Category Archives: Food

Comparisons, Field Trips, Food

Austin Frozen Yogurt “Froyo” Comparison

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Pinkberry, New York City

  • a sneaky photo taken at Pinkberry in NYC

UPDATE 9-11-2009 – YummyYo added to the list of reviewed stores (but not added to the scoring since a side by side comparison was not done).

It has been a hot, sweaty summer full of record 104 F degree days here in Austin, Texas. Luckily this Austin Comparison adventure is dedicated to tasting the cold, sweet, and delicious treat that has become a craze in America, tart frozen yogurt (AKA Froyo).

The tart yogurt craze first blew up in Asia, where tart yogurt products have been popular for many years in the form of candy, soft drinks, and even liquor. The craze only recently hit US shores via Korea in the form of the soft serve frozen yogurt store Pinkberry, which has been the obsession of many and a frequent destination for celebrities in NYC and LA. According to legend, after the “reality” show stars of “The Hills” mentioned Pinkberry, the stores’ popularity took off like a rocket. In fact, when Pinkberry first opened up, hour long lines (not unlike ones to get into an exclusive nightclub) formed around the block to get a taste of the sweet stuff.

Now a few years into the craze, enthusiasm for frozen yogurt has not cooled one bit – in fact, frozen yogurt stores have since popped up in cities all over the nation. Austin is no exception and tart frozen yogurt shops offering a wide variety of flavors and toppings can be found in many neighborhoods around town. This past weekend, the staff of FoodingBlog and friends got together to compare and sample the original tart yogurt and green tea flavors (the flavors available at Pinkberry) from four frozen yogurt shops close to downtown: Yogurt Planet, Swirll, Yogurt Spot, and Mambo Berry. Our judging was done based on several predetermined factors and all scores were averaged together.

Continue Reading about tart frozen yogurt stores in Austin, Texas

Food, Interviews, Weird

Man v Juan In a Million: An Interview with Eating Champion Christopher Huang

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Don Juan Eating Champion Christopher Huang

  • Eating Champion Christopher Huang with store owner Juan Meza

Being a foodie isn’t always about eating fancy 3 course dinners consisting of food that’s hard to pronounce. On the contrary, often the best tasting foods are inexpensive, hearty working class comfort foods. In Austin, a perfect example of great everyday, utilitarian food is the breakfast taco. Arguably one of the best breakfast tacos in town is the huge ‘Don Juan’ (made with a generous serving of potatoes, egg, bacon, and cheese) at Juan in a Million, a mecca for hungry diners in East Austin that hosts an eating challenge so infamous it was recently featured on The Travel Channel’s volume eating show, Man v Food.

In the Austin episode of Man v Food, host and eating challenge extraordinaire Adam Richman attempted and failed to break the Don Juan Challenge record held by Christopher “Hong Kong Hero” Huang, who in 2004 ate an astonishing 7 Don Juan tacos in one sitting! Huang, who set the record while he was a student at the University of Texas in Austin, has worked many jobs in the food industry including selling peanuts at a ballpark, delivering pizza, serving in a fine dining restaurant, and his current job managing Berripop, a frozen yogurt store in Houston, Texas.

Fooding blog pulled Christopher away from his busy schedule long enough to ask him about his amazing record and to get inside the head of a certified eating champion.

Click here to read more about the life of an eating Champion!

Comparisons, Field Trips, Food, Reviews

Austin Cupcake Comparison

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Austin Texas Cupcake Challenge

Why do we love cupcakes?  We’re all adults here at Fooding Blog – for the most part, anyway.  Shouldn’t we be eating grown up desserts like crème brulee or some kind of dowse-with-brandy-and-set-on-fire thing?  Don’t get me wrong: I love a good crème brulee, but it requires a torch and a utensil.

Cupcakes, however, remind us that it’s ok to feel like we did as kids, when dessert was fun and gooey and colorful.  They remind us it’s ok to eat with our hands and get a little frosting on our chins and maybe on our shirts too.  Cupcakes remind us that desserts don’t always require an open flame.

Click here to read more about the Austin Cupcake Comparison

Food, Reviews

Martha Stewart’s ‘Cupcakes’ Book Review

With the cupcake’s new found popularity, it comes as no surprise that the Queen of everything food/home/gardening/entertaining would quickly step up to release an all inclusive guide on Cupcakes.  Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone’s Favorite Treat (link goes to Amazon.com) arrived on my doorstep early last week, and I was hooked at first sight. The tasty cover photo and title sum up everything that this book is about – Cupcakes!

In true Martha form, anyone who reads this book will walk away more educated about the art of the cupcake and definitely inspired to bake. The book includes 175 recipes categorized into visually appealing sections including Swirled & Sprinkled,  Piped & Topped, and Birthdays!  Inside, the reader will find recipes running the gamut of cupcakes from the traditional Devil’s Food to the creative and exciting Amaretto-Pineapple Cupcake. Additional chapters of the book provide inspiration on Displaying, Icing, and Preparation and include Decorating Templates & Clip Art.

Click here to read more about Martha Stewart’s new cupcake book!

Drinks, Food, Recipes, Wine

You CAN Win Friends with Salad – Taco Salad that is…

Taco Salad 2

According to the Bart Simpson song from ‘Lisa the Vegetarian,’ You Don’t Win Friends with Salad! (link goes to YouTube)

While we love the Simpson’s, my husband and I have to disagree with their song. The following take on Taco Salad is sure to be a crowd pleaser whether you are cooking for a large group of friends, your family, or making dinner for one.  After all, who doesn’t like things topped with crushed chips and cheese!?

The following recipe will feed 4 hungry salad eaters.

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Food, Recipes, Travel

Shrimp and Grits (Prawns and Hominy) – Great Meals

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peter_tsai_food_shrimp_grits-3

If you are a regular to the blog you might know that I went to South Carolina a few weeks ago to photograph a wedding in Charleston and get my Southern Cooking fix. I’ve already written about my fast food experiences on this trip (see my post on Bojangles’ fried chicken), but I did get to sample some highbrow South Carolina cooking during the wedding as well at the restaurant Tristan at the French Quarter Inn.

The bride and groom really love food, and their reception seriously had some of the best wedding food I have ever eaten. The highlight of the meal was definitely the Shrimp and Grits, or ‘Prawns and Hominy’ as the restaurant Tristan likes to call it. While those who have never had this dish might think that the combination of shrimp and grits together (pictured above on the right) is weird , trust me on this one – get over it, eat it, it’s delicious and you won’t regret it.

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Food, Reviews, Travel

Fooding Overseas – Taiwan Live Fish Restaurant

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Shiyuan Taiwanese Live Fish Restaurant

“Waste not, want not” the old saying goes – and the next Fooding adventure definitely does just that.

As you probably know, most people outside of America are not squeamish about the fact that meat was once a live animal. In Asia, they take it to the extreme. There, the ultimate sign of seafood freshness is being able to go to a restaurant and point at living meat (future meal) swimming around in a tank and then 10 minutes later, have that formerly living meat show up at your table cooked in 5 delicious ways, head, skin, and bones still attached – almost every part of the fish utilized in some way. This is the story of my Taiwan Live Fish Fooding adventure.

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Food, How To, Recipes

How To Smoke a Brisket – Texas BBQ Brisket

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I like brisket. No, I love brisket. It is THE best form of BBQ. I wanted to chronicle the process and provide a How To guide for BBQ smoked brisket. This smoked BBQ brisket recipe has provided me with consistently tasty and repeatable results. Below, I detailed a step by step process for using your own offset smoker to create a BBQ brisket that will rival that of any local BBQ joint. I’ve also included lots of photos for your reference.

…Click to see the entire recipe.

Food, Reviews

Bacon Salt Review

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Bacon Salt Ingredients and Nutritional Information

When we first heard about Bacon Salt a couple of years ago, Jon immediately bought a couple of bottles for both of us. It held such promise… after all, bacon makes everything taste better!

And for a while, it was amazing! I dashed it on eggs, on mashed potatoes, on chicken, on everything. It really did taste like bacon, if it was a bit on the salty side. Slowly though, as the newness of bacon salt wore off though, reality set in.

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Food, Wine

Austin Wine Festival 2009

Austin Wine Festival 2009 - Go Texan

Today all of the members of Fooding Blog took a field trip to visit the Austin Wine Festival. Despite the May Texas heat, we managed to have a great time sampling various local wines from the Texas Hill Country and beyond.

You may say to yourself, “Wine in Texas?” Why yes, there is indeed a lot of wine in Texas. According to the Orbitz Insider Index, Austin is the 2nd Fastest Growing Wine Destination in the Nation. Also, the Wine Society of Texas tells us that there are well over 100 wineries here in the Lone Star State.

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