Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where we defiantly eat summer sausage in the winter and we don't care who knows it. We kicked off this week at a sort of cookout triathlon with a plot of Texas land on the line. J.C. Reid likes his steaks like he likes his women: rare, aggressively seasoned, and shared with a drooling audience.
E. Ting chatted up Remington Restaurant's executive sous chef John Signorelli and got his O. Pinions on chef headaches and signature dishes. Kathatine Shilcutt attended another chili cook-off, this time with a slideshow! Real Ale went all Drew Carey and introduced its coffee-beer in bottle form, and Robb Walsh had some without imploding, so that probably makes it okay for you to try it. If that sounds like your kind of thing.
Greenway Barista interviewed Textile pastry chef Plinio Sandalio, and Robb updated us on the FDA's efforts to ban the sale of raw oysters in the summer months. Next, Sarah Rufka decided on ten great places to eat in lovely Rice Village. Is it too late to go back to high school, make better grades, and get into Rice? We feel like we really missed out.
Katharine let us know how to make the perfect grits, and Greenway schooled us in homemade iced coffee. Robb's got another couple of taco trucks worth trying, and J.C., lucky bastard that he is, got to sample Dairy Queen's Pumpkin Pie Blizzard. It's like Thanksgiving in a cup.
This week saw the debut of a new feature, The Shameless Chef, which was universally adored by all who read it. It's unusual to have a column debut without even a single detractor, so look forward to more Shameless Chef in the future!
In Number 5 news, Nikki Metzgar shared the 5 greatest food jingles of all time, and Katharine shared the 5 most off-putting food texture issues. We've got to agree with the coconut thing. We're sorry, but eating shaved coconut is like eating a spoonful of daddy longlegs.
We just remembered that this is a food blog, so we're going to get off the subject of mouthfuls of crawly insects and back to the tasty: namely, mango smoothies, onion rings, and donuts at Hillcroft's Udipi Café. Ahhh, that's so much better. Even more delicious-looking is Robb's simple cauliflower casserole. The stuffed artichokes look pretty damn good, too. Do people too snobby to try Robb's recipes really exist? You'd think they'd disappear up their own asses.
By the same token, we're not so dedicated to eating meat and dairy that we wouldn't give Nikki's vegan cinnamon rolls a shot. Good Lord, those look good. Almost as good as Lola's burger, and frankly we don't care what kind of mustard went on it.
Greenway dealt with some haters in the comments of his article about cheap Italian dining, and Sarah dealt with a minor rum spill during her chat with Vin Bar's Thomas Boran.
Katharine pitted homemade mashed potatoes against the store-bought variety in this week's Food Fight, and the results may surprise you, if you are someone who has never so much as seen a potato. Sarah almost chipped a tooth on Gotham Pizza's fried ravioli, and J.C. was responsible for the majority of this week's reported PC screen-licking with his report on the lamb shanks at Niko Niko's. Tastes better if you degauss first!
Greenway's got some trendy NYC-style Tasti D-lite for when this beautiful fall weather inevitably gets hot as balls again (sometime around Wednesday), and how could we close out the week without mentioning our diligent Donut Patrol? Obviously, we couldn't.
That's all for this week, but be sure to tune in on Tuesday: the Shameless Chef tells us he'll be deep-frying a big hunk of Velveeta carved in the shape of a middle finger. What a treat!
