Das Schnitzel Haus Udupi East Coast Orig­i­nal Cus­tard Korea House (The Bibim Bam is as awe­some as I remem­bered) Punk Rock Soft­ball Cave­man Diaries/​Megachurch CD Release (more to come) Paint upstairs apart­ment Eat southern-​roasted turkey, polenta and roasted red onion & avo­cado salad with neigh­bors Jack Frost Donuts (I’ve had the donuts plenty of times, but never […]

This was the open­ing week­end for the epony­mous Bắc, the new Asian food place in Tremont. I’d spent most of the day yes­ter­day tramp­ing around Cleve­land in the snow, so it was a wel­come change of pace to spend some time in a warm room with great atmos­phere and cute wait staff. The change in the space […]

This Christ­mas sea­son I have made: 4 batches of Art of Dark­ness Brown­ies 3 batches of chocolate-​dipped pret­zel rods 12 pounds of fudge (soon to be 16) 4 batches of 7-​layer bars a dozen Best of 2009 CDs

I have this ridicu­lous idea for a gim­mick restau­rant. This is not the hos­tile takeover of Grumpy’s in which every­thing with “cajun spice” would be removed from the menu (which would allow us to basi­cally write a whole new menu), all wait staff would be forced to wear flo­ral print aprons and the place would be renamed […]

Ingre­di­ents 1# kiel­basa, sliced 1 box frozen piero­gies 1 green pep­per, diced 1 red pep­per, diced 1⁄2 red onion, diced 8 oz. frozen corn 2 T. but­ter Recipe Put the but­ter in a 13×9 inch casse­role dish and stick it in the oven. Pre­heat the oven to 400° Prep the other ingre­di­ents, and toss them together in a large mix­ing bowl. When the […]

Over the last few weeks I’ve eaten at a cou­ple of new [to me] Cleveland-​area food places. My favorite aspect of Cleve­land is the ease with which one can go to an authen­tic eth­nic restau­rant and never run out of such places to attend. I made it to Sterle’s Sloven­ian County House awhile back and had a great […]

Pie Day! Last night, we made pie. A slight alter­ation to my mother’s pecan pie recipe [maple syrup instead of corn syrup] and a new one, an Apple and Tart Cherry pie. Deb­bie made the crust from scratch, impress­ing the hell out of me. It took a few hours, and I was exhausted by the time I pulled the pecan […]

I made this quick and sim­ple pasta with a bit of a kick last week and made it again because it is so quick and deli­cious. I highly rec­om­mend it and it is also good for the heart, blood and immune sys­tem. The meal might not con­tain any of the 8 foods you should eat every day, but it does […]

1 Cup Organic Cran­berry Juice 3 Bananas 1/​2# Straw­ber­ries 7 ice cubes 2 scoops pro­tein pow­der Gone in sixty seconds.

I busted out the grill for the first time and cooked some cheapie Spencer steaks on it yes­ter­day. I made a lime and olive oil mari­nade; I stole the idea from Fahren­heit, only I put a lot more lime in mine. Since the steaks were so skinny I made sand­wiches out of them, with just a lit­tle bit of mayo they became […]

I had some folks from the neigh­bor­hood over last night for a win­ter bar­be­cue. I made about ten pounds of pork bar­be­cue and had green beans, corn bread, potato salad, cole slaw, banana pud­ding and pecan pie. And lots of High Life. The pork bar­be­cue turned out really well, I put a BBQ rub on the pic­nic shoul­ders, doused […]

Pork Bar­be­cue is one of my favorite things to eat. Good pork bar­be­cue is one of the tough­est things to cook. I gave it my first shot this past week­end, and it turned out bet­ter reheated than freshly cooked. I used a recipe from a sus­pect site, but its sim­plic­ity is what drew me to it. I really like to […]

I cel­e­brated Repeal Day at the Vel­vet Tango Room yes­ter­day with a Rusty Nail, a bou­quet of Bour­bon Daisies and some com­pli­men­tary sushi from Ginza.

I made vegan snick­er­doo­dles last night. I used this recipe. Although they didn’t turn out as tasty as clas­sic snick­er­doo­dles, they are still good. The recipe itself could use a lit­tle work. The ingre­di­ents list says bak­ing pow­der, but the direc­tions say bak­ing soda [I used the soda], and it makes about 2 dozen cook­ies, not 2½. It […]

I made ribs for the first time yes­ter­day. They were on sale for $1.99# at Dave’s last month so I picked up a pack and planned on invit­ing some folks over when I finally cooked them. I called up my uncle, the fam­ily grill­mas­ter, and asked for advice. Since I don’t have the hi-​tech grill that he does, I was unable […]

I was at Edison’s last night meet­ing with some neigh­bor­hood folks about a pos­si­ble syn­ergy between the lar­val Tremont Civil­ity Project and a pos­si­ble men­tor­ing pro­gram to bring together new res­i­dents, long-​time res­i­dents and even longer-​time res­i­dents. I also got pretty drunk. Rogue Brewery’s Dead Guy Ale This ale was mod­er­ately hoppy with a thick grain and fruity hints, perfect […]

I swung on up to Ohio City last night for some sushi from Kimo’s before going to the last night of inter­views for this round of Neigh­bor­hood Con­nec­tions Grant-​making. Kimo’s was closed again. The third time in a row this has hap­pened to me. I know he does the sushi for the Indi­ans, and that its a big […]

Yes­ter­day was a ter­ri­ble day to be head­ing west on I-​90. I hit Buf­falo right after the Bills game got out, had tor­ren­tial down­pours all the way to Cleve­land and arrived back in town right when the Browns game fin­ished. Peo­ple were dri­ving and not-​driving like jack­asses in the rain. The peo­ple pulled over on the side […]

I’m in Kingston, Ontario, Canada at the moment and just got back from the Kingston Brew­ing Com­pany Lim­ited where I had a Dragon’s Breath Real Ale, which is an English-​style ale, non-​carbonated and hand-​pumped from the tap. It was thick and grainy like you’d expect from an Eng­lish Ale, and very smooth to drink, espe­cially for me, […]

I made my first fall pot of veg­etable stew this week­end. I pretty much eat stew all winter long.

I made Spaghetti Car­bonara AKA Heart-​Attack on a Plate yes­ter­day. Here’s how I made it: Ingre­di­ents: 5 tea­spoons olive oil 5 gar­lic cloves, finely chopped 7 slices bacon, sliced into juli­enne strips 1 pound spaghetti 3 beaten egg yolks, room tem­per­a­ture 1⁄2 cup heavy cream 3⁄4 cup freshly grated Parme­san cheese basil to taste Prepa­ra­tion: In a saucepan, heat oil. Sauté gar­lic over medium […]

I don’t like vague direc­tions when I’m try­ing out a new recipe. Not vague like Patrick’s black beans, but vague like this: I made mango sor­bet this week­end and the recipe called for reduced sugar water, but the direc­tions sim­ply said bring to a boil then reduce heat and sim­mer for five min­utes. .5C of sugar in 1.25C […]

A group of folks from all over the coun­try was in town learn­ing about the small grant pro­gram spon­sored by The Cleve­land Foun­da­tion. You know, the one I’m on: Neigh­bor­hood Con­nec­tions. A few of the com­mit­tee mem­bers [and one lucky alter­nate] were asked to go along for a neigh­bor­hood tour yes­ter­day and then share din­ner at Fire […]

I’m cur­rently at the Phoenix on Lee [Where is Jeff Hess?] apply­ing for jobs. Ever since George posted my frus­tra­tion, I’ve got­ten quite a heart­en­ing response from folks in the area. I just fin­ished a meet­ing with a fel­low blog­ger about apply­ing to his com­pany. You peo­ple are the rea­son I love Cleve­land. I’m start­ing to hope that I might actually […]

After my run yes­ter­day I went to Dave’s and made myself a salad and grabbed a Brae­burn apple. It was what my body was crav­ing, so appar­ently I needed some iron [the major­ity of the leafy greens were spinach] and sundry other ruffage. It dis­ap­peared in no time. When I was work­ing over the sum­mer at Notre Dame, I used to […]

Girl and I had din­ner at Opa! over the week­end. It was both a tasty and nice time. We started out with an Octo­pus Salad which was a bit too smoky and olivey for our tastes and I had Pulled Lamb over Penne and Girl had Cherry and Apple glazed Pork, both of which were quite tasty. For dessert […]

The house across the street from my apart­ment is for sale for $50k. The house pay­ment would be cheaper than my rent, but upon look­ing at the inside I esti­mated another $50k would need to be invested just to make it liv­able. I don’t have the time, money or incli­na­tion to do that kind of work on […]

In which Adam posts about a new recipe.

In which Adam reviews a restau­rant spe­cial­iz­ing in fried things and South­ern food.

Another Chili Recipe

In which the author reviews the lat­est addi­tion to the vendy.

In which Adam returns to the vendy and meets a hereto­fore unknown but not unim­por­tant person.

In which Adam comes out of retire­ment to eat another some­thing hideous from the vendy downstairs.

In which Adam explains a culi­nary mis­fire that wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

Okay, I stole the title for these from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, but that is beside the point. They were tasty enough and took less time to make than even spaghetti. About 15 min­utes from light­ing the oven to stuff­ing my face. What I used: 2 really really small pieces of sliced pork loin 1 can of black beans […]

Last evening I made veg­etable mous­saka and straw­berry short­cake for my friends. I’d never made or even had mous­saka before, and I was sur­prised that I liked it as much as I did. I think I’ll like it even bet­ter with spicy sausage or lamb in it, or maybe it just needed to be a bit more dense. It was tasty […]

Some weeks ago I had the Pierre™ Foods Pizza Par­lor Meat­ball Sub [$2.05USD 1.65€] from the vendy. I didn’t review it at the time because the expe­ri­ence was still so freshly trau­matic, so fraught, that it was the best I could do to lie in a pul­ing mewl­ing fetal posi­tion under my cubi­cle and moan at the slight­est mention […]

I had a small din­ner party on Sat­ur­day night. It suc­cess­fully broke in my newly refin­ished table. I served a Lemon, Leek and Mush­room Risotto with Red Onion and Goat Cheese Pas­tries and Baked Apples for dessert. Wines served were Trim­bach Alsa­cian Gewurtz­trameiner, Cay­mus Conun­drum and Wood­bridge Pinot Gri­gio. I really liked the risotto, I’m going to have to […]

The vendy is almost empty this Fri­day. Some­one, other than me, has been eat­ing stuff from it. I hypoth­e­size that the folks work­ing all night on the 4^th floor are to blame. All that was left in the machine were things I’d already eaten [Muf­fin, Chicken Salad, Pickle] except for a chimichanga and what I ended up choosing […]

In my ongo­ing quest [pre­vi­ous reviews: Heck’s; Swenson’s] to find the best burger in Cleve­land, I took a trip out to Euclid with Five Dol­lar Beer last night to check out Stevenson’s Ham­burg­ers. We learned about this place from the hon­or­able Food­Goat. This was a damn good ham­burger, def­i­nitely the win­ner from the three burger-​centric places I’ve been […]

I shouldn’t have done it so soon, but I did. Today I pur­chased the Pierre Foods Fast Choice® BBQ Pork Rib Shaped with BBQ Sauce Sand­wich from the vend­ing machine. Bad idea. To say that my stom­ach is upset after eat­ing this would be like say­ing that Mike Tyson has an eat­ing disorder.

I hope to the Almighty Dog that my buddy from col­lege who is from Philadel­phia never reads this. I’ve been eat­ing pretty health­ily lately [apart from eat­ing a whole box of Donut Sticks on Mon­day], so today I pur­chased the Pierre™ Philly Style Cheeses­teak Beef Steak Patty Sand­wich with Green Pep­pers, Onions and Cheese from that bastard […]

Par­al­lax is one of Tremont’s newest restau­rants. I had the priv­i­lege of eat­ing there this evening. While the prices are up there, the qual­ity of the food is worth every penny. Full review past the jump.

I’ve been defeated by a mere cucum­ber! Well, not per­haps mere. The Kaiser Famous Dill Pickle, made by Kaiser Foods in Cincin­nati, OH [no web­site] is a dan­ger­ous adver­sary. The pickle, which I’m assum­ing weighed in at just less than one pound, came in a plas­tic bag and was sit­ting in its own brine. It cost one dollar […]

Another visit to the Pierre Foods kitchen today at the vendy. I got 2 Char-​Broils with Cheese for $1.50. Total weight: 4.8 ounces. Unfor­tu­nately I could not find the exact same item on the Pierre Foods site. Instead I’ve linked to the clos­est one. No nutri­tional infor­ma­tion avail­able, unfortunately.

I had lunch at Swenson’s Drive-​In in Seven Hills. It was unlike Kunkel’s Drive-​in in Con­nersville, they didn’t have the old boxes to call inside, instead you turn on your lights. The carhops run to and from the vehi­cles, I imag­ine they stay in good shape doing this. One of the carhops looked like she was […]

Now that I am fully recov­ered from my sick­ness, I’ve restarted my explo­ration of the refrig­er­ated vendy down­stairs. This morn­ing I bought Big Mike’s Gourmet Sausage and Bis­cuit for $1.50.

Otis Spunkmeyer is at least a rec­og­niz­able name in the creepy refrig­er­ated vendy down­stairs. Yes­ter­day I bought a Choco­late Choco­late Chip Muf­fin for $1.00. It was 6.5 oz and 700 calo­ries of muf­fin goo, held together only by long chain sat­u­rated fats, but nonethe­less was tasty in a processed sort of way. I was going to buy a corn dog but […]

I ate at Johnny Mango’s. In my com­pli­cated inner ratio of quan­tity and taste ver­sus price they score very highly. It also helped that I’d not had much to eat before­hand. I plowed through my plate like those dogs in kib­ble com­mer­cials. Well, maybe not that bad. I got the Mush­room, Tomato, Gar­lic Bur­rito Big Plate and […]

My quest to eat all the crap in the vend­ing machine down­stairs led me to the Land­shire Supreme Chicken Salad Sand­wich, today. I paired this with a bag of Porkies Crispy Fried Pork Rinds.

Today I had my sec­ond item from the vendy down­stairs. I had the Fast Choice Fish and Cheese Sand­wich by Pierre Foods, again. For $1.65 I received 5.75 ounces of…some­thing…with the con­sis­tency and taste of a dirty, wet mit­ten. This item is appar­ently slightly bet­ter for you than Biz AZ Bubba Twins because the nutri­tion infor­ma­tion is actu­ally posted on […]

There is a vend­ing machine down­stairs, recently installed, that con­tains a vari­ety of dirt cheap refrig­er­ated lunch prod­ucts. They all look com­pletely gross. So, since I’m the kind of guy who eats hot dog fla­vored potato chips just because they’re there, I’ve deter­mined to eat one of each thing in that vend­ing machine. Today I had BIG AZ […]

1/​2 C. brown rice 2 C. water 1 C. frozen mixed veg­eta­bles 1 T. bal­samic vine­gar 1/​2 T. extra vir­gin olive oil what­ever spices 1. Cook the rice in an uncov­ered pot. This method works excel­lently. Thank you, Patrick. 2. Cook the veg­eta­bles in another pot, cover and sim­mer once it boils. 3. When every­thing is cooked, com­bine it in […]

I had din­ner with Five Dol­lar Beer last night. We went to Heck’s Café over on Bridge Avenue, because they appar­ently have the best burg­ers in town. The burg­ers were good, but if they are the best burg­ers in town then Cleve­land sorely needs a really good burger joint. Some­thing akin to CJ’s out of South […]

I helped my friend Lau­ren move to Tremont on Sat­ur­day and then fixed a batch of chili for every­one to eat after­ward. It turned out pretty good, and though I was a bit leery of using some­thing as strange as TVP, it didn’t roil me gut like tofu tends to do. Actu­ally it was pretty good. Even better […]

I made some damn tasty pork chops last night, and if the rice turned out a bit mushy for my taste, I man­aged to hide it a bit behind some but­ter, paprika and basil. The pork chops though, were just peachy. If you try this recipe you will def­i­nitely make­out like a bandit.

My quest to make home­made Lit­tle Deb­bie Star Crunch™ started off yes­ter­day. As far as I can tell, Star Crunch is puffed rice, caramel and a choco­late coat­ing. They are gooey and deli­cious. My own foray turned out to be pretty tasty, but much chewier than gooier. If you’ve ever had a Charleston Chew, then that is the […]

My mother came up this past week­end and saw the new place. We had Thanks­giv­ing din­ner with my friend from work, Lau­ren and it turned out pretty well. I roasted Cor­nish game hens with red pota­toes and aspara­gus, basted in a lemon-​garlic mix­ture, Mom made some scal­loped yams and brought her pump­kin and famous pecan pies; and […]

I have pur­chased two brands of potato chips from the vend­ing machine. Hoot­ers™ Hot Wing Fla­vored Potato Chips, and Snyder’s of Hanover Hot! Buf­falo Wing Potato Chips. Herein lies a comparison.

I am not going to have inter­net access from my new apart­ment for a while. That means my plugged into the Matrix­ness will only be preva­lent dur­ing work hours. What­ever will I do with­out the inter­net? I will most likely:

I went to Jimmy Daddona’s for din­ner some­what dri­ven by this review in the Free Times. It wasn’t very good at all. Now, I’ve gained a lit­tle knowl­edge at the ways of foodie-​ness just by hav­ing prox­im­ity to Five Dol­lar Beer, so I am using some of his cri­te­ria in this review [or, what I think he criteria are].

I don’t think I’ve ever writ­ten about food. I’m on an eat what I’m hun­gry for diet. This is not diet used in ‘what I eat to lose weight’ instead it is used in the ‘what I eat cause I’m hungry’ sense.

Rea­son num­ber 64 why Con­nersville sucks. It is a whiskey town. I stopped at 3 liquor stores in search of my alco­hol of choice: Stolich­naya vodka. none of them had it. Abso­lut is the “high qual­ity” vodka. how­ever, if you can think of an obscure brand of whiskey they had it, in all its vari­eties. lit­er­ally 75% of […]

you prob­a­bly already know it, but i’m a skinny bas­tard. the energy my metab­o­lism burns in one day could most likely power a small coun­try for a week. i’m not kid­ding. lately i’ve been kinda slug­gish, and a cou­ple of days ago i fig­ured out why. since i have been cook­ing for myself this sum­mer, i have been eat­ing health­ier, but also […]

today was the annual Anthro­pol­ogy Depart­ment Goat Roast. At nine in the morn­ing some anthro majors and the profs, using stone tools pro­duced in the Lithic Tech­nolo­gies class, butchered a goat and a sheep. keep in mind that prop­erly pro­duced obsid­ian stone knives are some­thing like 5times sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel. so the actual cut­ting part was […]

Last night was fun. I ate at this place called Elia’s. Really good Lebanese food. Then after that, I spent sev­eral hours (ok it was till 3am) play­ing Super Mario 3 on the Nin­tendo over at my friend Cari’s place. Andy was there too and he tried to give me some advice on how to get women. I think […]