The open-fire grills are hand-made in Michigan

About three years ago, Ben Eisendrath left behind a career at AOL and decided to revive a moribund company founded by his father, a former foreign correspondent and current journalism professor who in 1980 patented a grill based on the Argentine method of open-fire cooking.

The Adams Morgan resident has, in no time, become the grill man to the stars. He’s sold his aircraft-grade stainless steel grills to a number of celebrities, from actor Matthew McConaughey to chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill fame.

I will unpack the Grillworks story more completely in next week’s Young & Hungry column, but before then, I wanted to give you a quick look at this sleek, deceptively simple grill. Yesterday, Eisendrath gave me a demonstration of his Grillery Standard unit (a pricey piece of cooking equipment that’ll set you back nearly $2,500) in the backyard of one of his Georgetown customers.

Take a look:

Read More “A Hardcore Grill for Non-Smokers” »

What oh what would we do without advice like this? Don’t forget to invite friends. And make sure you have beer glasses! Ugh… Our very own Beerspotter posted some tips for hosting beer tastings awhile back, but he thought enough of his readers to leave out some of the obvious ones.

The best tip from the How-To video above is to make sure you keep hoppy and high-alcohol beers for the end of the night so you don’t blow your palate. There’s nothing like starting with a beer that you end up feeling in your mouth for the rest of the night, no matter what you eat or drink after it.

If you have hosted your own tasting, let us know what rules you found helpful, or any funny mistakes you have learned from.

Not long after I posted my mini-rant on the difficulty of securing genuine Louisiana crawfish in the District, I received an e-mail from Rene LeBreton under the subject line: Loved your crawfish article “The Sourcing Game.” With a name like LeBreton, I knew Rene had to be from Louisiana.

LeBreton, in fact, is the assistant executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion & Marketing Board within the state’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

I exploited LeBreton’s kindness by grilling him about the state of Louisiana crawfish and how Chinese imports continue to affect the local markets. The United States, he notes, imports about $43 million worth of crawfish annually, according to 2007 statistics, the vast majority of which comes from China.  That same year, Louisiana produced about 112 million pounds of crawfish, both farmed and wild, with a total value of $121 million. Officials believe that about 70 percent of the Louisiana crawfish are consumed in the immediate Gulf Coast area.

Chinese imports, in other words, likely account for a large percentage of the crawfish consumed in other parts of the United States. Writes LeBreton:

Read More “More on the State of Louisiana Crawfish” »

Believe it or not, Y&H encountered this very problem last night during a backyard grilling session in Georgetown. (More on the grilling session later today.) Fortunately, I remembered that I carry a corkscrew in the car (don’t ask), but next time, I’ll try one of these techniques. The last one, in particular, intrigues me. Has anyone tried it?

Eagle-eye Carrie spotted this monstrosity at our local Shoppers Food Warehouse, where the bakery department either has a good sense of humor or is bored out of its skull. Yes, it’s my first ever St. Paddy’s Day bagel.

Erin go bupkis!

What about you, Y&H Nation? I’m curious about what kind of green-tinted tummy rumblers you’ve found as we approach St. Patrick’s Day 2010. I’ll buy a green beer for the first reader to send a photo of a foodstuff that’s a brighter shade of green than the interior of my bagel. Check it out:

Read More “Oy Vey! The St. Paddy’s Day Bagel at Shoppers” »

“Fun guys”? Fungi? Get it? Ahh, nevermind.

You might have spotted beers by Denmark’s one-man Mikkeller in all their graphic-designed glory and wondered about these anomalous brews, specifically about why you should part with $6 or $7 for a single 12 oz. bottle. I can’t vouch for the prices — though good beer is expensive, and maybe Denmark’s currency has some stranglehold on the dollar that I’m unaware of. Mikkeller’s beers are unequivocally interesting, usually delicious, and sometimes worth the price tag. But their newly announced “educational” yeast series sounds like something to keep an eye on.

The company will brew one prototype beer, an 8% abv pale ale, and subject different batches of it to five different yeast strains: lager, U.S. ale, Belgian ale, German wheat, and brettanomyces (the prototypical “wild,” or naturally occurring, yeast). Each batch will be bottled separately in 12 oz. bottles. I imagine the differences between the batches will be enormous, highlighting what is probably the most ignored ingredient in beer: yeast. (OK, actually water gets even less credit, but that’s another post.) We think of malt and hops as the building blocks, and by mass they comprise nearly all of beer’s solid ingredients. If you were baking bread, malts would be the flour and hops would be the flavor stuff, caraway seeds and whatnot.

Read More “Mikkeller Yeast Series Beers Sound Like Fun Guys” »

After three months of searching and 10 different tastings, the ownership group of the forthcoming Sushi Rock has selected its opening chef for the Arlington restaurant, which will combine Japanese cuisine with delusions of pop-star grandeur. The Public Group has plucked Sonny Tena, a former sous chef at SEI in Penn Quarter.

“Sonny is the one who excited us the most,” says Tony Hudgins, co-managing partner for Public Group. Tena impressed the owners so much, in fact, the chef influenced Sushi Rock’s approach to cuisine, which will mix traditional Japanese sushi with inventive hand rolls and some hot entrees.

Read More “Sushi Rock Hires Former SEI Sous Chef” »

You may have noticed our coverage of the global ABV war that is pitting brewer against brewer in the quest to produce the holy grail of the beer business: the world’s strongest brew. Alcohol content has little to do with a beer’s quality, but hey, just as some guys need red convertibles to compensate for their, um, inadequacies, some brewers need a ridiculously large ABV in their beers. The latest entrant into this silliest of arms races is the Dutch brewery Brouwerij en Distilleerderij, makers of Obilix, a 45-ABV beer that promises to taste like… alcohol. How could it not?

Jim Gaffigan may need to revise his stand-up routine to deal with this bacon tragedy.

Do you really want this burger to represent reader tastes this year?

Hey, y’all know that you have a say in what food and drinks represent City Paper readers in our annual Best of D.C. issue, right? So are you exercising your rights in the 2010 Readers’ Poll? If not, don’t bitch to me when Five Guys wins the best burger category, making it look like you readers are just a bunch of cattle funnelling into the nearest meat trough.

I know that’s not the truth, right? Right?

You have until March 15 to stuff the ballot box for your food and drink favorites.  Come on, folks, do you want a bunch of bored Hill interns to represent your tastes?