Off the Map: A Good Meatloaf

Meatloaf - The 1770 House, East Hampton, NY

The 1770 House

If there is one person on Best Thing I Ever Ate who will rarely, if ever, steer you wrong, it is Ina Garten. Which is why, when you are among her stomping grounds in East Hampton, it is imperative that you spend as much time as possible frequenting her haunts.

Where Ina Goes, We Will Follow

Possibly her top haunt of all time is The 1770 House, which is both a historic inn and a restaurant - the latter featuring both a classic dining room and a basement tavern. After being advised that Ina herself prefers the atmosphere of the tavern, Vodka naturally chose the same ambience for her inaugural 1770 House meal.

Never Before Has Basement Dining Been So Chic

The tavern proves a bit treacherous to get to, due to a winding staircase that could most certainly take out anyone who's had a few too many martinis to her name. But once downstairs, it is all cozy charm - the perfect place to spend a snowy night while getting lit on cocktails which may or may cause you to be trapped in this basement until the end of time.

If "Comfort" Were a Restaurant, It Would Be the Tavern at 1770 House

Vodka orders the meatloaf, because that is what Ina instructed, even though never, in the history of her life, has she chosen meatloaf as her restaurant entree. 

Primarily Because the Staples of Her Dinners Are Booze, Cheese, and Carbohydrates

Prior to the arrival of our main dinners, we are greeted by freshly baked, warmed rolls (delectable) and our chosen appetizers - the spicy Montauk fluke tartare and the autumn salad. The fluke is especially delightful, featuring a subtle smattering of wasabi over the top which brings a pleasing kick to the entire enterprise.

Who Knew the Tavern Also Doubled as a Sushi Specialty Mart?

Onto the main event, the meatloaf itself, which Ina had featured on the THE CLASSICS episode of Best Thing I Ever Ate, is every good as Ina had promised. It's accompanied by potato puree, spinach, and a roasted garlic sauce which tastes undeniably like chicken broth (not a complaint). 

The Heel of the Loaf

While the meatloaf is indeed the best Vodka has ever had, it is, after all, still meatloaf, and while she would return to the 1770 House in a heartbeat, she would try one of the other staples of their menu.

Namely the Burger, and Even More Namely, the French Fries

After indulging in the chocolate brownie for dessert, Vodka tippy-toed carefully up the winding Tavern steps, clutching a wine glass in one hand and a rose bottle in the other, and all three emerged unscathed.

Brownie A La Lantern Light

As Ina herself would say, how easy is that?

The 1770's House Meatloaf: 4 stars

Off the Map: Great Hot Dog Expectations

Chili Dog -- Carneys, Los Angeles, CA

Carneys

The problem with being the Best Thing I Ever Ate dish that we're most looking forward to eating in Los Angeles is that our expectations are ten-times higher than usual.  So this is the issue faced by Carneys, home of Marc Summers favorite chili dog from THE CLASSICS episode of the program.

What Are These "Vegetables" With Which You Are Tainting Our Hot Dog?

To say hot dogs are a guilty pleasure for us would be an understatement, as in truth, we don't really have much guilt about eating them at all.  

Yeah, We Don't Care What It's Comprised Of -- Just Hand It Over

Past experiences have shown that, in general, we are relatively unimpressed by the Food Network's stars' choices of dogs on a bun, despite the fact that we will literally eat any hot dog placed in front of us, no matter its source.  So with Carneys, being a bit of an LA institution (what with the vintage rail car setting and all), we are expecting great things.

Quick Question: Is This the Bar Car?

Getting to Carneys is no easy feet, as it involves schlepping up multiple flights of stairs and crossing Sunset Boulevard sans crosswalk (really, if LA just encouraged people to walk around a little more, perhaps there wouldn't be such need for the preponderance of personal trainers).  

Our Route to Carneys = More Stairs Than We've Climbed in a Month

Huffing and puffing once we reach the Carneys counter, Vodka orders one chili dog, which the server immediately asks if we'd like to split.

"They're very good about splitting dishes here," Ginger notes.  "No one in New York would ever ask us."

What They're Also Very Good About Is Not Being Stressed to Serve Patrons Promptly

Indeed, perhaps this is how LA residents keep their slim fingers despite the lack of walking: no one ever consumes an entire plate of food.

Ah Ha! We Have Figured Out Your Magical Ways, Los Angeles

The hot dog arrives quickly, and upon inspection, all looks well.  While smothered in chili is not necessarily how we would choose to order our own dogs, we're not opposed to the topping.

Our first bites, however, reveal something else.  Namely, disappointment.

Sorry, Where Can We Find the HOT DOG?

Somehow, despite components that appear as though they should all be delicious, this hot dog is lacking.  

Never Trust a West Coast Resident to Make an East Coast Dish

The meat itself is almost completely masked by the overwhelming amount of chili, which we would forgive should the chili actually have a pleasing flavor (or really, any flavor at all, as this is just about the blandest variety we've ever tasted).  

Can Someone Please Send LA Some Salt?

"How do you possibly make a chili dog wrong?" Ginger asks.  "A hot dog should be so much better."

Maybe We Should Have Taken a Hint By the Fact That We Were Carneys's Only Customers

And there is the risk faced with those Best Thing I Ever Ate locations who serve our favorite foods -- the higher the expectations, the greater the fall.  And in the case of a hot dog, maybe it is true that an old one really can't be taught new tricks.

Carneys's Chili Dog: 2 stars

Off the Map: Well, This JUICE is Good

Prime Rib -- House of Prime Rib, San Francisco, CA
House of Prime Rib

Because we are destined to pen the travel brochure, The Lazy Person's Guide to San Francisco, we have thus far managed to spend a whole day in this city without having to walk up or down a SINGLE hill.  We are not even accomplishing this great feat of logistics on purpose -- we simply have an innate sixth sense concerning which blocks to avoid in order to not exert ourselves too heavily.

But this luck ends in a burst of fanfare when we have to make our way to the House of Prime Rib.

We Swear This Hill Was More Fatal to Our Calves Than It Looks

Said "House" is located in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood, which our bus tour guide this morning warned us to "never try to walk in, because no one can handle the hills."

For reasons that remain unknown, we took this decree as a PERSONAL CHALLENGE.

WE SHALL OVERCOME

After all, we may have no other physical prowess whatsoever (though Ginger keeps piping in with, "I once ran three miles"), but if there is anything we can do well, it is walk.  We are ninjas of the sidewalk, and if we can't handle Nob Hill, well, no one can.

Cut to: we almost die.

Now Would Be a REALLY Good Time For This Cable Car to Go on Service

We may be being a bit dramatic about this, as in truth, as long as we refrained from using any extra air for speaking ("No talking.  I'll see you at the top"), we made it up and down the hills without much incident (obviously, we do not consider a lot of complaining to be an "incident").  When we reach the House of Prime Rib a full hour and a half before our reservation time, we are heartened to see a large sign brandishing "cocktails" by the front door -- at least if we're not able to eat for ninety minutes, we'll have something with which to occupy ourselves.

Reverse the Priority of These Two, Please

THANK GOODNESS We're Not Too Early for Cocktails

Vodka approaches the reservation desk sheepishly, and she explains to the host that we have "wildly misjudged our day," hence our early arrival time.  Without so much as a sneer, the host says that he will be happy to seat us when the dining room opens at 5:30, and he points us to the bar to wile away a half hour.

Buddy, you don't have to tell us twice.

We Enjoy the Level of Judgment in This Sign

We saddle up to a high-top table and each order a glass of wine from the absurdly genial bartender ("People have been really excellent to us in San Francisco... It's almost disconcerting").  

In Our World, It Is Always Wine O'Clock

The House of Prime Rib looks like something straight out of the 1950s, without the creepy factor which haunts other restaurants that seem to be preserved in time.  We kind of love it immediately, because let's be real -- any place that's called the "House of Prime Rib," with no irony attached, is instinctively hilarious.  

This Sign Looks Like Something Out of Medieval Times

Directly adjacent to our high-top table is a "wine room," which is being arranged for a private party (sadly, not us.  They're not THAT nice to us in San Francisco).  

Heaven in a 10x12 Room

At the stroke of 5:30pm, a hostess places our wine glasses on a menu and escorts us to our table, which is a cozy booth for two.  Being that we are usually shunned from booths due to our lack of friends, we are instantly THRILLED.

We Enjoy Spreading Out Our Wine Glasses

Before we can so much as open the menu (which pretty much only has the words "prime rib" written over and over in it anyway), a gigantic loaf of sourdough bread appears on our table, along with what appears to be homemade butter.  We both groan audibly, which is the opposite of our normal reaction to carbohydrates.  But at this point, we are just SO FULL, that we know this roll of goodness is all but going to go to waste, and it is depressing us more than we can articulate.

Why Must You Torture Us So?!

"I don't say this often," Ginger begins.  "But I REALLY wish I was hungry right now."  Forging ahead, we begin to tear into the bread against our better judgment, and we are even more forlorn when we discover it is warm from the oven ("This is such a lovely piece of bread.  This is a sin").  

Our Usual Ability to Hoard Carbs Has Somehow Forsaken Us

When our (again, extremely friendly without being annoying) waiter appears at our table, we order one plate of prime rib to share, and our waiter begins asking about which sides we would like with it.

"How About If You Just TELL US Which Sides We'd Like With It?"

"Listen," we begin.  "This is our seventh meal of the day, so which questions do we REALLY have to answer?  We're fairly non-functional."  Our waiter, to his great credit, takes all of this in stride, and pretty much makes our side dish decisions for us (mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and Yorkshire pudding).  

Here's a Hint: When You Come to House of Prime Rib, You're Pretty Much Going to Be Forced to Order Prime Rib

All the while, rather than relinquish the bread, we just keep eating it -- it is THAT good.  

And Did We Mention That They Also Gave Us Cornbread? Because They Also Gave Us Cornbread

Before long, a man who is either the owner or just someone who has worked at House of Prime Rib for centuries (only one of us is capable of hearing his answers at a time, depending on which side of our table he stands on, so most details are unclear) comes to visit us, and he asks how we heard about the restaurant.  

Perhaps He Is the Man Featured In This Little Happy Illustration

Without revealing our larger psychotic mission, we say that we saw it when Brian Boitano featured it on the CLASSICS episode of Best Thing I Ever Ate.  As if on cue, the "prime rib coffin" appears next to our table, and the prime rib man starts sawing off our slices.  

The Rib Coffin at Work*

*Of Note, They Do Not Call It a "Rib Coffin"

Our waiter places the plate with all of the side dishes in front of Vodka, and a plain plate of just meat juice in front of Ginger, along with an assortment of horseradishes in the middle.  

Enjoy Your Meal, Ginger

When the meat arrives on her plate, Vodka proceeds to photograph it at length, while Ginger sits in stoic silence at the other side of the table.

"Well, this JUICE is good," she says, dipping a bread slice onto her plate.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll give you your food in a minute," Vodka states without breaking rhythm with her camera.  

"Wait, no, I -- ," Ginger stammers.  "I didn't mean that passive-aggressively.  The juice really IS good."  

So In Essence, Ginger Has Been Lapping Up Rib Grease for the Past 10 Minutes

Either because we find ourselves to be the two funniest people on the planet, or because we are downright delirious from our day of heavy calorie intake, this exchange makes us both laugh so hard that it is a full five minutes before we recover enough for Ginger to actually receive her share of food and begin eating (and, as a warning, "Well, this JUICE is good" has become our new catchphrase.  So heaven help you if you are ever forced to interact with us).

Even the Prime Rib Has Sought Refuge From Our Cackling

When we actually manage to try to consume our plates of food, we are highly pleased.  The meat is tender and flavorful, especially when topped by dollops of creamy horseradish (of which there are THREE varieties, for varying degrees of horseradish tolerance).  

An Abundance of Tongue-Burning Delicacies

The mashed potatoes are soft and light, and the creamed spinach, well, creamy.  The one outlier on this dish is the Yorkshire pudding, which we don't find all that appetizing, but frankly, the fact that we find anything appetizing at all after the day that we've had is a testament to House of Prime Rib's cuisine.

Proof That Despite Our Great Love of Royal Events, We Will Never Be British

The owner-type man returns to our table yet again, along with our waiter, and it is revealed that not only is it our waiter's first day on the job, but we are his first customers.

We Rolled Out the Prime Rib Welcome Wagon Just for Him

"So thanks for being such easy customers," he tells us, which causes our mouths to hang open in shock.  Never has a member of a waitstaff EVER called us "easy."  At best, we are "not insufferable," and at worst, we ARE insufferable.  Perhaps the San Francisco cheeriness is actually rubbing off on us?

If You Keep Plying Us With Delicious Food, We DO Tend to Become More Affable

"What are you girls in town for?" the men ask.

"Eating," we answer without affect.

"Oh, are you foodies?"

"No," we answer honestly.  "We just eat a lot."

Did You Miss the Bit About How This is Our SEVENTH Meal of the Day?

Overall, we would venture back to House of Prime Rib in a second the next time we find ourselves roaming the hills of San Francisco, if not because of our hidden carnivorous natures, but because we think the whole experience is both inviting and hilarious.  

Only Next Time, We Will Arrive Hungry Enough to Consume Three Loaves of Sourdough PLUS Prime Rib

As we venture back to our hotel, we greet each downhill slope with as much disdain as we do the uphill ones, because we know it's only a matter of time before we'll be walking against gravity yet again.  

It Just Never Ends with You, Does It, San Francisco?

"What goes down must come up again," we mumble, tiptoeing down the sidewalk, all the while hoping that the same does not hold true when it comes to prime rib.  

Or, for that matter, its juices.

House of Prime Rib's Prime Rib: 5 stars*

*Certifiable Best Thing We Ever Ate

Off the Map: We Just Really Like Mashed Potatoes

Pommes Puree -- Parc Brasserie, Philadelphia, PA
Parc Brasserie

So far in our culinary journey across Philadelphia, we have encountered a win (Kanella), a fail (Parc), and another win (The Dandelion).

Unfortunately, this pattern sets us up for a fail, and we find just that at "Food Truck Row" in West Philadelphia.  We venture here to try to find the A&M Halal Food Truck, which is yet another stop on our Best Thing I Ever Ate itinerary.  But when we eventually stumble upon said "Row" (a place that, after four years living less than ten blocks away, we never knew existed), we find a bevy of assorted food trucks.

All of them closed.  Fail.

Soldiering on, we scurry over to our school's football stadium so we can partake in our one scheduled homecoming activity: going on the field with the band alumni during halftime.  Based on our calculations, we are due for a win.  Instead, we encounter our first Philadelphia double-fail of the day.  It seems that there is a misplaced list of which band alums are allowed in the stadium (heaven forbid we pay for tickets to a sporting event), and no one seems willing to try to locate it.  After being sent from the box office to a random tent and then back to the box office, we confront the security guards themselves, who, after much confusion, tell us that they'll let us in if we can produce some kind of ID affiliating us to the school (apparently, a tattoo would be preferred.  We're not kidding).

After seeing our addresses on our driver's licenses, security decides that we wouldn't travel all this way just to break into a half-played football game, and we are granted admittance.

Win.

By the time we finish frolicking on the field for all of five minutes, we are ready to return to our strict eating schedule.  Out of the goodness of our hearts (or really, our OCD-like tendency to complete things), we have decided to give Parc another chance.  Earlier, when we had arrived and staked out two places at the over-crowded bar, we were informed that the pommes puree (mashed potatoes to us peasants) would not be available until 3:00pm.  Annoyed, as we are fairly certain that their online menus say otherwise, we had left and stumbled into The Dandelion.  Now, it is 3:30pm, and we are back for our promised mashed potatoes.

And no one will serve them to us until 5:00pm.

What is going ON, Parc?!

How Are We Supposed to Carb-Load Now?!

Since we have no where else to go, as most of the other places on our itinerary open at 5:00pm, we decide to wait it out at one of the many empty tables outside.  Where the hostesses at Parc seem none to keen to seat us, as it takes them many minutes to allow us to occupy one.  When we do, we have our first encounter with the waiter who will soon be regretting that he ever showed up for work today.  You see, we have decided to play dumb ("play dumb" is relative in our case, based on our continued inability to figure out how to split our tabs) and ask him if they will serve us a side of mashed potatoes, even though they are not on the mid-day menu. 

"We'll take leftovers," Vodka offers.  "Like, if you have some extra from last night.  We're not picky."  The waiter seems to find this gesture odd, as he is not aware that we are on a Best Thing I Ever Ate mission for Robert Irvine's CLASSIC choice, and we have not admitted to this fact.

Instead, Ginger adds this gem of an explanation: "We just really like mashed potatoes."

And We REALLY Dislike Having to Wait for Them... AGAIN

The waiter, bless his heart, says he will go check.  When he comes back, he has both of our grapefruit martinis but not a single side of mashed potatoes, which the staff in the kitchen is still insisting cannot be served before 5:00pm.  We have come to learn that Parc is very stringent on the various "rules" of their establishment -- they are not flexible concerning, well, anything, but particularly about their doling out of dinner side dishes ahead of time.

We tuck into our cocktails and the complimentary bread basket.  Our drinks are icy and quite good, if not particularly memorable (the grapefruit margarita at Barrio Chino has ruined all subsequent grapefruit-based drinks for us).  Ginger still manages to down hers within minutes, and she then decides that she should choose a drink she can sip more slowly.  When beer is suggested, she turns up her nose and states, "Please, that would take me the rest of my life to finish drinking."

Least Cohesive Cocktail Shot Ever

Settling on a new cocktail, Ginger is also quite taken with the bread basket, which Vodka, for once in her life, finds completely undesirable.  Slathering butter onto piece after piece, with nary a care for the four additional dishes we are still scheduled to eat tonight, Ginger drones on about how she should have lived in 1990 because "no one cared then."  (As she is mid-way through her second cocktail, it is difficult to determine what exactly people did not care about and/or whether or not Ginger is aware that she actually did "live" in 1990).

Let's Hope This Bread Did Not Also Live in the 20th-Century

By this point, we have almost come to accept our potato-less fate, at least until our friend arrives and hears all about Pommes-Puree-Gate.  As it is now close to an hour after our initial inquiry, less than thirty minutes until the mashed potatoes will appear on the dinner menu, our friend decides to take a stab at the quest, once again "playing dumb."

"Do you, by chance, have mashed potatoes?" she asks our long-suffering waiter as we attempt to suppress our laughter.

"Let me go check," he answers.  We decide that said waiter is unfailingly polite, as we would have answered with "Why don't you ask those idiots next to you?"  Alas, our friend gets no further than we did, as our waiter tells us that the kitchen is still refusing to allow the potatoes out of their premises.

Now, this is just getting ridiculous.

In the meantime, we make separate trips to the restroom and are doubly confounded by restaurants' inability to label bathroom doors "Boys" and "Girls."  Parc's restrooms feature completely faded letters that once read "Monsieurs" and "Dames."  Now, call us crazy, but if restaurants are going to insist on labeling their bathrooms in foreign tongues, they should at least make sure that the writing is legible so that their patrons don't, say, go wandering into the "Monsieur" room by mistake (hypothetically speaking).

Finally, after a full ninety minutes of hanging out on the sidewalks of Philadelphia in search of mashed potatoes, a steaming bowl of them arrives before us.  Digging our spoons into the creamy yellow-ish mixture, which is sprinkled with chives, we figure out what Parc has been doing all day:

Pureeing potatoes within an inch of their lives.

And For Our Next Course, We'll Take Some Smashed Peas and Carrots

We're not saying the mashed potatoes are not good.  In fact, their taste is more buttery, salty, and yes, CLASSIC, than almost any we have encountered before.  But they are also the consistency of baby food.

Now, Ginger has absolutely no issue with this texture.  Admitting that she "never eats mashed potatoes," she does not have an ideal with which to compare these.  Vodka, in contrast, keeps repeating "These need some chunks" at spoonful intervals.  It seems her problem with the potatoes is merely a matter of preference: she likes mashed potatoes thick, chunky, and sticky, while the ones before us could be piped into a Gerber jar with next to no effort.

Best Thing I Ever Ate for the Under-12-Months Set

We lap up the remainder of the potatoes and decide we are grateful that we weren't forced to order the roast chicken with which they are usually served.  We say goodbye to our fellow potato-grubbing friend and head off to our new locale, continuing to debate the merits of soupy versus chunky potatoes.  Eventually, Ginger sums up her preference in a single phrase:

"I just enjoy knowing that there is a food I can still eat when I have no teeth."

Parc Brasserie's Pommes Puree: 3 stars