Zingerman's Roadhouse

If I had one word to describe Zingerman’s anything it would be "details". Attentive, friendly, knowledgeable service can be found at any of the various outlets in the Zingerman’s franchise of endeavors. You can bet that someone has brought back some of the best and intriguing food stuffs from afar and brought them back to Ann Arbor to share with their customers.

Zingerman’s Roadhouse is a homey sit down restaurant with a slant toward bringing back the best that regional cuisine has to offer. As with the other arms of the Zingerman’s empire, the best of the country’s best regional gems have been collected under one roof. From crab cakes to corn dogs, brisket to ribs, regional traditions have been put on the menu for all to enjoy.

The Roadhouse offers a good selection of locally brewed beers on draft as well as an impressive list of bourbons. If beer or bourbon isn’t your thing, the bar also offers a vast selection of nostalgic cocktails.

Zingerman's Roadhouse Oyster Mulch

As you walk into the restaurant you see a teapot shaped trailer out front. This trailer serves food breakfast, lunch, and dinner to go. A sign pointing you in the opposite direction of the trailer sends you to the front door (which has spent oyster shells whose gifts were enjoyed some time ago). I actually found the oyster shells much more interesting to look at than the typical mulch you find outside most sit down restaurant.

The Roadshow Trailer (in the shape of a tea pot)

One of the first things I noticed upon walking in is the salt and pepper shaker collection. I suppose it’s one of those things that you never really think about collecting until you…well…decide to collect them. I’m not quite sure how many they have, but it’s pretty obvious these things are really old and pretty cool.

Vintage Salt + Pepper Shakers

The food here represents a wide array of down home favorites from across the country. I have a particular affinity for North Carolina barbeque, so I locked onto the pulled pork sandwich almost right away. I think one of the cool things about anything Zingerman’s is that they really want you to be happy with what you get. Not sure what kind of sauce I wanted on my pork, the server suggested that I try all three and decide what I want. After a few minutes she came back with all three sauces for me to try – with a small shred of pork in each one! I was impressed – it would have been very easy to just squirt a dab of each on a plate and hand it to me. Smalls things like this really grab my attention.

After settling on the South Carolina Mustard sauce (highly recommended), I told the server that I didn’t need the bun. When she asked if I wanted another beer I passed because I had to drive back to Cleveland that night. Would you believe since I passed on the bun she gave me a bottle of iced coffee for the ride home? *Excuse me while I dig around in my pocket and pull out another gold star.*

A popular complaint people have is that it’s a few dollars more for the food than it should be. I suppose if we were comparing apples to apples it would be, but the quality of the ingredients -as compared to conventionally produced food - and the level of cooking certainly warrant a slightly higher cost. If you pair the quality of the food with the enthusiastic service that Zingerman’s instills in their staff…well….I think the price point is appropriate.

Zingerman’s Roadhouse isn’t for everybody. If you’re looking for the maximum amount of food for the least amount of money (there's a Golden Corral in Westland (734)641-9163), then this is definitely not the place for you. If you want well researched cooking methods that stay true to their region of origin with an appreciation for quality ingredients, then Zingerman’s Roadhouse definitely needs to be on your list of Ann Arbor stops.

Zingerman's Roadhouse
2501 Jackson Ave
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
(734) 663-3663
www.zingermansroadhouse.com

Zingerman's Deli

Zingerman's Delicatessen

Put the words “food” and “Ann Arbor” in the same sentence and most people will immediately think Zingerman’s Delicatessen. The crown jewel of Ari Weinzweig’s specialty food empire has been serving up bountiful sandwiches and inventive side dishes for nearly thirty years now.

Food enthusiasts around the world have made the pilgrimage to this jewel of a city to sample cheeses, breads, and various other food stuffs whilst waiting to get their hands on one of the many sandwiches on the Zingerman’s menu.

Chances are that if you come during the typical hours of lunch or dinner there is going to be some type of line. Not to alarm anyone, but the line looks much worse than it is. Fairly fast moving, the legendary customer service that all of the various Zingerman’s outlets have, do a great job of keeping things moving without turning it into an anxious experience.

As you wait in line, the small bakery counter is set up on your right. The normal lineup of breads is offered along with a few specialty breads that seem to go pretty fast. If buying bread is what you truly have your heart set on, you can head across town to the actual bakery where the supply is much more robust. We’ve found – as in the case of most bakeries – that the supply at the deli seems to really take a hit at lunch. My neighbor has me pick her up a couple loves of bread every time we go. A good sandwich always starts with good bread and Zingerman’s does bread very well.

On the left hand side is the cheese counter. While I would say that the prices seem to be a couple of bucks higher than you find at home; the selection is absolutely awesome. Again the service is extremely accommodating. The staff at the counter is very well versed in the origins, ripeness, and makeup of all of the cheeses they offer. Even if you aren’t a cheese person it really is a lot of fun to talk to them and sample some things you normally wouldn’t try.

In the very back of the deli is where you place your order. The case in the back has all of the sides that are available for that day. If you’re looking for the deep fried stuff you aren’t going to find it here. If given the choice, I would never eat another French fry again if I had daily access to some of the sides. While the prices may seem a little steep it becomes readily apparent after the first bite that they are using quality ingredients and a lot of them.

After ordering you go to the cash register that is located to the right. On this side of the building is a pretty good selection from the famed Zingerman’s Mail Order catalog. A very good selection of balsamic vinegars, olive oil, jams, and other specialty foods that would most likely make the list of “Stuff White People Like”. And like everything else, the very friendly staff is more than willing to let you try a sample of anything – seriously.

Zingerman's Next Door

After a short wait the food is brought out to you by, you guessed it, a friendly and helpful staff member. While the seating is outdoors, they do set up a heated tent for the colder months. There is also seating in the Zingerman’s Next Door. No matter where you end up sitting, the tireless staff will eventually unite you with your food.

I think the food here is great. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had anything that I would consider average. The sandwiches come in a regular and large size. The large is pretty damn big, so if you’re ordering sides I’d suggest exercising a little restraint and order the regular size. In the past I’ve ordered the Jay’s BBQ Chicken (probably my favorite), the D-$’s Cuban Conundrum (very good), Frank & Kathy’s Half-Italian Sub (okay, this one’s good, too).

As good as the sandwiches are, one would think the sides are just a throw in. Hardly. Let’s put it this way, if you brought the Carrot Top or Swiss Potato to a family picnic and walked away for ten minutes, you would be out of luck. It would all be gone.

If you come to Ann Arbor you have got to come here – as well as their other outlets (Next Door, Bakehouse, Roadhouse, Coffee Company, and Creamery). The staff here is very knowledgeable as well as eager to share information about all of the products they carry. Zingerman’s is the crown jewel in a city full of wonderful gems.

Zingerman's Delicatessen
422 Detroit St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 663-3354
www.zingermansdeli.com

Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger

When you go to Ann Arbor there is no shortage of delicious lunch options. To be clear here, I’m not talking about, “Mmmm, that was good.” I’m talking about, “Damn, that may be all time top five.” In the past I’ve talked about Le Dog and Zingerman’s Deli as noteworthy places to have lunch.

I’ve always wanted to try Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger, but never wanted to risk the disappointment of a bad burger and missing out on lunch at two places I already love. Since Regina wanted to hit Haifa Falafel (which will be tomorrow’s post speaking of all time top five), I figured I’d just go ahead and try Krazy Jim’s.

To be honest, you can go to just about any college campus across the country and there is a place that has been there that is wildly popular among students and the nostalgia hungry alumni. Krazy Jim’s has been going strong since 1953 and certainly falls in the category of “Ann Arbor Institution”.

When you walk in you notice that there is definitely an assembly line, insider knowledge, ordering language, don’t upset the apple cart by not knowing how to order, feel to it. The ordering at Krazy Jim’s is very similar to the anxiety you feel when walking up to the counter at Pat’s or Geno’s and ordering a cheese steak in Philadelphia.

You pretty much faced with the task of knowing pretty much all of the stuff that you're going to have on your burger right from the get go. You’re standing in line with a slew of people in both in front of and behind you. The fear of looking like a dork in front of everyone forces you to focus on the menu to know exactly what you want.

The burger patties when rolled up like meatballs (which is what they start out as) are about the size slightly larger than a golf ball. They go on the flat top as a meatball and are then smashed into a patty. One of your first tasks is to tell them how many patties you’re going to have on the burger (I went with an unmanly two patties). The second thing you had to tell them was if there was going to bacon, grilled onions. If I remember correctly, the last decision was what type of bun to use. (I chose the standard issue plain bun.)I was happy to make it through the line without drawing attention to myself (unlike I did at my first visit to Pat’s Steaks).

Since this was my first time here I went with a fairly standard bacon cheddar burger. When I took the first bite I thought for sure that if I closed my eyes I would think I had been transported to Madison Square Park in New York City. This is very similar to Shake Shack’s burger (my all-time favorite burger and just opened an outpost in Miami, FL). As I ate this little work of art my wife looked at me and said, “Well?”

The Shiz-nit

Well? “Fucking awesome” pretty much sums it up. I wanted to get back in line after I finished my sandwich. The crispy edges, the soft bun, the flavor of the patties made this worthy of a special trip.

I’ve been meaning to get to Miller’s Bar in Dearborn, but always seem to be in the area on a Sunday when they’re closed.

I now have three places that I have to seriously ponder for lunch in Ann Arbor. And yes, Krazy Jim’s easily makes my list of all-time top five burgers. I love this place.

Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger
551 S Division St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 663-4590
www.blimpyburger.com

Barbecue Legend

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that it’s been slim pickins the last month or so. Inexplicably, the less I post the more the traffic goes up. Wouldn’t it be nice if the less you worked the more you got paid? The whole thing is very strange and I stopped trying to figure it out a while ago.

With the exception of a few, I’m sure most people are sick of hearing about my barbecue obsession. Fresh off my visit to the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, I've got another little nugget for you to put in your pipe and smoke: Zingerman’s Roadhouse is hosting Ed Mitchell (yes, The Pit's Ed Mitchell) for a barbecue buffet that will be held on July 6th and 7th. This is the description from their website:

“Seven years after he visited the Roadhouse (before it opened) to teach the traditional Eastern North Carolina whole hog barbecue style we still use today, Ed Mitchell will return to the Roadhouse. He and Chef Alex will spend three days preparing for a two-day feast of traditional barbecue styles from all over the country. You can count on really great ingredients, like grass-fed meats managed by Cornman Farms – our very own farm in Dexter, MI, plenty of local vegetables, and all your favorite fixins.”

The bride’s going to be sitting this one out, but my guess is that my barbecue (and pizza…and hamburger) partners in crime (my brothers-in-law Cheesecake and Walt) will most likely being going up for the occasion. My guess is that it’s going to sell out, but whatever, don’t say you weren’t warned.

Macarons in Ann Arbor? Who Knew?

I’ll admit it. I wasn’t always the biggest fan of French food. Looking back, I think it stems in part from a bad experience my husband and I had at Charles De Gaulle airport in 2001 on a layover to Rome. We encountered some less than friendly Parisians, and we wrote off just about all things French (the exception La Chatelaine in Columbus; always was a favorite, always will be).Well, I now admit, that closing our minds to French food was a mistake. Somewhere within the last several years, we’ve discovered that the French aren’t so bad and they really know what they are doing when it comes to food. I’m not sure of the exact moment of our “epiphany,” but it’s fair to say that we can thank Chez Francois, The Perryville Inn, Eric Ripert and Jean-Georges for their contributions along the way. Now, believe it not, we actually talk about traveling to France.

So, imagine our delight when on a cold, blustery day in March while visiting Ann Arbor for the weekend, we happened upon a French woman selling pastries at the local farmer’s market. Despite the frigid temps, she had a steady stream of people snatching up all types of baked goods – almond cream tarts, eclairs, macarons, etc. We struck up a conversation with Cecelia and her husband, who happens to hail from Ohio. We discussed her background as a pastry chef, the farmers markets she frequented and most intriguingly, the pastry classes she taught through a local cooking school and at her home. We made a mental note of her website – www.ceceliaspastries.com. We bought a fruit tart and her last two coffee macarons.We made our way back to Cleveland and ate said macarons. We promptly fell in love at first bite and found ourselves quickly looking up her next scheduled classes. Unfortunately, a trip back to Ann Arbor would have to wait…until now.

My birthday present from my husband was a surprise – Macaron making class with Cecelia. I was nervous. Research I had done on macaroons revealed that they are hard to make and often end up in failure. Such simple ingredients…sugar, egg whites, almond flour are very formidable in the world of macarons. Those who know me will attest…I am not a fan of failure. I’m a perfectionist, hard on myself, etc. Upon learning of my gift, I told Cal that he needed to attend for me because he’s much more precise and better under pressure. However, in the end, I decided to suck it up and see for myself…with some guidance, could I be successful at making Macarons? It would appear, I couldn’t have a better teacher.

The Classroom

Cecelia has a great set up for teaching classes. To the side of her garage, she’s built a modest sized kitchen for her own baking and teaching classes. She limits the participants to 2-4 people. Her approach for this class was to explain and show in detail how she makes macarons. She provided a very rudimentary recipe – the ingredients, the temp and the cooking time. She stated, in her darling French accent, that she’s added some of her own personal touches, such as using buttercream filling vs. ganache. Her husband was on hand to translate the few times she was at a loss for the right French to English translation to explain the process. Her husband was also available for a much more important task -cleaning up after us as we went along, constantly washing, drying and whisking items in and out of their industrial grade dishwasher. He was at the ever ready, understanding all too well that time is of the essence when dealing with such temperamental pastries as these.There were 3 of us in the class. Cecelia first demonstrated as we took notes and asked countless questions. Then, she let us loose to make the first set of macarons as a group. We chose vanilla. I was impressed with how well we worked as a team. Cecelia explained that macarons aren’t hard to make, they’re just complicated. There are a lot of little steps that go into the finished product and they need a lot of attention. She confirmed my observation that there’s a lot of gray when making them…they are not black and white. Personally, I’m a black and white kind of girl, so it’s understandable how such a little cookie could make me so nervous!

For our first batch, I’d say we did a decent job. The precision that’s needed to perfect piping and “breaking” the tops of the cookies only comes with a lot of practice. We produced a fair amount of “Hershey’s kiss” appearing cookies, but with some vigorous tapping of the pan, most of them faded away, and into the oven they went.

Ready to put together

Our final assignment was to each make our own batch. I chose coffee and my classmates chose raspberry and almond. We all feverishly worked to crank out our first solo batches, referring to the scribbled notes we had just taken and asking for reassurance as we went. Cecelia was often looking over our shoulder to offer advice and make sure we were on the right track. Once our cookies had formed the perfect crust and began to bake, she walked us through the flavoring of the buttercream and showed us how to fill them. The first example was the batch she made…vanilla buttercream (flavored with vanilla beans – no extract here!) with a rum soaked cherry sandwiched between the 2 cookie layers. We couldn’t eat them fast enough …light, chewy cookie and velvety smooth filling. We thought that they were perfect. However, Cecelia quickly commented to her husband that next time she would add 2 cherries to intensify the flavor and ensure a bit of cherry in each bite.

Piping Buttercream

After making almond, coffee and raspberry buttercreams, Cecelia sent us off to our stations to finish our work. Again, once they were assembled, we couldn’t wait to try each flavor. The coffee, vanilla and almond flavors were intense. And good! The raspberry was certainly more subtle, flavored with several fresh raspberries.

In the end, we decided to share our creations amongst one another. Cecelia announced to the class that she better not see us buying macarons from her in the future because now we all know how to make them! We each went home with an assortment and being that class was from 6-9 pm, I ended up having macarons for dinner on the car ride home. I was on a bit of a sugar high, to say the least!

Assembling the Macarons

Overall, I was extremely impressed with this class. Am I the next Pierre Herme? Uh, no. However, I can say that we were all successful in creating these finicky little pastries and we gained a ton of insight from someone with real, in depth knowledge of the process. Not only were our creations edible, they looked and tasted good too! I served some at work the next day and everyone was impressed. Cecelia encouraged us to not rest on our laurels and to make sure we try them at home again as soon as possible. I have already purchased my almond flour and will be working on recreating them over the upcoming holiday day weekend.

Ann Arbor is a small foodie heaven. I’d highly encourage you to spend at least a day or two eating your way around the city, Then, take a pastry class from Cecelia. She doesn’t just teach macarons, although the classes are in high demand and just about always filled. Actually, Cecelia confessed to us that her true favorite dessert to make is éclairs and she feels that hers are some of the best around. I think I smell a birthday present for my husband and another trip to Ann Arbor…

Le Dog

I’ve seen a number of places that have tried to catch The Soup Nazi’s lightening in a bottle. While, at least in the US, soup is never going to overtake sandwiches as the preferred menu item for lunch, it does have a rather strong following amongst the bread averse. For my own taste, the options that I’ve encountered in Cleveland and Columbus have been of the “take it or leave it variety”. I don’t think it’s that these places are necessarily bad; it’s just that they don’t incite overwhelming lust. Then again, I’ve never lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Enter Le Dog.

Around 11:30am, office workers start to make their way out of their cubicles with hopes of beating the lunchtime rush and not getting edged out of Le Dog's full array of soup offerings. With a rotation of over eighty soups, anticipation builds through the morning as they ponder the possibilities. The only exception to Le Dog’s “wait and see” menu is the lobster bisque that is served every Thursday and Friday. A word to the wise, if you want the bisque, don’t wait until 1 o’clock, it won’t be there.

So what’s up with the name “Le Dog”? Isn’t a hot dog stand? Well, yes and no. It may have started that way, but in my opinion the dogs are average at best. It’s more like a stand they sells four star soup, and two star hot dogs to those too stupid to eat four star soup.

Le Dog is actually located in two spots, the original stand at 410 East Liberty Street (outdoors), and 306 South Main Street (indoors).

East Liberty Street Outdoor Stand

Many of the daily soups are based on the locally available produce. I think that what is most striking about their soups is the amount of "stuff" that each bowl contains. We've all had soups where the goodies are being stretched to the very edge of fraud - not here. Pickles that would normally sink to the bottom of the bowl are proudly perched atop a thick pile of Cajun rice. With the purchase of a bowl of soup you can also get a Zingerman's pretzel roll for a dollar.

Cajun Rice with Pretzel Roll

If you happen to be in Ann Arbor for lunch (especially on Thursday and Friday), you've got to stop at Le Dog. This is every bit as much an Ann Arbor institution as Zingerman's Deli.


Le Dog (Indoor)
306 S Main St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 327-0091



Le Dog (Outdoor)
410 E Liberty St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 665-2114