Bloomington/Normal Day 1: Flat Top

For work, I was sent to Bloomington with my family.  This meant that while my wife had meetings, I was allowed to take our two kids someplace and keep them busy.  The last time I had gone to Bloomington, was about last year or so for the same reasons.  Anyhow, on the first day, we were looking for dinner and decided to try out the restaurant right next door to our hotel, on Tonawanda Avenue.  The restaurant was called Destihl and we walked in, asked for a seat for 5 and then the hostess asked if we had a reservation.  I had said "no" and then she told me that they only take reservations and without a reservation it would be about an hour till we could have a table. 

A personal peeve of mine, is when a restaurant hostess or seater tells me that there is a wait and then you look around yourself and see 3 or 4 booths open that could sit 2-4 each, and a large table/booth against the wall that could seat 6.  We will call that table/booth combo "Spot A", because it will become important later on.  So, we left and walked just across the street to a place that looks like a steak house, called FlatTop.

FlatTop is an interesting place.  It is so interesting that it could work in other cities, like Saint Louis.  You walk in, get a table and then order.  Their special item is a food bowl, prepared on a giant flat top and then delivered to your table. 

So, what happens is that you grab a long wooden sign on a post and write your name on the sign.  Then you go up to the very large bar where they have all kinds of rices, noodles, vegetables and meats and pick your stuff that goes into your bowl.

Not only did they have everything labeled nicely, but behind this bar, on the wall, they had a whole sign describing the calories of each prepared item or sauce along with the spicy level.  So, you fill your bowl up and then take it to the bar surrounding the cooks.  There you can make any last minute changes, like turn your bowl into a soup or a salad.  Whichever change you make, you place a colored plastic stick into your food, so that the cooks know how you want it prepared.  So, they cook it, and get it to you just as you had ordered it.

I would give the place, atmosphere, food and everything else a 3 out of 5 stars.  The only issue we had with it was that since the flat top cooking area was a certain size and they have a lot of vegetables and things that appear to be raw, it takes a lot of time to get everything cooked.  Since it is the only cooking method of the food there, it is possible that you may have your bowl at the cook's bar, ready to be cooked, fr as much as 5-15 minutes before there is a space on the cook-top to cook it.  I went back for seconds after the first bowl was finished within 2-3 minutes.  The second bowl sat there, waiting and waiting and after it was delivered to me, the rest of my table had eaten and was ready to go. I would give the service as far as the cooking is concerned, maybe a 2 and 1/2 stars out of 5.  Someone has to know that this is a problem and they need to be thinking of solutions.


http://www.flattopgrill.com/locations.html

The Bombay food truck

The Bombay food junkies truck is awesome and it is as simple as that.  What you have here, is a food truck, not filled with young men cooking on the line, but some older Indian women, working love into the food they sell.  Everything is home made or at least made from scratch and while the truck is entirely meat free, it can make a carnivore seriously consider becoming a vegetarian.

The food is amazing and when I had ordered, the woman asked me if I wanted a little spicy or a lot of spicy.  I said "a lot of spicy".  Most of the time, the spiciness contributes to the overall flavor, when in moderation.  When my brother-in-law orders his pad Thai at our favorite Thai restaurant, The Thai House, and orders spicy level 50, I don't see how it could possible improve the flavors, or if his numb tongue can even distinguish flavors at that point.  But, at this truck, the spicy levels are there just to add a hotter context to the food along with additional flavorings.  Spicy food was perfect and the items were had ordered were perfect as well.  Meaning: that I have ordered and or tried at least 2/3rds of their menu and have liked every bit of it.  I highly suggest finding them and ordering some food of your own after looking at these pictures:

Find them and eat their food for a 4 out of 5 stars experience.
https://www.facebook.com/BombayFoodJunkies

A stab at vegetarians and vegans everywhere...

Who do you use to fight against the Vegan and Vegetarian thoughts of the world?  Bill Cosby, aka: Leonard Parker.  In this movie, dubbed the worst movie of all time, Bill Cosby plays a CIA operative who fights against an extreme animal rights activist and vegan, using meat and ballet slippers.

"Bill Cosby plays Leonard Parker, a former CIA spy. According to the opening sequence of the movie, the title refers to the idea that this film is actually the sixth installment of a series of films featuring the adventures of Leonard, as parts one through five were locked up in the interests of world security.
The movie starts with Parker being re-recruited by his former employers in the CIA to save the world from an evil vegetarian who brainwashes animals to kill people. The film ends with Leonard infiltrating the vegetarian base, fending off the vegetarians with magic meat he received from a Gypsy, freeing the captive animals and flooding the base using Alka-Seltzer. He escapes by riding an ostrich on the roof of the building, with the ostrich flying him down."-Wikipedia

Um, if you know anything about me, then you know that I am against vegetarianism and veganism.  So, this movie is awesome.  Its bad like Police Academy is bad.  It is PG as well.  If you can find it, I highly suggest watching it.

At one point in the movie, Bill Cosby and his wife are being held captive and are attacked by lobsters.  They escape by using the lobsters to cut their binds.  Bill Cosby uses some melted butter that he received from a gypsy, to threaten the lobsters and to back them off so they can escape.  In the factory as well, it is run by a group of vegetarian workers.  These men are muscular and wear sleeveless shirts.  Bill Cosby uses 100% all beef patties to threaten and cause these men to back away.  In some cases, he pressed the raw meat against their chests and it burned them, like a holy object to a vampire.

what is wrong with meat??

A recent trend is that meat is bad for you and vegetables are good. While a diet with reduced red meat can help fight off cancer or heart disease, others think that a diet without meat of any kind is somehow better than you. These people either say that it is healthier or claim that because of the increasing greenhouse gases or ground house with current livestock supervision that it is better for our environment to not eat meat and thus not have that many animals around.

Is it really? Let's look at some facts:

1. Scientists have yet to find a civilization that has existed purely on vegetarian foodstuffs. Which means that none lived long enough.
2. Our bodies, by their very nature, are omnivores, not herbivores.
3. One of the deciding factors in how human beings evolved to become smart, is because humans ate meat and fats. No matter how you look at it, your brain is composed of mostly fats and protein. You can not repair damaged nerves by eating a carrot, no matter how many carrots you eat.
4. Proteins from other sources is welcomed and in some cases people are eating a lot of soy. There is still an open debate on soy as to whether it is bad or good for humans but one truth is that it contains large amounts of the female hormone estrogen. Scientists still don't have enough real data as to whether or not the high estrogen levels are good for men or children. (Also, soy milk tastes like chalk.)

I love the zealots who say that meat is full of toxins and dangerous chemicals. I wonder where they get their meats? Meat that is either freshly butchered or sold in places like Whole Foods where it is farm raised or organic raised, tend to not have that bad stuff in them. It is just meat. So, there you go zealots, one point for me, none for you.

While I don't condone the growth of animals for food, I do enjoy the food. I know that the force feeding of geese is horrible but the foie gras tastes delicious. As a chef, I really don't care about the animals, to some extent. If the animals were killed humanly then the meat will not undergo stiffening and can be more tender. So the killing of the animals has to be done quickly and without trauma or drama.