So please to let us unwashed in on the secret mystery: what's a fragel ?

Eh?

Geo

A fragel is a bagel, deep-fried instead of baked, rolled in cinnamon sugar. Must be eaten fresh and hot.

FoodSnob77 wrote:Pizza Bob's
http://www.pizzabobs.net
814 S State St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 665-4517

For those of you who frequent the chain Pocket's, they have a similar thing here called the chipati. The difference being that their bread is much tastier. Their pizza is also very good as all their ingrediants seem to be fresh and the dough is very similar to the chipati bread.

I went to Pizza Bob's for my first chipati and honestly don't understand the love for this thing. Mediocre salad in a mediocre pita. The pita is baked to order which is nice but the resulting soft puffy bread has little character. The sauce was considerably zippier than the 1000 island dressing it looked like. It wasn't the worst thing I've eaten but if I never eat another chipati it won't bother me in the least.

FoodSnob77 wrote:Blimpy Burger
http://www.blimpyburger.com
551 S Division St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 663-4590

And finally, the beloved, Blimpie Burger, so greasy that the brown bag will start soaking before you get home but oh so good. Not the best burger I've ever had, but nevertheless, one of the most unique and satisfactory.

Now, this I understand better than the chipati but I think Blimpy Burger might be best appreciated with a belly full of beer. I actually liked these greasy, crumbly burgers quite a bit and, hell, it's "cheaper than food." Be sure you don't even mention cheese until your burger is almost cooked.

FoodSnob77 wrote:Does anyone know of or can anyone recommend any places in the chicagoland area that are similar to these places mentioned above?

For burgers, I think That's-A-Burger compares favorably with Blimpy. Not an exact replica but the same in spirit. The atmosphere (I'm not talking about the grease-laden air) is rather different though.

Rene G wrote:I went to Pizza Bob's for my first chipati and honestly don't understand the love for this thing.

Like most things related to The University of Michigan, (except Zingerman's) chipati are all hype. Same for the sick reverential love of Blimpie Burger. Can you imagine standing in line waiting for that dreck? I suppose something happens to your palate when your mind becomes addled by the maize and blue kool aid. Ann Arbor is a lovely town, if only they would clear out all the Wolverines and move them to South Bend, then maybe I wouldn't throw up every time I get near the place. South Bend has no redeming qualities so i wouldn't mind the ultimate sanctomony that my fantasy cross-breeding of domers and wolverines would lead too as there would be very little reason to ever get near the place. One can only dream. Ahhh utopia.

iblock9 wrote:Like most things related to The University of Michigan, (except Zingerman's) chipati are all hype. Same for the sick reverential love of Blimpie Burger. Can you imagine standing in line waiting for that dreck? I suppose something happens to your palate when your mind becomes addled by the maize and blue kool aid. Ann Arbor is a lovely town, if only they would clear out all the Wolverines and move them to South Bend, then maybe I wouldn't throw up every time I get near the place. South Bend has no redeming qualities so i wouldn't mind the ultimate sanctomony that my fantasy cross-breeding of domers and wolverines would lead too as there would be very little reason to ever get near the place. One can only dream. Ahhh utopia.

Wow...that's quite the bitter screed. I recommend an anti-emetic for any unexplained & irrational vomiting.

Personally, I enjoyed my semi-annual trip to Blimpy Burger (once a term was all my system could handle) for a triple w/ cheese & fried egg. I don't think it was the "maize and blue kool aid" that was addling my mind and/or palate, so much as the fact that it was tasty in a greasy sorta way (and one year I lived downwind of it).

However, I couldn't agree with you more about chipatis...I never understood the allure of going out of my way for a plain old salad in a big, dry pita. Same goes for Pockets here. I'm just not a fan.

Oh, and Go Blue!, FWIW.

Khaopaat wrote:Wow...that's quite the bitter screed.

My Ann Arbor Rant...I am only getting started. Wait until someone makes a South Bend rant thread.

iblock9 wrote:My Ann Arbor Rant...I am only getting started. Wait until someone makes a South Bend rant thread.

I'll try my best to fight the temptation to join in on that rant

I kid, I kid (mostly)

Eve Aronoff is opening a new casual Cuban-inspired restaurant in Ann Arbor. I was a huge fan of her restaurant Eve during the year I lived in A2 and I hope to get back there soon to try this place.

See http://www.annarbor.com/business-review ... ann-arbor/

Frita Batido’s menu will be centered on two things: Fritas, a kind of Cuban burger, usually made from chorizo, on an egg bun topped with shoestring potatoes. The fritas will be offered in different flavors, such as turkey, black bean and seafood. And batidos, fresh tropical fruit shakes made with crushed ice, a drop of evaporated milk and sometimes rum.

Eve was a contestant on Top Chef last season and unfortunately made an early exit.

Fritas are the last food I'd imagine anyone would make the focus of a relatively upscale restaurant. They taste good, a greasy mess of beef and pork stretched with breadcrumbs and pepped up with paprika, Durkee shoe string potatoes on top, but the venture is sort of like a fancy place inspired by Jack in the Box tacos or White Castle chicken rings.

A couple of inaccuracies I'll point out for those reading the linked article (only to avoid misinformation):

Fritas are not typically made with chorizo. I can see how perhaps someone from the Midwest used to fresh Mexican chorizo (unknown in Cuban cooking where dried or oil-packed chorizo like those commonly imported from Spain are the norm) would think the Cuban sliders are made with it, though. The mix of beef and pork with garlic and paprika is not unlike loose Mexican chorizo. Here's a typical recipe (though it doesn't have garlic or the ubiquitous Goya adobo):

http://www.tasteofcuba.com/cubanhamburger.html

I laughed when the chef noted that a hallmark of Cuban food is "lots of vegetables." Aside from beans, no way. No one eats fewer veggies, except for maybe Argentines. Fruits are a different story.

Last, batidos generally use condensed milk, not evaporated as stated in the article.

None of this means that the place won't be great. A frita and a batido de guanabana sound good just now.

JeffB wrote:Fritas are the last food I'd imagine anyone would make the focus of a relatively upscale restaurant.

Did you read this part of the article:

But [the restaurant] will be marked departure from eve, a French-influenced fine dining and special occasion restaurant in Kerrytown. Frita Batido will be much more informal and more affordable.

“We will have a fun and whimsical menu inspired by Cuban and Latin American cooking. It will be a lively place,” Aronoff said. “It will be very, very casual. I’m a pretty casual person, so this will be right up my alley.”

She says that she grew to love Cuban food when visiting her grandmother in Miami. I don't know anything about Cuban food, but perhaps her comment about vegetables refers to dishes she had in Miami.

In any case, she clearly isn't trying to replicate food you'd get in Cuba (or Miami), but instead is trying to make a restaurant based on those dishes but also infused with her own ideas. Easy target for purists, I suppose. But not really the point.

Of course I read the article. I stick by my observations and corrections of some objectively inaccurate things that were stated as fact in the article. This is not a matter of opinion. I'm not being a stickler or a pedantic "purist." I care not that the chef has decided to depart from what she calls the traditional chorizo-based slider to make it from turkey or beans. I addressed the incorrect factual premises only. Good for her. Like I said, I'm sure it will be smashing.

Also, the Miami difference isn't.

PS, I didn't really have an opinion, other than fritas are really low-down junk food like a Jack in the Box taco so it's interesting to have a chef-driven restaurant based on it. Maybe it's no different from Hot Doug's, to use the obvious example. But now that we're discussing it, I suppose I'd like to think a chef using a cuisine or a dish as a point of departure would know what it is. Picasso was a technically skilled painter who could create realistic images before he departed into his own world of genius. And, perhaps because of that, he was never called an a-hole.

Regards,

jeff

As someone who has had journalists butcher my words way too often, I wouldn't be surprised if the bit about chorizo was not what she meant. In any case, it doesn't seem to matter one way or the other.

Fair enough. I wouldn't be surprised at all if all the nits I raised were the result of harried note-taking, memory failures, editorial license, etc. "Chorizo-like mix of ground meats" becomes chorizo; legumes becomes veggies, and lots of people don't know evaporated from condensed milk. Really, my main purpose was to make some basic factual corrections for those who read about fritas and batidos here, much as others might correct a statement that spaghetti carbonara starts with Alfredo sauce.

Sort of reminds me of something that's probably off-point. Recently, I followed a link to one of the pizza sites; can't remember whether it was Slice or another. In the comments on a Chicago-focused article, someone who claims to be from Chicago was dug into the position that "stuffed" pizzas a la Giordano's do not have a top layer of dough, and that deep dish pies have thick bready crust. This person seems to have been confused into thinking deep-dishes like Malnati's are called "stuffed" and that "deep dish" means the thick, bready pies that aren't really prevelant in Chicago at all. One could say, "so what, who cares," but the person staking out the incorrect position was purporting to offer advice to tourists visiting Chicago and he or she spoke with badges of authority (lived there for years, ate it all the time, bla , bla). To me, the linked item is similar, probably worse. Newspaper articles about food aren't newspaper articles about product recalls or prison breaks, but people still look to them as authoritative, comparatively speaking. I think that correcting objectively incorrect factual statements republished (or linked) on this site is a virtue. But then, I'm an ass.

JeffB wrote:But then, I'm an ass.

Don't you go changin', Jeff.