Sucre King Cake Giveaway

New Orleans' famed Sucre A Sweet Boutique asked me to give away a King Cake to one lucky Minxeats reader--how could I turn that down?

If you're not familiar with King Cakes, they are danish-like cream cheese-filled cinnamon-flavored pastries typically eaten between Twelfth Night and Mardi Gras. They're a huge tradition in New Orleans, where they decorate the cakes in the traditional purple, green, and gold Mardi Gras colors. Sucre uses luster dust, which gives their cakes a subtle sheen that's almost too pretty to eat. Within each cake is a small plastic baby. Tradition has it that if you get the piece with the baby, you’ll be crowned king for the day. Winning is not without a catch, however--the person who finds the baby has to buy the next cake!

Sucre will be selling their King Cakes from now until March 3, the day before Mardi Gras. If you'd like your very own but can't make to to the bakery's New Orleans location, you can order one here. Or, even better, you can win one from Minxeats! To be entered in the drawing, simply leave a comment on this post with a valid e-mail address so I can contact you if your name is chosen.

The Rules
Winners must be 18 years of age or older and a resident of the 48 contiguous United States.
A valid e-mail address must be included.
Contest ends 12am, February 1, 2013.
Winner will be notified via e-mail.

Good Luck!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Rachael vs. Guy Celebrity Cook-Off Season 3 Episode 2 Recap

It's only week two of Rachael vs. Guy and I have already lost my desire to recap the show. The format changes this season--removing the Blind Tasting at the end and assigning a celebrity chef judge to pick both winner and loser--means there's too much time spent watching the celebs having melt-downs in the kitchen. And honestly, it's not that interesting. D-list celebs just aren't. I don't even have particularly high expectations when they're doing what they're known for. Now, put Angelina Jolie and George Clooney in the kitchen and have them melt down? Could have a teeny bit of interest. But only teeny.

But, anyway, this week we have a luau. In New Jersey. Yeah, you just know it's going to be good and authentic.

They're doing this at a place called Lee's Hawaiian Islander, in Lyndhurst. Yelpers give it a generous three stars. Upon entering Lee's, Florence Henderson is immediately taken back in time to the Hawaii episodes of The Brady Bunch.

Each team is responsible for four appetizers, each serving 50, and one cocktail. Rachael and Guy take their teams to different parts of the restaurant to plan their meals. In other words, Rachael and Guy tell their teams exactly what they'll be cooking and how.

The two comedians were on the bottom last week, so let's see how they're doing this time around: Chris Kattan must have been on a bender the night before, because he just cannot stay awake during the meeting.

Or maybe, like the rest of us, he simply just does not care. And despite his lack of attention span, he's saddled with two major components of the team's meal--a major meaty appetizer AND the cocktail. I think they just wanted him to go away. As do I.

Judy Gold wants to make something everyone will like, because her weird spicy eggplant stuff from the prior challenge wasn't exactly a big hit. So she settles on mini eggrolls, which Rachael suggests she fill with shrimp and ground pork. And wouldn't you know it--Judy grew up Kosher. She's never cooked either protein, and she's worried. Could be her swan song as well.

So the eight of them head into the relatively small kitchen and commence to Luau-ing. Tiffany has decided to make a dish with lots of components: mini tacos filled with raw tuna. She didn't realize that she'd be helping Chris, who is having issues with his meat. In addition to that personal problem, he's not efficient with his time management, cutting his pork very slowly and constantly needing to be reminded that there's a rice component to his dish. He's calling it Volcano Swine, btw.

Elsewhere in the kitchen, Penn is whipping up an "authentic" Thai curry sauce that he learned from a Vegas chef. Vanilla Ice is still playing to the camera, despite Guy's admonishments from the week before. And everything he says comes out in rhyming couplets. Please don't confuse that with anything even vaguely Shakespearean or even poetic. He's working on pineapple cake while bragging about his "ridiculous meticulous" kitchen habits. For the sake of accuracy, let's just cut that down to "ridiculous."

Mama Brady is making ribs, a big project for someone with a broken foot. She has to par-cook them before grilling them. Oh, and did I mention there's only 90 minutes of cook time?

Herschel says that last week he made a dainty dessert, so he wants to do something more manly this week. He chooses chicken lettuce cups. Chicken is his thing, after all. His Renaissance Man Food Services is the largest minority-owned chicken supplier in the US. But dude, chicken isn't not dainty. Especially when you serve it in lettuce cups.

Then there's a fryer issue. There's only one fryer--currently being monopolized by Chris Kattan, who is cooking huge amounts of pork chunks into oblivion--and four people needing to use it. Tiffany has fifty tiny taco shells to make out of won ton wrappers. Jake Pavelka (who?) has tiny pork tonkatsu to fry. And let's not forget Judy Gold's un-kosher eggrolls. (Also do not forget that she was on Chopped.) All the fryer tizzy causes Jake to mutter something about violating the "man code," whatever the feck that is, so he jumps in and grabs the fryer for himself.

Whatever.

After frying his pork, Jake makes the team cocktail, a ginger Mai Tai. He repeatedly tells us that he's not a bartender. I think he's offended to be assigned the position, which of course is an offense to bartenders everywhere. It's not like bar-tending isn't an honorable vocation. We all need to drink, dammit! Florence helps out by tasting the rum repeatedly.

The kitchen nonsense is eventually over and Team Rachael sends their food out.

NY restaurateur and Chopped judge Marc Murphy is this week's special judge and jury. And apparent expert on luau food.

He, Guy, and Rachael all seem to enjoy Judy's eggrolls and Florence's ribs. Jake's pork tonkatsu is a little dry, but Marc commends him on his macadamia nut breading. Penn's Thai-cum-Hawaiian curry chicken with pineapple suffers from too much sweet pineapple, but the judges agree that the sauce is "awesome." (Which of course means nothing.) And finally, Jake "I'm not a bartender" Pavelka's cocktail is, "the bomb." (Again, meaningless.)

Guy's team serves next. 'Nilla's pineapple cake looks impressive, and the cake and compote are good, but he's dumped the sugar bowl into his whipped cream which throws the dish into sweet overload. Herschel put peanuts in his lettuce cups because he was worried about the texture of his chicken (personal problems abound here today), which the judges love. No telling how many patrons went into anaphylactic shock during the meal. One taster called the dish, "delicate," which of course is exactly what Herschel was going for. Tiffany's tuna lacks seasoning, because of course she was too busy helping trainwreck Chris, but she gets points from Rachael for having so many components. And speaking of trainwrecks, Kattan's pork was overcooked and the dish had way too much sauce. However, his "Guy Tai," heavy on the mango and rum though it was, was tasty.

After a commercial break, Marc announces the winners and losers. The audience favorite dish on Guy's team was 'Nilla's pineapple cake, but they did not like Tiffany's taco. I'm going to leave that one alone. The audience also liked Team Rachael member Judy's eggrolls but disliked Penn's chicken curry. Jake's Mai Tai wins out over Chris' Guy Tai. Team Rachael is the overall winner, with Florence Henderson getting the "MVP" award. This means her charity, City of Hope, gets $2500.

Guy's team is the loser, and it's pretty obvious who will be going home. That is, if he doesn't fall asleep on his way out the door.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

The Arthouse

Before the holidays, we'd been hearing some buzz about a new pizza place in Hampden. No, not Paulie Gee's, which was scheduled to open last summer but instead encountered a snafu with their imported pizza oven. It was The Arthouse, an art gallery-cum-restaurant located a few doors down from Golden West Cafe. Last fall, the owners got a beer and wine license and switched their focus from wall art to table art in the form of crisp-crusted brick oven pizza, salads, and other nibbles.

On our annual pilgrimage to see the lights of 34th Street, we stopped at The Arthouse for an early dinner. The place opens at 4pm, and by 4:30, it was packed by what appeared to be a large family gathering that took up all of the tables that were adjacent to and behind the bar area. Luckily for us, the front tables were still free, so we grabbed one and perused the menu.

The pizzas at The Arthouse are fairly esoteric, with toppings like duck confit and snails. Those were the most intriguing to us, so those were the two we ordered.

But first, we shared a grilled Caesar salad, topped with homemade croutons, plenty of Parmesan cheese, and two fresh anchovies which had been marinated in vinegar in the style of the traditional Spanish tapas called Boquerones. If you hate the typical anchovy, those strongly fishy and hairy creatures that live in cans, but you like fish in general, you should give these boquerones a try. They had a much fresher, less-fishy flavor than the usual Caesar topping, and we enjoyed them quite a bit. Our only critique of the salad is that the dressing could have used a bit more acid in the form of lemon juice.

Our pizzas looked quite similar, but were extremely different. Mr Minx chose the version topped with duck confit, "black bean sauce," arugula, and crema. It was...odd. While waiting for the pizzas to arrive, we weren't sure if the black beans would be more Latino or Asian in character. They turned out to be the latter. Rather than a sauce, the strongly salty beans were scattered over the pizza along with shreds of duck meat and pickled red onion. The duck flavor was non-existent, as overpowering as the other elements proved to be.  

My escargot pizza was quite a contrast, with far more subtle flavors. The crust was the best part, and I suspect my pie was baked naked, as even the tip of the very last piece was still crisp. It was like a great focaccia--you know, when they're brushed with olive oil that sinks into the outer crust, giving it both a light sheen and a buttery crunch. I am obsessed with that crust. Oh, and I liked the toppings, too--a smattering of mushroom-like escargot, a tiny bit of cheese, and a blanket of arugula. (I looove arugula.) Oh, and garlic butter, which oozed off the pizza and formed a pool on the pan underneath. The Arthouse cleverly puts their pizzas on screens, so the bottom crust is elevated from the pan and can't steam. And that makes it easy to drag slabs of pizza crust through that butter puddle.

Mr Minx's crust was tasty too, of course, but the bottom was a bit softer because of the toppings. Get rid of those beans and it would have been far more successful.

Despite one weird pie and the plethora of children in the place (who, to their parents' credit, were amazingly well-behaved and surprisingly quiet), we liked The Arthouse quite a bit. It was an attractive space, with interesting art (for sale) on the walls, a long wooden bar that looked like a fun place to hang out, and there was garlic butter and arugula on the menu. I'm already looking forward to our next visit.

The Arthouse
1115 West 36th Street
Baltimore, MD 21211
(443) 438-7700





Posted on Minxeats.com.

Sofi's Crepes

Back: BBQ pork and shredded cheese. Front: crepe Florentine.

We're bad bloggers. There's always some restaurant that opens fairly nearby that we swear up and down to "try this weekend," but then we never get to it. Months go by before we finally get our asses in gear and try said new place.

Sofi's Crepes at Belvedere Square is one of those places. Despite being so close, we seldom find ourselves anywhere near the market, except in passing. But now that the Senator Theatre is open once again, we have a good excuse to not only drop by, but also to stay for a while.

One recent evening, we decided on a crepe dinner before seeing a movie on the big screen. (Has anyone else noticed that not only are there fewer seats in the original auditorium, but they're also smaller? Or has my ass gotten that much bigger since the last time we went to the movies?)

Mr Minx ordered the bbq pork crepe, which was messily stuffed with smoky pulled pork. He enjoyed it. Personally, I thought the sauce was too smoky, but liked that there was a generous amount of filling. I had the crepe Florentine, with spinach, Gruyere, mushrooms, sunflower seeds, and a pepper parmesan sauce. You all know how picky I am by now, so it won't surprise you when I say I think the spinach and mushrooms would have been better had they been sauteed, not raw. With every bite, my teeth yanked out a whole spinach leaf as a flavorless white mushroom slice popped out onto the table. Would have been nice if the sunflower seeds hadn't been just this side of rancid, too. According to the chef/cook/dude who made the crepes, the Florentine is one of their best sellers, along with the Kevin Bacon (turkey, bacon, 1000 Island dressing). Trust me - cooked spinach and mushrooms would taste much better.

Couldn't find fault with the crepe itself though. It was properly eggy, tender and crisp-edged. Next time I'll just get one plain, maybe with some lemon and sugar, the way my Dad used to make them when I was a kid. That BATS crepe sounds good too though (bacon, avocado, tomato, sour cream)....

We also had a dessert crepe, which Crepe Dude thoughtfully split into two smaller, individually-wrapped portions: the turtle, with caramel, melted chocolate, and sliced almonds. I couldn't really taste the caramel, but the combination of melted chocolate and crepe took me straight to Paris. My family had taken a trip there in the 70s and we ate our fair share of chocolate-filled crepes from a street cart near our hotel. (A completely unrelated aside: we stayed at the Hotel du Danube, at 48 Rue Jacob. It was a semi-fleabag then; the first room we were shown didn't have heat, and it was an unseasonably cold November. Our second room wasn't much better, but it was warm. Now it seems to be a luxury hotel.)

While I had issues (don't I always?), I thought Sofi's was a perfect place to grab a quick bite before a film. The food was filling, but didn't weigh me down or make me sleepy, an important consideration before heading into a dark theater.

Sofi's Crepes
5911 York Road
Baltimore, MD 21212
(410) 727-5737





Posted on Minxeats.com.