out by simply sharing the day and time these tasty morsels were consumed. Let’s jump right in with…

Lizard’s Thicket from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 114 | Post-meal (1 hour): 146 | Insulin: 5 Units

This is going to be my last blog about my visit down in South Carolina until the next time I head down to visit. I asked Kelsey to take me to a southern style lunch and she knew just the place. Lizard’s Thicket is as southern as you can get. Southern cooking has a lot of fried food and hot desserts. I like the food in the south but I could not eat like this all the time. It’s is not the healthiest diet, especially for me

This book was send to me by my friend Allen. I met Allen in LA for the first time. I was behind the wheel of a rented black, Chevy Yukon and he was standing in front of the Roosevelt Hotel on his way to the Yahoo! Grammy party. Our short drive up the Sunset Strip solidified a few quick lessons. We were both creative guys and we both expressed it through cooking. Arguably, the single most important thing he taught me came years later as we both stood in my Brooklyn kitchen after yet another one of our Yahoo! projects wrapped. Now that might seem shallow but it’s not. The trick he showed me was how to heat up a tortilla. Put the stove top flame on med heat. Throw the tortilla directly on the flame. Flip in 5 seconds. Pull it. Stuff it. Eat it.

I had always heated my tortillas in a large hot pan. Not only did this dirty another pan in the cooking process but it took longer to heat the tortillas. So, why was this lesson so important? It is not about the tortillas as much it is about understanding a new or different way to do something. So often we look to solve problems from the perspective of what we have learned or how we were taught. Sometimes this is not the best or most logical way to do something. In this case, remove the middle man (the pan) and go directly to the source is more efficient in every way, not to mention it looks really cool. Apply this to creative thinking (in my case advertising) and watch out.

A few months back Allen took a trip to Mexico and happened upon a cooking class from famed Mexican chef Rick Bayless (Mexcian via Oklahoma). With our tortilla bond in mind, he picked up a copy of Rick’s latest book and sent it over to my BK kitchen. Inside are…

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 115 | Post-meal (1 hour): 117 | Insulin: 5 Units

When I was down in South Carolina Kelsey and her parents wanted to take me to eat some southern barbeque. That was definitely on my agenda while I was down for my visit. They decided to bring me to Carolina Wings & Ale. We ordered slightly family style. I made sure we all ordered something different because I wanted to try everything. We ordered fried mushroom, chicken wings, pulled pork, ribs with a carolina dry rub, baby back ribs and five different sauces to dip in. It was a lot of fun and it was really good. Love a place with a lot of sauces.