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The following is adapted from a restaurant review first publish in the Cardozo Jurist.

Let me start by saying that I don’t like writing negative reviews.  They seem kind of boring.  I would much rather write article about places that are great to eat at.  But these were some new places I had high hopes for and well I felt the need to talk about them falling shorty.

Over the last summer two new restaurants have sprung up near Cardozo, my fine law school, on the corner of University and 13th Street: Vapiano, a stylish pizza and pasta bar and its next door neighbor Nanoosh, a sleek Mediterranean hummus bar. After eating at each a few times, my mind settled on a number of words that describe the food at each restaurant: adequate, all right, fine, and OK. My issue is that both restaurants are chains that put fashion above substance and quality.

Vapiano occupies a large space and sports a modern design and lounge-like feel. It has a novel payment system where you are given a card when you walk in. You swipe the card when you get food at cafeteria-style stations, and the card records your purchases. Upon leaving, you give your card back to the hostess or cashier at the door, and you’re given the total bill to pay.

Ordering my first pizza at Vapiano, I had high hopes. The pizzaiolo (Italian for the guy that cooks the pizza) makes the pizza in front of you and puts it in the oven. The pizza even looked great once it was on my plate. But the problem was in the crust; it just didn’t have the crispy, almost burnt crust an Italian style pizza should have. It made a fine flatbread, but an uninspired pizza. The other pizzas I tried during that visit and subsequent visits shared the same crust failures.

After trying the pizza, I turned my attention to the pasta bar. I ordered the Pesto e Spinaci pasta. Given the name, I was expecting a fresh pesto dish with spinach. What I got, however, was an overly creamy, heavy dish that had a hint of pesto. Not a bad dish, but not up to the potential of the fresh ingredients the server at the pasta bar had at his disposal.

Nanoosh is a smaller space that has a chic atmosphere and décor that reminds me of a spa. The menu is, not surprisingly, heavy on the hummus but also has Mediterranean influenced salads and wraps. The hummus comes in either plain or tahini (sesame seed paste) and can be ordered with a few toppings. The hummus’ flavor was par for the course, but the texture was too smooth—overly creamy. The Lebane wrap was a solid combination of Mediterranean salad with a bit of cheese.

In all, I may have gone into both restaurants with excessive expectations. Both offer fine food at a decent value. I won’t avoid going back to these places, but I won’t go out of my way to return to them, either.

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Vapiano
113 University Place (at 13th Street)
New York, NY, 10003

Nanoosh
111 University Place (between 12th & 13th Streets)
New York, NY 10003

My dear god, I don’t know how many more games like that I can watch. You know, you get a couple 7-8 beers in you and fire up the grill and get ready to watch the game with friends, and then… pick after pick after pick. They showed Favre walking into the stadium before the game and I immediately texted a few friends, “Favre looks old, brittle, and gimpy”. That visual was enough to give me pause and make me wonder if we weren’t in for another brutal game and yeah, verily, it came to pass.

This week’s football recipe is much more blue collar than the goat cheese jalapeno poppers from last week. You will need: chips, salsa, hamburger and velveeta. Given how ridiculously easy this is, it almost feels like cheating to put it up for a recipe this week. On the other hand, its realllllly good and people always seem to love it when it’s brought to parties. It also meets one of the big tests for great football food: it does not distract from the game. You just throw everything in the crockpot, and stir it every 10 minutes or so. A few years ago I hosted a Superbowl shindig and between cooking 3-4 different things, I’d say I missed about 40% of the actual football game. NEVER AGAIN, I SAY!

First off, take your hamburger, about a pound, and brown it in a pan. To season it, you’re gonna want some salt and pepper, and possibly something else. Maybe some chili powder, or chipotle, or garlic powder. Don’t go nuts with the flavoring though, otherwise the meat won’t play nice with the other ingredients in the dip. Drain the grease off completely; you don’t want any of it in the dip. When that’s done, add the meat to the crock pot. Now cut up the velveeta and add that to the crockpot. I use the usual large brick size, I dunno if that’s a pound or 1.5 lbs, but it’s the main size and the ratio should be at least one to one with the beef. Finally, add the salsa. For this, I’m usually using a regular jar of medium Pace salsa, for a few reasons: one, Pace has a good consistency. There’s a good amount of veggie chunks and it’s not too watery. Second, it’s cheap. There’s no reason to buy nice habanero salsa just to throw it in cheese dip.

So, combine the “cheese”, meat and salsa in the crockpot and turn it on high. Stir it every 5-10 minutes and it should take about 30-40 minutes for everything to melt together. Once its melted, turn the crockpot to low and let people help themselves as the game goes on. You’ll want to check on it every now and again because if it sits for a prolonged period it will get an unpleasant skin over the top. If this skin does show its ugly face, just stir vigorously for a bit. Serve with tortilla chips. Recommended beer pairing: something cheap. Save the high brow stuff for fancier meals, grab yourself a Grainbelt if you’re in Minnesota or an MGD if not, and enjoy the game!

VIKINGS PREVIEW SECTION:

I really think the Lions might beat us in Minneapolis for the first time in a decade this weekend. Even without Stafford, they put up 30 some points on Philly last weekend, and this Jahvid Best kid looks like the real deal. I certainly wish we had him instead of the Great White Flop, Toby Gerhardt. But I am not, at this point, ready to completely give up the Vikes.

I think this weekend they finally get their heads out of their collective asses and realize its gonna take some effort to put up points. I see a heavy dose of AP this weekend, especially if Percy is out for the game because of his migraines. Plus, our defense has given up 21 points over two weeks! As long as Graybeard can remember to throw to the guys in purple instead of honalulu blue, we should be fine riding #28 to victory.

Final Score: Vikings 17, Lions 10. Sad Fact: if the Vikings manage to put up 17 it will be our best offensive production of the season.

Arthur Two Cents: I have had this tried and true recipe with Loren many a time.  A quick cooking item is just what you want for what should be the first non-gut-wrenching game of the season.  [For a beer pairing here on the East Coast I would recommend the Yuengling.]

After last  week, I see why there were so few long pass attempts in the first game. Maybe a little more conservative playing is what we need with the old man until he refinds his stride.

Hopefully this game will be a low key chance for Favre  to make-up for all of their absence from training camp and Percy Harvin’s miss of the preseason.  With the Vike’s D having been strong, the end results against the Lions should be OK.  I see the end score Vikings 14,  Lions 6.

Still, if Farvre collapses in this one, I say we pull him for the season put in Tarvaris Jackson and call this season a rebuilding year. (Not really, but kind of.)  But I don’t see that happening, Loren let me pick the pics for this week’s post and I decided to go for the glory we still can have this season!

Things have settled down after the move-in and real cooking in the new apartment has begun.  Posts are coming on the indoor cooking, but today it’s time to talk about grilling.

The first part of this cooking adventure begins with getting the grill itself.  Back in Minnesota this wouldn’t be a problem, but here in Brooklyn, in order to get the grill Nick and I had to walk about a mile to Home Depot.  Actually, the walk there wasn’t bad - it was the walk home with a grill and a giant bag of charcoal that was a little more of a struggle.  The main problem is that to get to and from Home Depot and the apartment we had to walk on what is basically a highway offramp.  Unlike the skilled Mexicans pushing carts up the hilly off ramp in the middle of a lane, we not-so-artfully walked on the curb that was about two feet from a cement wall.  But we made it home with body and grill unharmed.

Our next job was to set up the grill.  I know, I know, it’s not rocket science, but it’s been about two years since I’ve built anything even as simple as an Ikea bookshelf.

It wasn’t in the instructions, but I’m pretty sure that the first step of building a grill is opening a beer.  So with some Brooklyn Lagers in hand we set to work and successfully assembled a fine grill (Yes, the handle somehow ended up on the side instead of the front, but I like to think it adds character).

Finally, it was time to grill.  Since it was Labor Day weekend, burgers and brats seemed right.  Unfortunately, here in New York, brats are not as ubiquitous as they are in the Midwest and we were forced to settle for some hot Italian sausages.

On our second grilling day, Labor Day proper, Meg was hit with a brilliant idea: cheese inside the burgers!  Having experimented with putting various herbs and spices in the burgers we decided to mix some Chipotle Tabasco sauce in with the meat.  To get the cheese inside, I basically made a smaller-and flatter-than-normal burger with a dent in the middle which I filled with cheese, and then I put a similarly-sized beef patty on top.  Softly pinching and massaging sides of the burger makes the patty whole, with the delicious cheese trapped inside.

With an heirloom tomato, a red onion, and some mizuan (a lettuce with spiky dark green leaves that has surprisingly delicate texture, but a good crunch), it was time for meat to meet fire.

One especially large and juicy burger became what I call an open legs burger (No, it’s not an open legs burger because as we all know great food is the way to a woman’s, um, heart).  It’s an open legs burger because it’s so deliciously juicy that the only way to take it on and not ruin your clothing is to sit down, open legs, lean forward, put your elbows on your knees, and eat so any drippings fall cleanly on the ground in front of you.

After the meat was cooked I threw a few ears of corn (husk and all) onto the grill that, after about 20 to 30 minutes, were so sweet and savory, with a hint of smoke, butter was unnecessary.

With the grill now safely broken in, new proteins are on the horizon.  My recent trips to the store have me eyeing great looking racks of ribs.

With the football season approaching (GO VIKES!) I thought it would be fun to start a recurring article here on EatCookLive. Every weekend I’m going to try to post a new recipe for football food. These recipes will generally be fairly easy (no one wants to cook 5 hours before a football game, unless it’s the super bowl), incredibly unhealthy (all that beer should flush the cholesterol and sodium from your system) and will pair well with beer. I’m going to do my best to get them posted on Friday or Saturday so you can buy the necessary groceries before game-day. And, just because I can’t get enough football, I may break down the upcoming Vikings game. Maybe I can even get Arthur to tag-team this section with me.

For this week: Buffalo Chicken Dip!

This one is pretty simple, and very easy to make the day/night before and then throw it in the oven right before the game starts. It also definitely meets the necessary criterion of pairing well with beer! You will need:

• 1 oz block of cream cheese
• ½ cup  of blue cheese or ranch dressing (or ¼ cup of each)
• 2 cups of shredded chicken (I have always used canned chicken for this because the combined buffalo/blue cheese flavor is pretty strong, but I wonder if this would taste even better if you bought a rotisserie chicken and shredded the breast meat.)
• ½ cup of blue cheese crumbles.
• ½ cup of frank’s red hot (you can use whatever hot sauce you like but, for me, Frank’s has that perfect buffalo wing flavor. However, use the regular stuff, not the buffalo sauce variety which has artificial butter flavoring added. Ick.)

That's the Good Stuff!

Bear with me on this one because the preparation necessary to make this is both extensive and very tedious. Ready? Take a casserole dish; add all the ingredients and mix well to combine. Throw it in the fridge until you are ready to cook it. Then throw it in the oven (preheated to 350) and bake for 20-25 minutes until it looks done in the middle. Hot damn that was hard, but I have faith that most of you can pull this one off.

Serving suggestions: you need something to put this dip on, and most anything will work in that respect. This can go with crackers, potato chips, baguette or other crusty bread, or you can use some crunchy veggies like celery and carrots. Word to the wise: as tasty as this dip is right out of the oven, it’s pretty bad as leftovers out of the fridge. You probably want to make this one when you have a few people coming over to watch the game.

VIKINGS-SAINTS PREVIEW:

I will admit that this game is making me pretty nervous, and it has a lot to do with the depth of cornerback and wide-receiver on the Vikings. Three healthy cornerbacks? Three? Vikings fans take note: when your team’s two best option for a 4^th cornerback is to rush a player back from a torn ACL, or start a special-teamer who has never before played CB, things are dire. Add to that a Saints offense which likes to pass even more than Childress likes to toss out random 19^th century literary references, and you have the recipe for a defensive melt-down. And as for wide receivers, why the hell did we cut Javon Walker and trade Darius Reynaud??? Granted, neither of them are by any means star wide-receivers, they’re only emergency back-ups, but WE NEED EMERGENCY BACKUPS!!! And why not pick up TJ Houzh? All he was gonna get was 1 year and $850K, and we turned him down! WTF ARE YOU DOING CHILLY!?

Having said all of that, I still think we can pull this one out. Look, we destroyed that New Orleans defense last year, racking up damn near 500 yards and being 15 seconds from the super bowl on unfriendly turf. You just don’t win games with that many turnovers. I’m counting on AP to get his mind right regarding the fumbles and Brett Favre to be steady but not spectacular, at least not in the first game when the decrepit old fart still hasn’t nailed down the timing with his receivers. I’ll take by Vikings by a field goal, 28-31.

Arthur’s Two Cents:
With football season fast approaching, I know there are a few emergency fantasy football drafts in the works. For those of you hosting the midnight hour drafts this recipe might be just the quick snack you need.

On to the football. I think that AP, even with his fumble risk, is enough of a threat to allow the Old Man to make the most of the passing game. Still, I honestly don’t know if we are going to be able to win this one. If we lose, I see the season going one of two ways: (1) responding by pulling together and working out the kinks or (2) staring a patented Brad-Johnson-era style downward spiral.

In addition to blogging about food I also do a little legal blogging.   But some days the stars align and a blog post touches on both the legal and culinary.  Today is one of those days.

Because the fine people at the Law Insider actually pay me a bit for my writings I can’t just re-post it here.   But my food/law post, full of recipe insanity and espionage, can be found at  The Law Insider.

Please accept my double dipping while I enter the final days of apartment hunting  (yes, I am still looking for an apartment for September 1, aka 10 days from now). An all original post involving French Fries,  cheese curds, and gravy is in the works!

The Country Club

The Bushwick Country Club is Classy. That’s right: “classy” with a capital C.

For those you of you unfamiliar with Bushwick, it’s a Brooklyn neighborhood southeast of hipster Williamsburg. Bushwick is famous for a lot of things, with safety and high incomes probably rounding out the bottom of the list. Still, the Bushwick Country Club name doesn’t disappoint.

True to its name, the Bushwick Country Club even has a small golf course—a miniature golf course if you will. The mini-golf course is complete with a windmill made out of old PBR cans! As you might guess from the PBR cans, this fine establishment is near the Williamsburg border.

But the fun doesn’t stop with the golf. Specials drinks included two slushie machines, one always filled with Jim Beam & Coke slushies and one currently pumping out homemade Sweet Tea Vodka slushies.

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The Pickle Back

The Pickle Back

The real novel drink at the Bushwick Country Club  is the Pickle Back: a PBR tall boy, a shot of whiskey, and a shot of garlicky pickle brine. It sounds disgusting, at first, but that’s only before you realize the secret. You don’t shoot the whiskey and brine; they need to be sipped with the beer. If you like pickles and salty things, you’ll love this combination.

(I know, I know. In my Dale’s Ale post I knocked PBR, but sometimes glorified mineral water is the right beer—the Pickle Back is one of those times.)

After trying the Pickle Back at the Country Club, I decided it was time to make it at home. Tall boy PBRs are cheap enough and they give you rail whiskey at the Country Club, so no need to spend the big bucks on the brown for the home version. For the pickle brine you can buy a jar of pickles. Or just ask if you can get some at the deli counter – my local grocery store was happy to give me a bunch for free (it turns out they just throw it out anyway)!

However you get your hands on it, this unique drink is a must try.

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The Bushwick Country Club
618 Grand Street (between Leonard & Lorimer)
New York, NY 11211
(718) 388-2114

www.bushwickcountryclub.com

Ok, so the official name is Dale’s Pale Ale, but I like to keep it simple with Dale’s Ale.  I know what you’re thinking when you see the picture: but Arthur, this comes in a can so it must be swill?  All I can say you’ve got to try it!  This is hands down the best beer I’ve ever had out of a can and definitely in the top 10% of beers overall.

To be fair, when I first saw it when I moved to New York two years ago I had the same thought.  But Matt, the bartender at my favorite watering hole, the City Tavern, made me see the light.

The beer is an awesome IPA—a truly hoppy but really well-balanced IPA.  The great part is that the sweet balances the hops almost without letting you know it’s there; like a magic invisible fairy it just makes everything right with the world.

And for the hipsters, there is the added benefit of being able to drink out of a “cool” looking can without having to drink the glorified mineral water found in PBR cans (though I still recommend a glass).

Mentioning beer in four out of six of my first posts might not have given it away, but I like beer. I mean I could be a doctor in a 50s television ad when it comes to the stuff: it relaxes you when you are overworked, picks you up when you’re down, cools you in the heat of summer, and warms you in the cold of winter. So when I found out the Brooklyn Brewery was walking distance from my front door and that it has FREE tours I had to go.

The tour is short but informative. There are some funny anecdotes about the brewery getting started in 1987 and an overview on the brewing process.

After the tour there is $4 beer. Yeah, that’s only about a buck or two off the Brooklyn Lager you can get at the bar. But, what makes it great is you can get some hard to find beers. This summer I’ve been experimenting with this concept called “moderation” so I only tried two brews. My first was the Brooklyn Blast. Dark gold in appearance with a light white head, the Brooklyn Blast is hop forward but balanced with malty caramel. My second beverage was the Brooklyn Buzz Bomb. The light bodied taste has a nice amount of sweet malts and honey with enough hops for balance. The Buzz Bomb is actually a braggott (a blend of beer and mead). True to the best of the braggots the Buzz Bomb ferments both the grains and honey together to make a must try summer brew. Clocking in at 8.2 and 8 ABV respectively, both pack a refreshing zing. Though don’t look for these at your corner store, as part of the draft-only Brewmaster’s Reserve Series they won’t be found in bottles.

#1 BREWERS ROW
79 North 11th Street
Brooklyn, NY
http://www.brooklynbrewery.com/events/

(For those in Minnesota I recommend the Summit Brewing tour. Not only do you get a great tour, but you get a free beer at the end!)

I’ve been in New York for almost two years now and, while there are a million new culinary delights out here on the east coast, there are some things from Minnesota that I just can’t replace. The top five culinary absences in my transplant life are:

5. Isles Bun & Coffee:

This place has the best cinnamon buns and scones I have ever had. But the real find is the coffee cake—crispy on top, fruity, not overly sweet, and perfect with a cappuccino. I don’t normally have a sweet tooth, so my love for this place says a lot about how great they do morning pastries. You can find this gem in Uptown Minneapolis (which is south of downtown Minneapolis for some reason).

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4. The Minnesota State Fair:

This isn’t just one food, but many. If you can put it on a stick and deep fry it you can find it at the Minnesota State Fair. My arteries clog with joy just thinking about it.

My simple favorite, dating back to childhood, is the corn dog. Crispy dough on the outside, followed by a layer of soft dough, followed by the hot dog—all covered in mustard and ketchup. But the great eats keep going: pork chops on a stick, cheese on a stick (fried of course!), cheese curds (no stick with this cheese but it’s still great), french fries, chocolate chip cookies and all you can drink milk, bison burgers, and mini-doughnuts. Sure, some would argue that eating any one of these foods is bad for you. But when you eat them all in the same day your body is surely so overwhelmed by calories that it doesn’t know what to do and you actually lose weight!

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3. The Italian Pie Shoppe:

I don’t understand why New York doesn’t even try when it comes to deep dish pizza. And NO, Sicilian style pizza doesn’t count just because the crust crosses the quarter inch mark. Don’t get me wrong, I love the thin crust found on every corner, but I miss my deep dish.

The Italian Pie Shoppe makes a true deep dish pizza that is measured in inches, has a crispy bottom on the crust, with a soft and almost doughy middle. And, as is right, the cheese  goes underneath the simple canned tomatoes that top the pizza.

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2. Summit Brewing’s Oktoberfest:

With the end of summer and the start of football season around the corner I can’t help but think of this great beer. The brew’s reddish-gold color perfectly matches autumn leaves and the flavor is sweet malt with some light fruitiness to it. I’ve found a lot of great New York beers during the last two years (with Brooklyn Brewery near the top of the list), but Summit’s Oktoberfest will always have a place in my heart.

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1. Pad Thai Cream Cheese Wontons:

I don’t think that it’s been proven yet, but I am fairly certain that there is a genetic defect in people living outside of the Midwest. This defect has the tragic effect of making people see cheese and not wonder what it would be like somehow deep fried. Nowhere outside of Minnesota have I found the cream cheese wonton. Yes, there are crab rangoon wontons to be had in New York, but it’s just some perfectly good cream cheese polluted by crab.

The best of the cream cheese wontons can be found at Pad Thai Café in St. Paul. The cream cheese has a small addition of scallions to add a little depth. While they are nothing complicated, I could eat these every day.   I have a bias toward Pad Thai, with a strong sense of nostalgia, after eating there from 8th grade on. Still after eating cream cheese wontons at dozens of other places the gold medal for taste goes to Pad Thai’s wontons.

Still, even with those five greats, one foods need an honorable mention: The runner up is Jack’s Frozen Pizza. I think the best way to describe Jack’s is that it is truly the Taco Bell of frozen pizza. After a night on the town it’s there, waiting for you in the freezer, for you to cook and eat with that last nightcap. Sadly, my internet research tells me this not-so-fine, but still delicious, pizza is only distributed in the Midwest.

Scientist and brewers have teamed up bring the oldest known adult beverage out of the dust of history and into a glass.

About 10 years ago archaeologists found pottery jars in the Stone Age village of Jiahu in northern China.  After analyzing the 9,000 year old residue in the jars scientist were able to derive the ingredients (including rice, grapes, hawthorn berries, and honey) for the oldest known fermented beverage.  The jars weren’t used to hold wine or a beer or mead, but something that was a combination of all three—a trend in ancient alcoholic beverages.

Dogfish Head, a Delaware-based brewery famous for its production of ancient beverages, turned the old recipe into a commercially available product.  Named Jiahu, after the ancient village, the brew offers a chance to literally taste history.

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Look for a future post after I manage to get my hands on a bottle of Jiahu.