The Foodie Awards: 2009 Technical Awards

The Academy’s Scientific and Foodie's Technical Awards honor the men, women and companies whose discoveries and innovations have contributed in significant, outstanding and lasting ways to motion pictures The Foodie's culinary experience's in 2008. Each year’s honorees are celebrated at a formal dinner held two weeks prior to the Oscar Actual Foodie ceremony. The Foodie Sci-Tech Awards presentation has become a highlight of the Academy Awards season.

The 2008 Foodie Technical Awards was held at the Oakland In-n-Out (Hey! It's merits a ) and hosted by Celebrity Chef Rocco DiSpirito...because we were paying cash and promised to let him plug his latest book: Rocco Gets Real (currently ranked #7540 in Bestsellers at Amazon.com – get yours quickly before they sell out!).

KIRBY SAYS (>^.^)># HAVE A WAFFLE AWARD:

WINNER: LUCE.

Yeah, you should have seen this coming. I S-T-I-L-L dream of the Chicken & Waffles from Luce with the Indian twist. Just an awesome, awesome dish.

FIRST RUNNER-UP: BUTTERCUP CAFE.

This, however, nobody should see coming. The location and decor are very Denny's, the service is, at best, passable and the coffee is SO bad that The Hottie refuses to order it anymore. That being said, whatever it is that they put in their “Malted” Waffle batter is just plain tasty. Like better-than-the-sourdough-waffles-at-my-beloved-Bouchon-in-Vegas-tasty. And THAT'S saying something. Trust me, order the Waffle Sandwich, skip the coffee and you'll be well on the way to a great day.


BEST USE OF BACON IN A NON-TRADITIONAL MANNER AWARD:

WINNER: LUCE.

Four Words: Maple. Bacon. Ice Cream.

FIRST RUNNER-UP: VOSGES.

Leave it to a chemist-tuned-chocolatier Katrina Markoff to create the deliciousness that is Mo's Bacon Bar. If you haven't heard of Vosges Haut Chocolat, go now. No, seriously. Click here, visit the site and look at her creations. Honest...I'll wait! It's worth it...

Back yet? No?

…

Alright. SEE! Is that not EXACTLY what foodies dream of? Chocolate Covered Tortilla Chips dusted with Chili Powder! Chocolate Bars with Mushrooms and Walnuts! Truffles with Taleggio cheese or 12-year aged Balsamic Vinegar! Mind-blowing combinations of foods that actually work! I have eaten nearly everything in their retail store in Vegas and it's nothing less than amazing. Seriously, they know me when I walk in...and I don't even LIVE in Vegas. I ask what's new in stock, taste them all, buy $100 worth of stuff (because shipping from their site is $$$) and blissfully wander back into The Forum Shops. In fact, I've got a package of the Tortilla Chips on my desk as I type :D

So, while it might sound odd, the Mo's Bacon Bar (Applewood Smoked Bacon, Alderwood Smoked Salt and Milk Chocolate) is probably the best $7.50 you'll spend this year. It's like that chocolate bar in the o/g Willy Wonka movie. You just need a little bite to get all the flavor and it'll last you a good, long time. Take a nibble here and there, let you friends have a little taste, debate about what makes it work so well. It's like a conversation starting coffee table book you can eat! And, fortunately, it has reasonably widespread distribution. Look for it a Whole Foods-esque places or boutiquey food/kitchen shops and you can prolly find a bar.

BEST WINE PAIRING AWARD:

WINNER: AQUA.

Not only is the wine pairing at Aqua reasonably priced AND well paired with their tasting menu BUT they tend to use unusual wines that you've probably never seen before, let alone consumed. Sake, obscure varietals normally reserved for “blending” and bottlings from tiny wineries are all likely to make their way into you glass. Salud!

FIRST RUNNER-UP: miX.

Like Aqua, the wine pairings at miX are also reasonably priced and well paired but what the may lack in quality (which isn't much) they DEFINITELY make up in quantity. We hit Vegas on a FRI nite ready to have a good time and started with the tasting menu (which happened to have Kansas City Waygu Beef topped with Fois Gras as the protein, but I digress) at miX. The Hottie decided to have the wine pairing which seemed reasonably priced. Well, turns out it was a bargain! You see, normally when you get the wine pairing with a tasting menu, you get tasting menu sized pours as well. Well, not on that nite! The Hottie got a FULL pour to go with each of the FIVE courses. That, my friends, is a whole freaking bottle of vino and she was...well...let's just say it was an early nite since she fell asleep in the rental car :p

IN THE CONVERSATION: LUCE. ONE MARKET.


BEST DESSERT (WITH TWO S's FOR A DOUBLE SCOOP)AWARD:

WINNER: MICHAEL MINA.

Mina's Flagship in The City is a must for everybody looking to fill out their Culinary Bingo Card. By many people's standards (including Michelin) it's the highest rated restaurant in San Francisco and deservedly so. His “gimmick” at the Flagship is that most courses are served as trios. In fact, it's almost impossible to NOT order foods that come in threes. Well, The Hottie got a dessert trio that was Breakfast-As-Dessert and it was beyond awesome. Suffice to say, when Mina's crew serves it's take on Yogurt and Granola it's not Yoplait. And I still yearn for the homemade Frosted Flakes with Cereal Ice Cream. /drool. Just a very, very inventive course, perfectly executed.

Note: Crap! In visiting Mina's site to write this entry I saw that the current menu has Steelhead Trout on it (quite possibly The Hottie's fave protein). So now she's going to read that last line, let out a 'Squeee!' and send me a text/e-mail asking when we're going before it's out of season. I'm not making this up. It will happen. I lead a hard life.

FIRST RUNNER-UP: CRAFTSTEAK.

Yeah, after I ripped Craftsteak a new one with my very first “award”, I doubt you'd thought you'd see them again. Well, while the meat was underwhelming, the Red Bull Sorbet was a highlight of the year. Yes...sorbet made from Red Bull. It sounded weird, so I had to try it and it worked! Even The Hottie (who detests Red Bull) liked it. Whatever fruit and sweeteners they added were perfect. It was tasty, innovative and refreshing while still tasting like Red Bull. So, of course, they took it off the menu >_<

/target Craftsteak

/em slap

IN THE CONVERSATION: ORSON.

BEST ON-LINE RETAILER E-AWARD:

WINNER: ADAGIO.

Now here's a site you probably haven't heard of: Adagio Teas. They're in New Jersey and sell really good, really affordable teas in unusual flavors and hard-to-get varieties. It probably won't surprise you that I enjoy unusual tea flavors. Just black tea infused with flavors like banana, rum, vanilla and cream. Or, better still, you can custom blend your OWN tea and have them make a batch of Banana- Rum-Vanilla-Cream tea. You even get to upload your own graphics to use on the tea canister if you want! In fact, The Hottie made some Mai Tai Tea using rum tea as a base and adding their citrus flavored teas in the same ratio as the Trader Vic's recipe. Turned out very tasty and some other people even bought the blend :D

Best of all, they sell sample sizes REALLY cheap. Like $2 cheap! And the “sample” still makes 8-10 cups and shipping is reasonable too. Try the combo sampler packs OR the ingenuiTEA Starter Sets that feature their nifty sci-fi teapot for under $20. You won't be disappointed.

FIRST RUNNER-UP: NUESKE'S.

Mmmmmmm. Bacon. Lots and lots of bacon. Tasty bacon that Tomas Keller uses bacon. And once you're done drooling at the seemingly endless types of bacon, you'll find that they also sell meat with bacon inside the meat! Seriously! Breakfast sausage...with ham and bacon inside the sausage! Burgers...with the bacon already inside the burger! It's enough to give any foodie a culinary boner.

Now, the site IS kinda ugly. It's not the most intuitive place you'll visit, but they're mostly a catalog operation trying to have an on-line presence, so I'll cut them some slack. And the bacon will quite possibly be the best you have ever consumed. They also offer promos like free bacon and reduced shipping if you order enough (which is very easy to do...you'll want one of each), so keep an eye out for them. Very little in this world can compete with FREE BACON!!!

IN THE CONVERSATION: BUFFALOGAL.COM

KEWLEST VIBE/DECOR AWARD:

WINNER: ORSON.

I'm not entirely sure what Susan Falkner was trying to do when she designed Orson but, whatever it was, it works. Part bar, part lounge, part foodie destination...all next to a dive bar in a sketchy area of The City. It's very dark, very sleek and very modern. Kind of what IKEA furnishings would like , to be when they grow up, but can't cause they're not kewl enuff and way too mainstream. Even the random elements like the Digital Wall screen playing transPoP: Korean Vietnam Remix (don't ask) and the (now-defunct) Schnapps and Schnitzel special for just one day a month still work. Whatever 'It' is that makes some people sexier or kewler than other people, Orson has 'It'.

FIRST RUNNER-UP: miX

Everybody raves about the view at miX and it's easy to understand why: they're 40 floors up with mostly unobstructed views of the neon that makes up Las Vegas. Throw in egg shaped booths that look like they belong in an Austin Powers movie and about a gazillion and a half glass balls hanging from the ceiling that evoke images of champagne bubbles and it's not hard to see what makes this the place to be. Add all the pretty (or at least “interesting”) people from their previous award and a vibrant bar scene and you've got a winner. Honestly, you could swap places with Orson and I don't think anybody would complain. They're both friggin awesome...just in different ways.

IN THE CONVERSATION: SLANTED DOOR.


BEST BBQ WEST OF KANSAS CITY AWARD:

WINNER: ME.

Yeap, I'm giving myself an award! Hey! There's no rule against it and, in all honesty, the best BBQ I ate in 2008 was, in fact, prepared in my backyard on my CharGriller Outlaw with the Offset Side Fire Box. Ask The Hottie, The Meat Guy or The Professional Liar and they'd all tell you the same. My BBQ is the best they've ever had.

Now, I take BBQ serious. Like heart attack serious. I got the aforementioned BBQ as an anniversary gift. I spent W's tax rebate on a portable grill for tailgating or extra cooking space when one grill isn't enuff. Shipments from BuffaloGal.com are a common B-Day/V-Day Gift for me. As such. When there are parties, I am the one called upon to provide the 'Que. Last year I got a little crazy and agreed to”cater” for 100 people at a friends engagement/housewarming party. They rented some charcoal grills the size of a picnic table and I worked my magic. I seriously had people asking me if I had a card so I could cater their parties. Most of them were shocked when I told them I wasn't a pro and was just doing this as a favor. So, sadly, you'll never taste my Smoklahoma Beef Brisket that I have to special order from my butcher and, literally, let smoke overnight. Nor will you taste my patented Dry-Rub Baby Back Ribs with Jack & Coke BBQ Sauce (yes, actual Jack and actual Coke – served on the side, of course). /pity

FIRST RUNNER-UP: KINDER'S BBQ.

IDK what it is about sushi joints and BBQ restaurants, but the best ones ALWAYS seem to be located in some wonky strip mall near nothing of particular interest. Sushi Zo in L.A. is like that, so is Memphis Championship BBQ in Vegas. You'd drive right by them and never even know they were there. Kinder's is the same way. It's located way off the beaten path in a Fremont strip mall, oddly enough, filled with asian restaurants and stores. It's truly bizarre.

Kinder's claim to fame is their sauce (winner of the Nugget's 'Best of the West' competition – the Biggest competition west of K.C.) and you're damn right I left with a bottle of the hot sauce, a bottle of the mild sauce AND a jar of their spice rub after I gorged on their meat. Now, the place isn't much, but they tend to have a TON of combos and specials. So whatever your level of hunger, taste or $$$ you can pretty much get what you're looking for so long as they haven't run out. Like most BBQ joints, they make what they make once a day and that's it. So get there early for the good stuff!

IN THE CONVERSATION: BO'S BARBECUE. EMIL VILLA'S HICKORY PIT.


HOTTEST HOTTIE HOSTESS AWARD:

WINNER: JEANTY AT JACK'S.

You have to hand it to the French. It's almost IMPOSSIBLE to go to a truly French restaurant/bistro and NOT have the hostess be a very well put together, dark-haired French chick wearing some chic black clothing. The degree of the accent may vary. It might be a knit dress or fitted pantsuit but it WILL be black and it WILL be stylish. Guy Savoy. L'Atelier de Joel Rubuchon. Chez Papa Resto (current winner of Esquire's Hostess of the Year). They ALL help enforce the stereotype.

That being said, the Hostess at Jeanty at Jack's with the accent SO thick you could barely understand her and the heels SO high you wondered how she maintained such perfect posture takes the prize. Besides being a classic beauty, she was flawless at her job. Greet us the moment we walked in, check the coat, show us into the elevator to the top floor, give us arguably the best seat in the house (directly under the skylight). Simply perfect. It's like she was some French robohostess that The Secret League of Culinary Francophiles had designed in their hidden underground laboratory.

Sadly, I think she had to go in for repairs or further testing because I haven't seen her since /cry.

WINNER (MALE SUB-DIVISION): CHEVIALIER

If a hot French girl with flawless skin and radiant black hair doesn't do it for you, well then how about a thin, tanned, bald French guy with personality? While technically not the Hostess, he's also NOT a server. Kind of a combo Host-Maitre-Di-Head Server kind of thing. At any rate, he's pretty, metrosexually groomed and really good at his multitasking job. He's the kind of guy that says a few words in his thick accent and makes girls swoon. He's also the kind of guy that if you were told he was gay you wouldn't be surprised in the least. Visually speaking, he's the French Ken Doll to Jeanty at Jack's French Barbie.

FIRST RUNNER-UP: POSTINO.

On the other side of the spectrum was the young duo hosting on a busy weekend at local fave Postino. They were NOT particularly good at their job and didn't seem to have a good grasp of what they were supposed to do, but they weren't hired for that. They were hired because they were young and hot. And when you have to wait twenty minutes for your table even though you have reservations, it's better when you have something nice to gaze at, right?

The best thing about the twosome is that they were yin and yang. It's like they were hired as a unit and told “Okay...blond one...you dress in all white and wear bright, glittery make-up and the dark-haired one will dress all in black and try to channel the Hostess from Jeanty at Jack's”. Well, on a visual level, it works. Really, really well. And, honestly, it's not like they're looking for it as a permanent gig. Just 20-somethings happy to have a job in a pretty ugly economy. Sometimes, all you want in the front of the house is a pretty face and that's what they've got. Times two.

MOST BANG-FOR-YOUR-BUCK AWARD:

WINNER (PROMOTIONAL CATEGORY): DINE ABOUT TOWN.

Once or twice a year, Cities across the U.S. hold a promotion that encourages people to go out to eat at restaurants they might not otherwise go to. In S.F. It's called Dine About Town and has a similar title in cities like N.Y., L.A. And Vegas. In a nutshell, you can eat a 3-course meal at any number of local restaurants (including many Michelin Starred establishments) for around $22 for lunch and $35 for dinner. In The City, places like One Market, Chez Papa Resto and Lark Creek Steak participated. In Vegas, Michelin-Starred restaurants L'Atelier de Joel Rubuchon and Daniel Boulud Brasserie were on the list. Do I really need to tell you that this is a steal? Opentable is prolly the best way to keep track of the promotion but, when it comes, don't miss out. It's an unbeatable value.


WINNER (NON-PROMOTIONAL CATEGORY): AQUA.

And if it's wasn't the two weeks of Dine About Town but you still wanted a steal, Aqua was the place to go for lunch. The tasting menu and Power Lunch were both bargains for a place with not one, but TWO Michelin Stars! Sadly, Aqua stopped serving lunch in JAN of this year, so it's not a deal you can get any longer BUT since these are the awards for 2008 and it it was the best lunch I had in 2008 at ANY price, I don't see any reason to exclude it. Maybe it just makes my birthday lunch that more memorable...

FIRST RUNNER-UP: LUCE.

So that means in my humble (but deadly accurate) opinion Luce has the best Bang-For-Your-Buck deal going. The “Farm To Table” Sunday Supper is only $45 for 4-courses, $65 with the wine pairing. Are you kidding me? Forty-Five bucks for four courses in The City?!? Keep in mind, this is the same “Farm To Table” menu that won my Waffle Award, Bacon Award and was runner-up in the Chicken Award. So it's not like you get second-rate food just because you're getting the special. The food has the same creativity and quality whether you're getting the special, the tasting menu or the regular menu. There's no price discrimination here :D

DON'T MOVE MY CHEESE AWARD:

WINNER: ALIZE

Yes, it's shocking that (arguably) the best Traditional French restaurant in Vegas had the best cheese course, eh? This is my shocked face -_-

Now, I'm a cheese course kind of guy. Lot's of times, my dessert will be cheese. If a tasting menu has an “optional” cheese course, it is in no way, shape or form “optional” to me. Alize wins on the merits of it's quantity (nine different cheeses!!!), quality (there was this one cheese made by monks and “carved” to look like a rose. Simply amazing.) and service. The French server was obviously waaaay into his cheese. Again, shocking, right? He explained each variety very carefully, gave us the preferred order to consume them and even pointed out the dreaded “stinky cheeses” so The Hottie could avoid them. Top notch across the board.

FIRST RUNNER-UP: AD HOC

It might be TK's take on traditional, homey American food BUT you're still not leaving without a cheese course dammit! Yes, as one of the four courses you'll have at Ad Hoc, the third one will be cheese...and you'll like it! Actually, unless you're a total nublet, you will like it. While it will only be one type of cheese, it's always an interesting artisinal selection and comes with very tasty honey and marcona almonds. Seriously, the haut almonds alone are droolworthy, but when it all comes together it's a welcome respite from the massive onslaught of family-style food you just gorged on.