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I have four pizza joints that deliver to my house. One is an independent joint that makes edible pizza, but the cost for a pie is between $16-$20, and it's just not worth that much money. The other three are the evil trinity of Dominos, Papa John's and Pizza Hut. Since ordering a pizza so horrible I couldn't even finish a slice, Papa John's has not been an option for years. So, one night at home, with no food and an outside temperature just below "I'm not leavin' this motherfucker," I had the choice of Dominos and Pizza Hut. Depressing.
So, I check out their websites for deals and Pizza Hut won with a $5 off coupon. I decided to try "The Natural," since a crowd in their commercial was oh so fooled by the totally reputable nameless man in a goofy chef hat that I've never seen in a commercial kitchen. "Oh, wow! It's Pizza Hut?"
The pizza is delivered to my door in just 53 minutes. On a Thursday. At nine at night. I guess natural shit takes extra time to bake through a robotic conveyor oven. It looks like a normal pizza-normal thin cut small gauge pepperoni, mozz, grease. The crust was slightly darker.
At first bite, I could taste the fear of Pizza Hut food scientists of unleashing real tomato flavor onto the public, because it had more salt than their normal paste. It also tasted like the tomatoes were sun dried which belongs on the pizza of a person desiring to be slapped...by me. The dough had normal, Hut-esque texture on the bottom, however between the bottom and the sauce was a glue textured layer of carbohydrate goo. That must be the "natural" talking.
I got through three slices, and for four hours had the feeling that I ate a full jar of Nickelodeon Gak washed down with seawater.
Don't ever expect these big chains to get it right. They're too ingrained in making terrible pizza that only delivers the fast food goods: safe flavors and shitloads of sodium. They need to leave it to restaurants like Z Pizza, who uses natural and organic products already, and also know how to make real pizza crust in which they bake in a brick oven. I eat it whenever I go to this overpriced pet food store, and it makes me forget that I spent more on my dog's food than groceries with it's delicious pizzas (the Greek is so fantastic).
Through the years, D'Amico and Sons Italian fast-casual restaurants in the Twin Cities have made it clear that appealing to demographic groups far outweighs making interesting and tasty offerings.
In 2004, D'Amico changed some things about their menu. The menu boards themselves got a pink border and their best offering by far, the pan roasted pork loin and replaced it with chicken saltimboca. Other feminine friendly offerings came through, like the "chicken-walnut-apple salad." They did this because their research showed that rich, jobless moms are their key demographic.
I hadn't been there in a while, but they still make pretty good food even though almost none of it is freshly made; most of the meat is precooked as are some of the veggies, and the pasta salads aren't necessarily made every day. The one I went to was all new construction, so I really couldn't tell the difference between it and a Pot Belly Sandwich Works or some chain hell hole which I'm sure is what the D'Amico youngsters love. The Sausage Penne, a very tasty dish be it not traditional Italian, was still great. What changed are the pizzas which lost at least an inch in circumference and gained an inch of crust! They used to be the best brick oven pizzas in the Twin Cities but now are smaller, more expensive and options don't include one of their best offerings: a mushroom and fresh mozzarella with tomato puree. Nope, just a Neapolitan that I ate in 3 minutes.
The D'Amico bros obviously want this place to catch on around the country which wouldn't be bad in theory in that it could challenge the horrible Olive Garden, but expansion rarely comes without loss of quality and sacrificing originality for the almighty buck.
I've had dinner at Fogo de Chao, the Brazilian steakhouse chain, and it's almost perfect; tender cuts of steak, pork ribs and loin, bacon wrapped meat hunks brought to your table for you like a buffet for the worst of the lazy American stereotypes with plenty of carbs right at the table. The servers are many and very attentive, drinks are kept full and all meats make equal trips around the restaurant. It is worth the, about, $60 dinner would cost.
3 friends and myself decided to go after 1pm to avoid too much of a rush and easily got a table. First at Fogo, you are told to go up to the salad bar which most of us don't want to do but feel the need to anyways. At the salad bar are a number of veggies, hard boiled eggs, salads, dried and cured meats and fine cheeses and turns out to be worth the trip as long as you don't fill up.
Not long after you sit back down do the sides come out, which are a whipped potato, fried plantain dish and little bread rolls. As soon as you get the veggie plate out of your way, you flip a two sided card over from red to green which means "go" for the waiters carrying around whole cuts of meat. It's a Vegan's nightmare.
We found that our section was only frequented by a select few waiters; the bottom sirloin guy, the garlic beef guy and bacon wrapped chicken guy. It was a longer wait for top sirloin, pork tenderloin, ribs and tenderloin, but waiters will ask if there's any cut waiting to be tried and send them around.
Most of the food is great, particularly the beef cuts. The sides are consistent and perfectly cooked and brought out frequently. One annoyance was that I drink Coke with lunch, particularly one that's this salty, and they only offer 8 ounce bottles so I ended up paying $12 for beverages. Next time, I'll try the Brazilian iced tea as it's refilled for free.
No room for desert.
So, for half the price of dinner, you get the same cuts of meat at lunch. But take the rest of the afternoon off, because you will get very sleepy.
GRADES:
ATMOSPHERE B
SERVICE B
FOOD A
VALUE A
OVERALL: A-
Batter Blaster: a way to spray pre-made pancake batter onto a griddle or pan. Sounds bad, right? Well, Batter Blaster happens to be organic. This has to be a first; that a company pioneering food technology's magical invention just happens to be organic. Not pressured to be organic or remove bad products, it skipped all that and started organic.
This is possibly also the fastest breakfast since the Pop-Tart. For those who don't like pancakes drenched in corn syrup, a light baste of butter and syrup and a rolled pancake is a fast breakfast on the go. For the "big breakfast," not having to mix up a bowl of ingredients, even instant pancakes (which are full of weird stuff) saves a lot of prep time.
The bad thing about the Batter Blaster is it's hard to know when you're going to run out, so you might plan on pancakes for breakfast and end up with pancake.
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I was sick the other day, laid out on the couch watching television in my three hours out of bed. I can't remember what I was watching on the Food Network prior to having an encounter with Tyler's Ultimate, because his show bothered me that much.
I only know this dweeb from seeing him on Applebee's commercials. Alright, this guy is some celebrated chef yet creates menu items at a god awful family restaurant chain? "A seasoned New York strip with beer battered onion rings. Is anyone seriously that impressed with beer batter to begin with? It's not a fucking souffle, it's eggwash with beer. So anyways, his show comes on and he begins to make "Ultimate Tacos
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I'm not sure what happened to "The Bad Hostess" after October 24th, 2006. Maybe she was forced to diet by her doctor. Maybe she lost her sense of taste ala Michael Hutchence. Maybe she got bored of writing on this site. I hope she's alright! Oh dear...
Anyways, I was offered my own site and took this one over because it's already established on search engines. I'm not really sure what the meaning of "Culinary Hatchet" is, but I will do my best to keep up the "Culinary" side, and use word hatchets to destroy the reputations of impostor restaurants and food products. I will also add stories and reviews of bars, pubs, watering holes and the like because food always goes with drink. I will also take dumps on most stars of the Food Network. It's just too fun, too easy.
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After six years of being bombarded with commercials of a magical fast food burger joint with over one hundred thousand drink combinations and "full menu all-day" feature that allows us bums who sleep late to still get breakfast, Sonic opened on the outskirts of St. Paul in late May. A few blocks from my mother's house, I thought it would be an easy stop on my way back home. Hell, it was a week since they opened, the line shouldn't be too bad, right?
"Finally," I thought, "I get to see what all the damn hoopla is about with this Sonic." Not so. As I drive near, I see that Sonic needed it's own police officer to direct traffic into "Staging Areas," which were parking lots filled with cars waiting for the magical Sonic. I left.
In the following weeks, I heard horror stories of three hour waits and expensive food: "A guy I know got a basic California burger with a tiny fries and a drink and it was nine bucks
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Aside from Canada, the more obedient English colonies all have an American product that virtually nobody eats in America; Heinz Baked Beans. Instead, we prefer our beans to be loaded with sugar and served alongside...grilled food? No offense to fans of the North American baked bean as I've been known to partake with a nice bratwurst myself. It's just a weird concept the more you think about it....sweet beans.
But when I was living in the South Pacific, most of our groceries came from Australia or New Zealand, and this included "Wattie's Baked Beans." Thinking that they were akin to their American counterpart, I purchased a can of them on one of my first shopping trips, wondering if they were the same beans I had enjoyed with breakfast at the local watering hole. I cooked them up and placed them alongside my fried eggs and toast, and damn is that a great combo for a sodium filled breakfast
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Sad times at Mancini's Char House
Mancini's is a well known, old school bar, and in a separate room, a “Char House,” in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It's located in a neighborhood that used to be home to the overflow of Chicago's mobsters and it's interior is proof. I had been to Mancini's as a bar a few times before. Cheap top shelf drinks, "gangster booths," and Minnesota's strangest getting funky to the Midas Touch, their house band. Back in those days, you could smoke inside, and Mancini's looked like a place that needed a foggy haze to add to it's nostalgic charm. When you're drinking and with friends, you don't need much if you're having fun, and it's definitely a fun place to escape that trendy joint you can't really afford to drink at anyways
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