Cafe 24 hundred

We had a coupon... or a 'Koopun' as I call them.  That's what led us to Cafe 24 Hundred in Willow Valley (North side of Willow Street).   I'm of the opinion that really good business ventures never need to run Koopuns to increase business; Their quality does that for them.  Sadly, I forgot that perspective before letting Herself wave that blasted Koopun in my face. (It was a good coupon! I got it from Verizon. Apparently they do a points program if you use their phone service, It was a free entree or up to $10 off, since NONE of the entrees came in under $10. And I like coupons, I feel they may lead us to places we may not have tried otherwise.)

We stopped for dinner on a Friday evening, expecting a nice upscale casual dining experience.   Cafe 24 Hundred certainly looks the part, with a serious attempt made at elegance.  Edgy lighting, industrial art work, contrasting trim, and a walk through the hotel lobby to reach the restaurant entrance.  One might expect something special ahead, in the way of a meal.

Look..... we'd heard good things about the place from friends.  Herself enjoyed a nice lunch there with a good friend on a previous visit. Others have talked up the food and ambiance.

What the hell..... maybe I'm just a crabby bear.  I expected something special, and Cafe 24 Hundred came up short.  Sorry, not sorry.... that's what I think, and my money will vote my opinion in the future. Even their website tries to be edgy, and just comes across as hard to use.

We arrived at 5:30 ish, and seating was not a problem.  In fact..... the place was near empty.  It stayed that way while we were there, with only a few tables being seated.  Here's a surreptitious selfie showing how packed it was....

I'll apologize for any images I use in this piece.  The lighting in the restaurant was... special.  Fashionable perhaps, but it promoted shadows and was cold where food is concerned. A touch of warmth in the light would have made a vast difference.

I'll speak to my meal, and Herself can tell you about hers.  I had the Shrimp and Scallop Carbonara ($18.95).  It was pretty much as billed; A pasta bowl with linguini, and a decent amount of both shrimp and scallops.  The seafood tasted fairly fresh, and the scallops were lightly cooked, not kilt ded. Yes, it had Pancetta and peas, in the classic recipe. The sauce, egg and Parmesan, as well.

What was left out was flavor.  There just wasn't any love.  We have better Parmesan in our fridge on any given day, and a good cheese was sorely missed in the dish. Garlic would have been welcome as well, at least enough to taste.  As for appearance, well.... here is what I was served:

Not a terrible dish, but rather generic and bland. It needed... something.  Some loving attention and maybe a little chef pride.  Perhaps if the seafood had been sauteed a bit before adding, or some shaved Parmesan perhaps.  It definitely needed seasoning, as both salt and pepper were absent to my palate. Of course salt and pepper shakers were on the table, but good sea salt and fresh ground black pepper would have transformed the dish into something much better.

Nice rolls :-)    Sad butter :-(

The menu suggested it would be served with grilled bread.  This, in fact, was not true.  A basket of warm(ish) rolls was brought for us to share, and they were quite nice.  The herbed butter that accompanied the rolls took us back to bland-city.  Salt free, and mostly flavor free as well.

Salad?  Nope.  Not included.  A small starter salad could be had for an extra $4.  I always thought pasta and salad were joined at the hip in a meal, but not at Cafe 24 Hundred.

Drinks:  I was in a beer mood, but only the old stand-by Yuengling lager had any appeal. Their beer menu is an afterthought, not a feature. Herself, on the other hand, ordered some type of Foo-Foo Koolaid looking beverage with lot's of alcohol.

It was good enough, and alcoholic enough, that she had two!

My drink was Hawaiian Punch. A combo of amaretto, sloe gin, and a bunch of other stuff that tasted EXACTLY like the stuff you drank as a kid. OMG, it was good! I don't usually do sweet drinks; I like a gin and tonic. This was a very nice treat, and two made me a little giggly!  

Herself can describe her own meal... it certainly looked better than mine (excepting the juice/water/whatever running across the plate) (blooood, it was blood! Because my medium-rare steak, was a little closer to rare-rare)

Hanger steak with Polenta and Swiss chard

The hanger steak was tender and well seasoned, the polenta flavorful but lumpy. The Swiss chard was nice. Now, this was a decent dinner, and they do claim a lot of the food is locally sourced (always a bonus in my opinion). But... was this a 27$ dinner? No. 

Salad was an additional $4.00, and the rolls were warmed, but hard like maybe they hit a microwave before coming out. Our server forgot about us for the longest time, one of my biggest pet peeves. 

So... there were some definite draw backs. It was clean and nice. The lighting is.. different. The booths are so squishy that I looked like a six year old sitting at the big kids table, that is always very off-putting for me. All in all I have very mixed feelings, and the fact that it was a poor value means I probably would not go there for dinner without a 'koopun'. 

  

Wings at RD's American Grill

RD's Teriyaki wings

Here on Dragons Gotta Eat Too, we talked about RD's place before.  It's a family restaurant down below Buck on 272.  In that piece, we spoke of RD's breakfast, a constant favorite of ours.

To get one thing out of the way right quick..... Herself said RD's bathroom wasn't handicapped accessible  (More credit to her, as I never considered even looking, I always check. I prefer the handicapped stalls because I can get pretty claustrophobic).   To be blunt, we got a bit beat up for that, so we checked again this visit.  YES.... RD's American Grill has an entire separate handicapped bathroom for their guests.  It was right in front of us, and still we missed it.  So.... Ten points for having a nice handicap accommodation.  On the other hand, minus ten for it being out-of-order when we visited.

The last time we were there (well, a few times back), there was a sign on the table advertising 'Wing Day'.  Every Thursday, 50 cent wings... all day.

I won't say we are wing experts... or even aficionados. Yet, WE LIKE WINGS.  50 cent wings?!?   Yeah.... we are up for that.

The first Thursday we had a chance, the chilluns were tossed in the car and off to RD's we traveled.  I had visions of 6 or 8 dozen wings on a big, heaping, platter right in the middle of our table.  Snarling and growling as we ate our way towards the center.

The reality was, little girl child had the soup 'n salad bar (Very Fresh, and the tomato bisque soup was truly a work of love) (She also snagged one of my wings and one of his!).  Boy child wanted 20 wings.... oddly.  I started with a dozen and a basket of hand cut fries to share with the table. Herself had a half dozen wings and the salad bar. (The soup and salad bar is small, but the fixings on it are very fresh. There were two soup varieties and the Tomato Bisque was really good. I would order it again in a heartbeat.)

I thought we'd each do a couple dozen, and try most of the flavors as we went.  That idea went out the window with the size of the wings brought to us that night.  

These were serious wings from damn healthy sized chickens.

Also out the window was trying all the different flavors.  When the smoke cleared, boy had ordered 10 teriyaki and 10 garlic parm.  Herself ordered a half dozen garlic parm.  *I* ordered a dozen.... garlic parm.   Are you sensing a pattern here?  Yup, we all like 
Garlic Parmesan wings.

RD's garlic Parmesan wings

Basic, but perfect, hand cut fries.

The garlic Parmesan wings were almost the best we've had in Lancaster County.   The best we've had?  Brendee's Pub on Lemon street in Lancaster.  On the other hand, Brendee's is a bar, with smoking, and it's a bar.  Did I mention it's a bar?  As much as we like Brendee's, and love their wings, we are not taking the kids there.  It being in town, we ourselves are not going that often either. Our lives just don't work that way.

RD's on the other hand, is a family restaurant, and it's down here on the southern end, not far from home, AND their garlic parm wings are ALMOST as good as Brendee's.   On some days, they might be better I'm sure.

Game to try another flavor, we ordered six more of the BBQ flavored wings.  These were downright tasty, and I'll happily order them again and again.   The boy's teriyaki wings?  He said they were fair... but I'll note he didn't get off a single one for us to taste ourselves. (I tasted the sauce, and it was okay. It was a very dark teriyaki sauce, I prefer mine a little lighter with a hint of pineapple.  Garlic Parm is definitely the way to go. I would also like to try their basic medium wings)

RD's BBQ wings

Boil it down, and the results are simple.  RD's is our new favorite family wing place.  Good service, great price, and GREAT wings.

RD's Revisited (Wing Night)
4.5 out of 5 forks for flavor
4 out of 5 forks for atmosphere 
4out of 5 forks for location
4.5 out of 5 forks for service 
4.5 out of 5 forks for value (I feel this is important to gauge as well!)  
4.3  forks overall 

Bacon..

Bacon.

Lemme just say that again.... BACON.

Shiver.  Just the word alone evokes a reaction in my very core.  Of all the gifts 'ol porky has given us, bacon has to be the very finest.   Nothing... well, almost nothing (*insert lecherous eyebrow waggle here*)... will drag a man out of bed in the morning like the smell of bacon cooking.

Let's share a few moments and talk... Bacon. American style bacon here, made from Pork Belly.  Brined or salted down, and cured.  Added spices are not uncommon, as well as sugar.  Following the curing process, which can last from only hours in 'factory' bacon, to weeks for really high end dry cured, or home cured bacon. Some bacon is smoked as well.  In factory bacon, the 'smoke' can be in the form of liquids harpooned into the meat on an assembly line.

There are other bacon's as well. British 'Back' bacon is typically made from the pork loin, perhaps with a bit more attached.  Canadian bacon (is HAM!) is cured pork loin, and may be smoked as well.  Both are much leaner than American style bacon.

We will not speak of 'Turkey' bacon, or any other alleged food product which has non-oinker wannabes posing as real food.  Never... ever... trust phony food.  If it's made of one thing, and pretending to taste like another thing, just let it go. (Turkey bacon, tofurkey, all these things are lies. If you want something that tastes like something; you are better off eating a bit of that something. It will better satisfy a craving, so you won't go overboard.)

When it comes to buying (American style, (GO 'MURICA!)) bacon, we have many choices.  Like any other product this popular, the market has supplied every buyer with something in their price and taste range.

An average American supermarket will have a case full of packaged 'factory' bacon.  The cheapest bacon will be found there, but rarely the best bacon.  That's not to say some decent bacon can't be found in a one pound shrink wrapped package, but the odds are not in the shoppers favor.  By the time we get into 'decent' packaged bacon, we can easily match the price in the meat department of the store.  

Over in the meat cases, if the store has a fair butcher department, a shopper will generally find trays of sliced bacon which looks far different than the packaged stuff.  Often they may come from the same source.... but they are not the same product.

Bacon, beautiful bacon. It's beauty is beyond compare!

In our local case, John Martin prepackaged bacon can be found in most stores, and finding the same makers bacon in the meat case happens often as well.  The thing is... it's usually not the same bacon.

The stuff in the meat case is almost always a higher quality.  More meaty, and often differently cured. If it looks a bit gray, that's even better.  That means less or no nitrates were used in the cure.

That bacon in the meat case is usually the best bacon value in the store.  Good quality, visible contents slice by slice, and the price often does not exceed the high end stuff in the prepackaged aisle.

Typically, there is a tray of 'bacon ends' next to the sliced bacon in the meat case.  These are literally the different length slices that didn't fit the nice neat sliced bacon display, or the fattier end of the slab as it was sliced.  There is not one thing wrong with this bacon for family meals where 'pretty' is not the main objective.  It serves well as flavoring bacon as well, chopped up and rendered down.  This is the bacon we put in baked beans, on salads, and make BLT's with.

There is another option, not for the faint of bacon heart.  That's slab bacon.  Un-sliced, and usually special order.  Slab (or half-slab like I buy) is a great big chunk of bacon, around 5 pounds for a half slab, and 10-12 pounds on a full slab.  It's a full on bacon commitment.  It means bacon more than once every week or two, on Sunday mornings.  Having 5 pounds of bacon on hand encourages bacony initiative and innovation.

Buying slab bacon calls for some trust in your store's meat department.  They'll usually special order a slab for a customer, but no one really knows how meaty it will be till it's sliced, and that will be on the customer's kitchen counter.  It could be mostly fat.... and that happens.

I order my half-slabs from Oregon Dairy market, and they get it from Stoltzfus Meats.  

Now, why would one go to the trouble of buying an uncut slab of bacon, which is often the exact same thing that's sliced in the meat case?  Because it IS un-sliced.... which means WE choose how thick we have those slices of smoked pork belly. Any shape or size we wish, and it does effect how it cooks!

I like my bacon thick.  Crispy bacon is wonderful, but nothing in this world can match a super thick slice of smoked bacon which has been roasted slowly in a 350 degree oven.  Thick.... like 3/8", or thicker.  It cooks up just a little crispy on the outside, and tender bacony on the inside. Flavor unseen since bacon moved from the farms smokehouse and into the stores meat case.

Having great big chunks of slab bacon on hand also allows for experimentation in flavoring.  Such a chunk of meat lends itself to being dry rubbed, wrapped up, and tucked away in the fridge for a week.  Brown sugar, salt, garlic, and paprika is a favorite of mine for this.

When it comes to cooking bacon, there's nothing at all wrong with the typical American method of just frying it up in the pan.

Well.... not much wrong anyway.   There IS the need to hover over it, lest it burn.  There is a reason bacon is a commonly burned item in a commercial kitchen.   Splatter is also a problem... and a painful one.  People own splatter shields for a reason.  Of course, that splatter has to land someplace, and that means lots of cleanup after frying up some bacon.

I'd like to offer a suggestion for cooking bacon, and lots of it too.

Why not roast it in the oven?

After all, it's a controlled temperature that can effectively fry the bacon in it's own rendered out fat, without the risk of burning or the need to watch like a hawk.

It's so easy, really.  Place a backing rack on a half sheet, using parchment on the sheet pan if you wish (It makes cleanup easier).  Lay your sliced bacon out on the baking rack, as tight as you wish. 

I like to grind on some fresh black pepper at that point, or some Montreal steak seasoning. A fine sprinkle of brown sugar would not be misplaced, or a drizzle of maple syrup if that's your thing. 

With bacon layered on the baking rack, slide the sheet pan into the oven and set the temperature for 350 to 400 degrees, depending on how quickly you want to eat.  Cooking time is 15 to 30 minutes, in line with how thick your bacon is and how crisp you want it.  Once it looks done, one can remove just the bacon to a paper towel lined plate, or CAREFULLY pull the entire sheet pan from the oven to cool.  LOOK... pay attention here... the sheet pan will be full of rocket hot bacon grease.   Second degree burns faster than you can say "AAAHHHHH!!!" Be careful my friends. (Listen to Mr. Man in this, his arm is a lovely piece of flesh after a horrible bacon burn earlier this week!)

Bacon is magical, and there's no reason to cheap out on the magic.  Buy good bacon, the best you can afford, and be flexible in it's use.  Cook it right, cook it often, and enjoy it! 

An aside from Herself: Don't be afraid to mix sweet and savory with bacon. There is an entire flavor world to be explored. Bacon milkshakes, bacon sticky rolls, bacon apple pie, bacon pancake dippers, the list goes on. Be brave with your food. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!!