L and M will be off for the next week, roadtripping through Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Georgia to sample some of the finest cuisine the South has to offer. Barbecue will be a central theme, from mustard-based sauces in central South Carolina to Chattanooga’s local fare. There are also restaurants serving up Gullah cuisine in St. Helena Island, SC as well as outside Charleston; plus a South African restaurant (!) in Savannah. We’re already hungry.
Filed under Note
Restaurant Magnus
120 E Wilson
Madison, WI
On May 31, I walked up to the door of Restaurant Magnus in Madison, hoping to sample some of my favorites from its South American-inspired menu before the restaurant’s dramatic shift the next day (signaled by the Norwegian flag fluttering over the canopy). It was locked. An employee eating outside quickly walked up to me, saying – with a wide smile – that the restaurant was closed to the evening to prepare for their exciting new menu the next day. But all the dishes I wanted were on the old menu, and when Magnus got rid of them on June 1, both L and I were disappointed and frankly a little angry.
We’ve had great experiences at Magnus before – in fact, it is L’s official birthday place. The funky interior always got things rolling: live soft bossa nova or Spanish guitar music playing in the background formed a strange, but ultimately satisfying romance with deer antler chandeliers and brown leather seats. But as always, we come for the food. We start with an order of chimichurri ($3.00) paired with light and fluffy foccacia (the tomato-flavored was our favorite). The chimichurri was unlike any we had seen: parsley, red wine vinegar, coriander, and honey made for a creamy dip that was nothing short of the perfect appetizer.
For main dishes, we tended to migrate toward the ever-changing tapas menu, but there were some old favorites that kept bringing us back (and Magnus knew it, because they kept putting them on. The Peruvian bay scallop ceviche ($12) was an interesting take on an old classic, with diced scallops placed in a makeshift bowl of cucumber slices, garnished with minced mixed sweet peppers, avocado, and drizzled with mango-habanero (M’s favorite combo) vinaigrette. It was smaller than similarly priced ceviches but the inventiveness was worth it.
Same with the Cana de Oveja ($14). Spanish cheese in phyllo dough, garnished with figs (another of M’s favorites), pistachios (OK, so that was a bit confusing), sherry butter sauce, and habanero syrup. This is a dish we didn’t really know how to classify, most because the multitude of flavor options on any given bite always kept us guessing – and that is what made it good.
And then there was the Xinxim. Take a Brazilian staple and create the hell out of it, and you get Magnus’ Xinxim. It sounds simple enough on the menu: chorizo verde, blackened chicken, blackened beef all in a bowl, sitting in a special cream sauce of habanero and coconut milk and cashews. But this seemingly simple dish was, unquestionably, my favorite meal of all time. The coconut milk worked to take down the habanero’s heat enough to let its fruity tropical flavor beam through, and combined with the cashews, the effect was deliriously perfect. The chorizo was always spiced to perfection, and the chicken, beef, and shrimp provided a wide set of texture and flavor options that always worked in tandem with what I am sure will remain the best cream sauce I have ever eaten.
There were others, of course: cheese plates, small desserts, etc. too numerous to name here. But the bottom line is that they are all now gone. Replaced with cod, venison and the other staples of Norwegian cuisine that, to us, make obvious the reasons why no Scandinavian restaurant has ever really succeeded in this most Scandinavian of states. We understand the reason for the change, at least on a cultural level. The restaurant’s sous chef – of Norwegian descent – was promoted to the head spot (and there is a now a triumphant photo of him planting the Norwegian flag on the restaurant’s redesigned website). All the owners are Norwegian. The restaurant is even named for a Norwegian grandfather. But culinary, we can’t say this move makes any sense. 
Scandinavian restaurants have had a tough time of it in this country, and Wisconsin would seem like a logical place to start one if, well, Scandinavian food had ever succeeded here before.
The chimichurri is still on the menu, though hiked in price by a dollar and paired with rye bread instead of foccacia. Will we try the new menu? Probably. We got an email coupon for a free first course. But aquavit mussels and pickled cabbage not only sound less than appealing – they will never replace that xinxim. All we can say is they had better give us the recipe.
Filed under Reviews
So we usually don’t review books around here. Probably because we’re so busy reading books for school that the concept of leisure reading falls to the wayside. In any case, Lucy Knisley’s French Milk seems like a book worth reading this summer. It is a graphic novel about a trip Lucy and her mother took to France several years ago. The attention to detail is amazing, and as with all good books about France, food plays a prominent role. The book is available on Amazon.
Inka Heritage [Closed]
602 S Park Street
Madison, WI
First off, Inka Heritage gets major cultural awareness points for using Juan Velasco’s 1975 Quechua orthography that spells “Inka” with a K instead of a C (which is an Imperial Spanish spelling). Velasco wasn’t the best guy, but his transliterations were top-notch. Well done. Now on to the food.
We tend to review a fair amount of Peruvian restaurants, and with good reason – we feel that Peruvian cuisine is well on its way to competing with Thai food as a major player in the US food scene. Which is why we were so excited when Inka Heritage, the first Peruvian restaurant in the Madison city limits, opened in 2007. We have been back multiple times since our first visit shortly after the opening (when they could not make nearly half the items on their own menu) but are happy to report that the restaurant has grown into its own with great interpretations of all the classic Peruvian dishes, as well as the best lúcuma mousse we’ve found outside Peru.
At most Peruvian restaurants, I have my set of usuals: anticuchos, an originally Afro-Peruvian dish of skewered, marinated pieces of beef heart with a side a ají, and ceviche pescado acid cooked in citrus juice and garnished with sweet potatoes and big corn (I still don’t know the proper name for it). L likes to get the aji de pollo, shredded chicken smothered in an aji cream sauce garnished with a hard-boiled egg and served with rice. And for dessert, we split the aforementioned lúcuma mousse; made from an Andean fruit rarely available outside of South America with a taste somewhere between sweet potatoes, maple syrup, and cashews. It is delectable.
Inka Heritage does all these things, and does them well. The anticuchos are true to the original dish, using the best pieces of beef heart muscle (some other restaurants keep the anticuchos marinade but substitute white meat chicken for the beef hearts, which is not only inauthentic but culinary highway robbery) with a slightly spicy, tangy marinade that works well with the ají on the side. The ceviche too is solid, with the right citrus juice mixtures we’ve come to expect – though the very high onions to fish ratio, as well as the smaller serving size, makes us wonder why the price is higher than what we found at Rosa de Lima in Chicago. L’s aji de pollo is a failsafe dish, one we do not always see at other restaurants, and well worth it at Inka Heritage. The dish’s cream sauce is packed with interesting flavor combinations (“yellow pepper, garnished with roasted walnut, fresh parmesan cheese, botija black olive, boiled egg” says the menu) that are probably best suited to the shredded chicken, allowing all the flavors to surround each chicken piece. Mix in with the rice, and it is easily one of Inka Heritage’s best dishes.
The menu does, of course, offer a number of other options outside of our traditional favorites that are well worth sampling, particularly in the seafood department. Overall, Inka Heritage can run a bit on the pricy side (the average entrée is about $13), but the restaurant’s increasingly elegant ambience (considerably moreso now than when it opened) make it a great place for a classy night out with a group or date. Madison has a number of great dining options, but we try to get back as often as we can – especially to introduce friends to Peruvian cuisine who have not tried it before.
We’re not going to lie, we are drawn to nice food packaging designs. Of course this extends to one of our passions, tea, as well. If you’re perusing though the aisles of any Chinese grocery story or specialty store you’ll usually be able to find some nicely packaged teas in appealing tins of all shapes and sizes. So when we went to the Chinese gift emporium Pearl River Market in NYC (477 Broadway, between Grand St. and Broom St. in Soho) we thought we must have hit the jackpot. Pearl River is a veritable pantheon of garish, fun and colorful tea tins. Some of the showiest tins, with something of a retro flair, come from a Hong Kong company called Guang Sang Tea (which also goes by the imprint Roland). If you’re not in NYC, you can peruse the selection of tea tins at Pearl River online. The Roland vanilla tea tin at left is one of our favorites.
Filed under Design and Photography, Reviews, Tea
There’s no theme this week. Just some interesting links and tidbits:
Sahara Kabob
6649 N Clark
Chicago, IL
The 3.3 million Assyrians alive today have not had a country of their own in over 2,000 years; and even if it still existed, the Assyrian Empire is not exactly near the Sahara. Nevertheless, an Assyrian family founded Sahara Kabob on North Clark Street in Chicago, and while we still do not understand the name (though it is better than the previous name, “Big Buns and Pita”), we cannot argue with the seemingly endless amounts of really cheap, really tasty food.
We should have realized what we were in for when the reviews on Yelp said “humongous portions.” Not heeding their advice and logically thinking two dinner portions would be just enough for two hungry people, we set about making our menu choices. It was a busy night, so we opted for carry-out. The Combo Plate seemed like a good option, with helpings of chicken and kefta (ground beef and lamb) kabob and chicken shawirma served on white rice (my choice over couscous) with small sides of grilled and pickled veggies. Turns out it also comes with a soup – I picked douckua, a thick concoction of meat and barley in yogurt sauce. L went with the vegetarian route, picking the falafel plate (it comes with eight pieces) over couscous with lentil soup on the side. We added in a small appetizer of boorek, meaty egg rolls with chili dipping sauce, and figured we had enough for dinner.
When we arrived at the restaurant 20 minutes later (note the quick turnaround time on our order) we were greeted by simple, no-frills décor with enough artifacts to lend an air of Assyrian authenticity to the place. It helped that the only other customers were speaking a Middle Eastern language we did not understand – always a good sign when ordering
non-American food. When our food came out, we were shocked by how much we were getting. Two completely full take-out boxes, two full bowls of soup, plus the bowl of couscous, the boorek, and a small assortment of complimentary dipping sauces. All for $20. As she wrapped up our order, the server asked if we liked baklava. We gave a hesitant yes, thinking she would push us to buy some, but were surprised when she plopped a free serving right into our bag. At this point, we knew we had ordered way too much food. But was it way too much good food?
Yes. We started with the boorek, a really interesting marriage of an egg roll with a spiced meat filling and a dipping sauce that tasted like Sriracha. The lentil soup was excellent as well, flavorful and light (though not as good as the reigning favorite from Taste of Lebanon). The douckua I ordered cannot really be classified as a soup – think of it more as a meat salad with a strong, flavorful yogurt sauce laced with special seasonings and barley. L did not much care for it, but I thought it was interesting and new, and definitely worth a try. L’s couscous was a lit
tle disappointing, tinged with almost a Ms. Grass-like flavor, but the rest of the meal was a home run. My combo plate was solid all the way around from shawirma to the kabobs, with solid cuts of beef, lamb, and chicken all grilled to perfection. L’s falafel was solid as well, easily compared to other excellent falafels we have had in the past.
Good as the food was, if there is one reason to order from Sahara Kabob, it is that you can easily double the value of your money over similar places. Our $20 gave us both two days worth of solid meals – on the first night, I was barely able to put a dent in my combo plate after eating the boorek and the douckua. Add on to that the satisfaction of supporting a family-run, locally-owned business and you have the makings of a great north side take-out (or dine-in) stop.
Filed under Reviews
We like lists here at ETW, and we (obviously) also liek food, so best of food lists are pretty much our favorite thing.
Filed under Reviews
We are really loving the blog Appetite for China lately. They have lovely pictures, and we are learning all sorts of fascinating facts about Chinese cuisine. One AforC post in particular that struck us was about an alternative tea party, featuring food made with tea, including classic tea eggs and tea flavored banana bread. Well, when we think ‘tea party’ it conjures up images of either kids and dolls or old stuffy ladies with watercress sandwiches, so we were pretty inspired. The recipe for Matcha Almond Icebox Cookies sounded so good we might make them for our own alternative tea party. No watercress allowed.
The egg tart may be the perfect example of a truly transnational and international food! Egg tarts are pretty simple in their perfection, baked egg custard in a flaky pastry shell. Egg tarts are a big part of Macanese cuisine, and expanded later in Hong Kong and China. Macau was a former colony of Portugal. The egg tart was supposedly invented at Lord Stow’s on the island of Coloane in Macau. The tarts are related to the Portuguese Pastel de Nata an egg tart that is something of a national institution.
The tarts were introduced to Hong Kong in the 1940s through tea houses called cha chaan teng, which are known for their extensive selections of snacks and treats. Today, in Hong Kong and Taiwan you can even get Egg Tarts from KFC.
One major differentiation between a Macanese egg tart and a regular egg tart is that the Macanese varieties have a layer of caramelized sugar on top. You can get these little treats for a steal at many bakeries around town. We got this tart above for only $0.95 at Richwell Market in Chinatown – where you can get both plain and Macau-style tarts. For a taste of Macau via Portugal, China and Hong Kong, that’s a pretty good deal.
Richwell Market
1835 S Canal St
Chicago, IL 60616
Filed under World Eats
The Tasting Cultures Group is a new organization dedicated to “developing multi-platform educational programs and events in collaboration with culinary, agricultural, sustainability experts, artists, educators, chefs, scientists, and filmmakers.” And generally based around some really delicious recipes. The group sponsors cooking classes, lectures, exhibits, and artist collaborations throughout the USA. We are particularly excited about the TCG’s exhibit: “Tasting Cultures: The Art of African/American Foodways” opening soon in Charleston, SC. The Eaters will be in South Carolina next month doing some in-depth barbecue research, so we will definitely stop by.
Filed under Links
Le Colonial
N. Rush
Chicago, IL
Yes, we are aware that French Indochina does not exist. However, Le Colonial does its best to channel a romantic fin-de-siècle Vietnamese atmosphere with elegant decor and potted palms. We enjoyed a very continental 9 o’clock dinner, which was too dark for a good ambiance shot – so here’s a photo from the restaurant’s website. The menu itself is a fusion of Vietnamese dishes with some French flavors and techniques.
To start off we ordered a few appetizers. M ordered Banh cuon (9.50), which was a chicken and mushroom stuffed rice noodle ravioli. It came with a delicious lime garlic sauce. L started with Tom cuon ram (10.50) which were shrimp beignets with an orange ginger sauce.
For entrees, L ordered the Tom xao sate ($24), which was a sauteed mixture of spicy shrimp and asparagus over a bed of rice. This is not a dumbed-down dish. It had more than a little heat to it and some great bite from the garlic and ginger. M ordered Ga xao xa ot (19) lemongrass-flavored chicken and portobello mushrooms, with a basil chili sauce. M felt the lemongrass was a bit overpowering, but L being a lemongrass lover was not bothered.
We don’t know how we had any room left after all of that food, but the Ciao Bella gelato looked enticing so we each had a scoop of mango (M requested his with chocolate sauce). And perhaps coolest of all, as we were sipping on our after-dessert espresso we had a Stephanie Izard sighting. Guess we were in the right place!
Filed under Reviews
Philly is one of our favorite foodie spots so we are happy to see it getting some love in the NYTimes Travel section. Naturally, food features prominently on the list, including our favorites the Italian Market and Silk City. If you’re thinking about going to Philly (and you should) you should check it out!
Filed under Links
Hmmm, this is a tricky one, and very appropos. How should you porperly cite a recipe on a food blog? David wrote an insightful post on the Food Blog Alliance about just this problem, andif you think about it – it’s not black and white at all! For example – how much does a recipe have to change from a cookbook to be ‘your own’? Some rules of thumb: when in doubt – always give attribution and link to cookbooks and websites you get your links from. Better safe than sorry.
Filed under Links
Cinco de Mayo is actually more widely celebrated in the US than in Mexico, where it is primarily a holiday in the state of Puebla. The Cinco de Mayo holiday celebrates the defeat of the French army by the Mexican army in the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862. So while most Cinco de Mayo restaurant specials in the area involve Margaritas, we decided to put up some tasty Poblano foods.
The New York Times called Puebla the “Lyon of Mexico” – known internationally for its fine cuisine. We certainly can’t argue with that, since Puebla has given us some of our favorite dishes like mole poblano. Mole Poblano is usually what people think of when they hear ‘mole’ in the US – the complex spicy sauce made from dried peppers with a hint of chocolate. Chiles en nogada is another archetypal Poblano dish. It’s particularly festive – especially since it is red (pomegranate), green (poblano pepper) and white (walnut sauce), the colors of the Mexican Flag. Elise at Simply recipes has a recipe for this photogenic dish. Epicurious has a few more delicious recipes including a tasty-sounding chicken and potato stew.
If you’ve got a hankering for Poblano cuisine and you don’t feel like staying in, you could also head out to Cemitas Puebla (3619 W. North Avenue) for some of the best cemitas (Poblano sandwiches on eggy bread) in Chicago!
Goodbye: One of our favorite Madison Restaurant, Restaurant Magnus is changing its menu from Brazilian/Pan-Latin to Norwegian! It seems the Brazilian chef has left, and that since the owners and sous-chef are all Norwegian they thought they would make a go of a new Scandinavian menu. While we’re sure Norwegian food will appease some, we are not pleased. The new menu starts on June 1, so try to get some chimichurri while you still can.
Hello: However, we are heartened to hear that Chicago’s reigning king of the Mole, Geno Bahena is going to be opening a new restaurant on Monday called Los Moles, specializing in nothing but mole! The restaurant is located at 3140 N. Lincoln Ave.
Filed under A New Place, Links
Bangkok Cafe
17 N Vail Ave
Arlington Heights, IL 60005
Downtown Arlington Heights is a surprisingly nice little place, with a range of restaurants ranging from bars to Spanish Tapas. And for the burbs, it has a surprising number of Thai places, too. However, Bangkok Cafe is a notch above the typical strip-mall Thai offering endemic to the area. All in all, Bangkok Cafe is the type of local Thai place you would expect to find in a trendier area of Chicago – not too expensive (dishes under about $9 apiece), muted, modern decor, with the requisite gamut of noodle and curry dishes represented.
A friend in town and I were craving Thai while in the area, so we decided to give Bangkok Cafe a try. We stuck with some standby favorites – Mussaman Curry and the Pad See Eiw, though the menu did offer some more unusual seafood dishes. The Mussaman curry was good, but seemed to contain less coconut milk than usual, though it came with a nice topping of cashews. The Pad See Eiw was a bit unusual in that it came ontop 0f a bed of spinach – never seen that presentation before!
We were pleased with our meals, and the atmosphere of the restaurant was pleasant and conducive to chatting (though it was surprisingly full of teenagers at the time). We hear Bangkok Cafe also does a brisk lunch business and has a $6.99 special. Bangkok Cafe doesn’t break the mold (or the bank), but it’s a great place for a nice, low key dinner in the burbs if you are craving solid American Thai food.
Filed under Reviews
Colorado-based 
Two Leaves and a Bud is a brand of tea we’ve been enjoying recently. They specialize in whole-leaf single origin teas from India, China, Japan and Africa. We’re a big fan of the delicate Darjeeling tea from India and the Tamayokucha from Japan. You can buy the teas either loose, or in pyramid-shaped sachets made out of a biodegradable cornstarch material (they don’t melt in your tea, though!). A feature of the site we particularly enjoy is the tea map, which provides the latitude and longitude of where their teas are sourced. It’s no secret we love maps.
Filed under Tea
Wow – here’s something that’s fun and pretty useful: Evil Mad Scientist’s Indian restaurant menu pocket decoder! We’ve been to a lot of Indian restaurants, but sometimes we still get a little lost if there are no descriptions under some more unusual dishes. Enter the decoder! Granted it’s not comprehensive (but what guide could be?), but it’s coming with us on our next trip to an Indian Restaurant.
Filed under Links
I’m always intrigued by new dishes, but it’s not often I encounter an entirely new fruit. So when I saw something called a Carica mysteriously jarred at Brennan’s in Madison, I knew I had to try it. So, what’s a Carica? It’s a sweet fruit, grown in South America, especially in Chile, and it is also known as a Mountain papaya. Despite the name, it’s not exaclty like the type of papaya we are familiar with here in the states. It certainly tastes different – with tinges of pear and peach alongside a the more familiar papaya notes. Carica would be good with anything that usually calls for a papaya. We like them over ice cream! The main importer of Carica in the US is Tamaya (check out their site for recipes), we don’t know of any places you can get it fresh yet.
Eating The World 