Day of Gluttony - Tastemade.com - The Interweb

https://www.tastemade.com/shows/day-of-gluttony

Welcome to my new totally favorite show.  Two crazy asian dudes, cruising around one specific city at a time, eating at 24 different places in 24 hours.  Brilliant.  Some times it's a cup of killer coffee, or a glass of banging juice.  Other times it's a full legit meal, breakfast, lunch, dinner, you get the idea.  At times friends pop in to help out with the grub, other times they get totally full or drunk.  It's off the hook.  Well worth the 15 to 20 minutes per episode.

And, they aren't just rolling into random spots.  These are popular, grade A, local hangouts.  So it's not just entertaining it's also educational.  If you're going to one of these cities you're gonna want to check these guys out.  They know the spots and how to do it.

Here's one of my favorite episodes.  NYC.  Harry and Bruce are riding skateboards from spot to spot in full business dude suits.....

https://www.tastemade.com/shows/day-of-gluttony/24-new-york-city-restaurants-in-24-hours

Yet another is Portland, one of the coolest cities on the planet.  This time the modus-operandi is a tandem bike....

https://www.tastemade.com/shows/day-of-gluttony/24-portland-restaurants-in-24-hours

I hope you dig it/em, I sure do.

DVA

DVA Pizzeria - Felton Heights - USA

This post is dedicated to the woman who helped to make it possible, Great-Grammy-King.

This past Christmas I was the honored recipient of a new pizza cookbook, "The Pizza Bible", owing to my love of all things pizza.  A tremendous gift indeed and one that has anchored itself to countless hours of my time.  I've read, digested, read again, I dare say I've even perused a bit, and finally I am ready to embark upon the task at hand.  Let's make a pizza!

And not just any pizza, a pizza truly made from scratch.  Dough, sausage, sauce.  All except the cheese, that would be a bit much.  Buying a cow, etc...  But I digress.  

The dough recipe I have selected is one that utilizes a starter.  A concoction of yeast and flour, meant to pre-ferment or kick-start the rise of the dough.

Three days prior to pizza time we make the starter.  It sit's on the counter for a day, rising, growing. building, expanding.

It's then mixed with more yeast and flour, etc.. and then portioned out into balls (what???) and then it rises for two more days in the fridge.  And you are correct, I am remiss in capturing that part of this process pictorially.  But alas, we must move on.

Fennel sausage.  Fresh ground pork (from The Heart and Trotter, the awesome new butcher shop just a bit down El Cajon Blvd.  Please, please, check them out:  http://www.theheartandtrotter.com

OK, ground pork, fennel, anise, salt, pepper, mix, taste, add, taste, done, fridge, perfect.

Please don't be alarmed by the tasting.  Certainly I did not eat the rawness of it all, but I totally would if I wanted too, FYI.  I simply pinched off a piece and fried it in a pan.

The sauce is simply awesome tomatoes, a pinch of salt, a dash of olive oil.

 The dusting for the peel is a mixture of semolina flour and white flour.

Voila!

 Yeah, I know, looks super professional. 

I'm sure all of Felton Heights is smelling this.  

We let it cool a bit on a rack so that the steam escaping from the bottom doesn't make the crust soggy, but we only wait a few minutes.

Cut and eat.

Nailed it pretty much.  Nice crust lip.  Very light and airy, nice pull to it and has some chew as well.  The sausage flavor is super amazing.  This first pie is only sausage and we are digging it hard.  The sauce is only slightly coming through, which is what I want.  The cheese is stringy and delicious, but the entirety of the flavor is the sausage and crust.  Crisp and yeasty, fennel and porky.  I'm a very happy boy right now.

The next pie, as the dough recipe makes two balls, is sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, red onion.

Another big hit.  Great combination of flavors, crust is the same = awesome.  

If you have any interest at all in making a pizza at home, you need this book.  It has all of the recipes you could ever want, and the portions are right, designed for a single meal, one or two pies at a time, but easy to upscale if needed.  

A great book.

A great gift.

A Great-Grammy.

A great pizza.

A great night.

DVA

Los Tapatios - DeSoto Texas - USA

Sooo, we (I) know very well that Tex-Mex totally sucks.  But what about just some stright up Mexican food in Texas?  Has to be at least OK right?  Texas is on the border with Mexico the same as California and the Mexican food in SD is killer.

Let's check it out...

There's no website so the above is courtesy of Yelp.

 The official name of this place is Los Tapatios Enterprises Inc.

Not to be confused with the three other Los Tapatios retaurants in the same area....  feels similar to Roberto's, Rollberto's, Royberto's, etc.... 

The salsa was decent, fairly spicy and nice tomato flavor.  I liked that they gave us a pitcher of it so that we could refill our personal cups.

They also brought out a spicier version which honestly wasn't all that much more spicier.  It did have a tomatillo flavor which was nice.

This meal is lunch.  However, we have finished our work for the day and are headed back to the hotel room to "work" (nap) till dinner, so let's have a margarita!

And the food arrives.

This is a carne asada chimichanga.  Looked and smelled decent.  The enjoyer also said it tasted good.

This is the combo carne aside and shrimp.  Again, it's looking like standard Mexican food, which is a good thing.

Chicken tacos.  This looked a little less than awesome, but whatever....

And then there is this....

Molcajete

Comes with side stuff.  

It is essentially a heated of stone vessel (or concrete in this case) that keeps the food hot.  The original version is probably cooked in the vessel as well, but not this one.  There is also an overabundance of Nopales (Cactus).  A little too much if you ask me, but it was easy to pick through and eat the meat/shrimp.  Flavor wise pretty darn good.  Would I order it again?  Never.  I'd have the chimichanga for sure, looked like the best thing on the table.

Texas, not my favorite.

Hanging with my Japanese buddies anywhere in the world, totally my favorite.

Yippy Kay Yay!

DVA



Zen Sushi - Dallas Texas - USA

http://zensushidallas.com/zs/home.html

Oh yeah, we're having sushi in Texas.  The first thought is obviously "NOOOOOO", it can't be good.  However, this place has come highly recommended, and I'm with 5 Japanese friends, so, what the heck, let's go for it!

This restaurant is about a 15 minute ride from our hotel in DeSoto.  It's located in the shockingly cool area of Dallas known as the Bishop Arts District.  No bullshit, it felt and looked like Kensington as we rolled down the streets.  Crazy.  I never thought Dallas, or anywhere in Texas, had a neighborhood like this!  I was really blown away and looking forward to the meal.

A couple of my cohorts are non-drinkers, and Zen Sushi happens to have quite a selection of real Japanese stuffs, drinks, food, sake, etc..   The dry-guys each enjoyed a Ramune.  It's a sort of lemon flavored soda that contains a carbonated cap thing that makes bubbles when you push it into the bottle.   See following photos...

The rest of us are simply enjoying a cold beer.  Ahhhh.

The food starts rolling out.  Cajun Edemame.  Kinda hard to mess this up. 

The standard version.

The Texas sized sushi selection list 

Finally, Sake!

It also happened to be half-off Sake bottles tonight.  You know we will have a few...

Fried Baby Tako (Octopus)

Decent, not amazing, but not terrible.

Bacon Asparagus Yakitori

Yeah, super yumm.  A light ponzu type sauce on top.

Agedashi Tofu

I didn't try this as there were only three portions.  The ones who did seemed to enjoy it.  Looked cool.

Beef Gyoza

Standard pot stickers.  Again, they didn't ruin it.  Was ok.

Brown Sugar Braised Steamed Buns

Now these things KILLED it!  A great example of how to do the hated fusion thing.  We are in Texas, so to Mex-it-up, but still use awesomely light and yummy steamed buns was a terrific idea, and they pulled it off great.  The pork was so flavorful and carmely, just a touch of slaw.  Delicious.  My favorite so far.

Yano-san!  More Nihon-Shu?!?!?!?!?  Hai!!

An obvious sushi platter, rolls and nigiri

A good example of how this is not Japan.  On a cursory view, looks decent.  But a few of these, when placed in the mouth, completely explode with a heavy hand of wasabi.  Like a stupidly ridiculous amount.  Most of us began coughing and choking as the first vapors attacked our sinuses.  Totally crazy.  Not-awesome.

Random roll

This was good, deep-fried is hard to blow also.  I don't recall the innards at all, but I recall liking it :-)

Roll, refreshing, clean tasting.  The wrap is cucumber instead of nori.  Another big hit.  Nice work Zen-Sushi!

Tuna Tartare

Terrible.  Bland, lifeless, boring.    Looked like Japanese Nachos.  Dumb.

Jeeeeze, yes, great time for a Sake break!

Amaebi (sweet shrimp)

Another home run!  Raw bodies, deep fried heads.  And yes, you eat the whole head.  Like shrimp potato chips.  Yummy!

Tamagoyaki (egg)

Another offering that was done well.  And, this is not an easy thing to make.  Just slightly salty (like it's supposed to be) and eggy but not too much, texture perfect, firm but not hard.  At least there is someone in there somewhere who knows what time it is.

And then another...

Green Tea Ice Cream

It had the look of green tea, but there was something not right about the flavor.  None of us could put our finger on it, but it was off somehow.

In summary, for Texas we all thought this was absolutely worth the time and effort to get here and eat.  A decent meal, most things worked.   

My next time (and I hope it's never) in Dallas with Japanese buddies, this place will see us for sure.

Try something new, even if you think it will suck.

Have an adventure

Eat something raw

Pop a cap

DVA