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Hot Eats in Hotlanta! Karen’s Food Trotter Journey to Eating in Atlanta

by Karen Baksi on 2010/10/07 in Featured Article, Food and Travel, North America

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I food trotted to Atlanta, Georgia to visit his sister and family. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to how I’m going to stuff my face in the South? No brainer, it’s barbecue all the way! Now, Atlanta isn’t really known as a BBQ town, not like Memphis or the Carolinas, but it definitely offers some quality BBQ. Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, DBA, and Pig-N-Chik BBQ are a few places to check out! Atlanta is also evolving and has plenty of food diversity to offer.

There are places like Richard Blais’ new place called Flip Burger Boutique.  Blais was a contestant on season 4 of Top Chef.  It’s a modern place that offers different gourmet burgers, such as the Korean BBQ burger.  This dish consists of a homemade brioche bun, a Wagyu beef patty, a Korean style boneless short rib, topped with pickled veggies (cabbage, daikon, carrots, etc.) and a red pepper paste ketchup.  It was a solid attempt, especially with the presentation, but it ended up tasting like a typical Teriyaki burger.  The most insane part of that meal was actually the fois gras milkshake my sister-in-law ordered.  I know; you’re thinking… “Fois gras?  Fattened goose/ duck liver in a milkshake??”  Well, it actually tasted pretty amazing!  There is the gross out factor that you’ll have to push back deep into the recesses of your mind, but if you trust your taste buds, they will lead you to deliciousness!  The shake is creamy with a hint of vanilla, and as you hit those fois gras bits, they melt in your mouth to give you an extra richness. It is a bit pricey for a burger joint: $14USD for the Korean BBQ burger and $9 for the milkshake, but if you consider the quality of ingredients being used, it just about justifies the price.  All in all, it was a good experience and I like that it brings different flavors and ingredients to the people of Atlanta.

Now, let’s get to the good stuff!  If you are in the ATL, there is only one place that you must hit before you leave and that is The Varsity. (You can also find another piece on The Varsity in Sammi’s article “Welcome to “HOTLANTA, the Dirty South”). It is an Atlanta institution, operating since 1928 and is the world’s largest drive-in restaurant.  The Varsity is beloved by all Atlanta residents and of course, by me.  I am very partial to the CCSD (Chili Cheese Slaw Dog): hot dog on a bun topped with beefy chili, American cheese, and tangy fresh coleslaw.  In addition to the CCSD, I ordered onion rings and a Coke.  You really can’t get better than that… or so I thought.  A Southern gentleman from the next table sauntered over and told me that I had not ordered the “best thing on the menu!”  Pray tell, what is the best thing on the menu?  He indicated that it was a Pimento Cheese Dog!  I stood straight up and walked over to the counter to order it. It’s a hot dog topped with Pimento cheese (spreadable cheese with diced roasted bell peppers), then buttered and grilled.  Absolute heaven!  I still love my CCSD but I can see why the Pimento Cheese Dog is referred to the best thing on the menu!  What’s also great about The Varsity is not only the food but the price point.  The CCSD barely weighs in at $2.61 and the Pimento dog is $1.83.  It’s not exactly a healthy meal but that can be overlooked since it’s very satisfying and easy on the wallet.  Hands down, the best meal I had in Atlanta!

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How to Avoid Catching a Travel Bug

by Wei Su on 2010/09/30 in Featured Article, Food and Travel

With travelling comes adventure, excitement, breathtaking scenery, learning, delicious food, fashion lessons, people watching, laughs, and fun. However, trying to pack in so many sights and experiences can easily lead to sore feet from accumulated mileage while roaming new territory (in poor footwear no less!), restless nights from jet lag or snoring travel buddies (which leads into fatigue), stress caused from missed trains or language barriers, and/ or digestive upset from sampling street vendor specialties. All things listed can ultimately lead to sniffles, runny noses, and high fevers upon returning to reality. Even worse, while one is still travelling! Superiors and colleagues have no sympathy for extra days needed off for recovery post travel when there are deadlines to meet, clients to coddle, and upcoming projects to consider. So how can one make the most of enjoying an exotic location and avoid the physical discomfort and disappointment of returning home red nosed and incapacitated? Food Trotter is here to recommend easy ways to eat (or drink!) your way to a strong immune system while you are abroad or even at home!

Go Gaga for:

1) Water: “Don’t drink the water” is a bit of travelling wisdom that many follow. The most recent popular scene that comes to mind is, of course, Charlotte from Sex and the City pooping her pants after swallowing a bit of shower water in Mexico. We would all like to steer clear of surprise accidents, but getting enough water is crucial. Water is essential for proper circulation of blood and electrolytes, absorption of nutrients, and elimination of toxins from our bodies. Without water our bodies aren’t being properly flushed out, and a ugly bout of scratchy throat and runny nose may follow. Some early symptoms of dehydration include fatigue, headache, cramping, nausea, and dizziness… all things we would like to avoid, especially when trying to have a good time. So make sure you are getting an adequate eight glasses of water daily on your travels. However, do your due diligence and plan ahead; if you are visiting a country or area without safe drinking water, consider bringing a water filter, kettle to boil local water, water treatment tablets, or stick to bottled water.

2) Fruits and Veggies: We know that eating fruits and vegetables is a great way to keep your immune system healthy since they are loaded with vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals. The high amount of fibre will also keep things, um, regular and help toxins pass through your bod. There are many many people who do not eat enough fruits and vegetables on a daily basis, so how will you manage to eat enough on your travels when you are busy sampling all the local specialties? If your temporary home has a kitchenette, fantastic! Hit up a grocery store or market and load up on fresh produce and tropical or exotic fruit (depending on where you are in the world) and store said products in mini fridge. Bring these along for snacks and fill up on them for breakfast (salad for breakfast is completely normal in my books, btw!) This still leaves you lunch and dinner to wine and dine at the famous restaurants or discover the local gems at the must-go-to hole-in-the-wall’s. If you are concerned about eating raw fruits and vegetables, ease your mind by rinsing them with your boiled or bottled water. If no kitchenette is available, just remember to order at least some delicious immune supporting greens with all your meals (the darker the better — think kale and spinach as opposed to head lettuce, and unfortunately, no, french fries do not count as a vegetable!) If all this sounds unrealistic, I would suggest bringing a greens supplement/powder (e.g Vital Greens, Greens+, Green Defense) to keep your health optimal, or at buying some dried fruits for snacks pre- travels. Also, make sure to load up on fruits and vegetables pre and post travels.

3) Probiotics: 70% of the body’s immune cells can be found in the digestive tract. Simple logic would hence lead us to infer that a healthy gut would lead to a healthy immune system. Probiotics are good bacteria which help to create an optimally balanced floral environment in the digestive system. They ward away and prevent bad bacteria from proliferating, like a defense army in your body, and are even useful to combat traveler’s diarrhea. Depending on where in the world you are, you most likely will be able to get your hands on some probiotic rich foods (e.g. Yogurt, kefir, saukraut, kimchi.) Alternatively, bring a probiotic supplement with you on your journey. Visit your local health food store prior to your travels to get some assistance on what the best product for you would be.

We hope Food Trotter’s travel guide for a strong immune system keeps you symptom free while on your journey and upon your return. Along with your water, greens, and probiotics, ditch the immune suppressors by pulling the reins on too much refined sugar, excessive alcohol, and caffeine. Wishing you safe, healthy, adventuresome and delicious travels!

[Photo courtesy of: Destination]

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Tsukiji Japanese Fish Market – The World’s Most Expensive and Freshes Seafood

by Jen Tsai on 2010/09/28 in Asia, Featured Article, Food and Travel

If you ever plan on coming to Tokyo and are wondering about what you should do that second day when you’re suffering from major jet lag, I would highly recommend heading over to the Tsukiji Fish Market. Famous not only for the large amounts of Yen changing hands from sellers to buyers, you don’t want to miss seeing some of the world’s freshest and most expensive fish! My first reaction upon seeing the large tunas was “Oh wow that’s a huge torpedo!”
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The Conscious Food Trotter: Taking a Moment to Taste the Ground Cherries

by Chris Wong on 2010/09/16 in Featured Article, Foodie Guide, World Recipes and Ingredients

For us Food Trotters – connoisseurs of food and pursuers of the finest in tastes – we can recognize great food moments when they occur. Whether we seek them out in a deliberate manner or stumble upon them serendipitously, they are moments to enjoy and to treasure. But for many of us, how often do we slow down enough to enjoy our food and really savour each bite, discerning the interplay of taste, textures, aromas, and everything else that makes good food just so irresistible? Not often enough is my answer, but that changed for me recently in an episode I’m calling the Conscious Food Trotter.

It was a hot and hazy July evening in Toronto, and I was enjoying a night out at a local eatery after a weekly Ultimate Frisbee game with my teammates. The air was warm, live music was coming from across the patio, and we had just put in our orders for the evening. To whet our appetites, I brought out a basket of freshly picked ground cherries from my garden for the team to enjoy.

“What are those?”, one teammate asked.

“Ohh I know”, another chimed in, “They’re ground cherries!”

“What do they taste like?”

“They’re delicious” I enthused as I jumped into the conversation. “They’ve got this surprising taste, sort of like… something tropical”.

I struggled to find the right words to do them justice.

“Just try them”, I stammered.

“How do I eat them?”

I knew the answer to this one as I had been eating them constantly for the past couple of days: “Simply peel off the outer husk and pop the fruit into your mouth.”

A hesitant glance and a couple of bites later: “Mmmm! They’re delicious… sort of tropical, like a pineapple… with a hint of hazelnut right at the beginning… oh and almost a faint tomato-ey taste at the end. What a unique flavour!”

This was getting the whole team into the spirit, and as the basket got passed around, we refined our descriptions and tuned in our senses to how the ground cherry tasted. Savouring every bite, enjoying the sensual experience of peeling back the outer husk, popping the bite sized fruit into our mouths, and waiting for the inevitable explosion of flavour as the lustrous berry burst inside our mouths and released their juicy goodness, we had just created our own food moment, and we all gained a greater appreciation of the magical fruit known as the ground cherry.

Ground cherries are in season now, and can be found whenever fresh tomatoes are in season. They are a treat if you can find them at your local farmers market, however the most common sighting is often as a garnish on dessert plates at fine dining establishments. If you do happen across them at your local farmers market, look for ones with a dry, brown, papery husk and orange fruit on the inside. Also, for the gardeners out there, they are very easy to grow, requiring the same minimal amount of care and work as growing cherry tomatoes.

As for becoming a more conscious food trotter, I’d like to leave you with some things I learned from this experience

1. Any experience can be a food moment: It takes merely a bit of conscious thought to sit down and really enjoy your food, the atmosphere, and tune into the experience of food. Think about what went into the food sitting on the plate in front of you: How fresh are the ingredients? What thought process did the chef undergo when constructing the dish? What colours, aromas, tastes, textures, and flavours are you going to taste? This isn’t meant to be an academic (read: joyless and rote) exercise, but a practice to help you better enjoy your food.

2. Food is a full body experience: Call on all five senses for your most intense food experience; sound and touch in my opinion are often the most underappreciated. Try to use words to describe what you are enjoying, even if only mentally, and you’ve got a linguistic component as well.

3. Food is best enjoyed with other people: Like seeing a great movie, the entire experience is heightened by sharing the moment. Not that food and movies can’t be enjoyable by themselves (far from it), but the shared social aspect really brings your food moment to another level as you can compare different perspectives on the same experience.

4. Food is fun: There is a certain playfulness and sense of discovery that comes with food. With each new flavour, ingredient, and meal, we experience a never-ending adventure in the journey of food.  Food is what unites us all, and it’s something that most of eat 3 times a day. Let’s enjoy it and have fun while we’re at it.

What food moments have you experienced recently? Share your stories and thoughts in the comments. And of course, happy food trotting!

[Picture courtesy of Flickr: Megz - http://www.flickr.com/photos/megz/2733712264/]

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Welcome to Our New Site!

by Jing on 2010/09/10 in Featured Article

Hello fellow readers! After taking a brief hiatus to properly end the summer, Food Trotter is back in action with a brand new site! After our break, we’ll be continuing our journey in discovering all things food and travel! Are you a food enthusiasts or food traveler? You’ve come to the right place! Going forward, we’ll be switching our articles to a weekly posting and we’ll try experimenting with a few new things. Until then, we’ll keep you posted and please continue to visit our site! Cheers!

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chili peppers

Top 10 Countries That Use Chilies Around the World (Good Paprika Burns Twice…)

by Jing on 2010/07/19 in Featured Article, International, World Recipes and Ingredients

With summer in full swing the days just seem to get hotter and hotter. So what better way to cool down than by engulfing a handful of chilies while removing Scar Tissue to the Red Hot Chili Peppers? This seemingly outrageous claim defies all logic, yet have you noticed the correlation between local temperature and chili consumption? Simply put, chili are more often consumed in hotter climates, especially in countries near the equator. Really, how often do you hear of European countries using chili? There are a few exceptions such as Hungary and Spain, but is paprika really that spicy? Probably if snorted up the nose.

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