Man Camp 2009!

This is probably one of my favorite times of the year. Having just returned from a gluttonous camping trip, I get to recount all of the food I ate & fun I had. Despite the rain, hail & general bad weather, this year didn't disappoint.




Day 1; Thursday.

2 cars with 6 eager campers arrived at the grounds in the early afternoon rain & proceeded to get our tents & sleeping quarters set up. Having been drinking for pretty much the entire day & soaking in the rain by nightfall, we realized how much we missed our resident cook, John (he was arriving on Friday).

We had managed to make a fire & were listening to the Lakers/Nuggets game on a car stereo as we cooked up some bratwursts on a small Weber grill. No condiments, just a brat & a bun. I'm pretty sure we looked like Neanderthals!

Day 2; Friday.

Our misery was compounded as we waited for John to show up, no breakfast for us! More people did arrive though & in time Scott had the jockey box set up & cold Coors Light was flowing.

There were other luxury items in the camp that I had missed from my absence the year before. There were now 2 large tents, one for the kitchen & another for the house band; The Texas Creek Massacre. In the band tent was booze on a rope (see the 1st picture), which did well to keep us warm as night.

The kitchen tent had several massive coolers, a serving/buffet table, a fully stocked pantry & a new 3 ring gas cooker with griddle that John had picked up, along with a very ingenious folding bench system that provided all of the room needed for him to prepare the meals that I'll be talking about soon enough. Outside of the tent was a large deep fryer & a coal BBQ for grilling.

Before we knew what hit us, John & crew were fast at work with an early dinner. Chicken Fried Steak, Gravy, Tater Tots & Jalapeno Poppers w/BBQ Sauce (both deep fried). Delicious! Finally, a proper meal!



John had some TCM Blueberry Cobbler baking in a iron pot, so we were treated to a dessert as well. Full, we retired to the band tent to hear some music & do more boozing.

Day 3; Saturday.

Finally, we were treated to our first breakfast. John didn't spare the horses. I think that every year our new 14" TCM burritos are getting more & more insane...



Meats (chorizo & bacon), vegetables (onions & peppers) & eggs were sizzling on the griddle, green chili on the hob while tater tots & spam got a dip in 350 degree oil. Josh had also made some cornmeal mush.






This is basically cornmeal that is boiled till cooked, packed into a convenient shape to firm, then fried. In this case in a skillet. Topped with cheese, hot sauce & other additions, it made one hell of a start to the day!



George was nice enough to hook up some Bloody Mary's as well. I'm not normally a fan, but these were great. Really strong, with pickles & pickle juice added & beef jerky stirrers!






Josh began to prepare his signature pulled pork shoulder. 1 was done with a rub, the other simply with salt & pepper. 7lbs of pork when it was all said & done!

It was getting around to dinner time, so 24 8oz Sirloin Steaks were seasoned & sizzling away on the charcoal grill.




Tater tots (yes again, we had loads of them!) & beer battered Vidalia onion rings were dunked into the deep fryer. The tots were topped with a little cheese for added flavor.






As you can see, dinner could have fed a ravenous animal! Not pictured, was a peach cobbler that John made much in the same way as the previous nights blueberry dessert. As usual, the night ended with most of us in the band tent. By this time, we had graduated onto our second handle of Jack Daniel's whiskey (3rd & final handle consumed).

Day 4; Sunday.

The previous night was a bit heavy & most of us woke up with raging hangovers. Breakfast was insane again, just way over the top! Corned beef hash, bacon, breakfast sausages, eggs, melted cheese, peppers, Josh's green chili & more.

Some rolled their breakfast up. Others (myself included) opted for the 'plate-method'!

Around lunch time, 2 batches of wings were put into the deep fryer; 1 hot & the other with a whiskey BBQ sauce. The band played their hit single; 'The Wings Are Ready' while people piled into the kitchen tent.


Ted began to work on his monstrous bacon roll and soon that was in the smoker & the pulled pork, was well, being 'pulled'. No use of utensils here, Josh & Lem went caveman & did it all by hand.

Served on a bun, with BBQ sauce, smoky baked beans & coleslaw, I really enjoyed the final dinner of the trip.


Day 5; Monday.


The last day was pretty simple. Hangover recovery. A breakfast of Pancakes, leftover Pulled Pork, Breakfast Sausages & generous helpings of maple syrup. After that we cleaned up the camp, took the tents down & anything that didn't go 'BOOM!' went into the fire for destruction.

We skipped our usual stop at The Coyote Cantina in Buena Vista, so our trip ended there. A great time was had by all, so rest assured that I'll be going to Man Camp again next year.

RUB (208 West 23rd St.)

I ventured out of my normal stomping grounds last night & by golly, I'm glad I did. After working up a hunger from decorating 7B Xmas style, Dan & I headed up to Chelsea for some insanely good Kansas City BBQ. RUB stands for Righteous Urban Barbecue & what owner Paul Kirk does with meat is Righteous indeed.

Both Dan & I opted for the 'Burnt Ends'. They're available in limited quantities & we managed to snag the last 2 orders (we chuckled like little children as wave after wave of patrons tried to order them, only to hear that they were all out). The Burnt Ends are basically super-tender, fatty brisket with a deliciously charred outer side. Kings do not eat this well. Served on a metal platter & accompanied by 2 sides & bread, the food was simple yet effective. I got the beans & coleslaw. The beans, oh my God, the beans. Dan told me they were good, but never in my wildest dreams could I have envisioned how fucking tasty they were. Molasses, brown sugar, pulled pork & spices to make your mouth water...

We washed it all down with Shiner Bock which is apparently the State Beer of Texas & not available in NY. Some how they manage to smuggle in truckloads of the stuff & if I'm right, RUB is one of the only places in the city to get this tasty beverage.

I really enjoyed myself @ RUB & I highly recommend the place!

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que

Sometimes to get the best, you have to travel off of the beaten path. Where Teddy's barbeque adventure took him to the clusterf*ck that is Midtown Manhattan for Virgil's BBQ (you can read below how that ended), I knew of a place a little bit out of the way that I was hoping to prove worthy of the trip. Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is a restaurant that I know very well from my days back at Syracuse University (where their flagship location presides), but a few years ago they opened another location on 131st Street and 12th Avenue in Harlem. How would this stack up to the original?

It was somewhat difficult to get a reservation at the time we wanted, but since our group could be considered giant with 13 of us in tow, we happily took the 2:00pm spot. Lines spilling out onto the street corner and into the indoor bar area welcomed us when we arrived and a steady flow of people flooded it's cavernous, wooden interior all day. This was a great sign, but as you know, butts in the seats doesn’t necessarily spell quality all the time in New York. Example: the Knicks sell out pretty much every home game….wrap your brain around that. We were seated as soon as enough of us had arrived, and were given menus and drink choices immediately. Before anyone had the chance to say, "So, what did you order?", our long set of tables was flooded with small appetizer plates, frosty pitchers and ice buckets filled with chilled beers. For the table, we split fried green tomatoes, 'drunken' peel and eat shrimp, and chili on-the-half-shell (nachos slathered with the house chili). All were sensational. The tomatoes were crispy golden brown, surprisingly tart, and disappeared in a puff of smoke and seasoned ranch dipping sauce. It was good to get the only non-meat item out of the way first. The shrimp were heavily seasoned on the outside which allowed us to regulate the spiciness with a lick of the fingers once you to fought your way into the damn thing. The nachos merely acted as a conveyance for the chili and were generally camouflaged underneath a heaping spoonful of the piping hot chili and gooey melted cheese. Sadly, this plate only made one spin around the table.

Filling up on appetizers might have been a poor idea for several Dinosaur Bar-B-Que amateurs in our party. When the hubcap-sized main course plates were slid in front us, sighs of "Daaaaamn" and "Oh no, I'm in trouble" traveled down the table like fallen dominoes. Personally, I always welcome a good eating challenge. After performing the proper pre-meal calisthenics, I dove face-first into my Tres Hombres, which is pulled pork, ribs, beef brisket, 2 sides and cornbread. All the meats were super tender and glistened with moisture, as good barbecue should be, and had the signature pink smoke ring to boot. I went for the hand-cut fries and coleslaw as sides, but their mac & cheese, potato salad, chili and Syracuse salt potatoes all got stuffed-mouth, head-nodding approval from the group.

Although covering barbecue in sauce is taboo in some areas of the country, I couldn't resist the lure of the Wango Tango sauce (their spicy version of the house barbecue sauce) and a perky little habanero-garlic number which came in a smaller bottle that bore a number of skull & bones. They went on and in everything, including my friend's purse on the way out (remember kids: stealing is wrong).

Drinks, appetizers, main course, and coffee went for less than $35 per person. For that price, everyone was full and content beyond words although alot of the food ended up coming back in styrofoam containers.

Room for one more? Go'on Then!

Dinosaur version2.0 - Harlem does the original spot justice with quality food, attentive service, funky decor (complete with foot stomping blues music and graffiti-littered bathrooms), and in my mind stands up with the best barbecue joints in all of New York City. So, definitely make the trip up for some awesome grub. Save that extra money you would ordinarily spend at Manhattan restaurants for a taxi back to the subway.....or for a wheelbarrow ride home.

Woo Chon (8-10 W. 36th St.)

Nestled in the heart of Korea Town is a pure gem. It doesn't look like much from the outside & the decor is spartan, but don't let that fool you. I met up with Adam & some other hungry individuals on Saturday for some primo Korean BBQ. While downing Shochu & hurling abuse at each other we ate some pretty excellent food.

We started with a few appetizers; Mandoo Gui (meat dumplings), Seafood Pajun (an insanely excellent seafood & scallion pancake), among others. The wait staff fired up the hibachi grill & it was onto the good stuff - MEAT!

That table was covered with all manner of side dishes to go along with the impending meat feast. Kimchi, vegetables, lettuce (for wrapping), a delicious hoisin variation & spicy blue crab legs (YUM!). As far as the BBQ went, we got pork, chicken & beef, but the real show stopper was the squid. Cooked in an excellent, spicy sauce, it was simply amazing. & the group atmosphere of cooking your own food en masse made the meal very enjoyable.

We took our sweet time eating & we never rushed. The service was excellent & I really liked how they changed the hibachi grill-top after every meat course which prevented sticking/burning. The meal was a little on the expensive side for Korean BBQ, but I think it was worth every penny All in all an excellent time, I recommend you check it out if you get a chance.

The many meats of Man Camp.

So, it's Memorial Day weekend & what better to do than spend some time in the Rockies drinking beer, eating deep fried meats, shooting guns & burning shit. Myself, my brother-in-law Josh, brother (Sous Chef Stef) & 18 other degenerates headed to the mountains for 5 days of utter fucking madness. 5 kegs, an additional 7 pounds added to my gut & god knows how much cholesterol later, we emerged from the wilderness, no doubt smelling like hammered shit & looking about the same.

Our resident cook, Farley (known lovingly as Cookie) & his 'culinarily-gifted' sidekick, Sean, spun up the deep fat fryer pretty much as soon as they rolled into the camp site, our hearts have never been the same - between the fried meats, firearms, chainsaws, booze & exploding cans of Aquanet, it's a small miracle that no one had died. By day 2, one guy was already on a saline drip (we have 2 EMS techs on hand), passed the hell out in one of the pop-ups (I'm not naming any names Chris).

Josh hooked up an insano 18 pounds of pork shoulder. Smoked for 12 hours & monitored closely by his wacky remote controlled thermometer, this stuff was worth it's weight in gold. We stuffed our faces with it on the first day & afterwards it made it's way into our triple meat breakfast burritos. Pulled pork, deep-fried bacon, pork patties, eggs, veggies & green chili. The EMS boys had no stints or defibrillators - we were on our own...














Chicken fried steak & country gravy (thicker than heck) followed as well.



Breakie was a Cardiologist's nightmare - Just look at the picture - I rest my case! All in all, a wicked trip. Good food - good company & a welcome break from the humdrum of NYC.



Beer with dirt 'floater' (or sinker?)

Stef goes hunting.

Medicine

The jockey box, 4 years in the making...