It is time to lay this dog to rest.  If Stringer Bell and D’Angelo Barksdale can die and never be heard from again, then so can I sever my online relationship with Tios.  The loss will be felt by no one.

I will not engage in hyperbole, in this final ever Tios post.  My objective is to lay out in a concise manner my reasons for disliking Tios.  I do not need to make amends for that dislike any more than I have to make amends for not liking P.F. Chang’s.  And if you really think about it, the two are comparable.

In my opinion, Tios serves substandard Mexo-American fare.  That alone, however, is not why Tios has drawn critical scrutiny.  The substandard Mexo-American fare is WAY overpriced.  If you honestly believe that Tios is a better value for your money than even Chipotle, you and I will just have to agree to disagree.  With extreme prejudice.

Overpriced, over hyped, substandard food is going to draw criticism.  But this has gone on too long.  From this post forward, the only time you will read the word “Tio” from me is when I’m talking about my long lost great uncle, Gran Tio Guillermo.  Besides him (and he rarely comes up), no más. 

But you know what?  Don’t take my word for it.  If you like, or even love Tios, then continue to go there.  If you’ve never eaten there, try it yourself.  They do have a nice tequila selection.  The evening couldn’t possibly be a total loss.  Why do I say this?  Because at least Tios is a local business.  People who are members of my community wait tables, cook, wash dishes, tend bar, bus tables, and manage there.  I’ve worked in restaurants before, and I bet Tios has a tight-knit crew of employees like most of the places I worked.  Good for them.  It’s not the server’s or bartender’s fault the food is substandard.

So I say, go to Tios.  Drink up and tip well. Para mí, Tios está muerto.  Adios, Tios.

It has been too long, my friends.  I know I casually dropped by a few days ago with my Mr. Bourdain Goes to Cuba rant, but I wanted to formally say hello again as my absence has been far too lengthy. 

Six months off food writing can change a man.  I spent the last month engaged in the oh-so-narcissistic act of reading many of my previous posts.  How can I improve?  Did I say anything relevant before my break?  Why did I spend so much time obsessing about Food Network?

The answers are, like a properly prepared pomodoro, simple yet complex.  Improvement as a writer comes with practice, so by assuming my place here at EP I will no doubt improve.  I may or may not have written anything relevant, that is for you, the reader, to decide.  As for Food Network, I owe a lot to FN.  I received a culinary education from the likes of Alton Brown, Mario Batali, Emeril, and even Bobby Flay.  The fact that their programming has gone to shit is not my concern, and certainly not worth my time or witty insults.  They never owed me a thing.  If people want to watch Guy Fieri or Anne Burrell then more power to all of them.  I will leave Food Network with a gracious thank you and move on.

I do want to issue one very earnest retraction.  In my anger over my beloved Man v. Food visiting Tios, I called Adam Richman a loser.  He most certainly is not.  I look like an asshole for making that statement, and it is beneath you, the reader, and me to make such a stupid claim.  Adam Richman has entertained me countless times, and my son and I love his show.  (More on M v. F in an upcoming post, as we all have noticed the change in format).  Adam comes across as a great guy.  Likeable, funny, friendly.  All the things I wasn’t when I insulted him.  Consider this an apology.  To him and to you.  You deserve a higher level of discourse.

In the future, I hope to continue to bring humor to EP.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but when you are a stay at home Dad if you can’t find humor in life you will surely run amok.  Not that my running amok wouldn’t be humorous, I suppose, but you get the idea.  Humor is good.  I plan on writing more about my efforts to properly introduce my children to the larger world of food—that which exists beyond chicken nuggets and boxed mac and cheese.  I will cast a cynical eye on the important food issues of the day, from the welcome increased focus on local ingredients to the horrors of our national food safety policies.

Most importantly, I will endeavor to continue to write in the spirit of Epic Portions—great food, devoured with enthusiasm.  John and Todd founded this blog and laid the groundwork for its success by sharing their humor, love of eating, and willingness to be bold in the search for delicious food.  I see no reason to venture too far from that formula.

Finally, a sincere thank you to those of you who keep Epic Portions on their internet radar.  Aside from being called a few nasty names (probably some of it deservedly so), my interactions with you have been a lot of fun.  I like debate and disagreement.  Call me out if I’m an idiot, I need that sometimes.

In my re-reading of my previous writings, I noticed that I certainly wrote quite a few beer reviews.  On that note, and in anticipation of the awesomeness that is the upcoming Michigan Summer Beer Festival right here in my hometown, I’ll have a new review up on Monday.  Until then I invite you to “like” us on facebook where I will re-post a few of my old reviews.

I would first like to state that I have no knowledge of what Taco Bell uses as meat filler.  My best guess is that they are using the same type of soy-based meat-substitute that I make for my family on “taco night.”  More on that bit of sadness later.  Saving money is the obvious motivation for Taco Bell not to use locally grown, grass fed beef, which I hope the consumer would prefer.  I will leave the actual research on this topic to John, since he deserves his due as a serious, thought-provoking Investigative Journalist.  Kind of the Hunter S. Thompson of the food universe…

I’m more of a satirist, which is to say I write humor that no one laughs at.  What follows is what passes as taco night at my house, due to my having (voluntarily) married a vegetarian.  Whether this recipe inspires laughter or pity is up to you.  Just remember that quite often it is served with a margarita, which makes anything better.

Thus begins another new segment on Epic Portions (BTW – we are now up to 1,478 “new segments”) called:  Six Minute Meals:  Jeremy’s Forced Vegetarian Dinners.  Simple, nutritious, affordable, and edible.

Jeremy’s Super-Delicious Soy Based Vegetarian Meat Filler Tacos

1.  Buy one bag of Morningstar Farms Grillers fake ground beef.  If something else catches your eye, like Boca, go for it.  It’s soy.  Your palate is already crying at this point…

2.  Buy a packet of Old El Paso Hot n Spicy Taco Seasoning.

3.  Purchase a yellow pepper, an orange pepper, and two jalapenos. Julienne the onion and peppers (in other words cut into long strips that would fit nicely on a taco) then sauté the peppers, onions, and jalapenos (save a dash of the Old El Paso Seasoning for the veggies)—stir in seasoning as veggies begin to soften.  One other note: Do not, under any circumstances, remove the seeds or membrane from the jalapenos.  If you are going to eat soy based meat filler, ADD HEAT—you will need make your food exciting.

4.  In a separate pan (use non-stick or you will have regrets), dump the contents of the Bag o’ Meat Filler into the pan with an already hot tablespoon of vegetable oil.  Stir off and on until Soy Based Meat Substitute has begun to soften, about 3 minutes.  When it does, add half the packet of seasoning and stir.  In another minute, add the rest of the seasoning packet (save the portion you mixed in with your vegetables). Stir and let cook another minute or two, and take comfort in the fact that you don’t need to use a meat thermometer.  Remove seasoned soy from pan.  Be sure to save the rendered soy-ey goodness on the bottom of the pan.  Deglaze with a bottle of Boone’s Farm and serve to someone you do not like.

5.  You will also need: Tortillas, vegetarian refried beans, shredded cheese of your preference, lettuce, salsa of your choice, and any other taco fixins that make you happy. 

6.  Assemble tacos.  Eat.  Be a little surprised that they are pretty good.  Not great, but good.  And it is healthy.  There is always that.

For what it is worth my seven year old son loves taco night.  I even call it fake ground beef when I buy it and am cooking it.  Which means if you are in my house on taco night, you will hear me say “I’m going to make the fake ground beef now.”  Doesn’t bother him a bit.  Me, on the other hand…

So give fake soy substitute meat filler a chance, if you want.  At least you won’t have to face the fear of every father who cooks for his family: making your entire family ill with food poisoning.  Just remember to wash your hands.

Before I start telling you about my first visit to No Thai, I should explain that I am completely head over heels in love with Thai food.  I love everything about it.  The (usual) freshness of ingredients, the mixture between heat and coconut milk, and especially the heat.  If you walk into a Thai restaurant and tell them to make it extra spicy, the chef takes it as a challenge to his manhood.  If you want it extra spicy, he’s not going to throw another drop of hot sauce on your food, he’s going to make it a fiery oblivion to make sure that you never challenge him ever again.

Just for the record, my favorite Thai in the area is served at TupTim in Ypsilanti.  For the longest time, Blacked out Sarah had been raving about this place in Ann Arbor called No Thai!.  For some reason, I never made it out to give it a shot.  Looking back, I think it might have been the name.  Why would anyone open up a Thai restaurant and call it No Thai!?  It always confused me.  I wouldn’t open up an Italian restaurant and call it No Italian!.  It might confuse people and make them think I was serving authentic Mexican food but making an attempt to be humorous with the name.  For this, I took to their website for an explanation.  It goes as follows..

This epic story begins on a cold winter day in February of 2005. On that fateful day, four close friends united to form a pact to bring a modern Thai restaurant to the University of Michigan campus. So the fellowship began, each person would bring to the table their own unique set of abilities. Ultimately, one partner, Noerung “No” Hang, rose above the rest to become the head chef, and so the restaurant came to be known as “No Thai!”. This name would come to bring amusement, confusion, and intrigue to the masses, but now you know No Thai!, or do you?

So it started making sense in those not making sense at all kind of ways.  Regardless, I love Thai food and I decided to make a trip with Blacked out Sarah to experience this food she had been raving about for so long.

No Thai(i’m sick of adding the exclamation mark) is kind of like the fast food of Thai restaurants, and in no way am I trying to badmouth the place by saying that.  If you’re an ethnic food snob, you’ll probably have a great time badmouthing the place to anyone who is willing to listen.  I, for one, am not.  It’s not incredibly authentic and the ingredients don’t taste terribly fresh, but they’re not advertising incredibly authentic food made with terribly fresh ingredients.  It’s a Thai restaurant that offers quick service and anywhere from above average to solid Thai food.  To me it’s a fun, light interpretation of Thai cuisine using basic Thai principles and dishes as it’s basing point.  As the website clearly states, it’s a modern approach on Thai food.

In my opinion, No Thai is a great place to visit if you like Thai food and don’t require an incredibly authentic experience every time you dine out.  You might call me a hypocrite for saying this when I trash Tios Mexican Cafe every chance I get, but if you do I just have to say that you’re kind of dumb.  Tios is an incredibly Americanized version of Mexican food that completely destroys the very idea of Mexican cuisine, while No Thai gives you a basic idea of Thai cuisine, that in my opinion, leaves you with a very positive outlook on Thai food in general.  It’s like the farm system of Thai food that gets you prepared for the big leagues.

I went with the Potato Curry with Chicken, which is described as Cubed potato, white onion, & bell pepper in our curry sauce. I got it at Yoga Flame spice level, which is the second hottest you can request.  I didn’t dare choose the Dim Mak, for reasons I explained earlier.  I paid $8.50 and got a very nice portion of what looked like a pretty tasty looking dish.  Not bad so far.

The food was solid, not great, which I expected.  The meat was tender, the potatoes were delicious(by far the best part of the dish), the vegetables were somewhat fresh tasting, and the “curry sauce” added nice flavor.  I was disapointed with the heat of the dish, but I really didn’t expect to have my tongue burned off.  I actually ended up adding Sriracha to this which did the trick.

All in all, not bad.  Exactly what I would expect from a plate of $8.50 Thai food.  If you’re into Thai food but don’t feel like paying $13-15 bucks per plate, check out No Thai.  Just don’t walk in there expecting to have a little Thai baby Jesus on your plate.  You might be a little disappointed.

No Thai!
1317 S. University
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
http://www.nothai.com/

The McRib is back, and as you can tell from the posts from us at EP, we couldn’t be any less thrilled about it.  To me, the “rib” patty never tasted quite right, and the barbeque sauce used by McD’s is pretty mediocre to say the least.  Well, some cat from Texas decided to make his own McRib, using pork belly.  He had me at “pork belly.”  Enjoy.

A real McRib. Resist the urge to drool on your monitor.

CNN has one of the worst food blogs on the net.  It’s called 5@5, and they make a top 5 list of some obvious or irrelevant food topic. It’s a stupid name, and a stupid blog.  Their posts are usually irritating or pointless, but sometimes they need to be called out.  Case in point: This week’s post called “5 things your chef doesn’t want you to know.”  Just in case you haven’t read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, (and if you haven’t, please proceed to your local library and grab a copy, it’s a great read) some of this still won’t be new to you.  It’s obvious and pedantic.

“5 things your chef doesn’t want you to know”, according to CNN:

1)  There’s butter in everything

First of all, bullshit.  There is not butter in EVERYTHING and you damn well know it.  Got hyperbole?  Pushing that aside, are they trying to say that butter makes things delicious?  Thanks for the tip, CNN.  Also, as Varta pointed out, some things are better than butter, like bacon fat.

2) They aren’t in the kitchen

Rather than go grammar nazi on them, I’m going to assume by “they,” CNN means chefs.  Where are they?  The roof?  The bar?  Waiting tables?  I venture to speculate that occasionally the chef IS in the kitchen.  If you mean on Friday night when it’s busy, I still say you are wrong, CNN.  CNN’s example is Mario Batali.  Well, no shit, but at most restaurants the chef is not a demi-god.  And on a busy night there is a VERY good chance that they are in the kitchen.

3) There’s salt in everything

Again with the hyperbole.  CNN loves hyperbole more than Tyrone Biggums loves crack.  And thanks for the obvious: Salt is good.  I never would have guessed. 

4) Your food was cooked by minions

Oh no! Butters' minions are cooking your food!

What the hell is this supposed to mean?  We’ve already established that the chef doesn’t cook your food, but who are these mysterious minions?  According to CNN, the “minions” they speak of are “migrant workers, would-be criminals, and mindless idiots”.  If I were CNN, I would NOT go out to eat any time soon.  Ouch.  This is quite insulting, from my experience working in restaurants, these minions may include the occasional shady character, but for the most part they worked hard and their only “criminal” activity was smoking weed.  A lot of it.

5) Chefs are jerks

Not a jerk

Not nice much, CNN?  First of all, there may be a higher jerk to not-jerk ratio among chefs, but way to generalize.  Somewhere in Dubuque, Iowa, a chef is genuinely sad that you called him a jerk.  And that’s on your conscience, CNN, not mine.

I hoped you learned as little from this as I did.  Of course, you already read a food blog far superior to 5@5—Epic Portions.  And don’t think that we don’t love you for it.

My parents visited this weekend and aside from loads of gifts for their grandkids they also brought one for me: A Le Creuset oval stoneware cooking dish that is a monster.  A sign of getting older (and more hip) is that I get truly exited about a new piece of cookware.

My first meal in the new dish was my patented (not really) Mustard Fish.  There were a few inquiries about this when I previously mentioned it, so here goes: 

For the marinade, you are making something similar to a balsamic vinaigrette.  First, chop one shallot and place in a bowl.  Then add balsamic vinegar, depending on the amount of fish you will need anything from 1-4 tablespoons.  I hate measuring, so experiment.  Then add Dijon mustard and your favorite stone ground mustard, something seedy.  Add parsley, salt, and pepper.  Finally, add olive oil (stir while adding) to taste.  When the mixture suits your palate, pour over fish (tilapia is my recommendation) and let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours.  Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes at 375 degrees. 

Sorry about the lack of precise measurements.  If I wanted to measure things I would bake, which if you are a consistent reader of this blog you would know that I do not like to do.  Experiment.

You can also get creative.  Use Chipotle Mustard instead of Dijon and the stone ground, and add Frank’s RedHot for a spicier dish.  This one is my personal preference. 

This marinade also works great on chicken.  Nice way to liven up a boring boneless chicken breast. 

In other news there is a good chance I will be in Philly in a couple weeks, in which case my lifelong dream of consuming authentic Philly Cheesesteaks will be realized.  As we have a very solid stop for great Philly-style hoagies here in Ypsilanti, I will have a nice basis for comparison.  A post about them will no doubt follow, along with a general post about Philly’s finest cuisine.