America's guilty of a few heinous pizza crimes. Domino's, CiCi's and Pizza Hut should all be serving life sentences for terrorizing our waistlines with stuffed crusts and unlimited toppings, not to mention annoying commercials. But none of the US violations of pizza code go as far as Italy's "Pizza Americana."
It's not pizza and it's not American, but rather a caloric masterpiece of French fries, hot dogs, oil and cheese. While it makes us gag, Italian kids go bananas for the stuff, which isn't helping the rising child obesity rate Italy.
Don't get us wrong, we're all for fusion cuisine. But to create such a cringe-worthy pizza and then claim that it hails from America is not OK in our book. Why not just layer on some crumbled cellulite and sliced saddlebags to really give it that extra kick?
If you're over hot dogs, burgers and beer for the Fourth of July, go all out this year and jet to Paris for Gastronomy by the Seine, which kicks off Friday on various yachts dotting the river.
The festival is brand new, and this year's theme is New American Cuisine. Each day of the weekend offers roundtables with industry bigwigs like Gael Greene, Michael Batterberry and Jean-Luc Naret, as well as cooking demos, tastings and tours of related Parisian museums (like the Musée Baccarat) and outdoor food markets (like rue Mouffetard and Place Monge). On the 4th, you can toast to the US with an evening cruise down the Seine aboard Le Paquebot, with a five-course menu celebrating American food.
As you might have guessed, gastromony isn't cheap: Day passes start at about $221, and the dinner cruise will set you back $379. Still, five amazing courses while floating down the Seine sounds like the perfect excuse for a summer splurge.
Providing good service and great food clearly isn't enough to get customers into your restaurant these days. This month new restaurants opened in Beirut and Ukraine that are giving us good food with a dark kind of theme: death and danger.
You've probably already heard about Buns and Guns in Beirut, with its menu featuring meals like rocket-propelled grenade (really skewered chicken) and terrorist bread.
But we like the Eternity restaurant in Truskavets, Ukraine a bit better. Owner Stepan Pyrianyk decided the restaurant should be built inside a 65-foot-long coffin. It serves death-themed dishes including something ominous called "Let's meet in paradise." We might save our visit, though, until we're ready for our last supper.
A great way to get a feel for a city is to shut up, turn off your iPod walking tour and stuff your face at every local haunt and not-to-be-missed market. San Francisco is no doubt a culinary destination for people from around the world, and Foodie Adventures is around to make sure you experience every delicious nook and savory cranny this great town has to offer.
Tours can be arranged any day of the week and are neighborhood specific. If you want to experience a day of Latin food bliss, take the Mission tour. Want some Italian? The North Beach tour is your gig. The tours are hosted by knowledgeable locals and food maniacs so not only will you learn great places to nosh, but you'll get insider info on the history of the neighborhoods and what makes these institutions and holes-in-the-wall stand out from the pretenders.
We think this is a great idea. Combine it with a pub crawl at the end of the day and see who in your group can fend off the gout the longest.
We love Chinglish, so it's with a heavy heart that we report China has standardized restaurant menus in Beijing in preparation for the Olympics. That means no matter where you go, you'll know what you're ordering. (And doesn't that take some of the fun out of a trip to Asia?)
There will be no more "husband and wife's lung slice," reports Reuters: The dish is now rendered "beef and ox tripe in chili sauce." And don't even think of ordering "bean curd made by a pock-marked woman"; that's now officially known as "mapo tofu."
Actually, there is one change we can appreciate. We probably would never order the "chicken without sexual life," but we'd definitely go for some "steamed pullet."
The Food & Wine Classic, takes place this weekend in the swellest mountain town in the USA, Aspen, Colorado. It's the Art Basel of American cuisine, a place where you can sample some of the country's finest wines, attend a "Future of Flavor" seasoning seminar by high cuisine juggernaut McCormick and steal away to the US Open viewing lounge to gripe to other dudes about how all you want to do is play some golf and get away from your wife and her drunk friends.
Beginning this Friday afternoon, there are some really quality events such as the Sam Adams beer pairing with food and a documentary about Spanish wine country held at the Aspen Opera House. (We're pretty sure Aspen is the only ski town with an opera house.)
Bet you didn't know that some people think French fries should really be called Belgian fries. The belief that fries were first invented in Belgium is so strong that quirky collector Eddy Van Belle has just opened the Friet Museum in Brugge.
The museum takes up three small floors in one of Brugge's oldest buildings and covers the (controversial) history of fries, even heading back to Peru in 15,000 BC to a possible beginning to one of the world's favorite snacks. There are also all manner of related artifacts including both antique and modern deep fryers, and even a film to teach you how to make the perfect fry.
Entry to the Friet Museum is a reasonable €6 ($9), but of course you'll also have to factor in some purchases of fries--even if you weren't hungry to start with, seeing all these displays is going to give you a bit of a craving. The museum sells them in paper cones or you can find them on pretty much any corner you look in Brugge. Just don't ask for French fries when you place your order.
¡Oye, Cinco de Mayo! We're already three micheladas deep, but we thought you'd wanna know why everyone's pounding Mexican beer today. The fifth of May is the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, an epic fight between the Mexican army and the French expeditionary forces of Napoleon. The Mexicans, led by Ignacio Zaragoza, won, which is why it's a day worth remembering.
Interestingly, the Poblanos were French sympathizers, which led to an nominative bitch slap when the city's name was officially changed to Heróica Puebla de Zaragoza after the battle.
These days, Puebla is an important cultural capital, in south-central Mexico. Its historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the city's home to some of the country's most famous dishes like mole poblano and chalupas. Also worth a try is the cemita, a huge sandwich served on a sesame roll that's sort of like a Mexican muffaletta. Trust us: It'll go down easy with a ton of frosty beer.
