http://www.roadfood.comYour Guide to Authentic Regional Eatsen-us(c) 2011, Roadfood.com. All rights reserved.30Well situated for an impatient appetite arriving at the Buffalo Airport, Charlie the Butcher’s is an essential stop for anyone who wants to sample the Nickel City’s unique sandwich, “beef on weck.” Slow-roasted beef, tender and pink, is sliced thin and piled on a hard roll that is crusted with pretzel salt and kummel (caraway seeds). The top half of the roll gets dipped briefly in beef juice. The sandwich is served with only a pickle spear as garnish, although many customers slather it with eye-opening horseradish from the Broadway Market (where Charlie Roesch’s grandfather started this beef dynasty in 1914). It’s a no-frills restaurant. Place your order at the front window with its fabulous view of the carving block, then pay and find a seat at the low-low counter or a table topped with oilcloth. All seats provide a nice view of the kitchen, where you’ll see Charlie himself, with a large staff of accomplished helpmates, slicing cabbage, tending soups, and cutting beef to order. Sandwiches are served in cardboard boats; and it’s customary to bus your own table. By the way, Charlie’s menu extends beyond beef on weck; and everything else we’ve sampled is first rate: Buffalo-made hot dogs and sausages grilled over coals, chicken spiedie (a boneless breast that is marinated and grilled), and such daily-special sandwiches as meat loaf (Tuesday), and double-smoked ham (Monday). The beverage list includes the local favorite, Loganberry, as well as Charlie’s personal favorite, Birch Beer.http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/8-8/charlie-the-butcherWed, 22 May 2013 13:11:24 GMTOne place that has become a must for me on every visit to Portland is Pal's Shanty Tavern. The place has been around since the 1920s and owned by the Hanson family since 1965. The drinks are generous and creative. The waitresses match the image of the place as gutsy, a little bit sexy, but with a heart of gold. It's even more interesting when one of them lets on that in her off time she's studying philosophy at Portland State. The food, however, puts Pal's way above most places of this type. It is a true Pacific Northwest restaurant with some of the best seafood around. Drinks at Pal's are not to be missed. This is not as much a wine and champagne place as a destination for those who appreciate a good cocktail. The pours are generous. Those in the know, however, usually make sure they get an “Everything In the Kitchen” Bloody Mary. Celery is just the tip of the iceberg on this drink. Depending on the day, it also has olives, artichoke hearts, a peperoncino, and a pickle spear wrapped in bacon. The somewhat spicy drink goes down easy and makes a perfect start to a meal. Sometimes, depending what is on it, the drink can be thought of as the whole meal. To end with the drinks would be a big mistake. Oyster shooters are as fresh as they come, sourced locally and served with a good sauce in the shooter glass. Fresh steamer clams come in small or large buckets. They are good-tasting, served with their broth as well as some bread to sop up the delicious liquid. The classic white clam chowder is good but not memorable. Their Primo chowder IS memorable, adding Dungeness crab, shrimp, smoked salmon, and smoked trout for a chowder that's just different enough to have your taste buds stand up and take notice. Seafood salads and seafood Louie are available for the person looking for a cold, refreshing meal. The seafood Caesar adds smoked salmon and smoked trout to the mixed greens and then tops it off with some bay shrimp. The gems on the menu are the sandwiches and platters. The razor clams are a Pacific Northwest specialty, lightly breaded in panko and then grilled. One razor clam easily runs off an inch or two from the large bun. The razor clams are sweet, a little chewy, and come with a nice tartar sauce and local potato chips. The razor clams also star in a razor clam platter, in which another clam is added, as well as a small shrimp salad, and hash browns or twice-baked potatoes. Depending on the season, the razor clams are locally sourced or brought in from Alaska. Other seafood available as either platter or sandwich include breaded and grilled oysters, Eastern clam cutlets, and a calamari steak. Ahi tuna, grilled wild salmon, and halibut make appearances on the fish side of the menu. One notable sandwich is a creation called the Oyster Clubhouse. Grilled oysters are paired with pepper bacon, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a garlic aioli on grilled sourdough. Fresh Dungeness crab cakes with a roasted red pepper sauce are one of the better crab cakes around. With delicious items like the razor clams, Pal's is a must-stop for lovers of good, fresh seafood in a place that is still not a tourist trap, where the charm and the atmosphere are real.http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/8234-10314/pals-shanty-tavernFri, 17 May 2013 13:15:24 GMTFounder Nick Tahou died in 1997 after more than fifty years running Rochester’s premier hot dog joint. His culinary legacy remains the amazing dish known as a garbage plate. It is up to each customer to choose the foundation of his or her garbage plate. It can be based on Texas hot wieners, hamburgers (with or without cheese), Italian sausage, or steak. The meatstuff of your choice is plated with piles of baked beans and home-fried potatoes, a scoop of cool macaroni salad, a dollop of spicy chili sauce, a squirt or two of mustard, and a sprinkle of chopped raw onions. It comes with plastic fork and knife, a bottle of Ketchup, some hot sauce, and white bread with butter. It is a wild, ridiculous, and delicious mess! Especially noteworthy is the sauce, a fine-grained, Greek-accented brew that is also available on such lesser variants of frankfurter cookery as Nick Tahou's peppery pork hots and the basic garlic-packed Texas hots, as well as on grilled hamburgers. Burgers are OK, but upper New York State is hot dog country. Nick Tahou’s are exemplary, if not epicurean. They are called Texas hots, and they are split and fried, which gives them a nice, chewy exterior and hash house raunch that boiled or even charcoal-grilled weenies do not offer. As befits its menu, Nick Tahou is an unruly dog house, with chairs and tables scattered around and plenty of noise as customers call out for red hots and white hots with the works. Once upon a time Nick Tahou could satisfy that late night craving for a garbage plate. Alas, today's Nick Tahou closes at 8PM.http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/218-218/nick-tahou-hotsThu, 16 May 2013 15:14:54 GMTCuisine, ambience, service: all are Roadfood-perfect at Five-0, a convenience store and deli with a short menu of subs and sandwiches as well as eggs for breakfast. Foremost among Five-O's assets is its footlong chili dog. The dog itself is all gnarled and garlicky; its split-top bun is buttered and grilled to luxurious perfection; and the chili – ahh, the chili! – is Kuhn's. A southern Connecticut legend, Kuhn's brew is not the sort of chili you eat from a bowl. It is more a relish, thin and red-hot, eminently suitable as an exclamatory topping for hot dogs, also quite right as an iconoclastic garnish for a cheese steak sandwich, of which Five-0 makes a beaut. It's a friendly sort of place. The lone gent who was reading newspapers at the dining room's one and only table graciously extended a hand in welcome when I and my friend Adele (who clued me in to this little gem) came away from the counter toting dog, sandwich, chips and drinks, looking for a place to eat. Nearly all business is take-out, and most of the people standing around waiting for their hot sandwiches to grill and footlongs to be dressed carried on the sort of happy conversation you hear among people who all respect each other because they recognize that they are in the company of fellow connoisseurs.http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/8233-10309/fiveoWed, 15 May 2013 14:24:56 GMTLooking to slake thirst on the way to Parris Island, we stopped in the Carolina Cider Company and drank ourselves silly. Not on anything alcoholic, mind you, but on the squeezin's of Muscadine grapes to be sure, as well as of apples, cherries, and peaches. This little shop by the side of the road specializes in juices made from local fruits ... as well as dozens of other products that reflect the Lowcountry's rich harvest. It's a tiny place inside, the shelves and tables crowded with jellies and jams, fruit syrups, pickled okra and hot chow chow, black-eyed pea relish, and praline mustard glaze. Other available groceries include she-crab soup by the can, grits and rice by the half-pound bag, boxes of pecans, and bags of benne wafers. Two kinds of boiled peanuts are available -- warm, of course -- for snacking right away: regular and Cajun-spiced. Guests are invited to sip complimentary little cups of whichever ciders they think they might like. And if you are traveling light, there's a small mail-order brochure available so that any of these regional treats can be ordered and shipped home.http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/1795-1870/carolina-cider-companyTue, 14 May 2013 01:03:13 GMTWhy is Rip's fried chicken so extraordinarily good? Bill Rounds, the man whose grandfather started the place, says, first of all, you need to start with fresh chicken, not frozen nor cryovacked. He gets it twice a week, freshly killed. "We can do that because we have such a big turnover. Poultry is especially hard to keep. Beef can age; fish always smells; but good chicken spoils easily. Everything depends on freshness. "When we get it, we fine-tune it. We trim it, cut it, remove 60-70% of the skin. Then we brine it. There is an extreme amount of work that goes into good chicken before it gets battered and fried. Our recipes are simple, we don't have a lot of ingredients. But each step along the way is crucial." Details matter. The oil used by Rounds' grandfather is no longer available, so he has devised his own oil, blending three different kinds. Granddad got his flour from one supplier for more than half a century; but that supplier moved to Canada. Rounds says, "Now we need to blend our own to get the spring wheat quality for its lightness." The payoff is chicken with significant crust, but no doughy softness – crust that is just-right salty, each bite a savory crunch. Even white-meat breasts are insanely moist and full-flavored down to the bone. Pieces where the batter has clumped, absorbing chicken fat flavor as well as frying fat, are some of the most sumptuous bites imaginable. And yet, miraculously, this chicken sheds no oil. The pallet of white bread on which it arrives is dry and intact even after every scrap of meat has been dispatched. While forks are available, no one uses them. This is chicken you want to touch as well as eat. Then there are crunchies. After each time the cook pulls a batch of chicken from the bubbling oil, he then sweeps through the oil with a big screen, retrieving a great tangle of squiggly skin and fried batter that have detached from the large pieces. The crunchies are hot, rich, reminiscent of cracklins or gribenes, but pure, fat-crisped batter laced with the flavor of chicken that has fried in the same oil. They are served crisp and hot along with a cup of tart dill pickle chips. Betha, the bartender, showed us that the custom is to fold a pickle chip around a little cluster of crunchies, creating a finger taco. This is fried-food-lovers' heaven! A great side dish: crisp-fried al dente mushrooms, their earthy rankness nearly truffle-strong. Catfish and whitefish are fried on Fridays. The only other things you need to know are that Rip's is always crowded and that while you wait in line for table, you can drink beers from the bar.http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/8226-10298/ripsTue, 07 May 2013 05:35:30 GMTThe story goes something like this: About a dozen years ago, a local B&B got so well-known for its meals that the couple who ran it transformed it into a restaurant called Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Business was good, so good that they eventually burnt out from all the work it takes to run a respected destination eatery. But retirement didn't suit them, so they returned to open 24 Crows, an unassuming little place with a pared-down menu of mostly just sandwiches. Don't let the apparent modesty of 24 Crows fool you. There are masters in this kitchen, and while it is basically a sandwich shop (and really interesting art and craft gallery), it is run with the care and expertise of a four-star restaurant. "I suggest you put a sweater or hat on a table, just to claim it," suggests the host when we walk in, advising us that the dozen or so seats indoors and on the front porch get occupied very quickly at lunchtime. He explains to us how service works (order, eat, pay), precisely describes dishes about which we have questions, and generally makes us feel right at home the way a welcoming maître d' might do. The "club trout" sandwich: Long fillets of pan-fried trout are complemented by thick strips of apple-smoked bacon, plus lettuce, tomato, and spiced mayonnaise. This smoky symphony gets messy in its tall-domed challah roll, but is truly campfire-good. Chicken sandwich: Between thick tiles of toasted whole grain bread, slices of roast chicken are crowned with sharp Vermont cheddar cheese and dressed fig chutney and creamy mustard. If you like ice cream, that is reason enough to make a pilgrimage to 24 Crows. It is homemade and super-creamy. Apricot comes laced with plenty of chewy little orange nubbins. Belgian chocolate is profound, sheer rapture for the ice-cream-loving chocoholic.http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/7882-9393/24-crowsMon, 06 May 2013 05:34:34 GMTIn the far northeastern corner of Massachusetts, around Ipswich and Essex, you'll find the best fried clams in America. Head about 18 miles up the coast, to Maine, and you'll begin to find America's finest lobsters. So doesn't it seem reasonable that those short 18 miles between the Massachusetts and Maine coasts would be an equally rich source for great seafood? Yet, have you ever heard of anyone heading to New Hampshire for seafood? Well, that's not quite what we did, but we did stop in Seabrook on the way to Maine, where we found worthy fried clams and lobster rolls that are well-known to locals but mostly a secret to visitors passing by on the interstate. If you aren't from the area you probably know the town of Seabrook only for its massive nuclear reactor, but it is also known for a pair of seafood shacks across the street from each other and along the Blackwater River, about a half-mile from the ocean beaches. Brown's got there first but Markey's has a liquor license, so guess which one was our choice? The ordering system at Markey's is a little screwy. There's a counter to place your order for most of the food, and a separate counter if you want a lobster or something from the raw bar. There's a third counter if you want beer or steamers! We imagine this is not a great situation if the place is insanely crowded, but we arrived between lunch and dinner and the lines were not outrageous. We recommend the utterly grease-free fried seafood and the lobster roll. We enjoyed the clams but were especially impressed by the sweet and moist fried scallops. You can substitute onion rings for the fries for a small fee and we recommend you do so, for these rings are homemade and also totally greaseless. You will need to add a sprinkle of salt to whatever fried food you order, however; the breading seems to be salt-free. The lobster roll is built from a top-loader, with big juicy multi-bite sections of claw meat, the mayo added with a fairly light hand. The clam chowder is curious, a fairly mild milky brew chock full of big chunks of potatoes. Clams are present only in the form of whole soft-shells (sans shell), the same guys you find in the fried clams or the steamers. The chowder tastes like potato soup until you spoon up one of the large, fresh clams. Definitely not for those who like to taste, but not see, their clams. The steamers are fine but these are not farmed clams, so they'll need a good rinse in the provided broth. More importantly, the melted butter does not taste to us at all like the real deal, and if you like to dip your steamers, the fake stuff just doesn't cut it. We didn't try the fresh-cooked lobsters, and didn't notice any on the other tables, but that margarine dip (if that's what it is) would be a deal-killer for us. Markey's is situated right on the NH-MA state line. Sit out back on the covered deck (the choicest seating) and you look out over the Blackwater River and the state of Massachusetts (the nuclear plant is in the other direction). This is as fine a setting for enjoying seafood-in-the-rough as anywhere in Massachusetts or Maine.http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/7659-8773/markeys-lobster-poolMon, 06 May 2013 00:52:50 GMTAs a cheesesteak aficionado I usually stick by firm rules -- no cheesesteaks outside of Philadelphia OR South Jersey. Anything else is always a mistake. Until now. The cheesesteak here is superb, and unlike anything I've ever had in Philly. I'm used to a roll with Whiz spread on it (preferably with a paint stirring stick) with the meat on top. (Or meat on the roll with provolone laid on top of the meat for you provolone-y types.) The whole thing usually takes 30 seconds to assemble. I always order mine "with" (with onions) which are laid on top of everything else. This was completely different -- I ordered mine with sauce (as recommended in the previous review) and after a wait of about five or 10 minutes (prepared fresh!) I was served a terrific roll with what appeared to be meat, cheese, fried onions, and sauce that had all been stirred together first, then put on the roll. I'm sure I'm wrong on that description, but doing my best here. However they did it, it was fantastic and I'll definitely be back. Note that the restaurant is in sort of a residential area -- right until I pulled up I was sure I had the wrong address, but there it was.http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/7933-10296/giacomos-italian-market-and-grilleSun, 05 May 2013 01:41:57 GMT"Just about the very best meat-and-three … wildly popular with lawyers, Music Row notables, and working stiffs," is how Arnold's was described to us many years ago by a cyberfoodie who had written primarily to praise the macaroni and cheese at Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles in Pasadena, California. We know Roscoe's mac 'n' cheese, and we love it; so we took this tip seriously and found ourselves in a short cafeteria line one day among a crowd of hungry locals pushing towards the food. On the wall were signed photographs of local and national celebrities singing the praises of Arnold's roast beef, meat loaf, fried oysters, and cream pies. That day we piled our trays with hunks of fried chicken, whipped potatoes and gravy, turnip greens, corn muffins, and slices of lightweight but heavy-flavored chocolate pie as well as classical Dixie banana pudding with vanilla wafers in the custard. Delicious, from first bite to last! Arnold's has since become one of our favorite places to eat in Nashville, and a definitive meat and three eatery. It's a funky little place that doesn't look like much from the outside – just a squat cinderblock building now painted red. But at high noon, expect to wait for a seat (and perhaps to share a table with strangers). To Music City eaters who know good food, this little restaurant is a country star. Note Arnold's very limited hours of operation: lunch only, Monday through Friday.http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Review/4639-4614/arnolds-country-kitchenThu, 02 May 2013 00:34:25 GMT