Rice Krispies Treats Kellogg’s Rating: Three spoons out of four Cereal description: The classic Rice Krispies shape — a slightly puffed rice kernel — is still the foundation of Rice Krispies Treats, the cereal spinoff of a marshmallow-laden recipe beloved by people who know more about eating than cooking. But…
Just a few hours after returning from the James Beard Awards in Manhattan, sans medal, to Laura’s folk’s house in the Philadelphia suburbs, we found ourselves once again back in our rental car and hightailing it for the heart of the City of Brotherly Love. The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies…
So, yeah….As has already been announced, I tanked it at the James Beard Awards. Didn’t win, lost it in the clutch, came home empty-handed (again…). But you know what? That’s cool for a couple of different reasons. For one, it was just an honor to be nominated and blah blah…
Five years ago, when Jason Sheehan had not yet worked at Westword a year, he won the James Beard Foundation award for reviewing — the biggest award around for a food critic. This year he was again a finalist for the prize, but at last night’s awards ceremony in New…
I am not attempting to enter the heated debate on doughnut store superiority, but rather to present a fact: free doughnuts are the best doughnuts. Today Krispy Kreme is celebrating National Doughnut Day by giving each customer a complimentary doughnut of their choice. As an employee who patiently answered my…
“Melts on your tongue, pops in your mouth” First reactions: At first glance, the Pop Rocks Milk Chocolate Bar appears just like a Crunch bar. You can see what look like crunchy bits of rice buried inside the milk chocolate, but the truth of those innocent looking morsels soon becomes…
A condensed version of Justin Warner’s letter about Jason Sheehan’s talents — or lack thereof — is published in the June 5 letters column. But the entire letter was so tasty that we present it here, uncut and unedited: Jason Sheehan: I write in regards to my disgust of your…
With every meal we eat, we betray ourselves. Our politics and our personal history, our deepest longings, our most private loves and hates — all of this is laid bare every time we open our mouths and shove something in. Think about it. What beer do you drink when the…
I’m tired of sliders. Seriously, they were cool for about a minute two years ago when a few brave chefs decided to resurrect them as jewel-box examples of haute-gone-south lowbrow chic. Then they were amusing for a few months as everyone scrambled to add them. Kobe sliders. Barbecue sliders. Truffled…
The newspapers? Chicago Tribunes. The tattered phone books? Chicagoland area directories. The game on the radio is the Cubs or the Bears and the tin stars in the display case are all replicas of Chicago police badges. Chicago is really less a restaurant than a small, cramped, cluttered and plastic-wrapped…
I can’t believe that this is twice in a single week that I have to stand up for people or institutions that I can’t stand simply because they are being attacked by people or institutions that I can stand even less. First it was Starbucks, the victim of an attack…
Wild Animal Crunch Kellogg’s Rating: One and a half spoons out of four Cereal description: The cereal pieces, a mash-up of oat, wheat and corn flour that suggests the manufacturing process used to make plywood, are tan in hue with light brown streaks running through them. Shape-wide, they’re meant to…
A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to have the greatest meal of my (relatively) young life at Eric Ripert’s Manhattan restaurant, Le Bernardin. There was me, my buddy East Coast Dave, Dave’s fiancé Nikki from Hawaii, and it was, in a word, absofuckinglutelymindblowinglyawesome. I wrote about said dinner…
The owners of Prime 121 at 121 Clayton Lane, a spot formerly (and briefly) occupied by Bob’s Steak and Chop House, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization last month. When I reviewed it last fall, I was impressed by the service, not so much by the steak and trimmings. Now…
I am no fan of Starbucks. Certainly not now that I have had to kick my lifelong coffee habit, but even when I was putting down several pots of coffee a day, it took an event of truly apocalyptic proportion to get me into any of the estimated 4 billion…
Almost since the day Mark Tarbell, one of the darlings of the Arizona restaurant scene, opened The Oven in Belmar, there have been rumors that he would soon open a second restaurant in Denver. There have been “Coming Soon” ads, stories about plans and promises. There have been suggestions of…
Being vegetarian, I often find that certain decadent and fat-laden food options are generally off limits to me. Sure, you can smother fries in cheese and eat greasy pizza, but giant ½ pound beef burgers and chili dogs are not usually available in tofu/seitan/TVP versions…
This week, the Candy Girls went out on assignment to Dietrich’s at 1734 East Evans Avenue in the University area. Having heard of the shop’s rich, decadent treats, we had to do a sampling of all of the fresh, homemade chocolates that owner Erich Dietrich makes at his store. Dietrich…
I can be bought with an easy smile and a pint of sweet tea. When someone has a grill going in my neighborhood, I will sometimes sit out on my porch just to smell the air. My wife has often told me that I’ve never met a barbecue restaurant I…
There are two distinct kinds of barbecue: Barbecue that tastes like it was cooked by a master, and barbecue that tastes like it was cooked by your Uncle Larry at his annual Fourth of July backyard picnic. Brothers’ barbecue? That’s Uncle Larry through and through. It’s not that the stuff…
I can be bought for an easy smile and a pint of sweet tea. When someone has their grill going in my neighborhood, I will sometimes sit out on my porch just to smell the air. My wife has often told me that I’ve never met a barbecue restaurant I…
Dino S’mores Pebbles Post Rating: Two spoons out of four Cereal description: No skimping on shapes for this variation on the Pebbles franchise. The main pieces, dubbed “Crunchy Chocolatey Nuggets,” are misshapen brown orbs, not the usual disc-like mini-flakes that most other Pebbles cereals feature. Also included are light-brown “Bone…
