{"id":425,"date":"2011-08-29T10:26:26","date_gmt":"2011-08-29T14:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/?p=425"},"modified":"2011-08-29T10:26:26","modified_gmt":"2011-08-29T14:26:26","slug":"big-a-sequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/2011\/08\/big-a-sequel\/","title":{"rendered":"Big — a sequel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again, doubters, the trip to Buffalo was made bearable because of the food. Which was a good thing because we had to fly rather than take the train because my consort, once again, overbooked himself and fucked us both. (The security kabuki was totally ridiculous — at LGA I actually told the bureaucratic groper \u201cthis is bullshit\u201d and was lucky she must have been well-medicated.) We had an over-the-top dinner the first night at the Delaware, with fried calamari wings-style, complete with the hot sauce and the blue cheese dip, plus that great, huge Reuben<\/a>. Bob, though, made the mistake of ordering something relatively healthful, some take on roast chicken, which was pretty wan. In a bar, order bar food. As always, though, bonus points for Buffalo-size pours for about half what those wines would go for in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

(Next day I regretted not noticing the soup of the day at Joe\u2019s Deli, the joint Bob remembered for rye bread when he was a kid, was essentially a liquefied Reuben. Instead I had a decent muffuletta while he gloated with a superior Cubano. Either was enough to feed a small village if not a medium suburb.)<\/p>\n

Dinner the next night was cooked by us at the boyhood home and all from the Elmwood-Bidwell Farmers\u2019 Market<\/a>, which was cranking on Saturday morning. We got an insider’s tour<\/a> and culled outstanding beef, corn, tomatoes, squash, basil, wine and of course that killer White Cow Dairy yogurt. On our own we found the most amazing potatoes; they looked like Yukon Golds but the women selling them said they were a local variety \u201cbut just as good.\u201d Holy crap — they were 10 times better when mashed. Christa also snared us a free hefty cinnamon roll from one stand, so we headed to the bakery<\/a> where it was made, in a hard-knocks neighborhood also home to a really impressive urban farm<\/a> with greenhouse and tilapia ponds. The Five Points people grind their own grains and, it turns out, have the best idea for iced coffee: make coffee ice cubes, then pour hot coffee over them. It\u2019s pure coffee to the last sip, with no dilution.<\/p>\n

We should have stayed at the boyhood home and finished that $40 worth of Niagara wine, but we needed a walk before the monsoon and so set off for the closest bar. Which was right out of Stephen King — locked up, lights off in the dining room, teevee on over the bar and lights on in the kitchen but not a soul in sight. (Maybe this is more a Pacino script.) So we forged on to Torches for a thoroughly unimpressive experience. I mean, really: Bar napkins printed with an ad for a bartending school? When the guy slapping them down needs a refresher course? If you don\u2019t have the hospitality gene, maybe you should live on straight wages.<\/p>\n

But we lucked into Sunday brunch at Trattoria Aroma<\/a>, walking in with no reservation and snaring a table in the bar — who knew it was such a happening place? (I guess everyone who knows $10 includes coffee and a pastry buffet.) And I doubted sandwiches could get any more gargantuan, but the special panino must have had half a steer in the \u201cmeatloaf\u201d in it (quotes theirs). Plus it was also loaded with spinach, Fontina and a sunny-side-up egg. Bob\u2019s special pasta looked almost dainty by comparison but was actually a big bowl of good rigatoni with sausage, green and yellow beans and sun-dried tomato pesto, all topped with an oozy egg. Calling Mae West . . .<\/p>\n

Over at the Epi Log I noted that the scene at the farmers\u2019 market was almost a parody of the clich\u00e9s of designer dogs and show babies and shining, happy faces. But as at all markets, the food keeps it real. And that\u2019s how I wound up with half a steer between the bread: I saw Hanova Hills on the menu, and Bob pointed out that that was the same farm that had sold us the outstanding grass-fed beef the day before. We\u2019ve come a long way from the days of esoterically sourced ingredients only on fancy menus. Now what\u2019s good enough for a Ste Alice is accessible even to the woman who was buying corn next to us using food stamps. That corn, BTW, was three for a buck. At Wegmans, ears were five for $2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again, doubters, the trip to Buffalo was made bearable because of the food. Which was a good thing because we had to fly rather than take the train because my consort, once again, overbooked himself and fucked us both. (The security kabuki was totally ridiculous — at LGA I actually told the bureaucratic groper… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bars","category-buffalo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}