Eating Horse

by Neil Woodburn on

I’ve had my share of suspect meat throughout my travels and have learned to live by the Mystery Meat Rule of Ignorance: Don’t ask and assume it is cow.

I ate a lot of meat in Kazakhstan a few years ago and for the most part, enjoyed whatever I found on my plate. Sure, the meat was a bit strange at times, but hey, it must Kazakh cow!

I don’t recall, however, eating the most famous plate of meat in Kazhakstan, the national dish of beshbarmak. Had I done so, I would have known immediately it wasn’t my friend the cow.

According to a Reuters article by Michael Steen, Beshbarmak actually comes from at least two, and perhaps even more, four-legged animals; the horse and the lamb. More specifically, it is stewed horse head, lamb, and liver. Apparently the liver can come from a variety of different creatures, hoofed or otherwise. The photo above includes beshbarmak served with the ever popular side dish of koybas: a boiled sheep’s head.

The good news is that if the barnyard found on your plate tastes a bit funny, you can always wash it down with a swig of Kumys. That’s fermented mare’s milk for all you non-Kazakhs out there.

NYC Latino Hoods

by Erik Olsen on

If a picture is worth a thousand words then a bunch of pictures put to audio has got to be worth, uh, more than that. In the case of this audio slideshow from the San Francisco Chronicle, the value is higher than an article, but let’s say a bit less than video.

Seth Kugel and Carolina Gonzalez are the authors of the book “Nueva York: The Complete Guide to Latino Life in the Five Boroughs” and in this entertaining and relatively short audio slideshow they introduce us to places in New York City where Latino culture is thriving with the smells of churrasco and cheese in the air.

Having lived in New York for some time now, I have to say it’s rather pathetic of me that I don’t know all these places, but the slideshow here provided some nice impetus to check them out.

Riodizio Churrascaria

by Adrienne Wilson on

If my memory serves me correctly, it had been three years since I last pleasured my taste-buds with non-stop meat sliced off the skewer from a Brazilian steakhouse. So to have had the opportunity to samba with well seasoned lamb, prime rib, sirloin, chicken, and all the meat imaginable, I was extremely overjoyed! The only problem was I didn’t have a huge appetite and when you walk into the doors of Riodizio Churrascaria you’re going to want to be very hungry. Having had a large lunch earlier and no plans to swing by Riodizio, I was a little unprepared, but that didn’t stop me from gormandizing for the night.

Green means go and red means halt, but for the most part my coaster was green all night and even when it was red, with a smile I would be offered a warm succulent piece of meat from the skewer. How could I refuse? Yes! With big eyes I said, “yes, yes,” to almost every piece of meat that came around and this was only after I had tackled the salad bar. I knew I was probably way in over my head, but there is something about Brazilian cuisine that has that effect on me. I’ll spare you every greedy detail of my personal feast, but I offer you the same advice as earlier if you plan on going.

Be hungry. The dinner is a flat rate of $40 excluding wine and other beverages to wash it all down.

Riodizio Churrascaria is located at 388 Willis Avenue, Roslyn Heights, NY 11577. Ph. 516.621.4646

Berlin’s Tasty Fast Food

by Neil Woodburn on

It wasn’t until the most recent of my many trips to Berlin that I finally found decent street food to fill my stomach while touring around Germany’s capital. For many years, it was bad burgers and even worst wurst.

Today, however, Berlin has exploded with tasty street stands and fast food outlets that reflect the diverse cultures which coexist in the city.

I indulged mostly in the Turkish döner kebabs and occasionally in currywurst, the local specialty, but there are a host of other culinary opportunities as well. According to the New York Times, many of these street stalls and fast food joints have actually gone upscale, dishing out fast food as tasty as that which you might find in a regular sit down restaurant. And, most importantly, it’s cheap.

For example, one of the joints highlighted in the article, W Imbiss, serves a nan-bread pizza topped with pesto for only 4 euros. Sounds pretty good to me.

Take a moment and check out the New York Times article if you’re heading to Berlin any time soon. And if you forget any of the paper’s recommendations, just follow your nose; mine served me well the last time I was in Berlin.

Wine Making By Consensus…Online

by Erik Olsen on

I just caught this over at Luxist and I thought to myself, how odd, but how typical San Francisco. The Bay Area is teeming with wine lovers as it is teeming with techno-philes eager to apply the tenets of the Wired world to every aspect of human life. Now the two things have converged. there is a wine-making group called Crushpad, that is working with wine podcaster Alan Baker (aka The Cellar Rat) to create a wine called, in typical nerd fashion, Pinot 2.0.

This is to be the first wine to be made via online consumer collaboration whereby group members participate via the Web to make the wine and then Baker puts together videos that then narrate each step of the wine’s progress. The project started way back in September and won’t wind up until August 2007, but the vids are apparently available and Luxist says they’re educational.