Review: Murray's Cheese Shop

Murray's Cheese Shop

254 Bleeker St, New York City

murrayscheese.com

Hey friends!  It's another field trip post!  This time all the way from New York City!

There were several restaurants to try while visiting the Big Apple, but I knew that I had to make some room for some local Mac and Cheese!  I did some research and eventually found that Murray's Cheese Bar was a pretty popular choice.

To be fair, somehow, we found ourselves at Murray's Cheese Shop (owned by the same folks) in Greenwich Village instead.  I haven't been to the Bar location, but from what I've read, I would assume that the Bar is more like a restaurant, whereas the Shop is more like, well, a shop.

Looking back, I'm actually kind of happy we found ourselves in the Shop location.  it was cute and had a massive amount of unique and fine cheeses and meats and right in the middle of it was this awesome kiosk where you could order all sorts of goodies, including a build-your-own mac and cheese.  I opted for just adding some bacon (I don't care what the World Health Organization says).

The sauce was made up of their special blend of 3 cheeses and then you could choose between any number of toppings or additions.  The sauce wasn't super creamy but it definitely wasn't dry.  I would say this would be a great recommendation for anyone who doesn't like their sauce super heavy.  The bacon flavor was a little overpowering of the cheese, so it was hard to judge alone, but overall, I really enjoyed it.  And I enjoyed my trip into the shop.  They had some great old jazz music on and loads of local foods and candy to purchase.  It was pretty awesome.

While writing about NYC, I have to recommend a second spot, not Mac and Cheese related.  Not far from Murray's Cheese Shop, in neighboring West Village, you'll find some really, really AMAZING cookies from Sweet Corner Bakeshop (535 Hudson St, New York City).  We picked up a large Peanut Butter and Sea Salt Chocolate Chip.  They were super delicious.  I highly recommend stopping in if you're in the area and need a sweet treat! :)

And lastly, I have to show off my new souvenir.  We happened to be in town just before the New York Marathon, which was both really cool and kind of annoying.  It was cool because you could see all the excitement during newscasts and lots of runners started coming in to the city and bringing along their pre-race energy.

The best part was that the local sports stores (Nike, New Balance, Asics) all had some special marathon specific swag that you could purchase for that week only.  Since I'm somewhat obsessed with Nike city specific swag, I figured I'd opt for this cool customized running shirt over the classic "I heart NY" tee.

 

I even made sure to fit in a very quick jog through Central Park,  just so I could wear it without feeling like a hypocrite.  Haha!

Anyway, cheers everyone and happy eating!

Experiment: Mac & Cheese Pancakes

Every now and then, I get these weird mac and cheese suggestions from folks and most of them I never really take the time to try out.

Then I saw a really straight-forward recipe for Mac and Cheese Pancakes as one of those Buzzfeed food hack how-to videos (embedded below).

I was intrigued and figured, hey, what the heck, why not.  It was simple enough.  Get some instant pancake mix, get some boxed mac and cheese and put them together.  What could go wrong?

I'll be honest, I had NO expectation about taste.  It was hard to determine if this was going to be a major failure or something new and awesome to continue making all the time.  I just figured, why not?  Worst that can happen is I have some wasted mix and mac.

So I watched the Buzzfeed video to try to figure out how much to use of each ingredient.  Unfortunately, they don't really give specifics on amounts, and after trying this out, the amounts they show would definitely be really off.

Mac And Cheese Pancakes
Posted by BuzzFeed Food on Sunday, September 27, 2015

So I gathered up my supplies and started making the mac and cheese, using a standard Kraft blue box.

Using Krusteaz mix, 2 cups whole milk and 1 cup cheddar cheese

Kraft Mac and Cheese

I decided to start conservatively.  I didn't use a full box of pancake mix, and though I cooked the full box of mac, I didn't expect to use all of it necessarily.  Once the mac and cheese was ready, I started an initial mix of the pancake mix using whole milk (like the video shows), and then came the mac and batter blend...

This where it started to seem a little more difficult.  I didn't want to have a bad mac to batter ratio so I added the mac and cheese in slowly at first.  Eventually, however, it seemed like I would need the whole box to match up to the batter, even though I hadn't even used a whole box of pancake mix (like the video seems to show).  After adding in the entire mac and cheese portion, I added a cup of shredded cheddar cheese (3 year aged Wisconsin cheddar).

Yum... Cheese...

Then, after mixing that all together, I started to cook on my non-stick griddle pan.  The video shows a greased pan being used, but I generally cook all my pancakes on a griddle, so I left out the oil.  I realize it might have been crispier if I had used oil, but I was willing to make that sacrifice.  I wasn't interested in a crispy glaze anyway. 

Weird.

Hmmm... skeptical...

Then, after cooking for a handful of minutes on each side, it was time to test it out...

Still weird.

It was... pretty awful.  It was super bland, I could hardly taste anything so it just tasted like.. blah.  I imagine that it may have needed less pancake mix, and I probably needed more shredded cheese.  I don't know if I'll ever really try this experiment again.  There's not too much motivation to do so.

It was fun to try though :)

Review: Bear Republic Brewery

Bear Republic Brewery
345 Healdsburg Ave, Healdsburg
bearrepublic.com

Wine Country visitors and residents: you MUST try Bear Republic's Brewers Mac and Cheese.

That's an order.

I had tried this mac and cheese once before with friends, but had a hard time mustering up the energy to truly judge it since we had just spent the day lounging by the pool and day drinking at Francis Ford Coppola Winery down the way.  Yes, hard life, I know.

So when I found myself eating there again this past Saturday, I felt compelled to try it again and give it a proper review.

It was great.  So great.  I love the flavors in this mac and cheese.  It has jack, cheddar, American, Parmesan, and a blue cheese bechamel sauce.  I usually don't even like blue cheese, but it really works well in this mac and cheese.  You can get it plain, or with bacon and/or jalapenos.  Since I tend to avoid super spicy foods, I went with the bacon.  Okay, I admit, I also just really love bacon.

The texture is very creamy and cheesy and I just love that.  The portion size is rather generous, as I remember from my first visit.  On this trip, however, a friend and I split the dish and it was just the right size.  We both felt full, but not stuffed.

With all that said, I have to explain why this mac won't be making it into my top ten, and I may get a lot of flack for it.

While AWESOME, I have a really hard time thinking of Healdsburg as part of the direct Bay Area.  It's a over an hour outside of San Francisco, and I tend to think of wine country in general as it's own entity.  I mean that in the BEST possible way.  I mean, I don't get excited about visiting another part of the Bay Area, but I sure do get excited about visiting wine country.  So, yeah, I guess that's my reasoning.  Sorry If that offends anyone.

So, again, if you are in that area of northern wine country, GO.  Go get yourself a mac and cheese.  Oh, and maybe some of their famous beer offerings as well.  Let's not forget that.

Review: ROCKS Lakeview

ROCKS Lakeview
3463 N. Broadway, Chicago
rockslakeview.com

This is a FIELD TRIP post!  :)

I suppose Disneyland was also a field trip post since it's not the Bay Area, but I get especially excited when I can try mac and cheese offerings across California state lines.

Recently, I visited Chicago for a long weekend, and when friends and I found ourselves at ROCKS in the Lakeview neighborhood, I decided I should probably give a Chicago option a go.

ROCKS has named their dish Mac & Cheesus!  Kind of a funny title.  It contains smoked gouda, jack and cheddar cheese, diced chicken breast and is topped with some breadcrumbs and scallions.

I wish I could say it was as tasty as a Chicago deep dish pizza (now THAT was GREAT), but sadly, not this particular version.  The cheese texture was a little dry and the chicken was pretty flavorless, so it just sort of added to an overall bland taste.  I think that if you added some kind of seasoning to the chicken, or even attempted a kind of BBQ chicken flavor, it would probably give this mac the kick that it's missing.

What is good at ROCKS?  Well, I didn't get to try too much while there, but the sweet potato fries sure tasted awesome.  Stop in for beer, catch a football game and order some sweet potato fries.  And if you want to attempt the fried mac and cheese option (sadly, I could only try one), let me know what you think!

Review: Disneyland's Cafe Orleans

Disneyland's Cafe Orleans
New Orleans Square, Disneyland
disneyland.go.com

This post is a little belated, but I definitely remember this mac and cheese experience fairly well, because unfortunately it was rather disappointing.

One of my favorite parts of visiting Disneyland is eating all the amazing food.  On average, Disneyland and California Adventure boast some of the best dishes and snack foods around, so it ends up being about half the reason I fork out the money for a plane ticket.

Unfortunately, the mac and cheese option at Cafe Orleans, located in the New Orleans Square area of Disneyland, was not very delicious.  The flavor was pretty bland and the portion size was rather depressing, even for the adult sized.  I suppose they try to make up for it with some veggie additions.  But really, let's face it.  If someone's ordering a mac and cheese, they are probably not looking to have half of the dish be made up for with vegetables.  That's just my two cents.

If you do find yourself at Cafe Orleans, this might actually be one of the healthier options, which makes me laugh.  For something really memorable and delicious, try the beignets, or if you are really hungry the Monte Cristo, which is basically a regular Monte Cristo but with beignet style fried bread.  AH-MAZING.

Review: Public House

Public House
24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco
publichousesf.com

This past weekend I was at AT&T Park (home of the San Francisco Giants) for the annual Giant Race Expo and 10k.  It was my third year running the race and I always get a little excited for the expo as well.  Afterwards, I grabbed a quick bite at Public House.  I couldn't believe I had never been there before.

I was excited to see that they had a Baked Mac and Cheese on the menu.  Cheeses included Provolone, Cheddar and Gouda.

The size was pretty perfect for lunch, but probably not enough to share with another person.  It wasn't too big and just perfect for carb loading for my race the following day.

The flavor was okay.  Nothing really stood out, but you could tell there was a nice mixture of flavors.  For the most part the sauce was creamy, however, there was a significant amount of oil that had separated from the cheese in the cooking process.  That's probably one of the least appetizing things to see in any dish: an immense amount of oil or grease.

 

 

Leftover oil from the cheese... ew.

All in all, though, it wasn't too bad.  I probably wouldn't order it again.  There were several other items on the menu that looked delicious, like the fried chicken or burger.  There were even mini corn dogs if you are feeling like something fun.

For a baseball lover, however, you can't beat the location.  Public House is located within the AT&T Park's Willie Mays Plaza, just adjacent to the ballpark and dugout store.  For any Giants fan, this place is a real treat.  I enjoyed sitting outside with my Hunter Pence bobble head.  All the runners received an official race bobble head at the expo.

So next time you're at a game and want to pick up a drink or bite before a game, check out Public House.  Make your own determination on their Baked Mac and Cheese, and let me know what you think!

Go Giants! :)

Review: Absinthe

Absinthe
398 Hayes Street, San Francisco
absinthe.com

Yum! Look at that cheesy crust! Photo courtesy of Vincent Serritella

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure to try Absinthe, a chic little restaurant and bar located in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco.

While they had many appetizing menu items (I had the steak entree), there was of course one side I definitely had to try:  the Baked Mac & Cheese!

Absinthe has a baked version with Vermont White Cheddar and some really amazing herbs.  There's even a slight kick of spice, which reminded me of my dish at Fat Angel, but it's not quite so powerful.

The sauce texture was interesting, but it was redeemed by the cripsy cheese crust that's formed around the outside of the bowl.  That was definitely something I hadn't seen in most mac and cheeses I've ordered and reviewed.  The portion size felt like a large side, but would make a great small meal or lunch should you ever hope to order just that.

I can't finish this review without mentioning the highlight of the evening's dishes, however.  The most amazing treat we had at our table were the homemade pretzel appetizers.  That's right: Pretzels.

These bite sized pretzels came five to an order and were paired with the most amazing garlic, cheese sauce.  The sauce wasn't too thick, in fact it drizzled onto the tops of the pretzels quite nicely.  I could have eaten so many more of those, but alas... I had to share them... Next time, I'm ordering some just for myself!  They were so, so, so delicious.

All in all, I highly recommend a stop at this Hayes Valley treat.  My only regret is not ordering the Galapagos cocktail, which has been featured on 7x7's The Big Drink app for some time now.  Oh well, next time!  So go, my friends, and pick up some pretzels, some mac and cheese, and maybe some other bites and have a little small plate party.  Enjoy!