graham bowles was robbed!

And I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. While watching Iron Chef this past week, I couldn't get over one of the judges, the incredibly annoying Karine Bakhoum. She is to Bobby Flay what Suzyn Waldman is to the Yankees — that is, an overly ingratiating homer you want to bitchslap.

It turns out Kariney is Flay's former publicist! I'm already in the mindset that Flay wins ways more often than he deserves to on this show. Other Iron Chefs and competitors don't get the credit for taking chances and risks, while Flay coasts on what he knows. It doesn't help that Flay has a massive ego and his latest show, Throwdown just compounds the fact. How arrogant can one person be?

The secret ingredient for Bowles vs. Flay was chocolate. I thought Graham Bowles put together a really interesting meal and presented it beautifully - something Flay gets way too much credit for usually. One of Flay's desserts in contrast was a sickly looking dark chocolate and raspberry parfait that was melting and dripping all over the place. Aren't parfaits supposed to have discernible layers? The dessert looked like it came from a baby's diaper. Looking at another one of his dishes, a napoleon type thingy made with unsweetened chocolate pancakes limply stacked, also made me uncomfortable.

Chef Bowles is presenting his food and Karine could care less. He's taking her away from Bobby time. You know that cartoon where the wolf's eyes pop out of their sockets and become hearts? That was Karine B. when she was talking about Bobby Flay. She gushed and cooed like a girl with a schoolyard crush, completely going over the top in her praise. I'm sure she wanted to caress Bobby's red hair and hold him in her bosom and feed him peeled grapes. It was enough to make you want to barf.


Oh my god, I think she's on par with Missy Yum-O herself.

don't call it a comeback

my appetite was back in a huge way at last night's slice/gothamist pizza party at fornino in the wb. scroll down to see a familiar face! we were fortunate enough to get a table in the back room and have the assortment of pies delivered right to us. there was always a good flow of food and the bar line never got too long either. and they were serving peroni! i love peroni!

this is what i consumed:
• margheria extra - cherry tomato, mozz, basil, parm, olive oil
• rustica - guanciale (that's pig jowl to you, bub), shitake mushroom,s parm, tomato, mozz
• calabrese - tomato, mozz, sopressato piccante
• ortolana - tomato, mozz, eggplant, zucchini, roasted peppers, broccoli rabe
• pugliese - mozz, fennel sausage, broccoli rabe (consumed while waiting IN line for the bathroom)
• melanzane - tomato, eggplant, ricotta, mozz, parm, basil
• gorgonzola - gorgonzola, mozz, caramelized onion, rosemary
• funghi misti - mixed wild mushrooms, caciocavallo, mozz, white truffle oil
• tartufo - black winter truffles, fontina, ricotta, mozz, olive oil

so that's 9 different pies we sampled of the 16 that were served. not a bad ratio, but i would have happily traded a couple of the pies that featured eggplant for ones that had more meat and/or seafood. they used little japanese eggplants that looked alarmingly similar to sliced sausage. we were tricked a couple times. this is not a complaint, just some wishful thinking from a meat lover. i also went up to the salad bar like 3 times. fornino put together 3 different varities - chopped, mixed greens with shaved parm and ceasar. i love salad. oh and did i mention i love pizza? cause i do and i ate either 10 or 11 slices.

my favorite hands down was the tartufo. what a wonderful bonus to be treated to such a delicious creation made with very expensive ingredients. it was only my second time having actual truffles (rather than truffle oil or what have you) and it was so very delicious. i want to eat an entire pie, but i would have to pay $35. on our way out the chef was demonstrating the mozzerella making process. i gasped when i walked by and saw the bowl of milky liquid and was immediately handed a chunk of warm, gooey mozzerella wrapped in proscuitto. ok and if that wasn't enough, they then brought out mini cups of tartufo for the crowd to sample. god bless us everyone!

thanks to everyone at slice, gothamist and fornino for a really fantastic night. when i get home i'm going to post a picture of the oil soaked menu. i forgot to mention that while biting into my first slice, i was totally attacked by napalm filled cherry tomatoes. later in the evening, i was attacked by truffle oil, but i easily surrended.

still delicious after 3 hours in a car

i am pleased to report that my 3 hours old pat's steak wiz wit was delicious. there is no photographic evidence because i consumed it in record time. a little heating up in the toaster oven did it wonders, remelted the wiz and made for a delicious dinner. thank you listmaker, thank you.

mine soon

the post office may be closed for the holiday, but i'm getting a special delivery later today! i don't care one bit that it will be about 3 hours old, it will still be glorious.

sangwiches you will like

i started this post the other week and was reminded of it by a couple things that happened the past two days. firstly, the meatball parm sub from parisi's i had for lunch yesterday, which was the first food i had eaten in over 24 hours. i'm still sick with mystery virus. secondly, i am very upset i don't have monday off. which means i won't be accompanying dan to maryland. but what it really means is that i won't be there when dan's ride (aka dave and jen) makes a pit stop at pat's steaks. sigh. and finally, i caught a whiff of oil and vinegar from someone's hero today at lunch. it reminded me of one of my favorite fast food sandwiches, the blimpie's best.

i don't think many branches of subway existed while i was growing up. in my area it was all about blimpies. i don't even think i heard of subway until i got to college. while their hot roast beef with american is top notch, the BB was the preferred sub of the hong family. we would often get it for lunch on the way back from church on sunday. there were many fights between my and my brother charlie since he would also request no oil and i couldn't have any of that. a BB was made with ham, hard salami, red peppered cappy ham, black peppered prosciuttini ham and provoline cheese. white bread please, there was no wheat option back then. we would order them with everything, which meant lettuce, tomato, onions, a shake of oregano and oil and vinegar. often we would ad hot and sweet peppers which i remember picking off when i was younger. looking back, i had no idea what some of these deli meats where. cappacola? i still don't know what proscuittini is.

i haven't had one of these sandwiches in years. i tried getting it once at a new york branch near union square and was so disappointed and also kind of shocked when the counter guy started putting mayo on the bread when i asked for everything. really, mayo? i am a mayo apologist, but the last place mayo needs to be is on a BB. oregano, oil and vinegar please.

onto what i originally wrote: all this talk about toast is making me very hungry this morning. i forgot to pack some kashi for breakfast and now it's just 11am and i want lunch. i'm thinking i might have to make the trek to nicky's vietnamese sandwiches in the east village. though nicky's is smaller than your average bahn mi, their pork shop sandwich is still $3.95 well spent. strips of marinated and grilled pork are tucked into a crusty baguette slathered with mayo and topped with mixture of pickled carrots, cucumbers, cilantro and thin disks of jalapenos. i'm drooling.

i recently dvr'ed rick sebak's excellent documentary, sandwiches you will like. i had originally watched this visual love affair for perhaps the world's second greatest food (sorry, but noodles are #1 in my heart) at the team plumley young avenue headquarters. sebak creates these amazing documentaries for his local PBS affiliate in pittsburgh. while some of them are centered around local amusements and curiosities (pittsburgh history series, something about oakland, pittsburgh a-z), others are devoted to more general topics: amusement parks, hot dogs and perhaps in his greatest achievement, the sandwich. it was nice to get reaquianted with the nasty looking chipped ham, which i had completely forgotten about, as well as the sandwiches that made lasting impressions from the first viewing: the hot brown, beef on weck, the st. paul. there are still so many fantastic sandwiches out there. sebak should really consider a part two.

robert wagner has nothing to do with this post

this morning i had a cup of cereal. the cleanliness of the bowls in the office is suspect, so i used a coffee cup that seemed to be made out of packing peanut material. it was the first time i've had cold cereal for breakfast in at least 5 years, maybe even more. during college i went on a brief kellogg's smart start kick, but i mostly liked eating it out of the box dry. usually what happens is that about halfway through a box, i get bored of the morning repitition.

however i was grocery shopping yesterday afternoon and decided to buy a box of kashi heart to heart. i might have been influenced by the recent new york times article about alternative cereals. i also decided i need to be healthier and getting donuts and brioches from balthazar bakery doesn't help my arteries or my wallet.

the key for me is the proper milk-to-cereal ratio. i think i might be mildly lactose intolerant. sometimes eating dairy products upsets my stomach or makes me very phlegmy. in fact i am kind of phlegmy now. i used a tiny bit of 1% milk - just enough to coat the cereal but not make it a soggy mess. the cereal retained its shape (circles and hearts) and the centers remained somewhat crunchy. we'll see how the week progresses.

meat is so great

jamie apes was kind enough to pass on this guide to korean barbeque from the black table.

the writer's choice of where to enjoy his first stab at kbbq is a bit intriguing. he opts for 36 Bar and Barbeque, which while delicious, kind of skimps on the portions. at least the portions this korean is used to. also, while most kbbq restaurants are known for tacky decor, 36 is rather reserved and stark.

bonus points for using the term chon-nom, a word i haven't even thought about in ages. it's what i used to call the fob koreans at my high school who wanted me to refer to them in the superior tense because they were older than me. ha ha.