Rosie’s Italian Grille located just south of Dorr Street on McCord Road has been one of my more favorite Italian places for the last few years. The setting was always intimate, with great food; an excellent person to take a date who wants Olive Garden.

My recent visit though was somewhat of a disappointment though. Firstly, the atmosphere. As it being late fall, the patio is enclosed, with a helluva overabundance of space heaters out there. It was so incredibly hot, I was forced to take my pants off. Secondly, one of the great things Rosie’s did was fresh bread with an infused olive oil. It was placed on your table with the water. Well they don’t do it anyways. Fuck.

Let’s talk food. Not being rather hungry, I took this opportunity to try a pizza. Nothing is more Italian than pizza Margherita. Fully expecting a delicious medium crust, with fresh tomato sauce, slices of mozzarella, and fresh basil, here’s what I got:

You may notice the irregular shape of the pie. That’s good! If you’ve ever tried to hand roll any dough into a circle, you’d know that it’s impossible. Absolutely impossible. I’ve seen some good attempts, but this shows me that it’s hand tossed.

The cheese. While the cheese was fresh mozzarella, I was expecting a more traditional sliced cheese rather than the shredded stuff I got. Speaking of the za being slightly non-traditional, I was also expecting full basil leaves. Instead I get a chiffonade.

As far as the crust itself. While it was good, it was limp and extremely thin. I would have rather had a little more thickness, OR some crispiness. All in all, it’s good, but not great.

As far as the rest of the dinner. The crab cakes were decent, although the horseradish mustard sauce was excellent.

The salad was limp and over dressed, and the risotto was simply mushy rice; it had no creaminess.

All in all, I was quite disappointed and it will take a really good next visit to get me turned back around on this. More to the point, they had a really nice, elegant website, which they’ve recently turned into this mid-90s esque bullshit Flash driven web vomit.

Poor taste…for shame.

C-

Le dimanche est le moment ou jamais de mettre à contribution culinaire mon Cher-et tendre (et le votre par la même occasion)… A l’occasion de ce brunch dominical, voici donc sa recette fétiche : une variante du croque-monsieur au bacon, rebaptisée par mes propres soins Le Croque Mon Homme.

Messieurs, prenez-en donc de la graine. Faire la cuisine, c’est pas si compliqué… et ça nous fait tellement plaisir !

Les ingrédients pour 2 :
- 4 tranches de pain de mie aux céréales.
- 4 tranches de Bacon
- 70 g de conté râpé
- 2 oeufs
- du beurre
- Sel & poivre

La recette (à réserver aux hommes !)
Même les handicapés de la casserole n’auront pas d’excuse : cette recette est simple comme bonjour !
Allumez tout d’abord votre four à 200°C. Dans une poêle, faites chauffer un peu de beurre et mettez à griller les tranches de bacon. Pendant ce temps là faites griller vos tranches de pain à l’aide d’un grille pain. Beurrez les légèrement et déposez 2 tranches de bacon sur chaque tranche de pain. Saupoudrez avec le conté râpé (ou du gruyère).
Dans la poele, cassez 2 oeufs et faites les revenir jusqu’à ce que le blanc soit bien cuit. Ajoutez sur vos tartines et refermez votre Croque Mon Homme avec une deuxième tranche de pain grillée.  Enfournez 5 à 10 minutes pour que le fromage fonde. Servez chaud chaud chaud ! Génial pour un brunch en amoureux !

]]> http://arbrealettres.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/deja-francois-de-corniere/ Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:56:58 +0000 arbrealettres http://arbrealettres.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/deja-francois-de-corniere/

 

des bruits qu’on redécouvre
le soir de l’arrivée
une grille qui grince
le chien d’une ferme qui aboie
cette odeur de passé
- de vacances à la mer –
qu’on reçoit de plein fouet
la porte à peine poussée
(un journal étalé sur la table de la cuisine
du lait en train de bouillir
un tricot en arrêt)
et l’enfance à sa place
en haut de l’escalier
si on lève la tête

(François de Cornière)

Illustration

Les décors sur ce tournage de Prison Break

Under the Bridges 01/02

Under the Bridges 02/02.

Si vous avez déjà vu la trilogie ou que vous avez perdu votre âme d’enfant, vous avez passé votre soirée de dimanche à regarder des lapins énormes et des poulets sans plumes au lieu d’être transporté par les aventures de Jack Sparrow et de Bill le Bottier. Au passage, vous avez donc subi la censure exercée par M6, qui a décidé d’annuler la diffusion de l’un des reportages de l’émission Zone Interdite (consacrée aux dangers de l’alimentation), et qui concernait les fast foods.

Apparemment, si l’on en croit les journalistes qui ont réalisé le sujet, on y voyait entre autre un McDonald’s à l’hygiène douteuse et un KFC proposant de la viande faussement présentée comme hallal. Et même si les deux établissements exerçaient leur droit de réponse face aux caméras, la direction de la chaîne a préféré retirer le programme de la grille, ne le considérant pas “valide” et “solide” car tourné en caméra cachée. Argument tout de suite réfuté par la rédaction, qui assure que “le sujet était béton journalistiquement et juridiquement”.

Par contre, pour les reportages sur les jeunes qui cassent tout en banlieue, les dealeurs de coke dans le 16ème et les interventions nocturnes des pompiers pendant les vacances, je vous rassure tout de suite: toujours pas de soucis de diffusion.

Via

….Dans le sens de la visite que je recommande, car oui il y a un sens, Birkenau en premier (*Coeur de Nazi, Bi.*), Auschwitz ensuite…

Après le camp d’extermination a proprement parler, on débarque dans le camp n°1, le camp de travail, Auschwitz qui n’était pas en reste en termes de cruauté…

Pendaisons, exécutions aléatoires par balle, laboratoire d’essai à l’eugénisme, laboratoire d’essais chirurgicaux sur humains non anesthésiés, (sinon c’est pas drôle)…

Humiliations en tous genres, torture, terreur…Et bien sur doté du module semi enterré douches/four n°1…Non vraiment on ne devait pas s’ennuyer….

Si l’antichambre des enfers devait se nommer ici bas on l’appelerait Auschwitz.

Bienvenue à Welcome Land, la suite et fin de l’expo est à suivre sur mon flickr…

We have been working with one of the top Korean bodykit manufacture (M&S) for years.
We’ve been asking them to make our own version of radiator grille that could fit without looking akward on Non-Korean lisence plates for a while.
Here’s a final product that we came out with.

Note grille does not go even near the lisence plate just like the luxon grille, and it give the clean and mean look with a simple replacement.
We offer non-painted or OEM color painted option.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER!

I will soon be undertaking a new artistic venture, something very simple; the exploration of a form of art seen by just about everyone, everyday. I’m talking about cars, or to be more precise, the faces of cars.

Whether intentionally designed that way or not, all cars have a face. Some are sad, some are happy, some look pissed off, and some look constipated. The point is, the faces are their, ripe for the picking.

Layer 01 will consist of exploring all makes and models of cars (I’m starting with the late-model variety), identifying the most interesting faces, and extracting them, taking the basic shapes in monochrome and discarding the rest of the car visually.

Layer 02 will be experimenting with the addition of color, while Layer 03 will elaborate upon the basic structure of the face by adding more specific facial details…be they eyeballs, teeth, nostrils…whatever.

It should be fun. And the name of the project shall be…CARFACE.

When we think of College Park restaurants, especially sports bars, our expectations are rather low. So our picky pallets weren’t expecting it when Varsity Grille on Rt. 1, a relatively new establishment, snuck up on us with quality, at times even complex, plays on classic dishes.

There’s no doubt this restaurant belongs in College Park, decorated with Terp team’s memorabilia adorning the walls, and multiple big, flat screen TVs playing games, as well as uber-cheap happy hour prices for beers and cocktails.

We were seated right away at a window booth, but don’t expect that to happen on a UMD game night – you can have up to an hour wait when the Terps are playing and an even longer wait for service.

We started the meal off we an order of $3.00 Corona Lights (and one Land Shark for Shakes). And then of course, the must-have appetizer at Varsity, its crab dip.

The crab dip came smothered in melted, slightly browned cheddar cheese and was served with enough sour dough to satisfy five hungry stomachs. What stuck out to Alex was the amount of lump crab meat; it wasn’t all mushy and crushed up like at Adele’s on campus,  there was actually a texture. Allyson had been building this crab dip up for months – and from a Marylander’s point of view, if you’re raving about crab dip, you know it’s damn good. While the sauce was creamy, it wasn’t overpowering, and there was no b.s. going in there with crab (forget artichokes, corn, etc.). Just plain old crab, smothered in cheese and creamy-goodness, with a few herbs for some seasoning. Alex found herself compulsively scraping the plate throughout the meal until her spoon scratched the bowl. Allyson, at one point, abandoned her pizza just to use the crust for more crabby delight.

Even though our waiter barely said a word, we got our orders in and they arrived promptly. Megan ordered from the special 50-cent wings, though she was forced to get 10 wings because there is a $5 minimum. The Honey BBQ wings were standard, well-cooked but nothing extraordinary. She accompanied her meal with a side of Bay Fries – and was surprised when the only seasoning was Old Bay, the rest of us knew that was coming. They were thin, crispy and tasty but extremely pungent, almost sneeze-inducing from all the Old Bay. It was work finding the perfect fry that wasn’t too smothered in this special Maryland tradition, but once you found it, it was golden.

Laura ordered the Varsity burger, a half-pound black Angus patty topped with cheddar jack, smothered in BBQ sauce, onions and baked ham. She was disappointed because she assumed the ham would be more like Canadian bacon than deli-slice cold cut meat, which was the reality. But overall, she was satisfied with her choice. We still think her happiest moment was discovering they serve Land Shark Lager, a favorite from her time in London.

On to us. Allyson ordered the Southwestern Chicken Pizza. The dough was that perfect mix between a thick crust while maintaining that thin-crust crunch. The cheddar and mozzarella were melted perfectly but slightly drowned out by the pizza’s other great toppings: chicken, chili base with beef (instead of tomato sauce), onions and beans (the beans were not on the menu!). Because she’s a “punk” as Alex says, AKA can’t deal with the heat, she left off the jalepenos, in fear of not being able to taste anything while her tongue is on fire. The pizza still packed a little kick from the chili base and was loaded with different flavors and textures in each bite. It is a lot to eat though for one person, so you’ll definitely have leftovers (or crust for more crab dip).

Alex ordered the Italian Cheese Steak. She’s usually apprehensive ordering an item labelled “cheese steak” in eateries other than Pat’s or Tony Luke’s in Philadelphia. But she was pleasantly surprised (notice our trend?) with the Italian Cheese Steak, which paid homage to the boot with the addition of sauteed onions, mushrooms and peppers, as well as provolone cheese, which she actually prefers over the more traditional whiz. The provolone was sharp and creamy, yet did not overpower the meat. The thin, chopped pieces of rib-eye were tender and juicy, but still retained a crispy exterior. Unlike her favorite cheese steaks in the town that Rocky runs, this one was not served on a crusty, airy Italian hero roll. The roll actually contrasted the dish’s name, for it was more of a combination of a soft hot dog bun and a kaiser roll. However, it held up to the toppings nicely and she really has no complaint about the bun, other than it wasn’t what she was used to. The other downer was that the menu promised tomato sauce would grace her cheese steak’s presence. It failed to RSVP.

Michele joined us a little late (poor working girl) but it didn’t take long for her Sliders to show up. Technically calling this appetizer a slider is as MISTAKE. As Adam Kuban says on the A Hamburger Today blog, “People, a slider is something very specific. It is not just a mini hamburger. It’s a thin, thin slip of beef, cooked on a griddle with onions and pickles piled atop patty.” Varsity may have saved themselves in the description, calling them “four mini-hamburgers” but to us with a critical eye, they are just wrong. Anyway… The “sliders” were neatly presented with opened buns and perfectly placed little squares of American cheese. Seeing as it was one of the first meals she’d eaten in weeks due to illness, she seemed to enjoy them well.

Our experience at Varsity Grille was like Detroit playing the Redskins… everyone expects the Lions to tank, and guess who rises to the top? (Yes, that hurt Allyson to say). In a college town with not too many worthy dining options, it’s always a big win when we stumble upon an establishment worthy of a return. And one that makes us unafraid to try new things off their menu.

Atmosphere – young and sporty, very casual

Service – speedy but impersonal

Price – Very affordable, most dishes are between $10 and $12, and there are lots of specials every night, from bar to food

Food – 4 out of 5 (We think that was a first for us)

Keep it tasty, holla

Allyson and Alex

Comme anti-vol

C’est vrai que, par contre, il est bio-dégradable