Inside Rogue Sessions: Spike Gjerde

Posted on January 27, 2012 by nevinmartell

All of the chefs cooking at the Rogue Sessions will be incorporating local ingredients, but none are more focused on products from the DMV than Spike Gjerde of the highly acclaimed Woodberry Kitchen. For the past four years, the Baltimore eatery has been offering rootsy Americana-themed cuisine that highlights the finest foodstuffs from the Chesapeake watershed. If it’s not available locally, it’s probably not on the menu.

Since Gjerde likes to use a plethora of produce, he is the king of canning. When I spoke with him this past summer, he was hoping to preserve 5,000 pounds of tomatoes, so he could keep them on the menu through the winter. Well, now it’s winter – even if it doesn’t look like it – so I wondered which bright, bold flavors from chef’s larder up north would make their way on to my plate.

Note: To spare readers the repetition and my waistline the punishment, I will be concentrating solely on the visiting chefs’ dishes for the remaining Rogue Sessions.

***1^st course

Snow Hill oyster/fish pepper/pickled ramps

Chef Gjerde comes over to our table to personally introduce the first course: a single Snow Hill oyster balance atop a ghost white hummock of salt. A light umber ramp “glass” encloses the bivalve with a sprinkle of fish pepper. Breaking through, I scoop the contents into a single spoonful of contrasting textures – the thin sheet of ramp crackles as it melts on my tongue, while the crustacean has a wonderfully custardy consistency.

Finish the meal by clicking over to CityEats’ Plate blog now.

Plate’s Chef Shuffles for the week of January 20

Posted on January 21, 2012 by nevinmartell

Laurie Jon Moran (Per Se) was hired as Le Bernadin’s new pastry chef, while Plein Sud named Sebastien Agez (Café des Artistes) its new chef. Noma’s Mads Refslund is now the executive chef at Acme, which features a completely revamped menu starring dishes like duck in a jar with pickled veggies. Grab ‘n’ go American comfort food spot MarX, meat-focused Tri Tip Grill, Pizza Roma and Grimaldi’s new location all opened. Several Latin concepts greeted their first diners, including Tortaría, Five Tacos, Babalu and the modernist Mexican restaurant Mix. Philly cheesesteak food truck Phil’s Steaks hit the road. Bilbao’s Mikel Treviño is heading up the newly opened Mercado on Kent, where he is concentrating on dishes from the northern reaches of Spain. Speedy Romeo pizzeria is having a less-than-speedy opening, now delayed until sometime next week.

We’re sorry to report that Pilar Montero of Montero’s Bar and Grill has died at the age of 90.

Finish reading this week’s Chef Shuffles on Plate‘s website now.

Eat By Numbers: ChurchKey

Posted on January 20, 2012 by nevinmartell

When you dine out, you might think about the ingredients that go into your food, but you probably don’t think about all the numbers that make your meal happen. Restaurants are filled with interesting figures that might not be apparent when you bite into an enticing entrée or take a sip of a signature cocktail, but they’re all around you.

This week, we pop open Logan Circle’s ChurchKey to find out the numbers behind their peerless beer list, discover how many pig heads they go through and get a calorie count on their addictive disco fries.

ChurchKey

Pages in the training manual: 218

Different beer labels that have been served: 1700 draft, 400 cask and 1500 bottles

Beer bottles in inventory: 6,000

Beer-related events hosted since opening: 150

Bottled hard ciders available: Anywhere from 30-40, including options from France, Spain, England, Quebec and smaller producers in the U.S.

Get the rest of the numbers by clicking over to CityEats’ Plate blog now.

Inside Rogue Sessions: Tim Byres

Posted on January 20, 2012 by nevinmartell

The Sunday before Smoke’s Tim Byres began his Rogue Sessions, he wanted to try out the new grill he’d be using all week. So, he threw a BYOM – Bring Your Own Meat – party in Blagden Alley outside the restaurant. The concept was simple: anyone could stop by with some steak, chicken, shrimp, baby back pork, ribs, whatever, and the Dallas-based chef would throw it on the burners. The BBQ was a success – a few dozen people showed up with an impressive selection of carne, Byres gave impromptu cooking demos while people contentedly demolished whatever he made. And the stainless steel grill from Grillworks was smoke-stained and battle-hardened by the end.

But how would this rustic, Texas-sized cuisine translate into the refined and restrained Rogue 24 format? And how would Byres’ dishes stand alongside Cooper’s creations?

I’m still wondering about this as I walk down the brick-lined alley for my second week hanging out at Rogue 24 for Rogue Sessions. As I approach the entrance, I catch a whiff of smoke from the wood-fired grill. It’s bucolic and beckoning, a warm reminder of the campfire cooking my father and I used to do on childhood fishing trips. It’s not what you expect at a limited edition tasting menu dinner, but I immediately feel at home.

Get the play-by-play on CityEats’ Plate blog now.

Matchbox Food Group’s Jacob Hunter Shares His Ink

Posted on January 19, 2012 by nevinmartell

“People who work in restaurants are a little off-kilter,” says Matchbox Food Group’s executive chef Jacob Hunter. “They have to be, so they can cope with the hours, deal with customers and handle the intensity of it.” To celebrate that lunatic lifestyle, Hunter likes to treat himself to food-related tattoos every other paycheck. His left forearm already hosts a set of silverware, a ramen bowl with chopsticks, a pair of sunny side up eggs, a beet and the cuts of a pig with a knife jabbed through its head. “I’ve never killed a pig,” he admits. “And I don’t know if I could actually do it.”

Finish reading this story and see all the pics on the Eater DC website now.

The Power of Mother Nature

Posted on January 16, 2012 by nevinmartell

Walking up to DiMillo’s in Portland, Maine, the first thing you’ll notice is that the restaurant is inside a former ferry permanently anchored at the pier.

The next thing to turn your head is the three-story-high tubular spire near its entrance that looks like it might be a high tech antenna.

“Some people think it’s an art installation,” says restaurant manager Steve DiMillo.

It’s actually a cutting edge vertical axis wind turbine called the Windspire, but it’s not your average windmill. Six two-foot-long blades—arrayed from 17 to 34 feet high—are parallel to the ground, it produces almost no sound, and there’s no flicker caused by the propellers passing in front of the sun.

“Everybody loves it,” DiMillo says. “And we received a business leadership award from the Sierra Club of Maine for its installation, so it has been great publicity.”

DiMillo’s received the turbine last August for free in exchange for showcasing the new technology at its high traffic restaurant, which hosts 200,000 diners annually. The installers of this renewable energy source, Portland’s Nelson & Small, estimates that it will generate about 2,000 kilowatts annually, which is about half the electricity that the average household in Maine uses every year.

That’s not enough to completely power the eatery’s marina store located next door, but DiMillo says that it’s definitely saving the restaurant money on its utility bill—around $400 per year.

Finish reading this story on the Restaurant Management website now.

Photo of Uncommon Ground courtesy of Zoran Orlic.

Pumped-Up Eats: Gourmet dining transforms gas stations into destinations

Posted on January 16, 2012 by nevinmartell

According to the rules of the road, you’re never supposed to eat at the same place you gas up your car — unless you like dried-up doughnuts, withered hot dogs or nuked burritos. Luckily for hungry drivers, some local entrepreneurs are taking pump-side cuisine to a super-premium level, opening boutique restaurants inside gas stations. “At first, I thought it would be crazy to serve good food in that setting,” admits Fast Gourmet co-owner Manuel Olivera. “But then I realized that people would remember that forever.” One stop at these gastro stations and you’ll rethink the rules.

R&R Taqueria

Just a few years ago, Rodrigo Albarran-Torres lost his job as a commercial pilot because of the recession. Having worked in restaurants growing up, he brainstormed with his father, a veteran of the hospitality industry, trying to land on a new career. When they heard that a local Shell station was looking to open an eatery on its premises, Albarran-Torres jumped at the opportunity. “It actually worked out great,” the chef-owner says. “Instead of being unemployed, I had a new job and a new business.” He designed a menu full of street snacks known as antojitos, inspired by his childhood in Mexico City. “It’s food that you’ll find on the streets and in the markets,” he says. Refuel with an order of three tacos ($6) with creative and classic fillings, such as barbacoa (lamb), carne asada (thin-sliced steak), lengua (beef tongue) or cueritos (fried pork rinds).
FYI: Spiky-haired Guy Fieri recently stopped by to film an episode of Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” that will air this spring.

R&R Taqueria, 7894 Washington Blvd., Elkridge, Md.; 410-799-0001.

Finish reading this story on the Express website now.

Photo courtesy of R&R Taqueria.

Going Brogue: Dupont Circle gets Gaelic by welcoming Irish Whiskey Public House

Posted on January 14, 2012 by nevinmartell

People may quibble about how to pronounce ‘potato,’ but everyone seems to agree that there’s only one way to pronounce ‘whiskey.’ Things get more complicated when people try to agree on which one is best. Luckily, Irish Whiskey Public House will be helping settle that argument by offering more than 50 different whiskeys from the Emerald Isle for tipplers to taste and test.

Diners can get into the spirit of the establishment by ordering flights of whiskey or pairing their meal with the traditional Irish spirit. There’s even a Members-Only Whiskey Club that encourages sippers to make their way through the whole whiskey menu. As an incentive, the restaurant will give away a trip to Ireland every six months to one club member who has made their way through the entire list.

Finish reading this post on the Washington Life website now.