Recipe Review: Bacon Infused Whiskey for Bacon Old Fashioneds from PDT & NY Mag

Recipe Review | Prepared, written and photographed by Nathan Mattise

Original recipe from PDT (and NY Mag) | Overall Rating: 4

Denny’s will tell you, every single culinary element in existence can be improved by adding bacon.  Liquor is no different with some companies specifically producing such items. If you don’t have a distributor offering such gems near you, there is hope and a simple recipe to follow.

Mobile Food Week Review: The Belgian Food Company (London, UK)

Review | Written and photographed by Nathan Mattise

Directions | Web site | Overall Rating: 3

Go ahead, laugh. I spent nine days in Europe, six of those in London, and my best UK food memory came from a little vendor outside the tube stop on Baker Street. The food they were pushing doesn’t qualify as a classic national dish.  The appearance of this place screamed chain as much as the Hagen-Daas folks selling crepes in France (though The Belgian Food Company is apparently London based with only two locations).  However, when a thrifty afternoon caused my girlfriend and I to opt for street food instead of a real lunch, this is what she craved.  She didn’t become a Sherlock Holmes adventurer in her temp neighborhood, but what a discovery.

Another theme week… Mobile Food

Site Info | Written by Nathan Mattise

All blogs love a good theme week.

Each year of our short existence we’ve done a Diner Week where there’s a daily featured review, spanning diners from across the country and culminating in a 5/5 review. Last year we showed our U.S. Futbol support with a week of diner reviews written in the form of patriotic songs. This time around things get a bit more practical.

It’s been about a year since I went to Europe for nine days and the local media is pushing something that reminds me of it every second. While I can get takeout at some diners, that’s nothing like having a true breakfast of mobile food.

This comes in a variety of forms: true street food, food trucks, grab-and-go counter places, etc. Each day we’ll revisit a mobile food experience from the past year and use the same scale as always with a few tweaks (ex: true mobility of the food) to put it in perspective. I’m not sure any of the locales can match the Boulangerie I had the pleasure of eating at in Giverny, France (below), but there’s only one way to find out.

Recipe Review: Captain Crunch cookies from Miss In The Kitchen

Recipe Review | Prepared, written and photographed by Nathan Mattise

Original recipe from Miss In The Kitchen | Overall Rating: 3

The Gem lives, Dining Week begins, Weezy beats Oreos and Coke’s recipe leaks

Food Links | Compiled by Nathan Mattise

• It’s a big week for Syracuse food (more on that in a second) but no news was bigger in our eyes than this: new ownership for Doc’s Little Gem Diner intend to reopen the place still primarily as a diner. Good to know things will get livelier there soon.

• The more pressing news is the start of Syracuse Downtown Dining Week.  Here’s a quick list of some potential best-of’s to try throughout the two weeks (and don’t forget to take pictures and submit for the official contest).  If for some reason you can’t make it out, there’s always WinterFest at the end of the month.

• This week Oreos set a world-record for Facebook “Likes” (only to be outdone by Lil’ Wayne the same day).

• Finally, this week’s This American Life episode provided the greatest potential Recipe Review ever: the original Coca-Cola recipe.