October 29, 2007

Dining Secrets

We're going to let our readers in on a secret. Portland, ME has a great dining scene. But just because we told you, doesn't mean you need to invest in a summer home there. Now that JetBlue flies directly from NYC to the Portland International Jetport, we recommend dashing up while the leaves are still orange and check out some of the top notch restaurants. And now there's a map to help diners figure out where to eat. But if you think the map is going to make the choices easier, think again. It's just going to present all the delicious options that are possibilities. The Portland Food Map was created by Anestes Fotiades, in response to a fundamental question often asked by potential diners: What do I feel like eating?

There are no streets or avenues. Instead, Fotiades displays the dining-choice questions we often ask as guideposts -- "Eating Out," "Grab a Bite," or "Drinks."....But the site offers more than just an overview -- it culls the Internet for helpful tools for the hungry, including reviews, restaurant Web sites and maps. The Portland Food Map joins a growing crowd of Web sites, blogs and forums that use Internet tools to share a devotion to food culture.

At first impression the food map may more closely resemble a science class diagram or basketball tournament bracket. The map includes more than 400 listings, broken down into six categories, ranging from "Nibble and Sip" to "Take Home." Each category branches off into smaller groups, so "Eat Out" leads to American food, barbecue, vegetarian or Thai.

From there a simple click on a place like Uncle Billy's Resto Bar brings up separate information in a different window, including the restaurant's Web site, and a collection of reviews from sources such as the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, the Portland Phoenix or The Bollard.

The food map also links to the Google Maps application to geographically pinpoint a single eatery or multiple places across the city.

[From The Portland Press Herald]

Posted by Cakehead at 06:08 AM | Comments (0)

July 04, 2007

A Guide to NYC Street Food

We like to think of the street as our extended dining room. We love the adventure of exploring a new neighborhood or stumbling upon a corner stand which offers a quick, delicious, inexpensive meal. If you're lucky the vendors will tell you a story or two as you wolf down your falafel or shish kebob. And there's nothing better than an excuse to make a mess.

Usually without a name or exact address, part of the fun of street food dining is following a friend's directions to track down a very specific cart selling that smooth cool gelato. Of course, nameless dining joints can be as dangerous as they are delicious. We may not have written the book on street food, but we'll read any book or column are put before us on the matter. So, when we found that Tara Kyle of the Conde Nast Traveler blog, The Perrin Post, has compiled a list of deliciously cheap and tasty food around NYC, we had to refer our readers.

For those who just can't stay out of midtown, Kyle interviewed Sanjay Surana, Traveler's resident street food expert. His favorite stops are:

Muslim Trinidadians at the Southeast corner of 43rd Street and 6th Avenue for the area's best Halal Food. Sanjay loves the curried vegetables (potatoes, chick peas, cabbage) over yellow or white rice, and while he's a vegetarian, he reports that the chicken dishes also do a "brisk trade." At the Egyptian-run falafel stand at the Northeast corner of 40th and Broadway, in front of Citibank, for just $3, you'll get "coriander in the falafel balls, slightly smoky fried eggplant, and lip-smacking hot sauce." Although not technically street food as it operates out of a storefront, the 24-hour pizza shop on the Northwest Corner of 36th Street and 8th Avenue gives you the true eat and run experience: There are no tables and little floor space, so you'll have to join the bike messengers, fashion district delivery men, and office workers who down their $1 slices standing on the pavement out front. Sanjay raves about the tomato sauce's "perfect combination of sweetness and tartness."

And wIth July here, it's time to buy your tickets and send in nominations for the Best Street Food Vendy Awards. Sponsored by the Urban Justice Center, the Vendy Awards will take place in September and is "an Iron Chef-style cookoff & awards ceremony to honor the city's best street food vendors while also recognizing the contributions that all street vendors make to NYC's rich cultural (and culinary) life."

Kyle recommends using the 2006 Vendy Award nominees as street food guide tour to the outer borroughs of New York City. To download the guide, click here , then click on the 2006 Vendy Awards program.

Posted by Cakehead at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2007

Kick Ass Bar Listings in Williamsburg

Harefield Road, image c/o noahkalina.com

What do we like even more than eating? You guessed it. Drinking. We're here to tell you who to turn to for the very best bar listings in Williamsburg? Hint: It's not New York Magazine and it's not Time Out New York. It's FreeWilliamsburg.

Posted by Cakehead at 01:06 AM | Comments (0)

July 06, 2006

Midtown survival guide

For all you poor souls who are destined to spend your days confined to mid-town, salvation (or salivation as we refer to it here at cakehead) has arrived in the form of a new food blog. Midtown Lunch provides the service of helping hard working men and women to find "lunch in the food wastland that is NYC's midtown."

Their recent posting about Hallo Berlin is a little off the mark - not because the food there is bad. We love the German hall for its cheap wurst platters and beer-filled lunches. But it's so far west that if you cringe you might catch a glimpse of the Mississippi. There's nothing "mid" about it. The sole limit of the site is that the host only posts about restaurants within walking distance from 49th & 6th where he works. So certain midtowners will have a long walk ahead of them if they want to try the suggestions. But the benefits far outweigh any complaints we have. We love a host who likes it cheap and dirty:

I'm not scared of carts, or dirty joints, so hit me with your best shot (minus the Sbarro pizza buffet & Hooters- although their chicken wings are not without merit).

We agree with the restaurant recommendations so far. We love any site that mentions Daisy May's BBQ USA. And the blog offers a helpful feature - a listing of restaurants sorted by street & cross street. So if you know you need to meet someone on 46th St between 6th & 7th Ave, you can click on that link and receive a dining rendez-vous spot. Keep in mind that the site is still in its infancy so there are not a lot of dining options listed yet. But we're confident that if readers have a little patience and contribute their favorite midtown dining recommendations, in no time there will be a long listing of suggestions to satiate that deep hunger that manifests itself in the midtown worker.

Posted by Cakehead at 09:27 PM | Comments (1)

January 03, 2006

EXPOSE UNCOVERED....Finally, your questions are answered: Who has the best corporate cafeteria? Why Cakehead hasn't been posting

Complaints have been rolling in since Labor Day.

"What happened? I was closely following your food and Jesus diatribe. Is the site kaput?"

No, we weren't taken hostage by a posse of cake-craving Christian hypocrites. And we haven't abandoned the site because we were recruited for a high paying job in the food service or genetic modification industry. The truth behind the cakehead disappearance is we've been on a hunt. We've put daily entries on hold temporarily to tour the country to find the best corporate cafeterias this nation has to offer. Since the majority of your life is spent at work, we want you to know where to work to get the very best grub. We know where your priorities lie. You're putting up with the workplace grind to get a paycheck to buy your next delicious feast. But now, thanks to the cakehead search you no longer have to spend your hard-earned dollars on expensive restaurant meals. We want you to get your meal on the Man's dime. And since it's the Man who's picking up the tab, why not find the most generous Man who has the best dining tastes?

At the Google holiday party we knew DJ AM would suck, but we didn't think the food would.

The Cakehead mobile has burned rubber and fuel to research this lofty pursuit. We've travel the country interviewing good honest workers in blue & red states searching for that cafeteria that brings meaning to the daily grind.

Our bellies have both celebrated and suffered. We're aching and plump - stretched larger than we thought we could become. Unlike wine tasters, we swallow. And in the end we don't regret this sacrifice (an extended stay in a weightloss treatment center, might be beneficial). But since weightloss don't come free, we'll continue to eat. And hopefully our loyal readers will too. Our final report comes to you based not on a quick mouth swashing and spitting. We've tracked the flavors and effects from first bite to the final stages of digestion. When we report the winning cafeteria, it will not be based on a floozy wino's interpretation – but is rather an in-depth study.

As it turns out the best place to work and be fed is Google. The Gen-Xers are the unsung heroes of the free dining in the workplace movement. Sure the Conde-cafeteria is swell. But that food don't come free. Leave it to one of the only dot-com hold outs to provide that fully stocked refrigerator that makes work seem like that awesome babysitting gig at the Lamberts. You know, the family with that refrigerator stocked with the kettle fried pototo chips that tasted so good when dipped in that delicious black truffle butter, then followed by the Ciao Bella frozen bonbon chasers. That's what it like to work for Google. Whenever you have a craving just open the company fridge and there are all the snacks a girl could want. All for free.

So, now you're thinking, if the daily provisions provided by the company are that good, then the holiday party must have been incredible. We're sorry to be the ones to shatter the façade. Google is not THE place to be seen when it comes to party crashing. Forget the horrific djing by Nicole Richie's ex, DJ A.M. It's a given that he would be crap. We just expected more of the food.

Sure we snacked on a few sandwiches: steak stuck between two carb-packed bulky rolls that would make a waify Google gal gasp. We ate the spinach casserole and the pecan diamonds from the dessert table. But frankly, the food at the holiday party made us feel deluded. Like we had selected the wrong corporate cafeteria as the winner. We felt empty. Confused. Months of web-post productivity had been abandoned for this quest. And now with the attendance of a mere holiday party our ability to judge good versus bad was being called into question.

Not only were the hors d'oeuvres a disaster, but we were forced to spend the evening responding to riddles and euphemism about who was rich and who wasn't. (We later learned that when a Google engineer introduces himself mumbling in the same breath, "I'm Stan and I've worked at Google since 2000" it was his not-so-subtle way of saying,"I'm a billionaire and even though I’m really dorky please have sex with me." But poor starving dorks are more our type and who wants to sleep with an empty billionaire who was thrown off kilter when he learned that we are not women swayed by fortune. Food is the only way to our hearts.)

To make a long story short, at the Google party we were ready to abandon ship. To relinquish our research data and surrender to a factory job, or table waiting or anything that didn't involve assessing corporate cafeteria quality. That is until we realized our own error.

Across the room the glistening ice sculpture, carved in the recognizable google font beckoned us nearer. We noticed a gush of liquid flowing from the second "g" and we needed to investigate. As we approached it all became clear. Holiday parties aren't about the food. They're about the liquor. And in the end what we saw before us confirmed that Google was worthy of the best corporate cafeteria title. After a year of eating delicious free food, the workers don’t want more free food at the holiday party. They want free drinks. Of course free drinks in the corporate cafeteria would deter productivity. But at the holiday party the drinks were running free. Out of each letter in the word google flowed a different blend of liquors.

G = (Blue)
Stoli Vanilla
Triple Sec
Blue Curacao
Pineapple Juice

O = (Red)
Vodka
Triple Sec
Lime
Cranberry or Chambord (TBD)

O = (Yellow)
Malibu Rum
Pineapple

G = (Blue
Stoli Vanilla
Triple Sec
Blue Curacao
Pineapple Juice

L = (Green)
Vodka
Apple Pucker
Triple Sec

E = (Red)
Vodka
Triple Sec
Lime Juice

Happy workers, drunk on the ice factory's nectar, were proof to us that Google has earned it's title as best cafeteria by day -- best holiday party spirits one night a year.

Posted by Cakehead at 05:32 AM | Comments (3)

August 25, 2005

Cathy will bring you your virtual school lunch

Cathy - a Virtual Cafeteria worker based in Texas

While we at Cakehead are busy studying corporate cafeterias, The New York Times has been covering the world of school lunch - both college and a cyber-cafeteria designed to try to halt the rise Texas's overweight youth in their school systems.

To play in one of the Carrollton Farmers Branch Independent School District's Virtual Cafeteria, click here. You can fill your compartmented tray with healthy dishes or fatty goodness. The choice is yours.

Posted by Cakehead at 01:08 PM | Comments (1)

August 22, 2005

Eat Your Paycheck: The Best Places to Work for Company-Subsidized Meals - Submit Your Nominations

Send in your nominations for THE BEST CORPORATE CAFETERIA and BEST DISH SERVED IN THE CORPORATE CAFETERIA. Please send nominations to amy@cakeheadDOTcom. Include the name of the company, the location, why it is the best, and a distinguishing feature about the cafeteria or dish.

Surges of jealousy often surface when we’re in the presence of our friends who have jobs with perks. As freelancers, we get the occasional party invitation or free historical documentary VHS tape, but for the most part we are forced to sit back and drool as the people around us receive health benefits, pension plans and access to the company subsidized cafeteria.

For this reason, we often drop not so subtle hints with hope that one of the privileged will extend a sympathy invitation and usher us in as a guest to the company-subsidized cafeteria. We’ve had some success with lines like, “I don’t believe that the garlic-less food in the Conde Nast cafeteria is flavorless. Or to gain entrée into CBS’s aptly named cafeteria, “Station Break” we declared to a friend, “you may not want the senior staff copping a feel, but if it means we get to try the Sloppy Joes at Station Break, we’re willing to overlook their perviness.” Needless to say, we sold our souls with that declaration, but it was worth it. Station Break wasn’t serving Sloppy Joes, but the Tater Tots that day were divine. And while, security at the U.N.’s cafeteria is tight these days, if you can make friends with a diplomat, the views of Long Island City there are top notch.

But try as we might to gain access to the bountifully bottomless supply of candy, cakes and sushi that Google provides its workers, apparently our hints haven’t been blatant enough. It’s probably for the best since frankly we don’t trust our willpower in all-you-can eat situations. Hopefully, that invitation will come through after Google has hired their new chef

Because we’re cut off from the amenities of corporate life, we plan to live vicariously through our readers. We’ll announce the winners in a month after we have judged the submissions through a careful taste-test.

In the meantime, please comment on your CORPORATE CAFETERIA HORROR STORY or CORPORATE CAFETERIA LOVE STORY.

Guide to Corporate Cafeteria Outside New York City:

Silicon Valley
If you want to dine corporate cafeteria-style, we suggest moving to Silicon Valley. Not only are there numerous employers to choose from, but their cafeterias offer a wide selection of dishes containing organic and free range ingredients. You may be trapped in office park hell, but at least you'll eat like a king.

[From Nicole Wong's article in San Jose Mercury News via A Full Belly]:

For years, Silicon Valley companies have invested in their cafeterias to cut the time workers spend foraging off-campus for food, boost camaraderie and keep the troops happy, or at least well-fueled. Now some cafes are such hot spots that discerning diners from other companies are clamoring to eat there. "Apple's the best,'' said Joseph Ruff, a programmer at Mountain View start-up TellMe Networks. "The egg burritos, they make them nice and spicy. Network Appliance -- that had a pretty good salad bar, but it was smaller than Apple's.''

Want navrattan korma with raita, chutney and naan? $5.29 at Cisco Systems. Need something to drink? Sun Microsystems stocks 20 flavors of Odwalla juices alone. Feeling guilty? Yahoo boasts sustainably harvested seafood and antibiotic-free chicken.

Marc Marelich, eBay's general manager of food services, often sees outsiders slipping in to eat at the new cafe. And no wonder -- they can get ahi tuna salad tossed on the spot, spicy Tunisian chili with lamb and beef, or Yucatan fish tacos with pico de gallo....John Lawn, editor in chief of Food Management magazine, said Silicon Valley's corporate cafe scene serves some of the best food in the country. "You'll find a cafe that's as nice as any commercial restaurant in Chicago or San Francisco, maybe better,'' he said.

Boston

[From Boston Poenix]:

What, no creamed tuna and lime Jell-O? From morning to night, Massachusetts General Hospital's Eat Street Café chips away at the stereotypes about hospital food. With dozens of stations in operation, the selection on any given day is mind-boggling. At the deli, you can opt for ham-and-provolone on French bread with pesto or a moo-shu-pork wrap; hot specials may include herb-roasted pork loin, warm lemon-chicken salad, or pasta with leeks and butternut squash; for dessert, a root-beer float from the full-service ice-cream bar just might hit the spot. Even breakfast looks bright: grab a cinnamon-chip muffin if the Belgian-waffle bar doesn't grab you first.

Likewise, EF Center, the Cambridge language school, explodes notions about school cafeterias. Lingo is a lovely place with patio seating that presents daily specials with gourmet leanings, from muffalettas to roasted-red-pepper-and-feta pizza and grilled chicken with mango salsa to fresh strawberry shortcake. Create-your-own options abound as well, covering both pasta and stir-fry dishes. Lingo even has a full bar, which opens at five; guess martinis speak a language we can all understand.

Eat Street Café at Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, (617) 724-8879. Lingo at EF Center, 1 Education Street, Cambridge, (617) 619-1000

Denver

Denver Business Magazine declared that Great West Life has the best corporate cafeteria in Denver,. However, the contest dates back to 1995, so the statement really holds no credibility. Feel free to let us know if the cafeteria is still up to snuff. Here’s what they said a decade ago:

A rapidly disappearing employee amenity. It's a good thing some are still around, like the cafeteria at Great West Life in Denver.

Seattle

The results from Seattle Weekly aren't suprising. According to them, Microsoft has the best corporate cafeteria in Seattle.

Posted by Cakehead at 08:45 PM | Comments (13)

August 10, 2005

The best places to dine have funny signs

We're certainly glad that the timber wolf is no longer being overlook by chefs due to its dangerous nature. Wait a second. Weren't they hunted to the point of near extinction? Isn't wolf fry is illegal?

For a further collection of hilarious restaurant, rest stop and roadway signs go to Funny Sign.com Here's a sampling that got our mouths watering:

We hope the spices don't come from the feline help.

The special shampoo costs extra.

To make it a hunchback Siamese twin meals add $.39.

Posted by Cakehead at 11:18 PM | Comments (1)

June 21, 2005

Longing to Fly

Maybe it's a subconscious reflex. I know I'll be working all summer with no vacation time and will therefore not be able to indulge in one of my secret vices: airplane food. It's what I'm craving. In hopes of satiating this craving, I'm announcing this week's airline meal of the week (pictured above):
[From AirlineMeals.Net]

Route: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Hong Kong
Ticket price: JPY70000 ($640 dollars)
Aircraft type & class: B777, upgraded to Business class
Meal type: Lunch
Contents of the meal: smoke salmon, green salad, grilled seafood with risotto, bread pudding, fresh fruit
Comments: very nice course followed by selection of fine cheeze.
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 9

Naturally, I'm drooling over the photo, since it is, after all, the meal of the week. But while I long for airline food, it's the trip not the flight that I will really miss. As everyone knows, the food at the destination is always far superior to that consumed in flight.

But there's a simple beauty to those efficiently packaged meals. And I'm always curious to taste the airline's interpretation of the destination country's cuisine. The meal is always an indication of what's to come and sadly, this summer there is neither airline food nor exotic dishes in my cards.

Posted by Cakehead at 01:50 AM | Comments (0)

January 29, 2005

Combining the best of the food world: Cakes & Cafeterias

Seeking a cake chef to sculpt you a cake resembling your high school, government-subsidized cafeteria lunch? You must commission the lady at Moist & Tasty! to make your cake.

**Warning to prudes and people who cast their last ballot for president based on "family values." These cakes are racy!

Posted by Cakehead at 01:31 AM | Comments (1)