Tag Archives: restaurants
A Pop Up, Prosit!
German food might be a bit undervalued in the States. People eat bratwurst and drink lager to be sure, but restaurants that serve a lot of schnitzel, spätzle, and sauerkraut aren’t terribly common. We’ve got a few here in the area, and they’re perfectly fine, but I was nonetheless pretty excited to hear that the meat making mavens at Porktown Sausage and wine (and pretzel) guru were teaming up for a German-themed pop-up called Schnäck at Eastern Market’s Supino Pizzeria.
From my perspective, the first (hopefully of many) iteration, held last night, Sunday, March 18, seemed to go pretty well.
Putnam was pouring a solid kolsch-style beer on draft as well as serving the always delicious Kapuziner Weisse and three different German wines. (For what it’s worth, I think Kapuziner is easily one of the best wheat beers in the world; it has that marvelous banana/clove aroma without the same estery flavor and sweetness. It finishes dry despite the aroma, and it’s one of the few wheat beers that I find “sessionable” as a result.)
All of the food was good – I’m pretty sure we tried everything on the menu except the charcuterie plate – though as I recall the sausage and pretzel were the universal favorites among our crowd. Porktown really has their knackwurst formula down to a science, it seems – perfect flavor, perfect texture – and Putnam’s pretzel is a can’t miss item, especially with a dollop of their mildly spicy homemade mustard. The meal ended with a pleasant surprise: Molly O’Meara from Beau Bien made an apple strudel. Not too sweet and surprisingly light, which struck me just right on a day that closed in on 75 or 80 degrees.
Quintessence
Chicago’s personality is so lovable. Part of why I find that to be the case is that it’s always felt to me like it has more in common with Michigan than with more cosmopolitan locales. Obviously, it’s bigger than any cities here, and it offers the type of diversity, transit, and culture of a place like New York. But at its core, it’s a big, sprawling Midwestern city with ample neighborhoods full of pleasant, Midwestern people.
I always understood that on an intellectual level. But my most recent trip there felt so completely different from any other I’ve made.
For my thoroughly awesome job, I was sent to Chicago to interview two of its finest chefs – Rick Bayless and Stephanie Izard – for a couple of upcoming magazine articles. I tried to prepare the best I could, of course. But no amount of pre-work could have readied me for how genuine and personable they are. I suppose I should have expected it – I’m sure there’s a bumper sticker somewhere that reads “Chefs are people too” – but for whatever reason, their celebrity had sort of created this mental distance between me and the notion that they had, you know, actual personalities. Duh.
These chefs could open restaurants anywhere, I’m sure, but they fit in Chicago.
We’d arranged to have some photographs taken of both chefs, so I was also meeting our photographer for the first time, a Chicago-based food and lifestyle specialist named Huge Galdones. All I knew previously was that I liked his portfolio and my colleague had chosen him for the project after comparing him to others.
It turns out he’s one of the friendliest guys pretty much ever, and we grabbed some dinner after our work was done. Interestingly enough, it turns out we also had a mutual friend via food and wine circles.
Along those lines, when dining at Girl & the Goat the night before, I ran into a former Detroit area resident who had moved to Chicago two years ago, who in turn introduced me to a couple of the bartenders at Goat, both of whom were knowledgeable, interesting, nice people. While aggressively consuming their alcoholic wares, I also got to know a woman at the bar who had friends in southeast Michigan and who, upon learning why I was there, shared all of her dishes with me so I could try more of the menu.
After returning from my dinner at Girl & the Goat on Monday night, I wrote on Facebook, “So it turns out that all the hype for Girl and the Goat in Chicago is not only justified, it may very well be under hyped. Four hours of eating and drinking. Maybe the best desserts I’ve ever had. It’s perhaps needless to say, but I’m a fan. Big time.”
In retrospect, each of the two desserts I had are the best desserts I’ve ever had. No equivocation on that. One and two, or maybe one and one-a. I mean, who the hell puts lemon-infused eggplant with doughnuts? Or gooseberry compote, foie “fluff,” and chocolate? Chef Stephanie Izard. That’s who. She’s a damn genius.
It’s pretty impossible to really say what my absolute best meal is of all time – after all, how can I compare her lamb heart skewers to Japanese marinated raw beef tongue, or how can I compare my first ever bite of pulled pork to fluffy agnolotti filled with seasonal root veggies? – but it’s safe to say this ranks right up there.
So after two days, all the people I’d met – from bartenders to world famous chefs – were universally kind, thoughtful people. And the whole Small World thing was in full effect. I might as well have been hanging out at Astro in Detroit for how at home I suddenly felt.
After Huge and I had eaten dinner, I closed out my trip by hiking out to Bar DeVille on Chef Izard’s recommendation. I’d already been to the great cocktail bars that are decorated by interior designers. I wanted something a bit simpler, and she came through with the perfect suggestion. I drank (a Vieux Carre, a Weller 12 year, two beers, and two unnamed cocktails) while He-Man DVDs played on the TV and Nirvana and Raekwon blared over the speakers. A local liquor rep sat down next to me and unloaded a day’s worth of bad luck and a few jokes as though we were Norm and Cliff in some sort of weird hipster reboot of Cheers.
The whole night was like a big blanket wrapped around my soul. A bourbon soaked blanket. But a blanket nonetheless.
Having a better time on that trip would have been pretty much impossible. Unsurprisingly, it heightened my appreciation for Chicago. But after some reflection, I realized that (aside from the exquisite, incomparable food experience at Girl & the Goat) all the things that I really loved about my trip are exactly the things I love about Detroit and about Michigan – the people I’ve met, the small town feel where everyone somehow knows everyone else, and sharing good drinks and good food with good people, whether they become friends for a night or a lifetime.
Serious as a Cart Attack: A Look at Mark’s Carts
Delicious food has been available from mobile eateries for a while now in Michigan, and Detroit has long had its share of taco trucks. But ask anyone who’s had a little dumpling filled with fresh octopus or a bowl of impossibly good vegan stew from a cart no larger than a large hatchback automobile: There’s more to the current nationwide food cart trend than well-prepared Mexican snacks.
Japanese. Spanish. Vegan. Pork. Korean. Burgers. Brisket. Fish and chips. Every cuisine has a cart somewhere in the U.S. — a little restaurant with no building, low overhead, and plenty of hungry customers. All of this is true of Mark’s Carts in Ann Arbor, which opened earlier this month.
Standalone carts have been common elsewhere for a long time, and the concept of a place that serves cheap, crave-worthy food curbside is an inspiringly simple brand of genius.
But why stop there? Portland has been bragging about its diverse, courtyard-style approach for a few years now. I’ve seen the concept at work in Austin, and now it’s in Ann Arbor, satiating that quintessential American desire for choice.
Each of the carts has its own focus, and there are over a half dozen options. I would have written about Mark’s at opening, but given the variety, there’s simply too much food to sample for a single visit.
Among my first selections was a “headcheese hoagie” from the Humble Hogs cart. The proprietor is Keith Ewing, recently back in Ann Arbor from Houston. As I discovered in a brief conversation with him, he’s obsessed with pigs – history, farming, culinary uses, and everything in between. His passion is evident in his use of pasture raised animals and in the sheer deliciousness of the rich heritage pork in the hoagie, which is less a sandwich than a pile of moist, loose headcheese on a single piece of Zingerman’s Pullman Toast and slathered in onions and peppers. It’s an expensive plate for $6, but it’s delicious, the pigs are sourced well, and speaking from experience, it’s much more filling than it appears at first glance.
Taking a notably less carnivorous approach is The Lunch Room, a larger, well-organized vegan operation. Where Humble Hogs’ staff stands next to a pushcart barely larger than a beer cooler, the Lunch Room duo is tucked inside a small wooden hut that happens to have wheels, nicely outfitted and smartly covered in interchangeable menus, literature, and ads for branded goods like shirts and buttons.
On one trip, I ate the BBQ tofu sandwich, served on a whole grain bun, which was tasty but not as delectable as it looked. I found myself thinking, “This tastes pretty good for something so healthy” rather than “This tastes so damn good I’d beat that old man next to me to get the last one.” Still, I’m not a vegan, and I’d certainly eat that sandwich again, perhaps even aspiring to that level of quality in my own experiments with vegan cooking. Their slaw is also quite tasty, priced as a combo with the tofu at $5. And one can add a very well-made (and never cloying) cookie for only a dollar or a smoothie for only a few. Suck on that, McDonald’s Value Menu.
Immediately next to The Lunch Room is one of the newest additions to Mark’s Carts, an Asian-themed eatery called San Street tied to the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses. If you’re not familiar, Zingerman’s empowers its staff with viable, interesting business ideas to leverage the Zingerman’s name and to work with them to create these new companies based on their passions. In this case, said passion is Asian street food.
Their weekly offerings will change, according to the proprietors, but the other week, they were serving up pork buns, a la David Chang. The pork belly is tender but crispy on the outside, and it’s wrapped inside a nicely prepared steamed bun with sweet-and-sour pickles, some sort of relish, and optional siracha. Each sells for $4, so as with Humble Hogs, patrons are paying for the quality (and, let’s be honest, the omnipresent Ann Arbor mark-up), but I’ll certainly be back to try their other buns.
Interestingly, both San Street and The Lunch Room conduct all their business from iPads, using a small attachment to the top of the device to run credit cards and process all their transactions. While cash is handy (and, I would imagine, appreciated), it’s hardly necessary.
Visitors may also head to the far back to stand in some of the longer lines (thus far, at least) to eat from Darcy’s Cart, which seems to be doing a fair amount of business with its traditional cart fare: meat and kimchi tacos. But they also sell a breakfast burrito and a host of other options, each using local ingredients.
In fact, many of the carts, including Darcy’s, publish a list of their local food sources. Among some of the names one might see on any given day are Zingerman’s, Calder’s, Black Oak Farms, and The Brinery.
Another outfit with a similar approach is Debajo del Sol, for which the flagship menu item is paella. They describe their menu as tapas, and that’s somewhat accurate in terms of the small plates and heavy Spanish influence, though I don’t think anyone would mistake their smoky chorizo corn dogs for traditional tapas. Hand-ground and hand-seasoned, the chorizo is definitely a treat, and the corn dog batter is exceptionally rich. One crunchy, fluffy bite will leave your lips coated in grease.
The other cart at which I’ve had a chance to sample is Eat, which has been a staple of the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market in Kerrytown for some time. They’ve recently been preparing their classic pork and beef sandwiches, the latter of which is covered in Brinery kimchi, though the lamb “Sloppy Joe” with aggressive spicing – I want to say North African flavors – was a new treat to me.
The Mark’s Carts model isn’t without its flaws – namely higher prices than similar ventures I’ve seen in New York or Austin and a cramped space without much shade from Michigan summer heat, let alone the snowy eventuality of winter.
Shutting down for the colder months aside, the other problems are hardly insurmountable: Quality and sourcing of the food is justification enough for the extra cost. Why not pay $9 for three small, healthy, interesting items instead of paying $7 for a plate of frozen french fries and a mediocre Reuben? And the mediocre environs are only a problem when it’s exceptionally crowded or hot, and neither people nor the summer sun makes pork belly taste bad.
On the whole, it’s definitely a success. And as much as I think many people would have predicted a positive outcome, it’s actually a bit surprising considering the regional history with food carts.
As cited in a recent NPR story about food trucks and carts across the Midwest, Mark’s Carts is one of the few success stories near the Great Lakes. (Of course, not mentioned in the story is the fact that Mark’s also hosts a commercial kitchen next door for food prep, presumably to overcome the requirements of local laws.) Chicago has a twenty-year-old law that forbids the production of food on trucks. Even hot dog stands are subject to the rule. And Detroiters are certainly familiar with the battles fought by mobile and community eateries like Pink FlaminGO and Neighborhood Noodle in order to get their operations running within the confines of the city’s regulations.
Still, this was inevitable in Michigan. Like sushi a couple decades ago or natural wine over the last five years or craft cocktails this year, it’s one of those fashionable concepts that apparently takes a while to permeate our heartland sensibilities.
Indeed, trends tend to reach the Midwest pretty late. Overlaid on a map, any food trend might look a bit like an epidemic sweeping down the well-travelled, heavily populated coasts before converging inward, like a big national race to Dubuque.
Some people think these food fashions die out over time, but that’s never really true. The hype is what dies while the food lingers in our local cultures in its own way. The best trends – sushi, craft beer, good coffee, cocktail bars – all continue past the initial shock and awe inherent to their newness.
So it will be with high end food carts – at least if the early success of Mark’s Carts is any indication.
