Shea Stadium & Yankee Stadium Hotdogs

Well, I am back from my trek to Cooperstown to see San Diego’s Mr. Padre, Tony Gwynn, get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. To say the least, it was one of the greatest moments in my baseball life to be among such greats. Cooperstown, I might add, is a charming little town in the middle of the mountains. And the people who live there are among the friendliest I have ever met.
As I grew up forty miles outside NYC, it was exciting to go back to some of my old haunts. Shea Stadium is where I practically grew up. And when Michael heard I would be going to both Shea and Yankee Stadiums, well I was asked to test and write about the hotdogs. Not a problem! So here goes!

Shea Stadium boasts Nathan’s Hotdogs so even before getting to my seat, off to the concession I go! (I had been in New York City’s Manhattan Mall last November, and had a Nathan’s – what I think are the best hotdogs in the world.) So I order up my Nathan’s and ask the concessionaire where the condiments are?? She said, “In the hallway.” I looked and looked. I didn’t see any counters with condiments? Then I looked at the wall to see a plastic shelf with packets of mustard and ketchup. What the heck? No onions, no relish? Nope. So I dressed my hotdog in the availables, took a bite and ……. NO WAY WAS THIS A NATHAN’S HOTDOG!!! IT WAS A CHEAP IMMITATION!! This was verified at lunch the next day with one of the couples on our bus tour, Jim and Pam from Minnesota. Jim also said the hotdogs were not Nathan’s, and I didn’t even prompt him. And then the whole table agreed.

Off we went to Cooperstown on Saturday afternoon, and to our dismay, our bus blew a radiator hose and we were stuck at the New Jersey Turnpike Vince Lombardi Rest Stop for the afternoon. And there was a Nathan’s Hotdog Store. I ordered up one just to see, and sure enough, it was one of the best hotdogs I had ever had and it was definitely a Nathan’s. If you never had one, they pop when you bite into them and they have a thin chewy skin to them. I was then totally convinced that Shea Stadium was running a scam.

We finally made it to Cooperstown, thank God. We wouldn’t have been a very happy bunch if we missed “Tony and Cal’s big day.” We headed back to New York City where we attended a Yankees – White Sox game. Ok, Hebrew Nationals here. And they were true to their word, they were real Hebrew Nationals. They were good, just as good as the ones you buy at the local grocery store and cook yourself. You don’t have to be at the ballpark to get this hotdog. Go to Ralph’s, Albertson, Von’s … and you don’t have to travel to the Bronx. Oh, and also, the same deal on the condiments. Only packets of ketchup and mustard. What a shame.

One thing I will say, though, about the Bronx. We went to a restaurant/bar called “The Yankee Tavern” a few blocks away from Yankee Stadium on 161st Street where I ordered a Pastrami on Rye. I was in heaven!!! All my new friends at the table were jealous! I told them, when you are in New York, it’s a must! It was served with slices of the best pickles in the world and of course, an Amstel Light. May

I suggest if you are ever in the neighborhood, stop in. Great service, great fans, great food. And I don’t even like the Yankees!! But after my visit, I thought the Yankee fans were some of the greatest in baseball. I am so happy that there will be a new Yankee Ballpark in 2009, the Yankee fans certainly deserve it. And I’ll be back for some hotdogs, for sure.

Chow.

Sue

Merlot - Raymond Hill

Found this wine the other day at Trader Joe's when I was looking for some good bargains on vino. At $4.99 a bottle. I had to try at least one bottle. The alcohol content was a bit on the low side, I like a nice Merlot or Cabernet around 13% alcohol or higher. This one clocked in at 12.5%, On the cusp. I've never heard of the vineyard though I can see how the name could be easily confused with the award winning Raymond Winery in Napa Valley. But wait, This one says on the bottle that it was cellared and bottled in Napa?

OK, That sold me on the bottle as I knew Raymond Winery was from Napa. The back label has a basic and generic description of what the wine will taste like and the types of food it should go with. Standard stuff like "Perfect with hearty beef stews, grilled chicken salad and a pork loin". That pretty much covers the whole 9 yards for this little Merlot.

After opening the bottle we let it rest for a few minutes to breath and let the wine mingle with the air and get cozy. At first whiff of it you definitely smell black cherries and not much else. You really need to let this wine open up for at least 15 to 20 minutes or more and then approach it again. You will be pleasantly rewarded by this $4.99 bottle of wine as it really starts to come alive. yes you can smell and taste some cherry and a hint of smoke with a a little creamy chocolate as well. It has a very nice well rounded palette and a soft mouth coating tannin feel to it. No this will never pass for an Actual wine from the Raymond Winery. But for every day drinkability. This wine gets the foodopolis good deal approval rating.





Michael

Petco Park Hot dog - San Diego Ca

Ahhh, the Bark Park, Home of my San Diego Padres and one of the most beautiful baseball stadiums in the country, Petco Park. I have been a Padre fan since I can remember. And I know that the San Diego Padres are the West Coast equvilants to the Chicago Cubs. You know what I mean. Both teams will always come close to the big show but neither has a real shot at winning, ever.
The big difference is at least Chicago has better dogs than Petco. Heck, even 7 Eleven has better dogs than Petco. Too bad. When you think of baseball you think of sun, hot dogs and beer. The dog defines the stadium. Can you imagine Dodger stadium without a Dodger dog? Or Yankee stadium without a Nathan's hot dog. The hot dog is the heart and soul of a baseball stadium. It is something to long for as an adult when thinking back to those dog days of summer sitting in the afternoon sun as a kid and watching the all American sport of baseball.

As we sat in our seats both Sue and I wondered ( because for some reason we never asked) Who actually made the dogs for Petco Park. And it was then that she spotted the tell tale sign on the main score board. Could it be so? Oh say it ain't so. But there it was, that sign on the board.

wienerschnitzel! Oh the humanity. the heartbreak and the shame of it all. If so it would be the equivalent of seeing a modern day group of hardcore looking Harley riders zoom by you and then finding out they are just a group of Proctologists trying to look cool. But there it was.

We had to find out for the good of baseball we had to know. We strolled up to the hot dog vendors window and ordered two beers and two dogs. And yes the menu proudly proclaimed for all of the baseball world to see the name Weinerschnitzel. the Fisher Price of the hot dog world. "Look mommy, it's my Fisher Price first hot dog" shot through my brain as we took our dogs to the condiment table where we promptly dissected them.

It looked perfect. too perfect. it laid on the bun like a waxen effigy of Pamela Anderson. Looked great. But you knew it couldn't be real. No blemishes, no grill marks, no hot doggy juice running from it. A perfect looking OC Desperate looking trophy housewife.

I loaded mine with the usual stuff, Yellow mustard, Ketchup, Dill pickle relish and you can only find these at a Southern California stadium. Jalapenos! an absolute must on a grilled dog.

It looked better now. We raced back to our seats to watch the game and take a bite of these dogs. Great game by the way, Padres vs Giants.

Just one bite and I knew I had received a lump of coal for Christmas on this one. No taste, luke warm, no pop of the skin, no verve, no panache, Nada...........The hot dog was invented by the people for the people and of the people. This was a very watered down non threatening homogenized, overly thought over mishmash of politically correct ideas that not only puts the hot dog eating public to shame, but it leaves my beloved Padres home stadium without a soul.

But in the end Trevor Hoffman came in to save the day for the Padres, But he can't save the hot dog day.

Better bet is to get the sushi and a fruit cup and get on your Harley and ride out into the sunset to your next roid operation.

Chow

Michael

Hoffy's Mean lean dog

We received an email last week asking if our staff here at the foodopilis test kitchen would like to try the newest hot dog from Hoffy. Of course we said "yes!" being fans of the company that makes the dogs for Pinks, Chronis and Cupids.

What else could we say. The product is an interesting one. An extra lean hot dog? The normal caloric count on a regular dog is around 170 calories with around 130 of them from fat!

This new dog from Hoffy comes in at 45 calories with 20 calories coming from fat! Could it be any good? The free dogs for sampling came with no strings attached. No mention of can you give them a good review or any mention of writing them up at all. We gathered the crew together and grilled a few off. You have to grill hot dogs to get that full summertime backyard BBQ taste and let all that fat in the dogs juice out. The big question was of course how would these taste and being so low in fat. How would they cook up? would they plump and have that fat sizzle out during cooking like a normal dog? After all in the food world the rule of thumb is no fat, no fun.

We also received a couple of packages of Hoffy's new 1/4 pound lean hot dogs.

These guys calorie wise weighed in at 110 calories with 45 coming from fat!! Cousin Joe added that These things had to be the equivalent of trying a Regular Coke and then drinking a Diet Coke. Both completely different products with completely different tastes. Could these even taste like a hot dog? As you can tell by the photo they plumped up and the casing cracked when grilled. and hang on here. Juice dripping out of them like a regular dog?

So far we were impressed. We stood around the backyard grill staring and poking them as if they were a new alien life form recently discovered.

We had the basic hot dog accoutrement's. Only yellow mustard, Dill pickle relish and Ketchup. Tasting crew consisted of eight people ranging in age from 16 on up.

We dove into them. I started out with a 1/4 pounder and I

immediately noticed after the first bite that it was juicy and had the texture and feel of an actual hot dog! I was very surprised indeed. A nice hot doggy feel to it. not mushy and cardboard tasting. It actually had some nice spices in it. A bit of smoke essence in them as well. and it tasted like a HOT DOG! No Regular Coke vs Diet Coke syndrome going on here. this dog you can put on a table and no one would or could tell the difference between these superb hot dogs and any other off the supermarket shelf brand. This to be sure is not a gourmet dog. And won't be replacing your Hebrew Nationals. But for those every weekend kids by the pool summertime feeling grillin and chillin days. these dogs will reign supreme. And your waistline and cardiologist will love them to.

I was definitely ready to give these dogs to the dog if they weren't any good. But after one taste. We gave her the Oscar Myers we had instead.

She was as happy with those as we were with ours.

Nice job on the dogs. We will definitely add them to our weekend grilling festivities.

Chow

Michael

La Casa Blanca - La Mesa Ca

I feel like Martin Sheen from Apocalypse Now, Or in my case. Tacolypse Now. "I'm still in the jungle and it's been 5 days since my last good restaurant meal". Ugh. I hate writing bad reviews. And especially at a place that I really like and go to regularly. It brings up the moral question of, You know a place is good and you go there a lot. So they have an off day. Do you have to write about it? Answer. Unfortunately .....yes. Oh the Horror, The horror of it all. OK, enough of the Tacolypse Now stuff.

La Casa Blanca used to be one of the oldest restaurants in San Diego. The original one, and Not affiliated with this new one. Was an institution in San Diego since the 1920's. It closed down a few years ago and now it's a funeral home located across the street from St. Martins Catholic Church in La Mesa. The new iteration of this fine establishment is owned and operated by a gentleman like me who had been a great fan of the original place. He liked it so much he named his own restaurant after the original. The dinners here are superb and bring back memories of the original place. Spices are right on and flavors are all there. But today we went for an early lunch. We arrived at the place around 11:15am. And were seated promptly. Not many people in the place. When our menus arrived it seemed that we were to early yet for the lunch and dinner menu, that menu started at noon. we could only order from the breakfast menu. The visions of Chili Verde and garlic infused shrimp chili rellanos quickly disappeared into a sea of waffles and machaca burritos. Well we were already seated and were hungry. We tried to order things that looked lunchy on the menu. Enchiladas Verde $6.95 looked promising as well as the Machaca burrito with potatoes $4.95and the two beef tacos with rice also $4.95.

Enchiladas Verde looked good when it came out. Nice fluffy rice, very tasty with a very slight saffrony garlic background. Beans, Well. what can you really do wrong with a can of refries?

The Enchiladas you could immediately tell the reason why they were on special. Must have been leftover chicken from the night before. completely dried out and lifeless. Like Phyllis Diller laying by a pool in Palm Springs swaddled in a green towel.

Surprising very tough to cut through the corn tortilla. Not very much taste. But they were amply stuffed with chicken though. Strike one.

The Machaca Burrito on the other hand looked promising. Filled up nicely with a mixture of machaca and eggs, with a side of some excellent looking fried potato's with peppers. The machaca unfortunately had no taste and no spices what so ever in it. Flour tortilla cold and hard. To easy to add a joke to that line. Lots of filling in this burrito but just didn't work. Some spice would be nice here. Strike two!

The last plate we ordered was the two beef tacos with rice. Another dish that looked good at first glance like RuPaul at two AM in Soho. But like that vision after further review the vision just didn't hold up. Our tacos were filled with the same dried and seemingly burned bottom of the pan leftovers similar in texture to the chicken above.

Not a good time was had here today. Need to find good eats somewhere soon. Moral of this story is. this place is still very much worth seeking out and eating. At nights and on weekends they have a lovely woman making handmade tortillas and the food is very reasonable and of above average quality. And then you can wander into the Charcoal House next door and watch the karaoke people. Just don't come here for breakfast!

Even Tardo the culinary reviewing cat got bored with the leftovers I brought back. Or is that canary reviewing cat?

La Casa Blanca

9570 Murray Drive

La Mesa Ca

Chow

Michael

Mahi Mahi

So the dare was on. To see if the staff at foodopolis could make the dish I had at Olives in Las Vegas better than what was served. One on the top, the Mahi Mahi plate from the restaurant. $42.00. And below, Our version. $4.00 per serving. We at the foodopolis test kitchen had the same ingredient list as the Todd English version. We had pan fried polenta, carmalized carrots and butter braized prawns. Instead of the "Spice Market Sauce" we added a Mango salsa with some Wasabi mayonaise we whipped up.

I think that if you are going to use the name Mahi Mahi on your menu you should make the dish a little tropical. I mean after all Mahi Mahi is the Hawaiian name for this species of fish known as Dolphin fish or Dorado. I know that Mahi Mahi is more of an appealing name than Dolphin fish and I would bet you wouldn't get as many orders if you called it a dolphin. and also would have to answer a heck of a lot of questions like. "Is that really dolphin on your menu?"

Anyway, Just my thoughts.

Our version had a lot of tastes and textures going on. Fresh mango with diced jalapenos, Key lime juice and red onions for the salsa and just a simple mayonnaise concoction with wasabi whipped into it. We braised the prawns in butter and a small amount of garlic. Just to mix up the flavors a little. I will write down the individual recipes for our version soon.

I don't really mean to sound so negative about a really fine chef as Mr. English. But I firmly believe that if you go to an expensive or any restaurant that has a chef. It is the duty of that chef to tickle your taste buds and give you something that would be hard to duplicate at home. It can either be done with simple or elaborate ingredients as long as it works together. You just can't rely on your location for long term business. But then again. If your restaurant is at the Bellagio Casino and Resort in Las Vegas. Maybe location is everything after all?

Michael

Olives - Bellagio Las Vegas

Had been a fan of Chef Todd English for awhile now. One of only a handful of creative Chefs I admire. So it was a given that we would eat at his newest Las Vegas venture Olives at the Bellagio Resort and Casino. One of my favorite hotels on the strip. And like most of the "celebrity chef" restaurants here in Vegas, it has a casual dress code and environment. Another one of those places to be seen at. What ever. We just go for the food. I had been here on another occasion a few months ago and it was superb. I had Lamb with parpadelle pasta . No longer on the menu. The evening started out with my companion and I having been seated in what would have to be the best seat in the house. The restaurant has an outdoor eating area that overlooks the Fountains at the Bellagio. And every 15 minutes or so. The music starts and the fountains light up and dance.

With the Eiffel Tower from the Paris Hotel right behind them. We thought nothing could go wrong. The staff were very attentive and menus brought out and drinks were ordered up. I had the Negroni Martini. Hot day, nice cold martini to start off dinner with. It had been a thunder and lightening show all day in Vegas. Hot and balmy with no let up in sight.

We started our dining experience this evening with the Boston Bibb Salad
shaved white onions, toasted walnut dressing, Maytag Blue cheese.....$12.00. I have to tell you it was not very impressive. First, not only were the onions shaved, But the Maytag Blue cheese was shaved by what must have been one of those new five blade shavers. No taste of that distinct flavor that this world class cheese exhibits. What was shaved on the plate tasted more like Queso Fresco. you know the stuff they put on your rolled tacos. I know that a little of a strong

flavored food goes a long way in fine dining and that you just want to introduce the nuances of a distinct flavor as not to overpower. But this took it a little to far. Bland and sad. maybe like the price for a barrel of oil the price for Maytag blue has gone up as well.

In looking over the menu I noticed that not only was my favorite lamb dish gone. But it seem to be that they had paired down the beef and lamb section entirely. Todd English has always been known for his ability to create very succulent meat dishes. And now. at least at Olive's they are no more. More of a California style menu now. Lot's of fish and pasta's. Not there is anything wrong with that. To the contrary. What it really boils down to is this. If you are known for one style and then change to another. You had better be able to pull it off.

OK, Having said that I ordered the Pan Seared Mahi Mahi honey white polenta, baby carrots, butter braised giant prawns, spice market sauce. $42.00 on the menu.

I thought the presentation was horrible, everything just piled up on high. Can't see the Prawns and the carrots. All piled on a rectangle of fried polenta. I even tried turning the dish around so I could get a better shot thinking that the server just put the plate down upside down. I must say though that the Mahi Mahi was cooked to perfection. 30 seconds more and it would not have been so moist and tender. As were the carrots and prawns. No flavor though? It had what was described as "Spice market sauce" listed in the menu? I guess the "Spice Market" was closed this day. No sauce over the fish or spice, just that, "I just cut myself "looking bleeding drips of something all over the plate.I count 9 drops of that special sauce on the plate. Maybe trendy, but not to the palette. No spice other than lot's of butter taste for the carrots and prawns. The only flavor compliment on this dish were the radish sprouts.

My business associate had the Butternut Squash Tortelli brown butter, sage, parmesan cheese $23.00. The presentation on this one was in my opinion even worse than my plate. It looked like some kind of animal had gotten sick on the plate. The Tortelli just laid there.

The pasta was cooked to perfection though and had a great texture to it. nice and smooth and creamy. The filling was almost inedible. It was very very sweet. This could be served as a desert dish and not an entree. sprinkle some powdered sugar on it and throw a cherry or two on top. Not savory at all. The butternut squash naturally has a high sugar content in it. and by carmalizing it in the cooking process it really starts to come through. Could never recommend this dish.

Maybe we will hit a winner with the actual desert? We ordered up Olives version of the classic and still one of my favorites. Creme Brulee. A simple but elegant dish. The one on the menu had a twist. Creme Brulee made with Myer lemons and topped with lemon curd and seasonal berries.

Also with Biscotti with pine nuts. ymmmy. The actual Creme Brulee was vary good. And the Myer lemon was excellent in this dish. Overkill on the lemon curd on top. The berries added a nice compliment as well. The cookies were a little to dense and tough for my taste.

Over all I don't think I will be back to this place. Too pricy and not enough panache in it's flavors and plate styling. The trend in Las Vegas has been for the last few years is to attract as many high profile chefs as it can. Todd English being one of them. But at least make it something worth while to go to and especially for the cost. What's next? Rick Bayless opening a Taco Bell at the Venetian?

Olives Las Vegas

Bellagio Hotel

Chow

Michael