#100DaysOfFoodBlogging, Travel, Videos

#DCTravelBlogger Brunch – Jaleo Crystal City

Jaleo Crystal City  

[This is post #004 towards #100DaysOfFoodBlogging, our goal to do 100 posts in 100 days as part of The 100 Day Project.]

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to attend a blogger meet-up, I’ve got the dirty secrets right here in this very post. Yup. It’s like General Hospital up in this crazy blogger world. Betrayal, murder, paternity tests…

Okay, aside from maybe stealing someone’s sangria, there wasn’t any soap opera drama.  And kinda hard for there to be any secrets when everything is tweeted or Instagramed the second it happens. Such is life for a blogger.

Anyway, Jessica at The Dining Traveler was kind enough to set up a brunch at Jaleo Crystal City for DC/VA/MD-based bloggers. Most of the attendees have travel blogs, but a few of us food bloggers snuck in and there were even a few fashion-focused folks as well. It was a great mix and I’m happy to have made some new friends in the local blogging community. I’ll get to Jaleo’s phenomenal food in a second, but it goes without saying that the people are what made the event successful. For fear of leaving someone out, I’m not going to attempt to list everyone, so check out the hashtag #DCTravelBlogger on Twitter or Instagram to find the folks who partook in the fun. 

It was great to share stories of gumbo, DC traffic, blog traffic, DC weather, cocktails, food, Tastemade, home ownership, New Orleans, food photography, day jobs that pay the bills, upcoming vacations, California, wine, dog hair, old phones, and #DCFoodPorn. 

Speaking of food porn…

So what’d we eat? I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Speak is probably too weak a word, as the food at Jaleo sang to us at every course. And the service was SPOT-ON. Our sangria glasses were never empty and the staff welcomed the insanity of our selfies, food pics, and blog videos. 

Jaleo Crystal City #DCTravelBlogger

‘Ferran Adrià’ liquid olives – Like a delicious science experiment in your mouf.

We were even lucky enough to get a demonstration on how the liquid olives were made by Head Chef, Domenick Torlucci:

Jaleo Crystal City #DCTravelBlogger

Smoked salmon on cristal bread with hardboiled egg, goat cheese and capers.

Jaleo Crystal City #DCTravelBlogger

Yes, we even ate our veggies…because Chef Torlucci and his team made them taste amazing.

Jaleo Paella Crystal City

Vegetable Paella – Fun Fact: This paella pan was bigger than my Mazda.

Jaleo Crystal City #DCTravelBlogger

Sweet-soaked Spanish toast with caramelized bananas and rum whipped cream.

There might have been a selfie stick involved…

And of course we made good use of said selfie stick…

Being a blogger and living on Twitter and Instagram, it’s easy to forget that there are REAL people behind all the pictures and tweets. It was nice reminder that the pictures and stories we share online are nothing without anyone to share it with. So, Salud! to new friends and future meet-ups.

PS:  Don’t take my word for it. Check out the links below to some of the other bloggers’ experiences at the event. There are a TON of great pics, so prepare your eyes for mucho #foodporn:

Jaleo on Urbanspoon

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#100DaysOfFoodBlogging, Reviews, Travel, Videos

When in Sacramento…Drink Wine!

Skinner Vineyards

[This is post #002 towards #100DaysOfFoodBlogging, our goal to do 100 posts in 100 days as part of The 100 Day Project.]

Before I go on any trip, I typically have at least 701 restaurants mapped out to visit. However, since this was a work trip, I wasn’t quite sure how much free time I’d have. I could have done some research anyway, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up for nothing. So, I landed in Sacramento with my boss, zero plans and no expectations.

It ended up working out well, since my boss is a wine aficionado in the truest sense of the word. He had some nearby wineries mapped out on his to-taste list, so I tagged along. In hindsight, I probably should have taken a wine tasting class, since I’m about as opposite as can be from a wine aficionado. I’m sure we were quite the odd couple:  He sniffed, inquired about production levels and varietals, while my input was limited to…”{grunting sound} Me likey.”

We visited about a half dozen wineries during our limited free time and luckily ended up finding some decent restaurants, too. Below are a few of my favorites, but first a quick disclaimer:  Most of the spots below are near Sacramento, but only one is actually in the city, so be prepared to travel a bit.

1. Klinker Brick Winery (Lodi, CA)

Klinker Brick Winery

I really loved the casual atmosphere of this winery. It’d be a great place to hang out on their patio, sip some wine, play some corn-hole, and just enjoy that fresh California breeze. And the name, Klinker Brick, is just fun to say. How can you not have a good time at a place called Klinker Brick?! Oh, the wine. Right. The wine highlights for me included their Albariño, Petite Syrah, and Farrah Syrah. Truth be told, I don’t think I had ever heard of Albariño before. Either way, me likey.

2. Jessie’s Grove Winery (Lodi, CA)

Jessie’s Grove Winery Ice House

The dessert wines at Jessie’s Grove were brilliant. Give me a dark chocolate bar, a bottle of their Sweet Perfection and I’d be set for the evening. (BTW – It’s hard to concentrate right now because I’m blasting “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. And YES, I am singing along and replacing “girl” with “grove.”) Aside from wine and chocolate, I was struck by the history of the vinyard, which stretched back to the late 1800s. Some of the original vines that were planted in 1888 are still used for production in their wines today. You’re not just drinking wine here, you’re traveling back in time and tasting history. But since there were no blogs back then, I recommend traveling back to present time as fast as possible.

3.  The Dancing Fox Winery and Bakery (Lodi, CA)    The Dancing Fox Winery and Bakery on Urbanspoon

The Dancing Fox Winery and Bakery

The name is a little misleading, as I saw no foxes dancing, but that was quickly reconciled by the fact that The Dancing Fox Winery and Bakery bakes its own bread. Honestly, if you bake your own bread, it almost doesn’t matter what you put between it.  Tried a Tri-tip Green Chili Melt and surprisingly, the highlight wasn’t the green chili, tri-tip, or the melty-cheese. It was cheddar-jalapeno bread so fresh I could taste the field the wheat was harvested from. (Now that’s how you hyperbole the heck out of  sandwich!) Also, they give you a cookie with every order! It’s the little things that can make me happy and in this case it was a snicker doodle. I recommend stopping at this place for lunch in preparation for a day of wine tasting in Lodi. Create that solid bread foundation in your stomach for which the wine can fall upon.

4. Ella Dining Room & Bar  (Downtown Sacramento)     Ella Dining Room and Bar on Urbanspoon

Ella Dining Room & Bar

Ella Dining Room & Bar is the kind of place that I would’ve planned to go to, had I been aware of its existence. First of all, the restaurant is adorned with shutters on the walls, imported from somewhere like Hungary. Why? Who knows, but it looked cool as heck. I tried their signature cocktail, The Real Gin and Tonic, and was not disappointed. I was so not disappointed that I had two more. And then there was the fried chicken, which was guaranteed to be moist because it was sous vide before being fried. I also have to admit that although it was a nice restaurant and I was with work folks (including my boss and our company President), that did not stop me from ordering said fried chicken and eating it with my bare hands. #NoShame. Oh, and the housemade hot sauce was the bomb.com/yummy.php.

5. Skinner Vineyards (Somerset, CA)

Let’s not beat around the grape vines:  Enjoyed a stellar 2012 Grenache, Estate wine, but the highlight of this place was the VIEW. We could have been drinking rainwater out of red solo cups and I would’ve still had a great time. You can’t tell from the video, but snow-capped mountain tops were even visible! Made the mistake of going to Skinner Vineyards as our last stop before the airport. Almost didn’t get on the plane… If you’re heading to Lake Tahoe from Sacramento, take a couple hours out of your trip and stop here to sip the wine and take in the scenery.

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As much as I love the other cities of California (you know, the ones that start with ‘San’ or ‘Los’), I wouldn’t mind going back to Sacramento. I actually do have unfinished business. There’s a restaurant called Bacon and Butter that I didn’t get a chance to try. Yes, BACON and BUTTER. Need I say more?

Like what you see? Then let’s be email buddies:


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#100DaysOfFoodBlogging, Thought Nuggets

One year later…

One Year Photo Collage

[This is post #001 towards #100DaysOfFoodBlogging, our goal to do 100 posts in 100 days as part of The 100 Day Project.]

From deviled eggs, to foodgawker rejects, to pie, more pie, and yet again pie. I still don’t think we had enough pie on the blog…

Love stories about egg cookers, pick-me-up empanadas, haiku-filled videos about sushi, and roasting fresh coffee with new friends.

We baked, cooked, photographed, ate…ate…ate some more…then ate again. (Technically, Tina did the baking, cooking, and photographing, while I did most of the eating.)

I took more pictures of food with my phone than I felt comfortable doing.

We made silly videos about restaurants.

I stalked Google Analytics for no good reason.

It’s been a year since we started this blog, what’s the point?

Looking back at our year, this food blog wasn’t the final product, rather it was a path towards an infinite number of friends and experiences. Because of this blog, we ate at restaurants, sampled food, and tried recipes that we might not have otherwise, but more importantly we met some fantastic people near and far. No B.S. Thank you to everyone who’s pinned, retweeted, commented, emailed, shared, liked, and favorited our posts. There might only be a few of you out there, but that’s a few more than we had a year ago.

Okay, jeez, put the tissues away. This isn’t the last post for the rest of forever. It is the first post of the rest of our lives. Ha. Gross. No, seriously this is like episode one in Season 2. It needs to be good, but not too good, ’cause you want to make sure you have something to build towards.

Anyway, since we’re kicking off a new year here are a couple of new things we’ll be doing:

Email Subscription

We figured that after a year of blogging we should probably give ya’ll the option to subscribe to a newsletter. Don’t worry we won’t clog up  your inbox, as we’ll try to keep the emails to at most two per month. The goal is to not only let you know about new posts, but to also share some links that we think are cool, send you some free stuff from time-to-time, and occasionally send you funny pictures and drawings. The first email update will likely include a picture involving alcohol, a toaster, and a DIY photobooth. Probably not the best tease, but come on, let’s be email buddies:


#The100DayProject

Some of you may have already seen The Great Discontent’s 100-Day Project, but in short it’s a collective promise to commit to making something each day for 100 straight days. Technically it started on April 6th, but you can start at any time and catch up when you can. Figured with the kick off of year numero dos for the blog, this would be a good experiment. So, we will attempt to publish a blog post every day for the next 100 days. Sure, that’s not that big of a deal, especially since a lot of blogs already have daily posts. But for a small food blog that only had 43 posts during the course of an entire year, it’ll be quite an accomplishment. My buddy Mike over at The Flying Peanut is to blame for this, so if you get tired of seeing an influx of posts here, send him hate mail.  And, yes, this post does count as #1. Only 99 more to go!

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CHEERS to one year!

 

 

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Beyond the Food

Loco’l to Globo’l: The new fast food

Loco'l Roy Choi

It’s 4 AM and our stomachs GROWL as we start the hour drive back home. Okay, technically it should only be 3 AM, but daylight savings just stole an hour from our lives.

Anyway, it’s 4 AM and we’re hungry after a late night out. Stomach pangs in full force, we don’t care what fixes it, we just want to fill our bellies with something–ANYTHING as long as it’s quick, cheap, and available. Not surprisingly at this time of night (morning), options are limited to less than a handful of fast food joints, so we settle on breakfast sandwiches from Ronald’s golden arch palace.

Funny that the only options are probably some of the worst things you could throw into your body; especially in the wee hours of the night after the stomach is lined with the always fun combination of craft beer and Maker’s Mark. And I’m not saying you should be juice cleansing at 4 AM or tossing a kale salad together in a drunken haze, but there has to be an option to satisfy your hunger with food that is comforting, yet also honest and not cranked out of a factory.

If Chef Roy Choi (the Papi Chulo of Korean tacos) has his way, we will soon have that option. An option that doesn’t sacrifice quality for cost. An option that doesn’t sacrifice healthy choices for fast ones. An option that allows for us to be fed by chefs and not corporations.

Meet Loco’l:

Choi, along with his crew of world-class chefs (Daniel Patterson, René Redzepi, & Chad Robertson) are trying to revolutionize fast food with Loco’l. Their goal is to take the efficiency, price point, and supply chain organization of the quick service industry and apply it to chef-driven recipes, sourced from REAL local ingredients; feeding the world from the hands of chefs and not brands. And on top of all that, they’re trying to create a restaurant culture that gives back to the community.

So, what Choi and his crew of some of the world’s greatest chefs are trying to accomplish is no small feat. This isn’t just a new “farm-to-table” or type of fast food restaurant. They are actively trying to change the way the fast food industry operates. Impossible? As, Daniel Patterson says in their Indiegogo campaign video above, “Well, how would you know? No one’s tried.”

With other chefs, sometimes an air of sarcastic cockiness lingers with every word they say, but Choi comes off as a humbly cool guy. He feels tangible. In an Eater interview with Hillary Dixler, Choi references their goal of making a 99 cent burger; a goal that would feel like a joke or empty promise if thrown out by anyone else. But when Choi says it, there’s an earnestness to it, as if this is what HAS to be done. And he acknowledges that there is a bit of putting the cart before the horse in their goals, but there’s a boldness to their strategy that I admire. They didn’t decide to just make an inexpensive burger, and say, “Oh we’ll see how low we can get the price point.” Nope, Choi’s got 99 problems and they’re all pennies.

And for the naysayers out there questioning why these powerhouse chefs are crowdfunding a lot of their pennies through IndieGoGo, you can see Roy’s full answer here. But, technically, all of us are already guilty of “crowdfunding” all the big corporate fast food companies and we’ve been doing it for years. How many times have you you stuffed your mouf with food from a drive-thru in the last month? What about last week? You’re eating french fries right now as you read this, aren’t you? Your trackpad has a grease stain and I can see salt on the keys. Besides, your “donation” to Choi’s campaign isn’t solely out of the goodness of your heart, you’re actually getting tangible benefits. From gift cards and t-shirts to private Loco’l parties, every donation level has a tangible perk equal or greater than the monetary value you’re giving up.

Sure this could all be a big failure and yes the goals and ambition behind it is akin to a child dreaming of walking on the moon. But, let’s keep in mind someone did actually walk on the moon. Yeah, kind of makes this fast food revolution seem a little less insane. Even still, Choi and Patterson might be insane for attempting this, but for every person who supports their mission and for every individual that their mission ends up supporting, they take one step closer to sanity and one giant leap towards turning Loco’l into something globo’l.

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After donating to their Indiegogo campaign, follow the Loco’l adventure online via their website, through Facebook, or follow them on Twitter. 

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