Triple-D in Triple-A: On the Road Again
Steve Klauke, voice of the Salt Lake Bees, spends all 144 games of the Bees season with the team, home and away. Needless to say he's not getting home cooking for 72 of those games. Steve's always looking for a good spot to eat in the 15 cities throughout the league and here, he'll chronicle those visits to his favorites, which also happen to be featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
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Another season of Bees' baseball is underway. That means road trips, airplanes, buses and, hopefully, good food. This means another year of checking out some of the local eateries that have been featured on the highly popular Food Network program Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Host Guy Fieri takes you through a culinary road trip of some of the best local spots around the country.
Our first road trip featured a visit to Tacoma, which is the home of several great places that have been featured on the show, including the Southern Kitchen, Bruno's and The Crown Bar. This time, I visited the last spot that I had yet to try, Dirty Oscar's Annex. DOA, as the locals call it, is only open for lunch on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Tacoma broadcaster Mike Curto and I met there on a Friday. We started out by trying their signature appetizer, homemade Parmesan Tots.
They say making tater tots like the frozen kind that you buy in the store are hard to replicate. Triple-D did an entire episode on restaurants that can do it. DOA does it and does it well. These tots are about 2-3 times the size of what you are used to, so you get just six in your order. They look like your normal tot, but there is a huge difference once you take a bite of one. There is melt in your mouth parmesan cheese in the center and they serve it with a sun-dried tomato ranch dressing. The $8 charge was a little high, but they are worth trying.
For the main course, I tried the tasso tacos. You get four of the tacos, which are filled with braised pork shoulder, apple, roasted green chili crema, pickled radish, manchego cheese, cilantro and jalapeno pico de gallo and served in corn tortillas. The braised pork was moist, tender and full of flavor. I thought they were some of the best tacos that I've ever eaten. I wasn't thrilled with the radish, but as a whole, I would order them again.
On the Bees' second trip of the season, the team traveled to Albuquerque. At one time, I had been to all of the restaurants from the Duke City that had been featured on the show like the Monte Carlo, which is a steak house located in the back of a liquor store, Cecilia's, which had some of the hottest Mexican food I've ever eaten, and the Standard Diner, which serves a hamburger with a full sized pat of butter on top. However, Guy made another trip to New Mexico and found some more good "joints", as he likes to call them.
This time I went to Torino's at Home, an Italian restaurant that features many items you won't find in your typical Italian eatery, which is located in a strip mall in the middle of a group of office buildings in the far northwest area of Albuquerque. When I saw the episode, one of the dishes that was highlighted was a braised beef manicotti that looked delicious, but my eye and my stomach were drawn towards a different meal. The make homemade pasta for all of their dishes, but for this one, the pasta dough is turned dark with Black Squid Ink, which gives it a slight briny flavor. That is fitting because the dish is filled with fresh seafood. On the Triple-D episode it was featured on, Torino's made it with just sautéed calamari, which looked good on its own, but since then, they have altered it. Besides the calamari, they have added shrimp, clams, mussels and small tomatoes.
Since I am allergic to shrimp, Torino's made it for me without it, even though the menu says they will not make changes to their recipes. Fortunately, they will do it most of the time when allergies are involved. All of the items blended together perfectly and found it to be as light and refreshing as any pasta dish that I've ever eaten. The freshness of the seafood was a little surprising since we were in Albuquerque and it was so good. The biggest problem I have is that when I return to Albuquerque, I would like to try the manicotti, but it will be hard for me to pass up the sautéed seafood and black squid ink pasta.
There are no new Triple-D places on road trip #3, but I will definitely try some new ones on trip #4 when we return to Albuquerque.