The Last Supper…For Now

Tomorrow, I’m outta here for 4 weeks leave. As much as I’d love to write about KAF, my mind’s not really into it. In fact, I think my mind got on a plane and left sometime in the middle of last week. So, I’m just going to use this post to catch up on the good, the bad and the ugly from several KAF dining experiences that weren’t interesting enough on their own to warrant their own post. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

The Good

I'm getting a new camera while at home so stop whining about the shitty picture quality. I know you were.

Cambridge started offering a second kind of bacon a couple of weeks ago. They call it crispy bacon. I guess this is as opposed to the chewy, fatty slabs of European bacon, that remains an option. It turns out that this crispy bacon is actually just very well cooked European bacon. “Hey”, you’re probably thinking, “Why is this under the ‘good’ section?”. Good is a relative term and the crispy bacon is good relative to the other crap because most of the fat has been cooked off and it is indeed “crispy”. Sure, it’s not bacon as those of us from less savage climes are used to but it ain’t too bad even considering that some of it could really be considered burnt.

Cambridge also made a very good beef stroganoff accompanied by what may have been real mashed potatoes. I suspect the potatoes were, actually, from dried flakes but just mixed properly and the grey water wasn’t used. Regardless, they were edible unlike most of the gluey, mushy mashed we usually get.

Beef, Onion and No Kidney Pie

Lux gets a shout out under the “good” banner for its hat-trick of understanding re: pie…particularly as it relates to the meat variety. Their first success was in making buying it round. Second, the meat pie was actually a pie and third, and most importantly, there wasn’t one goddamn pee producing organ in the things. It was also pretty damn good.

Kudos to IH for taking the JustDFACSMaam comments to heart. On my last two visits there has been enough apple pie for everyone! In fact, tonight I had two pieces of pie, one apple and one cherry. I only then went for ice cream on the Boardwalk because T, M2, and J insisted.

Those of you who had the IH spaghetti on Sep 1st can skip right to the “Bad” section. IH succeeded with some pretty decent spaghetti and meatballs on Aug 30th.

The Bad

Yay! The Cambridge had crispy bacon. Boo! The Cambridge stopped offering crispy bacon. Ugh.

Even though it's a crappy picture you can literally see where I had to cut through it.

So, IH makes good spaghetti on 30 Aug. Not seeing anything else appealing on the menu when we’re back there on 1 Sep, I go for the spaghetti again. Consistency is not their strong point in more ways than one. This spaghetti was an amorphous lump of starchy paste. I literally (yes, really literally. I’m not one of those goombahs who uses “literally” when they mean “figuratively”..eg. “I literally laughed my head off”. Fuck I hate that. I could literally punch those people in the face.) had to cut it with a knife. Anyway, the spaghetti was inedible crap. Just rinse the damn stuff before you put it out on the steam line. Cooking 101 for chrissakes.

The Ugly

Um, chef? I know it's hard to tell but ya think maybe it's a tad overdone?

I’m not sure one should pair an eastern European dish like stroganoff with a Cajun dish like blackened cauliflower. What’s that you say? You don’t think blackened cauliflower is an actual dish? Hmm, come to think of it, the sign did just say cauliflower. I guess it was just FUCKING BURNT then. How the hell do you burn cauliflower? Or, even if you do, how do you not notice the black all over this goddamn white vegetable? And no, T did not eat it.

I’ll Be Back

While I’m out on leave I’ll be updating the blog on non-KAF things including restaurant reviews along with various rants and bitches. It won’t be everyday because beer and blogging don’t mix but it will be every few days. My wife and I are going on a two week vacation to Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro in mid-September which should provide some amusing blog fodder. She’s told her readers that she will write about the romantic aspects of the trip on her blog which will leave me to complain about the toilets. You can subscribe to the blog to get emails when there are new posts if you’re particularly interested in Eastern European cuisine and water closets. Just write a comment (eg. “This is the best blog EVER!”) and click the “Notify me of new posts via email” thingy before hitting “Post Comment”. Stay tuned…