Because I Could

I bought another package of the Trader Joe's "Teeny Tiny" burgers last week. I don't see myself ever making them again as a meal; they are good but not great, and besides, if I want sliders I will just make them myself. But they are an ideal snack - each one is much more substantial than even a couple of White Castle burgers.  

I was down to my last one and considering what to put on it.  I was also down to my last couple tablespoons of Zankou garlic sauce, so naturally I decided to combine the two. I studied the condiments in the fridge for complements to the garlic sauce. This took quite a while; remember the line in Fight Club about the narrator having a house full of condiments and no food? That pretty much sums it up. (Also, I like to fight Meat Loaf in the basement.)

Fortunately, I had two of the best garlic condiments ever. A.1. Supreme Garlic Steak Sauce, unlike almost every other steak or barbecue sauce that hijacks the word garlic, tastes like it has garlic in it. A lot, actually. You can feel it seeping out of your pores within a few seconds of eating it. And that is not a bad thing.

Kruegermann pickles have been made with "old world" recipes since the late 19th century. For years I have passed their products at Taylor's butcher shop in Sierra Madre and not thought twice about them. (Of course, as recently as 6 years ago I did not like pickles.) But a couple weeks ago I picked up a bottle of their Spicy Garlic Pickles, thought the description sounded good, and bought it. They are very good, and quite spicy. Unlike the sweetness of roasted garlic in the steak sauce, these are aggressive. They have the punch of freshly chopped garlic and red chili peppers. 

I microwaved the burger for half a minute, spread the Zankou garlic sauce on top of the (unnaturally) orange cheese, put a few slices of pickle on the top bun, and drizzled the steak sauce over all of it. I took a bite, as full of anticipation as any meal I have had since trying the Angry Whopper back in January, hoping this would be much better.

It was. It was awesome, in fact. I don't know if I could eat more than one like this. Well, that's not true, I could eat every burger like this for the rest of my life. What I mean is, I'm not sure it's advisable to eat more than one like this. It was intense. The spice of the pickles played nicely off the sweetness of the steak sauce. And the Zankou sauce was Zankou sauce: powerful and delicious. (Of all the beautiful lines Jonathan Gold has ever written - and they are legion - none is more succinct than his take on this sauce: "Nothing on heaven or Earth may be as severe as the Armenian garlic sauce served at Zankou Chicken.")

Granted, this isn't for everyone. I told my brother about this and he said "That's awesome." I showed Elizabeth the pictures and she said "What the hell is wrong with you?" But I loved it. Even if I never make one of these again - and knowing how way leads to way, I probably won't - I will remember it.

Guinness Meatball Sliders & Pulled Chicken Nachos

It's was another day of watching football (and doing laundry) at my parents' house, so of course I had to make some "bar food" to watch the game. I went to Albertsons and picked up a bag of meatballs. Normally I make the beef and pork meatballs from Taylor's butcher shop, but they were out. My second choice - and my first choice when cooking meatballs for a large group - is the party-size mini meatballs from Trader Joe's. But going  to Trader Joe's on a Saturday morning is never fun, so I just bought this bag,

My parents had a bottle of Guinness Extra Stout in the fridge, so I poured most of it into a pot and let it heat up with the meatballs.  While those were cooking, I microwaved a package of Jack Daniel's pulled chicken. About a year ago I used some of this chicken for pulled chicken egg rolls and I was pleased with it, so I decided to use it again. I put the hot chicken on top of tortilla chips and cheese with some chopped red onion and cilantro and baked it in the oven for about ten minutes.

While the nachos were in the oven I turned my attention back to the meatballs. The Guinness had thickened into more of a glaze and I added half a bottle of Guinness Bull's Eye barbecue sauce that I had also purchased at the store. I mixed it all up and spooned several meatballs into snacker-size buns. For mine, I added some French's fried onion strings.

The snackers were good but a little too bland for my tastes. I wish I'd added some cheese to them as well. Something with a little bit of bite, maybe a sharp cheddar or pepper jack. (Actually, I wish I'd fried up some sliced jalapenos - those would have been pretty good on the snackers, although I know my parents would not have liked it.)

The nachos were fantastic. My mom made guacamole for herself, my dad and Elizabeth. But I hate guacamole so I didn't have any. It was a good meal, but not as good as the lobster sliders and potato chips I made last time.

Sharky's Woodfired Mexican Grill

I'm pretty loyal to Rubio's when I want a quick lunch of fish tacos. It's not that I love the place, but they are much better than Baja Fresh and I have never been let down. About 5 years ago, someone told me about Sharky's and how good their tacos are, as well as their barbecue chicken pizza. So I went by a Sharky's way out in the valley one day - I had taken my dad to a doctor's appointment because he'd hurt his ankle and didn't want to drive, and while waiting I got some lunch in Sherman Oaks or Tarzana, I don't remember which - and wasn't terribly impressed. It was good, but not great like it had been made out to be. I saw no reason to abandon Rubio's. About a year after my visit, a Sharky's opened in Pasadena, about a block from Rubio's and Wahoo's, and I never went there. 

The other day Elizabeth and I were driving around and trying to decided what to do for lunch. I briefly thought fish tacos sounded good, and literally 5 seconds later she said "I wouldn't mind some fish tacos." So we decided to give Sharky's a try. It had been years since I'd tried it, and, to be honest, I often try new places, even if I'm not sure about them, so that I can write about them here. 

It was about 2:30 in the afternoon and the place was still pretty crowded (in the front, not in the back where we sat.) We ordered chips & salsa, a grilled shrimp taco, and two tempura-battered mahi mahi tacos. We received the chips & salsa immediately - a pretty massive portion that we did not come close to finishing - and got some salsa from the salsa bar: the regular, the roasted, and the "killer hot." The regular was my favorite but the killer hot was also very good and was actually quite spicy.

It took about 7 minutes to get our food. I tried the grilled shrimp taco first. It was very disappointing. The shrimp did not taste grilled, they tasted like they had just been defrosted. And there were only four of them. I could have eaten the whole thing in one bite. The "ranchero" sauce was tasty, but it wasn't enough to rescue the taco.

The tempura mahi mahi tacos, however, looked impressive: full of battered fish, cabbage and salsa. They were outstanding. The fish was crispy and warm and the sauce complemented it nicely. I'm pretty sure I've never tried this taco before; I think I would remember it. 

I don't know if Sharky's will become my regular fish taco place now - especially when Rubio's offers their langostino and crispy shrimp tacos -  but I will definitely eat there more than once every 5 years from now on. It's a little more expensive than similar places but the quality is impressive. Those mahi mahi tacos would not have been out of place in a fancy restaurant at three times the price.

All India Cafe

My mom has never had a McDonald's hamburger. I find this bizarre for someone who has lived her whole life in Southern California, but I can't really tell her that she's missing anything. My high school best friend lived with a girl for several years who has never once had a drink of alcohol. I also found this somewhat bizarre, but then again she was a world class runner (literally) who was in the best shape of perhaps anyone I have ever met, so I wasn't exactly in a position to criticize.

But Elizabeth revealed to me not long ago that she had never once eaten Indian food. This really surprised me. She is not a boring eater, and she lived in New York City for several years, where she often ate ethnic cuisine. Not only that, but for a few years she lived in Brooklyn Heights in a building with an Indian restaurant on the ground floor. But not once had she ever tried it.

Indian food is one of my favorite cuisines when the weather gets colder. It makes me a little sad when November arrives and the days are so short, UCLA football is limping towards another lousy season, and there is absolutely nothing to watch on television because any halfway-decent show inevitably gets cancelled in favor of a new reality TV concept. But at least it's time to eat Indian food again.

The other night, one of the few cool nights we have had lately, Elizabeth and I decided to go to dinner with our friend Carla. We considered Mezbaan - over the years I have had some of the most fun meals of my life there - but in the end we decided to go to All India Cafe. All India is slightly less formal, with more of a party atmosphere. We took our seats under the large TV showing a Bollywood film, the actors singing songs which I could not understand but nonetheless hummed for a couple hours. 

We started with two large Indian beers - Flying Horse and Taj Mahal. These are nothing special but they get the job done. (Beer has been improving in India for the last decade and they make some really good beers now, but these aren't an example of that.) We decided to get three different appetizers and two entrees, with some garlic naan and basmati rice. 

Our first appetizer was the mixed chutneys: mango, cilantro and coconut chutneys served with wheat chips. I'm not a huge fan of coconut so the fact that I didn't really like that chutney shouldn't mean anything. The other two were fantastic. We got one samosa for each of us - stuffed with potatoes, peas and spices with a tamarind chutney. They were good but a little overcooked. (Mezbaan has always made much better samosas, in my opinion.)

We also had an order of onion pakoras: spiced and fried onion pieces, served with a tomato chutney. These are one of my favorite things to eat at an Indian restaurant and ten times better than any onion rings I have ever had. 

For our entrees we had Chicken Tikka Masala and Tandoori Shrimp. The chicken was delicious although I thought the cream sauce should have been spicier. Of course, I ate all I could and used the garlic naan to sop up the sauce that remained on my plate. The shrimp were fantastic, served on a skillet with onions and carrots. I could eat these shrimp any time. Basmati rice, a sweet-smelling, non-sticky rice, goes very well with this kind of food. 

When the bill came it was at least twenty bucks higher than I was expecting. This is not so much a complaint as an observation; I have never had an Indian meal where this did not occur. It's a phenomenon as predictable as losing a sock in the wash or hearing Kings of Leon on the radio these days. But it was well worth it. We had a great time and we liked everything we ate. 

"Now I understand why the Indian restaurant in my old building was always packed," Elizabeth said.

My Weekend With Zankou

I stopped by Zankou Chicken for a late lunch on Friday and got my usual order: a chicken tarna wrap (no tomatoes) and an 8 oz container of garlic sauce. While waiting for my food - the place was packed as usual - I chatted with a guy about the garlic sauce after he had admired my buying an entire container.

"Hey," I said, "I could eat this stuff on anything."

"Anything?" he replied.

"Well," I backtracked, "maybe not anything."

But a few minutes later as I sat in my car eating my wrap, I thought to myself: wait, maybe I can eat this on anything. So I decided to try over the weekend.

Friday night I picked up some McDonald's; I ordered a chipotle chicken snack wrap and some McNuggets. The Zankou sauce was great in the wrap. The spiciness of the barbecue sauce and the smooth, explosive garlic flavor of the paste were an extreme and yet still delicious combination.

I spread some garlic sauce on a McNugget. It was okay, but not great. The sauce goes better with the Zankou rotisserie chicken than the fried McDonald's kind. But then I put some garlic sauce on a McNugget and topped it with hot mustard. The conflation of the two sauces made this the best McNugget I have ever eaten.

The next morning, while watching College Game Day, I ate some leftover McNuggets for breakfast. I ate one of them with the hot mustard and garlic sauce combo. Still good. But then I put together a McNugget with garlic sauce and some chopped peppers and pickled turnips from Zankou. It was outstanding.

"You're a freaking genius," Elizabeth said. (Actually she said I was a complete moron, but I'm pretty sure she meant genius.)

Saturday afternoon I went to the Rose Bowl for the UCLA-UW game. I had two hot dogs and two beers, and the whole time I was wishing I had brought some garlic sauce with me for the dogs. Oh well, next time.

That evening I was telling a friend about the experiment. "You should go by Burger King," he said. "You hate that place. See if the sauce makes it better."

This was one of the best ideas I had heard in years. I would try food from one of my least favorite places, mix it with one of my favorite things, and see how it turned out. I ordered the Steakhouse XT burger and some chicken fries, which are perhaps my least favorite fast food item ever.

The Zankou sauce helped the burger a lot. The patty still had the typical (lousy) Burger King taste, but the peppery sauce went very nicely with the garlic sauce. The chicken fries were also much better (although they still weren't anything special.)

For dinner last night, we cooked some snacks in the oven, but I also microwaved a White Castle hamburger. I added some hot pepper rings to it and a very healthy amount of garlic sauce. It was messy, very pungent, and very, very delicious. If White Castle and Zankou Chicken ever join forces, they could become more powerful than Google.

That settles it, I thought to myself. I could eat Zankou garlic sauce on anything. But then I had a thought - an idea about a food that I have loved my whole life. Garlic sauce couldn't possibly be good on it... could it?

A glazed donut. I don't know how many of them I have eaten in my life, but it's not a small number. I have never put anything on one - never even considered it, actually. But there I was standing in my kitchen, a knife covered with garlic sauce hovering over a perfectly good donut, wondering if maybe I was taking the whole thing too far.

Well, whatever. I spread the sauce on and took a bite. This next sentence may well be the most predictable one that will ever appear on this blog. It was horrendous. Absolutely disgusting. One of the worst things I have ever eaten.

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"This is awesome," I said to Elizabeth. "You should definitely try it."

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"Absolutely not," she said. "That looks vomitous." (I'm not sure if "vomitous" is actually a word, but I just spent 20 minutes browsing Thesaurus.com to come up with a better adjective for how this tasted. I could not. It was vomitous.)

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So, as it turns out, I can't eat Zankou garlic sauce on anything.