No, it's not what you're thinking. This is actually a pleasant suprise! Not only is there plenty of good food to see and eat around the Rogue, there's actually food IN the Rogue!
No, it's not Yan Can Cook: The Wok Chronicles Musical. Although, now that I say it, that could be pretty awesome. Nope, it's a one woman show from the wilds of deepest darkest New York. Her name is Carolann Valentino and she's performing Burnt at the Steak at the Starline. She sings, does amazing changes in character right before your eyes and swears better than the most grizzled, greasy back haired line cooks.
All this AND she can run a 5 star steakhouse in the most demanding culinary market in all the land? This is a show right up the collective alley of food fans who enjoy the hellish humor that goes hand in hand with serving a demanding and shockingly ignorant public. Picture a hot, corset wearing, never did heroin version of Anthony Bourdain if he worked the front of house.
So she is definately going to the top of the pile of must-see shows we're looking forward to this Rogue. Right after Captain Scurvy's Apocalypse Hoedown Revival of course! Some other talents that have piqued our interest include, A Cynic Tells Love Stories, Jesus in Montana (looks HILARIOUS!), The Last Straight Man in Theater, Pipe on the Hob, Merlinda Espinosa, Burning Man & the Reverend Nuge, The Suicide Lounge and of course the ladies of the Fresno Burlesque Society in Carnival Carnivale.
Oh! And I must not forget. I was bribed with promises of indian tacos and Pabst Blue Ribbon by the cast of the Uncle Bucky's Trailer Style show to pander to their depraved rendition of scantily clad mobile home afficionados gyrating in an obscene amalgamation of dirty southern rock and the bare shanks of lite beer fed, G.E.D-lacking, trailer trash trick turning trollops! Expect daisey dukes, inappropriate belching and music that comes from that special place you hit after the 5th 5th and right before you get your stomach pumped. Hailed as a tour de force by Mike Upton, this kid I went to Jr. High with. Fun for toothed and toothless alike says Mee-Maw, famed local knitting artist.
I better get those damn tacos and beer!!!!
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Eating Out Rogue Festival
Our own internationally famous Rogue Festival is about to kick off this Thursday. And we're doing our part by make sure to sleaze our way into the booths and tables of the unsuspecting Tower eating establishments to leave them in complete disarray. Covered and smothered in a film of crumbs and mysterious viscous fluids.
For the performers and volunteers of the festival, the work has already begun. The setting up of venues, the plastering of flyers, online promotion blitzes. Final rehearsals, tweaking costumes and art projects and itineraries of which shows are a must-see. And speaking of a show that you simply must see, I must shamelessly plug and pander to friend of the blog Captain Scurvy's Apocalypse Hoedown Revival
Vaudevillian humor and miracle alchemical healings. Chills! Thrills! And absolute abject terror! Guaranteed to make Bob Hope roll in his grave every time you see it! So go see it!
Pandering over. Back to our regularly scheduled snark. We kick off Eating Out Rogue Festival by doing what we do best. Getting drunk! So we're off to the The Sequoia Brewing Company for some beers and some snacks.
Sequoia is a more recent incarnation of the beloved Butterfield's brewpub. As I understand it, along with the business, Sequoia also bought Butterfield's recipes. I was always a fan of the tower dark, but I'm more in a refreshing beer kind of mood. So I order their German kolsh, called the Sequoia Gold. It's pretty damn good! It's got the lightness of a pilsner, but the bitterness is mellowed to a mild afternote. The flavor is almost sweet, just teasing that line from the dark Munich malt. I loved it and will certainly wind up regretting drinking plenty more.The last 2 minutes of the USA vs. Canada hockey match was on, so we were decidedly distracted during the ordering process as we cheered the tying goal. Poor thing, she dealt with our sophomoric bellowing in stride. Our group ordered: potato skins, chicken fried steak, green salad, sausage plate appetizer (a re-tread of a Butterfield's favorite) and garlic fries.
The food arrived in good time. Especially given how busy it was on a Sunday afternoon. The potato skins appeared fairly average. Not exactly artful presentation, but they had fairly generous toppings. The chicken fried steak didn't really appear to be anything special. By appearance alone it seemed to be a pre-formed and breaded frozen patty tossed in a fryer. However the sweet potato fries that came with it were quite good. They come with a rather tasty aioli. The salad was salad. Pre-mix with bottled dressing, croutons and a few raisins. Nothing to write home about, but adequate.
Now we come to my old favorite. Once upon a time, this plate introduced me to amazing and wonderful sausages I had never tried. And it allowed me to try each as an individual, similar to a cheese platter or beer sampler. Not any more. What I got was a red, greasey mess of muddled flavors. The plate is supposed to come with andouille, italian and bratwurst sausages. With all the brick colored grease, it's obvious that they've thrown all of the sliced sausages in to fry together with the onions and jalepenos. Sadly, this results in a poorly muddled mess that, while edible, does nothing to enhance the enjoyment of a good sausage. The fries were all right, with a dusting of parmesan and parsley, though lacking in any real garlic flavor. I'll address the real outrage next.
Prices! Oh my god! This is the most lopsided menu I have ever seen in my life! Eight dollars for french fries? NINE for fried pickles?!? What planet are we on, where two of the cheapest ingredients around can run you just as much as an entree? It's fucking potatoes and pickles!!! A burger is a buck fifty more and it COMES WITH FRIES! I'll concede that the food is edible, even tasty in some instances. But if I'm paying entree prices for some damn french fries there had better be some sort of magical theater or art applied to them. Send out a crying mime to weep over my empty wallet. Instead of ranch, send them out with some lidocaine booty butter lubricant so we don't need butt doughnuts to sit down after we get the check. Tickle my no-no's! Something!
All in all, Sequoia is a fine brewery that still serves cold and tasty beer. As a restaurant though, they need to make a decision to smarten up their menu as well as their presentation. The sausages were a mess, the chicken fried steak was an embarassment and the price gouging for seasoned fries was outright astounding. If you're peckish, their chips and salsa are only two bucks. Is nothing complimentary any more? Sheesh! The dinner menu appears a little more on the reasonable side, but the appetizers just aren't worth what you pay. So, you might want to toast your friends on a full stomach.-Pook
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Eating Out a Mad Duck
So recently I’ve been reading up on the local restaurant news and this new spot called The Mad Duck came to my attention. Since they’re still in the building stage, I can’t really review the place. But I can go on a non-sequetarian rant about the menu. Join us won’t you?
Now, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m quite the curmudgeon. So my first inclination was to look at tearing apart their cookie cutter menu. The Duck is a burger and sandwich joint, in function not much different from a Red Robin. So naturally I’m digging through looking for the same old same old. And there are some commonly found plates. Caesar and Cobb salads, hot wings, bleu cheese burgers and the like. But I also found some interesting and even intriguing dishes surrounding them.
First off there was a beet salad. I don’t know if it will sell since most people put beets alongside brussel sprouts as fiberous culinary poison. But it’s certainly a bold choice for a very picky town. There’s a duck prosciutto salad that looks interesting, if for no other reason than it’s hard as hell to find many dishes in town that use it. Their appetizers vary between the familiar, the gimmicky, the bizarre and the hopefully awesome. Wings, sweet potato fries, familiar. Fried pickles and buffalo chicken dip, gimmicky. Warm soft pretzel…bizarre. Wait, what’s this? Baked brie, pulled pork sliders and devilled eggs. Wait, DEVILLED EGGS? Hell yes! I know they’re simple to make at home, but talk about comfort food. I don’t know if it’s a bold, maverick choice. Or, if it’s a brilliant stroke of marketing to reach out to the common man and say “Heck man, we ain’t no dang ole high falutin’ snooty type ‘Beestro’! We’s just like y’all. Devilled egg?”.
Burgers are burgers. In my opinion the most avant garde thing a cook can do with a burger is cook it properly. The lulu burger is somewhat interesting since it incorporates lamb. But hardly a new item for Fresno. But the sandwiches again diverge from the usual fare. Sure, there’s a steak sandwich and a pulled pork. Then you see the spicy shrimp stuffed baguette, the fried egg and bacon sandwich and a grilled brie and ham sandwich. Grilled brie and ham?? I’m getting fatter just thinking about it. I like this. Dessert is pleasantly simple. Bread pudding or cupcakes. Obviously dessert isn’t going to be their stock and trade. And I think that’s a very good thing for their entrées.
So, naturally I expect the prices to be through the roof at this point. The prices on their online menu are small and really difficult to read. Missing in a couple categories as well. But when my poor old eyes finally focus enough to find them, I was outright shocked! They were reasonable. There’s no dollar menu, but their prices are well below what I expected for the food they are offering. Salads between $5 and $10. Appetizers between $4 and $10 (fries only $2!). Burgers run between $6 to $9, which is in general, a lot for a hamburger. But, heck Carl’s Jr.’s prices have crept into that range. The prices for their sandwiches and premium burgers are still yet to be published on their website, but I daresay that I’m thinking that they will be reasonable as well.
Overall, I’m cautiously hopeful about The Mad Duck serving good food and if so, having a good shot at making it in Fresno. We will of course forgive them for having the audacity to be north of Shaw and the general poor taste to be located in Clovis. Being in Old Town off of Pollasky and 5th Street (that’s Bullard to us Fresnans) is, I suppose, an adequate concession.
And so we wish you luck you psychotic canard, you unbalanced mallard, you cracked up quacker. Expect Eating Out Fresno to beat a path to your door when you open. Here’s a prayer that your food can live up to my vastly overblown expectations. I really don’t want it to turn out like that one time I played ping pong with a porn star. High expectations, with a dreadfully painful letdown at the end. Who would have thought that Ron Jeremy was that good at ping pong?
-Pook
Now, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m quite the curmudgeon. So my first inclination was to look at tearing apart their cookie cutter menu. The Duck is a burger and sandwich joint, in function not much different from a Red Robin. So naturally I’m digging through looking for the same old same old. And there are some commonly found plates. Caesar and Cobb salads, hot wings, bleu cheese burgers and the like. But I also found some interesting and even intriguing dishes surrounding them.
First off there was a beet salad. I don’t know if it will sell since most people put beets alongside brussel sprouts as fiberous culinary poison. But it’s certainly a bold choice for a very picky town. There’s a duck prosciutto salad that looks interesting, if for no other reason than it’s hard as hell to find many dishes in town that use it. Their appetizers vary between the familiar, the gimmicky, the bizarre and the hopefully awesome. Wings, sweet potato fries, familiar. Fried pickles and buffalo chicken dip, gimmicky. Warm soft pretzel…bizarre. Wait, what’s this? Baked brie, pulled pork sliders and devilled eggs. Wait, DEVILLED EGGS? Hell yes! I know they’re simple to make at home, but talk about comfort food. I don’t know if it’s a bold, maverick choice. Or, if it’s a brilliant stroke of marketing to reach out to the common man and say “Heck man, we ain’t no dang ole high falutin’ snooty type ‘Beestro’! We’s just like y’all. Devilled egg?”.
Burgers are burgers. In my opinion the most avant garde thing a cook can do with a burger is cook it properly. The lulu burger is somewhat interesting since it incorporates lamb. But hardly a new item for Fresno. But the sandwiches again diverge from the usual fare. Sure, there’s a steak sandwich and a pulled pork. Then you see the spicy shrimp stuffed baguette, the fried egg and bacon sandwich and a grilled brie and ham sandwich. Grilled brie and ham?? I’m getting fatter just thinking about it. I like this. Dessert is pleasantly simple. Bread pudding or cupcakes. Obviously dessert isn’t going to be their stock and trade. And I think that’s a very good thing for their entrées.
So, naturally I expect the prices to be through the roof at this point. The prices on their online menu are small and really difficult to read. Missing in a couple categories as well. But when my poor old eyes finally focus enough to find them, I was outright shocked! They were reasonable. There’s no dollar menu, but their prices are well below what I expected for the food they are offering. Salads between $5 and $10. Appetizers between $4 and $10 (fries only $2!). Burgers run between $6 to $9, which is in general, a lot for a hamburger. But, heck Carl’s Jr.’s prices have crept into that range. The prices for their sandwiches and premium burgers are still yet to be published on their website, but I daresay that I’m thinking that they will be reasonable as well.
Overall, I’m cautiously hopeful about The Mad Duck serving good food and if so, having a good shot at making it in Fresno. We will of course forgive them for having the audacity to be north of Shaw and the general poor taste to be located in Clovis. Being in Old Town off of Pollasky and 5th Street (that’s Bullard to us Fresnans) is, I suppose, an adequate concession.
And so we wish you luck you psychotic canard, you unbalanced mallard, you cracked up quacker. Expect Eating Out Fresno to beat a path to your door when you open. Here’s a prayer that your food can live up to my vastly overblown expectations. I really don’t want it to turn out like that one time I played ping pong with a porn star. High expectations, with a dreadfully painful letdown at the end. Who would have thought that Ron Jeremy was that good at ping pong?
-Pook
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