Recently in Beer Category
Beer-brined Pork Chops from Karl Strauss Brewing Company, San Diego
One of the cities to which I travel regularly is San Diego, to teach for Hitachi Data Systems. The HDS office is up the road from downtown, off of I-15, making the drive over to La Jolla in the evening after class fairly easy. Since the airport is right downtown and I usually try to take a redeye flight home at the end of the week, I get one evening in that part of town.
The Karl Strauss Brewing Co. is a small chain. I ate first at the La Jolla brewpub, and enjoyed it enough to try the one near the old Santa Fe (now Amtrak) train station. I'd spent the afternoon walking around the Embarcadero, noticed a Starbucks across the street from the train and trolley stations, so I parked nearby and did the coffee shop thing to check e-mail and twitter. While sipping my venti black tea lemonade, I googled the location, did a "search nearby" on "restaurants," and found Karl Strauss in the first hits. It was just a walk around the corner.
The location on Columbia Street was a good choice. The place had a good crowd, and the bartender was cheerful. I started with their red, aptly named "Red Trolley Ale." (The trolleys in the city's light rail system are indeed red). It was a flavorful, full-bodied ale, just as I remembered it from La Jolla. The Olympics were on one boobtoob, the Padres on another, as I enjoyed the pint and perused the dinner menu. None of the starters moved the earth for me, so I went straight for the entrees.
I'd had the "Lemon Hef Chicken" for my meal in La Jolla, grilled chicken with a glaze made with their "Windansea Wheat Hefeweizen" beer. It was a tasty combination that inspired me to try another entree that had a beer-based sauce. This time it was the Beer-brined Pork Chops. The chops came with a glaze made with Strauss' Scottish Ale (and the menu suggested that brew to accompany the dish, of course). As I ordered up the meal, the bartender didn't merely parrot the menu's beverage suggestion; before going over to key the order in, she stopped at the taps and drew a sample of the Scottish Ale for me, saying "you're going to want to try this, it goes really well with the pork chops."
The Scottish was tasty in its own right, so I let her pour me that for my next pint, as I we chatted casually and I twittered on the phone. My plate came out in due course, prompt service from the kitchen. The presentation was nice, the chops stood up on their sides, resting on a scoop of mashed potatoes, along with a side of skinny green beans. The glaze was lightly drizzled on the chops, and then a generous helping spooned onto the plate in front. Some mustard was squirted along the edge of the plate, an excellent addition to any grilled pork dish (and a nice color addition to the plating).
The pork chops were cooked just right and the mustard/glaze went well with them. The mashed potatoes weren't all that thrilling, but that's OK, I didn't need the calories of those and the baguette bread served with the meal anyway. The veggies were nicely steamed, crispy and tasty. The bartender was right, the Scottish Ale went well with the meal.
Even though she tried to tempt me with dessert, I decided to pass. After a good meal and good beer, it was time to head off to the airport, where I slept comfortably on the redeye, another successful trip to San Diego.
I can't think of a better place for us to have an evening Tweetup than NOLA:
$70 all inclusive (dinner, beer, tax & gratuity)
Beer Tales: 6:30pm
Seating: 7:00pm
Full details on the Abita Website.
What say you, tweeple?
ABITA DINNER SERIES 2008
Thursday, June 12th, 2008
NOLA Restaurant
534 Saint Louis St.
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
(504) 522-6652 for reservations
$70 all inclusive (dinner, beer, tax & gratuity)
Beer Tales: 6:30pm
Seating: 7:00pm
Full details on the Abita Website.
What say you, tweeple?
I'm reading an extremely humorous blog this morning, Stuff White People Like, and the writer suggests using this line at a bar on St. Patrick's day to look cool. While the context here is snark squared, there's something to the spirit of the statement.
One of New Orleans food critic Tom Fitzmorris' cardinal rules is that diners should "eat it where it lives." Eat Maine lobstah in Maine, for example, gulf shrimp on the gulf coast, you get the idea. Sure, we can flash-freeze and overnight ship just about anything these days, but it's just not the same as eating whatever it is locally. The influx of Asian seafood on the market, even here in New Orleans, is a good example of this. We've discussed the bland lack-of-flavor to flash-frozen Asian shrimp or crawfish previously. Once shellfish are cooked, you can put flavor on them, but you can't put it in them. Crab boil is concentrated to the point of borderline toxic so that all those spices and flavors seep through the shells while shrimp are boiling. No way mass-market producers are going to use the stuff.
Location and atmosphere often go a long way in terms of making mediocre food seem like the best meals we've ever had in our lives. Let's face it, classic English fish and chips is a boring meal. Eat it in a pub near Hyde Park and it becomes a memory. That's one of the reasons I never argue with visitors to New Orleans when they told me they had such a fantastic meal at a place where I'd never spend my own money. There's just no value in trying to shoot down the memory.
If you think meals can create memories, booze is makes the memory even fonder. A common theme among travelers who go to France or Italy is that they will remember a fantastic red table wine in a bistro in Paris, Florence, or Naples. It was part of a fantastic al fresco meal, one of the most wonderful evenings of their lives. They come back to New Orleans and go to Martin Wine Cellar in search of the wine that made them feel so good. They find it, get it home, grill up some steaks, open the bottle, and take a sip. Unfortunately, a bottle of mid-tier house wine doesn't engage a Star Trek-style holodeck, and they're not transported to their bistro. The wine is what it is, a mid-tier table wine. It gave them a great buzz at the time, though, and that's what the memory is all about. Now, have a martini or three before those steaks, and odds are that the wine will taste just as good to the dulled senses.
So, yeah, Guinness does taste better in Ireland. Or so they say, I've never been. But I can attest that Bavaria tastes so much better sitting outside at a pub in Utrecht. Jug-quality Riesling is fantastic with lunch at small restaurants in Koblenz.
Feel free to share your own "tastes better" memories in comments!
One of New Orleans food critic Tom Fitzmorris' cardinal rules is that diners should "eat it where it lives." Eat Maine lobstah in Maine, for example, gulf shrimp on the gulf coast, you get the idea. Sure, we can flash-freeze and overnight ship just about anything these days, but it's just not the same as eating whatever it is locally. The influx of Asian seafood on the market, even here in New Orleans, is a good example of this. We've discussed the bland lack-of-flavor to flash-frozen Asian shrimp or crawfish previously. Once shellfish are cooked, you can put flavor on them, but you can't put it in them. Crab boil is concentrated to the point of borderline toxic so that all those spices and flavors seep through the shells while shrimp are boiling. No way mass-market producers are going to use the stuff.
Location and atmosphere often go a long way in terms of making mediocre food seem like the best meals we've ever had in our lives. Let's face it, classic English fish and chips is a boring meal. Eat it in a pub near Hyde Park and it becomes a memory. That's one of the reasons I never argue with visitors to New Orleans when they told me they had such a fantastic meal at a place where I'd never spend my own money. There's just no value in trying to shoot down the memory.
If you think meals can create memories, booze is makes the memory even fonder. A common theme among travelers who go to France or Italy is that they will remember a fantastic red table wine in a bistro in Paris, Florence, or Naples. It was part of a fantastic al fresco meal, one of the most wonderful evenings of their lives. They come back to New Orleans and go to Martin Wine Cellar in search of the wine that made them feel so good. They find it, get it home, grill up some steaks, open the bottle, and take a sip. Unfortunately, a bottle of mid-tier house wine doesn't engage a Star Trek-style holodeck, and they're not transported to their bistro. The wine is what it is, a mid-tier table wine. It gave them a great buzz at the time, though, and that's what the memory is all about. Now, have a martini or three before those steaks, and odds are that the wine will taste just as good to the dulled senses.
So, yeah, Guinness does taste better in Ireland. Or so they say, I've never been. But I can attest that Bavaria tastes so much better sitting outside at a pub in Utrecht. Jug-quality Riesling is fantastic with lunch at small restaurants in Koblenz.
Feel free to share your own "tastes better" memories in comments!
In Roma, and most other big catlick cities all over the world, popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, brothers, nuns, and lay people are walking the Stations of the Cross. Even here in New Orleans, the tradition of walking the "Nine Churches" is still pretty strong. But only in New Orleans would a brewery sponsor a Good Friday Celebration:
Good Friday Celebration this Friday at Ernst Cafe! March 21, 2008 Receive a free tray of crawfish with every Abita Beer purchase this Friday from 4pm-8pm at Ernst Cafe! Ernst Cafe 600 S Peters St New Orleans, LA 70130The most somber day of the Christian year, and we're drinking Abita. I so love my town. :-)
But I'm certainly going to find out:
After all, pecan pie works. Pecans on a hot fudge sundae work. And, hey, if pumpkin ale can work, why not something nutty?
