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These Six ‘Beloved’ Restaurants Won the 2022 James Beard America’s Classics Award
‘Bad Vegan,’ a Raw Food Success Story Gone Wrong, Is Your Next True Crime Obsession
Pizza and Pool Water: An Oral History of Feeding Austin During Winter Storm Uri
How Pitmaster Quy Hoang Brings His Asian Heritage to Texas Barbecue
Celery Gets to Shine in This Recipe for Stewed Celery With Herbs and Persian Lime
Here Are London’s Michelin-Starred Restaurants for 2022

These Six ‘Beloved’ Restaurants Won the 2022 James Beard America’s Classics Award

Posted: 16 Feb 2022 09:08 AM PST

Inside Casa Vega, Sherman Oaks, CA | Wonho Frank Lee

America's Classics Awards honor older, "timeless" restaurants — and kick off the James Beard Awards season

It's officially James Beard Award season: Today, the Foundation announced the first winners of 2022. As in years past, six long-tenured restaurants have been named "America's Classics." Per the Foundation, the award "is given to locally owned restaurants that have timeless appeal and are beloved regionally for quality food that reflects the character of its community." This year's list has an especial focus on restaurants serving soul food, which comprises half the list.

Over 100 restaurants have won the award — recent honorees include Vera's Backyard Bar-B-Que in Brownsville, Texas; Pho 79 in Garden Grove, California; and El Guero Canelo in Tucson, Arizona — and winners tend not to receive other nominations for Beard Awards. Those other awards nominations, which tend to focus on individual chefs as well as newer (and typically more expensive) restaurants, will be announced soon: Semifinalists will be announced next week, followed by the shorter list of finalists in March, and culminating in an awards ceremony in Chicago on June 13.

And now, here are the newest America's Classics winners:

A view of a the very crowded bar at Casa Vega, which has neon signs that say — Casa Vega

Casa Vega, Sherman Oaks, California: A beloved Valley institution, Casa Vega is a family-owned Mexican restaurant that has been serving LA's civilians and celebrities since 1956.

Corinne's Place, Camden, NJ: The Sunday buffet is the hallmark of this New Jersey soul-food destination, as are the Cajun turkey wings, smothered chicken, and fried catfish.

Solly's Grille, Milwaukee, WI: Diners flock to this nearly 90-year institution for its butter burger, a famously rich onion-and-butter topped sirloin patty.

The crowded dining room at Wo Hop. — Wo Hop

Wo Hop, New York, NY: One of the oldest restaurants in NYC's Chinatown, Wo Hop stands as a testament to the old-fashioned Chinese American cooking that is increasingly hard to find.

The Busy Bee Cafe, Atlanta, GA: This essential Atlanta restaurant is a fried chicken legend in a city that boasts plenty of it and has been open since the 1940s.

Florence's Restaurant, Oklahoma City, OK: Mother and daughter together keep Florence's Restaurant's place as one of Oklahoma City's best loved, serving some of the city's favorite fried chicken, oxtails, and homey classics like chicken and dumplings and honey meatloaf.

‘Bad Vegan,’ a Raw Food Success Story Gone Wrong, Is Your Next True Crime Obsession

Posted: 16 Feb 2022 08:51 AM PST

Sarma Melngailis, a thin blonde woman in her 30s, stands in a restaurant kitchen surrounded by white bowls of ingredients and a food processor, with the docu-series title card — Netflix

A good celebrity raw chef is hard to find in this upcoming docu-series from Netflix

In the early 2000s, Sarma Melngailis had everything. She was the hot blonde chef of celebrity-packed restaurant Pure Food & Wine, the face of the kind of dietary movement — vegan food with nothing cooked above 120 degrees Fahrenheit — that was quickly gaining ground in New York City.

But in 2015, Melngailis disappeared. She hadn't been paying her staff, vendors, or landlord. Her staff unionized and walked out over unpaid wages, and she was wanted for fraud and violation of labor law. Eventually she was found with her husband, Anthony Strangis, in a hotel room in Tennessee, after he ordered Domino's pizza with a side of wings. She had been subsisting on vegan bowls from Chipotle.

If you're thinking this story is fit for the screen, Netflix agrees: Here's the trailer for Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives, a documentary from Tiger King producer and Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened director Chris Smith, a man who clearly knows his way around a juicy, knotted scandal. The documentary will be released on March 16.

The film attempts to answer the burning question of so many of the world's biggest scandals: how did someone with so much success fuck up so badly? As you may have guessed, love plays a big part. Strangis supposedly manipulated Melngailis, meeting her after becoming close with Alec and Hilaria Baldwin on Twitter (just a wild detail). He was coercive and controlling, with Melngailis telling Vanity Fair that he subjected her to "cosmic endurance tests," promising her fame, fortune, and even immortality. Per the trailer, something called a "meat suit" was involved.

Eventually Melngailis began loaning him money. According to the indictment, she had transferred $1.6 million from her businesses to personal accounts, "of which her husband blew roughly $1 million at Foxwoods casino and another $200,000 at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut."

However, in the trailer one source asks, "What if she's running a con on him?" while another calls her the "vegan Bernie Madoff." So things might be even wilder than they seem. But between this and the other raw vegan restaurant owner who kept exposing himself on the subway, there's never been a better advertisement for stoves.

Pizza and Pool Water: An Oral History of Feeding Austin During Winter Storm Uri

Posted: 16 Feb 2022 08:11 AM PST

An illustration of a line of people waiting outside a building in the snow while a cook is cooking in the dark to the left. — Illustration by Agostina Ele

https://austin.eater.com/2022/2/16/22933440/texas-winter-storm-2021-feeding-austin-oral-history

How Pitmaster Quy Hoang Brings His Asian Heritage to Texas Barbecue

Posted: 16 Feb 2022 07:00 AM PST

Hoang uses Asian spices, sauces, and cooking techniques at Blood Bros BBQ in Houston

At Blood Bros BBQ in the Bellaire neighborhood of Houston, TX, Vietnam-born pitmaster Quy Hoang is bringing Asian spices, sauces, and cooking techniques to classic Texas barbecue. "I like to look at us as using traditional cuts of meat, traditional cooking methods, but just with flavors that we grew up eating," he says. "After a while we were like, hey we have the Texas trinity down, now let's have some fun."

The restaurant, which is among the Eater 38 Essential Houston Restaurants, is known for its wildly popular gochujang ribs, brisket burnt end steam buns, Thai red curry and chili sausage, and more. But one item that really stands out on the menu is the restaurant's smoked char siu pork belly fried bao buns. Hoang begins the process of this dish by rubbing down a slab of pork belly with a spice rub consisting of brown sugar, salt, and Chinese five-spice. The pork belly gets placed on the smoker for six hours, and doused in a char siu glaze when it comes off. "It's something we always grew up eating," Hoang says. "After school, me and the boys, we would go to the local Asian supermarket and buy char siu, heat it up and eat it with a bowl of rice, it was delicious. So this is another one of those dishes that's inspired by our upbringing."

Once the meat is ready, it's time to get the other components of the bun set up. Chefs at the restaurant fry a set of bao buns in hot oil for less than a minute, before tossing them in a honey syrup. Next, strips of the pork belly get fried in a pan until there is a deep char on each side. Once they're dark, they get an extra layer of glaze to help with the caramelization process. The meat gets added to the bun, dolloped with Chinese mustard, and topped with some in-house pickled ong choy, also known as Chinese water spinach.

Says Hoang, "Houston is such a melting pot, there's guys all over the city that are taking their heritage and putting it into barbecue, and it's working."

Celery Gets to Shine in This Recipe for Stewed Celery With Herbs and Persian Lime

Posted: 16 Feb 2022 06:30 AM PST

A big red pot of stewed celery sits on a wooden surface. — YesChef

Parsley, mint, turmeric, and plenty of caramelized onion create a dish that's fit to be the centerpiece of any dinner table

Growing up, chef Deb Mikhail dreaded eating her mother's khoresh karafs. The Iranian braised celery dish was a staple of her family's vegetarian Shabbat dinners, but she hated it. "It was just like…a celery stew," she says. But after trying a "cool" dish of burrata and celery at Nancy Silverton's Mozza Bar, she decided to give celery another shot, asking herself "how do I turn something I don't like into something I do like?"

In Nancy Silverton's cooking class for YesChef — a subscription-based streaming platform offering cinematic cooking classes taught by world-renowned chefs — she and Mikhail tackle that question, and create a dish that seems impossible to dislike. Silverton peels fibrous celery (did you know you were supposed to peel celery?) and slices it on the bias, while Mikhail caramelizes onions in olive oil with some bay leaves to draw out their sweet flavors. Then the celery is added, along with fresh parsley and mint, dried Persian lime, and turmeric, which all serve to highlight the celery's refreshing flavor and bite.

The result is a rich stew that would be more than enough as a centerpiece for any dinner, served with yogurt or perhaps, as a nod to Silverton, fresh burrata. — Jaya Saxena

Stewed Celery With Herbs and Persian Lime Recipe

Serves 7

Ingredients:

2 bunches celery stalks, rinsed and leaves reserved
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil plus more for drizzling
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons kosher salt plus more to taste
Black pepper, freshly ground
1 bay leaf, preferably fresh
2 teaspoons turmeric
1 cup water, plus more as needed
2 tablespoons ground Persian lime
1 bunch fresh mint leaves
1 bunch fresh Italian parsley

Instructions:

Step 1: Peel the celery stalks and cut them on a bias, about ¼-inch thick; set aside.

Step 2: Heat a large sauté pan or cast-iron enamel pot over medium heat and coat with the olive oil.

Step 3: When the oil is hot, add the onion, salt, black pepper, and bay leaf.

Step 4: Cook and stir until the onions are lightly caramelized and golden, but not too dark, about 10 minutes.

Step 5: Stir in the turmeric until it's incorporated into the ovens and the color is evenly distributed.

Step 6: Add the celery and sauté until well-coated in the onions, about 1 minute.

Step 7: Pour in the water and reduce the heat to low.

Step 8: Stir in the Persian lime and season again with salt.

Step 9: Cook, stirring constantly for 5 minutes, until the celery is translucent but still crisp.

Step 10: Stir in the mint, parsley, and additional water, depending on how much water the celery has absorbed — you may need to add more water a little at a time. If you add too much the celery will become too mushy, but if you don't add enough it will burn. It should be crunchy, salty, and acidic when you taste it; the entire cooking process takes about 35 minutes.

Step 11: Serve the celery in the pan or transfer to a decorative plate.

Here Are London’s Michelin-Starred Restaurants for 2022

Posted: 16 Feb 2022 06:00 AM PST