Ratatouille

This might be the ultimate illustrator foodie nerdy moment. To see Ratatouille by Pixar AND directed and written by Brad Bird ( eh hem Iron Giant..Incredibles.....tears of love )AND its voiced by Patton Oswald comedian nerd of choice AND its about FOOD. Thomas Keller, the chef at French Laundry is one of the advisors for the food in the movie.
Listen to this interview on Fresh Air with both Brad Bird and Patton Oswald and listen to his amazing Black Angus routine.

Summer Sweets

Nothing is cuter than strawberries and cupcakes in the summer. Well maybe except one piece bathing suits and tapshoes.

Food Illustrations

This is an asparagus illustration I did for the Seattle Stranger a while back. I really enjoyed doing this and I never really realized how alien asparagus looked.



This is a cheese plate I did for the Seattle Stranger's dining out Issue. I love cheese plates. These strawberries were the best to draw. In fact I love drawing food. It's kind of amazing to think that we consume all these different things of shapes, sizes and colors.

key lime pie donuts

...so alot of people are down on dunkin donuts, saying the coffee tastes like chemicals, new stores opening up on every block, every two days shutting out all those mom n pop artisanal donut shops. but I freakin' love dunkin donuts. this key lime pie donut really hit the spot, and i'll take their coffee over starbucks any day.

Osteria

ate at Osteria last week, Mark Vetri's new restaurant on north broad st. Very strange over-60 crowd for a neighborhood that looked like a warzone last time I was there... as soon as I ate this cotechino sausage and baked egg pizza I forgot all about the weird vibe and awkward service. delicious.



640 North Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19130
http://www.osteriaphilly.com/

drawing and food

drawing food and eating at the same time. ginger rice with shrimp and peanut sauce. sounds fancy but it was literally the last scraps of food in my kitchen... rice, 4 frozen shrimp, peanut butter and a can of coconut milk in the back of the cabinet.

Poor Squids...

I saw poor squids being dried out under the sun yesterday. In Japan, we all love to nibble the bits of dried squid along with a cup of warm sake... These guys were soooo big though. I saw them again the next day, and they had turned golden brown. They got a nice tan.... kawaisooo.

Japanese Chinese Food

My dad's favorite restaurant near my house in Nerima, Tokyo. The seafood dish is super fresh. The scrambled egg white is nice and fluffy.

This cold egg noodle plate is one of my favorite summer specials. Homemade noodle topped with fresh seafood, cucumber, tomato and chicken breast. The soup is sweet, tangy and spicy.

Another cold noodle with spicy chicken salad on top! The nutty flavor is a mixture of roasted peanuts and sesame seeds. It comes with the sweet, tangy spicy soup and you can pour it over if you like.

corned beef special

just discovered a new NY style deli, Herschel's, in the reading terminal market. the sandwiches aren't as enormous as 4th street but the corned beef and brisket were delicious!

Herschel's
Reading Terminal Market
12th and Arch Streets
Philadelphia

toilet fries?

this crazy mural of a potato-head man filling a toilet with fries is from a wild go-kart and 'native american' themed miniature golf course in collegeville,pa. also has a giant ice cream cone, giant dinosaurs, junked cars, crap everywhere. my digital camera bit the dust while I was shooting this stuff, so most of these are cel phone photos.







collegeville pit stop limited
3960 germantown Pike
collegeville PA 19426

Small Foods vs. Fatty Glory

I read in the NY times that the world is retaliating from the small food trend. Large plates of overwhelming fatty food were going to come back with avengence and California clean cuisin will die in it's oily spit. With steakhouses opening everywhere and Momofuku Ramen serving sweetmeats or delicious parts of pig from Mario Battali, I await the rest of the world getting awashed with this food tide. Soon maybe we'll be spreading marrow on our toast. I can't wait.

Untill then though, I will ohh and ahh over tiny meticulously plated cute food.

Here are some shots from super hip *Bar Ferdinand.










A delicious cheese plate with quince cubes, tuna croquettes, charred watermelon with prosuitto, delicious brussel sprouts, asparagus flan and the most delicious tomato salad. The dessert flan was okay, but who can argue with flan ever? We had churros too but I prefer the ones at **Apamate.

* inspired by the most beautifully well illustrated childrens book of a bull who would rather smell flowers then fight. ( as I wipe a tear from my eye thinking about it)

Bar Ferdinand
1030 N 2nd St
Philadelphia, PA 19123

**Most delicious and well priced small plated food in the city.

Apamate
1620 South St
Philadelphia, PA 19146
(215) 790-1620

Meals

Eating at home with someone is different from me eating alone.
When I eat alone I eat wierd crap. Like burned cheese or burned rice. I like condiments. I like toasted shredded cuttlefish on hot rice.
When I'm cooking for more than me, well I can't expect them to eat toasted cuttlefish with me. So I attempt to make pretty nice looking tasty food. Here's a few meals this week. Theres seared sesame crusted tuna steak and strawberry salad we had on Sunday. On the weekdays we toss an entire chicken in the oven and roast it, so we had barbeque chicken and peach salad for two days. Tim made the mini loaf of cornbread the second day. It was delicious toasted with butter and honey for breakfast.

YUM!

TOKYO HOTDOG

I found the hotdog guy in Tokyo at Narita Airport!!!

The hotdog here is super small and it costs about $7 each. I was smart enough to go for a tuna rice ball next door so I don't know how tasty it is...

This hotdog place will be the first food-stand you will encounter here in Japan. He will be right there when you come out of the custom at the airport.

The Best OBAN-YAKI in Tokyo

Oban-Yaki is one of the best street food found in Japan. It's a Japanese waffle with a tasty surprise inside. Bombay Bazar in Daikan Yama, Tokyo, can give you the best Oban-Yaki possible. The fluffy crust hugs the warm sweet bean-paste just right. It will be steamy hot on your plate... OISHII NE. Everything on the menu here is 100% natural and organic. Try the blueberry Oban-yaki too. It's only about a doller!!!

Don't forget to go up the stairs to OKURA, they have a great selection of product made of AI-ZOME (Japanese traditional denim) and Japanese inscents.

Visit here for more info...

behind the line

unfortunately drawing pictures of hot dogs doesn't always pay the rent. so I spend the better part of the week working in the kitchen of one of our city's finer eating establishments.

everything you read in kitchen confidential is true, and more. actually it's a little more like HBO's OZ. cooks beating the hell out of eachother in the back alley over a handful of chives. mysterious fingers sliding into your asscrack while you're trying to plate 45 bowls of watermelon & pancetta gnocchi garnished with dried brazilian dragon fruit chips. bits of broken china stuck in your arm as the chef hurls a stack of plates at the crying cokehead waitress.

but damn if we don't make some freakin' beautiful food.

choucroute

sauerkraut braised in wine or beer and sometimes bacon. piled high with sausages, slabs of bacon, giant hunks of pork leg and sometimes duck and a pot of mustard. choucroute originated in the alsace region of france, right on the german border - hence the frankfurters and german flag sticking out of the sausage. best damn hot dogs you'll ever have.

la meuniere

Earlier this spring I was in france for the first time and had some of the best meals of my life.

Walking into La Meuniere (lyon, france) and seeing a 5 foot tall little old frenchman with a bushy moustache slicing saucisson (who turned out to be the chef) I knew I was in the right place. We tried everything from cold lentil salad and salad lyonnaise to lamb's brains, skate wing with capers, steak frites. All while slugging down bottles of cote d' rhone in an incredibly unpretentious setting more like a corner dive bar than a french restaurant in America.

Even more mind blowing was Lyon's outdoor market, everything from truffles to mountains of fresh produce and sausage, wheels of goat cheese sold by the actual goat farmers that made them, and everything was cheap.

See more photos on my flickr page

bottle caps

These are from my collection of antique soda bottle caps, thought i'd post a few for the design nerds out there.

Moe's Fish Cake Combo

The best thing about Moe's is that they have the classic 'fish cake combo' - a hot dog wrapped in a breaded 'fish cake' on a roll. This is a forgotten Philadelphia classic that as far I know is not available anywhere outside of our area.

Other spots for the 'fish cake combo' are-

A.P.J. Texas Weiner

47 N. 13th St Philadelphia

Texas Weiners
1426 Snyder Ave. Philadelphia

Grandma In San Francisco

My Grandma lives in San Francisco. She has 13 ( that I know of ) grandchildren. She travels all around the world for weddings, babies being born, and for fun. Yet her greatest joy is sending all these grandchildren packages. Especially me, who she thinks is lost somewhere on the east coast without proper chinese/vietnamese resources. Here are the contents of her latest most amazing package.



Grandma's Package
3 rolls of Ritz crackers
1 can of lowfat Pringles
1 Vietnamese shredded dried beef jerky package
1 bag of spicy shredded cuttlefish
1 ziploc of dried cranberries
1 ziploc of strange dried fruit
1 ziploc of Haw Flakes
1 ziploc of Pork Fu ( the cotton candy of fried dried shredded pork)
1 ziploc of what seems to be Chinese Butterfingers
1 can of "luxury wafers"
1 instant Kim Chee Noodle
2 packages of Top Ramen

All stuffed in a random unmarked shoebox.

Moe's Hot Dogs

I love hot dogs. And this might be the greatest thing to happen to me, at least this summer. Moe's Hot Dogs is hidden in Gray's Ferrys wierd concrete desert. We went on a 95 degree day and I while I was seeing wiggly heat lines on the sidewalk I kept thinking that there couldn't be anything out here. I was wrong, hot dog heaven lay ahead.

Moe's is awesome because its clean and simple and has a beautiful tin roof. The service is super nice and the portions are more than I could handle (not speaking for Hawk). The dogs were so big I think they were in hoagie rolls. I got a Moe's dog with saurkraut and spicy mustard on a beef frank, a side of fries and a chocolate shake. Hawk got a philly fish cake and hot dog combo. I asked him what a fish cake was, and he said it was fishcake. I tried it, it was pretty much a fried fish patty, a fishcake.
The chocolate shake was icey and eatable and that light chocolately flavor I love with fries. None of that fancy shmancy super thick over powering 6 dollar milkshakes you see these days. Just a delicious 3 buck or less tall cup of milkshake.

They have breakfast and lunch that includes much more than hot dogs. Which I plan on discovering and devouring all summer long.

Moe's in Philly ranks right up there with my other favorite hot dog places in Oakland, Casper's, Caspar's, and Top Dog. Yum.

Moe's Hot Dogs
2601 Washington Ave, Philadelphia 19146
Btwn Grays Ferry Ave & S 26th St