Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Fun and Games Blogger Uses MRI To Look Inside Food
Posted by Nicki Wood on Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 1:58 PM
- Screenshot from a moving MRI of celery at insideinsides.com
"Inside Insides" a miniblog, uses magnetic resonance imaging to image foods, sometimes with unexpected results. The images are dynamic — you see the image as it appears, "blooms" and recedes on its posterior or inferior side.
This makes corn look like it's jiggling, and pineapple like it's being crafted like macrame. Cabbage looks like a complex spirograph, while artichokes look like flowers opening.
Enemies of the durian will be pleased to hear that it looks like a computed tomography scan of an abdomen. Check out the delicate petals of the artichoke after the jump.
Events Tales of the Cocktail No. 3: CalcasieuMyGod!
Posted by Chris Chamberlain on Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 12:30 PM
In addition to chefs Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski, our cocktail hosts were Eben Klemm, director of cocktail development for B.R. Guest Restaurants/James Hotels, and Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery. Klemm admitted to the assembled crowd right off the bat that the concept of a cocktail dinner can be sort of silly. Attempting to pair and match the varied flavors of spirits with multiple courses of a gourmet dinner is often a losing cause. The best a mixologist can hope to do is to stay out of the way of the food, and they did a great job of that.
First Bite / Restaurant openings Beat the Heat With Izzie's Ice
Posted by Jack Silverman on Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 12:05 PM
A bright orange trailer located at the corner of Rosebank Avenue and Riverside Drive in East Nashville, Izzie's serves up delicious Italian ice (as I can attest from two visits on Sunday alone), made from all natural ingredients — no preservatives, no dyes, no artificial anything. All the flavors are derived from real fruit (with the exception of the cherry ice — but that contains high-quality natural cherry juice).
Sisters Elizabeth Gammans and Alice Carpenter are the hearty souls who brave the heat to keep you cool. With just a small fan to provide relief, a stoic Gammans refused to betray even the slightest hint of discomfort on a 97-degree afternoon. "It's not too bad, actually," she says. "Of course, when this [ice] machine is running, it's a little warm." And to keep customers cool while they slurp up their ice, there's an awning on the backside of the cart. The sisters even bought a small water mister that they can hook up to a hose to provide a salutary sprinkle.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Restaurant openings Taps and Tapas Opens on Belcourt
Posted by Dana Kopp Franklin on Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 4:57 PM
- Chad Lee
- Antipasti at the new Belcourt Taps & Tapas
The owners are husband-and-wife team Chris Lynch and Rose Melillo. He’s a former airline inspector; she’s a music business executive, accountant and software entrepreneur.
The new restaurant resides in a renovated 1920s bungalow at 2117 Belcourt Ave., with a menu of small, beer-friendly plates like homemade pickles (served in a mason jar), sweet-potato tots and mini-burgers called Belcourt sliders, along with some sharable dishes including their signature truffled white-cheddar mac-and-cheese topped with microgreens.
News Miro District Reportedly Shutting Down This Weekend
Posted by Dana Kopp Franklin on Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 2:28 PM
Kay West, longtime journalist and food industry insider, posted this report on her Facebook page:
"Sorry to hear that two years, three concepts and three chefs later, Miro District will serve its last supper Saturday, July 31. Rumoured to reopen late August with new chef and new concept. And new name ... maybe that's the ticket."
A staffer at Green Olive Media, which represents Miro District, had no comment but said a press release is being prepared this afternoon in coordination with Jerry Brown, CEO of Hospitality Development Group. We'll let you know more when we know more.
Events Dinner and a Movie: Seven Samurai Plus Sushi and Sake Tonight at Belcourt
Posted by Jim Ridley on Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 11:00 AM
From this week's Scene Critics' Pick by Lance Conzett:
The Belcourt has done an admirable job of rounding out its Kurosawa Centennial series with obscure early features and more esoteric titles — but you’ve just got to have the legendary Seven Samurai as the centerpiece. Even in an oeuvre full of classics, Seven Samurai’s story of seven unemployed mercenaries defending a small village — a primordial stew of now familiar cinema tropes, incorporated everywhere from The Dirty Dozen to A Bug’s Life — remains required viewing for film students, action-movie connoisseurs and pop-culture fans alike.For just $25 ($20 to non-members), you can see one of the greatest movies ever made and fortify yourself beforehand with a sushi buffet from Zumi Sushi just across Belcourt Avenue. (Zumi’s also providing a snack of edamame during intermission.) Also, for the duration of the Kurosawa series, The Belcourt is making sake available at its liquor-stocked concession stand ... [but] the dinner is Monday night only. Maybe Seven Samurai’s epic runtime seems intimidating — but we guarantee that its three-and-a-half hours pass more quickly than any one hour of Transformers 2. Dinner 7 p.m. at Zumi Sushi, film 8:10 p.m. at The Belcourt
Bites Menus and Memories Going to Library
Posted by Nicki Wood on Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 10:17 AM
- Cozymel's was one of the first Cool Springs restaurants. It attempted to recreate Yucatecan cuisine.
I've collected menus for about 18 years, more or less since I began reviewing restaurants. I'm not a serious collector like Stevan Steinhart, but a lot of menus cross my path, and they interest me, so I save them when I remember to do so.
Where I store them is in the basement. Which floods by a couple of inches every few years. This spring, the seepage — even before The Deluge — was higher and more frequent than usual. I opened a trunk in April and the menu collection was dangerously damp and mildewy.
At some point, old stuff turns the corner and is suddenly "historic" — a lot of my menus date back to the mid-1990s, so they qualify as historic, but not if they're waterlogged. So the collection was brought out, cleaned up, and sorted and set aside, weeks before the flood, thank goodness.
Most of the restaurants attached to these menus are gone. The great Zola, Crab House, Cafe Bambino (its closing just gutted me), Quails, Ombi and Trilogy all got it right but are shuttered. There were surprises like Chopstick Inn in Goodlettsville that were exceptional where I expected ordinary. (Fun to read for the interesting entrees and the soupçon of Chinglish.)
Restaurant openings Opening Tuesday: Mas Tacos Por Favor, The Restaurant!
Posted by Jack Silverman on Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 6:36 AM
After a couple of soft openings, which a certain Bites correspondent was privileged to attend, the store is ready to go, and will officially open for business Tuesday, July 27. Proprietor Teresa Mason has done a charming makeover of the small space, imparting a delightfully rustic vibe that suggests a taco shack you might encounter in a small Mexican village — if that Mexican village also happened to be home to one of the hippest old-school jukeboxes in the Western Hemisphere.
We indulged in some delicious fried tilapia tacos at last week's dry run, and were knocked out by an experience at the Winnebago a few weeks back that included some spectacular elotes ( Mexican grilled corn on the cob with cotija cheese and fresh-squeezed lime) and the best chicken tacos we've ever had. With fresh corn season about to peak, here's hoping the elotes pop up on the new shop's ever-changing menu, which will eventually include new items that were too labor-intensive to make in the mobile unit.
To start, Mas Tacos will be open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. Mason is tied up taking the Winnebago to weddings and such for the next few weekends, but when the party season slows down, weekend hours will likely be added.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
News / Free Bites Far East Nashville Celebrates Anniversary, Opens Patio Tuesday (Free Glass of Wine!)
Posted by Jack Silverman on Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 8:24 AM
I participate in a weekly boys' night dinner with a few friends, and Far East Nashville has earned a spot in our regular rotation. Hang and her brother, Hau Nguyen, prepare family recipes from their native Vietnam, and though the menu is not as wide-ranging as some other local Vietnamese restaurants, the food is mighty good, and the ingredients are always fresh. Among our favorites: the pan-fried green onion tilapia, the lemon grass chicken, the spicy tamarind tiger shrimp and the decadent salt-and-pepper fried squid appetizer.
Check out this review by award-winning Scene food critic Carrington Fox. (I haven't yet congratulated her on the record yet, and couldn't pass up this opportunity to simultaneously flatter and embarrass her for all the world to see.)
And if you stop in, be sure to wish the Hang and Aaron happy anniversary and continued success.
Friday, July 23, 2010
News / TV Dinner Loveless Biscuit Lady Is Fresh in Our Memories
Posted by Dana Kopp Franklin on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 4:12 PM
- Paula Deen cooked with Carol Fay Ellison in November. The show airs this weekend
Ellison will make her final television appearance this Saturday, July 24, when Best Dishes with Paula Deen premieres at 10:30 a.m. on Food Network.
The Loveless says Ellison and Deen recorded the episode in November at the Deen residence in Savannah, Ga. It repeats on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. and Monday at 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. It was the last of many TV appearances Ellison made over the years.
Meanwhile, earlier this week the owners of the Loveless announced an award fund in Ellison's name. "Awards will be made to one or more individuals who embody the spirit with which Carol Fay worked her way up from a dishwasher at age 14 to become the national spokesperson for The Loveless Cafe," the company said in a release Wednesday.
Loveless Cafe owners Chuck and Trisha Elcan and Tom Morales created The Carol Fay Ellison “The Biscuit Lady” Award Fund in partnership with The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.
The fund will give annual awards "to help people overcome an obstacle in their lives, and enable them to move to the next step," according to the Loveless website. Initially, only Loveless employees are eligible, but nominations will be open to anyone after 2012, the release said.
