#and I got a bacon egg and gouda sandwich it’s been a great day so far

[babisawyer]

Hello from me and my dirty ass mirror 🖤

[msbrightside85]

Food glorious food

So you’re probably wondering the same as me ... how has it taken me so long to write about food? Probably because it’s a fairly daunting subject with it being so broad. But i have decided it’s about time I did ...

From the top (clockwise): Bacon fried rice, Beef noodle soup, Korean style deep fried chicken with rice cakes, Chinese style cheese steak sandwich, Chicken noodle soup, Range of hot pot skewers, (middle): Vegetable noodles.

So as I have already mentioned, I was very happy to discover that mango, pork and avocado are greatly loved over here and easily accessible (although avos can be a tad pricey). Unfortunately one of the most elusive food items also turns out to be one of my favourites … cheese. But thankfully, since my original dismay (and what felt like a fairly long amount of time) at the lack of cheesey options here, I have been shown two supermarkets that have ACTUAL cheese counters. I cannot tell you how happy I was. It was perhaps a little OTT looking back but I couldn't help myself. 

The widespread Chinese offering of cheese is generally of the plastic variety. Yup. Cheese slices. I can hear mum saying 'that's not real cheese' and she would be right but that is par for the course here. Plastic cheese in a range of varieties. Emmental, Gouda, Edam. All plastic. Now don’t get me wrong I do believe there is a place for cheese slices in this world (sorry mum), they’re perfect in burgers at a BBQ and they make an excellent addition to a midnight fridge tapas session (I say mournfully, as these ‘sessions’ are basically non existent since getting a flat mate and not being able to get coleslaw here - a fridge tapas staple food in my mind) but when you don’t have the real thing cheese slices are certainly not a suitable substitute. Although in saying that they have found their way into our home inside Caitlin’s grilled cheese sandwiches! Anyway I digress ... so after being shown where I can buy the real stuff (or as real as I’m gonna get) I am pleased to report I have bought both mozzarella (not the white buffalo kind the harder stuff but still good) and cheddar (or something resembling cheddar) so I am sated. For now. Until my next craving. Dammit I’m thinking about coleslaw now ...

A question that I've been getting a lot from England is what food do you miss? The answer? Let me be perfectly honest … there's not a lot that you can't get hold of out here. Yes, some things might be a little more expensive because it's been imported but most things are available from somewhere, especially in a city the size of Suzhou. So I'm learning to try and reduce my initial hysteria at not having something and ask around. Generally there's someone or somewhere that can help with the homely cravings. I even found a bag of pre-made gravy the other day which is DEFINITELY something I didn’t expect to find - so that’s me sorted for winter! Buuuuut in saying that, don't take this to mean that I want you to stop trying to send me the odd pork pie or two in the post … because pork pies are most certainly on the unattainable list. Although I have heard about an English restaurant which I believe may make their own … must remember to look into that.

Talking of pork pies, I asked one of my classes of older kids at school which topics interested them most about England and one of them said food. So I put some information together about fish and chips, bangers and mash and other foods that are quintessentially English, including pork pie. Surprisingly enough it was pork pie that got the biggest reaction, they thought it sounded disgusting! Which I thought was pretty rich considering some of the foods that are available here in China. I can imagine most of you would take pork pie any day. I mean here they have stinky tofu (and man it really does …) not forgetting frog which I have already mentioned and of course chicken feet …

Yeah ... this is definitely my biggest Chinese culinary challenge to date and to say I ate it isn't strictly true. I nibbled at it and then couldn't go any further. Why? It just looked too much like a human hand!!! It started freaking me out a bit to be honest. This one was boiled but I hear the fried ones are a little better to handle so who knows maybe I could be converted. Maybe.

All in all (and chicken feet aside) it's hard to miss something when you have such a fabulous range of food to choose from and I'm not just talking about Chinese food. We have a great pizza place with a traditional stone oven where the beer is cheaper than the soft drinks, there is a great Vietnamese place where I had the yummiest beef pho and Korean food aplenty. There is a fantastic range of dumplings that come in all shapes and sizes and come with a range of fillings although pork is general the favourite (which always pleases me!).

There's an abundance of bakeries serving the best cream buns and desserts, there's a cool Japanese place that has the best curried rice and a lettuce they call ice plant which is unlike anything I’ve ever tried. BBQ or shaokao (pronounced show-cow but rhyme the first part with cow) is everywhere here and tastes amazing! Although if you’re not a fan of spice then you need to know how to communicate this in Chinese because their not very spicy can arrive and be pretty damned spicy!

There's also a traditional dish here called hot pot. Hot pot quite simply is a pot of boiling water in the middle of the table (it can be flavoured to your preference} and you order different raw ingredients to throw in it! Then once it’s cooked you get (try to get) the food out with your chop sticks. The local girls I go out with usually feel sorry for me and end up scooping morsels of food out and throwing them into my bowl, which I am eternally grateful for :)

But going back to home comforts, I've had a Chinese version of a bacon and tomato sarnie, which uses the white fluffy dumpling stuff instead of a breadcake and a few weeks ago I had amazing eggs benedict with smoked salmon. I was a very happy bunny that day I can tell you. It was exactly what I needed. 

So all in all it really doesn't leave much room for missing things, especially when you enjoy food as much as I do. But it’s always good to have a bank of places you can go to when you’re having a bad china day or you’re missing home. Like I say there’s a place called Ann's that I believe makes their own pork pies, they also serve afternoon tea and do roast dinner BUT I've sworn to myself that I will only go there when I'm really craving something that is unattainable elsewhere else. I've been told we may be going there for our work’s Christmas meal so I wonder if I can hold out until December before going or whether i’ll crack before then. Tune in next time to find out. TTFN. Rachael.

[tomsburgerblog]

Burger Overload at Battle of the Burger Los Angeles

How many "best burgers of Los Angeles" can I eat at one event, anyway?

This is something a little different for Tom's Burger Blog. Instead of taking a deep dive into one burger, my wife and I went to the Time Out Los Angeles Battle of the Burger where we took bites of nine different burgers that were participating at the event.

What is the Battle of the Burger?

Back in July, Time Out encouraged all burger lovers in Los Angeles to vote for their favorite burgers from a really long (but not comprehensive) list of contenders. When the online voting was done, the top 11 vote-getters (Why 11? Why not an even dozen?) were invited to go grill-to-grill with each other at Time Out's first ever Los Angeles Battle of the Burger, held on Sunday, September 24 at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Downtown Los Angeles.

As these 11 restaurants served up their winning burgers, the attending burger-hungry crowd was called upon to vote for their favorite. The burger with the most votes at the end of the night would earn the title of Best Burger in Los Angeles—or something like that.

Putting aside the sad truth that any online poll is inherently flawed (case in point: there's no way Slater's 50/50 got in here without ballot stuffing) there were still some noteworthy burgers from across Los Angeles worthy of sampling. I, for one, very much enjoyed the competition. Here's how my Battle of the Burger experience went down in the order I sampled nine of the 11 burgers.

Wagyu Burger, Beacon Echo Park

This was one bite-sized burger. I didn't get a good photo of it (juggling a beer and a tiny burger on a paper tray wasn't conducive to cell phone photography), but it was about the size of an everlasting gobstopper. The burger itself was a pretty simple affair: beef patty (Wagyu beef, naturally), a dollop of melted brie, caramelized onions, and garlic aioli on the tiniest brioche bun you ever did see. It was tasty but I didn't think it was anything special.

Patty Melt, Cassell's

I'm a big fan of Cassell's Cheeseburger see Tom's Burger Blog review of the Cheeseburger at Cassell's, but I've never had their Patty Melt before. This offering was about 1/4 of the sandwich served at the restaurant and was considerably more sizable than what Beacon had served up. The Cassell's Patty Melt was pretty much what you want in a patty melt: beef patty, lots of melted cheddar, and a nice amount of grilled onions on toasted rye bread. Good stuff, and definitely worth trying the full sandwich on my next visit.

Napalm Death, Grill 'Em All

I've had the full-sized Napalm Death burger before and very much enjoyed it (it's in the ever-growing "to be reviewed" queue here at Tom's burger Blog). Grill 'Em All offered a generous portion (probably the most generous of all the offerings I had) of about half a whole burger, jammed with cream cheese, pickled jalapeño peppers, cheddar-stuffed jalapeño poppers, and pepper jack cheese along with healthy portions of Sriracha hot sauce and a habanero aioli. This is a good burger if you can handle the heat. Look for the full review and rating here soon.

Kuawa Crunch Burger, Pono Burger

This place has also been on my "to try" list for some time but it's a bit far off my regular beaten Los Angeles pathways, so I was pleased to see it here. Pono Burger is an Hawaiian themed restaurant and this burger definitely had the whole Padific Island vibe happening. Although it was a standard beef patty topped with cheddar cheese and lettuce, things got interesting with the addition of coleslaw, a generous helping of (slightly too sweet) Cholula guava rum sauce, and some purple potato chips for providing the titular crunch. A good burger, if a little sweet. I look forward to heading westward to give the full-size version a try.

Big Burger, Lock & Key

Although this was the small edition of the Big Burger, which I suspect is named as much for its flavors as its size, it was still mighty big. The fried egg topping the burger totally dominated the presentation, but it was loaded with plenty of other ingredients—in addition to the patty, it had bacon, beer cheese, caramelized onions, tomatoes, arugula, and dill pickles. Add to that a vegan chipotle aioli (the addition of a vegan sauce to a meaty meat burger struck me as unusual) to make it the most ingredient-heavy burger in the competition. It was also the messiest burger and the hardest to eat. There were too many competing flavors on this one for it to get a vote from me.

Single Burger, Everson Royce Bar

This burger has been on my list to try for a long time, but Everson Royce Bar only opens at 5:00 on the weeknights—and as a man with kids, it's not always easy to get Downtown (parking challenges aside) for happy hour. So I was glad—really glad—to be able to finally try the Single Burger, and I really enjoyed it. By design it was very simple—beef patty and cheddar cheese, with a little salt and pepper on a brioche bun. Simple, yes, but also delicious—and a definite contender for my vote.

Belcampo Burger, Belcampo Meat Company

The Belcampo Burger is another burger in the Tom's Burger Blog "to be reviewed" queue. I really enjoyed the full-size version of this one. Like its big brother, the competition-sized Belcampo Burger had some of the best tasting meat of any burger I've ever had. It also had a minimal number of ingredients—butter lettuce, cheddar cheese, caramelized onions and a Thousand Island-style sauce under a sesame bun. Ultimately it suffered from an oversaturation of caramelized onions—there were so many they totally dominated the flavor profile.

The Royale, The Oinkster

My neighborhood go-to burger joint (see the Tom's Burger Blog review of The Oinkster's Classic Burger) represented with its impressive Royale—a classic burger (patty, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and Thousand Island dressing ) loaded up with The Oinkster's own house-made pastrami and chili, then topped off with some Cholula aioli (Cholula was an event sponsor), all served up on a sesame seed bun. The Royale was messy (as you might expect), but still had a good balance of flavor. Another contender for my vote.

Karma Burger, Haché L.A.

The last burger of the day was also one I've been meaning to try. The Karma was much in the style of the classic American cheeseburger. Although the patty on the competition edition was very thin and overly salted, it had an excellent char that made this a memorable burger experience. It also had American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and what they call a Karma sauce (you guessed it—yet another variation on the Thousand Island theme).

The burgers I didn't try.

I skipped both Slaters 50/50 (see Tom's Burger Blog review of the Old Timey) and The Counter (see Tom's Burger Blog review of the Old School Burger). I'm not a fan of Slater's and if I never eat one of their burgers again it'll be too soon, so moving right past their Signature 50/50 Burger was easy. As for the Counter, I enjoy dining there, but their main selling point is all about building your own burger, so I passed on their Bison is Gouda Burger. It looked good, but by this point, I was really full.

Casting a Vote

After it was all over, my wife and I spent a little time deciding on which burgers we'd be voting for. I voted for The Oinkster (representing my local restaurant) and my wife voted for Everson Royce's Single Burger, which was my second pick. Alas, neither of us picked the winning burger, Beacon's Wagyu Burger, which I didn't think was all that great.

So was Battle of the Burgers worth the price of admission?

For $60, my wife and I sampled nine different burgers, plus had an order each of Kennebec fries from Harlowe's in Pasadena). For drinks, I had two bottles of Guiness as well as some stout-flavored Blast Ice Cream for dessert. Plus we got to bring home a small bottle of Cholula. Add $12 for parking at Union Station and the whole thing ran $72. I've certainly spent more on meals I've enjoyed less and were much less filling. So if you, like me, enjoy burgers, a trip to next year's Battle of the Burger may be worth your time and money.