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Vapiano’s – A Review on Italian Cuisine in Chinatown

Some of my favorite cuisines are those made at Italian restaurants. I love the wood fired or brick oven pizzas, buttery cream sauces that melt in your mouth like pieces of heaven, and fresh bread served with extra virgin olive oil and spices for dipping. They also seem to have an atmosphere that just screams, classy while still feeling home-like. Some have magnificent sculptures, live foliage hanging from ceilings, flowers decorating tables, waiters and waitresses dressed up to the nines, and provide a very pleasant atmosphere that leaves one feeling content visually, aromatically, as well as literally. For this post, I will give some insight on an Italian restaurant that Tim and I went to this past October for a friend’s birthday called Vapiano.

Vapiano is a franchise with multiple locations. The one we went to was located in Washington, DC in Chinatown. When we walked in the door, we were greeted by a hostess that handed each of us a card. Apparently, each individual person gets this card that is used to swipe what you are getting to eat as you retrieve your selections from the various stations set up around the perimeter of the restaurant. Not being familiar with this type of set-up, we were intrigued to see how this would work, especially for the party of 30 people that we were a part of.

Since happy hour was to end within the next 30 minutes, you can guess our first stop. It was the bar. Tim got a beer, and I got a glass of red wine, the house red. We got those for a decent price for the DC area ($3-$4 a drink). We then chose to go to the pasta station, this was where we saw why they gave us two cards. At first, we felt there really wasn’t a need for two cards. As a result, we used the one card at the bar, and put the other in our pocket to hand back in later. We even attempted to hand the card back in, but the hostesses knew better. They insisted we each take a card, and now it was finally making sense. Luckily, for Tim and I we both did want pasta for dinner. However, if I wanted to try the pizza and he wanted pasta, we would have been in two different stations. By giving both people cards, we can both get our meals at the same time without worrying about waiting in line for one person, then waiting in line for the second person or having to hand off the card. This would take twice as long. I think there may have been a bright light when I finally understood this and began to welcome the separate card concept.

In the pasta line, we had our choices of wheat pastas or regular pastas, and then an entree that you ordered by name (i.e. ravioli con carne). I ordered the carbonara – came with a light cream sauce, parmesan, egg, and bacon, using whole wheat pasta. Tim ordered the scampi e spinaci. It was very neat to walk up to the counter; grab a napkin, tray, silverware; order your meal; and watch them cook it. The only issue I found was it was very hard to hear. You have to tell the chef what it is you want, and the background noise is so loud. There are multiple chefs at the counter for multiples lines, for multiple stations, and each is trying to communicate with the person they are cooking for. Actually, you may want to multiply all of that by 2 because most of the chefs are cooking for two people at once. Then, you add in the clanging of pans, sizzling of meats, pan frying of vegetables….needless to say, I think you get my point that it is busy, and hard to hear.

Despite the noise, the chefs were very friendly and eager to make you what you ordered. The gentleman cooking for Tim and I seemed as if he was having a wonderful time. It is just unfortunate, that due to all of the noise and business, I asked to omit the egg from my meal and he still put it in. Also, I found out that there was onion in my meal, which the menu didn’t state that. The worse part, was the fact that I had wheat pasta – takes longer to cook than regular pasta. So, when Tim’s pasta was one, and since he was cooking our meals at the same time, it was assumed my pasta was done when it was all but 1/3 cooked. I was a little disappointed with my meal. I think it could have been great, I didn’t care too much about the egg or onions, but uncooked pasta is hard to crunch your way through. Tim’s food was perfectly cooked, the shrimp was juicy, well cleaned, and had great flavor. He didn’t have any surprise ingredients, and his pasta was perfectly al dente.

In addition to the pasta, they gave us warm, thick slices of Italian bread. They gave two slices with every entree. They were at least 1-2 inches thick, crispy on the outside, soft but not too soft- the integrity of the bread bounced back when poked- on the inside with a perfect blend of nooks and crannies from air holes within the bread, and a nice faint buttery flavor. The tables came equipped with olive oil for dipping, and even fresh herbs on the tables that could be added to the entrees or to the bread if one desired. The live herbs on the tables were not only great as fresh ingredients for one’s meal, but also made a very pretty centerpiece for the more rustic wooden plank tables. There were also sections set up as conversation areas with cushioned seats, side tables, and candles that I’m sure offered a more intimate experience than our table setup.

Once we finished our main entrees, we headed over to the dessert table. I got the most decadent chocolate cake I have ever tasted, Death by Chocolate was its name. At first, I debated on if I wanted to get it because the sizes they were serving were fairly small. It really was a sliver of cake. In the end, it ended up not being small enough. Not because I didn’t like, the cake was wonderful and if I ate anymore, it would have been living up to its name. It was a very dense cake full of exceptional chocolate flavor while maintaining a smooth texture. I would highly recommend this chocolate dessert along with a nice red wine. Tim got the tiramisu della casa, a coffee flavored mascarpone dessert. He did like his dessert as well, but felt it wasn’t anything to write home about. You should get the chocolate cake 😉

Although there was a pasta taboo that occurred with my dish and it was fairly noisy, the Vapiano does offer a neat ambiance and a different Italian experience with stations, serving one’s self, cards for keeping track of orders, exceptionally great chocolate cake and breads, fresh herbs on the tables, and pretty good happy hour selection with reduced prices.

I would recommend anyone trying out this restaurant to keep these few things in mind: 1) it will be loud. Maybe during the day it isn’t as bad, but my experience was 8pm on a Saturday night and it was loud. 2) Get reservations ahead of time if you have a large party. 3) This is not the ideal restaurant for a romantic date. 4) The card concept is a pretty neat idea, although it could lead to trouble. You really don’t know the total card balance every time you swipe another item onto your card, only the total from that swipe. You could really be owing a fortune before leaving the restaurant if you aren’t carefully watching how many you times you swipe your card.

Popchips – Review

A number of weeks ago Tiffany told me about a great new snack chip she had while at work, they are called Pop Chips. I’m not big into snacks like this but thought it may be worth a shot, their claim to fame is they aren’t fried, they aren’t baked and they use all natural ingredients – kind of a novel idea! A week ago I was hunkered down in a hotel working and made a run to the grocery store for food to keep me going and I saw a display of Popchips so I picked up a bag.

My first thought is that they are a little pricey for what they are, then again I was in a pricey area so I’ll reserve branding them as expensive until I shop around for them locally. The next thing I noticed is the “share bag” their larger bag, is only 3 ounces, compared to 8.5 ounces or more in regular bags of chips for the same price it makes popchips seem rather expensive. But let’s not hold that against them just yet.

They are healthier, they are using all natural ingredient and due to the way they are processed they are lower in fat. My “go to” chip of choice is Cape Cod Original Chips when I’m going to eat chips, which is pretty infrequently in my life. Comparing the same 1 ounce serving size the Popchips do have 1/2 of the total fat, 4 grams compared to 8 grams from Cap Cod chips and no saturated fat, compared to 1 gram from the Cape Cod chips, score one for Popchips! What does concern me is the sodium, one ounce of Cape Cod original chips have 110mg of sodium compared to a staggering 280mg from the Popchips, score one for Cape Cod. The Popchips have fewer calories coming in at 120 which 35 come from fat compared to 150 calories from the Cape Cod chips which 70 come from fat. It seems the caloric difference is directly tied to the higher fat content of the originals. Cape Cod does offer a Reduced Fat chip and that makes it a much closer battle.

I guess if you count calories the Popchips have an advantage, but the Reduced Fat Cape Cod chips only have 10 calories more. If you are looking for lowest fat, the Popchips do win hands down they are low in fat for a potato chip, even the Reduced Fat Cape Cod’s have 6 grams of a fat per serving compared to Popchips 4 grams. If you’re watching your sodium, avoid Popchips they seem to be just full of it!

How about taste, do they live up to the hype, are they a viable low fat replacement to the regular potato chip? I think the best answer here is maybe? They do taste good, but they are not a regular potato chip, then again they never really claimed to be regular, they are Popchips. If a regular potato chip and a toasted rice cake had a child it would be a Popchip. It tastes like a lighter potato chip but there is a certain toasted taste to them that borders on tasting burnt. The texture is miles off, it reminds me more of a rice cake than a potato chip. While they are all natural they are heavily processed. You’ll notice the image below all of the chips are the same exact size and perfectly round.

Some develop waves and have holes in them but you can clearly see they all came from the same mold. I obviously don’t have access to exactly how they are processed, I suspect they shave, mash or somehow create a potato paste of sorts and then apply their famed heat and pressure to “pop” them in a mold. While it may be all natural ingredient you can tell they are heavily processed. Call me old fashioned but I like natural ingredients as they are provided for us by mother nature. Often the more we do to an ingredient the further we get from it’s original taste, shape, texture, etc… and that appears to the case with Popchips, they sort of taste like a potato, but something is just a miss to my palate.

I think my biggest complaint was the almost burnt taste they had. They were pale and appeared to cooked correctly, but they had a heavily toasted taste to them that wasn’t terrible but it also didn’t make me want to keep eating them. It’s 3 weeks later and I still have 1 serving from the 3 ounce bag left. I wanted to try the original chips first before I attempted any of their flavored chips, I will likely try them again but if my second impression mimics my first it will be my last. I eat potato chips so rarely that when I do I want it to be a potato chip, not mashed paste that is heated and pressurized.

I may be wrong in my theory about how they are processed, however their site is particularly vague and I suspect that my theory is pretty close to accurate. I would love to hear if I’m miles off, so if anyone with insider info reads this please let me know.

I took one final image, a close up to try to capture they texture of these chips – be sure to click the image to see the original size.

Popchips are an interesting concept, but sometimes I just want to eat real things instead of a concept.

First Annual National Food Day

Last week the first ever National Food Day was held and our friends at The Houston Food Bank invited Lukewarm Legumes to attend the local observation as their guests. The Houston event, Food Day Houston, was organized through the combined efforts of four local organizations: The Houston Food Bank, Urban Harvest, Recipe for Success Foundation, and The City of Houston Office of Sustainability.

The purpose of National Food Day is to help change the way Americans eat and think about food. National Food Day encourages people around the country to sponsor and/or participate in activities that encourage ‘eating real’ and supporting healthy, affordable food grown in a sustainable, humane way.

The Houston Food Day event was held on October 26th from 11 am to 2 pm at the Houston City Hall Farmers Market and included fifteen of Houston’s leading food related organizations as well as thirty five vendors featuring farm direct and prepared foods. More information and photos of Houston Food Day can be found on their Facebook page.

One of the highlights of Houston Food Day events was a Collard Green Throwdown! featuring four local chefs: Monica Pope of t’afia; Randy Evans of Haven; and Peter Garcia of El Meson, all members of the Recipe For Success Chefs Advisory Board; as well as Chef Jose Montoya from The Houston Food Bank’s Keegan Kitchen. Samples of the prepared dishes were handed out to the audience and the winner, Monica Pope, was crowned for her Food Day creation.

While at the Houston Food Day event we had time to speak with representatives from Urban Harvest about their work promoting healthy communities through educating children and adults about sound nutrition and respect for the environment. Urban Harvest also does a great job helping to establish and support community gardens all around the Houston area.

The City of Houston is very involved in supporting local food initiatives, including The City Hall Farmer’s Market. In June 2010, the City of Houston built a container garden at the Bob Lanier Public Works Building. This garden is maintained by City of Houston employees and was the recipient of a 2010 Proud Partner’s Award presented by Keep Houston Beautiful.

We also had the opportunity to visit with several of the food vendors at the event, including Guli Essa of “It’s A Wrap” mobile bistro, NOT your average mobile food truck. We found Ms. Essa (as well as her whole staff) to be very cordial and helpful and the food amazing. It’s A Wrap mobile bistro is a gourmet fusion food truck which has taken the best of the world’s flavors and formed them into individual wraps, including: chicken tikka, beef fajitas, and jerk chicken. Their menu includes veggie and gluten free items as well. We highly recommend It’s A Wrap to our readers. For more information and to find their current location visit their Facebook page.

Lexington BBQ Fest 2011

Last Saturday, October 22, 2011 was the Annual Lexington BBQ Festival and what a sight it is! I lived in Lexington for nearly 2 years, we recently purchased a home 20 minutes north of Lexington but Tiffany had never been to a BBQ Festival so we went to check it out. This event is a HUGE food event, but it’s a lot more than just BBQ. I bet most readers will find it shocking that neither Tiffany or I had any BBQ at BBQ Festival, held in Lexington, the self proclaimed BBQ Capital of the World – their claim, not mine! I’ll explain why we didn’t later on, for now let’s discuss what has become a world famous food festival.

Since 1984 Lexington has hosted Barbecue Festival to wrap up their tribute of sorts to Barbecue Month, they have a number of Barbecue theme’d events all month long culminating in the enormous BBQ Festival. The exact tally of how many come to pay homage to this unique style of BBQ is unknown but it’s rumored to be between 100,000 to 150,000 people, 2011 was probably on the high side of this. Below is a sample of what the crowd looks like.

This crowd has come for BBQ and what’s turned into an enormous exhibition that encompasses just about anything you can imagine. They also have been feathering in more traditional carnival and fair type attractions, including Pig and Duck races, Chainsaw show, rides, face painting, BMX Bike show, countless displays and of course fair food! There is a general BBQ and pig overtone on everything, but that’s part of the charm of this festival.

A little history on Lexington style BBQ, like most regionally famous cuisines it stems from poverty, pigs were plentiful but the desirable cuts were sold for profit and they retained the less desirable cuts for themselves. In this case they use pork butt or shoulder is used as the protein of choice for Lexington style BBQ. From there there will likely be subtle difference from one BBQ place to another (there are over 20 BBQ restaurants in Lexington) and everyone likes their’s just a little different. But typically it’s slow roasted over hardwood embers, “pit cooked” in what has become the traditional “low and slow” barbecue anthem. Different places prefer different types of wood, but it usually is always hardwood and it’s always cooked low and slow. There is no dry rub, no conventional seasoning applied during cooking though it is basted with Lexington style bbq sauce, what the local’s call “dip.” Much like the actual wood blend used to cook the pork dip varies slightly from place to place, the basic formula for dip is equal parts, vinegar, ketchup and water with salt, pepper and other seasonings to taste and it’s traditionally cooked down while the pig is cooking. Like I said every place does the sauce a little differently and it can range from sweet to tangy to even a little spicy. Once the pig is cooked it’s traditionally served “chopped” which means just that, it’s cut up and chopped into very small pieces, see the image below to get an idea of the consistency.

It’s typically served on a very inexpensive roll with a side of dip and/or some restaurants apply a little dip when making the sandwich. If you’ve looked closely you’ll notice some red and white “slaw” on top of the meat, that is another staple to Lexington style bbq. This slaw, which is known as bbq slaw in this area is super simple and I just love it. Red Slaw is just chopped cabbage, vinegar, ketchup and black pepper. A little variation I’ve made to this slaw is I do equal parts bbq sauce and ketchup, it adds a greater depth of flavor and a pleasant smokiness – purest think I am the devil.

That pretty much wraps up the mystery of Lexington BBQ, the festival is based around this rather unique style. As anyone who has looked closely into BBQ knows, it varies hugely region to region, one of these variation is eastern NC bbq which is radically different from western NC bbq, in the eastern side of the state it’s more of a vinegar based sauce, they enjoy NC ribs and they don’t use “dip” they use “mop” but that’s a post for another time, back to the festival.

I mentioned earlier that we didn’t have the BBQ, I recommended this option for two reasons, it was a beautiful day and the turnout to the free admission festival was huge, it was estimated at near 150,000 people this year. It seems they run out of BBQ every year and I felt it would be nice to let those who traveled a greater distance enjoy it on the day of the festival, we can get it just about any day. Also, the purest claim the bbq isn’t as good on the day of the festival because the participating restaurants all commingle the bbq and then you lose a lot of the subtlety of the individual places. All of these altruistic reasons aside, we wanted the fair food that is rarely available in this area. We had funnel cake, home made ice cream, butterfly chips with cheese and sampled a number of other local products. We rarely get to eat these delicious and terrible foods so we enjoyed cutting loose and participating in the festivities.

Additionally we met a lot of fantastic vendors, saw some incredible products and enjoyed a very family friendly environment. If you’re anywhere in the area I strongly recommend checking out this food festival or making a trip to try this delicious and unique Lexington Style BBQ at any of the many local BBQ restaurants in town.

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