Burger Party

As America continues to get fat, the District continues to participate in the ever growing waist-size-expansion by providing us with a plethora of opportunities to consume our nation's greatest contribution to the food world: the burger.

 I'm not complaining.


DC is now home to several burger joints, offering beef-bun-cheese happiness from Capitol Hill to K Street. With this many burger options, it has become clear that I begin a personal Fat Kid mission to taste each and every one of them, with all cholesterol-raising/possible-heart-attack-issues aside.  


We begin with Bobby's Burger Palace.

Pictures courtesy of thankyouverymuchIstolethem

Super-uber-duber chef Bobby Flay has landed in DC with an opening of his latest  burger/shake concept. I have to admit, when I first really started getting into food, I thought this red head freckly-fucker was the second coming of food-Christ. 

Not that he can't cook, but I guess I just got tired of hearing him talk about chipotles and seeing him hang out with bros that look like this. 

Anyways, let's talk about the damn burger. While he offers specialty burgers served with ingredients from their respective American locations, I kept it very simple by going with the "Crunch-burger," topped with double American cheese, pickles, and potato chips. I drizzled on some of his signature "burger sauce" and holyfuckingshit.

This is a good burger. I mean, really good. You can't go wrong with the basic ingredients, as the beef was perfectly seasoned and cooked to a medium-rare, while the chips added a salty crunch, rounded out with the acid of the pickles and the smokiness of the sauce. I wanted/could have eaten maybe like two more, but I needed to make room for the fries, sweet potato fries, onion rings, and malted vanilla/chocolate shake.   

Gross. Did I eat all of this? No I had friends with me. My friends sampled some of the other burger offerings, including:

• The Dallas Burger - Spice Crusted/Coleslaw/Monterey Jack/ BBQ Sauce/Pickles
• The Santa Fe Burger - QuesoSauce/PickledJalapenos/BlueCornChips
• The L.A. Burger - Avocado Relish/Watercress/Cheddar Cheese/Tomato

There were smiles and pleasant groans all around. I could call this the best burger in DC, but that wouldn't be very fair nor accurate, as I have many more to try. 

Next on the list: Shake Shack.

- Fat Kid

Masa 14

In a valiant attempt to resurrect my blog, I'm going to start writing about where I eat as opposed to documenting my Fat Kid cooking adventures. I'm doing so for a couple of reasons:

1. I have officially relocated to D.C., which has resulted in culinary overstimulation due to the abundance eating options. 

2. I live in a studio apartment with a closet-sized kitchen. 

I still cook, I'm just too distracted with the neighborhood eats. Let's begin. 

Following my celebratory first-night-out, which included a trip to the local tequila dungeon and a run in with the overzealous anti-jay-walking D.C. cops, I met up with a couple of friends to ease any lingering hang-over pains with the quick fix solution of bloody marys and brunch. I had heard good things about Masa 14, a collaborative effort from local chefs Richard Sandoval and Kaz Okochi, who comine their minds to produce a latin/asian fusion menu reflective of both culture's culinary traditions. 

I generally find the whole "fusion" thing to be a bit silly, but my hangover distracted me from any preconceived biases and allowed me to focus purely on stuffingmyeffingface.

Masa 14's brunch offering is a serious deal and should be experienced purely based on the $35 fixed menu, consisting of never ending brunch drinks (traditional bloody marys, mimosas, rye-bacon bloody marys, etc.) and an all you can eat selection of their ENTIRE BRUNCH MENU. They specialize in small plates, so this system works great for groups, or one really really fat person. 

However, the food can be hit or miss at times:

Hits:

• Serrano ham flatbread with goat cheese, cantaloupe, arugula, truffle and lime
• Fruit & granola with yuzu yogurt and blood orange syrup
• Grilled chorizo sausage with a poached egg and salsa mexican
• Crunchy shrimp with chipotle aioli, sesame, scallion and masago
• Fried yucca with chimichurri and citrus aiol
• Anson mills grits with chipotle pepper, oaxaca cheese and green onion

Misses:

• Any type of sandwich (including a riff on Vietnamese Pho and a wagyu beef burger). Mainly because of their buns, which crumble too easily.  
• The smoked brisket hash, which sounded promising, but ended up being their homefries with sausage and egg added. 

Clearly the hits outweigh the misses. My friend liked it so much she puked afterwards. We ate a lot. 

Overall, my trip to Masa 14's brunch was a success that resulted in a glorious 3-hour Sunday nap. When you get this much food/drink for only $35, it's a lot easier to let the less impressive moments slide.

Plus they were pumping in this loud, ultra hip house music that made me feel soooooooo cool. 

I'll be back to try the dinner menu. 

- Fat Kid

Blog post for the sake of a blog post

Hello blog. It's been a long time. Clearly, I have been a shitty blogger. I don't even know if I even qualify as a "blogger" anymore, but I'm willing to at least put forth a little more effort than I have in the past few months. 


What follows really isn't even a good blog post, honestly. I probably prepared these pics over a month ago, wanted to blog about it, but the dish kind of sucked so I moved on with my life. And here I am now telling you about a dish that kind of sucks. At least it looks good.


I wanted to do something with scallops, over a salad of watercress, orange, fennel, crushed pistachios and a pomegranate vinaigrette. Sounds pretty damn good right?   

Eh.


It just didn't work out. I couldn't really get the vinaigrette to come together like I wanted. I also left the fennel raw, which was kind of a bad idea. I had these big slices of raw fennel all over the place that really didn't add a nice texture to the plate and on was little on the bitter side. Should have roasted it. 


At least it's pretty. And the scallops themselves were off the chain. 

I swear I can cook some form of interesting/healthy food. I will try again. It's hard not using any butter. 


Or bacon.


Which is probably what this dish was missing.


Problem solved.


- Fat Kid

Booze 101

Join renowned cocktail expert Dale DeGroff at The Passenger (Warehouse Theater, Entry via The Passenger) on Monday, May 9th for a night of education regarding one of America's favorite past-times: drinking. Dale will walk you through cocktail history, allowing you to sample a variety of classic drinks. Appetizers will be served as well. Click here for more info and to purchase tickets. The show goes from 6:30pm-8:30pm and costs $40.00

I've volunteered to help out behind the scenes with my Uncle/mixologist Phil Greene.

Come have some dranks.

- Fat Kid

Trummer's

Clifton, Virginia. Right smack in the middle of...well, nothing. I'm not sure why anyone would want to go here. I mean it's nice to look at. The serene, wooded landscapes, dotted with abnoxiously large dream homes along narrowly winding roads are what define the term "scenic route." So unless you're in the market for a 10,000 square foot mansion that no one will ever want to come hang out in, you're probably not going to spend a whole lot of time in Clifton.

There is however, one bright spot. Within the refurbished Hermitage Inn Restaurant on Main Street is Trummer's, where one of Food and Wine Magazine's best new chef's of 2010 Clayton Miller serves creative, modern American fare. The craft cocktails, the country-home-esque dining room, the endless/addicting rolls and the never-boring dishes are well worth the drive.

This was escargot with potato gnocchi in a chipotle-manchengo froth, topped with a parmesan crisp.

This was baked salmon over oysters and duck confit.

I'm now eager to try the tasting menu, as my server informed me that Miller creates this menu on the fly as each table orders one, with specific dishes he saves especially for this menu.

I honestly don't know what else there is to do in Clifton, so if you stumble upon this town, you need to check out Trummer's. I mean you really don't have a choice.

- Fat Kid

Asian Chipotle

Seeing how Chipotle rarely disappoints my occasional craving for a baby-sized burrito, I am extremely excited to learn that the owners behind this holy franchise have decided to open an Asian themed restaurant. Starting in D.C.

Shophouse Southeast Asian Kitchen is slated to debut in D.C. sometime this summer. They still plan on applying their fast-casual restaurant model using fresh, sustainable ingredients. However, they'll serving food representative of traditional shophouses found in countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

I really don't think they can mess this up.

- Fat Kid

Pasta Porn?

Here's a great way to kill some time at work on a Friday. The folks at Grub Street put together a list of the 101 best pasta dishes in America.

Here's to being productive.

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2011/04/101_best_pastas.html

- Fat Kid