Bunkety, Bunk, Bunk

5/29/05

We ate lunch today at Bunk, it’s damn good! We’ve eaten there twice this month and I think I could order anything and would love it. I’ve now tried the Pork Belly Ruben, the Roast Pork sandwich, the Pulled Pork and Apple Coleslaw, and the delicious Italian Cured Meats sandwich. All of them are good, but so far my favorite is the Italian Cured Meats. Also, I always get a pickle. They’re made locally at Picklopolis, good pickles, check out their website.
I worked with Tommy Habetz briefly at Genoa and had always found him full of good and innovative ideas. As a cook it was apparent that he had a lot of knowledge and experience, and a real understanding of how things work, food wise. He moved onto work with Ripe/The Gotham Tavern, and I think he was one of the first local chefs I knew of making his own Prosciutto. He then was involved with Apizza Scholls, Meriwether’s, and now Bunk Sandwiches partnered with Nick Wood. I'm sure there is a more complete cooking history of Tommy online, but that's how I know him.
Tommy and Nick make a mean sandwich, and a good sandwich is not so easy to make. By a good sandwich I mean one which everyone would love (everyone = 90%) ;). A good sandwich has to have the right bread, the right ingredients, the right amount of ingredients, good flavor, not overly dressed, not too dry, not too chewy or unwieldy. There’s a lot of factors that come into play. I’ve been working on my own version of a Vietnamese Banh mi sandwich for a couple weeks now, and it takes a lot of fussing until you have something you would be proud of.
Tommy and Nick have hit the nail on the head with Bunk and you just have to look at the line of people waiting to get in to know that something good is happening inside. You can expect to wait 15 minutes or so to order, but it doesn’t take long to get your food.
I hear that they are opening a second place which is exciting, but I don’t know anything. Tommy is always so busy when I go in there I don’t want to bug him with questions. I’ll call him one of these mornings and ask. If you know, post it here.

Go, buy their sandwiches, eat them, and be happy!

The Geek Chef

Holy Kakow!

5/19/09

I bought a really nice product today, a bag of cocoa powder from Holy Kakow, a local company making cocoa powder and chocolate syrups. Their products are organic and sourced from single origin, direct trade suppliers.
I needed some cocoa to bake a couple of tart shells so I stopped by Sheridan on my way home. I admit it was the packaging that caught, and held my eye. It was too cool looking not to buy. Something about it looked very now, and I wanted to try it. I didn’t realize until later that they are a local company, and I felt a tiny bit of envy. One of my sub-fantasies is to run a small scale local chocolate production kitchen starting from raw cacao, but that’s another story…
When I got home, I unpacked the groceries and reached for the bag of cocoa. I unzipped it and said, wow! It was such a nice, rich, earthy, and heady aroma, I just stood and inhaled it for a while, then passed it to the rest of the family to smell. It was good!
I baked my tart shells using their cocoa, and my house is filled with the delicious scent. Nice job guys! It smells so good, I’m excited!
I want to interview the two guys that run Holy Kakow, and see their production plant, and take pics. In the meantime, check out their website, they list where they sell it, and buy their cocoa and taste for yourself.



The Geek Chef

Kenny & Zukes

5/8/09

I have been meaning to get to Kenny and Zukes delicatessen for months and months and finally went today. My wife and I had already checked out their menu online the night before and knew what we were going to order. As always when we actually get to a restaurant we start smelling and looking and want to order everything and end up altering our original idea.
We ordered a Caesar salad, a pastrami Reuben with Russian dressing, coleslaw, a side of fries, a sarsaparilla soda, and a cherry cola. This came to roughly $30, not a cheap eat considering it was basically a sandwich, a salad, and fries. On the other hand we split everything but our drinks because the portions are huge. For a less expensive alternative, their happy hour is ideal. From 3-6, Monday-Friday you can get scaled down versions of regular menu items at about half the cost. When I say scaled down I mean you can actually finish what you order.
The first thing I noticed when I walked in their door was the wonderful smell of house smoked meats, man I love that smell! It always fills my head with plans to fire up the smoker at home and smoke a brisket or pork or something.
The space is nice, roomy, and clean, and the service was good.

The food…
I’ll keep it simple, we went for the sandwich, and the sandwich was good. When we ordered the classic Reuben, we didn’t realize it wasn’t grilled until it came to the table. We asked to have it grilled and they took care of it. It’s all about the smoked meat, very tasty! I have to say that even though I read their philosophy on hand slicing their meat ¼ inch thick, I really prefer brisket to be sliced thinner unless I’m planning to eat it with a fork and knife. My thing about sandwiches is that I don’t want to rebuild my sandwich every time I take a bite. Its one thing to have so many ingredients on a sandwich that you just can’t keep them all in, but it’s another thing when every bite pulls out the main ingredient.
I loved the mix of Russian dressing and gooey melted cheese dripping and running all over. Also, the house made pickle was good, nice and crisp.

I was happy to hear that they bake their own bread there, and it works for what they do. I really like seeing restaurants that produce more of their own, unless outsourcing provides a better product, plus I used to be a baker in a restaurant and there’s some nostalgia in it for me I think.
The coleslaw… Personally I found it somewhat soggy, bland, and lacking character, but I’m opinionated about coleslaw. I like coleslaw, I make a lot of coleslaw and I eat a lot of coleslaw. It’s one of those items I always want to try if a restaurant has it on the menu because it’s a dish that is essentially simple, with a minimum amount of ingredients; therefore it is up to a cook’s skill to make it delicious.

In the end I was very full, and there is no way I could have eaten a full sandwich with sides, but I did finish the rest of my wife’s half. I didn’t want any of that smoky brisket to go to waste.
Would I go again, sure I would, there’s another sandwich, or two I would like to try.
Would I recommend it, yes I would. I think it has an appeal that pleases many, and it would be a good family meal spot for breakfast, brunch, or lunch.
They have a great sounding breakfast, and I’m definitely down with the happy hour.

Critiques, Reviews, and Etc...

As I am beginning to write material for the Geek Chef I find myself internally defining my stance, or reason for writing, and the approach which I prefer to use.
I’m not particularly interested in being a food critic, we have plenty of those. At the same time it’s almost impossible for me not to critique what I eat because I am so immersed in the food world. It is what I love, what I do, and how I make a living. How I do things, how I would do things, and why others do things the way they do as far as cooking or creating a dining experience are themes always running through my head, well a good deal of the time anyway.
My wife and I play a fantasy game of, “when we open our restaurant”, and “our restaurant will be like…”. It’s an odd dream that may or may not come true. I think it must radiate from us though because when we go out to eat we seem to meet a lot of restaurant owners that end up talking to us about buying their restaurant…
Anyway, my main objective really is to try to connect people to good food, and not so much about writing reviews. So for the main, I will usually write about things I like, and not so much about things I don’t like, unless something has really gotten under my skin, or I feel that there is some illustration in traveling down that particular path.

Evoe & Sumac

Recently I went to Evoe on Hawthorne for a lunchtime snack. I like to stop in and chit chat with Kevin Gibson while I eat, and I have always enjoyed his food whether it was at Genoa, Castagna, or his current place of cookerie, Evoe.
He suggested I have the lamb crepinette. A crepinette is a small flattened sausage, usually made with ground or minced pork, lamb, veal, or chicken. It is typically wrapped in caul fat and sauteed in a skillet. Caul fat is the fatty web like membrane which surrounds the internal organs of a cow, sheep, or pig. It’s usually pork caul fat that I find available.
As a cooking ingredient, the primary purpose of caul fat is to lend it’s fat to keeping the wrapped meat moist, plus adding another flavor element.
He served the 2 crepinette with an aioli, watercress, and suggested a good Belgian Beer. The crepinette were succulent containing slices of local black truffles and mint, but there was a flavor I couldn’t place. There was a certain sharp acidity which combined with the mint reminded me of tarragon. I asked Kevin if there was tarragon in them, and he said no, they had the spice Sumac in them. Sumac? I couldn’t recall ever having heard of this spice.

Sumac:
The spice comes from the berries of a wild bush that grows wild in all Mediterranean areas, especially in Sicily and southern Italy, and parts of the Middle East, notably Iran. It is an essential ingredient in Arabic cooking, being preferred to lemon for sourness and astringency.
The whole fruit appears in dense clusters. Individual berries are small, round, 10 mm (1/4”) in diameter, russet coloured and covered with hairs. The bouquet is slightly aromatic, and the flavor is sour, fruity and astringent.The berries can be dried and ground into a purple-red powder, then sprinkled into the cooking, or macerated in hot water and mashed to release their juice, the resulting liquid being used as one might use lemon juice.

Sumac is used widely in cookery in Arabia, Turkey and the Levant, and especially in Lebanese cuisine. In these areas it is a major souring agent, used where other regions would employ lemon, tamarind or vinegar. It is rubbed onto kebabs before grilling and may be used in this way with fish or chicken. The juice extracted from sumac is popular in salad dressings and marinades and the powdered form is used in stews and vegetable and chicken casseroles. “The seed of Sumach eaten in sauces with meat, stoppeth all manner of fluxes of the belly...” (Gerard, 1597) A mixture of yogurt and sumac is often served with kebabs. Zather is a blend of sumac and thyme use to flavour labni, a cream cheese made from yogurt.


After this bit of research I realized I had likely tasted it before in Lebanese food and not known what it was, mostly because I rarely cook Middle Eastern food. I assumed that the acidity I tasted there was from lemon.

If you’re interested in purchasing some Sumac to play around with, you can find it here in town at Penzey’s Spices or Barbur World Foods.



The Geek Chef

Broccolini, Rapini, or Broccoli Rabe?

I have always loved eating, cooking, discussing food and drink, collecting recipes, and learning food facts and history, but mostly eating and cooking. I love being asked food and cooking questions because I truly enjoy sharing what little I do know, and searching for information I don’t know. Now and then I get a question that leaves me stumped, and I’m left answerless. This is a good reality check, and reminds me that there are always new things to learn, or rediscover, and it’s somewhat humbling.

As a case in point, I was recently serving an entrée accompanied by Broccolini and a diner asked the difference between Broccoli Rabe, Broccolini, and Rapini. For all the Broccolini, Broccoli Rabe or Rapini I have either prepped, cooked, or eaten, I couldn’t recall which one was related to broccoli, and the differences between them geneally.

I promissed my diner that I would have the answer for them the next day, and went home and did my homework.

Here is what I found:

Broccolini is a green vegetable not unlike broccoli with small florets and long, thin stalks. Although often misidentified as young broccoli, it is a cross between broccoli and kai-lan, Chinese broccoli. A natural hybrid of the cabbage family Brassica oleracea. Broccolini's flavor is sweet, with notes of both broccoli and asparagus.

Broccolini is also known by the name Asparation, Asparations, Bimi, and Tender Stem. It was introduced in Mexico in 1994 and first brought into the U.S. market in 1996. They grow the vegetable year round in California and Arizona. Today, you can find broccolini throughout the United States and Canada.
The entire vegetable is consumable, including the occasional yellow flower. Rather delicate, common cooking methods include sauteing, steaming, boiling, and stir frying.
Nutritionally, broccolini is high in vitamin C but also contains vitamin A, calcium, folate and iron.

Rapini (also known as Broccoli Rabe (or Raab), Broccoletti, Broccoli di Rape, Cime di Rapa, Rappi, Friarielli (in Naples), and Grelos) is a common vegetable in Galician, Chinese, Italian, and Portuguese cuisine. The plant is a member of the Brassiceae tribe of the Brassicaceae, whose taxonomy is very difficult. Rapini is classified scientifically as Brassica rapa subspecies rapa, in the same subspecies as the turnip, but has had various other designations, including Brassica rapa ruvo, Brassica rapa rapifera, Brassica ruvo, Brassica campestris ruvo.

Rapini has many spiked leaves that surround a green bud which looks very similar to a small head of broccoli. There may be small yellow flowers blooming from the buds, which are edible.

The flavor of Rapini has been described as nutty, bitter, and pungent. The Italian cultivar is similar to, but much more bitter than, the Chinese. The Chinese cultivar is of a lighter green color, not at all bitter or pungent, and more tender.
Rapini is a source of vitamins A, C, and K, as well as potassium, calcium, and iron.
The vegetable probably descends from a wild herb, a relative of the turnip, that grew either in China or the Mediterranean region. It is similar in shape to the Chinese Brassica oleracea cultivar called kai-lan.
Rapini is now grown throughout the world. Rapini is available all year long, but its peak season is fall to spring in the Northern Hemisphere.
Rapini is commonly used in traditional Barese and southern Italian cuisine.

The Geek Chef

Why The Geek Chef...

My idea for starting The Geek Chef blog was to create a place to start collecting the nuts and bolts of cooking, the details, the minutia, and less of a concern about specific recipes.
There are hundreds of websites available to find recipes for anything you want to cook, and while the discussion and exchange of recipes is definitely welcome here, my particular interest as a cook is, how you can guarantee that every time you cook something, it’s delicious.
How do I make it delicious every time, I think that is a question most cooks must ask themselves? We may think that the answer is in a different recipe, a different selection of herbs or spices, or better quality ingredients. While these options will affect a different outcome, they don’t necessarily guarantee a better final dish.
The key lies in understanding what we are cooking, and how best to treat it. Experience will bring knowledge of how best to treat a particular item say, pot roast, or biscuits, or tripe, or what have you, but I’ve found that unless you are making a particular dish repeatedly and regularly it’s difficult to understand it. If we possess an underlying understanding of how things work, then we can translate it to a variety of different situations or ingredients.
That being said, I am not particularly interested in chemistry, but it does sometimes help explain what is going on when we are cooking, and what the optimal conditions are to get good results. For me, cooking is all about people, we cook to eat, we eat to live. I have seen that the discussion of food and cooking can become so intellectual that we lose touch with what we are discussing, but at the end of the day, you can’t eat your words, so I think we should try to keep it on the plate. ;)
Again, I hope The Geek Chef will be a place to discuss the details of cooking, the theory and practice, ingredients, techniques and tools, but also, experiences, questions and answers, interviews and articles.
Just as an aside… I am not a writer, or a blogger, I am a cook. So please be patient with me while I figure out how this all works. If you any questions or suggestions, or anything that doesn’t quite fit into the format here, email me and we’ll figure it out.

The Geek Chef