new Things I Ate in Cambodia: food news and other business: zagats in sacto!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

food news and other business: zagats in sacto!



Sacramento Gets Its Own Zagat's Guide

Sacramento should really get over its former reputation as some sort of culinary wasteland. Sacramento does very well for itself for a mid-size city - we've got tons of ethnic and cultural variety, we have fine dining, we've got fun, we've got cutting edge - and perhaps this new Zagat's guide will finally allow us to chill the hell out. I hope I can pick it up soon and see what the Zagat's folks had to say about our hometown heroes. I imagine VERY NICE THINGS.

Asian Dining Rules

I want to buy these in bulk and give them to everyone I know. (The author is from EGullet, who I trust very much.) I love Asian food and would like to share that love with the people I know. However, there is some back information that would behoove people to know before they walk into an Asian restaurant. With just a little bit of simple training, you can come away from an Asian restaurant with a great meal and a Cultural Learnings experience, instead of being stuck with crab rangoon and sesame chicken yet again and again and again. I'll check it out and let you know what I think.

What will The Obama's Eat?

Interesting article on Presidential dining choices.

This is particularly telling: "President Bush was up front: no soup, no salads, no greens and no "wet fish" - a real head scratcher for the White House chef."

""Truthfully, President Bush would have been happy with a peanut butter and honey sandwich, hamburger or grilled cheese sandwich," Scheib said. "

Sounds like a second grader to me. The kind of second grader who is so incredibly stubborn about what he will ingest into his body that he subsists on Kraft Mac N' Cheese exclusively and develops a raging and difficult to treat case of scurvy.

This may be a metaphor for the administration at large.

Calorie Counts At Restaurants Hit The UK

I'm on the fence about required calories counts. On the one hand, I'm uncomfortable with the government inserting its great and omniscient hand into our most basic and essential daily choice: what the hell we're going to eat. I would also be vastly pissed off if it was decided (in the future) that these requirements must apply to small ethnic places or to fine dining establishments - which would be a harsh financial burden and an excellent way to suck all the fun out of eating delicious and butter-ridden cuisine.

On the other hand, the obesity problem in this country is, uh, getting bigger, and a dose of reality at the fast food walk up line cannot always be a bad thing. People are often grossly ignorant of the real calorie counts of fast food choices. Salads at most fast food places, for example, contain hundreds more calories then a basic hamburger - it's all the ranch dressing and croutons and fried Chick O' Bits lumped on there with the nutritious greens. Starbucks is another nutritional minefield: those giant Frappucino things that most of my college-age cohorts subsist on contain a ton of fat and calories. Seeing this in stark relief up on the menu board..well, okay, I can see why.

Via Sweet Juniper: Amazing abandoned zoo photos.

Finally, a post from the beautifully written Sweet Juniper blog about an abandoned Rust Belt zoo, complete with eery and gorgeous photos. Don't miss it.

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