Being rather more fond of meat than the next guy, I’m always up for a good rodízio. And outside of Brazil, the king of them all surely must be Sabor Mineiro, near Lisbon.
The hot and cold buffet has a truly astounding array of offerings—many just make that their meal. Over a dozen hot dishes, two or three times as many cold offerings, soups, and, of course, some stellar pão de queijo (cheese “bread”—heavenly little balls more like a cross between a roll and a popover). The rodízio portion (where guys bring huge skewers of meat to your table and cut you off slices until you tell them to stop) includes more varieties of meats than I’ve seen anywhere. Some of the items I hadn’t seen before: cupim (meat from the bump just behind the cow’s neck), and beef “com queijo”—slices from a big hunk of meat larded with globs of cheese which ooze out of it in an almost obscene fashion. Everything is of the highest quality, and you can eat your fill for about €20.
Although there is a location in Lisbon proper, word is that this is the location to go to. With a modicum of adventurousness, it’s a fun trip. From Lisbon, take either the ferry to Cacilhas or the Fertagus train (which crosses the Tejo river via the 25 de Abril bridge) and pick up bus 126 (to Marisol) or 127 (to Fonte da Telha) to Charneca da Caparica… ask the driver to let you know when to get off—everyone knows where it is. Slightly less fun, but more direct would be to catch the bus 159 (to Marisol) from Praça de Espanha in Lisbon.
Sabor Mineiro
Avenida Elias Garcia 992
2820-222 Charneca da Caparica, Portugal
(+351) 21 297 34 07
website
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Restaurante Cabrita
One of the most pleasant ways to spend an evening when one is in Lisbon is to head to Cais do Sodré and hop on the ferry across the Tejo to Cacilhas… it’s an easy, 10-minute ride. Once there, head to the restaurants (not the ones right on the water—they’re not so great and rather overpriced). By the time you’ve taken 50 steps, you’ll begin to smell the charcoal grills, but do not be seduced by the first restaurants you pass. Instead, continue up Rua Cândido dos Reis to no. 87, Restaurante Cabrita.
I lived in Lisbon for a few years in the ‘90’s, and this is one of the tiny handful of restaurants among my favorites at that time that is just as good now as it was then. They continue to expertly prepare fresh, quality ingredients. House specialties include arroz de marisco (rice with seafood) and arroz de tamboril (rice with monkfish). And of course, since Cacilhas is essentially a fishing village, it’s impossible to go wrong with grilled fish. But my favorite dish here is massa de peixe.
This dish is virtually unknown outside of Portugal: it’s a stew of fish and macaroni in a fish stock (seasoned with the barest hint of tomato, sage, and, if I’m not mistaken, a pinch of saffron, too), cilantro, and a shrimp or two tossed in for good measure.
Sounds a little weird, but it’s divine. And it's marvelous with a few drops of their house-made piri-piri (hot sauce).
Ask for a chouriço assado (chouriço grilled on charcoal) as an appetizer—it’s superb.
The grilled chocos (cuttlefish) are great, and they serve up the best sardinhas assadas (grilled sardines) you’ll get in a restaurant anywhere. If bacalhau com natas (a gratin of dried codfish, potatoes, onions and cream) is one of the daily specials, grab it--it’s probably the best version of it I’ve ever had. Considering the high quality of their offerings, the prices are eminently reasonable.
Restaurante Cabrita
Rua Cândido dos Reis, 87
Cacilhas 2800-270 Almada, Portugal
(+351) 21 275 17 80
I lived in Lisbon for a few years in the ‘90’s, and this is one of the tiny handful of restaurants among my favorites at that time that is just as good now as it was then. They continue to expertly prepare fresh, quality ingredients. House specialties include arroz de marisco (rice with seafood) and arroz de tamboril (rice with monkfish). And of course, since Cacilhas is essentially a fishing village, it’s impossible to go wrong with grilled fish. But my favorite dish here is massa de peixe.
This dish is virtually unknown outside of Portugal: it’s a stew of fish and macaroni in a fish stock (seasoned with the barest hint of tomato, sage, and, if I’m not mistaken, a pinch of saffron, too), cilantro, and a shrimp or two tossed in for good measure.
Sounds a little weird, but it’s divine. And it's marvelous with a few drops of their house-made piri-piri (hot sauce).
Ask for a chouriço assado (chouriço grilled on charcoal) as an appetizer—it’s superb.
The grilled chocos (cuttlefish) are great, and they serve up the best sardinhas assadas (grilled sardines) you’ll get in a restaurant anywhere. If bacalhau com natas (a gratin of dried codfish, potatoes, onions and cream) is one of the daily specials, grab it--it’s probably the best version of it I’ve ever had. Considering the high quality of their offerings, the prices are eminently reasonable.
Restaurante Cabrita
Rua Cândido dos Reis, 87
Cacilhas 2800-270 Almada, Portugal
(+351) 21 275 17 80
Gösser Bierklinik
The other restaurant I visited multiple times during my recent sojourn in Vienna was the Gösser Bierklinik. Situated on a quiet cobbled street near the Stephansdom, it’s one of those places that feels suspended in time, and the food is classic Viennese.
I wish I had been able to try everything on the menu, but what I did get was uniformly excellent. The Bauernschmaus was a festival of pork products—roast pork, a piece of smoked pork, roasted bacon, and sausages—on a bed of beautifully-done, almost sweet, sauerkraut, with a Semmelknödel thrown in for good measure. It made me very happy indeed. Fiakergulasch was the best goulash I have had in over a decade, served with boiled potatoes, a grilled sausage, a fried egg, and a sliced pickle—a deeply satisfying plate of food. And the house beer is, obviously, the classic Gösser: not quite up there on Parnassus with the great Munich lagers, but damn close.
Gösser Bierklinik
Steindlgasse 4, 1010 Wien, Austria
(+43) 1 533 75 98 12
website
I wish I had been able to try everything on the menu, but what I did get was uniformly excellent. The Bauernschmaus was a festival of pork products—roast pork, a piece of smoked pork, roasted bacon, and sausages—on a bed of beautifully-done, almost sweet, sauerkraut, with a Semmelknödel thrown in for good measure. It made me very happy indeed. Fiakergulasch was the best goulash I have had in over a decade, served with boiled potatoes, a grilled sausage, a fried egg, and a sliced pickle—a deeply satisfying plate of food. And the house beer is, obviously, the classic Gösser: not quite up there on Parnassus with the great Munich lagers, but damn close.
Gösser Bierklinik
Steindlgasse 4, 1010 Wien, Austria
(+43) 1 533 75 98 12
website
7 Stern Bräu
Just yesterday I finished up a week in Vienna, Austria, where I had almost no free time to do any exploring. Luckily, the charming fellow at the Hotel Mercure Secession directed me to 7 Stern Bräu, in the Neubau neighborhood, my first night in town… it was so good, I returned twice that week.
Their Käsespätzle mit Speck (cheese spätzle with cream and bacon) is easily the best spätzle I’ve ever had… if you’re the least bit inclined, get it! Knoblauchrahmsuppe (garlic cream soup) was wonderful, and the bratwurst with sauerkraut was everything it should be. Everyone seemed to be getting the klassische Spareribs (ribs grilled with freshly minced garlic) and for good reason… the small portion—you can trust me on this—is enough for the heartiest of appetites. The excellent house beer comes in a dizzying array of varieties.
My last night there, I espied another pork specialty of the house, the gegrillte Schweinsstelze, a large grilled pig knuckle for two. I plan on getting it the first night of my next trip to Vienna.
7 Stern Bräu
Siebensterngasse 19, 1070 Wien, Austria
(+43) 1 523 86 97
website
Their Käsespätzle mit Speck (cheese spätzle with cream and bacon) is easily the best spätzle I’ve ever had… if you’re the least bit inclined, get it! Knoblauchrahmsuppe (garlic cream soup) was wonderful, and the bratwurst with sauerkraut was everything it should be. Everyone seemed to be getting the klassische Spareribs (ribs grilled with freshly minced garlic) and for good reason… the small portion—you can trust me on this—is enough for the heartiest of appetites. The excellent house beer comes in a dizzying array of varieties.
My last night there, I espied another pork specialty of the house, the gegrillte Schweinsstelze, a large grilled pig knuckle for two. I plan on getting it the first night of my next trip to Vienna.
7 Stern Bräu
Siebensterngasse 19, 1070 Wien, Austria
(+43) 1 523 86 97
website
Lark's Hand Car Wash & Bar-B-Que
Recently, I was on a gig in southwest Michigan. It had been a few days, and I was beginning to think there was no really good, honest food in the area at all when Paul finally took me to Lark’s. I went back every day the rest of the time I was there.
Barbecue and soul food is what they do here, and it’s all fabulous. The best introduction to their art is the Pig on a Bun: a peerless sandwich of pulled pork. Jerk chicken is also stellar (I’m a huge fan of the dark meat)—not exactly what one might expect if one is familiar with Jamaican jerk chicken, but the barbecued chicken with a spicy dry rub is pretty stupendous on its own terms. As is the homemade spicy Polish dog—get it with onions and barbecue sauce (the house sauce is good and vinegary, not too sweet, and spicy enough to be really interesting). Curiously, the only thing I tried that was less than top-notch was the ribs… they were just a tad dry. But the country-style ribs were tender, juicy, boneless chunks of utter deliciousness.
If you go, say hello to Marilyn Lark, a former Queens resident and a great lady.
Lark & Sons Car Wash & Bar-B-Que
174 W. Main St., Benton Harbor, MI 49022
269-926-9833
Barbecue and soul food is what they do here, and it’s all fabulous. The best introduction to their art is the Pig on a Bun: a peerless sandwich of pulled pork. Jerk chicken is also stellar (I’m a huge fan of the dark meat)—not exactly what one might expect if one is familiar with Jamaican jerk chicken, but the barbecued chicken with a spicy dry rub is pretty stupendous on its own terms. As is the homemade spicy Polish dog—get it with onions and barbecue sauce (the house sauce is good and vinegary, not too sweet, and spicy enough to be really interesting). Curiously, the only thing I tried that was less than top-notch was the ribs… they were just a tad dry. But the country-style ribs were tender, juicy, boneless chunks of utter deliciousness.
If you go, say hello to Marilyn Lark, a former Queens resident and a great lady.
Lark & Sons Car Wash & Bar-B-Que
174 W. Main St., Benton Harbor, MI 49022
269-926-9833
Monday, May 17, 2010
Babe's Chicken Dinner House
I just returned from a trip to Fort Worth, Texas, where I was able to pay a couple of visits to an old friend: Babe's Chicken Dinner House in Roanoke. I try to get there at least once every time I'm in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, because, as the attentive reader will immediately grasp, this is very much my kind of restaurant.
Quite simply, Babe's is the best fried chicken I have ever eaten in a restaurant. They do a mean chicken fried steak, too, but the far trickier business of mastering great fried chicken makes Babe's a rare gem indeed. When you sit down, you are asked to choose your meat (oh, if life could always be like that!)... everything else is automatic: unlimited salad (iceberg lettuce), mashed potatoes (the REAL thing, in it's most perfect form), cream gravy (also perfection), creamed corn (the kernels were surely on the cob not 20 minutes before serving, with just enough cream to hold them together), and homemade biscuits (with bottles of honey AND sorghum syrup on the table). (This place is no exception when it comes to the "dim lighting in Texas restaurants" rule...the pic leaves a lot to be desired, but I can I assure you the ones on their website are accurate.)
No desserts (at least not at the Roanoke location), and it's BYOB, if you so desire.
There are several locations around the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and the other ones I've tried serve great food. But there's something special about the one in Roanoke... it's the original, and it's in a converted warehouse built over 100 years ago. Food tastes better when it's rooted deep in time.
Babe's Chicken Dinner House
104 N. Oak, Roanoke, TX 76262
817-491-2900
website
Quite simply, Babe's is the best fried chicken I have ever eaten in a restaurant. They do a mean chicken fried steak, too, but the far trickier business of mastering great fried chicken makes Babe's a rare gem indeed. When you sit down, you are asked to choose your meat (oh, if life could always be like that!)... everything else is automatic: unlimited salad (iceberg lettuce), mashed potatoes (the REAL thing, in it's most perfect form), cream gravy (also perfection), creamed corn (the kernels were surely on the cob not 20 minutes before serving, with just enough cream to hold them together), and homemade biscuits (with bottles of honey AND sorghum syrup on the table). (This place is no exception when it comes to the "dim lighting in Texas restaurants" rule...the pic leaves a lot to be desired, but I can I assure you the ones on their website are accurate.)
There are several locations around the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and the other ones I've tried serve great food. But there's something special about the one in Roanoke... it's the original, and it's in a converted warehouse built over 100 years ago. Food tastes better when it's rooted deep in time.
Babe's Chicken Dinner House
104 N. Oak, Roanoke, TX 76262
817-491-2900
website
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Sheng Wang (CLOSED)
(UPDATE 5/15: Sheng Wang is as reliably excellent as ever, and the prices are unchanged. It's nice to know there are some things in this world one can count on. Still my favorite Manhattan Chinatown spot.)
I have Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice to thank for putting me onto this little gem: Sheng Wang is now my favorite joint in Manhattan's Chinatown.
This Fujianese place specializes in noodles, but they make the best dumplings I've tried in Chinatown. On the menu they're called steamed dumplings (水餃 - shuǐ jiǎo - these characters mean "boiled dumplings" in Northern Chinese places, but if you actually boiled these, they would surely disintegrate). Wrapped in skins much more delicate than their northern-style counterparts, the pork and chive filling is so tasty it seems like there must be some trick involved. (Really - I sit there eating them wondering the whole time, "how do they do it?") And at $3.00 for 10 huge dumplings... that's a trick worth experiencing.
Their Potato Ball in Soup (馬鈴薯丸 - mǎ ling shǔ wán) is equally wonderful: ten handmade balls of potato dough filled with seasoned ground pork in a light chicken broth. If you happen to go there late in the afternoon, you can often watch the staff sitting around forming them by hand.
Wonton Soup Fuzhou Style (福州扁肉湯 - fú zhōu biǎn ròu tāng) is a medium-sized bowl of at least 30 ultra-delicate "wontons" - 扁肉 (biǎn ròu) actually refers to a stuffed thin dumpling of Southern China - in Sheng Wang's equally delicate chicken broth. A minor miracle at $2.00.
But the bulk of the menu is noodles, and there are two types here: the hand-pulled, Lanzhou style, and "peel noodle". These are fun to watch being made--I have not yet been able to see them do it at Sheng Wang, but I happened to catch the episode of "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern" where he visited a restaurant in China that served every imaginable kind of noodle, and Mr. Zimmern tried his hand at making these, holding a block of dough in one hand, shaving a knife along the top and flipping the noodle into a pot of boiling water. (Come to think of it, that episode the food wasn't so bizarre... there was only one thing he ate that I hadn't already tried--and he was in CHINA!). Anyway, both kinds are great, although I might give peel noodle the edge (boom-CHING!). I'm particularly partial to the soups with bones in them--the pork bone soup has five or six big hunks of pork bones with bits of meat still clinging to them, and the added bonus of often-intact marrow. The broth of the beef bone soup is richer and tastier, but the bones aren't quite as much fun. And all the meat soups come with greens, some minced sour cabbage, and a meat-filled potato ball. All for 5 bucks or less.
Sheng Wang
27 Eldridge St., New York 10002
212-925-0805
I have Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice to thank for putting me onto this little gem: Sheng Wang is now my favorite joint in Manhattan's Chinatown.
This Fujianese place specializes in noodles, but they make the best dumplings I've tried in Chinatown. On the menu they're called steamed dumplings (水餃 - shuǐ jiǎo - these characters mean "boiled dumplings" in Northern Chinese places, but if you actually boiled these, they would surely disintegrate). Wrapped in skins much more delicate than their northern-style counterparts, the pork and chive filling is so tasty it seems like there must be some trick involved. (Really - I sit there eating them wondering the whole time, "how do they do it?") And at $3.00 for 10 huge dumplings... that's a trick worth experiencing.
Their Potato Ball in Soup (馬鈴薯丸 - mǎ ling shǔ wán) is equally wonderful: ten handmade balls of potato dough filled with seasoned ground pork in a light chicken broth. If you happen to go there late in the afternoon, you can often watch the staff sitting around forming them by hand.
Wonton Soup Fuzhou Style (福州扁肉湯 - fú zhōu biǎn ròu tāng) is a medium-sized bowl of at least 30 ultra-delicate "wontons" - 扁肉 (biǎn ròu) actually refers to a stuffed thin dumpling of Southern China - in Sheng Wang's equally delicate chicken broth. A minor miracle at $2.00.
But the bulk of the menu is noodles, and there are two types here: the hand-pulled, Lanzhou style, and "peel noodle". These are fun to watch being made--I have not yet been able to see them do it at Sheng Wang, but I happened to catch the episode of "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern" where he visited a restaurant in China that served every imaginable kind of noodle, and Mr. Zimmern tried his hand at making these, holding a block of dough in one hand, shaving a knife along the top and flipping the noodle into a pot of boiling water. (Come to think of it, that episode the food wasn't so bizarre... there was only one thing he ate that I hadn't already tried--and he was in CHINA!). Anyway, both kinds are great, although I might give peel noodle the edge (boom-CHING!). I'm particularly partial to the soups with bones in them--the pork bone soup has five or six big hunks of pork bones with bits of meat still clinging to them, and the added bonus of often-intact marrow. The broth of the beef bone soup is richer and tastier, but the bones aren't quite as much fun. And all the meat soups come with greens, some minced sour cabbage, and a meat-filled potato ball. All for 5 bucks or less.
Sheng Wang
27 Eldridge St., New York 10002
212-925-0805
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
