Smoked Mackerel, Thin Mint Milkshakes And Pigeon Stew [This Week’s Sloberiffic Weekend Eats]

Posted Mar 20, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Mar 20, 2012 at 02:20 PM

Boy, oh boy. What you guys won’t eat for the sake of winning a few free ducats to see a show.

Seriously, that was some impressive grub you consumed over the weekend. Stew Nation did itself proud. Stand up and take a bow. Now sit down.

As you may or may not recall, I offered two VIP tickets and a meet-and-greet pass to see Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert at the Straz Center in Tampa on Sunday to whomever offered the most delicious-looking dish during this week’s Weekend Eats.

The response was astounding in both number of submissions and passion for food.

They included:

@Blaisphemy - Bacon tataki: Pork belly, black lime, espresso fish caramel & coriander citrus at Uchiko.

@CourtneyCP - Had great fish at Mitchell’s Fish Mkt but real star was Sharkfin Pie. SO good and so wrong we left some uneaten.

@nerditry - Crawfish/Oysters/Jambalaya/Hot Sausage Po Boy @ King Cajun Orlando

@karenmcallister - Bangin Shrimp Tacos at Surf Shack in Westchase. Delish.

@sarcasmically - Deep-fried marshmallows—in a graham cracker & shredded coconut crust.

In the end, however, the grand prize went to Jacqueline Reina of Tampa for the above photo of the seafood paella.

Jacqueline e-mailed to say:

“Last weekend my husband’s family celebrated his uncle’s recovery from Pancreatic cancer. Being Spanish, Cuban and Italian, we celebrated with great food and great wine. My husband, David Reina, made a wonderful seafood paella using the large portable paella pan purchased from Paellapans.com.”

“David is in the red ‘Repel’ cooking shirt. I know you are probably looking for restaurant pictures, but I guarantee you will not find a better paella than David’s anywhere in Tampa (or Miami for that matter)!”

Jacquline said she plans to take her 13-year-old daughter, Cecilia, to the show so she can meet Anthony Bourdain. “Her goal is to go to CIA [Culinary Institute of America] and become a chef. She is a huge fan of Mr. Bourdain.”

See? It’s going to a good cause. Not only will she get to meet a 4-star Michelin chef, she’ll get to learn a few new bad words from Bourdain that she can use during her professional culinary career. Bonus!

Like I said, the competition was fierce this week. Crazy fierce. Like Thunderdome, only with garlic and chocolate and spoons instead of Mel Gibson, Tina Turner and chainsaws.

Need proof? Here’s the rest of this week’s slobberiffic contributions. You all have every right to be proud of your consumption, my friends (Click on each photo to see a description):

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James Beard Foundation To Tampa: Drop Dead [Semifinalists Nudged By New Orleans, Big City Rivals]

Posted Mar 19, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Mar 19, 2012 at 04:19 PM

So the word just came down from on high from Las Vegas from the James Beard Foundation, which announced its list of award finalists from the humble confines of The Venetian hotel in Las Vegas.

When the list of names were read, Tampa’s semifinalists for 2012 went unmentioned.

Chefs Greg Baker of The Refinery and Chad Johnson of SideBern’s were snubbed in favor of four New Orleans chefs and one from Birmingham, Ala., in the category Best Chef: South.

In the Best Restaurateur category, judges passed over Richard Gonzmart of The Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City in favor of other big-city names from New York City, southern California and Seattle.

Disappointing, to say the least. Still, three nominations is substantial for Tampa. And, in the cold, stark light of reality, it’s rare for anyone to make it to the finals without having been a nominee for many years. Food judges make the rounds to all nominees before voting for finalists, but you have to think that a place like Commander’s Palace is a familiar - if deserving - choice to any judge.

The big surprise: John Besh‘s Domenica. I love me some Besh, but a pizza joint? Rilly, James Beard judges? Not even an adventurous Asian-themed gastropub in Miami named Pubbelly could get your attention? Would it have killed you to throw The Ravenous Pig in Winter Park a metaphorical bone?

Whatevs.

Here’s the list of the 2012 finalists in each category:

BEST CHEF: SOUTH

Justin Devillier, La Petite Grocery, New Orleans

John Harris, Lilette, New Orleans

Chris Hastings, Hot and Hot Fish Club, Birmingham, Ala.

Tory McPhail, Commander’s Palace, New Orleans

Alon Shaya, Domenica, New Orleans

*

OUTSTANDING RESTAURATEUR

Bruce Bromberg and Eric Bromberg, Blue Ribbon Restaurants, NYC

Tom Douglas, Tom Douglas Restaurants, Seattle

Piero Selvaggio, Valentino Restaurant Group, Santa Monica, Calif.

Caroline Styne, Lucques/A.O.C./tavern, Los Angeles

Phil Suarez, Suarez Restaurant Group, NYC

For the entire list of all categories, click here.

 

 

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Tampa’s Beard Semifinalists Talk Food, Part 2 [Greg Baker, Richard Gonzmart, Chad Johnson]

Posted Mar 17, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Mar 17, 2012 at 04:21 PM

Yesterday, I posted Part 1 of my conversation with Greg Baker, executive chef and co-owner of The Refinery, Richard Gonzmart, president of The Columbia Restaurant and Chad Johnson, executive chef of SideBern’s, Tampa’s three semifinalists for the prestigious 2012 James Beard Foundation culinary awards.

Here’s Part 2 of our chat, during which they discuss launching a restaurant in a recession, Tampa’s next steps and what is on the city’s culinary horizon.

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How do you guys deal with the Yelp and UrbanSpoon worlds of food criticism?

Johnson: I choose to ignore it.

Gonzmart: It’s hard to, but you’ve got to.

Baker: I use it as a feedback tool. It’s great when I get positive reviews. But if there’s a negative review with substance… I’ve gotten very good at distilling what the problem was. Oh, you showed up 15 minutes late for your reservation and had to wait? Okay. People come up to me all the time, shake my hand and say, “That’s great.” No one comes up to me and says, “That sucked.” I need that negative feedback to know if I’m doing something wrong.

Gonzmart: I’ve got a Google Alert that brings all those things to me.

How do you get out of the house every day?

Gonzmart: I look at the first page and if they’re all good I say, “Alright!” If there’s a bad one, then we address it.

Johnson: I read them occasionally. I’ll glance through them here or there. I’ve heard from many chefs I’ve worked for that if you’re going to believe your good press, then you’ve gotta believe your bad press, too. You can’t get all excited when someone says how great everything was and then when the next review says it was overcooked or cold, you can’t just say they’re full of it. I kind of choose to keep a level keel. If I look at it, and four people said they didn’t like the dish, then maybe I need to step back and look at it. As a rule, food is far too personal. What’s overcooked to me could be perfectly cooked to you. Everyone has their opinion. It doesn’t make them right or wrong. Most of the open-forum sites, I don’t put too much stock in them.

Gonzmart: We hired a company six weeks ago to monitor the social networks to see how we could respond. Some have a legitimate complaint, but the others should bounce off you.

Johnson: The comments, I think they’re hilarious. If I don’t get some kind of B.S. backlash about something… Most time it’s because of the association with Bern’s. A lot of people call us the spoiled kids in town. I’ll be the first to admit I have a huge kitchen staff, a huge kitchen. There’s a lot of perks to that. But the food still doesn’t cook itself.

With as much as an institution as the Columbia, you’re still keeping your ears to the ground?

Gonzmart: Sure. When you’ve been around a long time, people want to throw rocks at you. They don’t want to like you because you are successful. Every business has it’s ups and downs. We’ve had a rollercoaster for 100 years. You want to try to please people. There’s more positive feedback coming back. Trip Advisor is such a huge tool that if you don’t monitor it, you’re in trouble. People are looking online. They’re going to choose The Refinery, SideBern’s and The Columbia based on what they read.

And with the GOP convention coming in, that’s a huge spotlight.

Gonzmart: I think I’m going to St. Augustine. [Laughs] I think I’ll go work up there for the week. It’s going to be crazy. What worries me are the places that arent’ so well-known but are known by locals. They’ll suffer because the locals will be afraid to go out.

I told the mayor he should tell the protesters, “Welcome to Tampa! Park here, protest there.” They’re going to be putting their heads in some beds. They’re going to have to go eat. It could be crazy.

My concern is that while the delegates are going to special events, everyone else will think the restaurants will be packed, when they won’t. It’s what happened during Super Bowl. It’s what happened during the Olympics in Atlanta.

Johnson: We’ve had people coming into the restaurant for almost two years already doing site visits. We have three private rooms where they can be shut off from the public. One woman called and said, “Give us every room every night of that week.” It’s going to be mayhem.

Baker: I have no such facilities. [Laughs]

Gonzmart: We’ve agreed to hold such facilities until May 1, so we’re up in the air. We don’t know.

Johnson: Stuff like that is weird, though. It’s not like we’re cooking a party of 30. We don’t know any of the people. They’re not from here. They want the skinny menu, they don’t want the whole open menu. “Give us fish, chicken, steak.” You take the business and you love it because it’s good money and from an execution standpoint it tends to be easier. But at the same time … 30 different palates of people we don’t know is not the time to break out our filet mignon with beef tongue and blood sauce. It’s not the most exciting cooking there is.

Are you doing anything unique for the Beard period to showcase what you do.

Baker: We change every week, so it’s just everybody is so much more on their toes trying to push it further and further and further. I’ve got experienced people, I’ve got some green people, but every one of them what they’re bringing to the table during menu design is getting successively more complex.

Johnson: I think if you tried to force it, though, it wouldn’t be as good. If overnight I tried to make SideBern’s something it isn’t for more curb appeal, it would suck. At least in my opinion it would.

Gonzmart: Business as usual.

Baker: Business as usual, just under a much bigger microscope. And every little mistake is being amplified.

What’s the next step from here for Tampa to grow?

Johnson: When I first came down 8 or 9 years ago, the first thing after spending a couple weeks in town as a line cook, I started asking guys, “Where do you go after work?” There was no response. I came from New York City. You could go to the Japanese yakitori bar on the lower east side or to this Indian guy who makes these fish head curries. You had two options in Tampa. There were high end places that were too expensive for the general population. Not a lot of people can drop $100 a person for dinner every night. There were mom and pop ethnic restaurants, which have been some of the best meals of my life. But there wasn’t the place like what Greg’s doing; a chef-driven restaurant that’s at a consumer price-point where you could say, “Hey, let’s go to The Refinery tonight.” You go to New York, every neighborhood has at least one high-quality, casual, authentically regional Italian restaurant. A guy doing handmade pastas. Made from scratch at a price point where you can afford dinner there instead of going to Applebee’s or T.G.I. Friday’s.

Tampa did not have that eight years ago, and if it did, it wasn’t successful enough to be on the mind of a bunch of line cooks. Now you have what Greg’s doing, you have what BT Nyugyen is doing. Ferrell Alvarez at Café Dufrain. You have middle-market price points where they can be successful. That’s going to keep getting better. Restaurant cities aren’t built on the high-end places. You can make collard greens taste as good as a truffle if you know what you’re doing. I think Tampa is slowly getting there.

Gonzmart: I think these restaurants will create more offshoots. Because they’re successful, it will give people courage and provide backers. But it’s a hard time to find the money for independents today.

Baker: I was just flashing on this the other day because Saturday was our two-year anniversary. Michelle and I everwhere we went we had a business plan in our pocket. “Hey, can we put this in front of you?” It was just the shotgun approach. It was late 2009 and nobody wanted to part with their money. Okay, I’ll give you a good percentage rate or I’ll give you good interest. Twenty five thousand dollars from some people, I took a thousand dollars from others. We put it together about 50 percent of what I thought would be a safe amount of operating capital. I said, “Well, we don’t really have that much choice. Let’s do it anyway.” There’s that horrible thought in your head that the biggest reasons companies fail is that they’re undercapitalized to make it through the lean times. Took us four months to be in the black.

Gonzmart: That’s amazingly quick.

Baker: I had about five months of operating capital.

Do you think there was any benefit to launching in a recession?

Baker: Yes. If I opened and wanted to go upscale, I would have been out of business by now. The timing of it to be able to offer that midmarket pricing was… people were still going out but they weren’t spending as much money. It was a perfect time to capture that market.

Gonzmart: You were able to go into a building that was a second-generation.

Baker: Yeah, I bought all the assets that were here before.

Gonzmart: If you would have had to build it from scratch, it would have been a nightmare. He had the courage to do it during a recession. People think you’re crazy, but that’s when the opportunities exist.

Johnson: Fine line between courage and crazy.

Do you feel any responsibility to help the area build on the Beard attention and build on that culture?

Johnson: I think one of the things Tampa is missing is that our talent leaves Tampa. I’ve had five cooks leave SideBern’s and go on to immediately become chef de cuisines, execs or sous chefs at more prestigious restaurants than any of us here are in the high-end food world. One guy who ran Graham Elliot for the past two years was one of our line cooks. The new place that Mike Isabella opened in Washington D.C., his sous chef is one of our guys.

If someone comes after working a couple years for me, I’d love to have them stay, but there’s not that much opportunity. Let’s say they’re a 25-year-old line cook and they need to make that next progression, two years ago there weren’t a handful of restaurants I would have felt comfortable sending them to. Greg is a respected name so he had a bit of a name. Imagine being a 25-year-old no-name. It’s impossible for them. Everyone jumps ship and goes to another market. I think we have to keep some of that talent stay here.

I think when you start to see more guys who were the sous chef at The Refinery and the sous chef at SideBern’s go out and open new places here, versus going to New York, that’s when you’ll start to see the Tampa market really opening up. You’ll get those second and third generation opening up.

Baker: There are limited amounts of places for people to progress, but with more places opening, it gets easier. The environment is becoming right for new places to open or people to branch out on their own. Nobody wants to take a gamble on something that’s unproven. Now that things are proven, it’s going to be easier for that to happen.

Where’s the next Refinery. Where’s the next SideBern’s? Where do you go to eat when you have a night open.

Johnson: I’m almost ashamed, but I don’t have an answer. I wish I could say there was this young kid and he’s doing amazing stuff with Korean street food or something like that in Tampa right now. It’s a shame.

Baker: I’ve got respect for Ferrell and I have respect for Ted Dorsey at Ciro’s [Speakeasy and Supper Club]. Marty [Blitz of Mise en Place] has done a consistent job for 25 years. But I’m waiting for that really exciting next thing to show up.

Gonzmart: Like we said earlier, the money is just not there.

Baker: It’s like that joke. How do you get to be a millionaire? Open a restaurant and start with $2 million.

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Celebrate An Irish Saint’s Holiday With Bomb-Themed Cupcakes [It’s Like A Pot O’ Gold In Your Mouth]

Posted Mar 17, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Mar 17, 2012 at 03:10 PM

One of the benefits of working in a professional, climate-controlled, artificially illuminated environment is that occasionally your colleagues will bring in food to share.

Yesterday was just such a day.

Mary Beth Thompson, an avid cook who’s official title is Newsroom Human Tornado Of Efficiency, brought in a recipe she’s talked about for several weeks: Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes.

Mary Beth found the recipe at Brown Eyed Baker and decided to bestow some baked goods on the office in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day.

If you know anything about America, you know that the Irish Car Bomb became a popular alcoholic adult beverage among college students 20 years ago.

As my very derrivative crowd-sourced friends at Wikipedia put it:

An Irish Car Bomb is a beer cocktail that is drunk as a bomb shot, similar to a boilermaker. It is made with Irish stout, Irish cream, and Irish whiskey.

The whiskey is floated on top of the Irish Cream in a shot glass, and the shot glass is then dropped into the stout. Once mixed, it must be drunk quickly because it will curdle. While Kahlúa was part of the original recipe, it is often excluded from the drink today. Some refer to that original recipe as a Belfast Car Bomb.

The “Irish” in the name refers to the drink’s Irish ingredients; typically Guiness [SIC] stout, Baileys Irish Cream, and Jameson Irish Whiskey. The “Car Bomb” refers to the fact that the drink is a “bomb shot” and also to the many car bombings that took place during the Troubles in Ireland. For this reason, the name is sometimes deemed offensive and some bartenders refuse to serve it. The drink is virtually unknown in Ireland and ordering it there is likely to cause confusion or offense.

And if there’s one thing you want to do, it’s anger an Irishman whose country has a history of automotive violence.

But, hey, we’re talking cupcakes. Cupcakes with beer. Cupcakes with beer and Irish cream. How offended could a person of Irishness (such as myself) possibly be?

Considering all that, here’s the recipe:

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Yield: 24 cupcakes

Prep Time: 40 minutes | Bake Time: 17 minutes

For the Cupcakes:
1 cup Guinness stout
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons baking soda
¾ teaspoons salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

For the Whiskey Ganache Filling:
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
2 teaspoons Irish whiskey

For the Baileys Frosting:
2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream

1. To Make the Cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring the Guinness and butter to a simmer in a heavy, medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

2. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl to combine. Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sour cream on medium speed until combined. Add the Guinness-chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat just to combine. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture and beat briefly. Using a rubber spatula, fold the batter until completely combined. Divide the batter among the cupcake liners. Bake until a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean, about 17 minutes. Cool the cupcakes on a rack.

3. To Make the Whiskey Ganache Filling: Finely chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then, using a rubber spatula, stir it from the center outward until smooth. Add the butter and whiskey and stir until combined. Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped.

4. To Fill the Cupcakes: Using a 1-inch round cookie cutter (or the bottom of a large decorating tip), cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes, going about two-thirds of the way down. Transfer the ganache to a piping back with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

5. To Make the Baileys Frosting: Using the whisk attachment of a stand mixer, whip the butter on medium-high speed for 5 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. Reduce the speed to medium-low and gradually add the powdered sugar until all of it is incorporated. Add the Baileys, increase the speed to medium-high and whip for another 2 to 3 minutes, until it is light and fluffy.

6. Using your favorite decorating tip, or an offset spatula, frost the cupcakes and decorate with sprinkles, if desired. Store the cupcakes in an airtight container.

(Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

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Weekend Eats Goes Big-Time [Photograph Your Food, Win VIP Tickets to Bourdain/Ripert Show]

Posted Mar 16, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Mar 16, 2012 at 04:15 PM

So, every week, we do a little thing called Weekend Eats. You may have heard about it.

People cook, bake or order food during their weekend leisure time. They take red, hot, sexy photos of said food. They send in photos of that food.

And then on Monday morning, I ask everyone to send me their most droolworthy stuff.

Each week I give away a prize, usually something non-alcoholic, non-firearms related in the shape of a cookbook. It’s my token way of saying, “Thank you for your effort and thank you for understanding our small meager non-existent prize budget.

Well, not this weekend, friends.

The good folks at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts are giving me a chance to give away two VIP tickets to see Anthony Bourdain and chef Eric Ripert on March 25 at the Straz’s Carol Morsani Hall. (Click here to see the site.)

This prize package includes:

* Two tickets to see the show.

* A post-show chance to meet Bourdain and Ripert at Maestro’s, the restaurant inside the Straz.

* Food pairings with wine from Clearwater’s Aspiration Winery and beer from the Florida Brewers Guild.

How do you win said prize?

By eating your favorite food, taking a photo and .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) it to me before 5 p.m. Monday EST.

It’s that simple.

Yes, you can send more than one photo.

No, that doesn’t improve your chances, but it does mean you ate enough good food that maybe something will win you the Big Grand Prize.

Yes, you can send me a photo if you work for The Tribune/TBO.com/WFLA/Centro/Hernando Today/Media General/CEC/Related Properties.

No, you can’t win if you work for those people.

I’ll announce a winner on Tuesday. Then, if you win, you can spend the next five days squirming in your chair, looking forward to going to the show.

Gentlemen and ladies, start your cameras.

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