The Memphis BBQ Burger from Carl's Jr.

This is gonna be on the quicker side of things. I was a bit ravenous after work and was in the mood for a burger. I didn't want to go to a sit-down restaurant, so Carl's Jr. seemed like a good choice. Plus, it's on the way home.

I saw this picture when I drove up there, and I gotta say, it looks pretty good right there. Now, I'm pretty sure we all know that the pictures of fast food are usually way better than the reality. This was no exception.

First off, the burger in the poster was the Six Dollar version. I got a double of the regular version with regular fries. Here's a closer look:

Doesn't that just....look....who am I kidding. It's not lookin' too pretty. Let's be real about this. It's a burger, not a fucking Van Gogh.

The taste? Not bad. The burger patty is your standard patty. Nothing new there. The onions are a nice touch, but the only ones that were crispy were the ones that fell off the burger. The rest turned to mush due to the very average barbecue sauce they use.

The pulled pork isn't too bad at all. Very tender and does add a nice little compliment to the beef patty. You don't get a ton of pulled pork on the sandwich, but you aren't just getting two little pieces of pork on there either. They put on a decent amount.

I don't have a judging scale, but if I had to score this, I'd give it a 6.5 or 7 out of 10. Not bad, not great. Good, though.

At the Carl's Jr. I went to, they bring the food to your table if you dine in. I took this pic because 71 is the number I wore when I played high school football. Yes, I got those Al Bundy stories too. :)

This was on the cup. What the fuck does this mean? Eat like I mean it??? How do you eat and not mean it? Do I have to have a serious look on my face when I'm eating to mean it? Should I put on a high school wrestlers uniform before I eat a Six Dollar burger? This is the dumbest fucking thing I've seen in  a while.

For me, the best slogan Carl's Jr. ever used was in the movie Idiocracy. "Carl's Jr. Fuck You. I'm eating." THAT WORKS!!! How can they NOT use that???

Oh well. Maybe they are just waiting for the right time to unleash that one on society.

I'm out.

J. Miller

P.S. I'm on Twitter! Stop on by and say hi! https://twitter.com/chefJmiller

Homemade Mozzarella

This is one post that I've been sitting on for a couple months now. I've been a little reluctant to post this,  mainly because I fucked it up the first time I tried it. But, after some thought, and lack of anything else notable to write about, I said "what the hell".

What you see above is my first completed homemade mozzarella. I say "first completed" because the first run through I screwed up before I could even get the chance to stretch it out. After going back to the store for more milk, I tried it again and made it all the way through.

As far as cheese goes, fresh mozzarella is probably my second favorite. Number one? Homemade ricotta. Hands down. That said, mozzarella is a close runner-up. I love the soft texture and subtle flavor that mozzarella has. Add a little basil, a slice of tomato, and you've just created something magical.

When I decided that I was gonna try my hand at mozz,(I will refer to mozzarella as "Mozz" from this point on) I was really excited. Probably a little too excited. I don't mean that I jizzed in my pants or anything like that. It's just that when it was all over and done with, I was a bit let down on how it came out. It didn't taste bad at all. A coworker tried it and liked it, but I wasn't as happy with it as I thought I would be. I guess my expectations were too high. In any case, see for yourself and tell me what you think.

If you are thinking about trying your hand at mozz yourself, there is one thing you need to understand: It's a process. What I mean is, you can't think about doing this like you are going to make a casserole. There are a good number of steps to follow, and you have to be fairly precise on each step. I don't want to scare you off of making something, but if you have trouble following steps, this ain't for you.

On certain cooking shows, you might hear some asshole talking about going to the local grocer and buying cheese curds. That way, all you have to do is drop them in the hot water and start to stretch. Easy, right? That's fucking horse-shit! I don't know of any damn market this side of the Mississippi that sells curds! If they are selling curds, they damn sure aren't advertising it! Maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't found any place that sells curds.

That leads me to my next topic: Ingredients. To make mozz, you are gonna need rennet and citric acid. I've never seen these items at any store and ended up ordering them from Amazon. It's not that expensive, and in some cases, you can buy a whole kit on cheese making. I just bought the stuff I needed.

After looking at numerous sites on how to do this, I went with the step-by-step I found at www.chow.com. Lots of pictures with a clear layout. Check it out for yourself.

Step By Step

Unfortunately, I only have two hands and my photography skills suck balls. What that means is that I don't have that many pictures to show you how it all went down. I'll explain what happens as best I can. Really, I was going by the process I found at chow.

Once I had all my ingredients and tools ready, I started to heat the milk at about a medium-low flame. When the milk hit 55F, I added the citric acid. When it hit 88F, I added the rennet. No more stirring after this point.

When it reached the final temp of 105, I cut off the heat and let it rest for 30 minutes. At this point, it should be set enough to run a knife through.

From here, I scooped out the curds and drained them through cheese cloth. Now, this is where things went awry for me. The Chow link says not to drain the curds completely. I did that. When I dropped the curds in the hot water, the fucking curds dissolved! I was pissed to say the least. The next time around, I squeezed as much of the whey out as I could, and it seemed to work.

Now I ran into another problem: the curd didn't melt right away. The link says to heat the water to 180 degrees. I did that, and the curd wasn't melting. I went ahead and just boiled the water and it seemed to work just fine.

After I stretched the curd to what I thought was good, I rounded the mozz and dropped them into cold water.

Since I was going to do all this for fresh cheese, I went on and made some fresh bread to go with it.

Before I sliced that bread up, I had to try the mozz on its own. It was...good. It tasted like the mozz I remembered. But, I had this feeling like "That's it?". I guess I wanted it to be something more. Maybe the memories I have of it are on a pedestal I couldn't possibly match.

What I do know is that when i dressed it all up, it was lookin' awfully purtty! But not as purrty as your mouth!

To make things worse, my coworker Aimee made some mozz and brought some to work. I actually liked hers better than mine! I told her, too. I also told her that because of that, I was gonna have to hate on her for a while. Every time I walked past her, I would boo her. "BOOOOO!" would be my response to any question she had for me. Or anything in general she had to say to me!

Aimee: Hi Jason.
Me: BOOOOO!

Aimee: We need 24 baklava Jason.
Me: BOOOOO!

Then she had to go and help me finish an order the next day. So to be fair, I stopped hating on her. Damn Aimee! Being all nice and shit.

I don't even wanna talk no more.

I'm out.

J. Miller

P.S. BOOOOOOO!

The Return To Cafe Tourane

Going from the title of this post alone, you can figure out that this is not my first trip to this location. In fact, this was one of the first places I reviewed for my blog. I'm not going to give you a play-by-play of the first post, but I will say that I didn't leave there with the best outlook for this small cafe. Click here to check out my first visit.

After my first trip there, I didn't really think about it much. It wasn't until something that had happened a couple of weeks ago that not only had me thinking about Cafe Tourane, but what I am doing here on this blog to begin with. That "something" was simply.....a response.

I get notifications every time someone leaves a comment on a post. When I saw I got a comment on the Cafe Tourane post, I was a little surprised because older posts don't get that much attention. When I saw that the name of the person who commented was Cafe Tourane, I started to freak out a little bit in my head!

"Oh Shit! Are they pissed I didn't like their beignets?.....FUCK!" I didn't say that out loud, but I wanted to. Luckily, I didn't have to worry at all. They were actually really cool about the whole thing.

"Thanks for the post J. Miller :)
Just so you know we have been working on our Beignet Recipe since we opened in January! 
Come back and try some more soon :)"

Yup, they took the high road. I'm not shocked that they did. I guess I was ready to hear something like "Fuck you and your shitty blog!" or "You better not step foot in here again!". Reading what they said actually put me at ease.

To me, the fact that they responded was a huge surprise. Getting comments from other customers is expected. But to have a proprietor respond blew me away. I honestly hadn't prepared for that. In doing so, it put a lot into perspective.

I know I don't have the most popular blog on the web. In fact, I still see this as somewhat of a hobby. After seeing their response, I quickly remembered that for these business owners, it ain't a hobby. It's serious fucking business. As much as I like to joke around on here, I do have to be aware that what I say on here can make an impact on how a restaurant is seen. My review may just cause someone to avoid going somewhere.

In my opinion, I don't think my first review was out of line. You can judge for yourself on that one.

So, with that said, and that read, I thought it was only fair to give them another shot. I mean, why not? What's it gonna hurt?

My next day off from work, I headed over to CT to get some coffee and beignets. I walk in, and instead of seeing a bunch of teenagers, I see a bunch of old folks! With school out right now, no surprise there.

I ordered a mocha latte and beignets. As I'm paying, the guy working the register offers me something that looks like a credit card. He explains that you show it whenever you make a purchase to get points towards free drinks and such. OK, I'm down for that.

Once the order is in, I see someone come out from the back with a ball of dough and start to roll my beignets right there! Made-to-order beignets? I can dig it! I just hope they taste better than last time.

Here is what I was looking at.

The coffee was very good. A nice, subtle chocolate flavor that seemed to work with the coffee instead of overpowering it.

The beignets? They.......they were.......VERY GOOD! A far cry from when I had them the first time. These were little pillows that almost melted in your mouth. Very soft with no greasy mouth-feel. They did a lot of things right here.

Bottom line: Big improvement on the beignets.

So, there it is. A second chance. A second impression. I'm happy that I went back. I'm happy that the people at CT would welcome me back. I think I'll leave it at that.

http://www.cafetourane.com/

J. Miller