I play with food for money. Sometimes I write about it. Other times I just eat it.
If I find myself in this plaza, I usually go to Pho Bang or walk around the corner to Taste Good, a Malaysian hole in the wall. Pizza is not the first thing I think of when I'm in Elmhurst, that's for sure.
Buy the 6 and give away 5 to your friends on Slice!
3 words: Chuck E Cheese's. I'm not sure if their pizza, which they seem to be known for, could even qualify as pizza. All I know is one time my son convinced me to get it and I have regretted it ever since. It's like white bread with American cheese on top. And like the bad sex metaphor, I felt dirty immediately afterword. So, no, if pizza is as bad as that, then it's not good even when it's bad!
Wait a minute. Not to follow my own comment, but I just noticed the not one, but two ads for Papa John's on this page. Is this post some kind of thinly veiled endorsement by SE with hopes of generating click-through revenue from Papa John's Apple Pie Pizza?
I can imagine the build instructions at PJ's for this. 1. Open can of apple and corn syrup based pie filling. 2. Place one dessert crust shell on counter. 3. Top crust with pie filling. 4. Send through conveyor oven. 5. Box and slice in rectangles.
Methinks PJ's found a loophole to not paying out profit sharing and free pizza to the winner. Or I could just be a skeptic, maybe they'll roll out the Cordon Bleu pie later.
Saw these at the store last Sunday and momentarily contemplated buying them. Glad I didn't.
The mamey sapote in the photo is strange to me -- I've never seen them with white seeds, only with jet black seeds.
Not to follow up my own comment with yet another, I knew I had read somewhere that the FDA had originally denied the name corn sugar and instructed food companies to use corn syrup instead. There's an article on AdAge of all places that goes into detail about HFCS controversy. It's here:
http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=144258
I guess it took a while, but it appears as though the food industry has won this time.
How about, from the Washington Post:
Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012601831.html
Does anyone really believe that the industry has changed its ways and stopped using HFCS with mercury or even made an effort to test the HFCS they use?
I have to agree with chazmo, we've been to Playa del Carmen many times over the past 14 years and only stay in small hotels in town. It's a place to go if you don't want to stay in a resort, despite the move towards American style commercialism recently. It's a great town with great beaches and amazing food on practically every corner.
Garlic roux sauce? Looks like a bechamel with a lot of garlic to me. Who's here to split hairs, though.
"Would I fly to Michigan just for a taste of Loui's thick-crusted wonder? Maybe not" Doesn't mean I don't want to eat all 4 of those squares right now - they look great, a little on the well done side, crispy, saucy, everything I want right now!
Do you have an address for the geographically challenged? I can't find the mall in Google maps and I have been meaning to go there.
Nice shout out for Carmine's Original in Norman - we've been getting it delivered for years. Good to hear the slice harvester holds Carmine (not the Williamsburg one) in such esteem. That guy must be in his late 60s or even 70s and he's there every day from opening until closing.
I love the black plates on blue tray on blue table - great visual composition. It doesn't, however, make the pizza look any better.
@braciole: I feel a professional responsibility to field this one. As a food stylist, I have to say, the food you receive at almost any commercial establishment will never, never, never look like the idealized version the company produces for promotional purposes. Remember the movie Falling Down? Michael Douglas flips out in the fast food restaurant because his burger doesn't look like the one on the poster? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
By the way, my future tell-all autobiography about my years as a food stylist will be titled: Why Doesn't Mine Look Like That? It'll be available exactly two years after my current client base reads this post.
@Pizzablogger: Only if you fail miserably at it and we can post the video here.
I always figured he had a beer/wine license all along - he was on here a few months before opening asking what kind of cheap beers he should offer. Good to know Paulie is moving forward however. I still need to get myself over there, it's only a few blocks away!
Thanks Cap'n, I was just about to go on a rant about this. The plural of popover is popovers. 'nuff said.
@Pizzablogger: With 20+ years in the food industry, I recognize what you're saying, but these are people with multiple stores including a few out West. They must have some modicum of business ability to keep the brand going after all these years. The fact that they expanded yet never bothered to put an equity investment in their first location baffles me.
Pizza style squabbling aside, I have to ask the question. How can a business as long-standing and successful as Grimaldi's NOT own the building? This whole thing would be a moot point if the owners didn't have the foresight at some point to buy what might be the most important single part of their business - the physical space itself.
I rarely wait in line for food. I'd rather arrive a few minutes before a place will open and wait then rather than stand in line like cattle. If I go to Ippudo in NYC, it's always for lunch and always between 11:30 and 11:55. Same for Xi'an Famous Foods. I don't have time to kill, and if I do, I'd rather do something more constructive -- like look for a better option.
I made green tea ice cream for my son's birthday on Thursday. I didn't know it was ice cream day, merely a coincidence. This and the ketchup as vegetable legislation Ron-Ron passed might be the only two things he did in his presidency I agree with. Just kidding, ketchup is clearly a condiment.
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"Fast Food Mafia" by deviantART user ~silentsketcher imagines various major chain mascots as members of organized crime. We're sure that, as far as many people are concerned, the depiction isn't that far from the truth. The artist also sends up Wendy, the Burger King, and Colonel Sanders.... More
@ScottInMichigan: It's not as uncommon as you'd think. If a distillery doesn't have fermentors (I didn't see any in the photos), they usually by NGS (neutral grain spirits). It might go into the still at 96%, but it is usually diluted before re-distillation - ethanol at that purity might explode when heated.