Market Bistro's Cooking School

I was invited to attend a cooking class at the new cooking school inside the the revamped Market Bistro Price Chopper in Latham. The cooking school is right behind the full service restaurant near the front of the new food court area. I had my doubts about how successful this full service restaurant would be when I toured the new Bistro section of store when it opened. There were several tables of diners and while I didn't eat any of the restaurant's offerings the plates of food being served looked pretty damn good.

On to the cooking school... I was invited to a 90 minute class titled Two Guys and a Grill with a focus on Certified Angus Beef. The school kitchen is pretty sweet. There are three islands that hold up to 5 students each for the hands on classes. There are also long tables for more of a lecture style class.Here's a picture I took from the second row. You can see the three islands and a pretty slick kitchen setup.

There's a camera on the back wall that projects onto the two screens for close ups of the lessons.
 

The beef was cooked by Chef Michael Ollier (from the Certified Angus Beef organization) and the side dishes were prepared the the cooking school's Chef John Winneck. First up was a top round London broil. This was marinated in a Central Market Marinade named Neil's Favorite Marinade, apparently Neil Golub likes it. These steaks got an overnight soak in the marinade, a sear on the stove-top grill, and then a bake in a 225 degree(F) convection oven.

Then a sweet corn souffle was prepared. During this preparation, each chef offered their opinion as to why eggs should be separated cold - Chef Winneck says the albumen doesn't stick to the yolks as much and Chef Ollier says the yolks are firmer and less fragile. News to me, and that's the kind of thing I like about cooking classes. Just some spontaneous, off-topic pro tip.

The souffle was had an interesting texture. The bottom turned into a corn spoon bread and the top was a soft egg. The beef was thinly sliced and still had a nice chew to it. I thought the marinade had a nice flavor but was a little sweet for my tastes. I gave the marinade bottle a quick look and MSG and high fructose corn syrup were on the ingredient list. Neil and I differ in opinion here. I don't think the marinade needs either but that's a matter of personal taste.

The next up was a petite sirloin seasoned with Central Market's Quebec seasoning, some bacon caramelized Brussels sprouts, and a twice baked potato gratin. The Quebec seasoning looked to be a Central Market riff on Montreal seasoning. Here's the petite sirloin and potato gratin.

Both were good. I'm a food snob, so I'll nitpick a little - I forgot to look at the ingredient list on the Quebec seasoning. It had mostly a coarse cracked pepper flavor and none of the garlic, onion or mild heat that I associate with Montreal seasoning. But in fairness, it wasn't advertised as Montreal seasoning. I really liked the flavors of the potatoes, but if I were to make the recipe at home, I think I would make mashed potatoes and then just stir in everything else. Again, a personal preference...and a completely different recipe.

Then some trimmed up New York strip steaks were grilled. It looked like all they got was some salt and pepper, which I would argue is all a good strip steak needs. You could probably even skip the pepper. The steaks were grilled and served with the caramelized Brussels sprouts and a chimichurri sauce.

I liked everything on this plate. I was also impresses with the amount of char Chef Ollier was able to get on the steaks while maximizing the amount of medium rare in the steak with what looked like and over sized grill pan. Again, some more personal preference, I'd probably skip the chimichurri sauce with a strip steak. A good, properly grilled strip steak doesn't need dressing up.

Everyone in the class was given a folder with all of the recipes and a shoppping list for the menu. Some of the items on the shopping list don't exactly match the recipe (I'm nitpicking again), like apple wood smoked bacon on the grocery list and Hatfield bacon in the recipe, but I'm being a jerk here. Although on the comment form, I mentioned that there was a lot of product placement in the recipes. Several Price Chopper brands were called out, the Hatfield bacon, some Cabot cheese, Eggland's Best.This class listed for $40. Most of the other evening cooking classes run longer and seem look to cost $55. I'm sure prices will vary by course.

My favorite part of my time in the cooking school was the discussion about what qualifies to be Certified Angus Beef. It starts with genetics, the steer needs to be Angus. Then it comes down to marbling which is determined after the animal is slaughtered. One in four Angus has the proper marbling to be Certified Angus Beef. I had to ask, if you are packing large cuts to be broken down in the store, how do you know what the marbling is going to be like?  A cut is made between the 12th and 13th rib, which is the cut made to quarter the side of beef, and the view of the prime rib is used to make the marbling decision. They've even done studies to make sure that view is an accurate insight to the rest of the cuts on that side of beef. Who knew?

Certified Angus Beef was my go to beef before I got mixed up in raising our own so I used to eat it all the time. This was probably the most beef I have eaten that wasn't ours in over two years. The beef was good...I like ours better. But I'm biased.

Back to the cooking school, they are planning to do quite a bit of teaching there. The schedule is available here. They do private events - got 10 people that want a class in something, that can be arranged. They also do some kid classes and it sounds like they had their hands full with a Frozen themed class.  The kids classes are going to broken up by ages, 5-to-8 and 9-and-up. The staff was very friendly and Cooking School Chef John Winnek is a capable teacher. Not everyone that can cook can teach. He can.

Full Disclosure: Besides being plied with beef, I was given a Certified Angus Beef gift bag. I don't know if that's a standard practice at all the classes. I know some local programs either send you home with food or have an in-store discount after the class. Anyhow, the gift bag contained an instant read thermometer, a spice rub, little pad & pen, a chip clip, a little meat guide that you can probably pick up at the meat counter and a coupon. I'm keeping the stuff this time because I'd like to try the spice rub and my mother-in-law needs an instant thermometer. So, it's hers. The kids will do something with the rest.

Timber

The past few weeks have been pretty busy. Between the softball practices, the games, Girls Scouts, and an overnight work trip to Utica we have begun to get the yard the way we want it. Although we're not really sure how we want it. One thing we were sure of was that the trees lining one side of out lot had to go.

Aside from being overgrown, about half of them only had branches on one side of the trunk. There's an easement behind the house and any part of the trees that crossed the property line had been cut off. They were originally nice privacy trees, but now they were patchy and dropped a shit-ton of needles. We got two quotes. One was for removing a little over half of the trees. The other was from Salvatore Tree Service for all of the trees and came in at about half of the first quote. Dun. They showed up when they said they would and worked all day (from about 7:45 until after 6:15 - we left for the Springsteen concert and they were still raking up). I wouldn't hesitate to call them again. I watched them take down a few trees and I had never seen it done like this. A guy in a harness attached himself to the crane. The crane lifts him up about two thirds the height of the tree. He attached the crane line to the tree and then repelled down to the ground. He picked up a chainsaw and quickly cut the tree about a foot off the ground. The crane hoisted the tree then laid it gently on the ground where it was unattached from the crane and cut up by two other chainsaw wielding guys. They had a chipper and a log hauling truck there too.

That was a Tuesday. On Wednesday, I was very surprised at how much afternoon sunlight those threes blocked. On Friday, we met with a landscape architect and talked about different ways to lay out the yard. On Monday, we left the house at 5:15 and headed to the softball fields for a game. When we came home a little after 8, this was in the back yard.

This was a little unsettling because 24 hours earlier I had been mowing the lawn in this area. And 26 hours earlier, I was having a catch with my daughter there. Apparently, this was leaning on the pines we had removed and it took a week of not having anything to lean on for it to come down. I thought the easement was the town's, so I contacted them to come clean up their tree. Turns out, it isn't theirs. It still owned by the company that developed the neighborhood. I contacted them. The guy seemed nice enough but the tree was still alive so it is considered "an act of God" which puts it on me to clean up. I told him that there was more of this tree to come down and he should have it removed. He said he'd take a closer look at the tree and get back to me. Then I did what any cheap bastard would do: I went to Harbor Freight with a 20% off coupon and bought their el cheapo electric chainsaw for $45. I had always thought electric chainsaws were silly. Like for weekend warriors that wanted to play lumberjack. Not that I have any real experience with real chainsaws, but electric chainsaws always seemed like toy chainsaws to me. But I didn't want to deal with mixing fuel or the added cost of a decent chainsaw for a few hours. This electric toy worked like a champ. Took a little effort, but that saw went through some 16 inch logs. We cleaned everything up, bundled the trimmings for the town to take away and stacked the logs to give away to people that have fire pits. Dun, again.

The next morning we went up to my in-law to make fence posts out of large locust logs to repair a bunch of broken posts. Making the posts completely by hand using an ax, a maul, and a sledge/wedge was not going well. So we started at one end of the log with beating an ax into it with the sledge. The as far up the newly made crack in the log as we could go, we beat the wedge in making the crack much bigger. Then we put the bucket of the tractor in the crack. And finally, through the magic of hydraulics we started making fence posts. The tractor just popped the post right off along the grain. After a long day of repeating this procedure, we had a trailer full of new posts.

Colonist that did this completely by hand were totally bad-ass and have my respect and admiration. That finished up Memorial Day Weekend and dealing with trees...until that little thunderstorm on Friday.

Are you freakin' kidding me? That tree I knew was going to eventually fall did. And right on my neatly stacked pile of logs from the first tree. And it broke another section of fence.

Did I say Dammit, yet? So this morning, I went down to the basement and got my handy, dandy $45 Harbor Freight electric chainsaw again. And here's what the yard looks like now with a pickup load of logs taken away.

If I can't get rid of these leftover logs, I'm throwing them over what's left of the fence.

Springsteen

In the spring of 1984, I was at just the right age to be swept up into the Born in the USA album madness. Yes, album. It was vinyl and I loved it. I listened to it again and again. I liked it enough to dig through the new-to-me albums that Springsteen had already released. I loved them too.

Then, in the late fall of 1984 something incredible happened. We got concert tickets. I went with both of my brothers and Brian from across the street to see Springsteen play the Hartford Civic Center. The seats were on the floor and the show was fantastic. This was 30 years ago, and I still have vivid memories of the night. He opened with Born in the USA, Badlands and Out in the Street. Before playing Glory Days, he told a great high school story about staying out all night Friday playing in a band only to be woken out of a deep sleep early in the morning because the baseball team needed another player (he fell asleep on his feet in the outfield and missed a fly ball). One memory of the show outshines the others.

Springsteen concerts back then were about 4 hours long with an intermission. About halfway through the intermission, some guy about 3 rows in front of us got it in his head that the people not sitting on the floor should do “The Wave.” So he’s yelling at people that stayed in their seats during the break, and pointing here and there and he finally gets a few people to do it and a smattering of people in one row do The Wave for not quite the length of 1 section of seats. Reinvigorated by this small success, he starts it up again and this time a thin slice of people do The Wave through about two and a half sections. He keeps at it, more people on the floor are trying to get the attention of the people in the seats going and a few rows of people are do The Wave around half of the Civic Center. And then magically, these 3 or four rows participating in this guy’s madness make it all the way around the Civic Center. They’re cheering, everyone on the floor is cheering and then EVERYONE in the seats is doing The Wave. It is thunderously loud and I’m standing in the middle of thousands of people doing The Wave. After 3 or 4 full Waves around the Civic Center, all the lights went out our, the stage lights came up and Springsteen was center stage playing the opening of Cadillac Ranch. I still smile thinking about it.

Tonight will be the 5^th time I go to a Springsteen concert. I’m not sure I’ll be thinking tonight’s show 30 years from now, but I’m really looking forward to going...sitter comes in less than 2 hours.


Post Show Update: The show was a lot of fun. Have you ever seen the documentary Springsteen and I? The film documents how Springsteen's shows and music have impacted fan's lives. My favorite story in the movie is Philly Elvis (the story really starts around:2:30 in this clip). Anyhow, this guy dressed up as Elvis gets onto the stage with Springsteen and basically lives a dream.

I haven't been to a show since 1999. At some point in the past 15 years, people started bringing signs with requests. So the lights come on and Springsteen starts looking over the requests. He gets passed  a Mother's Day request for a selfie with someone's mom, there was a whole letter asking if she could dance with him if the picture wasn't an option. So Springsteen starts singing "Save The Last Dance For Me" and brings the mother up and dances with her. We got to watch this lady's Philly Elvis moment. The show has been over for a little over an hour. I'm sure everyone this lady knows has heard about it already. Also three little 11 year olds had a sign requesting Seaside Bar Song. Seeing as they knew the song (released 30 years before they were born), he couldn't turn them down and they came onstage to dance too. Although their dance was more of a jump, so Springsteen started jumping too.

The only thing that way to have made the show better would have been if I got to pick the playlist. Although he played Badlands and Thunder Road which were both on my wishlist.

I'd go again.

Farewell, Janice

Back in the spring of 2000, money was pretty tight because we were bought a house at the end of May and our wedding was set for mid-July. In searching for a veil to go with her wedding dress, my wife was pretty disappointed with the selection and that selection started at just under $200. In stepped our friend Janice. We knew Janice had gone to school for fashion, but had no idea that she had made many wedding veils. So Amy and Janice went off to a fabric store, bought about $20 worth of veil making stuff...I headed off to Sears and bought the cheapest lawn mower I could find and named it The Janice L. Commemorative Lawn Mower or Janice for short.

Janice has been a trusty lawn mower. She has always started. A few times, she needed a little prodding but that was operator error. Lawn mower tip: air actually needs to flow through the air filter for the engine to run. Janice has a little engine priming button with a sticker that tells you to press 3 times before starting. I think the sticker is missing a 0 and should read 30 times. After 30 or so presses of this magic button and a few pulls, she starts and will run until her tank is empty. I bet she would start today if I tried. But I haven’t tried.

Over time, the elastic in the after market bagging attachment I eventually bought became permanently elongated. For the past three years, I have used vise grips to keep the clippings collector closed. It was kind of a pain in the ass, probably looked a little funny too. Then, in the middle of last summer, the plastic safety shield that protects your shins from being impaled by twigs and small rocks broke off. I didn’t see a way of fixing it. I only got hit in the shins a few times last year, but it hurts like a sonofabitch when it happens. I hate to do it; I have to say good bye to Janice. I am going to literally send Janice to a farm upstate. My father-in-law expressed interest in her. Not sure if he will fix her up and pass her on, just use her engine for something, or let it collect dust in his huge barn o'stuff (most likely).

I checked mowers out at Home Depot, Lowes and Sears. After some hemming and hawing, I got this:

New Janice. I just mowed the lawn for the first time this year. New Janice’s bag collector is infinitely better and there is no engine priming. She just starts on the first, almost effortless pull. And when I was done mowing the yard, I didn’t reek of exhaust. Changing the height of the mower deck is much easier and it has large rear wheels. A salesman told me that the larger rear wheels make it easier to turn and I thought he was full of shit and just trying to up-sell me, but it’s true. I think New Janice and I are going to get along well. Hopefully for at least the next 14 years.

New Haven Pizza Hat Trick

There's something about pizza that brings out passion and there is nothing quite like a good pizza debate. So much so there is even some Pizza Philosophy. Sam Sifton's Pizza Cognition Theory that I first saw over at Slice states, "The first slice of pizza a child sees and tastes (and somehow appreciates on something more than a childlike, mmmgoood, thanks-mom level), becomes, for him, pizza." I would argue this is true.

Back in the day, my family frequented a restaurant named The Brick Oven in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In thinking about this post, I believe that this restaurant's wood fired oven is where my fascination of cooking with fire began. Among a number of great Italian dinners, this restaurant produced the first slice of pizza I appreciated, and craved and loved. Alas, all good things must come to an end. The owners of The Brick Oven (Rachel and Carmine) wanted to own their space instead of rent so they sold the business and opened a more formal restaurant...in another town.

This past weekend, we loaded up the family truckster and headed to Connecticut to visit my mother. I had warned everyone that I wanted to go to New Haven for pizza. Normally, we just hit the Pepe's outpost in Fairfield and save ourselves an extra drive. At the outpost, we have had some pretty good pizza as well as some exceptional pizza. It was never bad, but it wasn't always great. After all, how bad can a white clam and bacon pizza be?

We drove down on Friday. While at a park giving the kids some time to stretch their legs, my mother and I talked about the old Brick Oven and decided to head over to their new place (Carmine's in Shelton, Connecticut) for dinner. It was great. We saw Rachel and Carmine and even after having not seen her for a few years, my mother was recognized immediately. I had a nice conversation with Carmine. He assured me I would be happy with owning a wood oven and offered to give me pointers once I had the oven. I plan on taking him up on it.

Here's the little pizza we got to go along with our meal.

While it isn't exactly how I remember it, the pizza was still damn good. Plus eating a slice of it was trip down memory lane. If I had any doubts in the Pizza Cognition Theory, this meal erased them. So while this unintentional pizza stop was more than I dreamed it could ever be, I had my heart set on eating some New Haven Apizza.

I think that America's best pizza resides in New Haven, CT. Deal with it.

— Dave Chang (@davidchang) March 19, 2014

My plan was originally to drag everyone to Modern Apizza for lunch, visit a museum to kill time while we digested, and then go to the New Haven Frank Pepe's Apizza Napolitana to see how it compared to the Fairfield outpost. I didn't think I would be able to swing Sally's Apiza in there, maybe.

When my plan was disclosed to the kids, the immediately shot the museum down. I was actually looking forward to checking out the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, conveniently located about a mile from Modern Apizza. They had a what sounded like a pretty cool dinosaur egg exhibit. The girls were upset at having to postpone a visit to a park near my mother's place for a day, wanted nothing to do with a museum and wanted a different park. A quick google search located a Crossings-esque park a few miles in a different direction. Dun. Off we went.

First stop, Modern Apizza. The route the GPS wanted us to take involved a closed road. After a little "Recalculating, Recalculating" we were there.

We got there at noon and found a space in their relatively small lot. The restaurant opens at 11 and we were not the first ones there, but we didn't have to wait either. There was a line when we left around 1:00. We ordered three small pizzas - a clams casino, a half olive/half bacon (kids choice), and a veggie bomb hold the olives and cheese (my mom is vegan, it must skip a generation). With the order in, I brought the kids over to look at the oven and pizza making process. The beauty of places like this is that I am clearly not the first person to take out a camera a snap some pictures. Pizza nerds abound in New Haven. The pizza making crew can get a lot of pizza in that oven and they were impressive to watch. Not a lot of talking, just calm, steady pizza production.

We got our pizzas pretty quickly. The clams casino

The half bacon/half olive

and then the battery on the camera died so I don't have a picture of the veggie bomb. I should have pulled out my phone and taken a shot, but I was really more concerned with eating than photography. I would say these pizzas were very good and I would happily eat them regularly. But they were not amazing. The crust seemed a little soggy in the center of the pie so the great bit at the tip of a slice wasn't there. So, very tasty pizza at Modern, but nothing that is going to haunt my dreams. Hell, it couldn't have been bad, all that was left was one small slice of the veggie bomb.

 After a short ride around the Yale campus, we headed over to Hannah's Dream Playground. The playground part was a lot like the Crossings, but there were also tennis courts (one was empty so we had a good softball catch in there), basketball courts, baseball fields with some games, and a nice bike path along Long Island Sound. I had jammed the kids bikes into the back of the family truckster so they had a nice ride (they just learned how to ride a little over a week ago). It was fun and by 4:00, I was ready to head over to Pepe's so we piled in and headed back downtown where I lucked into a spot on Wooster between Pepe's and Sally's.

Now, back in the late 80s, my brother lived on Wooster Street between Pepe's and Sally's. I had always preferred Pepe's and I would often call my brother, he'd call in a pizza order (that'll be about 90 minutes, kid), about half an hour later I'd drive up, we'd hang out a bit, then we'd go get the pizza. More often than not we were there before the pizza was ready. We'd watch it go into the box get sliced in the most bizarre pattern you've ever seen a pizza get sliced, and then head back to my brother's place to eat it. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to pick out the building, but once I was standing on the street, I knew which window was his. Here's the view from the entrance of the building looking towards Pepe's. Pepe's is that white sign just past the arch.

Here's the view looking back up the street directly into the blinding sun. That little gap in the cars by the light post is basically the entrance to Sally's. Location, location, location.

Arriving at Pepe's a little after 4:00, there was a short wait. Less than 10 minutes. If we were a party of two, it would have been less. When we left the wait would have been significantly longer. Once seated we ordered three more small pizzas - a white clam and bacon, a cheese with bacon (no black olives at Pepe's) and a half broccoli/onion - half cheese. Then I went off to look at the oven and pizza making. Just like at Modern, the pizza making is a calm, smooth, quiet process that steadily and quickly turns out a lot of pizza.

 

Here's what we got. White clam and bacon

Bacon

Half broccoli/onion, half cheese

Again, these pizzas were pretty damn tasty. They were also noticeably different than Modern - texture, sauce, flavor of the crust - really different, which was a little surprising to me since it is such micro-regional style of pizza. As with Modern, these were very enjoyable but not mind blowingly great pizzas. Once again, we left a solitary slice and had it wrapped to go. While we were waiting for the check, I just had to get to Sally's. I mean, we were two blocks away. I had to get the hat trick. My wife came up with an amazing idea that perfectly humored my insanity. She'd wait and pay the bill while I went and ordered a Sally's pizza to-go. We'd meet up in the small park between Sally's and Pepe's. So the kids got the second park of the day and I set off for our 7th pizza of the day (8th in 24 hours).

I got lucky, because Sally's didn't open until 5:00, so the doors had only been open for about 30 minutes when I walked in the door. If you want to go, check the hours and bring cash. No credit cards.

Sally's is not as large or clean as I remember it being.There wasn't a line, but most of the tables were already filled. A few were still open. What really struck me was heat. When you walk into Sally's there are booths on both sides and an aisle up the middle. As you get closer to the back of the shop, the aisle makes a little jog and the shop gets narrower. At this exact spot, the air temperature goes up 50 degrees. It's like a weather front. There are a lot of people working there that were probably friends but seemed like family and they are joking with each other having a good time and churning out their pizzas. To be fair, the three guys mostly responsible for the actual pizza preparation were more serious than everyone else. And the guy loading the oven was wearing a winter hat. Plus everyone behind the counter has shuffle to their step. My guess is that a full out walk will will land you on your ass after you slipped on flour. Completely different than the other two shops. Pepe's and Modern were choreographed. Sally's was organized chaos. The very friendly staff made me think of a Pirate Ship Kitchen that Anthony Bourdain described in Kitchen Confidential. I wanted to hang out with these people. The hangover would be intense, but I bet the ride would be worth it. Here, take a look at the kitchen.

 

 

No shit, that guy in the last picture is wearing a winter hat. It is Death Valley in the summer hot where he is standing. In case you are a pizza nerd and was wondering, those sacks of flour are All Trumps (not that I was looking for any secrets or anything). I asked for a small cheese pizza and was told that it would be 25 minutes. Perfect. I watched a little bit, and then met up with everyone in the park. After about 10 minutes I went back and waited and watched some more. They add some oil and water to the top of the pies to keep the cheese from burning. You can see the steam coming off as soon as the pie gets in the oven.

I got my pizza and headed off to the park like a kid that just got a present and could wait to open it. Here's what we had

It was also good, but not great. Out of the 7 pies we had that day, it was my least favorite. But the pie has a ton of potential. If/when I return, it will not be for a plan cheese pie. I bet a different set of toppings would have been better. Here, we intentionally left one slice to be compared cold with all of the other single slices we collected in our journey.

So what did this pizza quest teach me? I wholeheartedly believe each of these three shops could produce a pizza so delicious it will make you do a double take. Unfortunately, this past Saturday none of them did. I also believe that the Pepe's outpost in Fairfield makes a pizza that is as good, if not better, than the original location in New Haven, which is surprising because I have only heard that the opposite is true. I also learned that I really want to be able to make pizza like Carmine. He taught his son, maybe he'd be willing to teach me too.

Sunday morning, we tried a slice from each pizzeria cold. Without knowing which slice came from which pizzeria, I picked Carmine's as my favorite leftover slice. The Pizza Cognition Theory strikes again.

Battle Royalle: What's playing in our house

Last week was pho and high school musicals. This week, it is the four* crappy television shows I sit through regularly. Yes, this is grumpy parent rant and it is also a subject that I shouldn't have an informed opinion on.

Way back in the 70s, if it was on TV, you could watch it. There was no "I love this episode so I am going to watch only this episode again and again and complain if we have to stop in the middle of a show I have seen 50 times" like there is today with cable TV and DVRs. Left to there own devices, my kids would watch exactly 4 shows - with special emphasis on a few episodes of each show, all of them on Disney. Here they are in order from ugh, not again to tolerable. If you have to watch these shows repeatedly, I feel your pain.

Jessie: I hate the premise of the show and it doesn't help that the repeated "Hey, Jessie oohho ohh" of the theme song will rattle in your head for days. Super rich jet-setting New Yorkers adopt a bunch of kids and basically leave them in New York to be raised by a nanny and a sarcastic butler. Hijinks ensue. Sound a little like The Nanny? This was created by one of The Nanny's producers.

Shake It Up: Two best friends in high school are also on a local dance show. One is dumb, the other is smart. Hijinks ensue. It's more tolerable than Jessie, but not much. Plus, one of the leads in the show goes by one name like Cher or Madonna. Your age shouldn't end in "teen" if you are going to go by one name.

Austin and Ally: Down in beautifully sunny Miami, a male teen singing sensation, his shy female best friend/song writer, and two other friends go to school, write songs and perform. Hijinks ensue. For the most part, I find the dancing and music on this show awful. The two sidekick friends make it watchable. The female sidekick gets fired from a job in most episodes and the male sidekick friend is so over the top goofy that he can be funny. He occasionally gets into smack-off type insult fights with another character and they can also be amusing. Under no circumstances take this as a recommendation to watch the show. It is still a sit through only if you must kids show.

Dog With A Blog: Maybe it's because I have a blog too, maybe because the parents aren't morons, or maybe it's because this is essentially ALF with a talking dog instead of an alien puppet. The father looks familiar. I think he's been in commercials. The mother is Beth Littleford who used to be a reporter on The Daily Show. Anyhow, out of the four shows that seem to run on a continuous loop when the kids watch TV, this is the best one. It's pretty close to a traditional network sit-com and you don't feel yourself getting dumber like you do when Jessie is showing.

*There used to be a 5th show, Good Luck Charlie but that seems to have fallen out of favor. The series ended and I think that killed it for the kids. It was a fairly standard sit-com that would fall on the higher end of this tolerable scale.

Battle Royale: Soup and Stage Edition

My first visit to a pizzeria is almost always filled with the hope that I have found the pizza I grew up eating. No matter how often I am disappointed, there is always hope. The comparison of the pizza in front of me to the long gone pizza from The Brick Oven in Bridgeport, Connecticut probably happens more often than it should. Over the past few days, two pairs of things are readily comparable. The first was by design, the second just kind of happened.

Soup

While I really like Pho, I am certainly not an expert. I have had it from exactly 3 Capital District restaurants, mostly from one place because it is the most convenient for me and I would argue that a weekly bowl of pho last winter kept me healthy while everyone else in the house sniffled and coughed. I have no preconceived notion of how pho should taste. I don't know the traditions of how it should be served or what a great price on a bowl is. To me, it is just a bowl of very enjoyable noodle soup. So this compare/contrast is strictly based on personal taste.

On Thursday, I was near Kim’s on Madison Ave. I had read about Kim’s in a Times Union review, All Over Albany and another write up at Chopsticks Optional.  The restaurant is in certainly nice enough, nothing fancy. There was one other table of 6 having lunch when I arrived. Out of several options of pho, I went with the brisket, eye round and beef meatball combination.

It was good. I thought the broth was a little thin. From memory, this bowl of pho seemed similar to the bowl I had at Saigon Spring in Clifton Park when the restaurant opened (my one and only visit – don’t get to Clifton Park often).  In my mind, I though I liked my usual bowl of pho better. But I hadn’t had a bowl of my usual pho in awhile…which brings us to Friday’s Lunch at Pho Yum.

 

Last year, I ate enough bowls of pho at Pho Yum to be recognized when I visit and I am expected to get a bowl of pho with beef brisket and a glass of water. When I arrived on Friday, the restaurant was full. I counted 17 people in the small shop. Luckily, I snagged a seat at a table that had just been vacated. And you’ve got to give Linh (the owner and keeper of the front of the house) credit, I haven’t been there in months and she still recognized me and knew my order. To compare apples to apples, I switched up my usual brisket order to the Pho Yum - any three meats - and got the same brisket, eye round beef meatball combo I had on Thursday. The base of the dish is the broth, and Pho Yum’s broth had more flavor and more gelatin/body to it. It also had more fat. Not sure that’s a bad thing though. Here’s how I’d score the fight:

Broth: Pho Yum’s was better.

Noodles: Pho Yum’s had better texture.

Eye Round: Draw – the eye round was pretty much the same.

Brisket: I liked Pho Yum’s. It had some fatty, crunchy pieces. If you’re into that, Pho Yum’s wins, if not, you’ll like the brisket at Kim’s better.

Meatballs: These aren’t Italian style meatballs. They’re light, kind of spongy meatballs that are pretty damn tasty. The meatballs at Kim’s were better.

Sides: Draw. They are pretty much exactly the same. I don’t add the siracha or hoisin to the soup. I like both sauces, just not in my soup. The jalapeno at packed more punch, but that is going to be pepper to pepper anywhere.

Cost: Both portions were enough, but the portion at Kim’s is noticeably bigger and slightly cheaper. This pho at Kim’s was $8.95 and it was $10 at Pho Yum (before tax and tip).

In the end, I would like to try many things on the menu at Kim’s, but when I’m looking for a bowl of pho, I’ll spend the extra buck at Pho Yum.

Stage

This weekend turned out to be a weekend of musical theater. High School musical theater. On Saturday night we saw Footloose. Sunday afternoon, we caught the afternoon matinee of Oklahoma! Both plays were pretty well done. Both plays had some pretty good laughs. The crowds at both plays gave the cast standing ovations. But let’s score the fight:

Orchestra: the musicians at Oklahoma! were better.

Vocals: the singers at Oklahoma! were better. The kid that played Curly could really sing well.

Set: the set at Oklahoma! was nicer.

Cost: Draw – same price. At face value, for less than a single ticket to see The Lion King at Proctors, a family of 4 can go see a high school show and buy baked goods during the intermission. Sure, there’s some drop in production quality, but in terms of enjoyment I don’t think that drop is a factor of 4. For both plays, two kids and two adult tickets were $44. For the four of us to see the Lion King, it was well over $200. Given the choice, I think I’d rather go see the high school play. In my book, "Let's Hear it for the Boy" trumps "Hakuna Matata."

In the end, I wished the school that did Oklahoma! put on Footloose. After all, no matter what you do to it, the play Oklahoma! is still Oklahoma! and I’d be ok with never seeing it again. Even though the song “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” has been rolling around in my head. It’s a change from the barrage of One Direction songs my daughters subject me to... but not all change is good.