beef Archives - Hungry Travelers

beef

Chicago-style Italian beef springs up near Boston

Posted on August 5, 2023August 5, 2023 by Pat and David

Like many food-crazed Americans, we were mesmerized by the Hulu TV show, The Bear. We even recreated the act-of-love boursin omelet in episode 9 of season 2. (The critical element, we learned, is not putting the beaten eggs through a sieve. Crumbling sour-cream-and-onion crinkle-cut potato chips on top makes all the difference.) Okay. We could do that. And did. And even made our own boursin substitute with goat cheese, Greek yogurt, grated garlic, and chopped chives. It was every bit as good as the original. But there was no way that we were going to experience the show's Italian-American Chicago beef sandwich without an expensive road trip. Or so we thought, until Devra First in the Boston Globe tipped us off to Culinary Delights (229...Read More

St. Elmo Steak House is Indianapolis classic

Posted on April 17, 2023April 13, 2023 by Pat and David

St. Elmo Steak House (127 South Illinois Street, Indianapolis, Indiana; 317-635-0636; stelmos.com) sits in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, near Lucas Oil Stadium. It's the snazziest America's Classic that we've encountered. “Famous Since 1902,” the dining room turned out to be a bit more formal, fancy, and (frankly) expensive, than we were bargaining for. Fortunately, St. Elmo also boasts a “Chicago saloon-style” bar, built around an actual wooden bar made by the Brunswick family of bowling alley fame for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. There are a few tables in the bar area, but grabbed a couple of barstools to watch the action while we ate and drank. St. Elmo's was busy enough to be lively, but not so busy that the bartenders didn't have...Read More

Hungarian gulyás launches Soup Saturday

Posted on January 15, 2022February 3, 2022 by Pat and David

A small tuxedo-clad orchestra doesn't serenade us when we eat Hungarian gulyás soup at home. Too bad. It was a nice touch when we tasted our first authentic Magyar version of the dish in Budapest at the legendary Gundel restaurant (HU-1146, Gundel Károly út 4., Budapest; +36 30 603 2480; gundel.hu). Often bastardized as ‶goulash,″ gulyás (pronounced GOO-yash) has been the country's national dish since the early 19th century. That designation was made to differentiate Hungarian cuisine from the Austrian cooking of their oppressors of the moment. The soup's historic roots offer a nice international analogy to the chile con carne of Texas. Magyar herdsmen would spice, cook, and dry the flesh of lean cows culled from their herds and pack the meat into their...Read More

Timely ‘Soupology’ arrives as the weather cools

Posted on October 20, 2020October 17, 2020 by Pat and David

As soon as we catch the first whiff of frost, we mentally switch cooking modes from salads, stir fries, and grilled vegetables to ragouts, daubes, and rich stocks. In perfect synchrony with the falling thermometer, the North American edition of Soupology: The Art of Soup from Six Simple Broths by Drew Smith (Rizzoli, 2020, $29.99) launched last month. Earlier in his career, Smith was a deft restaurant reviewer for The Guardian and for many years edited The Good Food Guide, an annual review of Britain's best restaurants. This volume is more about home cooking and the tone is friendly and intimate. It's easy to imagine looking over his shoulder as he shows how to make a delicious range of soups. Don't be put off by...Read More

The quintessential burger for Memorial Day

Posted on May 22, 2020May 23, 2020 by Pat and David

We still get a chuckle when we think back to an exhibition at London's Victoria & Albert Museum that sought to summarize national cultures in a single object. The curators clearly had a sense of humor. (In a self-deprecatory moment, they chose the W.C. for the English.) We Americans were boiled down to … the hamburger. It is, after all, ‶mass-produced, cheap, efficient, but essentially juvenile.″ The curators forgot to mention that, properly done, the hamburger is also delicious. Americana in the heart of Texas In our part of the country, Memorial Day launches the grilling season. Mind you, we'll be in our back yard, at least six feet from anyone, and there will just be the two of us. Since the celebration is rather...Read More

Jeff Ruby’s brings prime beef pizzazz to Lexington

Posted on February 8, 2020February 8, 2020 by Pat and David

Every great American city deserves a great steakhouse but we confess that steakhouse chains give us pause. We're especially suspicious when the nationwide roster rises to 50 or more or when the chain trades on associations with various gambling destinations. We get it. Steakhouse spells success, glamour, ostentation. When you walk in, you might think that's the aroma of beef on the grill, but it's really the scent of money to burn. So when our friends in Lexington, Ky., suggested we all go out to eat at the newest pride and joy of downtown, Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse (101 West Vine St., Lexington, Ky.; 859-554-7000; jeffruby.com/lexington), we kept our expectations in check. The Lexington incarnation, after all, was following versions in Louisville, Nashville, and Columbus, Ohio....Read More

Britt’s Pub & Eatery: good bet to quaff and dine

Posted on September 3, 2019August 15, 2019 by Pat and David

We sometimes do a presentation that we call “How to Get a Good Meal Anywhere in the World.” We like to think that we've learned a few things over the years that can help guide folks to good food at a fair price. But we ignored some of our own advice one evening in Saint John, New Brunswick. We selected a restaurant more for its location in a popular, touristy area than we did for the menu. We did have a lovely time sitting by the harbor at sunset and enjoyed the local Idol-like talent contest taking place on an outdoor stage. But the food was disappointing. And we'd missed an opportunity to see what a better kitchen might turn out. Fortunately we were able...Read More

John Whaite views world through lens of comfort food

Posted on March 28, 2019March 22, 2019 by Pat and David

Comfort food is such a personal thing. For Pat's Irish-American family, it's a serving of champ, the rich dish of mashed potatoes and spring onions with lots of butter and cream. For David, it's cornbread like his Kentucky grandmother used to make with bacon drippings and unbolted meal. In his new book, Comfort: Food to Soothe the Soul (Kyle Books, $29.99), chef and cooking school proprietor John Whaite explores the taste of comfort around the world. He adds his own twist to traditional Mexican chilaquiles by adding eggplant and feta, uses sweet apricots to balance the heat of Scotch Bonnet peppers in West African Jollof rice, and tops a Scandinavian-style pizza with salmon fillets and pickled cucumber. But Whaite was raised in Lancashire in northwest...Read More

Little Red Hamburger Hut has that ABQ heat

Posted on October 2, 2018 by Pat and David

We didn't go looking for the Little Red Hamburger Hut (1501 Mountain Rd. NW, Albuquerque, 505-304-1819). We just stumbled across it when we were on our way to the Golden Crown Panadería (also on Mountain Road) for breakfast. Like road runners and skinks (about the only other critters out in the August sun in Albuquerque), we were on foot. Call us suckers for graphic art, but the six-foot-wide rendering of a double burger with red chile sauce would have been enough to hook us. Then we saw the dancing chile peppers. Various signs proclaimed the Little Red Hamburger Hut as the home of the red chile hamburger. Hey, it would only be lunch. What was there to lose? The posted hours were a little confusing,...Read More

Tastes of Scotland light up a winter visit

Posted on March 19, 2018March 17, 2018 by Pat and David

We wonder if the Scottish diet was invented sometime at the end of the last Ice Age. On our recent late-winter visit to Glasgow and Edinburgh, we found that such Scottish specialties as cullen skink, neeps and tatties, Arbroath smokies, Scotch pie, and even the ubiquitous haggis have a special appeal when the temperature hovers around the freezing point and the weatherman won't commit to whether it will rain or snow. Nordic cuisine continues to have a moment on the international gourmet scene. We found that eating in Scotland was an excellent way to get in touch with the roots of high-latitude foodstuffs before the trendy restaurants of Copenhagen and Bergen started tinkering with them. There's a pure honesty to a cuisine based on short-season...Read More