Eating Flint

2011-01-13T15:32:00.001-08:00

Dear Readers:

Due to unexpected life-changing events, I will not be posting on Eating Flint for the next month or so. Please check back as you can. When I am able I will resume posting but until then, thank you for your support and understanding.

Bob Barnett

Flint Coney Islands Dominate

2010-12-16T17:23:00.001-08:00

The more things change in our quirky little town, the more they stay predictable. Take the constant ebb and flow of the restaurants for example. The combined number of restaurants that have either gone out of business or opened as a new business is staggering. If I had more time to keep track of all the movement, I’d put a counter on my blog with a running tally. Suffice it to say, the restaurant business can be a quick-moving revolving door of beginnings and endings.

When I did the Mexican Restaurant Tour last year with Stephanie, we could barely keep up with all the new places opening for business. We could have extended our tour by another six months and easily hit another dozen or so restaurants. But we also witnessed a depressing number of closings over the year. I remember looking forward to eating at Los Quatros Amigos on Linden and Corunna because everyone was raving about how good it was. By the time we got there, however, it had gone out of business and I never got a chance to try their food. They weren’t alone; at least six other Mexican restaurants went out of business while we were doing the tour.

And the Asian restaurants in Flint have an even higher turnover rate. The area is saturated with Chinese Buffets, so it’s no surprise to see them come and go. It’s the frequency with which this happens that’s so stunning. The old Big Boy on Dort Highway has changed hands at least six times in the last decade, and most of the places that came and went were Chinese Restaurants. There’s a little building in one of the Strip Malls on Miller Road, I think in the Plaza where Harbor Freight is located, that changed from three different Chinese Buffets to a Middle Eastern Buffet, all in the span of three years.

My point is this: One, it’s tough in any climate for a restaurant to succeed, but in this bad economy, it’s even worse. I expect more restaurants will go out of business in the next year or two, and just as many will open in their place. The second point, though, is that in the face of all this opening and closing, there’s one segment of the restaurant population in Flint that enjoys a more stable existence: The Flint Coney Island Diners.

Although they’re not immune from the market forces that drive others to open and close their businesses, far more Coney Islands set up shop in Flint than go out of business. And they stay in business a lot longer than many of their competitors. The Coney business is far less transient than, say, their Asian restaurant competitors. And I think there are reasons for this trend. In almost every Coney diner I’ve been to, with the exception of Rio’s on Davison Road, which has gone out of business, I’ve felt a strong sense of familiarity, even camaraderie, among the customers, and between the customers and the staff. This sense of the familiar creates a much more inviting atmosphere, and my theory is it helps bring customers back again and again.

Whatever the case, there’s little dispute that the Coney Island diner scene in Flint is thriving! In the last four months, I have scarcely written about the importance of the breakfast part of a Coney Island’s success, but you probably already know that the morning scene is the bread and butter for most diners. They can put out a good tasting plate of food with a much lower overhead cost than lunch or dinner, they can do it with relative quickness, and the best ones can serve eggs, toast, hashbrowns and meat for around three bucks. That’s why I’ve stood in line before at places like Telly’s just to get a seat. One of my favorite Saturday rituals is to linger over a breakfast special and a cup of coffee at one of the local Coney diners with Philip and Friday’s edition of the Flint Journal.

But it’s the lively, alive feel of the Coney diners that make them such a centerpiece of the local restaurant scene. Maybe it’s why places like Applebee’s took up advertising campaigns that attempoted to give them a more “neighborhood” feel. The Coney diners, as Ron Krueger pointed out in one of his recent Coney reviews, are competing directly with the Chain restaurants—and I’d say they’re doing pretty well for themselves.

Such is the case for a place I’d heard a lot of stories about but had never been to: Coty’s West Side Diner & Coney Island on North Ballenger (North of McLaren Hospital). I often thought when people mentioned Coty’s, they were referring to the West Side Diner on the corner of Miller and Ballenger. Not so. West Side diner is fine and all, but I fell instantly and madly in love with Coty’s!

Physically, Coty’s has all the charm of even the best places I’ve been to. It looks intimate from the outside, feels intimate on the inside (even though there is plenty of booth and table seating), and it’s one of the few Coney diners where the interior design and the use of natural light come together to create the kind of familiar feel you get when you sit at your own dining room table. Despite some rumors that I’d heard about how mistreated and overworked the wait staff are at Coty’s, I saw just the opposite. They were happy to see us, bent over backwards to take care of us, and even those not waiting on us came over and chatted it up when they could. If these were mistreated workers, they either enjoyed being mistreated or they put on a good façade. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had with a wait staff this year and even if the food sucked, which it didn’t, I’d still go back just to be taken care of by them.

Not only did the food not suck, it was quite good. Stephanie and I are starting to grow bored with the homogeneity of the Coney Island menus, so to mix it up a bit we’re trying to order items that aren’t on the menu—most of the time they’re printed on bright orange construction paper and taped to the front door. Like this one at Coty’s. It’s also another way for them to compete with the ever popular two for twenty concept that Applebee’s, Chili’s, Don Pablo’s, Salvatore Scaloppini’s and other national/regional chains have all adopted. There’s a big difference, though, that gives the Coney diners a huge advantage. At Coty’s for example, their two-for special is $11.99, a far cry from $20.00.

The options looked appealing enough for both of us to agree that we’d take a chance. It was pretty cold outside the day we visited, so the Hot Meatloaf Dinner was just what Stephanie was looking for. It was a generous portion of pretty tasty meatloaf (not nearly as good as Telly’s but way better than Tom Z’s), a big mound of mashed potatoes and gravy, a pile of mixed vegetables, and either a cup of soup or a small salad. Stephanie wasted little time deciding on the hot cup of soup. The chicken dumpling was actually packed with flavor, and though the dumplings could have been bigger and more numerous, it scored high marks on the Stephanie Soup Scale.

I couldn’t resist the Broasted Chicken Special, and I was not disappointed. Two pieces of white meat, a breast and a wing, were served with a hot batch of those medium thick-cut fries that were sliced from fresh potatoes on-site, the same mixed vegetables that Stephanie had, which were more of a pretty face on the side than something of culinary value, and a side of hot gravy for the fries, though I couldn’t resist dipping pieces of my chicken in the gravy too. The broasted chicken had a great outer crunch/inner juicy thing going on, which I found quite pleasing. I think my fries and chicken were both cooked in fresh oil because they had that pale complexion to them that I’ve seen at home when I deep fry something in new grease. (That’s why every time I use a pot of grease, I strain it back into the bottle when I’m done. After a few rotations, the food looks much more attractive because once the grease gets “broken in” it browns the food with an appetizing hue).

Before all that, however, and after gobbling up our soups (mine was an ok gumbo that had good heat but not much other flavor), we had an intercourse: Flaming Greek Cheese, ignited tableside, with pita points and a twist of lemon. O. M. G. This stuff rocked the house! The intense fire created a crusty-cheesy bottom layer and a soft, molten-hot top layer that I could not get enough of. With a cup of soup or a salad, you could really make a whole meal out of this Opah-licious appetizer. Of all the Coty cuisine I gorged myself with, it was the tastiest thing I ate and it’s the first thing I’ll order on my next trip.

Satisfied as we were with our Flaming Cheese, we indulged in a second intercourse: The Coty Coney Dog. The second intercourse is rarely as good as the first, but in its defense, the Coty Coney Dog had a high bar set for it by the Flaming Cheese. Like many of its competitors, this Coney was a mixed bag that staggered down the middle of the road. The consistency of the sauce was good, just a little loose and wet, the bun was warm and fresh, and the onion was appropriately strong. The grease level was acceptable but could have been taken up a notch, but what really disappointed me was the wimpy flavor of the sauce. It was too mild, too bland, and because of that it was completely overwhelmed by the onion and the mustard (and almost by the bun and the hotdog, which wasn’t a Koegel Vienna but some sweeter, plumper version with no discernable snap to it). Aside from that, we thought it was pretty good.

All the while we were enjoying our smorgasbord of choices, both on and off the menu, we also enjoyed the festive, familiar feel of Coty’s. It’s a place where, if you go there enough, everyone will know your name. Whether they know you or not, customers or workers, they’ll take the time to stop and have a word with you. It’s that kind of small town charm that endears me to the Coney culture and keeps me coming back week after week. Which Stephanie and I will be doing, by the way, for at least 16 more weeks. We’re almost half way through the tour!

Thanks for the Mammary

2010-12-08T16:11:00.001-08:00

I landed my first real job in 1978. I was fourteen and determined that by the time I passed Driver’s Ed. I was going to buy a car. Independence was of the utmost important to this young teenager, and what better way to express that independence than to drive around town in my own set of wheels. And so, after weeks of calling and pestering and pleading, I finally convinced the owner of The Anchor Inn to hire me as a dishwasher/busboy.

I mostly worked weekends because my parents didn’t see the wisdom, as I did, of letting me cut classes to earn two fifty an hour. I saw it as an experiential learning opportunity, one I could apply, say, to my business class or at the very least to my creative writing class. (As I write these words thirty two years later, I wonder who was the wiser after all. I might not have started this blog, for instance, had I not cut all those classes in exchange for the rich experience of washing someone else’s dishes.).

Most kids my age were preoccupied with stereotypical activities like football and basketball and cheerleading. I had no interest in that stuff. My fascination was food and people watching, and being a busboy at the Anchor Inn gave me a front row seat to indulge in my favorite activities.

Many of the customers I met are still vivid in my memory. Like the blue haired woman who was going through Cobalt treatments for cancer and had to eat her scrambled eggs “soft” Or the older sister of one of my friends, who was usually plastered when she came in, ordered the same meal every time—a farmer’s omelet with dry wheat toast, and who “fell asleep” in the booth until the waitress shook her awake and made her go home. My grandmother was a regular and was a sucker for the hot beef sandwich. After I was promoted to cook, I took great pride in making her the best hot beef sandwiches my budding culinary skills would allow.

Washing dishes was even better than bussing tables because my station was directly across from the cook’s station. My hands were in the dish water but my eyes were glued to Chris, the owner’s wife, as she worked on three or four tickets at a time, gracefully cooking and plating one dish after another. She made it look effortless. I was smitten. I wanted her to teach me her art, and so I begged and pleaded until finally, she agreed to be my mentor.

She taught me how to crack an egg with one hand so I could use the other to flip hash browns. She taught me how to pour eggs on the griddle and shape them into a perfect rectangular omelet. I learned how to time the cooking of everything in an order so that, even if there were six people at a table, their food would all be done at the same time and the customers would get their meals fresh and hot. She even taught me how to make the perfect Mickey Mouse pancake—getting the ears just right takes a boat-load of practice and should not be tried at home without the supervision of a trained professional.

Before I knew it, two years had passed. I had become an accomplished short-order cook at the ripe old age of sixteen and, more importantly, I had saved over three thousand dollars, enough to buy my first car, a ’77 Grand Prix. Bumble bee yellow with a black top and a black interior. It was everything I ever dreamed of, and the envy of all my basketball/football/cheerleader friends. Sadly, the joy of owning the coolest car in town was short-lived because nine days after getting it I ran off the road and hit a tree. There were several more “incidents” after that, and by the time I graduated from high school, I was forced to sell my battered baby for a fraction of what I paid for it to help cover my first semester’s tuition at college. I drove cheap “beater” cars for years after that, and none of the nice cars I’ve since driven as a “responsible” adult have ever given me the same pleasure as my prized Grand Prix.

As Stephanie and I pulled into the parking lot of the Colonial Coney Island and Restaurant last week, a quintessential throw-back to the 1970’s, I could almost picture my big yellow car sitting in one of the spaces. The Colonial has been around almost as long as the Coney Island Hot Dog, and by the looks of the place, inside and out, I imagine very little has changed. The tired exterior reminded me a lot of the Anchor Inn, except instead of a big sea anchor perched atop a giant pole alongside the building, Colonial’s giant Waitress statue welcomes her customers and passers by

The dining room of Colonial also sports a tired, retro 70;s look and feel. Oddly, it’s one of the few Coney Islands in Flint that has no booth seating. It’s all tables randomly placed, divided by a half-wall that most likely separated the smoking from the non-smoking section before the all-out ban on smoking in Michigan restaurants.

Our server was as friendly as the staff the week before at Starlite, so we were a little surprised to find out that she had only been a waitress at Colonial for less than a week. We also learned that she had waited tables around town before. It showed not only in the mechanics of her job but also in the easygoing way she engaged us in conversation.

When I told her what I was up to with the Coney Island tour, she made a quick retreat to the kitchen and returned with the news that Dave, the lunchtime cook, would be happy to talk to me and give me a tour of the kitchen. How could I say no to such a generous invitation? Again, I was taken back to the Anchor Inn, which had a similar setup, with the grill placed centrally across from the prep and heating table, the fryer off to the side, and the refrigerator/freezer off in the corner.

Dave showed me how the magic of the Coney Island assembly happens, and he even showed me the simmering pot of Coney Sauce. Theirs starts with the Abbott’s Meat base, which is personalized to the Colonial with their secret blend of spices. The dogs are Koegel viennas and the buns mass-produced from a local bread company. According Dave, Colonial pumps out about 500 Coney Dogs a day.

Back in the dining room, our soups and our server were waiting for us at the table. Stephanie’s cream of tomato soup was easily identifiable as home-made, but the flavor was still closer to Campbell’s condensed. My vegetable beef soup had a good flavorful base to it, but it tasted like a combination of home-made and store-bought. That’s not a criticism as much as a simple observation. The chunks of beef were simmered from fresh meat, but the canned corn, vegetables, and carrots were clearly not fresh. I couldn’t tell if the potatoes were canned or fresh, but all in all the soup was more than acceptable.

I’ve come to appreciate the presentation of the Coney Dog, even though most customers, I imagine, never give it a second thought. You lay a dog in the bun, spoon some sauce on it, layer it with onions and mustard, put it on a plate, and ring the bell for someone to take it to the table. Nothing special about that, right? Well, not so fast. A neatly constructed Coney Dog can add a certain visual appeal that in some restaurants accentuates the good taste of it and in some cases covers up how bad it tastes. Colonial Dave’s version fell somewhere in the middle. The presentation said, “We’re going through the motions and if you’ve seen one Coney Dog, you’ve seen ‘em all.” The taste said, “We know we’re not the best, we don’t really care if we’re the best, but this is what we have to offer.” The sauce was a little unimaginative and heavy handed with the black pepper. The dog was pretty good and the bun passable. Stephanie put it best when she said something on the order of, “It’s no Telly’s, but it’s a far cry from Gillie’s.”

I’ve decided over the last four months that if you’ve looked at one Coney Island Diner menu (with some universal exceptions—I’m not really sure what that means), you’ve seen every other one. Maybe it’s just me, but they’ve become all too predictable: Appetizers, Soups, Salads, Sandwiches, Dinners, Desserts, and Breakfasts. And with eighty to a hundred different choices. Pare it back, people! Keep it simple! In an effort to keep our Coney Island tour from becoming a homogonous, mind-numbing experience, Stephanie and I have taken an unspoken vow, to order off the “Specials” menu or to order something we wouldn’t normally have for lunch.

Stephanie was more adventurous than me and ordered the Sloppy Joe and fries special. The bun was buttered and grilled (well, the bottom bun anyway—not sure why Dave made that choice) which gave it a surprising and contrasting texture to the wet glob of flavored ground beef that overflowed onto the plate. It had a slightly sweet Bar-B-Queee taste to it, and was probably a variation on the Abbott’s meat base. The shoestring French fries were good enough, but I have a problem with French fries cut this small. They don’t hold the heat nearly as long as, say, thick-cut steak fries. By the time you get half way through, they start to taste like a combination of cold grease, mashed potatoes, and bits of intermittent crunch. Not my favorite.

I was less adventurous than Stephanie but still wanted to order something I don’t usually eat for lunch: A grilled chicken sandwich. I also wanted something a little on the healthier side, and in that department I ended up with a mixed blessing. The breast was marinated and then cooked on the hot part of the grill, which gave it an unusually juicy, tender consistency with a beautiful brown-black outside. That was the blessing. The curse is that it was the size of a damn ostrich breast. I swear it was at least an inch and a half thick, and it hung awkwardly off all sides of the bun. I ate as much as I could, but I also had a pile of frozen, mediocre onion rings to choke down, so I didn’t come close to finishing this beast of a breast.

Despite its charming culinary shortcomings, Colonial Coney Island ranks in the upper tier of Flint diners. Maybe it’s been around so long because it has changed so little over the years. The next time you’re taking a trip down memory lane and feeling hungry at the same time, I highly recommend a trip to Colonial. You can satisfy both cravings simultaneously, and depending on what you order, you can even take some home.

A Foodie's Fantasy

2010-12-04T10:20:00.000-08:00

(for Margo)

Everyone discovers their sexuality and sexual identity at some in their early life. I was no different, but long before I made that realization, I made another, far more important discovery: I knew at a very early age that I wanted to be a chef.

Maybe I was influenced by my sisters’ easy-bake-oven (though envious or jealous would be more accurate-they never left their cakes in long enough to get that spongy, easy-bake texuture, which I credit to using a sixty watt light bulb and not the wimpy 40 watter that Hazbro recommended. Proper temperature is everything).

Maybe I was influenced by my mother’s all-day Sunday cooking marathons. She would start early because a day in the kitchen started with hand-made cinnamon rolls, at least one cream pie, and then some big entrees, like liver stew, boiled dinner, or roasted chicken (which she usually killed herself). In order to get anything done, my mother kicked everyone out of the house for most of the day. My dad usually dragged my brother and me out to the woods on squirrel or rabbit hunting trips, which I absolutely hated. On more than one occasion I found myself sitting on a stump with a twelve gauge shotgun in my hand waiting for the hounds to chase a rabbit my way, dreaming not of the kill, but of how I could turn a snowshoe hare into a beautiful rabbit stew.

My mom would scoff at the notion, maybe my passion for cooking was influenced by my grandfather (her dad), a drunkard, a heavy smoker, a wood cutter, and as I found a recently, a cook on one of the Great Lakes Freighters in the 1930’s.

In short, I don’t know if cooking is in my blood or in my head. Like sexuality, I was either born with it or it was learned behavior. Whatever the case, I’m sure it’s a topic of debate that wont’ make it onto the radar of the extremist teaparty nut jobs in this country who, if they could gain some political/religious advantage from it , would try to shut down the restaurant industry and have every chef sent to prison. They’d probably go after the pastry chefs first and then after Hazbro, rationalizing their crusade by demonizing Hazbro’s Easy-Bake-Oven as the gateway drug for the flaming lifestyle of a pastry chef. (If you’re an extremist teaparty nut job who might be offended by my comments, I’m pretty sure you stopped reading my blog after Philip had his merry little meltdown last year, and you’re not reading this anyway). Disclaimer: not all Teapartyers are extremists or nut jobs. But I digress.

The genesis of my culinary identity aside, it’s always been my fantasy to go to cooking school, open my own restaurant and become a world-class chef. Maybe someday I will fulfill that fantasy, but for now I’m content with the life I’ve carved out because I get to hold down a real job that I love love love, and I get to explore my passion for food by eating and writing about it. So imagine my surprise when out of the blue an accidental food fantasy recently fell in my lap.

The Flint Area Convention and Visitors’ Bureau hosts an annual invitation-only event called the Holiday Cuisine Showcase. A who’s who of local chefs are invited to prepare a taste of their best dishes for guests to enjoy. It’s a chance for them to showcase their talents (our local Flint chefs are a wildly talented bunch), and it’s a chance for everyone else to mingle, quiz the chefs, and of course eat. Chefs prepare dishes in three categories—appetizers, entrees, and desserts—and a panel of judges, after examining and eating, chooses the best of each category. Separate awards are given in each category for presentation and taste. The invited guests get to vote separately for Peoples’ Choice Award.

If you haven’t put it all together yet, I was pleasantly surprised to be picked as one of the judgesfor this year’s event. For me, this was a dream come true. Along with eight other celebrity judges, I helped select the winning dishes and crown a small number chefs as the best of the best in Flint’s culinary scene. Holly Carlton and her team put together a first-class event that I thought well worth sharing with you. What follows is a list of the winners in each category, along with a visual sampling of some of the food. I was assigned, with Bill Blinke from WNEM-TV 5 and Pat O’Boyle from the Trillium Theatres, to judge the appetizers, but we also had a chance to sample the other great food that was presented by the chefs. Bon Apettit!

FOOD CATEGORY: Appetizers

Winning dish for Presentation: Winter Ravioli Trio (Epoch Catering At Genesys Conference & Banquet Center

Winning Dish for Taste: A tie, Seared Sea Scallops with Spicy Edamame (501 Bar and Grill) + Winter Ravioli Trio (Epoch Catering)

FOOD CATEGORY: Entrees

Winning dish for Presentation: Certified Angus Beef topped with Blue Maryland Crab Cake served with Duel Sauces (Captain’s Club of Woodfield)

Winning dish for Taste: Filet Oscar with Hollandaise Sauce (Redwood Lodge)

FOOD CATEGORY: Dessert

Winning dish for Presentation: Black Forest Truffle Cheesecake with Wild Cherry Sauce (Paddy McGee’s)

Winning Dish for Taste: Cranberry Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce (Cranberry’s Café)

Crab Cakes with Chipotle Remoulade

Seared Sea Scallops with Spice Edamame

Winter Ravioli Trio

Honey Mustard Bacon Wrapped Pinapple

Caribbean Banana Chicken with Calypso Rice

Orange and Dark Chocolate Cake Truffles

Black Forest Truffle Cheesecake with Wild Cherry Sauce

Zingerman's new candy

Happy Chefs

Happy Guests

A Happy Foodie

The Savvy Server

2010-12-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

Like most college kids, I worked my way through school so I could help pay for my tuition. Working class parents finally wised up and started sending their kids to college in record numbers during the early years of the Reagan presidency. In retrospect, that was a really smart move. The problem was that college, even in the dark ages of the eighties, was expensive, and families often lacked the financial means to send their kids away to school. And so we worked at jobs we mostly hated with the understanding that our paychecks would cover stuff like food and clothes and books.

I wanted out of the lower middle-, working-class life so much that I took any job that came along. During the school year, I worked in offices around campus and in the cafeteria. The office jobs were so boring I wanted to beat myself to death with a stapler. I think that experience influenced my decision to become an educator so I wouldn’t have to get a real job with real hours like everyone else.

I started working in the cafeteria for a couple of reasons: It was a steady income, and I got to eat all the food I wanted for free. Since my alma mater had only one meal plan—three meals a day, seven days a week—that was mandatory for everyone, I saw free meals as a significant fringe benefit. I could make money while bringing down the cost of my meal plan by almost half. (And I chose English over Business as my major. What a dope.)

My little business plan was sound in theory, but the reality on the ground was quite another story. On good days, I was chosen to serve, which meant doing little more than wearing rubber gloves and handing entrée selections to hungry coeds. But on every other day, I was damned to the conveyor line, a thirty foot moving pig trough of trays with food in various stages of the digestive process. My job was to scrape the food into a disposal, separate the silverware, and send the empty trays down the line. I always made sure to eat before work because I’m not sure I could have done it after.

Summers during my college years, despite my hopes and dreams, were not filled with days at the beach and nights out with my friends. I worked. Day and night. One summer I worked three jobs at the same time. I worked forty hours in one of the local salt factories, part time at the Salty Dog Saloon (which was located right across the street from the salt factory), and part time at the Birdfeeder, a diner owned by my friend Ginny. It stayed open twenty four hours on the weekends to feed the drunks who came out to eat after the bar closed. These were the restaurant’s busiest times of the week.

In addition to bartending and cooking at my part-time jobs, I also waited tables. Of all the jobs I’ve held, present employment excluded, waiting tables was my favorite. For me it was like being a performer—a little stand-up, a lot of schmoozing, even more fawning (mostly over blue-haired Polish grandmothers), and a good dose of the All-American-Boy charm. This last bit usually came between the time I delivered the food and the check. It’s a trick I learned early on that servers use in hopes of boosting their tips. After all, that’s the major income for this line of work. The money I made from tips went a long way to funding my “discretionary spending” during the school year. (By the way, if you want to read a good book on the life of a food server, pick up a copy of Waiter Rant; it’s based on a blogger who anonymously wrote not very flattering things about his customers, co-workers, and bosses).

Whenever I see food servers in the restaurants around Flint, most of whom have been at it for more than a few years, I wonder how they’ve managed to stay in the business for so long. Even at their best, customers are demanding, high-maintenance, and down-right annoying. At their worst, and I’ve seen it first-hand, their bloody loony.

And through it all, the best servers rarely let on that they might be irritated or annoyed by their customers’ rude behaviors, even as they’re running frantically to fetch this or that for as many as six or seven tables of hungry guests. (Another by-the-way moment: if you want to be taken care of by the best wait staff in town, then pay a visit to The Red Rooster on the corner of Averil and Davison. They rock!).

The unreasonable work load is most noticeable for servers in restaurants like Coney Island Diners. And there’s a reason for it. The dining experience, especially for breakfast or lunch, is far more abbreviated than it is for more elaborate, more expensive restaurants. The key, at least for the diner owners, is to turn around as many customers as possible in the shortest period of time. That’s what they count on in order to eke out a razor thin profit margin.

The other deck that’s stacked against the wait staff is the price of the food on the menu. It’s pretty closely linked to the size of the tip one gets after all is said and done. With cheaper menu prices at Coney Island Diners comes much smaller tips, so a server has to wait on far more tables to net a respectable salary.

And yet most of them do it gracefully, with smiles plastered on their faces and with cheerful demeanors, real or fake, as they try their best to please the madding crowds. Such was the case on a recent trip Stephanie and I took to Starlite Diner & Coney Island on the corner of Davison and Center Roads, on Flint’s east side. (Isn’t that interesting. Most diners bill themselves as either Coney Islands or family restaurants, or sometimes both. But Starlite is a diner first, and a Coney Island second, and not a family restaurant at all. Sometimes I think I’ll never figure this out).

If you’ve never been to the Starlite, then you probably don’t know that it has a deep history and a humungous following. It’s been around for at least fifty years ( I don’t know exactly how long it’s been in business, but I ran into Ron Krueger today, Food Editor for The Flint Journal, and he informed me that he has a column coming out next Thursday in The Journal that traces the history and the ownership of Starlite, so make sure you catch it). Starlite’s Facebook page boasts over 4,000 followers, which is about the strongest testimonial a restaurant owner could ask for.

Stephanie and I got there by 11:30 and the place was already filling up. The dining room is shaped in a big L formation, and it’s pretty expansive. The chatter of the dozens of customers was pretty loud, but the place was alive and it felt good to be in a restaurant so full of energy. I recognized the hostess who seated us, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on how I knew her. She was warm and friendly and chatted with us for a few minutes after leading us to our booth. Come to find out, I knew her when she was a server at the Old Olympic (before it burned down). She also worked at Paul’s Coney Island on Center Road, and then at the New Olympic (after it was rebuilt), and now at the Starlite.

Our server was also attentive and friendly, despite all the other people she was taking care of in her section. She rattled off the daily specials, which were also posted on the front door on a big poster. Seems like meatloaf and stuffed cabbage are popular specials with the diner crowd because this the third or fourth place we’ve been to that’s offered them. We started our meal, as we usually do, with soup. I had the beef barley and Stephanie put on her brave, big girl hat and went for the stuffed pepper soup. Mine had a good hearty base with lots of tender meat and a not overwhelming amount of barley, which gave it a nice flavor/texture balance. Stephanie’s soup, though, was the real winner. It was a deconstructed stuffed pepper turned into a thick, rice-based stew. It had a great balance of peppers, tomatoes, spices, and broth. If they don’t serve this on a regular rotation, they certainly should. Our happy server took both cups away completely empty.

The obligatory Coney Dog, which I’m having second thoughts about only because I’ve eaten more Coney Dogs in the last three months than I think I have in my whole life, was a handsome fellow, presented with an overflowing mound of “sauce” and bright white onions that rivaled the bright yellow mustard. Looks aren’t always everything, though, and in this dog’s case the saying holds true. It was tasty enough if you’re just in it for a good Coney Dog, but our more critical palates found it pretty mediocre. The sauce on some of our previous tastings was complex and a bit intense. This dog was rather bland from a lack of seasonings, both in quantity and in numbers. We could taste a faint chili powder, but beyond that there wasn’t much to write home about. The sauce lacked that perfect greasiness that should marry the sauce to the dog to the bun in a ménage e trios of yumminess. But we were hungry and ate the whole thing anyway.

The tempo of our food coming and our empty dishes leaving and our drinks being refilled was smooth, almost choreographed, and our waitress still took the time to make sure our experience was good and lingered at the table to make small talk when she could. Despite the stressful nature of waiting on a half dozen tables at the same time, our waitress gave us great service that added to an already satisfying lunch.

I tried to go for a sandwich that I hadn’t had before, so I skipped the burgers, club sandwiches, and Reubens and went for the Smoked Turkey Po Boy with a side of fries. The sandwich was served on a hoagie bun and was more of a sub than a Po Boy. It was good enough, but in retrospect I should have ordered something else. The fries, though, were the best I’ve had this year. They were made in-house from fresh potatoes and sliced in such a way to maximize their outer crispiness while preserving their moist interior. Thinner and narrow than steak fries, these babies were well seasoned and hot as blazes—right out of the fryer. Whatever you order when you go to Starlite, and you really must come here, make sure fries are part of the mix.

Stephanie went for the chicken gyro which, like my smoked turkey, was good enough, but it didn’t knock her socks off. The onion rings she ordered, however, more than made up for the sandwich, and they were even better than my house-made fries. I learned a little secret about ordering Starlite onion rings from another dining diva, Mrs. Hopkins, who I have lunch with at least twice during each year’s tour. If you just ask for onion rings, you’ll get the stock, frozen variety that they serve. But if you ask for the house-made version, you’ll get some of the best onion rings in town. I’m not ready to crown them the best in Flint, but they were near perfect. Crispy and colorful on the outside. Not overcooked on the inside. Grease pooling a bit on the plate. Napkins at the ready. I couldn’t stop eating them. Stephanie and I have a little system when we order. One of us usually orders fries and the other orders onion rings, and then we share. It was Stephanie’s turn to order the onion rings, so I felt a little guilty that I kept reaching into her plate after these goldenly delicious (that’s not trademarked, is it?) gems.

On our way out, people were still filing in, and the place was very near capacity. If every meal at Starlite is as good as the one we had, then it’s no wonder to me that 4,000 people have taken the time to log onto Facebook and sign themselves up as fans. Which is what I’m going to do right now.

(Do you have a personal history with Starlite Diner, or any of the places I’ve written about this year? Write your stories down and send them to me at Eatingflint@gmail.com. I’ll repost them and you can be a guest blogger).

Mike's Deli Closes in Downtown Flint

2010-11-23T08:40:00.000-08:00

I heard the news this morning that Mike’s Deli on Saginaw Street has closed its doors. Mike’s has been a fixture on Saginaw Street for the last seven years, serving good affordable food to their downtown clientele, including the bourgeoning student population who live on and around Saginaw Street.

I’m mad as hell at the closing of Mike’s because it represents a major setback for those students, and others like them, who need a more affordable alternative to Blackstone’s, 501 Grill and the like. I’m not criticizing these places because we need them too. They’re great supporters of the downtown area, they serve great food and drinks, and they obviously cater to people who want to come to downtown Flint. That’s great, but we cannot forget about those who call downtown their home, those who don’t’ want to spend a lot of money every time they go out to eat. With the closing of Mike’s their options just became a lot more limited.

We need to attract as diverse a population of diners as possible in order to sustain and expand the much needed development that’s given new life to the city’s center, to the local businesses, to the colleges and universities, and to the permanent citizens of Flint. After the decades-long smackdown Flint endured from its abusive relationship with General Motors, this hard-luck town has begun to liberate itself, to reinvent itself, to move on and reclaim its identity. The will of the people of Flint to build a better future here, despite the enormous challenges, is impressive. That’s what makes the closing of Mike’s Deli so heartbreaking.

And thank goodness for places like Churchill’s, The Torch, Hoffman’s Deco Deli, the Lunch Studio, and the local coffee shops. The owner’s of these places should be lauded for the work they’ve done to help draw people to the downtown area who loyal serve the thousand or so people who live in the dorms and loft apartments nearby. They offer variety and affordability to a population that is critical to the continued growth of the local economy.

So why am I so mad? One restaurant has closed, but we still have a number of good options. But that depends, I guess, on who you are. If you make a decent living, then the offerings downtown look a lot more appealing than if you’re a struggling college student or a single parent trying to make ends meet or someone trying to get back into the job market. The latter groups far outnumber the former, and perhaps that’s what’s fueling my frustration.

I truly believe the rejuvenation of downtown Flint is happening in the spirit of total inclusion, but the reality on the ground is that the changes aren’t nearly as beneficial to the people whose sheer numbers could prove to be a big shot in the arm to the heroic efforts of the organizations and individuals who’ve gotten us this far. I’m no economist, but it seems logical to me that we need a more balanced approach to rebuilding the infrastructure of downtown that better reflects who and how many people it intends o serve. I’d hate to see students, for example, not have adequate services—food, entertainment, shops, etc.—to make them want to stay, even after they graduate.

I can’t do much about the closing of Mike’s Deli but I can hope that entrepreneurs considering a move to downtown Flint will also carefully consider the wide range of clientele who could help support their businesses. It’s much more hopeful to see businesses open their doors in downtown flint than it is to see them close.

The Toad and the Brothel

2010-11-22T15:15:00.001-08:00

(a tale based almost entirely on actual events)

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a man with a warped sense of humor, a laptop computer, and way too much time on his hands.

The hero of our story, Sir Writesalot, had to wake up at 5:00 in the morning to catch a flight for the faraway land of Nawlins, where he was to sample, write about, and report back to Queen Stephanie on the local cuisine. Writesalot was only half awake as he drove to the Bishop’s airport to catch his plane. NPR (Nauseously Pretentious Radio) was in the middle of a story about some tree hugger’s effort to save some kind of spotted toad, a story Sir Writesalot had no interest in until he heard the reporter mention something about a brothel.

At that moment, he turned up the volume and leaned in for a closer listen. The property, complete with a full sized, outdoor, clothing optional swimming pool, was owned by a husband and wife team who gave up their funeral home business to run an environmentally friendly whore house. To help with the preservation of this ugly little species (the toads, not the hookers) the brothel owners chose not to put chlorine chemicals in their clothing-optional pool. That way the toads could hop in, have sex, safely lay their eggs, hop out, towel off, and be on their merry way. The brothel even had its own airstrip to shuttle the toads to and from their native Rainforest stomping grounds in Brazil. The cost for passage was steep, however, and few toads were able to afford such a luxury.

Writesalot was intrigued. So intrigued, in fact, that he passed by his exit to the Bishop’s airport and headed straight for the brothel. This would be a much better story to share with the queen, he thought, than simply reporting on what food he ate and where he ate it. Save that for the amateur bloggers, he thought. I’ll bring The Queen a story that’ll really whet her appetite.

And so Sir Writesalot set off to find his story. The plan was this: He’d find a toad willing to talk to him, get a personal perspective on the whole mating-and-egg-laying-in-a-whorehouse-swimming-pool phenomenon, write a charming personal interest story, and maybe he’d spring for lunch in exchange for the information he needed in order to write his piece. (Oh please, I had to get it in there somehow).

As he approached the brothel, he could see people in the distance, hunched over and moving back and forth across the road in front of the property. Were they protestors? Residents of the nursing home across from the brothel? Sir Writesalot was wrong on both guesses, for in reality it was the tree huggers from the NPR story, bent over shooing toads across the road so they didn’t get squashed to death by passing cars. Writesalot, sickened by the possibility that he might flatten the very sources he sought to interview for his story, pulled to the side of the road and parked his car.

The toads were busily hopping to and from the brothel when he arrived. Writesalot did his best to get at least one of them to stop and talk. But the toads were focused on the mission at hand—getting to the clothing-optional, non-chlorinated pool, doing their business and getting back on the road to Brazil. Not one of them slowed down to talk to him. A twin engine Cesna buzzed over head as Writesalot, ready to give up, sat down on a bus stop bench to rethink his plan.

“Why the long face?” asked a deep-throated voice.

Writesalot turned this way and that way but saw nobody. And then he looked down. There on the bench next to him was the biggest, fattest one-legged toad he had ever seen. A deep-throated, spotted, one-legged toad.

“No one will talk to me. I’m writing a story,” Writesalot answered, a little defeated.

“Join the club. These schmucks are like robots. They don’t talk to nobody,” said the toad gruffly.

“Well, what’s your story?” asked Writesalot.

“Me? I got flattened on my way to the pool. ’67 Corvette got my left leg. Sliced it right off. That was two years ago. Been hangin’ around ever since. Can’t afford a plane ticket home. Can’t hop in a straight line with one leg. Can’t catch my own food, so I gotta beg. What I wouldn’t give for a nice hot lunch.”

Writesalot had a problem. The Toad had a problem. Perhaps, Writesalot thought, we could help each other out. He wanted his story in the worst way, and he knew this one-legged beggar was his only chance. He knew the little wretch was starving and would spill his guts for a good meal.

“Say, how ‘bout we make a deal? You dish me some inside information on this bizarre little ritual and I buy you a nice lunch for your troubles. I’ll get what I want, and you’ll get what you want.”

The toad thought about the offer for only a moment. Lunch would be great, but he wanted more. He wanted get out of this miserable place and get back home to his familiar stump in the Rainforest in Brazil And now he began to see a plan emerge. With a crafty Grinch-like smile, he calmly replied.

“Sure. Where ya gonna take me?”

“There’s a place on the other side of town, on the Miller’s road. Telly’s. Hop in and let’s get outta here.”

And so it was. The toad and the writer drove off to Telly’s for their interview lunch. The place was packed by the time they arrived. According to the townsfolk, every day was the same: it was busy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and it wasn’t uncommon to wait ten minutes for a booth. They had not tables. The locals usually went to other restaurants when they couldn’t get a seat at Telly’s. For the toad and the writer the wait was short and soon enough they were seated at a booth by the window.

Their server was friendly and offered them menus and drinks, and in a long single breath she rattled off all of the specials they were serving that day. The toad cringed and the writer blushed when, without thinking, the server announced that one of the specials was a platter of frog legs. The writer knew he needed this one-legged toad to get his story, and without, missing a beat, he sent the server away for a couple of Cokes and began peppering the toad with questions. “How long did it take from Brazil? How long did you mean to stay? Did you travel alone? How did you choose a mate? Was the pool really clothing optional?” And on and on and on, until finally the serve came back ready to take their order.

The Toad had the hot turkey sandwich, the writer had the meatloaf dinner, and they shared a Flint Coney dog which the toad, apparently, had never tried. In deference to the writer, and because it was hard to eat a Coney with webbed hands, the toad let the writer take the bigger half. The writer was pleased at the kindness of the toad and gladly took the bigger half. Little did he know, the scheming toad had something up his sleeve.

To the toad’s delight his first Coney experience was quite good. The sauce had good flavor, good grease, and good seasonings; the bun was soft and warm and the dog itself was hot, fresh, and snappy when bit into. Sir Writesalot declared it to be the best dog in the land, better than any he’d eaten before (it’s actually the frontrunner for best Coney dog in Flint), and within minutes the Coney was gone.

Not long after, their dinners arrived. The toad, devouring his meal in enormous bites, went on and on about how fresh the turkey was and how light and fluffy the mashed potatoes were. The gravy was perfectly thickened and made from scratch, not the powdered stuff that other places just added hot water to. No, this sandwich was perfect in every way. The toad’s glowing review delighted the writer because he knew a full and happy toad would mean lots of material for a really good story. NPR might even offer him a spot on their staff for uncovering such a heart-warming personal interest story.

For his part, the writer loved his meatloaf dinner. It, too, was fresh and made from scratch. The mix of green pepper, onions, and not too much seasoning made for a moist and juicy loaf. Uncomplicated and straightforward, that’s how he liked his meatloaf and that’s how Telly’s served it. The mashed potatoes were not the instant kind you’d expect but mashed from fresh spuds into a sweet and creamy mixture that delighted the writer as much as his chance encounter with his one-legged friend.

After the meal and after the check arrived, the writer reached for his wallet, for he had agreed to buy the toad’s lunch in exchange for the interview. As he pulled the billfold from his pocket it slipped from his hands and fell to the floor beneath the table.

“Let me get it for you,” offered the toad.

“What a nice gesture,” responded the writer.

Little did the writer know that the toad had been waiting all through lunch to make his move, and now the moment had presented itself. While under the table the toad reached into the wallet and stole the writer’s credit card. He emerged with the wallet and handed it back to the writer.

“Why thank you,” said the writer. “How kind of you to help me out.”

The toad, feigning gratitude, thanked the writer for the meal, and the two went their separate ways. The writer hurried back to his office to write his story. As for the toad, well, the toad hitched a ride to the medical store and purchased a prosthetic leg using the unsuspecting writer’s credit card. From there he hopped on all fours, for the first time in two years, and headed straight for the airstrip at the brothel. With a fake leg he felt whole again. And with a one way ticket to Brazil, compliments of Sir Writesalot’s credit card, the future looked bright for the toad.

As for the writer, he got his story but at a terrible cost. He gave up pursuing human interest stories and went back to writing about food, having learned a painful but valuable lesson: Don’t’ jump to conclusions about someone’s character or it could cost you an arm or a leg.

Eating Chicago

2010-11-18T06:58:00.000-08:00

I’ve been away on business for most of the last two weeks, but don’t feel bad for me because I drew the lucky straw. I spent time in two of the most culturally and culinarily happening cities in the country: Chicago and New Orleans. As our fair city continues its methodical, intentional transformation from General Motors’ bastard child to a college town with a more diverse economy and a burgeoning food scene, Flint should pay close attention to these two metropolitan gems. (By the way, with more than 33,000 college students in the Flint area—a third of the overall population—the college town moniker is more a reality than a fantasy).

The more interesting of my two trips was the one to Chicago, and instead of driving or flying, I took the Amtrak train. I highly recommend the Flint to Chicago train ride because a) the train leaves from the MTA headquarters right off Dort Highway and I-69, b) round trip tickets average fifty to sixty bucks, and c) the train pulls into Union Station in downtown Chicago, which is close to almost everything. This is without question my favorite Midwestern city. Between the art, the architecture, the music, and the food, Chicago deserves its place as one of America’s great cities.

On my recent trip, I met up with and spent time with my friend Shaunanne, who is one of my favorite peeps on the planet. We share a love for good food (and good wine) and, bless her heart, Shaunanne did a bunch of research ahead of time and found some stunning restaurants. Two in particular are worth noting. The first, where we had dinner on Friday night, is MK on North Franklin. It’s billed as one of the top ten restaurants in Chicago. The prices are steep, but for a high-end restaurant they’re pretty reasonable. And the place isn’t half as pretentious as I expected. Their website is a pretty good sign that they don’t take themselves too seriously. They say,

we believe:
at our core, we're just a mom and pop establishment.
that food is a metaphor for the good things in life.
there's no substitute for live charcoal.
that ingredients are more important than recipes.
in honoring thy farmer.
in sauces and history.
forced formality is for fakers.
our wine list rocks.
if you're not enjoying yourself, neither are we.
that a room full of people dressed for dinner is a thing of beauty.
that visual art makes great foreplay.
in understated elegance and sensual minimalism.
that excellence and consistency are our middle names.
we believe in withstanding the test of time.

How can you go wrong with a philosophy like that? If you’re into Italian and French cooking (I just finished Julia Child’s memoir and now I’m stumbling through French cooking at home), and if you like good wines (the Sonoma Valley Zinfandel is quite good), and If you like stunning atmosphere complete with great art and tasteful, minimalist décor, then you’re gonna love this place. (Check out some great photos of the food and dining room at www.mkchicago.com).

Our server was the newest member of the staff, and she’s been working at MK for almost three years which, I think, is a pretty strong endorsement of the restaurant. Still, our server, while attentive and polite at first, totally dropped the ball after our entrees were delivered, and we barely saw her for the rest of the stay. I’ve said many times before (geez, I sound like my dad) that if any one of the three standards of a good dining experience isn’t up to par, it could ruin the whole experience. Even after enjoying some pretty great food in a pretty stunning setting, we left with a pretty bad taste in our mouths about the whole evening, thanks to a pretty unprofessional server.

The following night, however, was mostly completely different. The place we chose is called Gilt Bar, and it’s located north of the River on West Kinzie Street. Less expensive and more casual than MK, Gilt is a little slice of foodie heaven. Their website bio says, “You should probably eat here. We have lots of ingredients paired with a bunch of flavors, expertly combined via kitchen magic and a little touch of what we like to call…um, chefery…”

With its low-lit, earth-toned dining room, including a small area adorned with a coffee table and a couple of love seats for a super relaxed dining atmosphere, Gilt was dripping with an unpretentious trendiness. The busy chefs worked their “kitchen magic” in a well choreographed mix of control and chaos, which customers can see through the large opening cut into one end of the dining room. Watching the chefs work with such synergy and focus was a bonus addition to an already electric atmosphere.

The wait staff experience was pretty different than the night before and mostly in a good way but, oddly, none of our servers—at least three staff members took care of us—introduced themselves or offered any introduction of their presence at all. They appeared. They took care of business. And they disappeared. It was a queer approach to customer service, but they were neither intrusive nor un-attentive, and overall I quite liked it.
But the food is why you absolutely have to come here. Gilt isn’t listed as a top ten Chicago, though in my book it certainly should be. The menu was simple, the choices mouthwatering, and the prices astonishingly reasonable (the full menu is on their website at www.giltbarchicago.com). I loved the minimalist approach to the major choices: ON TOAST; SALAD; PASTA; MEAT & SEAFOOD.

The ON TOAST section was the most intriguing and is the section we ordered most of our dinner from. We ordered the Foie gras mousse, served with thick pieces of char-grilled bread that managed to be crispy and soft and warm and sturdy enough to hold the mousse. That’s a hell of a lot to ask from a bread, but the “chefery” at Gilt astounded us even on this level. The foie gras, which is made from the liver of a goose that’s been specially fattened—a practice that’s so controversial, foie gras was banned from restaurants in Chicago until just a year or two ago—was creamy, slightly earthy, and ever so buttery. At one point, I just fell back in my seat and reveled in the taste.

We also ordered the tenderloin steak tartar with slow poached egg yolk, shallots & capers, another knockout selection. The fat level of the steak was just enough to give the meat a smooth, wet texture that, combined with the distinct fresh beef flavor, the fresh cilantro, and the heat of some fresh peppers made this dish every bit as good as the foie gras. We added a pear and candied pecan salad that was accompanied by the best piece of Bleu cheese I’ve ever tasted (it was better than any cheese I’ve eaten from the Flint Farmer’s Market, and those guys set a pretty high bar). This Bleu was as creamy as a good brie with the all of the Bleu cheese flavor you’d expect.

We almost went for the wine list at Gilt but at the last minute decided on their signature IPA. It wasn’t too hoppy, had a good sweet after taste to it, and best of all it was the perfect pairing for our food. Gilt has only been open since February, but the early signs point to a real winner. The reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, and if you go I’d recommend going online for a reservation to make sure you get a table. I’m going back to Chicago in March and Gilt will be the first restaurant on my list.

A PRAYER FOR THE FLINT CONEY

2010-11-08T15:42:00.000-08:00

Our Coney whose art is heaven

Koegel be thy name.

Thy steamy bun

Thy sauce be done

Not gross

Like it is in Motown.

Give us this day our daily “One”.

Forgive us the plain dog

As we forgive those who made it before us.

Lead us not into new toppings

But deliver us from all options

For yours is with onion and mustard only

Forever and ever.

Amen.

In Like Flint

2010-11-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

Philip and I have been at it again. We’re working on another big writing project together. Our last collaboration was a full length musical called Howl: The Life of Allen Ginsberg. It was grueling and took several years to write—music and lyrics—but watching it performed on stage got us hooked, and so now we’re giving it another go.

This time, it’s not a musical. It’s not even a play. Well, yes it is a play. It started out as a situation comedy, but the more we fleshed out characters and plots, the more we realized we needed a pilot. That led us to the decision to write a stage play so we could establish the main characters, their relationships, and a beginning to some threads that could be carried into a sitcom. Seeing the pilot on stage, we figured, would give us the chance to see what worked and what didn’t and to work on whatever revisions the piece might need.

The play is called In like Flint. Four of the five main characters feel trapped in their Flint lives and try desperately to get out of town in order to chase their dreams. The problem is that each character has a personality flaw that sabotages their efforts to move on. The problems of each of the characters is offset by the one character who is content with his life in Flint and turns down multiple opportunities to leave the comforts of Flint life for what others would see as much greener pastures.

My favorite main character was created from the inspiration of a dear friend of mine. This particular character is named Helen, and she is working on a local access television program that she hopes will launch her career and shake her out of her miserable existence. The show she’s created is called Helen Haddock’s Hot Dog Cooking Show for Kids. There’s only one problem: She hates kids!

Well, actually she has a second problem. Her dad is a local restaurateur who wants her, eventually, to take over the family business. She’s only concocted the cooking show idea as a way to get out of town, but her dad thinks she’s doing it as training to carry on a family tradition. He doesn’t know that she hates cooking too!

It wasn’t in the original plan when Philip and I started, but our script needs a regular public place where the characters can congregate. It dawned on me that if Helen’s dad owns a restaurant, that could be the meeting place. Like the diner on Seinfeld, or the coffee shop on Friends. After my lunch date with Stephanie last week, we may have found the perfect place: Gillie’s Coney Island on the corner of north Saginaw and Stanley Roads (www.gilliesconeyisland.com).

This place is a character in itself! The building looks like it came from the set of a cheesy Hollywood Western movie. The light paneled exterior is adorned with the skull of a dead steer, a bunch of mining tools, an American flag, and what looks like a drunken cowboy about to jump off the roof.

Wanna eat outside but can’t stand being in the scorching Michigan sun? Then the covered wagon picnic table (which almost blocks the front entrance) is just the spot for you. I imagine this Western theme becoming the inspiration for one of the characters in In Like Flint, perhaps the therapist with anger issues who longs to move out west and tame wild horses. Perhaps.

Gillie’s is a mom and pop operation that opened its doors (sadly, they’re not swinging saloon doors) in 1985. Owners Dave and Cindy Gillie are proud that “both our restaurant and our cuisine have rich histories.” They also have a tag line on their web site that proclaims: Fast Food in a Sit Down restaurant. And in a short, self-testimonial, also on the web site, we learn that their food has “evolved over the years. We now use 100% vegetable shortening to deep fry in and have added items like chicken and salads to the menu.”

The dining room is so busy, I can barely concentrate when we finally get to our booth. Not because there are so many customers but because there is so much crap on the walls, tables, floors, and yes, even on the ceiling, all screaming in unison: “LOOK AT ME!”. The western theme is continued throughout the dining room, but it’s paired awkwardly with an American patriot theme, which makes me feel like I’m in two different time periods at the same time.

But the advertisements strewn about the dining room eclipse all of the dead animal heads and American flags put together. They’re on the table, on the placemats, on the menu, and some of the ceiling tiles have been replaced with two foot by three foot ads that loom ominously overhead. (I’m not sure if this is considered an advertisement, but the whole front page of the menu is dotted with mini photographs of random people.)

I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect set design if I tried.

I’m not sure if we’ll make a running gag of the food in our fictitious In Like Flint diner, but we’d have plenty to work with if we did. The food at Gillies was atrocious, even by Coney Island standards. We made a couple of choices that didn’t totally stink but, overall, the quality of the food was pretty bad. We started out with a rather unusual appetizer, deep fried green pepper rings. When they and their Ranch dressing sidekick arrived, Stephanie and I gave the plate the once-over, shrugged our shoulders, and dug in. They weren’t all that bad. The batter was fresh and thick and the green peppers barely mushy from their vegetable shortening bath.

Our ritual Coney Dog arrived shortly after, and it too was pretty ok. It wasn’t nearly as good as Angelo’s or Tommy Z.’s; in fact, I’ve been disappointed in most of the samplings we’ve had this year. As much hype as I’ve heard about how great the Flint Coney is, I expected more diners to make more of an effort than they have. The Gillie’s Coney Dog is ok, and they also stock their grills with Koegel’s. Our waitress informed us that they use Vienna’s because unlike the regular Koegel’s hotdog, the Vienna “snaps when you bend it because of the extra thick casing.” I did not know that.

The bun, once again, was over steamed and almost rubbery. The sauce had enough flavor for me not to put the whole thing back on the plate and leave it uneaten, but this version had almost no grease in it, which I’m discovering really does contribute to the flavor. With the best sauces, a reddish grease soaks into the bun when you open it up for inspection. Our Gillie’s sauce left only a slight trace of a stain on the bun and it was more tan than reddish. (My Coney vocabulary just keeps expanding, doesn’t it?)

Stephanie’s fish sandwich was flawed but acceptable. I could not say the same for my salmon patty burger and Stephanie’s onion rings. They were both inedible. The onion rings appeared to be the run-of-the-mill frozen variety, somewhat on the order of Burger King’s. What could possibly go wrong then? Well something did because these babies tasted like they’d been dredged in metal. Low quality aluminum, most likely. There was no hint of onion and even less of a hint of batter. If Gillie’s can put out a decent (and fresh) deep fried green pepper ring, then don’t you think they could do the same with their onion rings?

The salmon patty was also an affront to the taste buds. It had a smidgen of fish flavor upfront, but it was quickly overtaken by a similar metallic taste. This one, though, was more like licking the inside of a fifty-five gallon drum. I gave up after just one bite.

Going to Gillie’s was a bittersweet experience for me. As a writer, I appreciate that our visit sparked a creative idea that I plan to use for In Like Flint. Helen Haddock’s Hot Dog Cooking Show for Kids might even tape an episode at Willie’s (I have to change the name so I don’t get sued) In reality, though, I don’t see myself becoming a regular at Gillie’s anytime soon.

Motorcycle Mamma

2010-10-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

With Halloween fast approaching, my stress level is on the rise and my attitude is already beginning to turn sour. It’s not that I don’t like Halloween. I do. As a poor kid, with too much time on my hands and a nonfunctioning moral compass (does any twelve year-old even know they have one?), I used the occasion to embrace my budding capitalist tendencies and apply them in the spirit of this give-and-take holiday. I pilfered money from UNICEF.

Before you go judging me as some common thief and writing me off as a bad seed from the other side of the tracks, I have two things to say in my defense. My sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson, was really vague on the rules of Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF. Unlike the cub scout popcorn scam, where we knew upfront that we’d only get to keep a few pennies of every dollar we made and pretty sure that our dad’s would pocket the rest for beer and cigarettes, the only rule of Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF that I understood was that I’d go knocking on doors like a beggar and the money would be outsourced to some foreign country. I didn’t think my dad, who was the vice-president of the USA (not of the country, but more importantly of the local union aligned with the United Steelworkers of America) would approve of sending money overseas when the struggle to make ends meet in our own Polish, working class community was so great

Also in my defense, I had no idea what the acronym UNICEF actually stood for or what the donations were actually being used for. I don’t know if I understood guilt and repentance at age twelve any more than I understood the concept of a moral compass, but somewhere on my path to junior high, I stopped Trick-or-Treating for UNICEF. Partly because something didn’t feel right about what I was doing, and partly because it was just too much work.

But it’s not the memory of my criminal adolescent years during Halloween that’s gotten me so worked up. It’s that Halloween, in my family anyway, marks the kickoff of a two-month holiday season. One that we celebrate in a single event I’ve come to refer to as Hallowthanksmas.

My parents bought a second house in Florida and became snowbirds, so they leave Michigan in early November and don’t come back until May. Because of their early departure, we no longer enjoy the holidays one at a time but “celebrate” them all in one awkward weekend. No candy, no whatever you get at Thanksgiving, and no presents. The new tradition in our family is to remove any trace of tradition from the event and avoid all the headache and hassle of the holiday season. For the adults, this is a joy-sucking event. For the kids, it’s just plain weird. For Philip, well for Philip, he just brings enough vino and Vicodin to get him through the weekend.

Back when he and I first met, and when my family celebrated Thanksgiving as its own holiday, I tried to start a new tradition. I’ve always been a sucker for both ritual and practical jokes, so I thought this would be as good a time as any to bring my two passions together. I knew my family was on board with at least one of those, so I let them in on my plan. Just as all sixteen of us sat down to eat, I announced that before we eat, our family tradition is that each person stands up and says what they’re thankful for. And the newest member of the family always goes first.

The car ride home was incredibly quiet that year, but my little tradition, which only lasted that one time, endeared Philip to my family and in some odd way became his rite of passage. He really should have thanked me.

Without tradition, a holiday, even Hallowthanksmas, just isn’t as fun. If you don’t believe me, ask Frank Costganza, who created a holiday called Festivus.

For those of you who aren’t aware of the absolute truth that NBC Thursday’s were “Must See TV” in the 90’s, let me explain. Festivus was a holiday we were introduced to on Seinfeld. George’s dad, Frank, created Festivus as another way to celebrate the holiday season without participating in its pressures and commercialism. The holiday is marked by erecting an aluminum pole and engaging in such activities as the “Airing of Grievances,” and “Feats of Strength.” The airing of grievances takes place as soon as the meal is served when each person tells everyone else all the ways in which they have disappointed them in the past year. Immediately after the meal, feats of strength are performed, where one person is chosen to wrestle the head of the household. The holiday doesn’t end until the head of the household is pinned to the floor. (Wikipedia has a complete summary of that episode).

If Hallowthanksmas is ever going to take hold as a Barnett family holiday the way Festivus did in the Costanza house, then it, too, needs some purposeful tradition attached to it. Since Philip and I are heading to the great up-north this weekend to spend Hallowthanksmas with my family, there’s no time like the present to bring a few ideas to the table. I like the idea of “the airing of grievances” as we sit down to dinner, but my family avoids confrontation like the Amish avoid electricity. The only one who would dare stand up and air his grievances is Philip, and after the Thanksgiving stunt I pulled on him, I’m not ready to take that chance.

“Feats of strength” is out, too, because my dad is six foot four and almost two hundred and fifty pounds.” The only thing that would bring him down is a tranquilizer dart, and even though he has more than sixty guns in his collection, he doesn’t own a tranquilizer gun. Well, not that I know of anyway.

The kickoff activity for Hallowthanksmas is called “Nuclear Family Fusion” where we pull something from each holiday and bring it together in a combined ritual. Half the family will dress in Native American garb, (my dad can make a few loin cloths from one of his dear skins) and half the family will dress as pilgrims. Aside from the uncomfortable shoes and the lack of fabulous color, I’m pretty sure Philip will choose to be a Pilgrim and forgo the embarrassment of wearing my dad’s homemade loin cloth. The Native Americans will present the pilgrims with hand-made gifts, like afghans or doilies or tissue boxes with hand-stitched turkeys on each of the four sides. In return, the pilgrims will ask for candy.

To avoid permanent damage to the children, they will be sent off, shabbily dressed and with good walking shoes—my parents live in the country—to Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF. This will give the adults just enough time to complete the final Hallowthanksmus ritual. It’s called “Motorcycle Mamma.”

The toughest person in the family, without a doubt, is my mother, even though she’s five foot four and barely a hundred and twenty pounds. She will defend the family honor by challenging the rest of her clan to a Run-In. Wearing motorcycle helmets and standing fifteen paces apart, challenged and challenger will charge toward each other, meeting at the center of the living room in a ferocious head-butt. The event will continue until one of the challengers brings Motorcycle Mamma to her knees. As their reward, the winner will receive the total amount of UNICEF money collected by the children. What they do with the money will be determined solely by their own moral compass.

I don’t expect my ideas to take hold in one year, or at all for that matter. But if nothing else it might convince my parents to bring sanity back to the holidays by staying home until New Years and returning to a more traditional celebration of the holidays. Wish me luck!

Crab Soccer

2010-10-19T19:06:00.001-07:00

I tried out for the tennis team when I was in tenth grade in high school so I wouldn’t have to join the football team. Under no circumstances was I going to dress up in some padded, colorful outfit just so some can’t-pass-the-ninth-grade hairy thug with out-of-control anger issues from Traverse City could throw me around like a rag doll, bury me in the muddy-grassy ground and get my pretty outfit all dirty. An angst-ridden, sexually confused teenager has his limits, and mine was playing football. They’d just have to get along without me.

Not that tennis went any better, mind you. I’m just not an athletic person. Sure I played crab soccer in sixth grade, but I had no expectations of eventually playing for the minor league Cadillac Crustaceans or eventually making it to the majors and scooting my ass around on a wheeled piece of plywood for the Louisville Lobsters. I wouldn’t realize it until years later, but there’s a big difference between grade school sports and high school sports: the onset of puberty and that powder keg known as testosterone. And while nobody ever bothered to tell me at the time, playing high school sports demands, in addition to superhuman levels of testosterone, that you understand three basic concepts.

#1: Know what the hell you’re doing. Had I listened to my tennis coach instead of making fun of his bald head adorned with a colorful sweatband that made him look like Saturn, I would have known that he was talking about mechanics. But because I didn’t, I never mastered the most important part of the game, the serve. Instead of gracefully tossing the ball in the air and turning my body and racket into one giant flyswatter—an act that would have made the ball land at the feet of my cowering opponent—I did something quite different. It was embarrassing enough that the ball sailed over my opponents head, and usually over the fence behind him, but I flailed around like a drunken octopus whenever I tried to make contact with the ball.

#2: Be good at everything, not just one thing. If only I could stand at the back of the court and hit forehand shots all day, I’d be playing with Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. My aim was good. I could actually put the ball in play and keep it from sailing into the back fence. Until someone hit me a soft shot and I had to charge the net. Oh sweet mother of pearl, that was ugly. I never quite mastered the finesse with which this move was executed, moving quickly into position, standing there with your racket still, and waiting for the ball to come to you. Instead, I looked more like, as Robin Williams said in The Birdcage, a psychotic horse running toward a burning stable. And because I’m not very good at quick stops, I’d usually find myself tangled in the net like a dopey moth in a spider web.

#3: It’s not a performance until you put it all together. Like a one-person symphony, really. It’s not enough to understand the backhand, the forehand, the serve, the charge, the, the lob, the overhead smash, or how to keep score for that matter (what self-respecting person would even play a game where to keep score you have to use words like love and deuce; before anyone scores, the game stands at love/love. Really?). To be a good tennis player, to win the game, you have to know when to lay back and volley, when to charge the net and put one away, and when to use the one-handed backhand or the two-handed backhand. It’s when you learn to put these elements together in the right order and with the right timing that you’re actually giving a performance.

My guess is that the current owner of Rio’s Coney Island, on Davison Road between Franklin and Dort, did not play tennis in high school. Stephanie and I didn’t intend to eat there last Thursday. We were on our way to another place on Center Road when I caught Rio’s out of the corner of my eye. We actually drove past it, waffling as to whether to turn back or keep going. I’m not sure why we decided to go back, but we did.

From the minute we walked in, I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. We both did. We knew we had been here before, and as we waited for our server to arrive, we figured it out. This used to be a family restaurant, though we still can’t remember the name. The dining room was split down the middle by a half-wall with booths on each side, and a doorway led to an add-on room, facing Davison Road. There were no customers on that side. And there were only two other tables with customers on our side. In the middle of lunch hour.

I’m guessing the owner of Rio’s never played tennis because the three golden rules that apply to that game are easily applicable to running a restaurant, and to my disappointment, the overall performance that we paid for wasn’t very impressive. Here’s why. The food was good enough, the place was clean enough, and the service…well the service was like one of the tennis moves I never mastered. And that’s my point; Rio’s gets the basic mechanics of running a restaurant. The food, the atmosphere, the service. It was all there. Some of it was done well, some not, and that’s why I felt more like I was at a practice than at a performance.

The competition for customers among Coney Island diners in the area is fierce, and those not on the top of their game are going to get eaten alive. If I were a restaurant coach, the first thing I’d help Rio’s with is their service. The waitress had the mechanics down. She brought us menus, took our order, brought our food, and delivered the check. But she was only marginally attentive, unengaged, and she acted like it was a bother to wait on us. I’m usually forgiving of wait staff sins because I’ve been there and know that it’s thankless work. (If you’ve never read the book Waiter Rant, I highly recommend it). But with only two other tables of customers in the whole restaurant, our waitress could have at least made an effort.

The food was a combination of good forehands, ok volleys, and a touch of my old serve. The Flint Coney Dog that Stephanie and I shared, for example, was quite good. The bun was as warm and soft as any we’ve had so far; in fact it was one of the better ones. The sauce was appropriately greasy and pretty flavorful. I was even able to identify a few ingredients, like cumin and chili powder. My palate is becoming more finely tuned because I was able to distinguish this Koegel Coney hot dog from the Koegel Vienna dog from previous weeks. This one is sweeter and less tightly packed in the casing than the more refined Vienna. (Good grief, I sound the Frazier Crane of Coney Dogs).

The Navy Bean with Ham soup was also pretty good. From the first bite we knew it was made from scratch. The celery and carrots were fresh and al dente, and the beans were cooked long enough to release the starches and contribute to a perfectly thick broth. The one element that was missing and could have put this soup over the top was the ham. Instead of using a smoked chunk of pork, which would have infused the soup with that unmistakable smoke-cooked flavor, this soup contained precooked pieces of sliced ham. They added little flavor to the soup, which seemed like a bit of a waste.

I think it’s even more important in the local Coney Island diner game than in tennis that you do everything well, or at least a majority of the things. And this is where Rio’s really has to step up its game or sooner rather than later it’s going to be watching from the sidelines. The entrées, to be more specific, were uneven and average with not much to distinguish them from any other diner in the city. Stephanie ordered one of my diner favorites, the fish sandwich and fries. The fries were actually thick cut steak fries, which I wish more places would serve. They’re meaty and they hold the heat better than the thinner cuts, which means you’re not eating cold potatoes half way through your meal. The fish sandwich, which Stephanie liked well enough, was two not-too-skimpy pieces of cod in a not-too-thick batter, deep fried on a burger bun. By making one simple change, Rio’s could easily turn this sandwich into a fan favorite: put it on a more attractive bun and let the colorful lettuce and tomato accent the fish instead of being hidden by it, a piece of advice one of my many cooking coaches once gave me.

I ordered the cheeseburger (with grilled onions and olives) and a side of onion rings, partly because I saw one being delivered as we arrived, and partly out of pity that the burger tends to play second fiddle to the darling of the diner, the Coney dog. My burger was just ok. A bit on the dry side and sloppily presented. The cheese, however, was melted on top of the burger and on top of the grilled onions and olives, sort of like a well placed backhand. The onion rings drew mixed reviews. Stephanie thought the ones she ate were ok. Mine tasted mushy. The grease, the soft batter, the limp onions. Not good dawg. Not good.

We lingered a bit after our meal and caught up on the week’s events, but I was distracted and bothered the whole time by our experience here. On the surface, it met most of the minimum criteria for a passable dining experience. But the individual parts never came together to make anything more than a lackluster performance. And that’s what troubles me about Rio’s. It’s already facing an uphill battle because of its location and the nondescript building that it’s housed in. Beyond that, there’s little to distinguish it from the dozens of other Coney diners around Flint. Rio’s has been on Davison Road for three years, but I’m afraid if it doesn’t step up its performance, it’s going be game, set, and match for this contender.

Hot Lunch: A foodie fable

2010-10-11T15:50:00.000-07:00

Patty Melt and Hot Meatloaf Sandwich met for lunch at Paul’s Coney Island and Family Diner. The place was packed with locals who apparently considered Paul’s the darling of Burton, the saving grace of the lower east side.

Catty Patty, as everyone called her behind her back, wasted no time, as was her custom, making sharp-tongued remarks to her lunch companion. “Well, is it a Coney Island or is it a Family Diner?”

“Maybe it’s both,” said Meatloaf, a little defensively. “Either way, it’s still a diner, and that’s what really matters. It has booth seating. The dining room’s rectangular, like the original one’s in the shape of train cars. And you don’t see those high-end entrees showing themselves off the way they do at Red Rooster. It’s a diner. Let it go.”

“Well!” snapped Patty. “Does a diner plant a garden around itself to make it look like Applewood Estates?” Paul’s did have a beautiful display of plants and flowers framing the entrance to the building and a row of tropical plants along the windows shielding the view of Center Road, a little out of character for a diner, but Patty had a habit of over-exaggerating to make a point, something Meatloaf knew all too well, and he quickly dropped the subject.

They looked at the specials board on the way in, and Patty turned to Meatloaf, chuckling. “Cabbage Rolls, indeed. What’s so special about cabbage?” she quipped. “Who does he think he is, stuffing himself like a swine with crumbled up God-knows-what, slopping around in tomato sauce, and trying to pass himself off as something ‘special’?” Appearance, after all, were all that mattered to Patty.

What must she think of my brown gravy? Meatloaf wondered to himself. Does she even know how offensive she is? Probably not. Again, he said nothing, and they found their way to one of the few vacant booths in the diner.

As they sat in their booth, chatting away about how clean the place was and how lively the atmosphere had become, along came the soup sisters and sat down next to the sandwiches. They had all known each other for a long time, and they all went well together at lunch. Chicken noodle was glowing with good color and inviting aroma, qualities that all agreed were quite tasteful. Chicken lemon rice was equally tasteful and beautiful, and together they made quite a nice pair.

Meatloaf was quick to complement the sisters, noting that they were the most popular of all the soups and that their status among menu items was generally agreed to be reliable and consistently good.

Patty, however, dispensed with the pleasantries and got right to her beef about one of the other soups. “Honestly, I don’t know how that lowly pea soup made the specials board and you two did not. It’s just not right. Green and runny cannot compare to your golden sheen.”

The soups, knowing Patty’s long history of criticizing the looks of other food, took her pettiness in stride. They knew, even if she did not, that everyone got their turn at the specials board eventually, and though the menu was a whopping five, dense pages long, everyone eventually had a turn. Even gruff, inelegant Patty Melt.

Meatloaf, however, had become fed up with Patty’s Negative-Nancy critique of the others, many of whom Meatloaf know well and often paired up with on previous lunches. “Well who on God’s green earth died and made you the Simon Cowell of food critique? You go off on everyone else, but have you ever taken a good hard look at yourself, sister? Your greasy bottom makes you look like you spent the night under a car. Your stringy onions are hanging out like wild hairs, and your cheese is drooling down your buns. Honestly Patty. You’re just too much.”

Just then, with a Cool Hands Luke swagger and the confidence of the guy on the horse in the recent Old Spice commercials, Flint Coney Dog approached the table. Patty was in such a state of shock from being dragged through the gravy by Meatloaf that she couldn’t speak. Meatloaf was steaming but composed himself enough to ask Coney to join them.

First impressions aside, Coney was generally viewed by his peers as a well assembled, good dog. He said little, but when he spoke his words were considered wise and useful. “Take a good look at how attractive he is,” said Meatloaf to Patty. The sauce is mounded neatly along his back with a real sense of purpose and the onions and mustard shine like well placed earrings. Not even you could find fault with him.”

“What’s all the fuss?” Coney asked, puzzled by the tension at the table.

“Oh, he’s just busy dressing me down because he thinks I’m plain and ugly,” Patty snapped. “The way he tells it, I’m as dull as a plate of fries.”

Coney didn’t think fries were dull at all. In fact he shared a plate with them more often than anyone else on the menu. They weren’t the most flashy partner in the place, but that wasn’t really the point anyway. “Look, man.” He said to Patty. We’re diner food. Nobody’s gonna win a beauty pageant here. It’s what’s inside that counts. Taste is more important than looks. You might not be the most colorful crayon in the box, but you got taste and people like you.”

Coney’s words penetrated Patty like a knife, cutting away her sandwiched misconceptions, making way for pickle slices of understanding and acceptance. Coney was right, she thought, and from that day on, Patty accepted herself for who she was: a hot lunch with average looks and enough taste to eventually make the specials board. The other sandwiches rejoiced at her Coney-induced epiphany, and Meatloaf was proud again to join his old friend at the table whenever he was called to order.

Guest Blogger: ShaunAnne Tangney (Coney and Wings)

2010-10-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

I've decide that there is way too much Coney culture, too many interpretations of history, and too many personal Coney stories for one person to write about. So, I've decided, after much thought, to call on you to help me tell the broadest, most inclusive, most complete story of how the Flint Coney Island has influenced our individual and collective lives.

I'm starting out this new feature with a tale from a dear friend of mine, ShaunAnne Tangney, who actually doesn't live in Flint but whose poignant insights, astute observations, and sophisticated narrative, perfectly situate her to muse on the phenomenon that she, too, has been sucked into.

Coney and Wings

Bob and I went to graduate school together. Most people who have gone to graduate school will attest to the copious amounts of alcohol it takes to simply survive it; succeeding takes even more. Anyway, that was our formula, and it must have worked because everyone Bob and I were friends with in grad school got a job. Bob finished before I did and he took a job at UMFlint, which was some 2,000 miles away from where I was, still slogging through grad school, and I was able to visit Bob only once a year.

In those early years of Bob's Flint existence, our social pattern was much the same as it was in graduate school. We'd start with cocktails somewhere atmospheric and trendy, then move on to dinner somewhere authentic and loud; we'd follow that up with heavy drinking until closing time somewhere crowded and smoky, and we'd follow that up with what was by that time an absolutely necessary stop-and-scarf at a Coney.

Why necessary? Partly because we believed the drunkard's mythology--eating a carbo-protein load after massive quantities of alcohol staves off a hangover (it doesn't, really); partly because there isn't anything else open that late and we were never quite ready to go home, never quite ready to end the conversation, to stop the literal or figurative dancing, to finish the night. God, the energy we had back then; it exhausts me just to think about it!

We made 3:00 a.m. visits to too many Coneys to count, but the one I remember most was to Angelos. It had been a long night. I won't speak for Bob, but I know I could neither see nor walk straight. I probably couldn't think straight, either, but that never seems to stop the conversation, does it? My stomach felt something like a Tilt-a-Whirl at a county fair, and I was pretty sure a ham and cheese omelette was the one thing that could help. With hash-browns. Crispy hash-browns. And toast. Maybe extra toast--more carbs can't hurt. And a large glass of ice cold milk. Yeah, milk...that's like throwing bricks in the Grand Canyon...

(A food note: at 3:00 a.m., the quality of the food doesn't much matter. It's all about the quantity and the temperature. Lots and hot. Greasy doesn't hurt either.)

But this story isn't really about the food; it's about our fellow diners that early morning, and one in particular. It was a kid. A little girl, maybe six years old. What on earth a child of that age was doing in that grimy diner at that hour, I'll never know (and for years Bob and I actually wondered if we'd hallucinated it, but since we can both remember so many of exactly the same details, we've concluded that we did not), but there she was--and here comes the truly impossible part: she was wearing bright pink tights, a pale, sea-foam green tutu, a white shirt with a fake fur collar and cuffs, and on her back were a pair of iridescent silver wings. Not painted on the shirt or something: real wings. Well, not real-real, like she was a bird or an angel or something, but actual three-dimensional wings. They were no doubt left-over from a Halloween or Christmas pageant costume, and sure, little kids will wear any crazy thing they can put together if you let them--but that outfit, on a girl of that age, in a 3:00 a.m. Coney? It was crazy! It was impossible!

It was just plain wrong!

And it was just plain magic. It was as if she was a gift or a portent--a reminder and a caution to stay young and to hold fast to dreams and to ever indulge the imagination. She was a living, dancing (and she did--she danced all over that diner!), impossible dervish that brought our night of debauchery to some kind of poignancy, and hope.

And then she was gone.

And nothing remained but the wings. A sad, limp set of wings, that, without the girl, looked shabby and cheap and as if they could portend nothing but poverty and shame and desperation. Just lying there, underneath a counter stool, on a dirty floor.

And so we took them. It was wrong to do so, but impossible not to. Maybe they held some magic after all; maybe they were left by one person just so another person could find them, put them on, and... But, no. We did not fly home, but only weaved and skidded, like all drunks do. And in the morning, the wings were just a sad, lank relic of our bright and weird night.

As I write this, I am forced to acknowledge that even though I am about 1,000 miles closer to Flint now, I still only get to visit once a year. This makes me unhappy. What makes me unhappier still is that we almost never go to a Coney anymore, and if we do, our trip is of the Sunday morning variety, not the 3:00 a.m variety. I know, I know: we just don't party like that anymore, and while our livers and brains and waistlines are probably the better for it, I wonder if our sense of wonder and joy, our ability to let loose, to put the world down, our desire to live in a kind of magical realism are the worse for it. The memory of the little girl with the wings reminds me that we have to put ourselves in the position to experience wonder to receive joy, to put the world down. We have to create or make or actively seek that places and spaces where those things can happen to us.

And, OK, maybe it doesn't have to be at 3:00 a.m...but 3:00 a.m. is a seam-time: not night, not day, an in-between time when things can happen...and Coneys? Well, one credo of magical realism is "lo magico es lo real:" the magical is the real--and it doesn't get any more real than a Coney.

Kooky Coney Culture

2010-10-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

I finally got my hands on the Genesee County Historical Society’s short publication of Two to Go: A Short History of the Flint Coney. The twenty-two page booklet traces the origins of our quirky little Flint phenomenon, provides a map of the earliest Coney Island diners along Saginaw Street, and pieces together the ownership chain of some of the earliest and most famous restaurants. But the publication meanders into some other, less known, historical facts that have elevated my interest in and love for the local Coney craze.

History, to oversimplify, is a recording of the past as it happened, a way for us to see where we’ve come from. It’s also a far more complex concept that allows us to see how we’ve changed, how we’ve grown or regressed, and to see who we’ve become. Beyond that, history provides a useful platform for commentary and criticism of events that play a large role in shaping our culture.

I started Eating Flint more than a year ago because I wanted to explore local history and culture through the lens of food. Last year’s Mexican restaurant tour, for example, revealed some surprising and profound insights into Flint’s Hispanic culture and how the voice of the Hispanic community manifests itself so much through food. While relatively small in numbers, this community accounts for almost fifteen percent of the total number of restaurants in the Flint area. The low-key influence of Hispanic culture is a good example of how other cultures that make up who we are as the people of Flint also contribute to our collective identity.

That’s how I’ve come to see the kooky Coney culture of Flint. Its simple, upretentious identity has worked its way into our community and speaks volumes about who we are. Simion O. Brown, the Macedonian immigrant who opened Flint’s Original Coney Island Diner in 1919, is credited for starting the local Coney Culture. Legend has it that while traveling to New York, he stopped at a lunch counter in Rochester and ordered a Coney Island hot dog. He deemed the offering tasteless and unfit for his hearty European palate. Brown returned to Flint determined to make a Coney Island sauce that was worthy of his loyal customers.

Some diner owners have honored that history by sticking as close to it as possible (Tom Z’s is the best example, which is no surprise since he is a distant relative of Simion Brown. Others have made changes to the Coney culture that reflect the ever-changing identity of the city (Olympic Grill jumps to mind, though some of the changes, like using all fresh ingredients in preparing its dishes, actually reclaims the philosophy that started the Coney Island experience).

The reality, though, is that most of the owners of local Coney diners aren’t trying to shape or change history; like the rest of us, they’re just trying to make a living. Such is the case with this week’s restaurant, Tom’s Coney Island Café. Nestled between Court Street and Second Street on Dort Highway, Tom’s is somewhat of a hidden gem.

Its history doesn’t appear in the pages of Two To Go, but it has undergone some transformations , at least since the early nineties. At one point it operated under the name Grapevine, an unimpressive, scarcely populated place with extremely average food and prices that were higher than the food’s quality. Then it became Toshi, thought I don’t remember much about that era (or whether Toshi’s came before or after Grapevine).

As Tom’s, it’s a nice, clean place with a steady flow of customers—always a good sign—and a menu that offers far more choices than your average Coney place. I know I’ve harped on this idea before, but really? Do you need five full pages of menu items to pore over when lunch only lasts for an hour? I really like the concept that Tom Z. has adopted, which is your basic breakfast/sandwich/dinner menu. It’s uncomplicated, it’s more than enough to choose from, and for the poor cooks in the kitchen, it’s far more manageable.

The choices at Tom’s range from a whole page of Pitas and Wraps, twenty-three sandwiches, not including the burgers, croissant sandwiches, Coney Islands, Diet Plates, Hot Sandwiches, Greek Specialties, and a list of Senior Dinners.

Among the sea of choices, my attention was drawn to two items that jumped out from the rest. The first was the Ninchimos. Yes, I said Ninchimos. Never even heard of the word before. I expected to read a description of the dish that was classically Mexican. I couldn’t have been any more wrong if I tried. A Ninchimos, at Tom’s anyway, is a breast of chicken sandwich topped with roasted red pepper, fresh basil, and goat cheese. Sounds kinda good, but it just seemed odd next to the BLT and Reuben.

The other, more interesting discovery is that Tom’s serves both the Flint Coney Island hot dog and the Detroit version. For those readers unfamiliar with the difference, the Detroit style sauce is much more like a chili, very wet and loose. The Flint version, on the other hand, is much dryer and more compact. Steph and I didn’t discuss ordering the Detroit style, but I wouldn’t mind giving it a go at some point.

Tom’s version of the Flint Coney, while marginally better than Olympic’s, didn’t set either of us on fire. Apparently Abbot’s Meat Company makes the ground meat base for many of the local Coney restaurants, including Tom’s. I know this because there’s a sign posted near the front door announcing it, and announcing that they serve Koegel hot dogs. Each place adds its own spices to make it their own, which is why, I suspect, that many Coney’s will taste pretty much the same as we make our way through the tour.

(A brief history side bar: I was pretty sure all along that the rumor about Flint’s Coney sauce being made from beef heart was simply that, a rumor. Not so according to Two To Go: “According to Ed Abbott, who eighty plus years later is still making the ground meat base for Flint’s Coney island sauce, the only meat ingredient is beef heart regardless of the stories and rumors of other meat parts being used.” Frankly, I’m not sure what to believe, so for now it will have to remain an unsolved mystery.)

At any rate, the sauce was nicely held together, maybe a little dryer than I wanted it to be, and slightly grainy in texture. The bun, like last week’s installment, was left to warm too long, and it showed signs of collapsing under the weight of the contents piled on top of it. The dog was good, not a Vienna, but good nonetheless, if not a little over cooked, and the signature onion and mustard topping added a nice finish. While not the best Coney I’ve ever eaten, we did manage to choke it all down without much trouble.

After an inter-course of chicken noodle soup (me) and lemon chicken soup with rice (Stephanie), both of which looked and tasted like they were made from scratch, we got down to the serious business of tearing into our entrees. When I think of diner food, the hot beef sandwich comes to mind immediately as one of the core offerings. Maybe it’s because I worked at a little greasy spoon in 1979 called Anchor Inn, where the hot sandwich was as famous in Manistee as the Coney island hot dog is in Flint.

So that’s what I ordered. Well a version of it anyway. At Tom’s you can get your hot sandwich stuffed with beef, turkey, ham, broiled chicken breast (a healthy hot sandwich? Oh please!!!!), hamburger or Salisbury steak. My mind gravitated toward the hot hamburger, so that’s what I ordered. Instead of the traditional mashed potatoes and gravy, though, I ordered mine with French fries and gravy (a combination, by the way, that goes hand in hand with the Coney Dog). I was expecting the sandwich to be situated on the plate in two halves with the fries and gravy in the middle—the way it’s been done for centuries. But Tom’s threw me for a loop by presenting it as two slices of bread under the meat next to the fries alongside the frozen peas all drizzled with beef gravy. It was actually an attractive presentation and once I got off my high horse mindset of it-has-to-be-done-the-same-way-everywhere, I quite enjoyed it and would recommend it to any hot sandwich lover who comes to Tom’s Café.

Stephanie also threw me for a loop. She passed on breakfast. She said no to the burger. She scoffed at the Seafood Favorites (here’s a little Stephanie secret: she’s allergic to seafood). Instead, she went for the Pita section of the menu and ordered the Chicken Gyro (pronounced year-oh). This item could easily have gone under the Greek Specialties section along with the Gyro platter, but it appears, oddly out of place, with the dozen or so pita choices. [Another side bar: the choices of fillings under Pitas, Wraps, Sandwiches and Croissants are all the same. You can get a BLT, for example in any of the above forms. Why not just say that and put all the stuffing choices in one place under one heading. It would turn this five page novella into a manageable menu. There. I said it]. Anyway, Stephanie’s Gyro was made with grilled chicken that had a good moister level to it, served in a thick warm pita bread, surrounded by lettuce, tomato, and a freshly made cucumber sauce that pulled the whole sandwich together and made Stephanie proclaim, “This is pretty good.”

It seemed more and more apparent to me over the course of our lunch that Tom’s Coney Café has a loyal following of patrons, which creates an atmosphere of familiarity and comfort. The place feels very neighborhood friendly. And it feels like a place that’s both finding its own identity while hanging onto and honoring a chunk of the Coney Island past that paved the way for its very existence.

Out Of The Ashes

2010-09-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

“OH MY GOD, THE OLYMPIC IS ON FIRE! What? Of course I’m sure. I’m sitting in the parking lot across the street watching it burn. Well, my truck windows are pretty hot, so I’m sure it’s not just a rumor. No, the glitzy sign hasn’t burned. Not yet, anyway. How would I know if it’s an insurance job? The paintings probably weren’t originals and the wall colors were ugly anyway. Yes, I know they had a two dollar breakfast special, but there are other places. The weather’s getting colder here too. No, I didn’t know they found a dead person down the road from your house.”

That phone conversation with my mother took place several years ago, but it’s still clear in my mind. Not because I found it more than a little bizarre that I was consoling my mother, who was in Florida for the winter, over the destruction of our favorite Coney Island diner in Flint—we ate breakfast there every time my parents came to visit. The memory is so vivid because I had grown to love that old run-down, dingy place on Court Street and considered it my own go-to space.

I had a soft spot for the beaten down wait staff who were more focused on simply surviving than they were on getting your order right—or getting your order at all, in some cases. I loved the cracked red vinyl booths that shifted every which way when you sat down. I tolerated the skanky tasting coffee, even though I was too stubborn to get off my purist high horse and put a little cream or sugar in it.

And who didn’t love the food? It was quintessential Coney food. Everything frozen and pre-made. Everything deep fried or grilled in something called lo-melt, a combination of cheap margarine and even cheaper vegetable oil. It saturated the already unhealthy food in alarming amounts, but a) it made the hash browns crispier and the eggs a little shinier and b) it gave the food that signature comfort food taste.

All of that changed, however, when the Olympic Coney Island Diner made way for the construction and opening a couple of years later of The Olympic Grill. Yup. The Olympic Grill. The owner made a strategic decision to abandon the historic Coney Island Diner identity. Instead, he designed an upscale Coney Island restaurant. Calling it a grill instead of a diner is only one change that characterized the new digs.

The new place was designed with large windows all around to create a brighter, dare I say cheerier, atmosphere. Gone were the tired old booths and tables. In their place, a dining room with all booth seating. Shiny booths. No tables. Just booths. And the old linoleum floor—it reminded me of walking on my grandmother’s farmhouse kitchen floor—was upgraded to tasteful tile flooring.

This was all well and good, but every time I went into the new Olympic, I felt like I was stepping into a place that was caught between two kinds of restaurant, but not really succeeding at either. Instead of moving completely away from the Flint Coney Island concept, The Olympic Grill tried to elevate itself to a high-end version of what it once was, almost to a family restaurant. But it never fully embraced the family restaurant idea and, for me, this created a conflicting identity for the restaurant. The food was good. The atmosphere was nice. The wait staff were pleasant. But the place lacked a personality.

On my recent visit for lunch with Stephanie, we both noticed something different. A yellow banner had been tied to the posts just below the main sign that read something like ‘New daily breakfast and lunch specials.” The Olympic Grill sign had changed as well. In smaller letters, just underneath, was a new line that read “Family Restaurant.”

Hmmm.

We arrived shortly after 11:00 am and the place was about a third full already. By the time we left, a steady stream of customers flowed in and out. This increase in traffic was also a new sight. The menu was new too. It had far more choices than the previous version (way too many, in my opinion), and it came with a laminated list of daily specials, about a dozen, claiming all of them to be “home made.”

Ok. At this point, Stephanie and I were both sure that the place must have changed ownership.

Not long after we sat down, the manager, who was constantly patrolling the dining room, stopped by our table. He introduced himself as Noah, the new owner of The Olympic Grill Family Restaurant.

AHA!!! We were right!

According to Noah, who’s been in the business in excess of twenty years and who owns another family diner in Royal Oak, “the Coney Island is just not my style.” The changes he’s made to Olympic in the six months that he’s owned it are intended to move it’s identity away from the typical Coney Island and to make it a more traditional family diner.

So what’s the difference?

I’m especially interested in this question because there seems to be no consistency whatsoever in making the distinction. In fact, a lot of the Coney Islands in the area that I would consider quintessential Coney joints include a tag line on their signs that says “Family Restaurant”. Some don’t but seem to me closer to family diners than Coney Islands.

Well, Noah certainly had a clear idea and clear distinction that he’s applied to the new Olympic Grill. Everything that can be made from scratch is made from scratch. The typical “everything is frozen and goes into the deep fryer” concept has been thrown out the window—even though my French fries, good as they were, went from the freezer to the fryer. Daily lunch and dinner specials create what Noah calls a true dining experience. The distinction isn’t so helpful to me because other places do similar things and yet consider themselves Coney Islands.

The real test, I suppose, comes in the quality of the food. As usual, Stephanie and I started out with a Coney Island hot dog. As it arrived, slathered in sauce and onion—we were invited to put our own mustard on—we wondered together how we would tell this dog apart from the one’s we ate in previous weeks. We aren’t, after all, trained Coney Island hot dog testers. It only took a bite or two, however, for us to know that something was indeed different.

First off, the bun was not fresh and fluffy and light. It was hot, probably too hot because it had already begun to deflate the way a bun does when it’s been heated too long. The hot dog, while it had a good, clean flavor to it, was definitely different than those of the first two weeks. While Olympic serves Koegel’s dogs, this was not the Vienna frank but most likely the stock Coney dog of lesser but still good quality. The sauce was noticeably wetter, the meat a bit grainy, and the grease factor a bit on the lean side. The onions were pretty good and the mustard added a nice pop to the end of each bite. All in all it was an ok dog but definitely not as good as Angelo’s or Tom Z’s.

If Noah is shooting for an upscale dining experience for his customers, then he’s on the right track--at least with the entrees that Stephanie and I enjoyed. I ordered off the menu, she ordered off the Specials list. Her Chicken Potpie was gargantuan! I added a pickle slice to her plate for the photograph to give a little perspective on the “holy crap” size of this thing. The top crust was flaky and well browned with a small pond of “homemade” chicken gravy puddled on the crust’s surface. The inside was laced with great chunks of potato, carrots, some peas and onions, and a generous amount of chicken chunks. The gravy on the inside was thick enough to bind everything together and distinguish it, in looks as well as in taste, as made from scratch.

I took a more traditional route with one of my favorite Diner menu items: The Club Sandwich. When I was a cook at a Big Boy restaurant in 1980 (it’s been torn down and replaced with a Walgreens—good grief!), making this sandwich was a nightmare. It’s tall and it’s thick, and when you cut it into quarters after assembling it, you have to get a long, frilly toothpick into each section while holding the other three sections in place so they don’t fall apart. It’s a little like sewing bars of wet soap together. It takes great skill to pull this off. Every time I order one I think about the poor slob who has to suffer through the stress of making it. On this day, mine was well assembled—ham, turkey, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo on whole wheat. It’s like a BLT on crack! The melding of flavors and textures is addicting.

While neither of us ventured into the breakfast portion of the menu this time, we’ve both eaten here before and think pretty highly of their offerings. My parents will be happy to know that while Olympic has changed in many ways, they have kept the cheap breakfast special, probably as a way to draw new customers and to keep the loyals coming back. It’s not as cheap as the pre-fire Olympic, but it’s still reasonable.

Family Diner or Coney Island? Walking back to our car after a really good lunch at Olympic, I’m not sure it mattered to me at that point. If Noah remains the owner of Olympic for any appreciable amount of time, his restaurant will probably gain the reputation of a Classy Coney Island Diner, which may be the same as a Family Restaurant, a difference with a muddy distinction at best.

The Great Coney Conflict

2010-09-20T16:14:00.001-07:00

As The World Turns, the longest running soap opera on daytime television, is closing up shop after a 54 year run. It outlasted shows like Guiding Light, Ryan’s Hope, and Dark Shadows (that was a great show). It was the first soap to introduce a gay character. Granted, it could never hold a candle to the scandalous drama of Luke and Laura during the 80’s on General Hospital, but AsThe World Turns had its share of scandals and dramas and villains and heros.

Now that yet another soap opera has gone out of business what on earth will we do to satisfy our insatiable need to get caught up in the drama of people we don’t even know?

Not to worry. As it turns out, we have plenty of drama right here in our own back yard. As Stephanie and I learned, a saucy little saga has been brewing that pits the owner of Angelo’s against the owner of Tom Z’s.

Here’s the scoop in a nutshell: Tom Z., owner of Tom Z’s on Court and Grand Traverse, and Neil Helmkay were business partners. Neil the president and Tom the vice-president. They bought Angelo’s from the original owners in 1998. And then something went bad. This is also the point in the story where the two versions don’t exactly match up.

Neil and Tom opened several additional Angelo’s restaurants in a relatively short period of time. Whether it was the stress of the expansion, creative differences, or a power struggle, Neil’s story is that he sold the place in 2003, though he didn’t say he sold the place to his business partner. According to Tom, Neil didn’t sell him the place. He fired him. They parted ways, paving the way for the opening of Tom Z’s (which is where Italia Gardens operated before it moved to Miller Road). How Neil bought Angelo’s back from Tom a few years later is a big mystery, especially if, as Tom says, Neil fired him.

Oh but there’s more!

The Angelo’s Coney sauce recipe: Neil claims to have it under lock and key and is the only one in possession of it. Tom, however, claims that he, in fact, has the recipe and is its rightful owner. He even went so far as to share the recipe with Stephanie and me. Sort of. He willingly listed all of the ingredients but one, and without the portions of each ingredient. According to Tom, the sauce is made with:

Chopped onion

Paprika

Chili powder

Cumin

Ground beef

Top secret ingredient

Neil wasn’t as forthcoming about sharing the ingredients list with me, so it’s impossible to resolve the issue in any definitive way—unless, of course, Neil were to share his version of the recipe with me so we could compare notes. Until then, this saucy scandal continues to bubble along on the back burner.

Perhaps the most shocking part of this culinary drama is the Angelo’s name. Neil claims ownership of it. Tom, however, sees it quite differently. According to him, he possesses the written documents that prove beyond doubt that he owns the Angelo’s name. If this is true, it could blow the lid off the this Coney confrontation and change history forever. The case is apparently before a judge right now, so stay tuned for future episodes in this ongoing nail biter.

Meanwhile, Stephanie and I had a thrilling lunch visit to Tom Z’s last week. Tom was a gracious host, welcomed us with open arms, and opened his entire restaurant to us by giving us a guided tour after we finished our meal.

The first thing that surprised me about this Coney diner is that Tom has revised the menu, minimized the choices to a manageable number (this is a common problem with Coney Island menus—they’re far too populated), and kept the prices reasonable--the signature menu item, The Coney dog, is a buck fifty-nine.

The menu is augmented by a list of daily specials, hand written on the white board that hangs over the waitress station. One of the specials, two dinners for $13.99, caught our attention. I chose the Meatloaf and Stephanie picked the fish and chips—well the fish and baked potato to be exact. With butter and sour cream. The fish was batter dipped and deep fried; it had a light brown, almost golden color to it. The pieces of fish—cod I think—were meaty and flaky with a bit of juice running out as you cut it with your fork. I didn’t try a piece, but Stephanie was impressed with it.

The meatloaf was sliced about a half inch thick and had the surface area of a nice sized slice of bread (a good slice of bread came with our entrees, by the way, which was made on site that day. Tom gave us each a fresh, hot loaf to take home with us). The meatloaf was plenty moist and meaty, but it was laced with a good number of extra ingredients—onion, tomato, several herbs, celery, and other stuff I couldn’t identify—that made for a very busy version of this classic comfort food. The dish of canned corn on the side was ok, but the salad made us sit up and take notice. The lettuce was crispy, cold, and fresh, as were the tomatoes on top of it. Come to find out, Tom shops at the Flint Farmer’s Market and deserves high praise for supporting local businesses as he grows his local business. I like that sense of loyalty in a local business.

And then there was the Coney dog. We ordered it as an appetizer, and without asking her to do so, the waitress served it already cut in half, and presented on two small plates. What a nice touch. On the surface, like last week, I thought this was pretty good. But then I started thinking about how I could describe the Coney dog in a little more detail. If I don’t find a way, it’s gonna be a pretty long and boring year of reading about the dog that makes Flint famous, so I came up with a more detailed way to share it with you.

Let’s start with the bun. The bun has to be warm and soft, but the taste can’t hog all the attention. Tom has his buns custom made at the Balkan Bread Company in Detroit and shipped to Flint two or three times a week. Ours was slightly sweet, warm but not hot, and delicately soft. The hotdog goes directly from the refrigerator to the griddle, so there’s no boiling involved, just a slow cooking and browning process. The result is a juicy dog with an outer texture that also adds another layer of flavor. The sauce is dry as you’d expect, but the texture of the meat is slightly soft (not at all grainy), and there’s a slight greasiness to it, which I think too many sauces lack. The chopped white onions were fresh and bold, but not overpowering. The mustard added just enough zip to complete the chorus of contrasting flavors, which is what makes Tom Z’s Coney dog so bloody good.

After lunch, Tom came over and sat with us for a bit and shared a good chunk of his very long history in Flint. He began his career thirty-five years ago at US Coney Island on Dort and Bristol (which we will visit in coming weeks) and then moved on to Scotti’s Coney Island on Belsay, where he started realizing his passion for the restaurant business. In one of many interesting twists in Tom’s professional career, he recently purchased the building that housed Scotti’s and is preparing to re-open it in the near future under that same name.

Most of Tom’s career, though, was spent at Angelo’s where he worked for nearly twenty years. He obviously developed a loyal following because several of his current employees have been with him for most of that time: Betty and Cindy wait tables and have worked with Tom for twenty years; Ivan, one of the cooks, has worked with him for thirty-five years. That kind of longevity and loyalty is rare, but it’s a precious commodity that shows in how the restaurant is run, from the front and behind the scenes.

Tom gladly showed us every corner of the restaurant, eager to share all aspects of the business with us. The waitress station is loaded with equipment that, According to him, is all original from the Angelo’s location. The station is roomy and clean, which servers appreciate when the dining room starts to fill up and the station is heavily used.

The stock room, dishwashing room, and large walk-in cooler were impressive, but my favorite part of the tour was the kitchen. It’s layout is designed so that whether one cook or three are using the space, everything is easily accessible and well organized. The Coney Sauce simmers away on a big gas stove off in the corner, next to a pretty large griddle where a good deal of the cooking takes place.

The Coney station is something special because it’s really its own self-contained kitchen within a kitchen. The Coney dogs are kept in a refrigerator near the station, which consists of a mini griddle, where all the hot dogs are cooked. Next to that is a small amount of counter space for the buns and the assembly process. Put a small pot of sauce next to a bowl of freshly chopped onion and a squeeze bottle of mustard and you can pump Coney’s out in a matter of seconds.

While Tom’s colorful past is loaded with unexpected developments, surprises, and a boat load of drama, his restaurant on the corner of Court and Grand Traverse stands as a Pillar of the Coney Island experience in Flint. The one constant, through all the change he’s seen, is that the food that Tom Z serves brings a deep level of gastronomical comfort to those who eat it.

Mistaken Identity

2010-09-14T15:41:00.000-07:00

He thought I was a tourist. I thought he was a vendor. Stephanie was disoriented because she had only been here before in the wee hours of the night. We were seated by the big wall that’s been turned into a billboard. Below it, just about eye-level, was a picture of a Coney dog in a taco shell with a caption that read “Hard Shell Coney: $1.89.” The back of the yellow printer-paper menu announced “Cheap Bags of Ice, 24/7.” As I looked up from my menu, the vendor disappeared into a back room behind the cash register.

Our waitress, a middle aged woman, whose voice was a couple of octaves below James Earl Jones, no doubt from a lifetime of smoking, went off to get our drinks (they serve Vernor’s ginger ale here). The mysterious vendor reappeared and sat down at a booth across from us. He kept sneaking glances at us, trying to be inconspicuous but not doing a very good job of it.

Stephanie knew exactly what she wanted when the waitress returned to take our order. I know her so well, I could have guessed it myself: Two eggs, hash browns, and toast, the quintessential three a.m. breakfast. I went for the cheeseburger and fries, but I was so distracted by the voyeur vendor that I forgot to order it with grilled onion and green olives, a flavor combination known by every true Coney patron in town. I didn’t forget, however to order One Up; that’s a Coney Island hot dog with onions and mustard, Flint style. In this case, Angelo’s style.

Like so many of its competitors, the kitchen crew at Angelo’s is lightning fast at getting orders from the grill to the table. I’ve waited longer for a meal in fast-food lines than Stephanie and I did at Angelo’s. Granted, we came in ahead of the lunch crowd by half an hour, but still it was a comfort to have our food served so fast--and hot.

We cut the Coney in half, toasted the opening of our 2010 tour, and devoured our Angelo’s hot dog in less time than it took to make it. The bun was warm, the hot dog a Koegel original, and the sauce was of the same recipe that topped the Angelo’s hot dog 61 years ago.

Dryer than it’s Detroit counterpart, the Flint Coney sauce is more like a combination of finely ground beef and seasonings whose taste falls somewhere between taco seasoning and sloppy joe mix. Little moisture contributes to its consistency, which is just fine because the juices from the hotdog and mustard create the perfect balance.

After a bit of ooohing and ahhhhing from Stephanie and me, I looked to the booth across from us and noticed the vendor gawking at us with a sheepish smile. Just then, the waitress brought him a bowl of tomato soup and a One Up with about a pound and a half of onions piled on top of it—not that I was gawking at him.

After finishing the rest of our food, I grabbed my camera to get a few shots of the dining room of this now historic restaurant. As I crouched to get a good view of the bar and kitchen, the vendor spoke up: “Are you visiting from out of town?”

Once I told him who I was, who Stephanie was, and what I was up to, he came clean with me as well. “I’m Neal Helmkay. I’m the owner.”

What began as an awkward, accidental run-in involving grossly mistaken identities ended with a pleasant conversation between Stephanie, me, and Neil, who once again owns Angelo’s. Apparently he’s the one who bought the place from the original owners in 1998. (He also purchased the original Coney sauce recipe, which he keeps under lock and key).

With the decline of the local auto industry, and thus a big share of his customer base, Neil sold Angelo’s in 2003, but quickly regretted the decision. According to him, the person he sold it to didn’t know how to run a business and made changes to Angelo’s that had a negative and lasting impact on the restaurant.

Neil regained ownership in 2008 and has been working nonstop to rebuild Angelo’s customer base and reputation. The first thing Stephanie and I noticed on our way into the restaurant was the big tag line under the Angelo’s sign in the front window that read “The old owner is back.” It’s also printed in a couple of spots on the menu. Neil isn’t worried if customers interpret the sign to mean that the original owners are back, he just wants people to come back and give his restaurant another try.

As a short order cook in restaurants like Angelo’s, I’ve always wanted to get behind the scenes to see how the whole process is organized. Neil was glad to accommodate my request and gave me a complete tour. I was amazed at how small yet efficient the place is. The kitchen consists of two grills and two fryers. That’s it. One grill is loaded with Coneys, which are par boiled and then laid on the grill to give them a bit of color. Hot pots of Coney sauce sit next to it, along with the typical condiments that customers might order.

The other grill, twice as big as the first, is where the burgers and all the breakfast components are cooked. A grill of this size has multiple settings, which helps explain why Stephanie’s breakfast was made in five minutes. You can cook the eggs, potatoes, and meat on different parts of the grill so that by the time the toast pops up, the whole meal is ready for plating.

In the back kitchen—which is separated from the front kitchen by a partial wall—two small fryers sit next to a six burner gas stove. I’m in luck because on this day, on the front burner of the stove, is a simmering pot of Angelo’s Coney sauce. The mixture spits and gurgles in its juices, which is an indicator, I’m only guessing, that the sauce is drained after cooking to attain its trademark not-so-wet texture.

On the way back to the dining room, Neil explained to me that Angelo’s while it has undergone several changes and owners over the years, is the only Coney Island in Flint still operating in its original spot. Situated on the corner of Davison Road and Franklin Street, Angelo’s has been a neighborhood fixture since 1949. Now that the “new” “old” owner is back, it’s well worth a trip over to the East side to see what he’s done with the place. Neither Stephanie nor I tried the Hard Shell Coney, so let us know if we should come back and give it a go.

Food Paparazzi (Text)

2010-09-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

I was listening to Marketplace on NPR Monday and was surprised to hear them report a story on food paparazzi. (It was, after all, Labor Day and thus a slow day for the show). I had never actually heard the term food paparazzi before, so I was especially interested in the reporters take on this new idea.

Also known as food bloggers or restaurant reviewers, food paparazzi are creating quite a stir in restaruants around the country with their intrusive tripods and flashbulbs.

In some places, like trendy New York City, high end eateries have banned food photogs altogether, citing disruption of the ambiance and complaints by customers paying a lot of dough to eat their food. Other restaurants have taken a more moderate stance by allowing food photography but prohibiting the use of flashbulbs. Seems like a sensible compromise.

The report was so interesting to me because I've never fancied myself a food paparazzi. In fact, it's kind of a screwball notion. I can't imagine, for example, a gang of camera toting food bloggers chasing a plate of lasagna around Italia Gardens while the waitress tries to protect the entree from prying eyes as she races to the corner table and out of site of the crazed media.

I am sensitive to the criticism of restaurateurs, though. Even as discretely I try to get good quality photos of the food I write about, I'm aware that my activity might not always sit well with the staff or other customers. That's why I try to be as inconspicuous as possible, and I never call attention to myself by using flash. Getting good photographs for my posts is important to me and as long as I don't get Stephanie and me kicked out of the places we visit, I'll continue my guerrilla tactics.

The food paparazzi phenomenon wasn't really an issue on my latest adventure: A tour of the Koegel Meat Company. In fact, as President and CEO John Koegel guided me through the Bristol Road factory (next to Bishop International Airport), he encouraged me to stop and document the experience. [The photos are in a separate post because Blogger is having technical problems of Biblical proportions]. John is the grandson of company founder Albert Koegel, a German immigrant who started the business in 1916 on Kearsley Street in downtown Flint.

For those of you scratching your heads and wondering why I'm writing about a meat factory for a restaurant tour, let me explain. Before Angelos and Colonial. Before Flint and Detroit began arguing over where the first Coney Island Diner opened. Before the explosion of the Coney Island phenomenon. Before all of this there was Koegel Meats.

This company has become synonymous with the Flint Coney Island experience because Koegel makes its hot dogs locally, and it distributes to restaurants all over the county. According to John, 25% of their total business is devoted to the local restaurant industry.

Not all local diners "Serve the Curve," but those that do usually display a little neon Koegel sign in their windows to let their faithful followers know. I was amazed to learn that almost seventy thousand pounds of meat is produced daily by a team of about 100 workers. And 90% of all the hot dogs produced for the local food industry are delivered direct from the factory to the restaurants. In total, Koegel produces nearly 40 types of meat, including Vienna franks, bologna, sausages, salamis, and a whole host of gourmet products.

Because the company has extremely high standards and takes extraordinary steps to ensure a safe and sanitary environment in its processing facility, tours are rarely given. John made an exception, though, for which I am extremely grateful.

The process of making a hot dog at Koegel's starts with the freshest quality beef and pork. The meat is run multiple times through giant grinders and combined with a mixture of spices (the same spice mixtures that founder Albert Koegel created himself).

The next step involves a finer mixing and grinding technique that creates what John called an emulsion. Translation: It takes on the consistency of a thick mousse (or a very pale pudding).

From there the tubs of goo are sent on to be packed into casings; skinless franks are stuffed into blue casings that are later stripped away, in case you were wondering.

After the stuffing process, strings of hot dogs are hung on metal racks and sent to the smoking rooms, and then on to a cooling facility where overhead sprinklers shower water over the meat until it cools to just the right temperature.

The packing room is where everything comes together and the hot dogs are separated, counted, and boxed for shipping. Then it's on to the final destination, the warehouse, where delivery trucks load their cargo for the short trip to the various restaurants across the city.

This is admittedly an abbreviated version of the tour and of the whole hot dog making process, but the next time you order a Coney that's been made at Koegel Meats, you'll know you are eating a fresh, locally made hot dog that helped establish a unique Flint phenomenon.

Food Paparazzi Photos

2010-09-10T06:02:00.000-07:00

[Note to Readers: Blogger is experiencing technical difficulties, so I for now I have to post images separate from text. Sorry]

What's Your Story?

2010-08-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

After the longest, hottest, busiest summer of the millennium—after the Flint Art Fair, the Flint Jazz Festival, The Flint Blues Festival, Back to the Bricks, and now the Crim Festival of Races—after all that, I’ve finally crawled back into my writing chair and I’m ready to get this year’s installment of Eating Flint under way.

In my most recent post, I committed to exploring the Coney Island diner phenomenon in Flint. Of all the dining choices in our quintessential blue collar, working class community, what better way to explore the relationships between food and culture than through our Coney Island diners. They do, after all, through their own identities, add clarity to our collective identity as the people of Flint. Our Coney Islands also tell very revealing stories about our city’s history.

Talking about Coney Islands is as familiar to Flint natives as the Hamady Sack or The Rock. And everyone has their own Coney stories. When I put a call out for ideas on which restaurants to include, I received a dozen replies from readers who provided, in whole or in part, their own definitions and criteria for what a Coney Island diner is. I certainly hope that over the next eight months you will feel compelled to share some of your stories too.

When possible, I’ll give you advanced notice, week by week, of where Stephanie and I will be eating. I’ll try to weave your stories into the conversation about each restaurant and weigh them against my own experience. I’ve lived in Flint for sixteen years, and my expertise in the Coney Island experience (at least in the early years) comes from patronizing them between the hours of 1-3 am, which for some obvious reasons is quite different from the Sunday morning church crowd. But both experiences characterize the Flint Coney experience, which I hope to dutifully represent throughout the tour. (By the way, I’ve created an Eating Flint email address so you can send comments at anytime. If you’re eager to share comments and experiences, but not so much in a public forum, then send them to me at EatingFlint@gmail.com.

The original list of Coney Island Diners that I shared with you included a number of places that are either family diners or some weird hybrid of family diner/Coney Island diner. And as some of you rightly pointed out, family diners are not the same as Coney Island diners. I’ve crossed as many of the family diners off the list as I could recognize. I’m sure we won’t have consensus on whether every place I choose is truly a Coney Island Diner or not, but I’ll do the best I can to hold as close to the fundamental principles and characteristics of the Coney Island experience as I can—knowing full well you’ll be right there to set me straight when I start to wander.

One of you suggested that, in defining criteria for what actually is a Coney Island, I should consider places that are open twenty-four hours, that serve breakfast all day long, that have wait staff who have worked there at least five years, and that serve bad coffee (thank you corner office). These are great criteria, and I’ll consider places that fit this bill first, but some Coney Islands are worth visiting even though they may not stay open around the clock or even if their coffee doesn’t completely stink.

As I dine with Stephanie each week, I’ll be looking, beyond the above criteria, at what makes each Coney Island a Coney Island, and I’ll do this by examining various aspects of the experience, like their menu selections, their “specials,” the staff, the clientele, the ambiance J, and other unique features. No matter what we order each week, we’ll sample one Coney Island hotdog in order to incorporate this iconic menu item into the conversation. Beyond that, we’re just going to take it all in and share the results with you.

I’ll be putting one more post up after today before we actually start visiting the diners—I’ll be touring Koegel Meats tomorrow and sharing that experience with you. Our first restaurant visit is set for Thursday, September 9th; we’ll be going to the original Angelo’s on the corner of Davison Road and Franklin Street. I’d also like to consider a post that creates a collage of your stories about Angelo’s before my visit there. If you’re willing to let me share your story, then send it to me by Monday, September 6th at noon. Send it to EatingFlint@gmail.com and I’ll compile them into a “Readers’ Post” post.

Help Wanted

2010-07-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

Greetings everyone! Just checking in to let you know that, despite a hectic vacation and work schedule, I am still working on the upcoming Coney Island Restaurant Tour, which will kick off in mid August. I have spent the last two months researching the history of the Coney Island in Flint, interviewing those who have written on the subject over the last generation, and making a comprehensive list of all of the Coney Island Restaurants in the county.

Here’s where I need your help. I know there are many more Coney Island restaurants than I have on my list, and I want to make sure I have every place on my list that’s in business before the start of the tour. All of the joints on my list are currently open, to the best of my knowledge, but if you know otherwise, please let me know. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Coney Island Restaurants in Genesee County

PAUL’S CENTER ROAD

OLYMPIC COURT

TOMMY Z’S COURT

TELLY’S MILLER ROAD

LEO’S MILLER ROAD

VALLEY MILLER ROAD

WESTSIDE DINER BALLENGER

CODY’S BALLENGER

CONEXTION NORTH BALLENGER

CAPTAIN COTY SOUTH BALLENGER

HOLLYWOOD CORRUNA

ATLAS CORRUNA

COLONIAL CORRUNA

MEGA CONEY CORRUNA

JOHN’S CONEY CORRUNA ROAD

SUNRISE FENTON ROAD

TOM’S FENTON ROAD

VENUS FENTON ROAD

JOHNNY’S FENTON BETWEEN MAPLE AND BRISTOL

ANGELO’S FRANKLIN/DAVISON

STARLITE DAVISON RD./CENTER

RIO’S DAVISON RD. NEAR AVERIL

CAPITTAL VAN SLYKE

GILLIE’S NORTH DORT IN MT. MORRIS

US CONEY DORT AND BRISTOL

STAR BROTHERS DORT (IN THE DORT MALL)

CONEY GRILL SOUTH DORT

GOLDEN GATE FLEMMING ROAD AND FLUSHING ROAD

CONCORD NORTH SAGINAW

CONEY

GADDIS CONEY MLK BOULEVARD

GRANDMA’S

RECIPES RICHFIELD ROAD

THE PALACE SOUTH LINDEN

VLADOS GENESEE ROAD

CITY DINER CLIO ROAD

If you have other names to add to the list, please email me at EatingFlint@gmail.com and I will add yours to the master list. I will repost the list once it is complete. Stephanie will again accompany me on our 8 month adventure, which will get under way in just a couple of weeks, so keep watching and make sure to tell all your friends!

Shooting Marbles

2010-06-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

The Hula Hoop never caught on in my childhood hometown, but other gimmicky toys sure did. Remember Womper Stompers from Romper Room? The upside down red plastic bucket-looking things with yellow plastic strings attached that you held like the reins of a horse and then you clomped around on them about three inches above the cement that at some point you would inevitably do a face plant on?

Or how about the Wizzer? It was a top the size of an apple that you wound up on the floor and let spin. These babies were heavy too and could be used as a weapon when older siblings tried to push you around. Mine were decorated in these psychedelic groovy 60’s patterns so when they spun they looked other-worldly. Each one even had a groove carved into the top of it so you could wind up a second Wizzer and let it spin on top of the first one while it was Wizzing around the room. We had linoleum floors with little bumps and grooves, which made the Wizzer look a bit like an old Ford hopping down a dirt road. After I wound one up and stuck it in my sister Brenda’s hair, my mom took my Wizzers away and I never saw them again.

Of all the fads the kids in my neighborhood got sucked into, myself included, nothing ever compared to the craze that swept us up in 1975: Marbles.

I’m not sure why marbles was exclusively a boy thing, but as soon as the recess bell rang, we’d all grab our Cool Whip tubs of marbles from our desks, run out to the playground, and get as many games in as we could before Mrs Price and Mrs. Link, the yard ladies, shagged us back inside. If you had a really good day, your marble tub would be full and you’d have to put the overflow in your pockets. On bad days, and I had my share, you might go home with an empty tub.

Our version of the game was simple: Dig a hole about three or four inches deep and about three inches wide. Take ten good paces away from the hole and draw a deep line in the sand with the heal of your sneaker. After deciding how many marbles to play for, each player tosses their marbles at the hole. Whoever has the marble closest to the hole shoots first. The object is to shoot all of your marbles into the hole first. Do this and you win all of the other players marbles.

Playing was fun, but collecting marbles was an even bigger deal. We classified marbles into the following categories: swirlies (two or more colors blended together), cat-eyes (clear with a strip of color in the middle), clearies, (these looked like mini crystal balls, bu they also came in various colors), steelies (ball bearings, basically), boulders (three times the size of a regular marble), steely boulders, and the most prized marble of all, the cat-eye boulder (I once traded three of these for a hot lunch ticket so I could have my favorite lunch, hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes).

As the year rolled on and my shooting skills got a little better, the Cool Whip tub became inadequate for storing my marbles. My mother, who worked at a World War II era garment factory, came to my rescue. She used a heavy vinyl material, a deep red in color, to fashion my very own marble bag, complete with a draw string that was long enough to sling over my shoulder, and my name embossed on the side.

Little did my mother know, her invention would contribute to my early life of crime.

I hadn’t planned on Max Longcore, a burly sixth grader who towered over the rest of us by about a foot, getting into the Marbles game. As good as I was getting, I was no match for this pre-teen thug. It only took a week, and he cleaned me out of every steely, cat-eye, swirly, and boulder in my collection. My vinyl bag was empty

With no money, a bruised ego, and no marbles, I had to do something to win my collection back from Big Max. So I started taking trips to the Grant store between my house and my elementary school. (Grants was the department store that preceded K-Mart). I would empty packages of marbles into my marble bag until it was bloated with contraband, buy a pack of gum or a candy bar—so I wouldn’t look suspicious walking out of the store with a big red bag (with my name stamped on it) slung over my shoulder.

My scheme worked so well, I decided that my marble bag and I should take a trip to Carl’s Market, the neighborhood IGA store a few blocks from my house. The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Novak, were a very old couple who lived around the corner from us. They were oblivious to a scrawny, dirty kid combing the penny candy aisle with an empty bag hanging around his neck.

Or so I thought.

I had no idea the pretty round mirrors in each corner of the store made up their primitive surveillance system. When I reached the counter to pay for my pack of gum, my bag much fatter than when I arrived, I must have turned white with fear when Mr. Novak asked me to empty my bag on the counter.

At recess the following week, picking the last few marbles out of my Cool Whip tub, I must surely have felt the humiliation caused by my short-lived life of crime. Shooting marbles faded quickly as a fad, and by the next year, we had moved on to Dodge Ball.

These are the childhood memories that occupied my mind as I pulled into the parking lot at Witherbee’s Market and Deli, the first grocery store to open in Downtown Flint in 35 years.

Located on the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and University Avenue, Witherbee’s is a neighborhood grocery store and deli. The city of Flint is in full-blown revitalization mode—new housing, restaurants, college dorms, etc.—and Witherbee’s Market represents a key piece of the puzzle in establishing a sustainable Downtown Flint.

The market has two handicap-accessible levels, both of which are stocked full of everything from cereals to canned goods to health and beauty products to pet foods. As I walked up and down each aisle, I tried to think of things that I might find at Meijer or VG’s, and most of those items, I’m happy to report, can be found on the shelves at Witherbee’s.

The produce section is impressive in its variety and quality. You can find a good variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, herbs, and greens. And yes, there is an organic produce section as well. As one who works in the downtown area, I can easily see myself stopping by on my way home to pick up fresh produce for dinner or to grab that one item I’d otherwise have to go way out of my way to get somewhere else.

The deli and meat counter is also an impressive aspect of the store. You can get a wide variety of meats, cheeses, and home-made breads, Starbuck’s coffee, or the deli master will even prepare a sandwich for you while you wait. Coming to Witherbee’s for the first time felt comforting to me, and it did remind me a great deal of my old neighborhood IGA store. I have traded my marble bag in for an earth-friendly reusable shopping bag (and I’m actually paying for everything I put into it), but I’m already looking forward to building a long history of memories at my new neighborhood market. Welcome to Flint, Witherbee’s!

God Save The Mouse

2010-05-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

Summertime in my middle class childhood always meant shutting the oven down for three months and cooking mostly outside on the grill. My dad can barely boil water without screwing it up, and is awkward at best in the kitchen (which is why my mom has always insisted that he KEEP OUT.) But put that man outside in front of a grill and he turns into the BBQ master. In a Manistee Throw down, he’d kick Bobby Flay’s ass right back to New York City.

At his house in Florida, he even built his own fire pit in the back yard so he can cook over a wood fire. Of course if you’re gonna have your own fire pit, you have to fashion your own grill to go with it, which he has also done. A metal pole rises out of the pit and an industrial strength grate, about the heft of a sewer grate, attaches to the pole from an arm and an adjustable metal ring. I’m not nearly as adventurous, so I’ve settled for a really good charcoal grill. I hate cooking with propane.

My dad and I also share a passion for smoke cooking. Growing up in a commercial fishing community, we were part of the smoked fish capital of Upnorth Michigan. Many of the charter boat captains ran smoke houses on the side to earn extra money. Some guys ran smoke houses for a living. Not to be outdone, my dad, who does everything over the top, created his own smoke house right in our back yard. He picked up and old refrigerator from the junk yard, gutted it out, bore a four inch hole in the back, retrofitted it with extra metal shelves, and the Barnett Smokerator was born.

Although my parents couldn’t make it down to Flint this weekend, I channeled my father’s outdoor cooking prowess as I prepared a backyard BBQ for about two dozen of our friends. Like my dad, I like to go big, be different, and find unique ways to riff on an old American Classic. Instead of the traditional hotdogs, potato salad, coleslaw, and baked beans, I made recipes that turned all that on its head. My menu was Bratwurst, smoked, then grilled; spicy sweet potato salad, Alton Brown’s Asian Slaw, and Cuban Black Beans.

The adventure started when I pulled the smoker out of the garage. It was covered with dust and cobwebs because I hadn’t used it in at least six months. I think the last time I used it was to smoke a Thanksgiving Turkey which, by the way, is on par with Tator Tot Casserole. When I pulled my Brinkmann, two grate, electric smoker, into the light of the driveway, I was horrified at what I saw. Right in the middle of the lava rocks was a wad of shredded newspaper, and nestled in the middle of it was a giant mouse—with three babies!

After Alexis got a good look at them and ran off, I tipped the whole thing over in the underbrush to get them out. The mother ran off, and we were left staring at three little lumps of grey clay with tails and ears.

“Should we save them?" Philip asked.

“How the hell are we going to do that?”

Without missing a beat, he simply said, “We’ll tell them about Jesus Christ.”

By the time I stopped laughing, the little buggers had already burrowed into the brush, so we considered them officially “saved” and began sanitizing and sterilizing the smoker. I had to get new lava rocks, scrub it with scalding bleach-water, and dry it with my hand blowtorch, but in the end, it actually looked like a whole new smoker.

And it did a fantastic job cooking the bratwurst. For those of you not familiar with smoke cooking, it’s really quite easy. I soak chunks of wood in water for several hours, wrap them in aluminum foil, and lay them directly on top of the lava rocks. Above the heat source is a pan about three inches deep that I fill with water. Above that are the two grates that I place the meat on. The rest is just a matter of putting the lid on, plugging it in, and leaving it alone. Since I was going to finish the brats on the grill, I only cooked them for an hour, just long enough to get a deep smoky flavor. Then I put a nice char on them over the charcoal grill, and the result was a pile of smoke-grilled sausages that were gone within minutes.

I thought about writing up the recipes and sharing them with you, but since I pilfered them from the internet, I’ll just give you the links. These side dishes take some time to prep, and in the case of the Cuban Black Beans they needed almost four hours to cook on the stovetop, so if you try this meal, and you definitely should, leave yourself plenty of time to make it. I did it in two days.

Spicy Sweet Potato Salad: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spicy-Sweet-Potato-Salad/Detail.aspx

Alton Brown’s Asian Slaw: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/asian-slaw-recipe/index.html

Cuban Black Beans: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1950,144182-255196,00.html

And The Tator Tot Goes To......

2010-05-24T18:29:00.000-07:00

Now that the Mexican Restaurant Tour has officially ended, Stephanie and I have spent the last few weeks reminiscing about all the places we visited and all the great experiences we had over the past eight months. We’ve even gone back to a few of our favorite joints just to make sure they’re still living up to their greatness.

When we started the tour, I expected to see a wide variety of preparation and presentation of food. I expected a whole lot of Tex-Mex. And I expected that I wouldn’t be blown away by the quality of the food. As you can tell by many of my posts, I was certainly wrong about my last expectation. The food was far better, collectively, than I imagined, and a lot of the places I had never been to are now on my list of favorites that I’ll go back to over and over again.

The number of restaurants that served Tex-Mex (or Midwest-Mex in some cases) far outnumbered those that served what I would call authentic Mexican food. The difference between Tex-Mex and authentic, by the way, is quite dramatic. To me, authentic is distinguished by its preparation—it’s prepared with fewer ingredients, and those ingredients are packed with flavors and textures that make the food unique; authentic is much lighter in taste and flavors, and yet it’s a much more complex mix of flavors. Cheese and heaviness do not dominate authentic Mexican food.

The most surprising thing I learned, though, is that Flint has a robust Mexican Restaurant scene run by owners who care about their customers, who care about making really good food, and who are an integral part of their community. What’s surprising in all of this, is that the Mexican Restaurant scene is so low key that too many people in the larger Flint community don’t even know how special and important it is to the area, both culturally and economically. Of all the places we’ve been to this year, over half of them were places I’d never been to before.

My hope is that by sharing with you all the places Stephanie and I have visited, you’ll be inspired to try some of them yourself (I know many of you already have). To help you think about the great food and the great places that serve it, I offer you the following lists, which you should feel free to print, post on your refrigerator, and consult the next time you get a hankering for good Mexican food. You might even print an extra copy or two to share with your friends. It’s a small gesture that will go a long way to supporting our Mexican restaurants now and into the future.

THE PLACES WE’VE VISITED SINCE LAST SEPTEMBER:

In the end, we were able to visit 25 Mexican restaurants in and around Flint. I shared with you in an early post that UrbanSpoon. Com listed almost 60 Mexican restaurants in the area. After I eliminated all of the national chains (I could believe how many Taco Bell’s we have in this county!), the number dropped considerably. Still, we have a lot of choice when going out for Mexican. Here are the ones that we tried:

El Potrero (Hill Road and Fenton Road)

Poncho’s (Dort Highway and Atherton Road)

Alejandro’s ( Elms Road) CLOSED

El Charrito (Downtown Davison)

Tia Helita’s (South Saginaw Street)

Senor Lucky’s (Davison)

La Familia Morales (Fifth Avenue)

The Red Baron (Center Road)

El Especial: (Linden Road and Pasadena)

Nuevo Vallarta (Saginaw Street, Grand Blanc)

La Azteca (Court Street at Corunna Road)

El Cozumel (Court Street, in Courtland Center)

Sagebrush Cantina (Leroy Road, Fenton)

Soyla’s (Saginaw Street and Second Street)

Puerto Vallarta (Linden Road)

Guadalajara Grill (South Dort Highway)

El Adobe (North Saginaw, Mt. Morris)

El Charrito (Richfield Road)

Fajita’s Grill (South Saginaw, Grand Blanc)

El Rio Ondo (Davison Road and Irish Road)

Laredo (Lapeer and Genesee)

El Chico (North Dort Highway)

Los Ponchos (Fenton Road)

Marie’s (North Genesee)

Lupe’s (Elms Road)

OUR FAVORITE FOODS:

Regardless of where we went, the foods in the list below stood out as our favorites. Sometimes they were the only good thing about our meal, while at other times they were a part of a whole tableful of goodness. After much deliberations, and a couple of really good Margaritas at Blacktone’s one hot afternoon last week, we settled on the following favorite dishes. We’ve tried to include two in each category so you can compare for yourself and see how different preparations of the same food can produce different kinds of yumminess.

House Salsa: El Cozumel and Laredo (smooth) Laredo (chunky)

Hot Salsa: Laredo (chunky) El Potrero (smooth) El Rio Ondo (extra hot)

Salsa Combination: El Especial (the trinity) El Rio Ondo (the quartet)

Chips: Lupe’s Senor Lucky’s Laredo

Cheese Dip: Lupe’s Laredo

Beef Stew: El Charrito (Richfield Road) Laredo

Refried Beans: El Potrero El Rio Ondo

Mexican Rice: La Familia Morales Laredo

Green Sauce: El Potrero El Adobe

Tacos: La Familia Morales Los Ponchos

Golden Tacos: La Familia Morales Larado

Enchilada: Soyla’s El Adobe

Chimichanga: El Charrito (Davison) Laredo

FAVORITES IN NON-FOOD CATEGORY:

As I’ve always said, the food is the star in any dining experience, but the supporting actors and actresses have to pull their weight too. I’ve had good meals that were ruined by other aspects of the experience. I’ve also had food that seems to have been enhanced by my fascination with a non-food aspect of my visit. The following short list is a good example:

Ambience: El Adobe Alejandro’s (now closed) Lupe’s

Curbside Appeal: El Adobe Nuevo Vallarta

Quirkiest experience: Guadalajara Grill El Chico

TATOR TOT CASSEROLE AWARDS:

And then there are the Tator Tot Casserole Award Winners. These dishes were so good, they rose above the Favorite Food category and became worthy of being honored in a category all their own. Stephanie and I agreed that no matter what else is being served at the restaurants where these award winning dishes are served, we’d always go back just for them. These are our favorites of the favorites!

Bean Dip: El Potrero

Chorizo Dip: Nuevo Vallarta

Chile Relleno: El Potrero

Hot Salsa: El Laredo—chunky with habanero

STEPHANIE’S FAVORITE TATOR TOT CASSEROLE PICK:

Burrito Verde: El Potrero

BOB’S FAVORITE TATOR TOT CASSEROLE PICK:

Fish Tacos El Rio Ondo

BOB AND STEPHANIE’S TOP TEN FAVORITE RESTAURANTS:

This was a tough category to narrow down because so many of the places we visited, we’d definitely visit again. But these are the ten that we’d probably go back to the most. Maybe it’s for the service, or the overall quality of the food, or because they’re making good progress in establishing their businesses and we feel strongly about giving them our support.

El Potrero

Laredo

El Adobe

El Especial

Los Ponchos

La Familia

Lupes

Nuevo Vallarta

El Cozumel

Soyla’s

BOB’S FAVORITE MEXICAN RESTAURANT: Laredo

STEPHANIE’S FOVORITE MEXICAN RESTAURANT: El Potrero

As the summer months creep up on us and we take time away to recharge our batteries, I’ll be cutting back on the frequency of posts until September, but I won’t be cutting back on my chronicles of food and culture in Flint. I’m expecting to publish a post a week through the summer, and I’m expecting to cover new eateries that may open up in the coming months, old favorites that I’ve been meaning to get back to, and some of the many cultural events that take place in and around Flint, like the Flint Art Fair, Back to the Bricks, and the Crim Festival of Races. If you hear of exciting events in the area this summer, drop me a note and let me know so I can share them with everyone else.

And stay tuned for the next tour that Stephanie and I will embark on come September: the Flint Coney Island Restaurant Tour. We’ll be sharing what we learn about the history of the Coney Island, the original coney island hot dog recipe, the scandals that followed this recipe, and of course the many Coney Island restaurants in and around the Flint area. The Coney Island is a culinary fixture in our town and we intend to explore every nook and cranny of it and bring it to you on a weekly basis.

So, enjoy your summer, keep watching for new posts, and tell all your friends to join us in the fall for another great year of stories, critiques, and goofy asides about food and culture in our beloved Flint, Michigan.

Pot Sticker Party

2010-05-19T17:52:00.001-07:00

Philip told me a cute joke a few weeks ago: I have CDO. That’s OCD but the letters are in the right order. As it should be. I chuckle whenever I retell it, but as we were waiting for our breakfast Sunday Morning at Westside Diner on Ballenger Highway, I thought about that joke in a different light.

I’m always the last one to get the memo, but when did eating breakfast out on a Sunday in Flint all of a sudden become the popular thing to do? We went to three restaurants before settling on Westside. Every place was packed to the gills and the parking lots were completely full. Doesn’t anyone go to church anymore? Every table at Westside was full, so we had to sit at the bar. That’s where I reconnected with my CDO moment.

We were seated right in front of the window looking into the kitchen, so I had a perfect seat to watch the whole operation of feeding the masses as it unfolded. With orders coming in hand over fist, you’d think the kitchen would be a complete mad house. Not so. There were three cooks back there, each one calmly doing his own thing, yet food was flying out of the kitchen faster than the servers could get it out. It was CDO.

You have to be a little bit obsessive-compulsive to be a short order cook in the first place, but these three were working as a single, well-oiled machine. One did nothing but cook eggs, the second cooked meat, potatoes, and the occasional pancake, and the third one barked out the orders, made the toast, and brought each dish together in its final form. The scene was breathtaking, and they made it look effortless. They obviously had a well rehearsed plan, and they were sticking to it.

I channeled the genius of this approach when Philip and I recently hosted a Pot Sticker Party for eight guests at our house. We offered the meal up at a Service Auction at our Church a few weeks ago, and the thing sold for forty-five bucks a person. Sixteen people bought tickets, so we’ll be hosting a second one later this summer.

Pot sticker parties are so much fun because they’re intentionally social, and everybody gets to help make what they eat. Throw in a few side dishes, and you’ve got a delicious Asian dinner party that looks almost effortless. Except that it’s not. It takes a great deal of preparation and planning, and once everyone arrives, you need one person to take control, assign duties to each guest, and orchestrate the event from beginning to end.

This is where my inner control freak comes out. And it all starts with the planning.

Pot sticker menus are fairly simple by design. The dumplings take center stage, but you need a soup course, both to kick off the official eating part of the night, and to allow the cooks a little extra time in the kitchen. A couple of side dishes as accompaniments to the postickers is more than enough. A simple dipping sauce or two is essential, so don’t forget to include them. The more difficult part of the menu is creating a variety of fillings for the pot stickers. You can use beef, pork, chicken, turkey, or shrimp (combinations of these work really well too). Vegetarian pot stickers rock the house if you have a good recipe, but be prepared for a lot of prep time. (I have a great recipe, if anyone’s interested).

While making, cooking, and eating the pot stickers only takes an hour or two, the prep time can take anywhere from six to seven hours, depending on how many people you invite. We started our prep two days ahead of time because finding six uninterrupted hours at our house is simply not possible For last week’s party, we made four fillings: ground chicken, ground turkey, shrimp, and vegetarian. With some variations, each of the first three fillings consisted of a mixture of the raw meat/shrimp, lots of finely chopped ginger (I don’t use measurements, but the more quantity the better, I’ve found), minced garlic, finely sliced scallions (and tops), mounds of chopped cilantro, and varying amounts of sesame oil. I think I used over a pound of fresh ginger root for this whole event. That in itself takes a good hour to chop. Once you’ve got all the ingredients in the bowl, the rest is easy. Just mix it up for a few minutes, put it in a zip lock back or cover it, and store it in the fridge for up to a couple of days.

I made a Thai sweet and hot soup to go with our meal, and I chose this recipe because it’s about the easiest Asian soup recipe I could find. It comes from a great cookbook called THAI: the essence of Asian cooking. I got it from the discount rack at Borders for three or four bucks. Basically, you combine vegetable stock, Thai red curry paste, lime zest, brown sugar, soy sauce, fresh lime juice, and finely cut carrot sticks in a pot. Once the mixture comes to a boil, turn down the heat, simmer it for about twenty minutes, and it’s done. To serve it, put chunks of extra firm tofu and fresh spinach leaves in the bottom of the bowl and pour the broth over it. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s simple, it’s delicious, and it’s a great way to start a meal.

For sides, all I do is cook up a big old batch of sticky rice (sushi rice), which I serve in individual bowls alongside the pot sticker plates, and for our most recent gig, I made a simple Asian slaw. It too was pretty uncomplicated: finely cut Napa cabbage, red and yellow peppers, chopped Serrano peppers, cilantro, and a dressing of rice vinegar, peanut butter, soy sauce, ginger, and sesame oil.

Before any of that can be enjoyed, however, you have to make the potsickers.

Just before everyone arrived, I painstakingly set up the assembly line: a newspaper-covered table with foil-covered cookie sheets (I also use baking trays and cutting boards as well—the point is, you’ll need a lot of surface space as the pot stickers are made. The official count last week was 350 pot stickers made by eight people. Small bowls of water were situated between the pans, and a small spoon was placed in front of each person’s station.

Working in teams of two, each team working with a different filling, the routine goes something like this. You lay a wonton wrapper in the palm of one hand and scoop a very small amount of filling into it with the other. Then you wet your finger, rub it all along the edges of the wrapper and seal it into a half moon shape. There are two basic approaches to doing this. One is simple to fold the wrapper in half and seal it all along the edge. The other is to crease as you go, which makes a nice little pattern and makes the dumplings look just like those you get at a restaurant.

As the trays get filled with dumplings, the runner, that was me, puts each finished tray in the freezer for about ten minutes. This flash freezes them so they don’t stick together while they’re waiting to go into the pan. The runner also has to get a fresh pan, refill the meat bowls, replenish the wrapper supply, and most important, refill everyone’s drink who’s working the assembly line. And he does all this while starting to fry the first batch of pot stickers. When you fry three to four hundred of these babies, you gotta get started as soon as possible. Part of the fun of this kind of party is eating a batch, taking a break and socializing, eating another batch, socializing some more, etc. etc. It’s not uncommon for our Pot sticker parties to last until well after midnight.

Once the filling is all gone and the “making” phase is over, our guests were again split into teams and each assigned a new task. Some helped Philip set the dinner table, some cleaned up the assembly line mess, and some helped prepare the side dishes and cook the dumplings. Cooking pot stickers is unbelievably easy—if you follow a few basic rules. Like using only non-stick frying pans. I’ve tried everything, and the best pan is the basic ten dollar nonstick, Meijer pan. It’s gotta have a lid too, because there are two stages to frying pot stickers. In the first stage, you have to heat a tablespoon of peanut oil on the highest temperature you’re stove will tolerate. (Peanut oil can cook at the highest temperature of almost any oil without burning.) Once the oil is smoking hot, set as many pot stickers in the pan without letting them touch each other. They’ll stick and make a big mess.

Although the temptation to jiggle them, touch them, turn them, fondle them, and/or shake them is great, just leave them alone for about five minutes. Let them get very brown on the bottom, almost burnt is ok. Then, in stage two, pour in a quarter cup, give or take, of vegetable stock, put the lid on them and leave them alone again. Let them cook until almost all the liquid is evaporated. Then shake them around so they don’t get glued to the bottom of the pan. When the liquid is absorbed, they’re done and ready to be plated.

Just so one person doesn’t get stuck in the kitchen all night, and so that everyone can see firsthand how to cook the dumplings, we usually rotate the cooking staff so two people at a time are in the kitchen. We use two big pans so to maximize how many we can make at once, so after the two pans of pot stickers are done, then two new cooks take over. By the end of the night, everyone will have had an equal hand in contributing to one of the coolest dinner parties you can imagine. You can either try this yourself at home or come to the Service Auction next year and bid on ours. For the right price, we might even let you stay and clean up after everyone leaves.

Culinarians of the Caribbean

2010-05-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of working on a cooking team headed by Ron Kruger, Flint Journal’s Food Editor, who staged an incredible Caribbean dinner for 50 at our church. It was the Annual Service Auction , a major fundraiser event, and Ron volunteered to plan and execute the meal. I jumped at the chance to work with him because I want to learn more about Caribbean cooking and because of Ron’s vast knowledge of food.

The menu: Jerk Chicken, Black Beans, Coconut Rice, Caribbean Slaw, and Key Lime Cake

The Bar: Cuban Milkshakes, Strawberry and Strawberry/Mango Daiquiris, and Caribbean Tea

What follows is a photo highlight of the event, including a sweet chocolate cake made with vodka and Kahlua, an auction item I put the winning bid on and then gave to the two-year old who was bidding against me.

Living La Vida Lupe

2010-05-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

Cinco de Mayo is my favorite holiday because, aside from celebrating Mexico beating up on the French for trying to forcefully immigrate to their country en masse, it’s also an American celebration of Mexican culture. In my world, that means paying homage to the National Drink of Mexico: The Margarita. I like mine frozen, so buying a smoothie machine a few years ago so I could make Cuervo Gold Margaritas myself and thus celebrate all year long turned out to be a smart move.

And really, how can one stage a proper celebration of Cinco de Mayo without good Mexican cuisine?

Stephanie and I have been celebrating Mexican food and culture in Flint for the last eight months by having lunch at locally owned Mexican restaurants. We’ll continue to scout out new eateries and go back again and again to our favorite places, but we brought our 2009-2010 Flint Mexican Restaurant Tour to an official end Wednesday by having lunch at the newly opened Lupe’s on Elms Road.

And what an interesting history Lupe’s has. If you remember from a few posts ago, I learned of the impending opening of Lupe’s from Cookie, who owns Laredo’s, who once owned Cookie’s Taco House with her mother, but who left the business to become a hairstylist, but then came back to the business to open Laredo’s, while her mother and brother still own Cookie’s Taco house, and other family members own and operate El Rio Ondo, Al Azteca, La Familia Morales, El Especial, and few more I can’t remember off the top of my head.

Lupe’s, which opened a week ago, began as Alejandro’s in the same building that it occupies now. Alejandro’s, which is the other restaurant owned by Cookie’s family, moved from its current location, to the strip mall next door on Elms Road. Because of a dispute with the owner of the strip mall building (that’s as much as I know), Alejandro’s closed its doors recently, moved back to its original building just to the south of the strip mall, and re-opened as Lupe’s.

It’s been seven months since we ate at Alejandro’s, but walking into Lupe's for the first time, I see some familiar themes. The dining room, for example, is as beautifully and tastefully designed as Alejandro’s. With far fewer tables and a smaller space, Lupe’s feels like an upscale Mexican Bistro. (Considering Bistro is a French concept, and considering Mexico defeated the French in order to give Americans a Mexican holiday to celebrate—with tequila—it’s no surprise that Mexican restaurants are not usually referred to as Bistros.) My friend Kali reminded me, in fact, that the preferred term for Mexican restaurants is Cantina, which is actually Italian in its origin.

When I think of cantinas, I also think of happy, cheesy music. Mariachi Band stuff. I remember having dinner at an outdoor Mexican Cantina in San Diego many years ago with a bunch of my graduate school friends. Somebody at our table offered my best friend, Jake, and me forty bucks to slow dance with each other, tableside and topless, while the Mariachi Band played behind us. That’s a lot of money for a poor graduate student. We did it of course and used the money to buy more pitchers of the same margaritas that gave us guts enough to take the challenge in the first place.

But, once again, I digress.

Lupe’s dining room is painted that Southwest orange color, and each of the eight or so tables is adorned with a different colored table cloth, all from the primary, rainbow colors. A bar with six high-legged chairs separates the dining room from the kitchen, which you can peer into an watch the tortillas and taco shells being made from scratch. The smells wafting through the dining room are enough to kick your salivary glands and taste buds into high gear. What I like most, though, about the dining room ambiance is the conservative application of wall art. The number of pieces is minimal, and they don’t call attention to themselves like the placemat-as-billboard-announcing-the-daily-specials variety I’ve seen in far too many other restaurants.

The chips and salsa were also a familiar site, and taste, for me. The chips really caught my eye because, fresh from the fryer, they glistened with residual coat of hot oil. In the right light, they were almost angelic. Shiny and pale, set against the bold red house salsa, these babies were almost too good eat. But we managed. The flavor of the house salsa was as bold as its color, but it suffered a huge setback for me because it was laced with an unusually high concentration of ground black pepper. This made me unhappy at Alejandro’s and unfortunately it hasn’t changed at Lupe’s.

Our request for the hot salsa brought an interesting response from our waitress. She brought a small bowl of fresh minced jalapeno peppers and directed us to dump them into our dish of house salsa, which would apparently turn it magically into the house hot salsa. And it did. It also reigned in the overbearing black pepper taste with its slightly sweet, differently hot balance.

Over time, we’ve become leery of ordering queso dips because they’ve been so wildly inconsistent and often horrid. Today, though, we were treated to a delightfully simple, almost elegant queso that brought great pleasure to our palettes. It had a festive orange hue to it, not the glowing neon characteristic of its ball park nacho cheese cousin. This version didn’t coagulate into a half-set cement glob with a freakish orange sheen. Lupe’s queso had a smooth, silky taste to it, which is what happens when you set the can opener aside and make this dip with real cheese.

I’m of the mind that if something works and it’s good, then don’t change it. That’s about how Stephanie and I felt about our entrees. Our food was reminiscent of our Alejandro’s meals last fall. We liked it then, and we like it just as well, if not more, at Lupe’s. I traded in my usual chimichanga platter for Lupe’s golden taco plate, three hand made flour shells, lightly deep fried and filled with ground beef, lettuce, and pico de gallo. Stephanie went for the combo platter, which was also quite good, though the tamale was just ok. The beans were pretty typical, but their Mexican Rice got a snappy upgrade that we both rated quite highly. This version had freshly sautéed peppers and onions mixed in, which gave it a nice texture and a nice flavor.

This family certainly knows how to offer a full Mexican dining experience, and Lupe’s, of all the restaurants owned by the Cookie clan, leads the way by paying close attention to its quality of food, ambiance and décor, and quality of service. The result for customers like us is a happy relaxed experience worth celebrating.

Fusion Confusion

2010-04-27T17:16:00.000-07:00

True confession: I’m an Iron Chef junkie. There. I said it. And I don’t feel nearly as dirty as I do when I tell people I watch American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. I loved the original version of Iron Chef when it first aired in Japanese with cheesy American voice-overs. Once Iron Chef America hit the airwaves, though, I was glued to the television the way I was when, as a kid, Bugs Bunny or The Brady Bunch came on. Of all the dopey reality shows on T.V., Iron Chef actually has a purpose beyond getting stupid people to do stupid things as the rest of the world shamelessly looks on.

I love the manic nature of the competition, and I love watching the judges eat and critique the food, which most of the time looks like a veritable art gallery of the chef’s culinary work. I even love when that lunatic host screams something like “Ala Cuisine!” and makes a wild Jackie Chan karate chop gesture to start the competition. This after he magically makes the giant cover rise up and reveal the secret ingredient. It’s food drama at its best!

For those of you who’ve never seen the show, the premise is simple. Each week, a professional chef from around the country engages in a head-to-head cooking battle with one of the five Iron Chefs (each Iron Chef is famous for his or her unique cooking style, representing a particular national or international region). The only catch is that once the secret ingredient is unveiled (it could be anything from crabs to cranberries), each chef must prepare a minimum of five dishes, using the secret ingredient in as many unique and creative ways as possible. They have one hour to make all their dishes. At the end, the judges sample the offerings and decide which chef’s cuisine reigns supreme.

What I love most about Iron Chef, though, is that it’s a classic example of fusion cooking, an approach that combines ingredients and styles from at least two culinary traditions to come up with a new, hybrid style, complete with its own unique flavors and textures. So when Iron Chef Morimoto, for example, makes his signature Asian dishes with mushrooms found only in the United States, (a possible secret ingredient) he is actually creating Asian-American fusion food.

One of the best fusion experiences I’ve ever had is when I discovered a restaurant in Chicago called Kevin. It was nestled in the downtown area on East Hubbard. The food was a French-Asian fusion and received high praise on the local, regional, and national levels. Combining French sauces and cooking styles with Asian spices and ingredients, the food at Kevin puts it in the top five restaurants I’ve ever eaten at. Sadly, its owners have since left Chicago, but they have set up shop in Toronto, which is another fabulous city that offers a host of fusion restaurants.

This fusion craze, the art of using food whose form is based in one cuisine and prepared with ingredients common to other cuisines, is a phenomenon that is neither new nor uncommon. Pizza made with lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, and ground beef, for example, has always been known as Taco Pizza. And most of the restaurants that Stephanie and I have visited since last September prepare traditional Mexican dishes in a uniquely American style to give us what we commonly refer to as Tex-Mex, arguably the most common form of fusion cooking on the planet. It’s hard to screw up Tex-Mex, but as we’ve seen time and again on our Flint Mexican Tour, it happens.

Depending on the region of the country you’re in, Tex-Mex can vary widely. I’ve eaten some pretty outstanding Southwest-Mex in cities like San Diego and Los Angeles, and aside from the occasional mushroom gravy I’ve had some pretty good Midwest-Mex too. There’s one variation of this favorite fusion, though, that should never be attempted: The Coney-Mex. Stephanie and I learned this hard lesson last Thursday when the penultimate week of our tour took us to Marie’s Family Restaurant, Incorporated in Northern Genesee County; it’s on Genesee Road, not far from Crossroads Village.

The place was advertised as a Mexican restaurant on the internet, but sitting at one of the thirty-five tables in this cavernous Coney Island diner, looking at the three panel, double sided laminated menus, with full color photographs, we knew this was anything but a Mexican restaurant. At fifteen minutes past the start of lunch hour, ours was the only car in the parking lot. From the outside, the building looked exactly like a Family Video store with a fresh coat of paint. The waitress swore it was built new when the restaurant opened three years ago.

Marie’s bills itself as a restaurant specializing in Italian, American, and Mexican cuisine. In reality, it’s a Coney Island that has a page of Italian options and a page of Mexican options. We were determined to have a Mexican experience, so we ignored the other five menu pages and focused on the choices before us. Sort of.

There were no appetizers on the Mexican page, but on the bottom of page six we found a short list, and among them was the one and only Mexican choice; jalapeno poppers. They were everything you would expect from a Coney-Mex perspective. Cream cheese stuffed peppers, wrapped in an inch of breading and deep fried to a temperature so hot you burn the first five layers of skin from your tongue when the scalding hot cream cheese shoots out in a lava-like gush. They were delicious.

Our basket of chips was about a step up from the bagged Tostitos you’d buy from Meijer, and I think they were warmed in the microwave. It was a nice touch and the chips were actually pretty tasty. The house and hot salsas were served in little white bowls resting in a little wire condiment basket. This course felt like Up North Country-Mex.

But the real tip-off that we were having a classically served Coney-Mex was our entrees. The traditional Mexican part of our dishes was the refried beans and Mexican rice. They weren’t great, but if we measure them by the standards of all the other Mexican joints we’ve eaten at, they would actually place somewhere in the middle

of the pack. Stephanie’s beans and rice were served with two beef enchiladas. Marie’s version fuses all three cultures in one dish. Mexico was represented by the flour shells and the tomato based enchilada sauce. America’s contribution was the ground beef which, I’m not kidding, was the consistency of, and tasted like, meatloaf. And Italy topped off this international platter with melted mozzarella cheese.

My chimichanga platter was also ground beef-based, but because of the texture of the meat it was like eating a really twisted version of Beef Wellington. And because it’s Coney-Mex, my tortilla wrapped meatloaf was deep fried instead of baked. I’m not sure how they found room, but the thing also had a bunch of rice and beans stuffed into it, completely encasing the meat. The sauce and cheese on top added some much needed moisture to my entrée that, along with some of the salsa and some cream cheese, made it edible.

By the end of our lunch—we stayed for well over an hour—two old men sauntered in and parked it at a table in the middle of the dining room. They were the only other customers we saw the whole time. A few minutes after they arrived, the cook came out from the kitchen, sat down at their table, and they all started playing dollar poker, a game where you make the best five card hand out of the serial numbers on your dollar bill. I pushed my half-full plate to the center of the table, declined a carry-out box from the waitress, and decided that while fusion cooking might work well for reality T.V. shows like Iron Chef, it’s probably best not to mess with the purity that is Coney Island cooking.

Daddy-Daughter Dinner: A Photo Essay

2010-04-23T16:46:00.000-07:00

Just Another Pretty Face

2010-04-22T17:15:00.000-07:00

If I chose the restaurants I visit solely on the looks of the exterior of the buildings that house them, I’d probably eat at home far more often than I do. Why is it that most restaurateurs do so little to make the outside of their businesses as appealing as the inside? If the food they’re hawking is good enough, I suppose a dumpy looking building isn’t going to chase customers away, but really, is that a legitimate business philosophy?

Actually, Stephanie and I were scared away from a restaurant this year because of its devastating appearance. I won’t name names, but we had planned, after working up the courage for several weeks, to have lunch at this particular restaurant. We drove to it, drove by it, turned around and drove by it again, turned around, and drove by it a third time all the while trying to convince ourselves it would be ok to pull into the parking lot. The building looked like it had been plucked from a third-world-Wizard-of-Oz Kansas and dropped, not very carefully, between two other bombed out mud huts.

If I’m feeling a bit indignant about the sloppy design and lack of attention to the part of a business that could, for minimal effort, and marginal cost, be a far more effective advertisement than billboards or bus stop benches, it’s because I feel personally invested in the success of a restaurant. It’s hard enough to make a go of it in this business, so not factoring the look of your establishment into your business plan, and not syncing it with the theme/style/feel of what’s inside could be a fatal mistake. Philip and I learned that lesson the hard way. At least on paper.

As part of our longstanding pipe dream to make enough money off our writing and publishing to leave education and open our own restaurant—that’s why it’s a pipe dream—Philip and I have meticulously planned and designed several iterations of our ideal bistro. We’ve gone so far as to plan complete menus, map out dining room and kitchen spaces, and create and design, using three dimensional computer generated models, full building exteriors.

Some of them actually have potential to move from silly, gin and tonic induced vision to it-just-might-have-a-chance reality. Others, however, will be buried in our family cedar chest and passed on to our daughter who, if she’s as smart as we know she is, will pass them on to her children, and onto their children, until generations from now, one of our descendants will realize the true genius of our thinking and become the proprietor of, say, Pour Boys, a pub with a neon-lit beer pitcher plastered to the building with neon beer being poured into a neon pint glass that welcomes weary travelers. Or The Green Barn Bar and Grill, a barn shaped building painted green; the name Green Barn is a combination of half of my last name and half of Philip’s—Greenfield/Barnett.

We did make a serious run at creating The Lavender Thread River Front Café, and we seriously thought about converting an historic house in Flint’s Cultural Center neighborhood into an upscale restaurant, with each room acting as its own themed dining room. And though it’s not even a restaurant idea, we toyed around with the idea of creating Duds and Suds, a Laundromat and Sports Bar but 1) it’s already been done—in Reno, Nevada, and 2) we’re fundamentally opposed to bringing the two activities together under the same roof.

Many of the restaurants that Stephanie and I have been to this year also fit this pattern of inattention to the outside for a more focused attention on the inner experience. Adequate attention to some of the dining rooms we’ve eaten in were also sacrificed for the owners’ full attention on the food they hoped their customers would come for. One exception was Alejandro’s out on Elms Road. The outside was inviting and the interior was warm, tasteful, and totally consistent with the atmosphere, service, and food. I just learned earlier today, however that Alejandro’s has closed its doors. I don’t know if they’ve moved or moved on. (If you have any better information than mine, please share).

The building that houses Los Ponchos on Fenton Road is one of those shabby looking places that could use some TLC, or at least a good scrub down and a coat of new paint. This is where Stephanie and I ate last week on the twenty-fourth week of our twenty-six week Mexican Tour. Ponchos also had a Davison Road location, which I visited a number of times before it closed up, so now Fenton Road is its main hub—they also have a take-out taco stand on Dort Highway. While the Fenton Road building is as bit of a mess, the creative use of metal to make the sign out front gave us a good chuckle.

The inside could have used a good cleansing too, but the food we came for was good enough that it distracted us from the cluttered, dingy surroundings. The chips were hot and fresh, and while the salsa was more the run-of-the-mill pureed tomatoes and cilantro type, it had enough flavor to satisfy us and, as usual, it was quite tasty on our entrees. I couldn’t tell if the tomatoes were fresh or if they came out of a can, as they had in a number of our previous experiences. I’m of the mind that if you’re going to go through the trouble and expense of using fresh tomatoes, then why not chop them up and make a decent pico de gallo the way Cookie does at Lerado’s.

Stephanie chose first and went right for the combination platter, a tamale, an enchilada, a taco, and a tostada. It was served on two platters and came with a side of beans and rice. The food actually tastes better than it did at the old location, and Stephanie described all of her food the same way: It was solid, consistent, good. That’s exactly how I felt; it didn’t blow me away, but it was even and well put together. The one stand out was the ground beef that was stuffed into Stephanie’s platter. It was probably the most flavorful ground beef of all the places we’ve been to. It was spicy, well balanced, not too dry, not too fatty, just plain delicious.

I ordered the Macho Chimichanga because how could you not order a Mexican dish with such a cool name, with such machismo attached to it? This thing was so big and beefy I actually felt a little wimpy next to it. And Stephanie was right, the beef was a total winner in my dish as well. The beans and rice were nothing to write home about, but they too were tolerable. As good as the food was for me, I started to feel a little like I was eating at about six or seven of the other places on our tour. At some point the food, the presentation, the styles all start running together into one big Tex-Mex stew.

I’m hoping the last two stops on our tour will offer something that makes them stand out from the pack. A killer salsa. Some heavenly chips. The end-all, be-all enchilada. Or at least an attractive building that’s more than just another pretty face.

When the Rooster Crows

2010-04-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

A Merry Little Meltdown

It’s no big secret to the people who know me that I’m borderline math incompetent. I can barely add and subtract, so the simple act of balancing a checkbook or refiguring the measurements for a double batch of chocolate chip cookies can trigger anything from nausea and vomiting to a major panic attack. Throw a percentage or a fraction at me and my I.Q. drops by double digits. The wiring in my brain begins to sizzle and I experience, real or imagined, symptoms not unlike those connected to mental illness.

I recently tested at the ninth grade high school level in math, and yet, professionally, I am part of team that manages a twenty-three million dollar budget. For my latest budget assignment, I was charged with finding ways to bring certain expenses more in line with certain revenues. (This already sounds like a story problem and my heart is racing like a rat on crack). A meeting was scheduled last Wednesday at two o’clock with our budget director to help us make sense of our very complicated budget structure so I could get to work on my task.

When my cell phone rang at ten minutes to two, I secretly hoped it was someone requesting my help to manage a crisis so I could get out of this meeting. (Managing crises is another common occurrence in my job).

Unfortunately, my secret wish was about to be granted.

My boyfriend, Philip, was on the other end of the line, and he was in full-blown emotional meltdown. He needed me. And he needed me NOW! It only took me a second to do the math and see what this added up to: I was going to bail on my budget meeting and go rescue my man.

I had no idea what had happened so, knowing that Philip can be a bit of a drama queen, I mentally prepared myself for everything from he lost his job to Lady GaGa sprained her ankle and had to cancel the show he finally got tickets for. By the time I got home Philip was lying face down on the bed, sobbing into a pillow. I couldn’t help but notice he was wearing his old beat-up pair of sandals.

I knew I had to be sensitive because he was relying on me, but for a split second, I couldn’t stop the voice in my head from snapping Girl, how you gonna have a proper meltdown in those ratty-ass shoes? In any other situation, Philip would have found that funny (had I actually said it out loud), but he was pretty upset, which led me to believe that Lady GaGa’s ankle was most likely just fine.

Once he calmed down and was able to speak, Philip shared a harrowing story of how he found himself at odds with every single person he works with because he was unable to resolve a contentious issue by offering up what he saw as a very logical mathematical solution to the problem. How ironic. I skipped out on a meeting that was all about math that I didn’t understand so I could console someone who couldn’t get others to understand him through math. Well Lady GaGa, maybe next time you’ll just suck it up and take one for the team.

I did manage to get Philip up on his feet and out of the house so I could get back to work. He went off to see the new move, Date Night, and I caught the last fifteen minutes of my meeting. Instead of listening to what was really going on, because let’s be honest, it wasn’t going to sink in anyway, I did a little math of my own: By making twenty percent of the meeting, I absorbed eighty percent of the information, of which I retained one tenth of one percent. All in all, I’d call that a very successful meeting.

Before leaving the office for the day, I decided to make a dinner reservation since I didn’t think Philip would be in the mood to cook, and I certainly wasn’t going to do it. We have a small cache of restaurants we turn to when we need a good dining experience to help us feel better about ourselves and when we need to be pampered. Tonight fit the bill perfectly. Some of our old stand bys are Sagano, the Japanese Bistro, whose owners know us by name and give us the royal treatment on every visit, The Redwood Lodge, a great brew pub with a steak and wild game menu, Luca’s Chophouse, and to a lesser extent, 501 Grill.

Tonight we chose the crème de la crème: Makuch’s Red Rooster, Flint’s oldest and finest high-end restaurant.

Established in 1959, The Red Rooster sits at the corner of Davison Road and Averill on the city’s east side. It’s now in its second generation and run by brothers Archie and Ken, who are impeccable hosts. As their website boasts, theirs is one of the last tablecloth restaurants in Genesee County. It is the only restaurant that still offers tableside cooking, including such items as Caesar Salad, Steak Diane, and Cherries Jubilee. For a complete look at The Red Rooster, including a full menu, go to http://www.makuchsredrooster.com/.

About the only thing better than the food at the Rooster is their five star service. On this night, we were lucky enough to get Cat as our server. An eighteen year veteran of the Red Rooster, Cat is the most polished and most disciplined of all the staff. After my first gin and tonic arrived, I mentioned to her that we were in a casual mood and in no particular rush. From that point on, Cat paced our whole evening for us and let us linger as long as we wanted between courses, all the while making sure we had everything we needed. We stayed for almost three hours, and if it wasn’t for a new episode of Modern Family, we could easily have stayed much longer.

The slow, easy stride of our dining experience is just what Philip needed to recover from his traumatic afternoon, and by the time our appetizers arrived, he was noticeably more relaxed. His Escargot Bourgignone, fresh snails in an herbed garlic butter sauce, brought a confident smile to his face. I ordered the King Crab Cocktail, a hefty mound of white and red meat served atop a bed of lettuce in a tall martini glass. The sweet taste and flakey texture was absolutely delightful. Most of the appetizers are seafood based, but one standout, the Brie and Apple Chutney, is a total vegetarian winner.

For the soup course, Philip chose the house Onion Soup Gratinee, a flavorful mix of sweet onion and salty broth, topped with croutons and melted cheese. I’m not a big fan of this soup, but I did like the contrast in flavors that created a very even and mellow taste. My Manhattan Clam Chowder was also quite good, though not my favorite of the Red Rooster’s repertoire. What I did love, though, was the salad Cat recommended. It was a wilted spinach and bacon with a raspberry vinaigrette. Served warm, this salad is packed with flavors, both delicate and bold. By the time I finished it, I was feeling so deliriously satisfied, my worries about Philip’s bad day had completely disappeared.

I could have stopped after my salad and called it a night, but when I saw the entrees that cat uncovered before us, my appetite caught a quick second wind. Philip’s Sauteed Shrimp plate was bursting with color. From the medley of mixed vegetables to the lightly breaded, monstrously large shrimp, this was a visual masterpiece. Each of the six prawns had been sliced along the back so that when cooked, they curled outward and looked like a bouquet of blooming flowers. And the taste was so fresh, so delicate, at one point Philip just sat back in his chair and let out a long sigh.

I ordered the Steak and Cake, a decadent combination of a lightly fried Maryland Crabcake and a six ounce tenderloin, which was topped with gorgonzola cheese and horseradish. My dish was also paired with mixed steamed vegetables, which were perfectly cooked and intensely flavorful. They were definitely worthy of sharing the same plate as my medium rare steak and slightly crispy Crabcake. The food was so good, in fact, that we ate everything that was set before us, and we simply ran out of room for dessert.

When you come to the Re Rooster, I highly recommend the Bananas Foster, any of the hot Sundaes, or of course the world famous Cherries Jubilee. Just make sure you order wisely so you have room left over after what will surely be one of the best meals you’ll ever enjoy in Flint.

Demons on the Dort

2010-04-11T07:12:00.001-07:00

Unless you own a storage facility or an adult nightclub, it’s pretty hard to make a living on Dort Highway.

This is particularly true for restaurants. Even the national chains have trouble staying alive on the most colorful stretch of road in the Flint area. Big Boy, Pizza Hut, and Bill Knapp’s, all located on South Dort, have been permanently shuttered in recent years. Local restaurateurs have made valiant efforts to open and sustain their businesses in these same spots, but the odds are always against them.

Since the Big Boy restaurant closed several years ago (just beyond Lapeer Rd) four different restaurants have opened and folded in that same building. House of Hunan, the latest tenant, has closed its doors and left a sign on its marquee that reads “Closed for Remodeling.” I’m pretty sure that’s code for a) we’ve gone out of business or b) we’re going to re-open as a Chinese Buffett. Either way, I’m not very hopeful.

At least a half dozen Mexican restaurants call Dort Highway home, and on our most recent adventure, Stephanie and I found yet another new eatery brave enough to open its doors on the Dort. We actually started our journey intending to visit Poncho’s on Davison Road (it sits almost diagonally from Angelo’s Coney Island). Sadly, Poncho’s is no longer open—at least at this location. The sign on the window said, “Visit us at our Fenton Road location.” We were a little short on time, so we decided to save that invitation for another day.

I had been wanting to try Casa de Linda for a long time, and since we were less than a mile from Dort Highway, this seemed like the perfect time to give it a go. I had always thought it was in the old Mexicali Café building, but come to find out, I was wrong. Casa de Linda is in a small strip mall on Dort, and it is a Take-out only joint. And oddly, the sign out in front of the store says “Poncho’s Tacos.”

When we finally made it to the old Mexicali building, we were pleasantly surprised to see that it had re-opened under a new name: El Chico. Mexicali Café, by the way, was a mainstay on Dort Highway for years. Then it moved to Hemphill Road on the southwest side of town, and then it disappeared altogether. The owner of El Chico told us that the Mexicali Café family picked up and moved to Texas, where they opened yet another version of their restaurant.

On this very rainy April day, Stephanie and I were the only customers inside El Chico. The building is super small, and the dining room can only accommodate six tables. I love the intimacy of this place, but as we would learn over the course of our visit, there wasn’t much else, except for the very sweet lady who owns the place, to write home about.

In the interest of fairness and full disclosure, we were told upon arrival that the regular cook did not come to work and a new hire was being trained—and would be preparing our lunch. Ok, that’s cool. There were no other customers to distract him—the kitchen was separated from the dining room by a small counter, so we were able to watch the rookie cook learn his job—so he could give his full attention to our meals. What could possibly go wrong?

The owner was trying to focus her attention on helping her new hire, so it took about fifteen minutes to get our chips and salsa. We also ordered the hot salsa and a side of queso blanco, but those would come much later. The house salsa was served hot, but it was not the kind of hot we expected. Ladled out of a small crock pot that sat near the cash register, it came to our table at about a hundred and fifty degrees. I’ve never eaten my salsa warmed up like this, and I think I’ll probably keep it that way. The concoction tasted more like stewed tomatoes than it did a salsa. The cold wind that was blowing through the opened front and back doors of the restaurant, however, brought the salsa’s fever down a reasonable fifty degrees or so.

We were treated to a second, green salsa a little while later, which Stephanie thought was pretty ok. I didn’t like it much because it tasted like pickled jalapeno peppers that had been chopped in a blender and plopped in a bowl. It had a decent heat to it, but I couldn’t get past the pickled flavor. And then, just before our entrees arrived (almost a half hour into our visit) the microwave on the front counter beeped, indicating that our white cheese dip was ready. By the time it made it to our table, a hard film had formed on the top that was nearly impenetrable. The cheese itself tasted more like papier-mâché paste than white cheese, so it was probably best that we just set it aside to make room for our other food.

The menu isn’t terribly expansive—which I’m always happy to see because big menus can lead to big failures—and the choices were pretty much what I would expect. Stephanie went for the Enchilada plate and I went out on a limb by ordering the Chimichanga/Flauta platter. A chimichanga, of course, is a flour tortilla stuffed with meat, etc. and deep fried. A flauta, or little flute as it were, is also a flour tortilla stuffed with meat, etc. and deep fried. So, I expected that my plate would include a mamma bear size and a baby bear size deep fried tortilla, but when my lunch arrived, I had two identical chimiflautas lying side by each, with a small crowd of beans and rice looking on.

The whole plate, after assembly, went into the microwave for a minute or two—not sure why—so what I received was an entirely overcooked plate of food. And while it did have some flavor to it, the chicken (which was supposed to be beef) was charred to a leathery/crispy mess and the shells were as hard as stone. Stephanie fared a little better with her enchiladas, but overall it was pretty disappointing.

El Chico has only been open for a few months, November to be exact, so it will need time to work out the bugs. Once the new cook gets his bearings, and once the food develops its own identity, this place should be on its feet and off to the races. But this is Dort Highway, after all, a place whose demons never seem to be exorcised and whose struggle for survival is a quintessential example of the larger battles facing our beloved city.

I will come back to El Chico. In fact, I promised the owner I’d pick up and distribute some Take-out menus when she gets them printed. I don’t know her name, but she is friends with and her food is influenced by Cookie (the woman who owns Laredo) so I know that in time, El Chico will hit its stride.

Born-again Burrito

2010-04-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

The unexpected and dramatic change in weather lately has gotten me jazzed for my favorite spring rituals: cutting back the roses, clearing away the dead leaves from last fall, and anxiously awaiting the return of my spring flowers. Tulips are my favorite because for me they are the quintessential symbol for rebirth and renewal. Nothing says spring quite like the awkward leaves of the tulip pushing themselves out of the earth. I even wrote a poem a few years ago honoring this hearty metaphor-laden flower.

The First Tulip

The first tulip is pushing itself

Through its underground uterine bulb

Out the earthy birth canal

And into the first light of April.

The awkward leaves come first, fat digits

Backing out breach, spreading themselves

To make room for the torso and head

The way it’s been rehearsed for years.

Inside, I stand by the window and watch

Like a father whose been through this before,

Who knows his presence is useless as language,

Who knows that May is coming hard and fast.

The first tulip, still in its prolific cradle,

Follows the sun like a mother’s loaded breast,

Weeping and wailing as it opens, full bloom

As if its life depended on it.

Last summer I built six raised flower beds in my back yard, and at the end of the season I bought a hundred tulip bulbs that I planted, by hand, along the perimeter of each bed and along the perimeter of the whole garden. A hundred. So when I looked out the window the other morning and saw a deer standing in the middle of one of the beds with a tulip bulb hanging out of its mouth, I think my impromptu string of curse words was completely justified.

Philip thought I was overreacting and behaving like a raving lunatic, with the whole flailing of the arms and slobber hitting the window thing, but he’s the one who slipped on his Birkenstocks, flung open the back door and stormed into the back yard hootin’ and hollerin’ at the dumb-struck deer.

The losses were devastating. When the dust cleared, there were mini craters everywhere. My garden looked like dozens of little improvised explosive devices went off all at once. As I surveyed the damage, looking for any sign of life, I managed to find two bulbs, barely alive, tiny leaves just poking out of the mulch. While the challenges that lie ahead are great, I have hope. Hope in survival. Hope in rebirth. Hope in renewal. Hope that I might find a few more survivors so my garden doesn’t look totally pathetic.

These are the thoughts that filled my head as I sat at a table with Stephanie in a new Mexican restaurant on Thursday.

Laredo, nestled in a residential area on the corner of Lapeer and Genesee, popped up nineteen months ago with little fanfare. Had I not been scouring Urbanspoon.com earlier in the day, I never would have found it. As it turns out, it’s the best kept secret in the local culinary community, and of the twenty-some Mexican restaurants Stephanie and I have been to since early September, this one is far and away the best.

I know, that’s what I said last week when we finally got around to eating at El Rio Ondo. In fact, I expected to be totally let down and disappointed this week, because El Rio Ondo was so good I was certain nothing could top it. Come to find out, it’s not the most right I’ve ever been. Laredo is my new top contender for best all-around Mexican restaurant in Flint. Best in Show is the most prestigious of the TTC Awards, and, dare I say it, Laredo looks like the Titanic of this year’s nominees. And for good reason, I discovered.

Cookie is the owner of Laredo, and she also runs her own kitchen. She came out to our table to talk to us and what she shared made my jaw nearly hit the floor. Have you ever heard of Cookie’s Taco House? It’s a tiny place on North Saginaw street in a really tough part of town. Well, Cookie owned that restaurant with her mother about twenty years ago. Then she decided to get out of the business, and she opened a hair and nail salon, which she ran for eighteen years. As she put it, “I wanted to something different with my life. My baby brother wanted to get into the business, so he took over Cookie’s with my mother.”

Cookie realized, as the economy began to tank and business started to go south in her hair and nail shop, that she had to do something else to survive, so she made the decision to come back to the restaurant business, and that is how Laredo was born—or reborn as it were.

I knew we were in for something special as soon as our waitress delivered the chips and salsa to our table. The chips had just come out of the fryer and were piping hot. The salsa, for the first time all year, looked like the salsa I’d make at home. It consisted, quite simply of fresh diced tomatoes, finely chopped onion, lots of chopped cilantro, and a little salt. It was visually appealing, it was hearty, and above all, it was fresh. We ordered the house hot version as well, and it was equally delicious. Instead of the usual jalapeno or cayenne pepper, Cookie uses habaneros in her salsa, which gave it as kickin’ hot bite, but it wasn’t so hot that you need a pitcher of water as a chaser. Both of these are official TTC nominees.

While we waited for our entrees, the waitress shared something else with us that I found truly amazing. Laredo is the seventh Mexican restaurant to open in Flint at the hands of Cookie and her extended family. They also own El Rio Ondo, El Especial, La Azteca, La Familia, Cookie’s Taco House and, get this, El Nopal. These are some of the very best Mexican restaurants that I’ve visited and, according to Cookie, the family is set to open yet another one, Lupes, within the next month. This one will be on Elms Road in Flint Township.

Considering Cookie spent half of her time talking to us in the dining room, I was amazed at how quickly our food came out. I ordered the Chimichanga platter, which is served with a brown gravy, sour cream and a side of beans and rice. I had just told Stephanie a few minutes earlier how disappointed I was that most restaurants make burritos and chimis with small shells and put two of them side by side. I was reminiscing about the days when, as a cook in a local diner, I made burritos with twelve inch shells that were so big we had to serve them on platters.

Moments after I finished my tale, out comes the biggest chimichanga I think I’ve ever seen. It was stuffed solid with chunks of beef and topped with a light brown, peppery gravy. The sauce was so light and so flavorful, and so not the tomato based enchilada sauce that everyone else uses. The chimi shell was evenly cooked, and the beans and rice were every bit as flavorful as the ones I had last week at El Rio Ondo. Now I really have to make it a point to get back to El Nopal to try their chimichangas again, because Cookie’s chimi just made the TTC nomination list.

Stephanie’s plate was equally fresh, light, and delicious. She ordered a combination plate, which came with a medium shell taco, a tostada, an enchilada, and a tamale. The latter two items were covered in the same gravy as my chimi. In addition to the beans and rice, both of our dishes were accompanied by a beef stew, which was great. It’s just that we had so much food, we had trouble getting to it all.

Laredo is one of the few places in town worthy of putting the phrase “authentic Mexican food” on its menu. It’s the kind of Mexican food we’ve been looking for all year, and now that we’ve found it, we will be back for sure. Laredo is fairly new and Cookie said business is picking up but still a little slower than she’d like, so I’m appealing to you to help Cookie put Laredo on the map as the best new authentic Mexican restaurant in town. Drop by and see for yourself how good her food is. Now that Cookie is back doing what she does best, and now that her spirit has been renewed, I’m pretty sure we’ll see Laredo bloom like the beautiful flower it was meant to be.

Boils

2010-03-31T08:39:00.000-07:00

(part two of my journey to Florida journal)

I’m pretty sure that, in a past life, my mother was either a caterer or the head lunch lady at an elementary school. Come to think of it, she is one of 14 kids, so she may have learned a few things about meal planning from her own mother. And she told me, on my recent visit to see my dad and her in Florida, that my grandfather was a cook on a Great Lakes Freighter in the 1930’s, a piece of family history I had never known before. Not only is my mother the master of planning and executing meals, she can plan a whole week’s worth with dizzying precision and accuracy.

Months before my sister and I ever arrived in Florida, my mother was busy consulting, planning, and finalizing our eight-day meal plan. It included such delicacies as shit-on-the-shingles, a breakfast consisting of white sauce and chipped beef over pieces of toast that she made nearly every Sunday when we were kids, grilled T-bone steaks and steamed Gulf shrimp, a traditional Fish Boil, and the most uniquely prepared turkey I think I’ve ever eaten.

I’ve watched my mom make roast turkey, bucket turkey, deep-fried turkey, and smoked turkey (smoked stuffing, by the way is the closest thing to tater tot casserole that I’ve ever come to) but never the kind she made for dinner on the first night of our visit. She found this particular recipe for roast turkey in one of her Woman’s World magazines. Apparently Trisha Yearwood submitted it on behalf of her grandmother, who she learned it from.

Here’s the gist of it. Put the turkey, 12-15 pounds, in a roasting pan, add two cups of boiling water, cover it and put it in a preheated, five hundred degree oven for one hour (don’t start timing until the oven gets back to five hundred degrees). After exactly one hour, shut the oven off and leave it for five hours. Do not open the oven under any circumstances.

When my mom pulled the well-browned bird out of the oven, the meat was so tender it fell right off the bone, and the white meat, which I generally don’t like because it’s so dry, was moist and flavorful. There were enough juices left in the bottom of the pan to make a really good gravy to go with it. The only thing you cannot do with this recipe is stuff the turkey. I’m guessing the stuffing would throw off the whole temperature/timing thing that makes this approach work so well. Fine with me. I’m adding this you-really-can’t-screw-it-up recipe to my own repertoire.

A few days after the turkey treat, my parents hosted a good old fashioned fish boil. They invited a few neighbors and my aunt and uncle, who manage a campground near my parent’s house. In my family, the fish boil is on par with a holiday feast. It takes its place with the Thanksgiving Turkey and the Easter Ham. It’s usually, a late summer tradition because that’s when the Salmon Run starts in Lake Michigan, and that’s when we catch ten to thirty pound lunkers that are perfect for the fish boil.

But since my parents catch ocean fish that they bring back to Michigan and fresh water fish that they transport to Florida (in their chest freezer, hooked up to a generator, in their horse trailer), a fish boil in Tallahassee in March somehow seems justified. Besides, it really doesn’t matter when you have a fish boil, as long as you invite a lot of people with really big appetites.

According to the 1957 pamphlet that came with my parent’s trout kettle (a twelve quart pot with a smaller strainer pot inside of it) the fish boil originated more than a hundred and fifty years ago in the upper peninsula of Michigan. The lumbermen of the 19th century, “finding white fish and lake trout plentiful, found it easy to prepare a meal by boiling the fish and potatoes together in a pot out-of-doors.”

The ingredients for a fish boil are quite simple: fish, potatoes, onions, salt, and lots of melted butter. The proper way to prepare the fish is to gut it first and then, starting behind the head cut two inch steaks down the length of the body. The idea is that when the fish is fully cooked, the meat will easily fall away from the bones and skin. My dad is finicky about eating fish, though, so our fish boils cut out the skin and bone step, leaving beautiful, fuss-free chunks of meat. While any meaty, hearty fish will work in a boil, the sturdy pink flesh of the salmon is far superior than any other species I’ve tried.

A thin skinned potato works best so the salt has an easier time penetrating the flesh, and the recipe suggests cutting a small piece off each end of the potato. They go into the water whole, as do the peeled onions. The per person portions, as articulated in the original 1957 pamphlet, are an interesting read: “Portions to use when figuring for groups are usually one pound of fish per person when only men are being served and one-half pound per person for mixed groups. Two medium sized potatoes for all male groups and one potato per person for mixed groups. One onion per person.”

Here’s a step-by-step approach to the fish boil that you can use to replicate it for yourself. While we do the boil outside (may dad rigged up a wagon, a gas burner, and a propane tank—he has one at home in Michigan too, but instead of using a little propane tank, he tapped into the house’s main gas line) it can be just as successful on top of the stove—indoors, if that’s where you keep your stove:

For 12 servings, use 15 medium potatoes, 2 cups of salt, 12 pounds of fresh fish, 12 onions, and two pounds of butter, melted (this will be poured over the food, so feel free to experiment by adding lemon, garlic, or other herbs and spices).

Step 1: Remove the inner basked and cook the potatoes in eight quarts of water. Keep the lid on and keep the vents open. Get the water to a good, hard boil, setting the heat as high as it will go.

Step 2: When the water begins to boil, add one cup of the salt (my parents cut the amount of salt by a third to a half, but I prefer the full amount that the recipe calls for). Start timing when the water boils, and let the potatoes cook for twenty minutes. You my need to regulate the heat to produce a steady rolling boil. After ten minutes, add the onions, and try to maintain a rolling boil.

Step 3: After twenty minutes has elapsed, place the fish into the strainer basket, mounding it in layers, if you can. Lower the basket into the pot so that it’s situated above the potatoes. Add the other cup of salt, cover the pot, and boil the whole thing for another twelve to fifteen minutes. Cooking time may vary slightly depending on the size of your potatoes and meat.

Step 4: Remove the pot from your heat source and remove the fish basket. Then drain the liquid from the potatoes and onions. Now, here’s where I really part company with my parents. They just pour the liquid out on the ground. Aside from the fact that all that salt isn’t very good for the soil, the liquid from the boil is not unlike the liquid from a Mongolian Hot Pot. You’ve got various flavors mingling around in the liquid, and while there’s no useful role for the liquid in the fish boil after you remove it from the heat, it could be used later as a base for a fish chowder. Granted, it may be overly salty, but you can temper that any number of ways and still have a good base for soup.

At any rate, once the liquid has been drained, arrange the potatoes, onions, and fish on a big platter and serve. I think the platter wants for a hint of color, and I would suggest adding cobs of fresh sweet corn to the boil. While you might need to cook it in a separate pot, the sweet flavor and the texture would be a nice contrast to that of the more savory ingredients. Corn or not, make sure to pour butter over the fish and potatoes because this is the crown jewel of the fish boil experience. The melted butter transforms the flavors and creates what I can only describe as a culinary out-of-body experience. Eating this delicacy with a bottle of cold beer only enhances the out-of-body-ness that is the Fish Boil.

Cool City Jackpot Lunch

2010-03-27T16:07:00.001-07:00

I’m dead-set against the idea of bringing casinos to the City of Flint. Whose screwball brainchild was this anyway? Don’t they know I have an addictive personality and an unhealthy love of gambling? Besides, the time for considering casinos in Flint has long past. If we were going to entertain such an idiotic idea, we should have parlayed it with the disaster that was AutoWorld. We could have had an automotive themed casino right on the banks of the Flint River.

We could have had slot machine Hummers or card tables shaped like Cameros. The potential for such a merger of stupidity was ripe at the time, but mercifully it never happened. Some things just aren’t worth gambling on.

But some things certainly are.

Like the Cool City Art Auction I went to last night in downtown Flint. What I saw was yet another example of the local art community’s commitment to reasserting a robust cultural identity in the downtown area. They gambled on this idea a few years ago, and it has paid off in spades. Hundreds and hundreds of people came out for the event last night, the downtown restaurants were packed, and the bars were hopping. It’s one of the busiest night’s I’ve seen on the Saginaw Street strip outside of the major summertime events. And since all of the art was for sale, I was able to scratch my gambling itch and actually have something to take home with me at the end of the night.

What made the night so perfect was the combination of art, food, drinks, and music. Each venue—Churchill’s (The Creative Alliance), Buckham Art Gallery, The Capital Theatre (Art at the Market & Flint Handmade), and The Greater Flint Arts Council Gallery—supplied complimentary food catered by local eateries, free wine, a wide variety of bottled beer, and some great beer on tap. Plus live music by local musicians. All of this entertainment, and the opportunity to bid yourself silly on art of almost every medium imaginable, cost twenty five bucks a person.

The event also gave the Flint art community a big financial shot in the arm because funding cuts to the arts and tough times for nonprofit organizations have sidelined some local galleries, while others are fighting for their lives. It was great to see such overwhelming support from so many local patrons. The gamble paid off for our art community, and this event will no doubt continue to grow even more successful in coming years.

As we were driving home from the Art Auction I thought about another gamble I took this week. I had lunch with Stephanie on Thursday.

Wait. That didn’t come out right. Stephanie’s a sure bet when it comes to good lunch partners. It was the lunch experience itself that left us a little frazzled and confused. We decided on a whim to go to El Rio Ondo in Davison. The problem was I didn’t have time to look up directions and it had been several months since my friends Susan and Cathy had told me about it.

Stephanie and I were feeling adventurous though, so we set out to find the place on our own. We hadn’t seen each other in two weeks, so Steph filled me ear with all the gossip I missed while I was away, as I tried my best to get us to El Rio Ondo. I tried Davison Road. I tried Irish Road. I tried little strip malls. I tried big shopping plazas. Nothing.

Finally I stopped in a parking lot and asked two guys who were sort of milling around aimlessly. Lucky for us they knew the area and pointed us to the quickest route. I’ll save you all the trouble of being overly adventurous by telling you El Rio Ondo is on the corner of Davison Road and Irish Road. It’s in a grubby little building in a grubby little plaza. Don’t let that scare you away, though. El Rio Ondo turned out to be the best Mexican restaurant we’ve eaten at all year. Better, even, than our golden child, El Potrero.

Serving authentic Mexican cuisine since 1979—that’s what it says on the front of the menu—El Rio Ondo is open seven days a week and even has free WiFi. As it turned out, we should have brought our laptops and taken advantage of the free service because our food service wasn’t available for the first fifteen minutes of our visit.

Apparently, somebody didn’t come to work when they were supposed to, and the one person who was there had to cook, wait tables, and deal with making, taking, and cashing out a steady stream of to-go orders. Two other groups came in right after us, and two or three people were waiting for their take-out orders, so we knew we were in for a wait.

Finally, somebody showed up to take over in the kitchen, and things began to progress a little more smoothly. After waiting another ten minutes for our drinks, we were treated to a fresh basket of chips—first basket free, second for a fee—and the best selection of salsas we’ve had yet. Four of them to be exact; two of them green and two of them red.

The red ones were mild but fresh and flavorful. One of them had little gobs of tomatoes and finely diced onion. The other was pureed and pretty runny, but it too was packed with flavor. I was really impressed with the green ones, the first a kind of a tart tomatillo salsa, pureed but with just enough body, and the other had the best smoky/earthy taste to it. All of them were good with the chips, but they were even better dumped liberally over our entrees. This quartet of yumminess is a definite nominee for the coveted Tater Tot Casserole Award. In fact, it’s gonna be almost impossible to beat this one.

The menu’s a bit of a mess organizationally, but once you orient yourself to it, the choices are plentiful. It starts, oddly enough, with the lunch specials listed first. This is followed by the Comida Para Los Ninos, or kids menu. What I love about this section is that of the five choices, there are no gringo options. :Most of the menu is taken up with the a la carte section, which I’m never a fan of. I don’t like piecing my meal together and then trying to figure out if it’s a better or worse deal than just ordering one of the entrees. My math skills suck.

I almost went with one of the twenty dinner selections, Beef Chimichanga Dinner, but I was really in a gambling mood so I ordered one of the daily specials, the Fish Taco Platter. And I hit the jackpot. These babies were off the chart. Three of them were situated on a platter with a good portion of beans and rice to go with them. The flour shells were perfectly cooked—not too crispy, not too pale—and the grease puddles under them a telltale sign of certain goodness. The fish, a finely chopped Tilapia, was generously stuffed into each shell and then topped with an absolutely to-die-for pico de gallo. El Rio Ondo earns a second nomination for the Tater Tot Casserole Award with this terrific house special.

Stephanie ordered off the lunch menu, which was also a great choice. At half the price of the dinner selection and with generous portions, the beef enchiladas, beans, and rice were rock solid. The enchilada sauce, not the bright blood red of some other versions, was a pale redish brownish but was packed with assertive pepper and tomato flavors.

The refried beans and rice had a lot of work to do to be worthy enough to sit on the same plate as our entrees, but they too impressed the hell out of us. The beans were smooth and creamy, but with pieces and chunks of some semi-smashed beans mixed in. The rice was even better. Not the lame tomato sauce-laden Spanish rice knock-off that too many Mexican restaurants serve, it was not too sloppy and not too dry, and it had a nice tomato flavor with an strong undercurrent of cumin. I could have made a meal of the beans and rice alone. El Rio Ondo’s beans are the third nominee of the TTC Award, and the Mexican Rice is the fourth nominee.

El Rio Ondo is a true Flint area gem, and if you haven’t been there yet, then put the remote down, get your shoes on, and get going. This is the real deal for authentic Mexican cuisine, and you’ll find yourself going back again and again and again. I know I will.

Sticky Buns

2010-03-23T17:10:00.000-07:00

Sticky Buns

(part one of my journey to Florida journal)

We stepped out of my dad’s truck at a gigantic Flea Market about an hour north of Tallahassee. The tables of junk went on for almost a mile. It was bone chilling cold for March, barely fifty degrees. My mom and my sisters got out first, planting their clean shoes in the dusty red clay. They were digging around for their jackets when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my dad, who’s seventy two, get out of the truck, pull a loaded 38 caliber pistol from under his seat, and jam it into the side of his pants. He pulled his shirt neatly over the top of it, and as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

“What’s that for?” I ask trying not to sound more alarmed than I was.

“Ya never know,” he said. “Ya just never know.”

On the way back, he and my mom took turns telling us about each person in the recent past had been murdered, beaten, robbed, killed in a car wreck, or had taken their own life in the Tallahassee area. And it was gruesome. At one point I glanced into the back seat at my sister, who just closed her eyes and shook her head.

I wanted a cup of coffee to warm myself up and get us away from the seemingly endless string of death stories, so I asked my dad to stop at the gas station near their house. I thought I’d just run in while he and his gun waited in the truck, but he insisted on coming with.

“There’s something I wanna show ya,” he said matter-of-factly. Looking to the back seat he said to my mom and sister, “Wait here. We’ll be right back,”

My dad taught me how to hunt when I was young. He even got me a 20 gauge shotgun for Christmas one year. It was propped up against the wall on Christmas morning, towering over my other toys sprawled out around the tree. As he trained me to shoot a lethal weapon, he was always adamant, almost maniacal about teaching me gun safety. Now, walking into a seedy little party store with him, a concealed weapon strapped to his blue jeans, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had lost his mind and was about to show me how to stage a good old fashioned hold-up.

I grabbed my coffee as quick as I could, but on the way to the counter he stopped me and pointed to the ceiling.

“Look”

I looked up and saw a video camera staring straight at us.

“It’s a camera”, I said, trying to sound unimpressed.

“No, the three bullet holes in the ceiling around it. Someone robbed the place last week and tried to shoot the video camera out. Not a very good shot, huh?” I paid for my drink as fast as I could and made a beeline for the truck. My mom thought I should have a sticky bun to go with my coffee and offered to go back inside and get me one.

“NO! I’m fine.” I tried not to sound any more freaked out than I was.

“Well why don’t we go home and make cinnamon rolls? I haven’t made them in years and it’ll give us something to do this afternoon.”

I didn’t want her going back into that gas station, so I quickly agreed to her idea just to keep her in the truck. The more I thought about it though, the more I liked the suggestion. When I was a kid, my mother made the best cinnamon rolls on the planet. On weekends, she transformed the kitchen into a mini bakery and by noon on Saturday, the whole house would fill with the kind of sweet, doughy smell that stayed with me long after I grabbed one of those warm glazed rolls and ran out the back door with it stuck to the palm of my hand.

By the time we got back to their house, the weather had gotten worse, and since we were going to be cooped up in the house for the rest of the day, I actually got excited about doing some cooking with my mom, so I asked her to spend some time showing my sister and me how to make her family-favorite sweet treat. Come to find out, it wasn’t even her recipe. It was passed down to her from her mother, who inherited from her mother. Apparently my family has been making this recipe since at least the late 1800s.

No longer on a quest to distract my mom from my own firearm paranoia, I was feeling much more relaxed and ready to embark on a mission to learn, document, and make this recipe so I could help carry on the tradition. My family doesn’t generally share a lot of traditions, and ritual isn’t something we collectively engage in either, so finding out that food is one of those rare generational ties is a big deal for me. The task was made a little more challenging because the recipe has never been written down. Until now, of course, because I have a memory about as long as a hummingbird with A.D.D., and if I don’t write it down, the tradition could very well be lost.

The plan was simple. We would make a double batch. My mom would make the first batch to show us the “right” way to do it, as she says. Then I would make the second batch, while my sister documented the demonstration with the camera. My dad, nestled into his recliner, watched the whole thing with the antsy anticipation I remember experiencing when I was a kid. Only he was packin’.

My mom doesn’t use measuring cups or measuring spoons, so I’ll have to make a few batches to get the portions right, but the ingredients list is pretty simple: bread dough, butter (lots of it), cinnamon, sugar, raisins, and milk. She didn’t have the time to fuss with making bread dough from scratch, so she used her favorite substitute: pre-made bread dough that she buys from Walmart.

After letting it rise for a good while, she rolled it out into a big oval until it was pretty flat and pretty long. Then she softened a stick of butter and rubbed most of it onto the dough. I was a little shocked at how thick a layer of butter she used, but she insisted this was the key to making them moist and soft. From there, she just poured a bunch of cinnamon over the buttery dough, poured a generous amount of sugar over that, and finished it off by covering the whole thing in a layer of raisins and sprinkling a little milk over the whole pile.

The trick, she showed me, was rolling up the whole mass so you have at least three layers and then cutting it into chunks about an inch and a half to two inches long so they looked like pinwheels. In the final stage she turned each chunk on its side and laid it in a well buttered glass baking dish.

She let me do the second batch while she stood over my shoulder giving me directions on how to make them just right. My batch filled out the baking dish, which we put in the oven 325 degrees and baked until the rolls were golden brown.

It took about twenty-five to thirty minutes, but by the time they were done the whole house was filled with doughy, cinamony smells that made me forget all about guns and robberies and death and violence. I’m feeling a little scarred though, because I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to make my mom’s cinnamon rolls without thinking about my father’s silver sidearm. When I pass this family recipe on to my own child in ten or twenty years, though, this story will no doubt get passed along with it.