Posts by Jon Hochstat

Try something a little different this Thanksgiving.

Jon Hochstat has been a friend of Hidden Track since the blog’s early days. At first he provided news tips and cross-promotion from his blogging days at Runaway Dinosaur. Whenever we spoke with Jon, he always had these interesting stories about his food adventures and in 2009 we finally convinced him to join the HT team to share some of these tales with our readers. Today Jon moves on from the column, but not from our team as we know he’ll be back to tell us about his travels and adventures from time to time.

Well folks after two and a half years and 77 Friday for the Foodies postings, I have decided it is time to step aside from writing this column.

The good news is that Friday for the Foodies will continue later this summer and will be in good hands. I know the person taking over for me will do a phenomenal job and hopefully take the column in a new direction with their own signature voice and style. I’ll leave the announcement of my successor up to Scotty B though. This will be my last posting for now. I plan on taking some time to pursue a dream because life is too short not to go for it. Thanks to all of my loyal readers over the last two and a half years. The feedback, comments and suggestions were greatly appreciated.

But before I go I wanted to share some of the food pictures I took last weekend when I was in Chicago for the 4th of July, it’s the least I can do.

On Monday, July 4th, my friends and I went to The Purple Pig located at 500 North Michigan Avenue for a late afternoon snack. The restaurant came highly recommended by a friend of a friend who lives in Chicago. Below are a few of the items we had. Highly recommended for a hungry carnivorous group. READ ON to see the photos from Jon’s trip…

First off, I want to wish everyone out there a safe and enjoyable Fourth of July.  For everyone up at Watkins Glen for Superball IX, have a blast and bring back some great stories!

As for me, I will be in the windy city, hanging with some friends and knocking a couple of things off of my bucket list.

More on Wrigley field in a bit.  The main reason for my visit to Chicago this time is to have dinner at Alinea. For those who don’t know, Alinea was named best restaurant in North America (for the second straight year) and 6th best restaurant in the world in the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2011 (up one from #7 in 2010).  Dining at Alinea is one of the items on my bucket list that I will be crossing off on this trip.

Here is what S. Pellegrino had to say about Alinea:

Alinea represents one of the most radical re-imaginings of fine food by any chef in American history and has propelled Grant Achatz to chef superstardom.

Everything about his restaurant is unique, from the deconstructed food, unfamiliar flavour combinations and theatre to the tableware, with dishes served in and on all manner of implements: test tubes, cylinders, multi-layered bowls that come apart. It’s boundary-shifting stuff.

I had a chance last year to dine at Alinea and was unable to due to logistics and timing, no way I was passing up the chance a second time! READ ON for more on Jon’s trip…

Recently, I read about a couple of stores in Queens owned by the same people that make their own salamis and sausages.  Last Saturday and this past Monday I had the chance to check them both out. The first of these two stores is the Sunnyside Meat Market.

The Sunnyside Meat Market is located at 4310 43rd St which is just north of Queens Boulevard. I took the 7 train, exited at 40th street and made my way over there.  If you don’t know about this store, you should. It is the sister store to the Ridgewood Pork Store in Middle Village Queens (located at 516 Seneca Avenue) where they make salamis and sausages from scratch. There is not enough room to make the cured meats in Sunnyside so everything is made at Ridgewood and brought over. The staff at both stores are friendly, welcoming and will take the time to explain to you (and give you tastes) of anything they make. This is European quality meats at non-Manhattan prices.

READ ON for more about these unique stores in Queens offering freshly made sausages and salamis…

One of the things about New York City being one of the great food cities of the world is that if you get OUT of Manhattan and head to different neighborhoods to try the local ethnic foods, you get the real deal! Recently I had the pleasure to meet an old friend from high school who took me to a Korean restaurant in Flushing where the food and service were both outstanding. The place we went to was Hahm Ji Bach. For the record there are two Hahm Ji Bach’s. My friend informed me that there is the original on Northern Boulevard and the one she took me to which is the second one opened by the original owner’s brother. The menus are similar but the one we went to is the much more popular of the two.

On my first visit it was just me and my friend who speaks fluent Korean. As this trip was just her and I, we opted for just some pork and some different types of lettuce leaves for a bo ssam. I was then told there would be a ton of food coming (no matter what we ordered, more on that shortly). I found out from my friend that the goal of the level of service given is to make everyone happy and “at home” within five minutes of arriving. The waitress and my friend had a nice conversation with some great back and forth banter, a few questions and a lot of smiles and laughs. Once they finished talking, all I was told was “we’re all set, hope you brought your appetite.”

One of the things that Hahm Ji Bach does to make you feel “at home” is to send out a lot of small appetizer plates as a courtesy.  This was our table:

READ ON for more of this week’s Fridays For the Foodies…

Last week I told you about a couple of the places I hit (and enjoyed) on my recent trip to Key West in the posting F4tF: Key West Eating and Drinking. This week I am sharing some other places I checked out both in Key West and on the drive home up Route 1 back to reality.

On one of my daytime walks down Duval St I came across a shop Cocktails, Celebrating the Art of the Drink! seems the mixologist thing has made it all the way down to Key West as well.

READ ON for more on Jon’s trip to Key West…

Last week, I found myself in Key West, FL visiting an old chef friend, spending some time networking and mostly enjoying the general slow pace of life that the Southernmost City in the Continental U.S. can offer. I had the chance to check out a couple of interesting places while I was there. One was a cool burrito place, the other was a new craft beer bar.

When I arrived in Key West, I spent some time with my chef friend’s son, who is also a chef and a good friend. After he asked if I was hungry and I told him I was, he told me that he was headed to one of his favorite off the beaten path – as in non-touristy – places in Key  West, BadBoy Burrito.

I had never heard of them before he took me.  Not in any trade magazines, food blogs, Twitter or anything. The first thing you notice when you walk in is that there is no fancy menu, no gimmicky names for the burritos, just a list of the veggies and meats, sauces/salsas and toppings. The system is simple:  one meat, one sauce or salsa, three toppings.

READ ON for more on Jon’s experience down in Key West…

Recently I was in Washington D.C. for a few days visiting some friends who I hadn’t seen in a while.  Apart from getting together with my D.C. area friends for some dining and drinking adventures, I had two places on my list of places that I wanted to go to by myself just to enjoy the experience.  One was the Dupont Circle Farmer’s market which I wrote up last week. The other place was Ben’s Chili Bowl.

If you have been to Washington D.C. but have never been to Ben’s Chili Bowl, you are missing out on one of the great food destinations in the USA and quite possibly the best Chili Dog you will ever have in your life. Ben’s is famous for their Chili Half-Smoke.  Here is the description of the Chili Half-Smoke from the Ben’s website menu page…

Bill Cosby’s Original Chili Half-Smoke – $5.45
Our signature dish! Experience the Chili Half-Smoke, originally made famous by Ben’s in 1958 and a favorite of Mr. Cosby’s since the early 60’s. We put this 1/4lb. half pork and beef smoked sausage on a warm steamed bun and top it with mustard, onions and our spicy homemade chili sauce.  There are few culinary delights better at any price. Want it well done?  Have yours split and grilled on request.

It is hard not to find time to eat at Ben’s Chili Bowl as they have crazy hours (their description not mine)

Our Crazy Hours!

Monday thru Thursday
Breakfast from 6am – 10:45am
Main Menu from 10:45am – 2am

Friday
Breakfast from 6am – 10:45am
Main Menu from 10:45am – 4am

Saturday
Breakfast from 7am – 10:45am
Main Menu from 10:45am – 4am

Sunday
No Breakfast
Main Menu from 11am – 11pm

READ ON for more on Jon’s experience at Ben’s Chili Bowl…

Last weekend I was in Washington D.C. visiting some friends and staying in Dupont Circle area of town.  On Sunday morning I did something I hadn’t done in almost 10 years – visit the Dupont Circle Farmer’s Market.

If you love farmer’s markets and happen to be in Washington DC on a Sunday, you owe it to yourself to go.  Here is what their website has to say about the market:

The Dupont Circle FRESHFARM Market is located in the heart of one of Washington, DC’s most vibrant and diverse neighborhoods. Washingtonian magazine credits the market with “teaching Washingtonians to love their fruits and vegetables.” The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times of London also named the market one of the top farmers’ markets in the country. During the peak season, there are more than 40 farmers offering fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit pies, breads, fresh pasta, cut flowers, potted plants, soaps and herbal products.

The market is open 8:30AM to 1:00PM April through December.  Per their website, the market is located at 20th St. NW between Massachusetts Ave. and Connecticut Ave. Click here for map. I got there early.

READ ON for the pictures I took that day…

Well here we are at the second posting from my recent trip to LA for vacation in early April.  Last week’s post, Friday For the Foodies – L.A. Adventure 2011 Pt 1: Hamburgers & Hot Dogs, was all about my trips to The Apple Pan, Umami Burger and Carney’s.  This week I thought I’d do the logical followup with this post describing some of the sweets I enjoyed on the trip.

First off, I did NOT eat at the three locations listed above all on the same day (really). READ ON for more about the sweet side of Los Angeles…

Well, I am back from my vacation to the west coast to see some friends and eat some good L.A. food. I know in my last posting  F4tF: Los Angeles, the Return I had some lofty goals like Sushi Zo and Totoraku. However, early on into the trip I realized this was going to be a “the plan is to have no plan” vacation. So with that being said, here is my first dining recap from the trip, appropriately titled Hamburgers & Hot Dogs.

Now I know when most of us east coasters hit the west coast the first thing we do is head to In-n-Out Burger. I had planned to as well. I even tweeted “Wheels down at LAX, ETA for double double animal style less than 30 minutes.” That however was not meant to be as this trip I decided to stop off at Unamiburger which was named Burger of the Year for 2010 by Alan Richman of GQ Magazine. Just by luck I happened to stop by the same Unamiburger location he did at 850 South La Brea Avenue in L.A.

I have to say, I was very impressed with the flavor and texture of the burger. Not quite as great as The Best Burger in America from Le Tub in Miami, but damn good otherwise.

READ ON for more on Jon’s trip to Los Angeles…

For those of you who are longtime readers of Friday for the Foodies, you will recall that last August I took a trip out west to spend a week in Los Angeles.  The food from that trip was covered in the the postings F4tF: Los Angeles Adventure, Pt. 1 – The Neville Brothers @ Hollywood Bowl,  F4tF: Los Angeles Adventure, Pt. 2 – The Santa Monica Farmer’s Market and F4tF: Los Angeles Adventure, Pt. 3.  Well the time has come again for me to take a well deserved vacation and I have decided to make a return trip to L.A. once again.

Last August’s trip included visits to Pizzeria Mozza, Fatburger, The LA Food Trucks, The Griddle Cafe, Santa Monica Farmer’s Market, LA Farmer’s Market, Animal, In-N-Out Burger, Neptune’s Net, La Salsa and more.

This year’s trip promises to be even better with meals planned at Son of a Gun (new seafood place from the guys who own Animal), Comme Ça, Sushi Zo, Totoraku (not yet confirmed, but very close), Pizzeria Mozza (again) and a few surprises that my L.A. Chef friends say they have cooked up for me. If you want to keep up with my daily dining exploits on this trip, follow me on Twitter.

I told a friend the other day, the only way I survive eating my way through Los Angeles is by doing 5 mile hikes of Runyon Canyon every morning (first hike is tomorrow, April 2nd) followed by Yoga in the Park at Runyon Canyon Park (which is free btw).  During last year’s trip, I emailed a non-L.A. based Chef friend daily about my eating exploits and told him about the canyon hikes.  After a few days of dining updates, I got the following message : “I can understand the Hill Climbing better with each email!”

READ ON for more of this week’s Friday For The Foodies…

If you haven’t been keeping up with my latest series of posts from another recent epic food trip, this posting is the fourth and final posting from my trip to Montreal from Friday 2/25 to Sunday 2/27.  So far I have written up my lunch on Saturday 2/26 in the posting Friday For the Foodies: Montreal, Part 1 – Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen, my lunch on Sunday 2/27 in the posting  Friday For the Foodies: Montreal, Part 2 – Cabane à Sucre Au Pied de Cochon and my amazing and challenging dinner on Friday 2/25 in the posting Friday For the Foodies: Montreal, Part 3 – Nose to Tail dinner at DNA Restaurant. This last posting is all about my dinner Saturday 2/26 at Au Pied de Cochon.

If you go to Au Pied de Cochon you better be aware of two things. 1) Chef Martin Picard loves meat, especially Foie Gras and 2)  The menu is not for the faint of heart or for those with heart conditions.

The one caveat I have to give with this review is that this was a meal where four of us relaxed and enjoyed the food, service and ambiance.  I did take pictures of the meal, but I did not write down everything we ordered – and we ordered a lot. I reached out to my fellow diners that night and got some items ID’d  but not all of the pictures will have the menu item labeled.  Hey, sometimes on these trips you just want to sit down, relax and enjoy the food, ambiance and people you are with.

READ ON for more on Jon’s trip to Au Pied de Cochon…

If you haven’t been keeping up with my latest series of posts from another recent epic food trip, this posting is the third of four planned postings from my trip to Montreal from Friday 2/25 to Sunday 2/27.  So far I have written up my lunch on Saturday 2/26 in the posting Friday For the Foodies: Montreal, Part 1 – Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen and my lunch on Sunday 2/27 in the posting  Friday For the Foodies: Montreal, Part 2 – Cabane à Sucre Au Pied de Cochon.  Today’s posting is the follow-up to the article I wrote and posted on Friday 2/25 called F4tF: Guts to Eat the Guts aka Nose to Tail in which I explained that I would be eating a Nose to Tail dinner at DNA restaurant in Montreal cooked by Chef  Chris Cosentino of Incanto in San Francisco and Chef/Owner Derek Dammann of DNA restaurant in Montreal.

We secured an early reservation for DNA and 5 of us headed over to the restaurant which is situated in Old Montreal.  We decided on going all-in, opting for the Nose to Tail with wine pairings.  What follows is my recollection of that evening in pictures and words.

Just a word of warning to those of you that may be squeamish to these kinds of meals, if this stuff turns you off please click away.  If not, sit back, relax and ask yourself “Would I have had the guts to do this?” I did!

READ ON for more on the Nose to Tail Dinner at DNA…

Last week, I started to recap the epic three-day dining weekend I spent in Montreal with my story Friday For the Foodies: Montreal, Part 1 – Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen. This week brings part 2 of the weekend, my trip to Cabane à Sucre Au Pied de Cochon aka The Sugar Shack.

My retelling of the weekend is not happening in the order I ate however as my meal at Cabane à Sucre was the last of the weekend and Schwartz’s Deli was the second of the weekend. However, once all four of my meals from the weekend are written up you will understand why I did them in the order I did.

Opened in 2009, Cabane à Sucre is a sister restaurant to Au Pied de Cochon which has been open in Montreal since 2001. Both restaurants are helmed by Chef Martin Picard whose unabashed love for Foie Gras has earned him both respect and scorn in Canada. We were lucky enough to have gotten a reservation at Au Pied de Cochon the Saturday night I was in Montreal. One of the friends who I was with tried to get a reservation the day Cabane à Sucre started taking reservations for 2011 but was shut out. We later found out from one of Martin Picard’s partners in Au Pied de Cochon that the demand for seats for the 2011 season (all of 9 weeks) was so high that the entire season booked out in less than 36 hours this year. Luckily for us, the weekend I was in Montreal was opening weekend which meant that Cabane à Sucre was doing a soft opening weekend (less people sat to get the kinks out, get the service down). During our meal at Au Pied we were lucky enough to score seats to the first seating (11AM) of the second day of service for 2011. On the morning of Sunday, February 27th we hired a car and a driver and headed out from Montreal to St-Benoît de Mirabel, Québec (about a 25 minute drive). 35 Minutes later we arrived at what we later would realize was nirvana. READ ON for more on Cabane à Sucre…

I am back from my epic dining weekend in Montreal last weekend which included a Nose to Tail dinner Friday night at DNA cooked by Derek Dammann & Chris Cosentino, lunch Saturday at Schwartz’s Deli, dinner Saturday at Au Pied de Cochon and lunch on Sunday at Cabane a Sucre Au Pied de Cochon.  I have pictures and descriptions from every meal but this week I am starting with the easiest of the 4 experiences to write up, Schwartz’s Deli.

Here is the history of Schwartz’s and the explanation of what smoked meat is as per their website:

Schwartz’s was founded in 1928 by Reuben Schwartz, a Jewish immigrant from Romania, and our restaurant has been in the same location ever since, on boulevard Saint-Laurent, where it is now tucked in around funky storefronts and trendy boutiques. The restaurant is a single white-tiled room containing several rows of long narrow tables.

We’ve protected our tradition for over 80 years by maintaining the standards of old. Unlike other smoked-meat purveyors, who add chemicals to their briskets, Schwartz’s prepares smoked meat the old-fashioned way using a secret blend of fine herbs and spices marinated for 10 days. Our smoked meat is smoked daily and contains no preservatives; just the award winning taste and freshness that have brought celebrities from all around the world to our tables.

READ ON for more on Jon’s trip to the legendary Schwartz’s…

By the time most of you read this, I will be seated in a restaurant in Montreal, Canada named DNA for a nose to tail dinner prepared by DNA Chef/Owner Derek Dammann and Chef Chris Cosentino of Incanto in San Francisco.

You are probably wondering how a well known chef from San Francisco winds up in Montreal working with a local chef for his Nose to Tail dinner there.

Every year, Chef Cosentino does a nose to tail meal at Incanto.  On February 25, 2009, he changed how he selected his “volunteers” to help with the dinner and put the following posting on the Offal Good site:

Do you have the guts to help cook Head to Tail?

Which read as follows:

I have decided to do something a little different for this year’s head to tail dinner, inspired by the constant requests for knowledge about how to cook offal. Now’s your chance to learn. I will be accepting 2 volunteers to help with the event this year. You get to come into my kitchen and help cook 2 nights of head to tail dinners. You will work your ass off, have some fun and learn a ton, but there are rules to this game. This offer is open to professional cooks only. You will be an unpaid volunteer. You must commit to working in my kitchen for 5 days, from Friday, March 20th through Wednesday the 25th except for Tuesday, which you’ll have off to recover. You must submit your resume and a short essay on why you should be one of the chosen ones. This is a busy time and I don’t have time to be baby sitting. The Head to Tail dinner is a multi-course menu with a shit load of detailed work..

READ ON for more of this week’s column…

Recently, I had a friend in town for the month of January.  He came to NYC on a job hunt and he got the job they wanted.  My friend was born & raised in Italy, worked with me in Paris and now resides in Texas.  When he came here, he said “Take me to some places in NYC that I probably would not think about or go to”.  I happily obliged.  The one theme that kept recurring on our food trips was hitting Beer-centric places all around the city (five in all).  Here is a recap of our tour of NYC beer halls.

[Youngna Park courtesy of NY Mag]

I have to preface this story by stating that almost every beer hall we hit was completely unplanned and the decision only came when I realized we were near one of these places.

Here are the fives places we hit in the order we hit them (over a 3 1/2 week period)

1) Zum Schneider – 107 Avenue C 212. 598.1098

Zum Schneider’s history (from their website):

Zum Schneider was opened on August 19, 2000 by Sylvester Schneider, a native of Weßling am Weßlinger See, Bavaria, and long-time resident of Alphabet City. “I missed summers in the beergarden with friends, family and people of all kinds, coming together to relax and celebrate life. Embracing those yearnings, I created Zum Schneider”.

Our path to arriving at Zum Schneider started out on 9th Ave in Hell’s Kitchen on a lazy Saturday, then made its way through: Little Italy, Chinatown, East Broadway (the hidden Chinatown), the Lower East Side and eventually we found ourselves on Avenue C.  My friend’s request for food that evening was “A place that serves good beer with hearty food”.

READ ON for more on New York City Beer Halls…

Last week I recollected a 24-hour trip a couple of friends and I took in April 2009 for my posting F4tF: The Chicago Hot Dog Trip, Pt. 1. This week, I bring you day two of this whirlwind trip.

We knew going into day two that time was of the essence as our first stop of the day was Hot Doug’s.  Being that Hot Dog’s has unique hours (Open Mon-Sat 10:30AM-4PM) and has a reputation of getting busy from the second the doors open until 4:30PM when they close, our goal was to get there as close to 10:30 as we possibly could.

True to form, when we got there around 10:35AM, there were already eight or nine people in line ahead of us.  You can always find Doug Sohn (the Doug of Hot Dougs) working the register, engaging his customers and overseeing the kitchen, all without having to move from his one spot.

READ ON for more on Jon’s Chicago Hot Dog Trip…

In April 2009, I took a trip to Chicago with a couple of friends. Our goal was to “research and visit” a few of Chicago’s best hot dog joints to see what the fuss was all about. It was a 24 hour festival of tasting, eating, enjoying and laughing. We also happened to check out a couple of non hot dog places along the way. Here is the story (in words and pictures) of that trip. Thankfully one of the people I was with was a Chicago native which made getting around a lot easier.

We flew into O’Hare airport and our first destination was Gene & Jude’s.

As per wikipedia:

In 1946 Gene Mormino (Hot Dog Gene) started a hot dog stand at Polk & Western Streets in Chicago with his partner Jude DeSantis. Gene lost his first hot dog stand in a card game in 1949. In 1950 they moved operations to their current location in River Grove, Illinois. Today it is owned and run by Joe Mormino, Gene’s son. They were inducted into the Vienna Beef Hot Dog Hall of Fame on May 1, 2006.

We decided that we were going to try basically the same thing at every hot dog place, a couple of Chicago dogs “dragged through the garden,”  which means topping them with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, neon-green pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, pickled sport peppers and a dash of celery salt.

READ ON for more about Jon’s trip to Chicago…