Buffalo Chow

On Revolution, Or, Yes, We All Want To Change The World

2012-12-30T15:20:10Z

A sabbatical is defined as a rest from work - an extended absence for the purpose of fulfilling a goal, such as conducting research, with the expectation that one will return wiser and more capable of performing the old job. My absence from Buffalo Chow was not really a sabbatical. I took a break, but no return was planned. My research continued, but without a defined goal. I just knew that I needed to walk away from writing about food, listen, learn, and then - if the time was right - share something new with this site's audience. (Last month, Buffalo Chow hit the 1.5-million page view mark, and has served 550,000 unique visitors since its debut. Thank you. That's amazing for a side project blog that wasn't updated in over a year.)

Our Kiss Goodbye: Lessons Learned From Chef José Andrés

2011-08-09T11:42:00Z

As we hit the "publish" button on the final article that will appear on Buffalo Chow, we think back one last time to why this site began, and what we hoped that it would achieve. Our hope was to share the best of Western New York's foods with the rest of the world, and to bring the world's best foods back to Buffalo - inspiring better dining for everyone. History will judge whether we helped whet the local appetite for better food, or whether we left the community unchanged, but we think we made a mark with this site. And so our last article is designed to end our mission on a high note: it is a look at what one person has achieved by blending his passions for great food and experimentation with a talent for creating welcoming, accessible dining experiences. The person is Chef José Andrés, deserving 2011 winner of the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Chef of the Year Award, and we look below at all of his current Washington, D.C. restaurants - inspirations to cooks and restauranteurs of every culture, skill level, and culinary disposition.

Modernist Cuisine, Part 2 of 2: Creating Magic With Science

2011-08-09T10:36:00Z

In late April, just before we decided to pull the plug on Buffalo Chow, we published the first half of a review of Nathan Myhrvold's Modernist Cuisine - over 2,400 pages of culinary history, contemporary techniques, and best-of-class recipes spread across six books. Five of the books are oversized 13" by 11" hardcovers, and the sixth is an 11" by 9" spiral-bound cooking guide designed to be used in a kitchen. Heavily backordered despite a $625 retail price and a 52-pound shipping weight, Modernist Cuisine isn't easy to acquire, carry, or digest, but it's extremely noteworthy, so we spent the time and money to cover it for this site. Our original goal was to review the second set of books shortly after finishing the first two, but as we continued to read, we decided that we really needed to test some of the recipes and techniques for ourselves. Thus, four months later, we've returned to finish the review, the second-to-last article that will appear on Buffalo Chow. As with the first article, what follows will be primarily of interest to cooks, but if you're a fan of food and want a glimpse at the "art and science" chefs will use to prepare the next generation of restaurant meals, read on.

On WNY's Twice-Frozen Fish + 2011 Taste of Buffalo Awards

2011-07-11T13:39:00Z

Buffalo, you should be embarrassed - or at least concerned. When judging ended for 2011's Taste of Buffalo - America's "largest two-day food festival" - this cup of sludge called "Goo" was selected by the event's judges as the event's "Best Overall Item." If you can't tell from the photo, it's a small cup of ice cream sundae leftovers that required no talent to conceive, assemble, or present. We overheard fellow attendees describing it as "disgusting-looking." And it's quite possibly the future of dining in Western New York, if recent trends continue.

The Rest Of The World: Inspirations From New York City

2011-07-01T12:45:00Z

Yes, Buffalo Chow is dead. (See the now-legendary Olive Garden tweets for details.) But when we decided to discontinue regular updates here, there were still a few items left on our "to do" list, and since the archive will remain online for the time being, we didn't want to leave the site without the benefits of that information. So today, we're presenting the first of a very small series of "last articles:" a brief look at some of the more inspirational things that are currently taking place in the New York City food scene. Western New York isn't Manhattan, but there are lessons to be learned from its culinary examples.

The Olive Garden, Or, When One Door Closes, Another Opens

2011-06-15T20:57:31Z

As you've probably heard by now, Buffalo Chow is shutting down. Readers asked why, and so we posted the following "epic" series of messages to our @buffalochow Twitter account on the evening of June 13, 2011, responding to general and specific inquiries about the site's future. We would have told the story a little more eloquently and formally in a full-length article, but since we were tweeting with 140-character (and time) limits, the structure's a little off. To provide a sense of closure, what you'll find here is a cleaned-up version of the original collection of tweets, plus a few excerpts from the question and answer session that followed.

Suzy-Q's Bar-B-Que Shack: A Hidden Treasure In Riverside

2011-06-05T22:29:00Z

As fun as it would be to work full time on Buffalo Chow, this site is a side project for us: for the last month, Jeremy's days and nights have been completely occupied with creating the iPad 2 Buyers' Guide - the latest edition of the world's most widely read guides to Apple's digital media products. Thankfully, the Guide is finished (and ready for you to grab right now!), so we have some extra time to write about local food. So today, we're looking at two places that specialize in barbecued pork, Suzy-Q's Bar-B-Que Shack and The Whole Hog Food Truck (reviewed separately here), though they're as different from one another as can be.

The Whole Hog Truck: Pork Sandwiches Writ Large in Buffalo

2011-06-05T21:59:30Z

It would have been a lot easier to write about The Whole Hog Truck if it wasn't any good; in truth, the story would have practically written itself. Mirroring local food truck pioneer Lloyd's launch last year, Buffalo's latest mobile food vendor was beset by an overwhelming array of legal, mechanical, and weather difficulties in its first week of operation - enough to stunt the growth of any small business, especially one with a tiny menu focused mostly on pork sandwiches. On its first night out, police tried to shut Whole Hog down due to permit issues. Then the truck needed repairs and disappeared mid-week. Next, its much-discussed re-opening at the Taste of Diversity Festival was washed out by a rainstorm - one we braved just to visit the truck.

Absinthe, Or, What WNY Could Stand To Learn About Drinking

2011-05-20T13:00:00Z

While part of Buffalo Chow's mission is to share Western New York's best dining traditions with the world, another part is to bring the world's best innovations back here. That's why today's article is internationally themed, inspired by an experience at Thomas Keller's Las Vegas restaurant Bouchon a year and a half ago, which we repeated earlier this year and explored further thereafter. The subject is absinthe, a legendary alcoholic beverage that was banned here and in France for decades, only recently returning to store shelves in both countries. America dropped the ban four years ago. France officially lifted its ban two days ago. Below, we'll explain why - and why it's worth caring about this comparatively obscure but historically significant spirit.

On Top Chef José Andrés's Las Vegas Jaleo + China Poblano

2011-05-10T04:27:55Z

We've eaten at seven of Chef José Andrés's restaurants over the years, so it wasn't a huge surprise to learn that he won the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Chef of the Year Award last night. If you've been following this site, you've probably read about a couple of our experiences at his restaurants in Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas, but there were a bunch during our hiatus that we discussed only on our Facebook pages. Here are a collection of photos and details from our visits to the Las Vegas locations of China Poblano and Jaleo, so you can enjoy a little insight into what sort of food (and dining experiences) the country's top chef is serving.

Modernist Cuisine: Brilliant New Books, Reviewed (Part 1 of 2)

2011-04-29T15:53:25Z

Buffalo Chow readers, we realize that the topic of this article - a review of Nathan Myhrvold's incredible new books, Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking - might not initially appeal to some of you. But it's important, so we're posting it primarily for Western New York cooks and restauranteurs, who really need to know that these books exist, and understand what's inside. Over 2,400 pages long and spread across six books, Modernist Cuisine sells as a set for $625 ($462 through Amazon.com), and if you want to understand both traditional and contemporary cooking, you'll discover that it's worth every dollar. This first part of our two-part review discusses the first two books, the 335-page History and Fundamentals, and the 473-page Techniques and Equipment. A second part will look at the final four volumes, Animals and Plants, Ingredients and Preparations, Plated-Dish Recipes, and Kitchen Manual, in the weeks to come.

R&R BBQ Truck: Buffalo's Forgettable New Mobile Barbecue

2011-04-26T11:27:00Z

One of the things that led us to pause work on Buffalo Chow last year was the realization that we were wasting time and calories covering totally forgettable, me-too restaurants. We don't want to get fat eating mediocre food, or waste the time writing detailed reviews of places that could be summed up in a few quick paragraphs. So here are some pictures of R&R BBQ Food Truck, which currently travels between Cheektowaga, Buffalo and the Southtowns. It's Buffalo's second food truck, following in the footsteps of local pioneer Lloyd by using a web site, Twitter, and Facebook to communicate its changing locations five days a week. And if you care about food quality, you can totally skip it.

"Ask Janice:" Why You Should Sign Our Buffalo News Petition

2011-04-21T17:37:00Z

As we've said before, we hope The Buffalo News fixes itself instead of continuing to wither away - it desperately needs new writers (again, not us) and smarter thinking. Unfortunately, while its circulation declines and the world around it evolves, our hometown paper has decided to double down on dumb. Since one useless restaurant column from Janice Okun wasn't enough for The News, it created "Ask Janice," a weekly advice column filled with the same nonsense - now without the pesky need to actually visit any of the featured restaurants. We're not going to link to the Ask Janice columns, since they're filled with bad advice. Really bad advice.¹ Instead, we want to use them as a reminder to sign our petition to replace The News's food writers. Over 150 people have already signed the petition, and your support would truly be appreciated.

Buffalo Restaurant Web Site Designs: Best + Worst Practices

2011-04-18T17:42:08Z

As contrasted with restaurants in other cities, Western New York dining establishments are far behind the times in web site designs - it's astonishing how many restaurants here don't have web sites at all. But there are some good to great exceptions - and therefore, reasons to believe things will get better. We recently polled our Twitter followers to ask which local restaurants had the best web sites, then we looked at each site to see where they went right and wrong. Here are the results, starting with some of the peak local examples, and concluding with a food event site that's so bad that it actually makes us not want to attend the event.

Lloyd: Buffalo's First Taco Truck Is Inspirational, Conventional

2011-04-13T19:24:00Z

In recent reviews and articles, we've noted that there were only three truly important restaurant openings that took place when we were on hiatus last year: Bingo's Dim Sum House, Blue Monk, and Lloyd. Some might argue that Lloyd - a simple taco truck with no permanent address - isn't really a restaurant. Others might suggest that it's far less of a departure from the Tex-Mex norm than Southern California's Kogi BBQ, the famously influential Twitter-tracked gourmet taco truck we profiled early last year, and thus not worth reviewing. But by local standards, Lloyd is indeed important. It is boldly testing a different business model in a region plagued with corrosively circular thinking, and it's succeeding, despite weather, permit, and mindshare challenges that its out-of-state predecessors have avoided. That's why Lloyd is the subject of our latest review, which discusses this rolling restaurant's concept, execution, and inspirational potential. Our take isn't entirely positive, but it's honest, and based upon multiple visits over the course of four seasons. Read on for all the details.