Palatable Airport Food, Part III: Vino Volo @ DTW

Back in 2007, I put up a post on Pappadeux, the best thing going at IAH Terminal E. In 2010, it was tasty little ATL gem, Cafe Intermezzo. Over the last few weeks I've found Vino Volo, bringing the Grubbus palatable-food total in our nations air travel system to three.

Vino Volo is a small chain of wine bars in a dozen airports across the country, and a pretty radical departure for airport food. It's probably good to note here that the unexpected joy of this place comes partly from it's surroundings: against standard airport food, this place is a blowout success. Put it downtown Austin, and it's a little more run of the mill.

The Wines are the name of the game here, and they've got a remarkably good selection. It's not many places you can find Silver Oak Cabernet or an '05 Brunello di Montalcino by the glass. The wine menu is split into about a dozen sections of 2-3 wines each: California Cabs, Sparkling Whites, Tour of Spain. Each wine is available by the glass, the bottle, or as part of a flight with its compatriots. I tried an Elusiv Pinot from Monterey this time, and it was beautiful - strawberries and a little peppery on the finish.

soapbox One nit to pick here: each wine comes with a customized coaster featuring tasting notes and placing it along a spectrum from light to brooding. Brooding. Brooding is not a taste. It is a thing that teenagers do when they don't get the car. And unless this wine tastes like what teenagers do, and I sure hope it doesn't - please, please don't say that it does. There are plenty of good words that describe taste. Use those. /soapbox

Enough with the wines - on to the food. The food is a blast. Not genius food, but really tasty. I had the cured meat plate, and while it was no Olympic Provisions, it was really pretty delicious, down to the lovely tart  pickles and coarse ground spicy mustard. The olive plate is a great starter, beautifully arranged and pungent. The cheese plate was tempting (people the next table over were raving), and they've got a couple of really nice looking sandwiches on good bread. The food is also in remarkably constrained proportions, a nice contrast to the pounds of meat that make up the burgers down the way at Fuddruckers.

All this lovely sipping and tasting, in a tasteful, quiet, well lit space comes at a price, however. Tasty, yes, but not a cheap lunch. A glass of wine and a sandwich can set you back $30, easy. More if you drink the really choice stuff.

For me, it's my delayed-flight treat, a little extra kick when the hours drag on - a place as far away from the airport as you can get on DTW's A-Concourse.

More photos up on Grubbus's Facebook Home

The Best Sausage in the World Is the Sausage After a Long Ride

On April 16 and 17th, I joined about 13,000 other people on bikes, and about 5,000 volunteers on a 170 mile ride from Houston to Austin to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis research. It's a two day ride, with a stop over at La Grange. It is on this ride that I discovered perfect sausage. Here's what I learned: sausage is best hot off the grill, with friends and with mustard, with the sun dipping down over the Texas hills, and with 85 miles of rolling land behind you. It's best when handed to you by fantastic volunteers, after a line of people have cheered your last half mile. It's best when you're dog tired, and looking forward to a cot and a sleeping bag as soon as it gets dark.

On day one, we gathered up, pre-dawn in the blistering cold, at a Stadium in Katy, TX. What seemed to me an impossible number of bikers grew as riders from the other start points merged in. A few hours later, around 9:15, the sun finally starting to warm everything up, we stopped for lunch. I've never seen an operation at this scale - a massive tent, with thousands and thousands of identical turkey sandwiches, cans of fruit, bags of chips. It was impressive in scale, and mind-blowing in efficiency, but I will report honestly that no matter how many miles were covered before lunch, I did not find the best Turkey Sandwich.

By 2:30, 85 miles from where we started, we rolled into La Grange - the middle of pack that started arriving before noon, and kept on coming until after 6:00. What had been, I presume, a typical fairgrounds was converted into a decent size little town. Bike stores, showers, massage studios, music venues, and row after row of tents housing riders and volunteers. Behind each tent, varying in ambition and execution, was a kitchen. Ours was a simple pair of gas grills cooking beef and jalepeno Costco sausage. Down the way a bit was the Continental Airlines tent. Their setup was a little more extreme - a 30 foot  scale replica 777 with a 6-burner Vulcan range on the side. Others were more humble, like the little table-top Weber set up down the hill from us in front of one of the dozens of RV's. I'm working on a plan to get The Jalopy to set up outside our tent next year. Will keep you posted on that one.

Next morning, we lined up early - getting our place in line at about 4:30, taking turns watching bikes and running back to the tent for more coffee. At 6:45, as the sun was coming up, we rolled out for Bastrop, and ultimately, back home to Austin. Where more sausage was waiting for us.

I learned a lot on this ride and in the year I spent training for it. I learned that food is actually pretty central to the whole endeavor. At least for me, the trick to riding for this kind of mileage is remembering to eat all the time. Sport Beans, Honey Stingers, Clif Goo - all this junk I would never have touched a year ago, is my new comfort food. Gatorade is now appealing. I packed Starbucks Via.

I also learned about bravery and commitment. I met riders in their 70s and riders in elementary school. I met riders who had loved ones with MS, or who suffered from it themselves. And throughout, I saw a group of people committed to doing this to help find a cure. It was an inspiring thing (if you'd like to contribute to the cause, we're still taking donations).

And I learned about the patience of my family, who put up with my training rides every weekend, who drove me down to Houston the day before the ride, and who cheered for me when I rolled back into Austin.

Posted more pictures over on Grubbus' home on Facebook.

Making Maple Syrup: Sugarbush Revisited

It's Spring in Michigan. And by Spring, I mean the snow is only sporadic, and sometimes it's kind of sunny. That blustery combination of cold nights and not-quite-as-cold days can be a little jarring for an Austinite, but it's perfect for Sugar Maples. Those few weeks when the sap is flowing and the sugar house is all fired up is Sugarbush. My first time through was a long, long time ago, when I was 11 and going to school at Blandford, on the north side of Grand Rapids. Last month, I brought the whole family up to the very same spot. It's still going strong.

Maple syrup gets it start as sap. It's extracted, traditionally, by way of a small hole drilled an inch or so into the tree, into which a small metal tube is tapped, off of which hangs a big bucket, into which the sap drips. When I think of sap, I think of the tarry sticky stuff that comes out of pine trees. This is totally different. It's water, more or less, with just slightest hint of sugary goodness.

Little known fact: sap is totally delicious. Actually, maple syrup anywhere in the process from sap to syrup to maple sugar candy is delicious. When I was doing this for real, as a 6th grader, I used to take surreptitious slurps of the stuff between trees.

The buckets hang there, collecting sap, drip by drip by drip. To watch the sap flow, it seems like it would take weeks to get an appreciable amount, but they drip drip on, and in a few hours the buckets start to visibly fill. Every day or so, the  buckets are collected, consolidated, and hauled back up the sugar house.

I love the sugar house. Even just the name rocks. At Blandford, the sugar house is totally cutting edge, circa 1890. It's not particularly high capacity, but it's totally high drama. The buckets, now emptied into still larger containers, are emptied into a trough in the back of the sugarhouse. They pass through a filter, and into a shallow metal tub, separated into a dozen different channels, atop a seriously roaring fire. As the water is boiled off, over the course of several hours, the sap slowly thickens into syrup. Measurement comes by way of a thermometer-like device that measures sugar solids, but you can see the difference just looking - sap is clear at the start, and golden at the finish.

In all, 40 gallons of sap make a single gallon of syrup. Early harvest, when the sugar is in higher concentration, yields the light colored extra-fancy grade A syrup. As the season wanes - just a few weeks later, there's less sugar in sap, meaning a longer time over the fire. That extra time means extra carmelized sugars, hence the darker color. Me? I'm a grade B guy all the way. Better flavor.

If you keep boiling after syrup you get the absolute primo treat of my childhood - maple sugar candy. The flavors in these things will knock you flat - rich and almost buttery, with a slight woody tinge from the open fire.

I don't know if my kids will take home the same memories I've stored away since my time at Blandford, but I'm glad they got a taste.

Sugarbush is over this year, but the candy's still available at the Blandford General Store.

Sultan's: Taste Over Glitz in a Lansing Strip Mall

When I walked to my elementary school in winter, I used to hold my breath. I was convinced that the steam I exhaled was a limited quantity, that I might run out of it if I was too careless. This is basically the same reason I don't spend more time at Sultans that I already do. I don't want to run out of the pleasure of it.

Sultans occupies the back corner of My Favorite Parking Lot, and has a sort of neglected charm. Where Chapelure and Sansu are slick, up-to-the-minute establishments, Sultan's is a little dated and a little dusty. But what it lacks in glitz, it makes up for in taste.

Start with the cocktails. Or rather, start with the absence of cocktails. Sultan's is a no-alcohol establishment. Instead of mixed drinks, there's mixed juices, all fresh squeezed. I generally opt for the Sunset - strawberries, apple juice, grapefruit juice, and honey. This is not a smoothie - it's juice, light, frothy, and sweet, and it compliments the middle-eastern tang of the marinades and sauces nicely.

And then with the rolls. If you're lucky. The rolls are these little pillows of bread, so airy, they're nearly hollow. They are addictive, which is a bad thing, since they often run out, leaving late-comers with dry, bland triangles of pita bread. The first time I encountered the pita, I nearly cried.

And then with the massive quantity of goodness that constitutes a Sultan's entree. I ususally stick with the chicken kabobs - grilled until they're almost crispy, and full of some fantastic marinade that I can't even start to figure out. Skip the tzatziki-like sauce (it's sort of bland), but make haste for the rice and the grilled tomato. I've also had the kibbeh (heavenly) and the schwarma (so-so). The Kabob, though, that's my go-to dish.

The hummus and tabbouleh, both beautiful, are overkill. It looks like you might want a little extra bit when you're checking out the menu, but once the bread comes out and the food starts piling up, you realize that this is not a place you'll leave hungry.

It should be noted that I found this place through its cousin downtown, a complete dive that goes by the same name. If the strip-mall Sultan's is a little dusty, the downtown one is downright meager. Of course, the food is amazing there too, and the place is packed to the door every lunch hour. A couple more food finds to add to the Lansing repertoire.

MadCap Coffee - Grand Rapids Enters the Big Leagues

In what's quickly becoming a school-vacation tradition, I brought the family along to work with me this week. Rather than camp out in Lansing, where my client is, we picked up a room in Grand Rapids. Nothing against Lansing, which is kind of a neat place in it's own right, but Grand Rapids just has a lot more going on.

One of best things Grand Rapids has going on is some seriously bad-ass coffee at MadCap, downtown. Some seriously bad-ass US Barista Jam first-place regional finishing single origin espresso custom built pour over rig super-sweet latte art coffee. The place was packed, too. Grand Rapids has come a long way since I was last hanging out downtown.

A lot of things give MadCap major street cred - the beans are directly sourced and roasted in house. (The roaster is housed in the basement of the shop, visible through a cleverly designed cutout in the floor). Coffee is ground and brewed for each cup, one at a time, in a very, very slick custom made pour over station. The latte art is gorgeous.

With the girls sipping hot chocolates in the two last available seats (they both said the hot chocolates were better than Intelligentsia, which is saying something), Tracy and I chatted with the baristas. They're deeply committed to making this work, and you can see it in the way the whole place comes together. It's not a high budget enterprise exactly - the tables and chairs are all stock Ikea, the slick wood veneer lamp shades are coming a little loose in the corners, and the roaster looks like it could put out 10 lbs at a time, tops - but they've invested where it counts: skilled people, top-notch machinery, and hands-on international sourcing of some really good beans.

But the thing that matters most is in the cup, and MadCap does this on par with the best places I've been - my single-origin shot was powerfully tart, and a little sweet - reminiscent of Stumptown more than anything else. And the lattes, where that tartness was softened by the milk but punchy enough to still show through, were spectacular. I work an hour from here, but this is coffee I might be willing to drive 60 miles to get my hands on.

Chapelure: The Sweet Side of My Favorite Parking Lot in Lansing

My days of the endless back and forth to Tallahassee have been replaced by endless days back and forth to Lansing, Michigan. I miss Tally, but Lansing has it's own charm. As I write this, large soft snowflakes are curling their way down outside. You don't get this in Tallahassee.

When it comes to food, the two towns have a lot more in common: Wendy's recently took home top prize for Chili in the Lansing city magazine.

This makes Chapelure all the more fabulous to find, nestled in the back corner of a parking lot that also includes the best Sushi and the best Middle Eastern food I've come across here (it's a really good parking lot). Windows stretch across the whole length of the cafe, especially pretty on a night like this when the warm light of the pendant lamps contrast with the view of the snow falling outside.

The inside is dominated by a glass case full of stunning cakes - drizzled with chocolate, topped with fruit, covered in slivered almonds. They advertise themselves as sort of Asian/French

fusion, but it all seems pretty straight up French to me. I guess they've got a lot of loose leaf tea. That's kind of Asian.

It's a hard thing to narrow yourself down faced with case like that, but I managed to get myself all the way to an order of mocha layer cake. As it was handed to me across the counter with a giant mug of black coffee, the woman working here said to me - "it's butter cream, and it's a little chilled now - best to wait a minute before you eat it." Good sign. I love being told to wait before I eat something. Every time that happens a fairy gets her wings and Burger King cries.

I waited as long as I could (not very long) and dug in. Cake: moist and tender, with an exceptionally fine crumb. Frosting. OMG. Frosting was amazing - just a hint of mocha and as silky as any I remember. The slice was, thankfully, small. I'd have eaten more, but why? The joy at the end of a mountain of cake is blunted. The first few bites is the key, when you get transported a little by the balance of sugar and silk. And maybe a little lost in the depth of the fresh, almost grassy coffee.

I picked up a loyalty card when I stopped in. It's one point for every dollar you spend. When you hit 500 - free 6" cake. I have some confidence that there is a free cake in my future.

Veritable Quandary Issues Grubbus Wake Up Call

It took some seriously amazing Eggs Benedict to wake Grubbus from a months-long slumber.

Veritable Quandary is a gorgeous little restaurant in an out of the way corner in downtown Portland. It's a strange sight, a cozy little restaurant there by the river and the highway, surrounded by parking garages and nondescript office buildings. Tracy and I walked the 10 blocks or so from our hotel, and the closer we got, the more certain I was that we'd taken a wrong turn.

Then - around that last turn - it appeared, a little black and gold house emblazoned with its clever mouthful of a name.

When we showed up for brunch on Saturday morning it was still 30 minutes before their unambitious 10AM opening time. But not long after we sat down at a little table out front to wait, a man - newspaper in hand - walked right in. We followed him, and were greeted by the warm sounds of a restaurant getting ready for the day. Rather than shoo us out, they offered us a cup of coffee (Stumptown, natch) and a seat at the bar. It was brilliant - Tracy and I, a gorgeous interior space filled with deep leather booths and a long polished wood bar, the flaming lips, a huge bay window out on the street.

A few minutes later, we were whisked off to a table in a sunroom off the main dining room, coffee refilled, and handed a short brunch menu. People were filtering in, and the Flaming Lips was replaced by a more "we're open now" Miles Davis. I ordered Eggs Benedict, Tracy got the french toast.

The first thing that hits you with these eggs is the color. Before VQ, the brightest yolks I'd seen were Jerimiah Cunningham's. These made those look pale and listless by comparison. Amazing, gorgeous, yellow-orange yolks. Then, you notice the tall cylinders of homemade english muffin. The smoked pork tenderloin. The frothy hollandaise. And the perfectly geometric, perfectly browned block of hashbrowns. It's a remarkable thing, this Benedict. Second best I've ever had, in fact. (East End Eatery in Gainesville, FL still holds the title for the best).

If I could have tweaked, it'd be little things - homemade english muffins are hard to do well, and are a bit heavy at this height. And while the eggs were truly stunning, the hollandaise could have been just a bit lighter. But I quibble. This was the best breakfast I've had in the last 6 months, easy. And Tracy's French toast was no less impressive - the bacon crispy and substantial, the bread etherial.

VQ was our last stop in Portland, a pause on our way out to the airport to catch the flight home. I can't think of a better way to remember a city that I fall in love with a little more every time I go.