I have reviewed quite a few products found at Aldi, a global grocery retailer that focuses on value-priced items. They are able to achieve lower costs by largely staying away from big brand names, and instead, creating their own brands and contracting the manufacture and packaging of them to quality co-packers and producers. This product… Continue reading Lunch Mate Cooked Ham Review – An Aldi Branded Product
Category: Sandwiches
Buena Vista Restaurant Review – Algonquin, IL
I rarely go out for Mexican food; exception would be if I’m deep in an area of a big city with a heavy Mexican population. Traveling the world, you get spoiled on “authentic” cuisine and disappointed about the Americanized version of same. At least I do. Same after I lived in China. Never been in… Continue reading Buena Vista Restaurant Review – Algonquin, IL
Buona Beef Restaurants Review – Chicago area
About thirty years ago, Chicagoan Joe Buonavolanto Senior had a notion to open a restaurant serving Chicago specialties – Italian beef and sausages, hot dogs, ribs, sandwiches and pizza. He took a 2nd mortgage out on his house to finance it, and did some of the initial construction with his own hands. Today, the third generation… Continue reading Buona Beef Restaurants Review – Chicago area
Mardi Gras 2018 New Orleans in Poem
(From my archives) Mardi Gras 2018 New Orleans in Poem I had never been to a Mardi Gras celebration until I moved to New Orleans. What I learned living there, is that for the locals, it’s a great opportunity for family activities, far away from the tourism debauchery in the Quarter. I was ‘inspired’ one… Continue reading Mardi Gras 2018 New Orleans in Poem
Navigating the Iowa Tenderloin Trail
The “pork tenderloin” is a sandwich unique to Iowa……and also Indiana. Go figure. You take a boneless pork chop, hammer it thin-like with a mallet, dip it in batter, serve it on a hamburger bun one-tenth the size of the meat. Restaurants vary the batter recipes and seasonings. The “trick” seems to be to get… Continue reading Navigating the Iowa Tenderloin Trail
Pork Tenderloin Recipe
Pork “tenderloins” are an Iowa thing. And Indiana thing. We’ll leave it at that. It’s a boneless pork chop, hammered with a mallet to make it larger and thinner, dipped in batter and deep-fried, served on a hamburger bun about 1/10th the size of the ‘loin. You might also call it wienerschnitzel, of a sort.… Continue reading Pork Tenderloin Recipe
Berghoff Restaurant and Bar Review, Chicago, IL
1870 was the year Herman Berghoff immigrated from German. He worked on plantations and at other jobs before opening his own brewery in Indiana. When the World’s Fair in Chicago came along in 1893, Berghoff set up a booth to sell his beer to fair patrons. He met with such success, he figured he better… Continue reading Berghoff Restaurant and Bar Review, Chicago, IL
Winstons Irish Bacon Review
When you request bacon in the US, you know what you are going to get. Smoked/cured thin slices of pork belly, with streaks of fat parallel to streaks of delicious meat. Unless you request “Canadian Bacon” which is neither Canadian nor bacon, but very lean sliced pork loin, cured and smoked. Outside of the US,… Continue reading Winstons Irish Bacon Review
Rays Drive In Review – Kokomo Indiana
A pork tenderloin, or simply “tenderloin” was not on my food radar for most of my life. Oh, I’d see them on menus, people around me would order them, but for some reason, even up close they didn’t merit a look-see from my side of the table. That’s changed. For the uninitiated, a pork tenderloin… Continue reading Rays Drive In Review – Kokomo Indiana
Primanti Brothers Sandwich Review
There is a raft of places in the world where enterprising folks have created what I call a “one-handed meal.” Designed originally for the working class, shift workers, these foodstuffs were especially well adapted to heavy industry factory workers, miners and the like. In Cornwall, England, it was the “pasty,” a baked meat and vegetable… Continue reading Primanti Brothers Sandwich Review