Harpoon summer variety case.

m and I got a case of Harpoon Summer Variety this weekend.


1 Harpoon UFO Hefeweizen - Super smooth. Easy to drink. Light body. Aftertaste has a noticeable bite. 8/10 frosty mugs.

2 Harpoon UFO Raspberry Hefeweizen - One of the best beers I have had in a long time. Great aftertaste. The raspberry didn't overwhelm the taste of the beer but was still noticeable. I have noticed that with a lot of fruit beers the fruit either overwhelms or underwhelms the actual beer itself. 10/10 frosty mugs.

3 Harpoon I.P.A. - My God I love a nice I.P.A. This has a pretty high ABV (5.90%) So needless to say I was feeling pretty nice after a few of these guys. Dark body. Nice carbonation. 9/10 frosty mugs.

4 Harpoon Summer Beer - A Kolsch style summer beer. It was just OK. Very light body. Highly carbonated. Smooth taste. Easy to drink. Typical summer brew. 7/10 frosty mugs

Flank steak pinwheels.

I made these last night for dinner.

I don't want to toot my own horn here but....BEEP BEEP!



Ingredients:

- 1.5 lb. flank steak
- 10 oz. baby spinach
- 7 oz. Gorgonzola cheese
- 7 oz. fresh shredded Parmesan cheese
- 2 cloves of minced garlic


Prep work:

- Butterfly the steak. Make sure you go with the grain. Trim the edges to give you a more "even" steak.
- Marinate the steak for at least 2 hours so the meat becomes tender. I used olive oil and Worcestershire sauce.
- Open he butterflied steak up on a cutting board. Spread the Gorgonzola out over the steak. Chop the spinach and then layer that over the Gorgonzola. Then add the garlic. Top with Parmesan.
- Roll the steak like a maki roll. Keep it tight.
- Pierce the rolled steak with skewers about every inch and a half or so (be sure to soak the skewers beforehand so they don't burn on the grill)
- Slice the steak like a loaf of bread in between the skewers.
- Let the pinwheels sit in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
- Grill over medium heat. Make sure you only turn them once or twice because they can fall apart if you play around with them too much.

Looking back I would try to tenderize the steak some more. Flank steak can be tough and even though I marinated this for over 2 hours it was still a little tough. I would also ditch the Parm and maybe try a creamier tangier cheese like a Roquefort.

8/10 growling stomachs.

Tarts and fuel.

As I write this I am in the Regency Cafe in Lansdowne eating a chocolate raspberry tart and drinking a double espresso.

Some chick is trying to sing in the background and is pretty much pounding her keyboard with her fists. The sound is nauseating.

The tart is dry but still OK and the espresso is money. Regency has awesome coffee and all the food is homemade by the guy who runs the place. I highly recommend coming here if you get the chance.

Wawa.

Well since I have started this new job two things have happened...
1) I have almost no time for posting to this blog during the week (0 growling stomachs)
2) I eat at Wawa all the time now....and hence this post.

We will start with the so called "cheesesteak"....
- as some of you know i am something of a cheesesteak guru...a sensei even. So you can imagine my surprise when i recieved something called a cheesesteak...and was thoroughly disgusted by the contents. I started to realize that it was going down hill when i saw the sandwich maker taking the meat out of a crockpot..."are you serous??" i thought. But i swiftly reminded myself i was in a wawa and they don't make bad food. well anyway i took it back to work and started devouring this thing. Thats when it hit me this cheesesteak sucks! It was soggy (when i asked for it to be toasted), the crease was completely ripped apart, the cheese they used sucks, and worst of all was it was roast beef, NOT steak. This was my first "bad" experience ever at wawa (which i fully attribute to this wawa being in new jersey, in PA this would not happen). So with out further adieu..... 1/10 growling stomachs.

Next, and on a much brighter note:
Meatball Sandwiches!!!!!!

these are amazing! i ate 6 of these in 9 days. i loved each one, they hit the spot perfectly.
i give it 9/10 growling stomachs, and recommend on the shorti size (other sizes are just too much to digest properly)

A lot of beer.

This past Saturday we had a little BBQ at my apartment.

Judging by how I felt on Sunday I would say I had a really good time.

Here is some* of the beer I remember drinking.

* - These beers have been consumed in the last week and a half. Not all in one night. I would have died.

1 - Dogfish Head Festina Peche - 10/10 frosty mugs. This beer was amazing. Very refreshing. Crisp and dry with a bit of a bite to it.
2 - Grozet Gooseberry and Wheat Ale - 8/10 frosty mugs. You can definitely smell the berry in the bear. Had a thick head for a wheat beer.
3 - Abita Purple Haze - 7/10 frosty mugs. Decent for a fruit beer. The raspberry was a little too powerful. Masked the flavor of the beer.
4 - Westmalle Trappist Dubbel - 12/10 frosty mugs. Went down (too) easy. I could get used to that. A little expensive though. ($6 a bottle)
5 - Buffalo Bill Orange Blossom Cream Ale - 9/10 frosty mugs. Tastes like orange soda. Smells like orange soda. Those are both good things.
6 - Bell's Oatmeal Stout - 5/10 frosty mugs. Way too smokey. Tasted like I was drinking how a bonfire smells.
7 - Pocono Pale Ale - 8/10 frosty mugs. At $20 a case this is a great beer...considering it comes from the same brewery that brews Lionshead.
8 - Pennbrook Lager - 7/10 frosty mugs. Light for a lager. Smooth and easy to drink.
9 - Kirin Ichiban Special Premium Reserve - 7/10 frosty mugs. Sweet flavor. I would like to try more than one.

There were a few more I had that Jim brought over to the BBQ. I think he was trying to kill me because after I had this one beer that was in a short white bottle with no label I was hammered. I don't know if it was a barleywine or moonshine. All I do know is that it got me very drunk. So drunk that I burned my fingers on my grill.

All in all...an excellent weekend.

Raw fish flesh.

As of right now my favorite food is sushi. I don't care if it's from Morimoto or the Japanese guy in Genuardi's. It's all good.

The Pearl in Lansdowne has great sushi. We have ordered from them consistently for over a year now.

We have a tendency to "over do it" when we order there...partly because the food is so damn good.

Here is what we got last night:

1 Philadelphia Roll
1 Eastern Roll
1 Shrimp Tempura Roll
1 Spicy Tuna Roll
1 Spicy Salmon Roll
1 Tuna Avocado Roll
1 Alaska Roll
4 Salmon Nigiri
2 Surf Clam Nigiri

We ordered Edamame but they were all out :(

I give this meal 9/10 growling stomachs. Not a 10/10 because they ran out of Edamame and we should have ordered more.

The masked man.

Craig LaBan hosts a chat on Philly.com every Tuesday at 2 P.M.

I submitted some questions and they were posted along with other various commentaries.

Here is a transcription of the chat.

I suggest reading it every tuesday because there are always some nice recommendations for places to eat in the city and the topics always vary from fine dining to where you can get the best burger in the city.

Buy LaBan's book here.

Reeb.

Beer = <3

1 - Arrogant Bastard Ale - Strong taste of caramel. Could be a little overwhelming if I had had more than one. 8/10 frosty mugs.

2 - Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat - Hell. Yes. I first tried "Leine's" when I was in Iowa a few weeks ago. It was great. So when I saw a six pack of their summer beer in the cooler I couldn't resist. Very similar to Blue Moon but with more of that orange taste to it. 9/10 frosty mugs.

3 - Saranac Black Diamond Bock - Who says you can't drink a winter beer in the summer? Jerks that's who. This is a great beer and very easy to drink for a Bock. 8/10 frosty mugs.

Meat?

I love meat. But sometimes your digestive tract tells you to chill out on the goodness of animal flesh every once in a while. So this weekend we made Portabella mushroom burgers. This was the first time I tried to grill a Portabella and it was a lot easier then I anticipated. The mushroom caps did flake a little bit after being on the grill for a while but all in all it was a success.

7/10 growling stomachs.

Ingredients:

- 2 Portabella mushroom caps (about 5in across)
- 1 cup of olive oil
- 1/2 onion (diced)
- Swiss cheese
- Tomato
- salt and pepper to taste


- Mix all ingredients and let marinate for at least an hour or more.
- Preheat grill.
- Cook evenly on medium heat for about 6 minutes a side.
- Brush with olive oil mixture throughout cooking.
- Put the Swiss on with about 2 minutes left so it melts properly but doesn't get to soft.

Hershels.

I went to Hershels East Side Deli in Reading Terminal Market for lunch today.

I got a chicken salad sandwich on Jewish Rye with mustard, Swiss, lettuce and onions. The chicken salad was spilling out of the sandwich. Huge chunks of chicken and not too much celery. Awesome.

I would give this meal 8/10 growling stomachs. It would have been a 9/10 if they remembered to include my pickle. But they didn't and Madams didn't share his.

Bleu cheese stuffed hamburgers and homemade salsa.

I did work on the grill this 4th of July. Now you can do the same.


1 lb. extra lean ground beef
1/2 large white onion (diced)
3 oz. Bleu cheese
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

- Mix everything except the cheese in a bowl.
- Break up meat into four quarter lb. patties.
- Pile the cheese onto two of the patties.
- Press the remaining patties on top of the cheese covered patties, creating one large patty with the cheese in the center.
- Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- Grill to desired doneness (Anything more than rare and you can trade your balls in for a dress.)




5 vine ripened tomatoes (diced)
3/4 of a large white onion (diced)
1 clove of garlic (pressed)
8 oz. FRESH cilantro (diced)
Salt and Pepper to taste

- Mix ingredients and eat.

Beer post.

I've had a lot of good beers over the past few days...another reason to love the 4th of July.


1 - Stone Ruination IPA - My summer love affair with IPA's continues. 9/10 Frosty Mugs. More here.

2 - Victory Golden Monkey - Gets me every time. 10/10 Frosty Mugs.

3 - Magic Hat Hocus Pocus - Least favorite of all Magic Hat varieties. 7/10 Frosty Mugs

4 - Magic Hat #9 - Always good. Love the apricot. 9/10 Frosty Mugs.

5 - Magic Hat Summer Mystery Beer - Easy to drink for a heavy beer. 8/10 Frosty Mugs.

6 - Magic Hat Circus Boy - I <3 wheat beers. 9/10 Frosty Mugs.

flavor ice (aka freeze pops).

I don't think i need to say much about this one. i am pretty sure everyone loves these and if you don't you probably don't have a soul and should see somebody about it...a doctor...a priest perhaps?

easily 10 out of 10 growling stomachs for this....partly due to the seasonal nature of this delight.

ps: yes, i am eating one right now:

Pie.

I won a pie eating contest on Saturday afternoon.

I would give the actual pie itself about 6/10 Growling Stomachs.

I would also like to give myself a 10/10 Awesome Dudes for pwning everyone.

Beer is good.

I to drank beer this weekend. Some of it was crappy Bud Light while out and about in Sea Isle but some of it was tasty and delicious...I'd like to focus on the latter.

On Saturday night we picked up a 12 pack of the Saranac 12 Beers of Summer.

Delicious.

1 - Pomegranate Wheat - 10/10 Frosty Mugs. Perfect. Not too sweet. Smooth.
2 - Belgian White - 9/10 Frosty Mugs. Crisp. Nice aftertaste.
3 - Hefeweizen - 8/10 Frosty Mugs. Hint of Banana. Had a bite to it.
4 - Golden Pilsener - 10/10 Frosty Mugs. Great pilsener. Clean.
5 - Summer Ale - 7/10 Frosty Mugs. Never got into "Summer" brews.
6 - Kolsch - 9/10 Frosty Mugs. Refreshing with a clean aftertaste.

I highly recommend people try these beers, especially the pomegranate wheat. Saranac does a good job of staying true to the basic flavors of these sometimes complex beers.