Arcturus

Colin is at Nina May now, for the record. Looks like he's doing some killer work.

Awesome write-up. Especially the constructive criticism about the plates sliding- broken plates and glassware are huge expenses.

Frank is a great guy, it's wonderful to see him doing well.

Sep 30, 2019 - "The Chef of Nina May Wants You To Scrap the Menu and Let Him Cook for You" by Laura Hayes on washingtoncitypaper.com

Looks like Colin's moving on to his own thing! He's a talented chef and a legit good dude to boot.

Kenyan Cafe, in Morgantown, is on par with any central African restaurant that I've been to. The goat stew is ridiculously good.

Yeah, the smoking ban made everything (especially on campus) immediately better.

Also, on a related note, I've been craving Buckeye Donuts since last night.

I'm surprised, after re-reading this thread, that there's no mention of Buckeye Donuts. That's another Columbus institution, and one that's a really solid option- get a plain glazed, or, like, 90 of 'em. Especially after a late-night/super early morning meal at the gloriously sketchy Hounddog's. 

Also, after spending quite a bit of time at Kafe Kerouac, I love that place. There's not much better than a super chill coffeehouse/bookstore that has great coffee-based cocktails that are incredibly well-priced, even by Midwest standards. It's also a fantastic stop before or after Hounddog's and Buckeye Donuts.

Qualia's open both today and tomorrow.

Coffee nature is a lot of fun. Good food and drinks, and some of the best service I've had anywhere. One time they messed up a drink that a friend of mine ordered and paid for in cash, and as they came out with the replacement, they insisted on giving her the cash back as well. Very cool.

I'm in with my (much) better half.

it's interesting how what you'd logically assume happens isn't always the case, isn't it?

i think that you could argue that starbucks, by getting more people to think it's normal to pay $4 for a coffee, and to think about the levels of quality, actually made it possible for the independents to thrive.

a tangential point but still somewhat related--no one's come out and said it, but the unstated assumption behind this thread seems to be that independents are neccessarily good, and i don't buy this. for example, i haven't been there in forever, and am not even sure it exists anymore, but the coffee at Soho used to be horrendous. and i spent a ton of time at tryst,and that place will forever have a place in my heart, but their coffee ranged from ok to fairly bad.

Absolutely. Those kinds of counter-intuitive truths have always fascinated me.

I agree with your second point as well. Starbucks' marketing convinced people that the coffee that they were selling was desirable, and they could charge more for it because of that. Then as people began to see what else they could get for the same amount of money, it paved the way for other companies to give really beautiful coffees to the people that want it, for essentially the same price point.

Your third point is spot-on as well. It was hard for me to find coffee/espresso that appealed to me in DC (in large part because I've never been big on Ceremony or Counter Culture beans) before Qualia, so most of what I cared about in a coffee shop was whether they could put a jillion shots of espresso in a mocha for me, unless they were one of the few shops that served coffee/espresso that I really liked (Dolcezza, assuming their current espresso wasn't either of the above, or somewhere serving Vigilante). If the wife and I wanted really nice coffee, we'd get mail-order from Gorilla, Blue Bottle, Klatch, Flying Goat, or The Roasting Plant and brew that at home.

As a with-all-disclaimers-added side note, we've stopped doing that because we feel that the coffee at Qualia is generally just as good (if not better, in some cases) than the producers above.

I do think that, for every Starbucks that opens, there's an independent coffee shop that doesn't have a chance to.

One would think so, but...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2007/12/dont_fear_starbucks.html

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2008125785_indiecoffee20.html

DC Sharp is great, they'll offer a lot of extras (hard blade cover, stropping right after purchasing), and they'll let you try out any knife they've got. That's where I've gotten a few of my knives and I'd definitely get more from there in the future.

If you're looking for a huge selection, good reviews, and great pricing, http://www.chefknivestogo.com/ is a great place.

Those two are my go-to knife places.

A spot in the new retail stuff going up all around Brookland/Catholic University would be killer, what with people living directly above it and being able to smell fresh bread all the time.

I've mentioned Blue Bottle. More than once. Probably in the Grape + Bean thread, because it's the only place I know of that sells it locally. They always have Three Africans and Bella Donovan. Their shipments arrive Friday afternoons, iirc. You're welcome.

edit: also here

So many threads, so little time... :-)

Thanks for the info. That'll definitely be a stop in the future.

The jury is definitely still out on Vigilante, but everything I've had of theirs has been solid to awesome. I'm excited to see what they'll bring to their upcoming H st space. Also, all of the people that I've met that work there are great.

Had a great mocha here the other day. One of the best in the city, easily.

Also, as far as the bean discussion goes, I'm not sure why nobody has mentioned Blue Bottle. Easily the best coffees that I've ever tried, including all of the above, and easy online ordering. Vigilante also deserves very high praise, they're local, put out great products, and treat their people well.

Hey y'all.

Cause is teaming up with Even' Star Farms, Profish, and Fells Point Meats for a dinner to benefit Common Good City Farm ( http://commongoodcityfarm.org/ ) on March 26th. How does this differ from what we're normally doing? Instead of some of the money from the proceeds going to cover costs and pay our employees, everything that we raise is going to go directly to them.

Here's the menu:

We'll have some at Cause in the near future, hopefully next week. Thinkin' about curing some and hanging on to it, and doing the rest as tempura with togarashi, miso mayo and seasonal pickles.

Because beards and tattoos are awesome. Clearly.

And because we're not necessarily in a profession where we're subjected to the judgmental closed-mindedness that has been known to happen in the office/9-5 world. Like, you know, judging people for their skin art and self-expression.

Sincerely,

Hipster Doofus With A Troubled Upbringing

I went. It rocked my face off. Go asap.

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." -Teddy Roosevelt

Oh, and not really a food spot as much as a coffee place, I've heard great things about Kafe Kerouac (yes, yes, I have no idea why they used two K's either). Also on High st, in the north campus area. Seems like a great spot to generally go and chill.

Pretty much everything on campus is going to be what you expect. Shitty to middling beer, and food that mostly isn't made in-house. If you're staying there, go north on High st to get some good BBQ at the Pink Pig. Again, I'm not sure if the beer selection there is decent. One of my favorite places to go in Columbus is off of Bethel, called Tea Zone. Great tea, good udon and food, and some really cool pastries, all made in-house, great prices. That's the one place where I'll stop every time I'm out there, so there's your best bet for your "good, high-quality, ultra casual, semi-healthy, cheap" request. The one upscale place there where I'd recommend is actually just down the road from there, called The Refectory. It's not necessarily on par with food of the same style out here, but it's generally executed well and tastes good.

Oh, shit. And Hounddog's. Pretty much a Columbus institution. Good pizza, surly waitresses, all kinds of characters there, especially at later hours. Which is the best time to go, obviously.

First i would like to say fuck brunch.

Parking around there sucks, too, it should be noted.

There's free parking in the garage under the restaurant.

In what way would you use it?

I'm not as concerned for the chemical itself as I am for the possibility of inferior ingredients being hidden in plain site. In the video example at the top of the thread, for example, a chef takes cheap stew meat and makes it look like a filet.

I'm sure you wouldn't use it like that, but I'm just curious as to what the positive usages could be.

The cheap stew meat "filet" would be immediately apparent to anyone that bit into it, due to texture alone. It'd be tough as, well, undercooked stew meat.

But, say someone really likes flat iron steaks, but wants to present them differently, if they were to meat glue three of them on top of each other and vaccuum seal it, after cutting it into portions, you'd get a final cut steak that's thicker and quite possibly more flavorful than just one flat-iron alone.

Or, say, it can be used when making a roulade of something to make sure that it stays rolled. Or if you had two pieces of perfectly good fish that were too thin for a portion, you could glue 'em together to make one piece that wasn't. Or if you were making shrimp dumplings that weren't really holding together so well when you dropped 'em into water...

I feel like if something is cost-effective, safe to use, and can benefit the final dish, there's no real reason not to use it.