As a former resident of Cowtown, USA, I had been eyeballing the KC Pit BBQ truck for a couple of weeks now. I finally visited the massive 18-wheeler over the weekend only to discover that the owners are based in…wait for it…Sandy Springs, Ga.

Not to worry. The owners, according to KC Pit BBQ’s designed-within-an-inch-of-its-life Web site, moved to the Atlanta suburb after living in the Kansas City area, where they learned the local barbecue traditions.

Given Kansas City’s affection for ribs, I opted for the spare ribs ($11 for a generous portion, probably a half-rack). Not that I had much choice. It was either that or rib tips (not a fan of the cartilage) or a hamburger and hot dog (which, last I checked, didn’t really fit under the K.C. barbecue banner).

Read More “KC Pit BBQ on New York Avenue: Sweet Stuff. Literally.” »

For months now, if you wanted to get your hands on chef Stefano Frigerio’s creative jams, pastas, and sauces, you had to drag your ass to a local farmers market on the appropriate time and day. A lot easier said then done on most days.

But on Dec. 2 (or thereabouts, since you never know what gremlins could affect its launch), Frigerio will start selling his products online at www.copperpotfoodco.com. The site, at first, will carry only the chef’s jams and sauces but should, eventually, offer his pastas and ragus as well.

Even better, the site will hawk Frigerio’s new “jam trios.” Each collection will feature three, 4-oz jars of jams tied to a particular theme. The $15 themed collections include “Cheese Accoutrements” (white fig & balsamic, red beet & rhubarb, and quince cinnamon), “‘Spirit’ed Jams” (white peach & Prosecco ‘Bellini,’ nectarine & bourbon, and Concorde grape & grappa), and “Copper Pot Signature Jams” (strawberry & vanilla bean, blackberry ginger, and orchard-fresh apple).

Given the direction of the Copper Pot company, I had to ask Frigerio’s wife and publicist, Dusty Lockhart, if the former Mio chef still had any interest in taking a kitchen position. Last I heard, after all, he was interviewing for executive chef posts.

Read More “Just in Time for the Holidays: Copper Pot Jams and Sauces Online” »

Maybe you’ve noticed the KC Pit BBQ truck squatted at the corner of Fourth Street and New York Avenue NW. Frankly, I don’t know how you could miss it. The damn thing takes up nearly an entire block, and that doesn’t count the separate, customized wood-smoke pit hidden behind the massive 18-wheeler.

The tractor-trailer has been hovering in the District for a few weeks now, serving up K.C.-style ribs and rib tips, among other smoky things. Y&H stopped by for a visit this weekend and sampled the ribs. I’ll post more about that later, but in the meantime, I thought you might be interested in a look inside this portable kitchen, which is actually based in Georgia, not Kansas City (more on that later, too).

According to this specs page, the nearly 54-foot-long truck features:

Read More “The KC Pit BBQ Truck Is Smokin’” »

Cathal Armstrong, riding high with his venison saddle

Last Friday afternoon, I watched Cathal Armstrong slice the sirloin out of a venison saddle so deep-purple it looked like the Restaurant Eve chef was butchering Barney.

The saddle comes from Shaffer Venison Farms in central Pennsylvania, where the owner plants specific trees and shrubs on which the deer forage for their diet. What’s more, Armstrong adds, the animals are humanely slaughtered at Shaffer, which means the processed meat won’t be flooded with the adrenaline of stressed-out deer.

Adrenaline-drenched meat, in turn, “gives you a slightly bitter flavor, which you won’t find in this piece,” Armstrong says.

As he trims the silver skin away from the Shaffer meat, which is just three days off the hoof, Armstrong points out the lack of intramuscular fat. He believes this is a selling point. I confess that I’m confused. Isn’t prime beef graded on the amount of intramuscular fat? Isn’t fat, as everyone has been saying for years, where flavor comes from?

Read More “Venison at Eve: The Flavor Is Not in the Fat” »

Unlike what was reported over at Brand X, the Passenger plans to open to the public tomorrow in the former bar/cafe space at the Warehouse Theater on Seventh Street NW, even though some of the bar will not be complete.

Co-owner Derek Brown says that most of the space will be ready and that 90 percent of the wines will be available by 5 p.m. tomorrow, when the Passenger officially opens its doors.  The most prominent opening-day omission will be the “dining-car,” a sort of replica antique train car that will occupy the back part of the space. The dining car should be available by this weekend, says Brown, who’s opening the bar with his older brother, Tom Brown, and business partner Paul Ruppert.

Read More “The Passenger Set to Open Tomorrow” »

The weather today may be more suited to meats on the grill than hearty winter soups, but you know that won’t last.  Before you can say “outrageous gas bill,” the cold weather will be upon us, which means that it’ll be time for some New England clam chowder. (Sorry, but the tomato-based Manhattan version just doesn’t do much for me.) 

Adam Longworth,  the new chef at 701, offers a decidedly creamy chowder on his lunch and dinner menus ($11 for a sizable bowl).  The appetizer, sweetened with small Manila clams, is thickened with both spuds and house-smoked potato gnocchi. The latter ingredient lends the chowder a smoky depth of flavor that no salt pork could ever provide.

Read More “Dish of the Week: Clam Chowder at 701″ »

The D.C. Dish Hall of Fame leaderboard remains virtually unchanged after a week of voting, save for the flip-flop of the ninth and tenth place dishes. After a strong surge last week, Horace & Dickie’s  fried whiting moves up a notch into ninth place.

But I have to say, I think the list is still missing some great dishes. Plates like Frank Ruta’s roast chicken and Michel Richard’s lobster burger are nowhere to be seen, meaning they will not, at present, be part of the inaugural class of the D.C. Dish Hall of Fame. A shame that would be, to paraphase a certain elderly sage.

A comment we received this morning, I think, sums up the feelings of a number of voters, who seem to view this contest as an exercise in classism, not a genuine search for D.C.’s finest plates:

like most things in DC, the options show extreme class stratification. I’d love to know the percentage of DC residents who’ve enjoyed the CityZen Parker House Rolls or Komi’s spit roasted goat.

I understand that more people can afford to eat at Ben’s Chili Bowl over CityZen. But I don’t think you should hold that against a great side like Eric Ziebold’s Parker House rolls. It deserves a place among the city’s best as much as the chili half-smoke. Well, almost as much.

So, c’mon, let’s try to put our prole resentments aside and vote for the best, regardless of price.  You can vote here.

The leaderboard:

Read More “D.C. Dish Hall of Fame Leaderboard: Same As It Ever Was” »

I’m sure this vegetable has been written about 10,000 times already, by packs of roaming bloggers, but when I first saw these beauties at the farmers market this weekend, I did a double take. The cauliflower florets looked like they were made out of orange Play-Doh.

I had to ask the representative from Glenville Hollow Farms about the cauliflower. Was it a hybrid of some sort? What purpose does it serve? Does it taste like cauliflower dipped in cheddar cheese?

The employee had limited knowledge but noted that the cauliflower was first believed to grow wild in Canada before it became cultivated. It tastes no different, he said, than regular white cauliflower though it has more beta carotene than the standard stuff.  Which is bad news, I suppose, for those remaining smokers out there.

But at the very least, I thought the cheddar cauliflower would make for a colorful presentation in one of my favorite soups, Pasta and Cauliflower Soup Federica, a recipe for which I clipped out of the now-defunct Gourmet magazine in 2003.  The recipe is after the jump. Ignore the call for Romanesco cauliflower and go for the cheddar version instead.

Read More “Home Cooking Day on Y&H: Cheddar Cauliflower Is Not What You Think” »

Yaku to swim with the (raw) fishes

We interrupt Y&H’s Home Cooking Day to pass along this news: Yaku, the Latin Concept restaurant dedicated to chifa cuisine and other Peruvian specialties, will close in January and reopen as a rock ‘n’ roll/sushi establishment.

Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld, founder of the Latin Concepts group of fashionable restaurant/lounges, tells Y&H that he was forced to sell Yaku after disappointing sales. The restaurant opened in October 2008, and Latin Concepts couldn’t find a way to overcome its poor location and keep the place packed.

“Great concept and a very bad location,” Fraga-Rosenfeld says over the phone. “The location should have been downtown.”

The Latin Concepts owner compares Yaku’s woes to Oyamel, the Mexican small-plates restaurant in Crystal City that couldn’t make a go of it until THINKfoodGROUP relocated it to downtown D.C.  “They moved to D.C. and did extremely well,” Fraga-Rosenfeld adds.

Read More “Yaku to Close and Turn into a Rock ‘n’ Roll/Sushi Concept” »

Canada celebrates its own Thanksgiving every year, although best that Y&H can determine, the holiday’s origin has as much to do with surviving the Godforsaken Canadian elements as with thanking the gods for whatever bounty that iceberg up north provides.

Regardless, our buds across the border have already celebrated their harvest this year, but that doesn’t stop them from sharing this excellent, smoked-meats take on the standard, hum-drum Thanksgiving turkey. This recipe comes from Frédéric Morin, the chef at Joe Beef in Montreal.  I think I’m going to love it, if only for one reason: It includes a side of meat to go with your meat.

Canadians probably call it stuffing.

When the host of the show asks Morin how he came up with the recipe, the chef responds:

Read More “Home Cooking Day on Y&H: Thanksgiving Turkey, Canadian Style” »