Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Home Cookin'.....

As the memories of greens, fairways, and locally caught Tilapia fade into the memory locker, just a quick couple of notes about some local goings on..


Corporate Decisions
At first they didn’t.  Now apparently they do.  Ground has been scraped and steel is being erected to provide us with the fourth (of a planned five) chain eateries along Rte. 235 North.  First of course, was the long anticipated arrival of the flagship of corporate Italian dining, the Olive Garden, soon joined by the upscale burger palace Red Robin, and lately one of two Texas style steakhouses.

What used to be green grass (well, okay weeds, but they were green) is now home of yet another constructions site.





It is quite amazing how fast these things arise once they begin.  And yes, another “coming soon”, the all too common sign of “development” in our county.  This one announces




Another wished for addition to our ever expanding cadre of processed, market researched, prepared off site, and delivered to you places.   And of course “we” do nothing to dissuade them, the parking lots are always full to the gills. 

Which leads me to a little observation about the barrel of crackers.  They seem to always locate next to a heavily traveled road, interstate, or at big interchanges.  Most of the ones I have seen have some of the parking lot between the building and the thoroughfare.  A vast majority of CB parking lots that I have observed always seem to have that first row full.  Would they make the employees park there to appear busy?  Who knows.  Just take notice as you motor around the country.  And oh yes, they make you enter the restaurant through a gift shop.  Real fine dining.

An Indie Update

I think I have reported before that one of our local independent chefs, Ahmed (originally of the Tides) who currently operates Chef’s American Bistro in my nearby San Souci, announced changes to the place, and a return to his roots.  Apparently it is in progress





The sign is kind of confusing as I read it, but nonetheless it announces the change. Seeing "gourmet" and "soul food" in the same sentence strikes me as kind of an oxymoron. Be interesting to see the menu.  Oh yeah, add "buffet" to the words I would not expect to see.  I suppose it is too "cutesy" to have called it "Kafe Kili...."  and I have seen no movement toward his other objective of rehabbing the Lone Star spot in Lex Park to “Bistro 235”.

And our old McDonalds, new Golden Corral location seems to be worked on sporadically.

Publications

I was looking at some food blogs just a bit ago, and was reminded of an experience from our last San Diego visit. I think you remember that our friend there is a very good cook, and one of her friends gave her a subscription to Lucky Peach, a recently launched publication of David Chang of MomoFuko, a pretty respected restaurant.  It is in the sort of second tier of foodie mags, for a more limited market I presume.  While there I picked up one of her issues.  This particular one contained a sort of round table discussion between David, I think maybe Mario (I may be wrong here) and a couple of other well known chefs.  I try to be liberal in this things, but I was amazed to find a constant string of F Bombs, scatological references, and use of many words that would not be part of my conversation, especially about food.  Being famous doesn’t give you the right to be vulgar.  Just a thought.

MFO and the MOMSTER are on the road again to Wisconsin, and I am holding down the digs.  Most likely I won’t be


DFD

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