The Week We Ate (The EID Week in Review)

One! One restaurant. Two! Two restaurants.

The "Castle Building" will have not one but TWO new restaurants inside. [Curbed Detroit]

Corktown: one of the 50 most stylish neighborhoods IN THE WORLD. The WORLD. [Complex]

It's Greek Week in metro Detroit! KouZina Street Food opened in Royal Oak, and Santorini Estiatorio in Greektown (the remodeled Mosaic) isn't far behind. [Crain's / EID FB]

Jon Carlson and Greg Lobdell are the BEST. [Freep]

People are the WORST. [Detroit News]

When I first moved to Lafayette Park there was a cafe in the strip mall on Lafayette called Paris Cafe. It was merely okay, but at least convenient. A few months later it closed. Now, 5 years later, FINALLY, someone else is opening a coffee shop (if only temporarily), and YAAAY it's Jordi from Cafe Con Leche! Meet Cafe con Leche de Este, a pop-up coffee shop in the LP opening 11/4. [CCLDE FB]

Is it possible for a business model to be "viral?" If so, such is the concept of a pop-up. The Villages are being a thing and using pop-ups to show it. [Curbed Detroit]

The Caucus Club will serve their last lunch next Wednesday, October 24. Guys, did you "get" my string of Barbra Streisand references in the post that first mentioned their closing? It's really important that you realize how clever that was. [CC FB / EID]

Michigan once again had some big winners at the Great American Beer Festival: Kuhnhenn Brewing Co., Bastone and Redwood Lodge all took home medals. (Kuhnhenn and Bastone both seem to be GABF favorites.) Which is awesome! Except that none of these guys distribute (except Kuhnhenn in VERY limited quantities), so you actually have to go to the brewery. Which is awesome is you live near-ish Warren, Royal Oak or Flint. And not if you don't. [GABF]

And here is the line-up for next weekend's Fall Beer Festival. Start planning. [MBG blog]

Which also means Detroit Beer Week is now upon us. [EID]

And for those "out west," Bill's Beer Garden in Ann Arbor is now open. [BBG FB]

More beer news from the Ace Deuce: World of Beer, a Florida-based craft beer chain, will be opening in Ann Arbor. But don't get too excited: A2 is not without its share of stellar craft beer bars and there's no promising this chain will focus prominently on Michigan crafts, which is what the locals will demand most. (I see a lot of Sam Adams in their future.) Plus, IT'S A SPORTS BAR. *shudder* [AnnArbor.com]

And even more from Ann Arbor: dude behind Mani Osteria still opening a Mexican joint, still doesn't have a name for it. Mario Batali loves it already. [Concentrate]

The Freep does a game day round-up of places that have opened in A2 in the last two years and includes Lena. I also wrote about Lena. So there. [Freep / EID]

Between Lena, as-yet-unnamed Mexican Mani Osteria, and 2012 Hatch Detroit winner La Feria, it would seem the Latin invasion is upon us once again. Here is a pre-preview of La Feria. [Model D]

The Sugar House is now open at noon on Saturdays and Sundays with a special "Eye Opener" menu. [SH FB]

And Local Kitchen + Bar is now serving brunch on Saturdays AND Sundays. [Local FB]

Market Studio Kitchen + Detroit Emergent Future Lab are the latest concepts taking shape in Eastern Market that support and promote our local food system through community engagement and hands-on education for both youth and adults. [HuffPo]

Nationally distributed PBS show "Start-Up" is based here in metro Detroit, produced by Parliament Studios in Clawson, and has already profiled some favorite local start-ups like Astro Coffee and McClure's Pickles. [HuffPo]

City Wings is cleaner than some hospitals. Meet the guy behind it. [UIX]

Welll ... we want to be known as "design-savvy." Soooooooo... [Detroit News]

Why yes, in fact I am incredibly selfless. [Metromode]

Got money? Feel like giving it away? Here are three current Kickstarter campaigns for you to do just that:
~Belle Isle to 8 Mile. An "insider's guide" to Detroit with some 750 listings (a few authored by yours truly!).
~Chartreuse. A raw vegan organic local food business looking to expand.
~The Brinery. Trying to buy and preserve 12,000 pounds of locally-grown cabbage using lacto-fermentation: "40 barrels in 40 nights."

Eat It GR
So there's been a lot happening in Grand Rapids lately which I haven't been posting because some people get sand in their vaginas if I take one out of my 10+ posts per day to discuss something that isn't happening within 15 miles of the Royal Oak epicenter, so here is a collection of news bits from Beer City USA:

~The Grand Rapids Public Museum's "Thank you, BEER!" exhibit opened this weekend and will remain through December 30, exploring the importance of beer throughout human history. Or, as they say, "Celebrating beer, brewing and the meaning of life." [GR Museum]

~During the course of organizing the above exhibit, museum curators (with the help of several Grand Rapids craft breweries and private collectors in the community) combed through their own collections of local brewing history, a history that started 15-20 feet below the current city streets. This is a great article on the city's long brewing history. Also, the historic Grand Rapids Brewing Co. will re-open next month (from the folks behind HopCat). [MLive]

~Here are some coordinating events that go along with the exhibit. [MLive]

~And here is more more about Founders' commemorative "Furniture City Stock Ale" brewed specifically for this exhibit, only available in west Michigan, and with all profits being donated to the Grand Rapids Public Museum. [Founders]

~And here is a video with 16 breweries celebrating Grand Rapids as Beer City USA. [Whiskey Neat]

~For whatever random reason, Trillium Haven was getting a lot of love (at least on Facebook) this week from various persons-about-town. Founders is doing a "Beer and Butchery" five-course dinner there next Sunday and Monday and the GR CVB also made this great video. [Founders / GR CVB]

~UPDATE: In the 20 minutes since I posted this something else happened. This Tuesday the "Grand Pumpkin," a Beer City USA collaboration brew between 11 Grand Rapids breweries, will be released. (Each brewery has their own version, all different recipes with the same base ingredient: pumpkin.) [MLive]

The Way We Were Week We Ate (The EID Week in Review)

It is National Pizza Month, the Second-Annual American Cheese Month, and also the month of cider mills (and ciders!) and Halloween and Fall Beer Fest. Obviously October is the best month ever. [EID FB / Ferndale Patch / Hour Detroit / TB FB / MT FB]

Is it any coincidence that Food + Wine published their list of the best pizza places in the U.S. during National Pizza Month? No it is not. Predictably the coasts dominate, but there are three (three!) from southeastern Michigan that made the list -- Supino Pizzeria + Buddy's in Detroit and Mani Osteria in Ann Arbor. [F+W]


The Caucus Club says Enough is Enough and will close later this month after Detroit Restaurant Week wraps. The Caucus was one of the last-standing dining institutions of Old Detroit. So much for The Way We Were, but owner Mary Belloni believes that it will only be a matter of time before Happy Days Are Here Again. [Detroit News]

Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital has opened an organic greenhouse and hired a resident farmer with 16 years experience thanks to an anonymous $1million donation. The facility will be used to further Henry Ford's mission of promoting wellness through food in addition to care and will also have an education center. [Prosper]

OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN. Jolly Pumpkin enjoys the tease. [Royal Oak Patch]

Aw, a young Chef Paul Grosz! [Fat Bob's Kitchen / Cuisine FB]

You know, for awhile I thought we were getting away from that whole "steak and potatoes" Midwestern thing. We weren't. Here are a bunch of new steakhouses in metro Detroit (Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse, Prime29 Steakhouse, Detroit Prime, more), which is to say nothing of all the old ones. (Or new ones they missed, like the London Chop House.) [MMX]

There is a certain contingency that rolls their eyes now at every "urban agriculture in Detroit" story (surprisingly, I'm not among them), but it really is one of the most fascinating and unique things currently happening in this city. Here's a great story on Detroit's Food Field. [MLive]

More rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble over food trucks. [Freep]

GQ Magazine names Kuhnhenn Brewing Co. one of the 12 best bars for beer lovers in the country, uses spectacularly awful photo to demonstrate. [GQ]

The Sugar House is celebrating their one-year anniversary. All of Detroit will be there. [Sugar House FB]

8 Degrees Plato also celebrated one year in business. Probably not all of Detroit was there (the invisible barrier of 8 Mile and all), but maybe a respectable amount of Ferndale? [EID FB / 8 Degrees FB / Brew Jus FB]

More word on the Mina/Puck MGM changeover: Bourbon Steak closes its doors after service on Sunday, Oct. 7 and will immediately begin remodeling. Also starting Monday, Saltwater will be open seven days a week until further notice. No timeline yet available on when Saltwater will close for remodeling. [EID FB]

Santorini Estiatorio (Greek-named restaurant in Greektown) appears to be coming along nicely. [EID FB]

The inaugural DLECTRICITY event already has the potential to be one of Detroit's signature annual festivals and could quite possibly become a cultural lynchpin, Detroit's world-renowned answer to ArtPrize. At first I thought the name was silly, but it has grown on me. [Detroit News]

Real Detroit Weekly: Caucus Club

"Let's just get something out of the way: Barbra Streisand sang here for, like, a week. It was very early in her career and she left the Caucus Club gig to perform on the Tonight Show with Jack Parr, and that is how a star was born.

'But the Caucus Club is famous for more than just this Funny Girl. Originally opened to accommodate the overflow from the infamous London Chop House, the Caucus Club forged its own identity and remains one of the last bastions of old Detroit dining — a throwback to a former era at a time when throwbacks (especially to that particular era) are coming back in vogue. Thank you, Mad Men, for reacquainting us all with the pleasures of the three-martini lunch. For this, the Caucus Club is one of the best places in the city..."

Read the rest of the article here.

DRW Preview #1: Caucus Club

What began, in a sense, as the "waiting room" for the London Chop House -- intended to hold the overflow from this world-renowned restaurant -- has now become a Detroit dining institution all its own, and has ironically even outlived its predecessor (which closed in 1991). This newest addition to Detroit Restaurant Week is a legend in its own right, and is one of the few surviving upscale dining establishments that still echo of Old Detroit, the Detroit of untold wealth, power and prestige.

But the fate of the Caucus Club was not always quite so sure. About 20 years ago the restaurant was failing, until a woman named Mary Belloni stepped in as a waitress and decided to buy it out of bankruptcy. She still owns it to this day, and runs it along with her son Robert. Part of the reason for their longevity during a time when all the old Detroit staples are shuttering is pretty simple: Mary runs a tight ship. The waste and excess that are the bane of so many other restaurants are nonexistant here, and this has helped them to weather the storm of socio-economic and demographic shifts. Oh, and also the fact that the food is exceptionally good.

Everything they make is done from scratch using high-quality, fresh ingredients. The seafood, which they are most famous for, is flown in fresh almost daily. It is the consistency, dependability, and longevity of their menu; the freshness and high quality of their products; and also their personal relationship with their customers that keeps them open and sets them apart. “[Our servers] are professionals; they do this job because they love it,” says Robert. In other words, this isn't your usual cast of bored college students serving tables to pay rent and secretly doing shots behind the bar while they stand around waiting for customers to come in. This professional waitstaff all has years' worth of industry experience (one even owned several of his own restaurants and decided to be a server because he just loves the job and loves talking to people), and have over time become friends with the crowd of 90% regulars. “We know our customers and we treat them well.” That's a little more of that Old Detroit hospitality for you.

For the Detroit Restaurant Week menu sampling, I started with the escargot. It's amazing how the more adventurous you become in your culinary romps the less-weird formerly-weird things seem, like snails. Totally not at all weird anymore. Things that make you go hmmmm. The escargot is prepared very traditionally, sauteed with mushrooms and garlic served with a lemon wedge and thick garlic toast on the side. That bread is there to sop up all that beautiful buttery garlic goodness, and mon Dieu what an explosion of wonderful, simple, aromatic flavors. I guess when someone decided to put snails on a plate they figured they better put a KILLER sauce with them, and it worked (you really do need a pungent, tart compliment here though -- those little critters tend to be a bit bitter, not really good as a stand-alone flavor). And myohmy I will eat the hell out of some snail juice, mark.

Next I tried a small version of their Caesar salad (I had a lot more eating to do, so smaller portions made sense -- don't let the above image fool you). Another classic, but don't shirk away from the fresh-ground black pepper; it gives a great kick.

For the entree course I sampled the Grilled Pickerel with brown butter and capers, served with rice pilaf and vegetable (here broccoli). The brown butter has a very subtle sweetness to it, having a rich, nutty flavor that makes it ideal in pastries but also in seafood dishes where it helps to offset the ... you know ... fishiness. The individual flavors of the rich brown butter and the sharp tanginess of the capers all create a great harmony in this dish, and the pickerel itself is sauteed for a nice outer crispness and inner juiciness.

Finally for dessert I tried their signature Gold Brick Sundae. Creamy vanilla ice cream with a thick coating of divinely decadent chocolate and a wafer cookie (that smelled exactly like freshly-baked waffle cones), it inevitably made me think of a milk chocolate Dove ice cream bar in a bowl instead of on a stick. This is the kind of guilty pleasure that would send me straight to confession if I were a practicing Catholic.

There's a reason the Caucus Club has been around for nearly 60 years. Granted not much has changed in that time -- but hell, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Decor that may have seemed outdated and antiquated a decade ago is now chicly nostalgic (I think we can also thank Mad Men for that newfound embrace of retro nostalgia), and with the help of Detroit Restaurant Week the Caucus Club just may see a renaissance of its own.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE ... are you curious about the cocktail made with beef broth, the Bullshot? Or maybe you're wondering whether the Barbra Streisand rumors are true? Perhaps you just want to hear me hail the return of the three-martini lunch, which may or may not have any foundation in reality? Check out the September 29, 2010 issue of Real Detroit Weekly for the Caucus Club Tale Part the Second: Where's the Beef?

Detroit Restaurant Week Menu

FIRST COURSE:

Caucus Club Caesar Salad
-or-
Classic Wedge Salad
(Served with blue cheese, tomato and bacon)
-or-
New England Clam Chowder
-or-
Escargot

SECOND COURSE:

Grilled Pickerel
(With brown butter and capers, served with rice pilaf and vegetable)
-or-
Crab-stuffed Salmon
(Served with Champagne sauce over a bed of baby spinach)
-or-
Cabernet-braised Lamb Shank
(Served with root vegetables)
-or-
Sautéed Chicken Marsala
(Served with fettuccine)
-or-
Roasted Acorn Squash
(Stuffed with wild rice, mushrooms, apple and walnuts, served on a
Swiss chard)

THIRD COURSE:

Famous Gold Brick Sundae
-or-
Pumpkin Cheese Cake

Round 3: New Additions to the 3rd Edition of Detroit Restaurant Week

The participating restaurants for this third installment of Detroit Restaurant Week have officially been announced, and not only are there two n00bs in the mix but they've added an additional restaurant, bringing the total up to 18 overall.

Let me break down that +2 = 1 math for you: the newly-opened Detroit Seafood Market replaces the shuttered Detroit Fish Market (both literally and figuratively: the new restaurant even inhabits the old restaurant's space in Paradise Valley), and the historic Caucus Club has also joined the line-up.

The Caucus Club is one of the few remaining pillars of Old Detroit, a true "gentlemen's club" in the very proper customary English sense that does NOT mean "strip club." Initially conceived as the "waiting room" for the world-famous London Chop House across the street, the Caucus Club is perhaps most famous for being the place where Barbara Streisand began her singing career. The Caucus Club is a relic of -- nay, tribute to -- the former era of Detroit's glory days, and maintains much of that good-old-boy Mad Men-esque vibe. Not stuffy ... NOSTALGIC.

Named "Detroit's Best Business Lunch" by Gourmet Magazine, this is the kind of place where the three-martini lunch is still very much in vogue (too bad you can't also puff a pricey Cuban cigar, that would be SOOOO '50s chic). While you're here try their signature cocktail the Bullshot, a mixture of beef broth, vodka and spices that's been served here since 1952.

Another change to this round of Detroit Restaurant Week is the pricing: there's been a hike in the three-course prix fixe pricing from $27 to ... wait for it ... and you might want to sit down ... $28. You okay? You want some water? Paper bag to breathe in? You got this?

Next week I will start bringing you fun tidbits and factoids to get you ramped up for Restaurant Week, which runs Friday, September 24 - Sunday, October 3. Start making reservations NOW through Open Table (and don't think for a second that I'm kidding).

And here is the complete list of participating restaurants for the Fall 2010 Edition of Detroit Restaurant Week:

24Grille – Westin Book Cadillac Detroit

Andiamo Detroit Riverfront – GM Ren Cen
Atlas Global Bistro – Midtown

Caucus Club – Penobscot Building
Coach Insignia – GM Ren Cen

Cuisine – New Center
Da Edoardo Foxtown Grille – Foxtown

Detroit Seafood Market – Paradise Valley
Forty-Two Degrees North – GM Ren Cen

Iridescence – MotorCity Casino-Hotel
Mosaic Restaurant – Greektown

Opus One – Downtown
Rattlesnake Club – Stroh River Place

Roast – Westin Book Cadillac Detroit
Roma Café – Eastern Market

Saltwater – MGM Grand Detroit
The Whitney – Midtown Wolfgang Puck Grille – MGM Grand Detroit