Holly Moore

Do you remember the name by any chance?

I have been trying to remember the name of a long standing Winnipeg burger joint - one one side of the street a walk up counter. Across the street an art gallerie with tables set up. You can either order at the counter and tote your own food or order at the gallery and runners will bring it to you. Great burgers as I recall.

Fat Daddie's opened last Wednesday. They are where Nifty Fiftie's used to be - where 9th, Reed and Passyunk converge in South Philly. Good potential but a number of wrinkles that need some ironing. The menu is mostly down home - southern fried chicken, BBQ chicken, meat loaf, BBQ brisket, grilled salmon, fried shrimp, oysters and flounder. Sandwiches too including pulled pork, a black angus burger and a foot long hot dog. There were three of us for dinner. One opted just for sides - mac and cheese, greens and corn on the cob. Other sides include mashed sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato salad and hush puppies. Betwen us we had mac and cheese, collard greens, mashed sweet potatoes and corn on the cob. All were good except for the corn. Despite the fact that it's the middle of corn season and they're a couple of blocks from the Italian Market, Fat Daddies uses frozen "cobettes." No flavor, no texture, but very yellow. With all the care they put into the other sides, it's disappointing that they serve the frozen corn cobs. Both the fried and chicken come as 1/4 chicken, 1/3 chicken and 1/2 chicken. Never seen 1/3 chicken on the menu. I ordered 1/3 of a fried chicken. I was supposed to get a thigh, a drumstick and a wing. Got a drumstick and three wings. Strange looking chickens they raise in South Philly. Both kinds of chicken are cooked to order. Both very good. Prices are amazing for this far north of the Mason-Dixon line. My 1/3 of a fried chicken dinner with corn bread and two sides went for $7.25. The same in barbecue chicken is $6.25 - that flour and batter must be expensive. Meat Loaf is $7. A lot of people will be calling Fat Daddies, Fat Dappies. The middle "D's" have heads and legs added to make a pair of fat guys. Not good when you have to explain your logo to just about everyone who comes in the door. Service was fine - our waiter somewhat of a character and fun. The whole place has a thrown together feel. Half the old Nifty Fifty's and half something else. Which makes it authentic small south where ambience isn't all that importance. Not much "life" either, but that should come with time. Fat Daddie's has great potential. The good cookin' is already there. Just got some work to do elsewhere.

Any idea whose ice cream they dip?

That's a neat story, Kathleen. A copy would be great reading. I had always assumed that livermush was just from hog liver while scrapple had everything scraped off the slaughter house floor. Hence my comment about training wheels. Need to know: When is the livermush festival? I can't top your cauldron of pig snouts references but I did have a similar adventure in the basement of Usinger's sausage plant in Milwaukee with it's steaming man-high piles of intestines and rubber clad workers with rakes and shovels pushing them around. I'm jealous of your jail inmates. Up here in Philadelphia we can't even get fried livermush and grits at the Four Seasons.

Keep up your road trips and in all likelihood it will be you who gets a feature spot on the next PBS eating food special. As Fat Guy (the Hot Dog Show) will attest, one neat thing about these specials is that they keep showing them, year in, year out for pledge breaks. I've been going to Maine since I was 9 months old. Anytime I can introduce another eater to Maine, I'm a happy camper.

It's nice to find a place where one need not request extra mayo. What you see is the standard version and the mayo seems just right for the ideal mayo-corn-cheese ration.

La senora de elotes is up and running again in front of the Mexican grocery store across the parking lot from Taqueria la Veracruzana. Olé

Actually I wasn't talking about the writen word. Rather the painted sign as in the actual names of barbecue establishments. When I get a chance I'll post a few, but in eating around the south, I've come across all manner of spelling.

The variations in spelling. Are they regional? Based on style barbecue? Or what?

Somehow I get the feeling that money isn't the motivator for the bullying side of Ramsay.

I've always enjoyed a bit of cointreau in my kirs

I've aways thought of liver mush as scrapple with training wheels - just the liver mixed with corn meal and cooked pretty much like scrapple. I've only seen it in the Charlotte NC area.

OK. I know it is a popularity contest compiled by users willing to take the time to fill in a questionnaire, but I've always found the Best of City Search to be a reliable source of restaurant and grease stain worthy eating. But I gotta tell you Nashville, Famous Dave's is not the best barbecue in Nashville. And Hardees is not the best hamburger. Hog Heaven and Jack's run circles around Famous Dave's. And Fat Mo's, Bobby's Dairy Dip, Brown Diner and countless other places beat Hardies. Come on Nashville City Search voters. Get past the chains.

One thing in the new place's favor. 50% larger spoons.

I agree. Which is why I said what I did. The buzz was never there beyond the first few months of his opening. Which is surprising considering both his skill and his elan. (Note: I am an avid NY Times crossword puzzle attempter. Thursday, verging on Friday. I mention this because I have never before used "elan" in a sentence and anyone who does crosswords knows that it is a popular answer, probably because it begins with an "e." My next challenge is to work amah into my everyday conversation.)

Just got a press release that Joseph Poon's will be closing at the end of September when the lease expires. He is running a series of farewell banquets between July 18th and August 7. I'll post more info on that as a July 18th calendar item. Joseph Poon goes way back - he opened Sang Kee in 1979 and the Joe's Peking Duck (named one of America's top 14 Cantonese restaurants by USA Today in 1989). Sold both when he went the corporate consulting chef route. He opened Joseph Poon in the late 90's (I think). Joseph Poon's never really caught on like his other ventures did.

I hesitate to speak too strongly against your guest, but were it me and my guest was not hungry for a DiNic's roast pork sandwich at any hour, guest and I would soom find ourselves hopelessly separated in the crowds. Thanks for reporting back.

Getting back to Lexington VA, Busboy, did you get a chance to hit the Pink Cadallac Diner? I'm concerned that no mention means it was disappointing.

I have been trying to get to Nathan's Coney Island and am wide-open for the other greasestain worthy places I need to hit. For a few years in the early 70s I lived in Patchogue and commuted to Roslyn. Perhaps I've avoided Long Island because I never saw the traffic (parking) on the LIE improving.

Let's face it, the majority of foods that make America great pretty much follow the east coast and are skewed towards Philadelphia. Lobster rolls, fried clams, deep fat fried hot dogs, hoagies, cheesesteaks, srapple, crabcakes, pulled pork, roasted oysters, grits. Almost making the east coast list: clam cakes, clam chowder, Texas wieners, blue crabs, egg creams, pretzels, dirty water dogs, pepperoni rolls, slaw dogs, liver mush. Not on the east coast list: shoofly pie. Other chunks of the country have a regional specialty or two, especially the major cities, but nowhere near the vast density of solid, true blue 100 percent American eats as found along the East Coast. [Looking for the smirking, boastful smilie]

The hot dogs at Home Depot aren't all that bad either. Even better at other Home Depots around the country. Rumor has it that some even import Usinger's dogs. And I believe they're open on Sunday's.

Gotta start off saying that neither Pat's nor Geno's are tourist traps. Most folks standing in line at either place grew up on cheesesteaks and know of what they eat. Dalessandro's and especially Steve's do better. But Pat's and Geno's both serve a worthy steak. And no one beats Pat's when it comes to South Philly attitude. "Great cuisne" is in the eye of the beholder. But here's the schedule I'd follow: Breakfast around the counter at the Melrose Dinner. Sides of scrapple for all. Onto the Italian Market for a walk through and some pepperoni bread and/or tomato pie from Sarcone's bakery. To tide you over until lunch, a hoagie from either Chickie's Deli or Sarcone's Deli. Then the Reading Terminal Market - another walk through and time for lunch. Fisher's pretzels for apps, followed by the aforementioned Tony DiNic's roast pork sandwich with greens and aged provolone. For dessert a scoop of Bassets Ice Cream - I'm partial to butterscotch swirl. Dinner - Ralph's for South Philly Italian. Or Victor's Cafe for the same with the occasional waiter/tenor belting out an aria. Come midnight if they're still hungry, Pat's or Gino's for a whiz, with. Or, if it's the weekend, Tony Luke's.

I can see someone without much food experience holding such an uninformed opinion of scrapple. It is surprising to hear the same from food professional, even a mere "food editor." In Philadelphia one can find excellent scrapple in all manner of restaurant - ranging from South Philadelphia's Melrose Diner to the five star Four Seasons hotel. Most places in Center City Philadelphia and South Philadelphia that make the effort to serve scrapple prepare it quite well. Fried crisp on the outside, soft inside - a peppery, spicy taste that works perfectly with fried eggs.

I learned all I need to know about the Olive Garden five years ago in Cherry Hill NJ. Any further meals at an Olive Garden would be self-flagellation, not research. I truly believe that a meal squandered at a chain restaurant is a missed opportunity for a new dining discovery - especially when I'm on the road and charting uneaten territory. Admittedly it is an obsession. More often than not I push on after hitting the road-weary wall. In my favor - I am rarely on a timetable and can and often do drive an hour or two out of my way to avoid chain fodder. I also try to get off the interstate for fifty or a hundred miles and follow the old routes that the interstate replaced such as US 11 in VA as opposed to I-81. But such drastic measures are rarely necessary. There is still plenty of good eating out there - even after the chains have Wal-Marted small town America. Just need to look harder. For me, "folding them" is admitting defeat. And I'll drive another hundred miles rather than let the dastardly chains win even one hand.