Kuma's Corner

Had Kuma's Corner in Chicago today. Everyone here raves about them and for good reason. They have some of the best (and most interesting) burgers I have ever had (in addition to a pretty good craft beer selection including some Belgian). If they were in the LA area they would definitely rank at #2 just below Fathers Office in burger awesomeness, with an extra bonus for great BBQ pork fries and a very wide range of burger flavors. All of their burgers (except The Slayer apparently) are topped with amazingly delicious 'pretzel buns'. Pretzel bread seems to be fairly common in Chicago (though Kuma's are better than any others I tried there), it is basically a cross between soft pretzel dough and bread, wish I could find some around here!

I had the 'High On Fire' which is topped with: Siracha, Prosciutto, Roasted Red Pepper, Grilled Pineapple, and Sweet Chili Paste. It was really excellent, and not just the stuff on top, the burger was of good quality as well. I added some extra Siracha (they had bottles you could use) as it didn't come with quite enough for my taste (mmm siracha!):




Also tried the Pentagram:


I don't quite remember what was in this one, the sauce may have been a reduction of red wine, craft beer and possibly some kind of duck fat (though I believe Foie Gras is illegal in Chicago) and was REALLY good! This one was a 2-day special because the band pentagram was in town (they had eaten there the night before) so it is not on their menu, but probably my 2nd favorite behind the High on fire.

The 3rd one tried was the Slayer, described as: Pile of fries topped with a ½ lb. Burger, Chili, Cherry Peppers, Andouille, Onions, Jack Cheese, and Anger. We asked the waitress about the 'Anger' part and she said it means she kicks the chef when she puts in the order. As you can see, this one was ridiculous, basically a giant pile of meat and fries and cheese. Missing the pretzel bun here which is unfortunate, it is also a HUGE amount of food lol. Definitely my least favorite of the bunch (all the meat covered up the taste of the burger), and while decent comfort food/drunk food, not as good as the rest of the burgers we tried:




I don't quite remember the name of the 4th one I tried, it was also a special, Jamaican Jerk or something like that. It had at least pulled pork and mango on it, not sure what else, also excellent:

Is your food still good?

Came across a cool site that helps you decide of the food in your fridge or pantry is still good to eat: http://www.stilltasty.com. Enjoy!

Chicago

Trying to come up with a list of places to check out for my trip to Chicago at the end of the month, this is what I am looking at so far, haven't decided on anything yet (I will update as I find more):

http://www.hotdougs.com/
http://www.chicagofoodplanet.com/
http://www.yelp.com/biz/kumas-corner-chicago


Any good suggestions?

Guest Blog: DC "Food Tour"

I have inspired a friend of mine to not only try out a food tour on her recent trip to DC, but also blog about it! Apparently the one she tried didn't actually get them free samples of all the food which is pretty lame, but it sounds like she had a good time anyway; if anyone knows of real food-tours in DC, let me know!

Here is her guest blog:

A couple of weeks ago, I had taken a vacation to visit my sister and her boyfriend in Washington DC. I thought it was a grand idea -- I hadn't gone to Washington DC since my 8th grade trip and goodness knows I wanted to go SOMEWHERE. So DC was perfect. And one of the most interesting things we did, besides explore ALL the Smithsonians, snap pictures next to ALL the sculptures in DC and see every single memorial, was signing up for a food tour.



Now I had never really heard of a food tour before but Ely had recommended that I try one for my trip and I thought, hey why not? I love food and I'm sure my sister does too. After doing some research online we picked a tour called "The movable feast-walking food tour of Washington DC." mmm. What could be better? You burned off the calories WHILE eating them. Brilliant.



Our first tour stop was light. It was at a tea shop called Teaism in the heart of DC. One of the first teahouses in DC, Teaism has a selection of approximately 50 different teas and offers a variety of japanese foods from bento boxes to tandoori kebabs and asian-style sandwiches (there's even a hamburger with ginger and jalapeno). This was probably one of the few places where you could find green tea lassies, which was what I ended up getting, and which turned out to be a milder and less fruity version of a classic mango lassie.



While sipping my lassie, we headed over to Cowgirl Creamery. Originally from San Francisco, Cowgirl Creamery is a small, quaint store that sells the largest selection of cheese I have ever seen, ranging from St Pat (a mellow, soft springtime cheese) to Red Hawk (a bold triple-cream cheese with a distinctive orange rind) and totaling about 3,000 pounds of cheese a week. I thought it was especially interesting that they made wasabi cheese of all things (not sure what you would eat it with -- crackers perhaps?) but at $12 I wasn't about to find out.



For lunch, we stopped over at the infamous Ben's Chili Bowl. At first glance, you think, wow this place is crazy! Half the experience is just about sitting in this cramped, smoky and noisy space. The other half though is about their smoky, salty spicy Half-smokes, DC's signature snack. Although similar to a hot dog, it's about ten time better because the sausage is slightly larger and tastier and doused in chili, cheese, and sour cream. Originally made famous by Bill Cosby, Ben's Chili Bowl was one of the first places Obama visited and ordered a chili half-smoke. Yes, I had set foot in a restaurant that had once been filled with greatness.



After scarfing down our half-smokes, we ended our tour by venturing to first Cakelove, which is a bakery, and then to Love Café, which was across the street and serves all the delicious baked bites created from Cakelove. In addition to being famous for their hand-made cupcakes, both places are known for their owner, Warren Brown, who quit his work as a prominent lawyer to follow his dream making cupcakes. Ever since starting his business, Warren has been featured in numerous shows such as the Oprah Winfrey show and the Today show as well as hosted "Sugar Rush" on the Food Network. Since CakeLove had recently started making red velvet cupcakes, which I love, I bought one with the intention of taking it home but instead ate it on the tram ride back.



All in all, the food tour wasn't quite what I expected it to be. It focused more on eateries unique to DC and their history rather than on really good food. I originally thought we would be sitting at various places taste-testing appetizers and trying a hint of everything instead of buying snippets of food to munch on while on the go. Yet even with these misperceptions, I thought the food tour was an interesting experience -- much better than an average tour of DC -- and will probably try another one again on my next vacation.

Umami Burger

Apparently I am on a burger streak lol, I really do eat other things, I swear!

Burgers are just a prime comparison food since they take creativity to differentiate or make really good. Something like sushi is harder to do a direct comparison since it can vary so much; while one place could have great yellowtale sashimi, another could have amazing caterpillar rolls... Burgers are a single, simple dish that more and more places seem to be trying to take from fast-food to gourmet.

Anyway, now on to Umami Burger. I have been wanted to try out Umami Burger for a while now, I had heard about it a couple different places and as I said in my earlier post, it was #1 on the local yelp page for a while.

I'm not going to spend time on non-food related review stuff, see my yelp review for that stuff. My focus here will be the important part, the burgers! :)



I split 4 different burgers with my dining companions:
The Umami burger - apparently 6 different umami flavors (shiitake mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, fried cheese, umami ketchup, caramelized onions(are these umami?), the burger itself), the most unique burgers flavors I have had.

The Truffle burger - truffle cheese and truffle glaze, yum, amazing, this one is probably my favorite;

The Hatch - Spicy chilies top off a great burger, nice heat but doesn't overwhelm the other flavors.

and The Port & Stilton - Good Stilton flavors, not overpowering, probably my least favorite of the three and that is saying a lot because it was a very good burger. The other three were just more unusual and/or excellent, while this was just a good blue-cheese burger. Also since this one is directly comparable with the Fathers Office burger (the FO burger wins hands down over this one) I don't think I would order it again (despite it being good).

Next time I hope to try their other burgers: the triple pork, hopefully they have the mideast lamb burger back (it is on the online menu, but the paper menu didn't have it when we were there).


So in conclusion, here is my current LA-area burger ranking:

1. Father's Office
2. Umami Burger
3. The Counter
4. The Habit
5. In and Out
6. All other burgers fall into this category...

Just a note on this, I have only been to The Counter once and enjoyed it, but probably picked toppings based on things I like independently but maybe not altogether as a group. I plan to go back there soon and try again (maybe find some recommended combination online, if anyone has a favorite set of Counter toppings, post them in a comment!)

More burgers! (unfortunately looks like no beer this time)

Have been hearing good things about Umami Burger recently (has been #1 on the local yelp page for a while). Any restaurant that focuses their food on a specific taste definitely attracts my interest, plus sweet potato fries and potentially "awesome" burgers always get extra points... I think this will be my next food appreciation trip :)

KogiBBQ!

Hit up the Kogi truck last friday night in the parking lot of The Brig in Venice and I figured I should write something up... In case you have not yet heard of the awesomeness that is kogibbq, the Kogi truck (there are actually 2, roja and verde) is an LA-style taco truck (I know this one confuses people from other parts of the country, but yes we actually have trucks in LA that serve tacos and don't totally suck/make you sick. Not all of them are good, but some) except that they serve Korean BBQ tacos! This is a mix that I am immediately drawn to in my search for new and exciting flavors. The idea is to take korean bbq meats and marinade them korean style then throw them in a taco, fresh from the truck! In an additional stroke of genius, they have a twitter feed so you always know exactly where the truck is and where it is going.



Anyway, KogiBBQ has been one of the big 'foodie' crazes around here for the past 6 months, so as with any foodie fad you hear both the stories of how it is the most amazing thing ever and of how it is "over hyped and disappointing." I would say that (as with ANY foodie fad) it is overhyped, but that doesn't mean it isn't good! I am here to appreciate food not criticize it :) On that note, I would say that I really really enjoyed these tacos. Don't forget the Sriracha, it definitely added a lot for me!

I had one of each kind of meat taco: chicken, pork, and beef shortrib:


I haven't tried their tofu, or any of their burritos but I have heard good things about them as well. In case you were wondering, KogiBBQ does actually taste excellent when you are 100% sober (unlike some taco trucks that are only 'amazing' when you are drunk).

Kogi has also recently been selling out of a brick and motor which I believe also has an extra rotating experimental item or two, so I plan to check that out soon!