Bumps in the Road and Thai Food in Amarillo, Texas

Hi, all. We're on the road to points west, specifically the Grand Canyon and then my niece's wedding in Park City, Utah. After a sketchy day yesterday and the day from hell today (involving changing a blown-out tire on the side of the Interstate with one semi truck after another whizzing by in 100-degree heat), the dinner we had tonight in Amarillo, we're hoping, signals that the worst is over and the best is yet to come.

You'd have thought that a dispatch from north Texas would describe barbecue, or a gargantuan steak, or something along those lines, wouldn't you? Not at all; we were lucky to find, just feet from our motel, Thai Town restaurant. There our nerves were calmed over plates of pad kee mao and pad see-ew. The pad kee mao (pictured), which I got with a combination of chicken and shrimp, was pleasantly spicy, with large pieces of jalapeno pepper plus fresh mint in the mix. It was definitely comfort food after a rough day on the road.

We're hoping to hit a funky New Mexican joint in Flagstaff tomorrow; if it pans out, you know I'll tell you.

Quick Bite: Paella at V. Picasso

Have you ever had paella? I like to think of it as the Spanish jambalaya: rice with seafood and/or meats and sometimes vegetables. The version I had at V. Picasso was "mixed"; that is, it included seafood (shrimp and mussels), chicken, chorizo sausage, and green beans.

The paella was served in a traditional two-handled metal pan, and it was a very large portion (I took half of it home, having eaten the complimentary olives we got with our drinks and a tapa of tempura'd asparagus beforehand).

I liked the paella, though I have a couple of criticisms of it. When it was served, there was still unabsorbed liquid in the rice and it was extremely hot; I think they could have let it rest in the kitchen a bit before bringing it to the table. Also, while there was a large amount of tasty chicken in the dish, it was overcooked and therefore dry. That was too bad, because if it had been juicy and tender, the dish would have been outstanding. The large shrimp and the mussels were nicely cooked and were not overdone, and I thoroughly enjoyed both. In fact, I would've liked to see a few more mussels and maybe an extra shrimp instead of so much chicken. The thin slices of chorizo provided an extra bit of spice and texture, and I loved the fresh green beans.

Once the dish cooled down to the point where I could really taste the subtle flavors, it was quite good, except, again, for the dry-ish chicken. I asked for lemon to squeeze over the paella; it would be great if V. Picasso served a couple of lemon quarters with the dish.

At $18, the paella is not an inexpensive dish, but it's a lot of food and it could easily be shared by two or more people, which is probably the way to go. Have some olives or other tapas, then share the paella. I was using a $25 gift certificate that I'd bought from CU Savings (watch for half-price deals from V. Picasso on the CU Savings site; you can sometimes get $50 of certificates for $25 for this restaurant), so our meal was cheap when all was said and done.

Cocktail prices at V. Picasso are reasonable. Keith's martini set us back $6.50 (with a call brand of gin); if you compare that to the price of a martini at many other places in town, it's a good value. My bloody Mary was only $4.50; they need to work on their Marys, as mine was very bland, with no kick, but if they fixed that, I would be very happy with it for the price (there are establishments around town charging $7 and $8 for the same drink).

V. Picasso Tapas Bar and Lounge
214 West Main Street
Urbana, IL
217-328-0122
You can find out the latest on the restaurant's Facebook page.

French Onion Dip

This is a great party dip. I've made onion dips before—there was the Carmelized Onion Dip last September, which had goat cheese in it, and of course we've all made the Lipton Soup variety. I'm pronouncing this version The Best of All.

The only thing that takes any time is the browning of the onions, and that does require about 20 minutes of cooking time. But it's worth it. This is the way the onions should look when they're all browned up:

You cook the onions with salt, so they're nice and seasoned before you stir them into the sour cream-mayonnaise mixture. Worcestershire sauce, a clove of garlic, and a bit of cayenne pepper add further flavor, and that's about all there is to it. (Please, only use Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce; other brands are not worth talking about. Although, if you want to make this dip truly vegetarian, you'll have to get Annie's or some other brand like that, which I'm sure Strawberry Fields carries.)

On the side, I served sliced orange bell peppers, celery sticks (of course), sliced radishes, and Lay's potato chips (of course).

I'll let you go to the Williams-Sonoma Web site to get the recipe. That site, if you've never visited it, has a BOATLOAD of great recipes for everything from soup to nuts. Here's a link to the one for the dip:

French Onion Dip recipe

Quick Bite: Noodle Bowls at Xinh Xinh Cafe

This post is from last summer; I'm putting it back up because the noodle bowls are such a great hot-weather dish, and Shai is offering a special this summer: five different bowls for FIVE BUCKS each at lunch time. All of the bowls come with a chopped (fried) veggie spring roll, and then you can have your choice of grilled beef, pork, or chicken (or, for a veggie version, you can have double the veggie rolls or stir-fried tofu ). Enjoy a cool noodle meal-in-a-bowl on a hot and humid day! ~Lisa

Shai over at Xinh Xinh has been bringing out one new dish after the other this summer, and one of the specials is this noodle bowl: rice vermicelli with your choice of grilled beef, roast pork, grilled chicken, broiled shrimp, stir-fried tofu, and chopped veggie egg rolls—or any combination thereof. The price for these vermicelli bowls ranges from $6.95 to $7.75, depending on the toppings you choose.(Update July 2010: As mentioned above, five varieties of noodle bowls are currently on special every day at lunch for just $5.)

But it's not just meat and noodles, oh no. It's really a noodle salad in a bowl; there's plenty of red-leaf lettuce, thinly sliced cucumber, green onions, bean sprouts, a bit of carrot, and chopped herbs, all showered with crushed peanuts. The bowl is served with a special sauce/dressing, which your pour all over the noodle mixture.

Even though the bowl was huge, I found that I could easily eat the whole thing; while you do get some meat (I tried the beef bowl), there's a lot of veggie matter in there, so it's both light and filling.

For you non-meat-eaters: Note that the vegetarian version of the noodle bowl entails ordering double the chopped veggie egg rolls or fried spring rolls as toppings instead of one or more of the meats. (Update July 2010: You can also get stir-fried tofu as a vegetarian topping option, and the vegetarian noodle bowls come with a vegan sauce.) And as a side note, Shai also offers a vegetarian version of pho (noodle soup) on Saturdays (I'm not sure if he's doing this every Saturday, so call ahead if you're after the veggie pho).


Xinh Xinh Cafe
114 North Vine Street (next to Schnucks)
Urbana, IL
217-337-7600
Open Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Credit and debit cards accepted.

Beer-Braised Pulled Pork

I just have to share this recipe with you, because it's great! Saw it on CHOW; the pulled pork was an ingredient in a delicious-sounding recipe for nachos.

First I'm going to give you the recipe as it appeared on the CHOW site; afterward, I'll tell you how I made it even easier.

Beer-Braised Pulled Pork
From CHOW

2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon ground chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4- to 4-1/2-pound boneless pork butt, butcher’s twine or netting removed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
8 medium garlic cloves, smashed
2 medium habanero chiles, sliced into rounds
2 medium yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced
24 ounces brown ale
1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Heat the oven to 300°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Place salt, chili powder, and cinnamon in a small bowl and stir to combine. Coat pork butt with 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil, then coat all sides with all of the spice mixture. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat in a Dutch oven or a large, heavy-bottomed pot with a tightfitting lid until just starting to smoke, about 5 minutes. Add pork and brown on all sides, about 15 minutes total. Remove pork to a plate and discard all but 1 tablespoon of the fat in the pot.

Reduce heat to medium and add garlic, chiles, and onions. Cook, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot, until softened, about 15 minutes. Increase heat to medium high, add reserved pork and beer, and bring to a boil. Cover, transfer to the oven, and cook until pork is tender and falls apart when shredded with a fork, about 3 hours.

Place a large strainer in a large bowl and pour the contents of the pot into the strainer, reserving the liquid. Place pork and strained solids back in the pot and shred pork with two forks, removing any large pieces of fat. Measure 3 cups of the reserved braising liquid (you may not need all of it). Use a fat separator to remove the fat from the liquid until you have 1 cup. (Alternatively, let the pork and braising liquid cool, then refrigerate both overnight or until the fat solidifies on the surface of the liquid. Once the fat has formed a hard layer, scrape it off and discard.) Add liquid to the pot and stir to combine. Add cider vinegar and stir to combine.
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NOW: That's the original recipe; I used the Crock-Pot, so I first browned the meat and put it in the slow cooker, then cooked the garlic, chilies, and onions in the pot I had browned the meat in, added the beer and brought the mixture to a boil, then poured the whole shebang into the slow cooker along with the meat.

I cooked everything on High in the slow cooker for about 3 hours, then removed the pork to cutting board and shredded it. Then I put the meat back into the cooker and stirred in the vinegar. I didn't bother with all of that stuff in the last paragraph of the recipe above—the straining, removing the fat, etc., etc., etc.—because pork fat doesn't scare me (in fact, I browned the meat in lard instead of oil in step 1).

For the meat, I used a small (around 2 1/4 pounds) shoulder roast that had a bone in it instead of the pork butt. Also, I used jalapenos instead of habaneros because that's what I could find at Schnucks. Oh, and for the beer, we got Newcastle Brown Ale. That ale was wonderful in the recipe, and it was pretty fine drinking on its own, too.

The pulled pork was super tasty, and I highly recommend it. The first night we had it in tacos, putting some pork, homemade salsa, and cheese on top of small, doubled corn tortillas that had been heated in a greased skillet. Wowie. On the side, we had the vinegar-and-oil coleslaw that you can get from the Schnucks deli.

Then, as you see in the photo, I reheated some pork in a skillet,  pushed it to one side, poured beaten eggs into the pan, and had scrambled eggs and pork topped with fresh tomatoes, Tabasco brand chipotle pepper sauce, and snipped chives, with tortillas on the side. A gorgeous breakfast, if I do say so.

If you try this, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. There are so many things you can do with the pork: tacos, nachos, burritos, sandwiches. And it's pretty easily made, to boot.

Meeting the Need: Hunger Awareness Fair and Walk-a-thon

If you sampled the Caribbean Grill's food at the Taste of Champaign event recently and it left you wanting more, I have good news. Your next chance to eat some of their tasty offerings is coming right up.

Next Saturday, July 10, Caribbean Grill will be one of the food vendors at a fair and walk-a-thon sponsored by local organizations and businesses including radio stations Q96 and WGKC, the U of I Athletic Dept., Common Ground Food Co-Op, Corson Music, and others. The fair will be held at the location of the former Hobby Lobby store in Champaign, and it will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The fair is open to the entire community, and, in addition to food, you'll find arts and crafts vendors, games, raffles, and entertainment. There is also a walk-a-thon going on; it will start at 10:30 a.m. and will cover about 2 miles of the Greenbelt Park District trail.

According to the organizers, this event is designed to promote awareness of hunger issues in Champaign-Urbana and to raise funds for the Midwest Outreach and Distribution Center (MODC) food pantry. Information about the MODC and its mission will of course also be available at the fair.

If you want to take part in the walk-a-thon, you'll find registration forms and more info on the MODC's Web site. If you simply want to go out and enjoy some good food, music, and more, that's great, too.

Midwest Outreach and Distribution Center
First Annual Hunger Awareness Fair and Walk-a-thon
1916 Glen Park Drive (where Hobby Lobby used to be)
Champaign, IL
More details, including registration form for the walk, are available on the MODC Web site.

Quick Bite: Cuban Sandwich at Radio Maria Restaurant

I love a Cuban sandwich. I mean, ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, and dill pickles layered  between slices of fresh bread and then grilled until warm and melty—if you're a meat eater, what's not to like? In my quest to try all of the Cuban sandwiches offered around C-U, I recently sampled the version made at Radio Maria in downtown Champaign.

It was a good sandwich. It contained all of the necessary ingredients, and then the RM cooks add their own twist: Instead of the traditional butter and/or yellow mustard, it's got a mildly spicy Thousand Island kind of sauce on it. And it's served on a ciabatta-type bread that has been toasted or grilled.

With those deviations (the Thousand Island, and the fact that the sandwich as a whole had not been pressed), the sandwich definitely was not a traditional Cuban. And obviously, that was the point; Radio M wants to take the idea of the Cuban and put their own spin on it. Nothing wrong with that. I prefer mustard to mayo-based dressings on this sandwich, but I have to say, I really enjoyed the RM version.

When it came to the table, it was—well, it was a big mess, as you can see. But a delicious mess. Once I scrunched everything together and did some realignment (as in the photo at the top of this post), it wasn't as difficult to eat as you might think. The ciabatta bread was really too thick, but it was tender and soft enough on the inside so that I could take bites with no problem. The slices of smoked pork seemed to have come right off of a roast, the ham was great, the cheese was nicely melted, and there were two long, thick-ish slices of dill pickle in there. Here's a shot of some of the pork, which lurked on the sandwich's bottom layer:

The pork was succulent and flavorful. I chose "Haitian slaw" as my side; it was mildly spicy, crunchy, and fresh tasting. Very nice with the sandwich, though if you prefer fries, you can get those instead.

I'll mention also that my lunch companion chose the lunch special that day, a Wagyu beef burger topped with mango salsa and served with hand-cut fries, and she quite enjoyed it, though the burger was a bit overcooked for her taste.

Our sandwiches were so large that we both took half home. I was very happy to see that Radio M uses paper to-go containers and not styrofoam; accolades to them for doing that.

The Cuban sandwich ($7.00) is available every weekday on the Radio Maria lunch menu; you can peruse the entire menu on the RM Web site.

We enjoyed our lunch on the breezy side patio; Radio Maria has lots of outdoor tables, and with the beautiful weather we're now having, dining alfresco on Walnut Street would be very pleasant.

Radio Maria
119 North Walnut Street
Champaign, IL
217-398-7729
Open daily for lunch at 11:30 a.m. and on Sundays for brunch at 10:30 a.m.

CT Limerick Contest: We Have Winners!

The limerick contest deadline was Monday night. The judges were deep in deliberations yesterday, and it was a very tough call to narrow our favorite limericks down to just three. But we persevered, and we finally came to a consensus. Here are the winners.

First place goes to Jay's all-about-barbeque-in-CU poem:

When you want tasty 'que with your grog
you should try Famous Dave's for some hog
Porgy's portions are big
but my preference for pig
is the pulled pork at Ye Olde Black Dog

Elizabeth's verse about various types of melted cheese takes second:

Oh, what is your choice type of cheese?
Be careful, your raclette I'll seize.
Fondue with your wine
Saganaki's divine
I'll take melty or burnty cheese please.

And in third place, Brian's meditation on poetry and rice:

My food tastes have changed since I'm thirty,
For adults things are not always purty,
White, Minute, and Fried,
All three kinds I've tried,
But like limericks I like my rice dirty.

Congratulations to Jay, Elizabeth, and Brian! Please e-mail me at champaigntaste AT gmail DOT com, and I'll let you know how to claim your restaurant gift certificates.

Thanks a million to everyone who submitted one or more limericks. Judy, Brian, and I loved reading each one, and you really made it fun. Thanks also to CU Savings for donating the gift certificates so we could give them away as prizes. Let's do it again sometime, shall we?

French Rice Salad

This is a tasty dish to make if you have leftover rice. I first learned about it from some French friends while serving in the Peace Corps; they told me it was a standard pique-nique dish. The "recipe" is very flexible; you take cooked rice, mix it with whatever vegetables you have on hand, and toss the rice and veggies with a simple vinaigrette. I'll tell you how I made it last night.

French Rice Salad

About 4 cups cooked rice (room temperature)
1/2 of a large cucumber, peeled and diced
1 large radish, diced (I would have like to use more radishes, but I only had one)
A couple of handfuls salad greens, torn into small pieces
1/2 a green bell pepper, diced
5 green onions, chopped small (red onion would also be great)
1/2 pound green beans, cut into bite-sized lengths
Vinaigrette

Trim and chop the green beans and cook in a pot of salted boiling water for 5 minutes, or until tender but still firm. Drain the beans and run cold water over them till they cool (to stop the cooking), then dry with a towel.

Put the cooked rice into a medium-sized serving bowl. Add cucumber, radish, salad greens, green beans, green pepper, and onions.

Make the vinaigrette, pour it over the salad, and mix well. Add enough vinaigrette to coat the rice and veggies but not drown them.

Serve the salad slightly chilled or at room temperature.

Vinaigrette dressing
White wine vinegar (you can also use red wine vinegar)
Dijon mustard
Fresh garlic, minced or pushed through a press (1 or 2 cloves, depending on how much dressing you're making)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper (you want to add a good amount of salt and pepper, as the dressing is the only seasoning for the rice and veggies)
Olive oil

I didn't measure the vinaigrette ingredients last night, but the method is to put the vinegar, mustard, and garlic into a bowl or cup along with some salt and pepper and mix, then start whisking as you add olive oil. Depending on how tangy you like it, add either the same amount of or up to twice as much olive oil to the mixture as you have vinegar, and whisk until the dressing emulsifies. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

We ate the salad with grilled pork chops and sliced tomatoes. Very nice dinner for a hot evening. Again, you can use just about any vegetables you want to in the salad. Corn, avocado, and tomato would be a super combination. Raw zucchini cut into thin half-rounds is also a good idea. You can add any fresh, chopped herbs that appeal to you as well. Bon appétit!

Bacaro Market Monday Dinners Showcase Local Food

Thad Morrow, owner of bacaro restaurant and wine bar in downtown Champaign, wants to cook with the freshest ingredients possible and to use the vegetables, fruits, meats, and poultry that our local farmers produce. Thus, every Monday night throughout the summer and into the fall, he's running Market Monday dinners at the restaurant.

The local-food-focused tasting menu, consisting of five courses, is the only menu offered on Monday nights. But you certainly won't feel deprived. Here's what a companion and I had on the night we went.

To start, we each ordered a cocktail. Bacaro's drink menu includes a little something called Sardinian lemonade (it was actually quite a large something—a good-sized cocktail). The drink is made with Averna lemon liqueur, Averna liquirizia (star anise and licorice liqueur), Averna amaro (an herbal liqueur), fresh lemon juice, and prosecco (Italian sparkling wine). Layer upon layer of subtle flavor in this cocktail, and it's not overly sweet, just icy-cold and refreshing. Zounds! Highly recommended. It looks especially nice with my companion's pretty hand wrapped around it, no?

We enjoyed our cocktails for a bit, and then our extremely capable, friendly, and approachable server brought us an amuse-bouche, which turned out to be light and crispy fried sage leaves.

Our first course consisted of house-cured Copper River sockeye salmon and—here comes the local part—green beans, ribbons of daikon, heirloom radishes, cucumber, and a sugar snap pea vinaigrette.

The second course was a tomato and goat cheese tart garnished with fresh mint and accented by a sauce made with Mas de Gourgonnier olive oil, the prized oil that's the "other" product of the Provençal vineyard of the same name. In a town called Champaign, we have to have something French thrown in there, don't we?!

Thirdly, we were treated to plates of heavenly sage-and-garlic-infused roasted turkey sitting atop whipped turnips, served with wilted greens (kale, I believe) and bacon, and finished off with a fresh-sage gravy. It was like Thanksgiving in June! I can't adequately describe how delicious this dish was. The turkey was unbelievably juicy, tender, and flavorful, and the greens, bacon, and gravy complemented it perfectly. The portion was so large that we each took about half of it home; I ate my leftovers the next day without bothering to heat them up, and it was still scrumptious.

We were then served a bit of Prairie Fruits Farm Ewe Bloom cheese (a Camembert-style cheese made from sheep's milk) and slices of baguette. As you can see, the cheese was very ripe.

Our gustatory stamina was tested by the fifth and final course: a red-currant tart with honey and house-made whipped cream. Hey—there's always room for pie, right?

The farms represented in this divine meal were as follows: Spence Farms, Stewards of the Land, Kilgus Farmstead Creamery, Prairie Fruits Farm, Blue Moon Farm, Meyer Produce, Brackett Farms, Claybank Farm, Cary's Garden of Eatin', First Fruits Produce, Triple S Farm, North Avoca Farm, and Moore Family Farm.

We are so lucky to have the incredible farm land that we do here in central Illinois and the dedicated farmers who work that land in order to bring us fresh and wholesome food. We're also lucky to have chefs like Thad Morrow who are committed to buying from our local farmers and turning the fruits of their labors into meals like this one.

The five-course Market Monday dinners at bacaro range from $35 to $50 per person (not including beverages, tax, or gratuity). Yes, it's pricey, but, obviously, this ain't no diner food. Whether you can afford it on a regular basis or only for a special occasion, it's absolutely worth it to go.

I mentioned the cocktail menu; there is, of course, also a wine list from which you can choose a glass or bottle to accompany your meal.

To make a reservation for an upcoming Market dinner, visit the bacaro Web site. Chef Morrow usually posts a notice on the bacaro Facebook page on Monday afternoons outlining that evening's offerings, so you can check that before you go, to prime your taste buds.

bacaro restaurant and wine lounge
111 North Walnut Street
Champaign, IL
217-398-6982
Market Monday dinners are served from 5 to 10 p.m. Be sure to make a reservation; every table was filled throughout the evening the night I visited.

Red Beans and Rice

I guess we're all Louisiana, all the time here these days. There was the crawfish boil, and that same weekend, by coincidence, my esteemed partner had decided to try his hand at red beans and rice. Laissez les bons temps rouler, chér. I'd recently purchased John Besh's book My New Orleans, so of course we used Chef Besh's recipe.

Only we added sausage as well as ham. And not just any sausage, but the new Sweet Jamaican Jerk Sausage Links from Triple S Farm. (The ham hock was from Triple S, as well; you can get both from the Triple S stand at the Urbana farmers' market). Man, were the beans good. I highly recommend both the recipe and the book.

Red Beans and Rice
From My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh

Headnote from the recipe: Time is the key to making successful red beans; they need to cook slowly and well. Using flavorful fat is another secret. Just as my grandmother did, I keep the fat from every batch of bacon I make, and I save the fat that solidifies on the surface of chilled chicken soup and roast chicken drippings, too. Just a little bit adds big flavor.

2 onions, diced
1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
2 tablespoons rendered bacon fat
1 pound dried red kidney beans (Although Besh doesn't say to, we soaked the beans overnight before using them in this recipe.)
2 smoked ham hocks (We used only one, because we also used sausage and because the Triple S hocks are large)
4 sweet Jamaican jerk sausage links or other sausage of your choosing, sliced (our addition; not in the original recipe)
3 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 green onions, chopped
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Tabasco
3 cups cooked Basic Louisiana White Rice (recipe follows)

Sweat the onions, bell peppers, and celery in the rendered bacon fat in a heavy soup pot over medium-high heat.

Once the onions become translucent, add the kidney beans, ham hocks (and sausage slices), bay leaves, and cayenne, then add water to cover by 2 inches.

Increase the heat and bring the water to a boil. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to low, and allow the beans to slowly simmer for 2 hours. Periodically stir the beans to make sure that they don't scorch on the bottom of the pot, adding water if neccessary, always keeping the beans covered by an inch or more of water.

Continue cooking the beans until they are creamy and beginning to fall apart when they're stirred.

Remove the ham hock meat from the bones, roughly chop it, and add it back to the pot of beans.

Stir in the green onions and season with salt, black pepper, and Tabasco. Serve with white rice.

Basic Louisiana White Rice

1 tablespoon chicken fat, extra-virgin olive oil, or butter
1 small onion, minced
1 1/2 cups Louisiana long-grain white rice
3 cups chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1-2 pinches salt

Put the fat, oil, or butter and the onions into a medium saucepan and sweat the onions over moderate heat until they are translucent, about 5 minutes. Pour the rice into the pan and stir for 2 minutes. Then add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add the bay leaf and salt.

Cover the pan, reduce the heat to low, and cook for 18 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, fluff the rice with a fork, and serve.
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Serve the beans and rice with a big green salad and some crusty bread, and open a cold beer, and you'll have a poor person's meal that satisfies richly.

Crawfish Boil Brings Taste of Louisiana to Downtown Urbana

If you're reading this right now (Sunday, June 20), what are you doing at home? Get yourself down to Crane Alley in Urbana and join the party! That's right—probably the best thing to happen in downtown Urbana all year is going on all day TODAY. I refer to Crane Alley's Second Annual Crawfish Boil. Sorry I didn't give you more notice, but I only found out about the event myself yesterday. Naturally, I rushed to the scene of the happening minutes before the party started at 1 p.m.

The Crane Alley staff were just putting up the sign over the alley when I arrived. The giant beer bottle was already in place. And a crowd was just beginning to gather. I smelled the cauldrons of potatoes, corn, and Andouille sausage in the adjacent parking garage before I saw them. General manager Aaron was kind enough to take me behind the serving line to show me the preparations.

There, I feasted my eyes on sausages, green peppers, and onions boiling in their Cajun-seasoned broth:

Ditto for the corn on the cob, cut into easy-to-eat pieces:

And the potatoes, here being lifted, drained, and readied for the serving line:

But of course, the focus in the prep area was the crawfish (a.k.a. crayfish and mudbugs). Aaron told this reporter that 400 pounds of live crawfish were delivered to the bar/restaurant yesterday, direct from Louisiana. Yep, I said FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS. Here are but a fraction of them lounging on chicken wire before their big dunk into the water.

OK, actually they were not lounging; they were mostly trying to make a big escape. I snapped one guy as he was making his way to the edge of the table, and he was giving the others ideas. A few of the mudbugs did make a break for it and managed to flip themselves off the table; they were scooped up, carefully, by Aaron and the kitchen staff and unceremoniously dropped right back on top of the pile.

And then, suddenly, it was all happening. Vegetables, sausages, and crawfish were poured into serving pans, a line formed in the alley, the music was cranked up, the beer and Hurricanes started flowing, and I was in the thick of a suck-that-head, eat-that-tail, chug-that-drink, and wipe-your-face carnival.

Maybe I exaggerate a little bit. There were, after all, children in attendance at that early hour. All bets are off once the sun goes down tonight, though.

I glimpsed local celebrity chef Thad Morrow (of bacaro fame) there; he was one of the first in line. Chef Morrow obviously knew that Crane Alley was the place to be today (more on him in an upcoming post).

I stood in line for a very short time, and soon I had my paper boat filled with the good stuff. Every single bit of food was deliciously seasoned and perfectly cooked. It was kind of amazing to be eating the mudbugs I'd seen crawling around only moments before. I mean, how often does that happen in C-U?

Have you never eaten crawfish before? If that's the case, take a gander at this precious video. It's a painfully simple process; crawfish are like teeny-weeny lobsters. Be prepared to get messy; that's all part of the fun.

I got a shot of the beverage menu for you. Notice the FOUR DOLLAR Hurricanes (I'm not so interested in beer, so it was the cheap cocktails that drew my attention; however, if you're a beer drinker, have at it).

On a somber note, there's going to be a 50-50 raffle going on this afternoon and evening to benefit Ashley Ames, a young woman who worked as a server at Timpone's and is a friend of many at Crane Alley. Ashley, as you might have heard in the news, was the victim of a house fire recently. Her friends and the management at Crane Alley are using funds generated by the raffle to help her and her family with medical expenses. So if you make it down there this evening, purchase some raffle tickets if you can.

As you can see, there are also games and contests going on. Think you can peel and eat 25 crawfish faster than anyone else? Sign yourself up!

The price of admission to this fun event is $20, and that twenty covers all the crawfish and other boil food you can eat. Not a bad price at all, and when you factor in the $4 Hurricanes . . . (all right, that's all I'm going to say about the Hurricanes). The boil started at 1 p.m., and it'll be in full swing until at least 9 p.m. (or "whenever everybody feels like going home," according to manager Aaron).

Celebrating Father's Day? I think your dad would like to go.

If you missed it this year, make your plans for the third annual crawfish boil next June!

Crane Alley Bar and Restaurant
115 West Main Street (just west of Broadway; convenient parking is available in the adjacent parking deck)
Urbana, IL
217-384-7526