Yesterday it came to our attention that 7-Eleven planned to introduce their own wine brand, priced at a Thunderbird-like $3.99 a bottle–that’s right, $3.99 for .75 of Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon in glass with a real artificial cork. No screw-tops for wine this fancy.They call their brand Yosemite Road, as…
The ‘Boys venture into this New Jersey spillover on Sunday night. To help us all to know Rocky’s city a little better…Inspired by G. Gordon Liddy, Eagles linebacker Akeem Jordan once held his hand over a crepe suzette, just to show how tough he was.**Taken from an unauthorized account of…
Each week, Pairing Off attempts to find just the right bottle of wine to go with ordinary food.As a kind of homage to Howard Johnson’s, I really wanted to find a box of Mrs. Paul’s breaded clams. They were a staple back in my grad school days…well, that’s probably the…
In the ’60s and ’70s it was almost impossible to travel any distance without spotting a bright orange roof and that Simple Simon weathervane. There were close to 1,000 Howard Johnson’s restaurants back then, each of them serving 28 flavors of ice cream and platefuls of fried clams.The clams were…
The ‘Boys venture into this Wilmington suburb on Sunday night. To help us all to know the cracked bell city a little better…In honor of Ben Franklin, the NFL’s Philadelphia franchise was originally known as the Turkeys. They changed their name to the Eagles in 1973 after a Thanksgiving promotion…
If Memory Serves chronicles moments from my dining past, perhaps explaining why I’m so damn warped.I wrote the restaurant section to a travel guide while I lived in Prague–and if I could remember which one I’d advise you to stick it back on the shelf and pick up another.It wasn’t…
The ‘Boys venture into this dying shipyard town on Sunday night. To help us all to know Lecherous Ben Franklin’s city a little better…Eagles reserve quarterback Michael Vick once owned an authentic Chinese restaurant in Atlanta. It closed when he decided to take a break from football.**Source: A friend of…
How long has the Hershey’s bar occupied grocery shelves? It’s just a sheath of inferior chocolate, but you can pick one up just about anywhere. Meanwhile, far more interesting treats disappear from the shelves.The way we eat and our taste in foods is subject to whims, nudged by marketing campaigns,…
Tillman’s Roadhouse324 W. 7th St.214-942-0988I have no idea who picks the music for Tillman’s, but the person has severe issues. I sat out on the patio, where they hide those of us who can’t find a Saturday night date, being battered by gloom, despair and longing: “Time After Time,” “It…
A couple weeks ago, a reader by the name of Beth posted an interesting comment under one of our stories. “May I inquire as to why it is common practice on these blogs to look down upon other so-called ‘middle-class casual restaurants?'” she (assuming) wrote, mentioning Olive Garden as a…
Each week in ‘Knockers’ we order from a different delivery restaurant, assessing their efficiency and keeping a running score.Pizza Xpress3355 Trinity Mills972-307-6600Promised delivery time: 35 minutesActual delivery time: 29 minutesScoring Summary:Handily beating promised time, though by not enough to catch you off-guard: 6Seemingly endless amount of food piled into your…
The ‘Boys venture into this rust belt wasteland on Sunday night. To help us all to know the City of Brotherly Love a little better…The Philadelphia cheesesteak was actually invented in Trenton, New Jersey. Restaurants in Philadelphia adopted the sandwich because it was a handy way to rid their kitchens…
Seems there’s always much ado about little in the restaurant news. So it was in October: Lazare became Lemon Bar and will, most likely, become something else before long. Ten 15 Elm (or 1015 Elm, I was never sure) decided to call itself Thrive instead. The ballyhooed Jean-Michel’s, coming to…
Not that there shouldn’t be a watchful eye–or several watchful eyes–looking out for us, given outbreaks of E. coli and such. But groups like Centers for Science in the Public Interest would like to bar us from fast foods, butter and other threats. There was a campaign against foie gras…
It is truly weird when City of Ate stories pop up in other venues, often without context. For instance, our Top 10 on foods to fry for next year’s state fair somehow ended up in a Baltimore paper’s blog, where some people show surprising scorn for things Texan.These cross-posts, or…
There’s a good reason Blavod is hard to find–besides the fact that it’s only purpose in life seems to be gimmick martinis and seasonal (meaning Halloween) cocktails: while in taste it compares well to Smirnoff and other modest brands, the bottle I found at Pogo’s cost a grand total of…
As if the Idi-tini and My Lai Tai weren’t enough…We thought we’d stretched the boundaries of taste and “mixology” as far as we could with this week’s Top 10 list. That is until several of you added some even more disturbing cocktails–all of which would be perfect for Halloween.There are…
Even over the phone, you can feel Corey Toney’s smile when he talks about his South Dallas barbecue joint, C.T.’s Real Deal BBQ. “There’s a brick pit back there,” he says. “When that hickory gets in the pit, it just seasons the brick—you can really taste it.” He’s right, but…
“God, I hate Candy Corn.” Those were the first words from Timothy Mercer, wine buyer at Cork in Uptown, after I asked about this week’s pairing. And, as it turns out, I hate the stuff as well. In fact, I can think of very few people who really like Candy…
There was a 15 or so year blip in history when space–and massive government programs to explore space–was very cool. All a food company had to do was take, say, a powdered orange drink, slap a phrase such as “like the astronauts drink” on the label, and wait for the…
We were inspired a year ago by the promotion of a holiday drink called the Nog-a-sake–an eggnog and sake creation playing on the bombing of Nagasaki–to come up with other inappropriate cocktails.With Halloween just a few days away, it seemed appropriate to dust off these dreaded drinks, these goblets of…
If Memory Serves chronicles moments from my dining past, perhaps explaining why I’m so damn strange.I love truck stops.Not the modern, multi-functional, linked up facilities along the interstates where they sell everything from Confederate flag license plates to Internet access and lot lizards prowl the asphalt, but time-worn mom and…
