Author: sac-eats

Kupros, if you haven’t heard, is the new restaurant on 21st Street between Capitol and L. It’s a beautiful update of the building that used to house Cheap Thrills used clothing store. Kupros labels itself as a gastropub, which brings with a it a whole host of connotations. But first, what is a gastropub?

The agreed upon definition of a gastropub is: a pub that specializes in finer than average food. That’s pretty much it, but that’s not really it. Here are some of the connotations, fair or unfair, that come along with the label: beer, wine, European focus, ridiculously good simple food, grease, gravy, low-lighting, wood panelling, classic design, plain paper menus, and edgy chefs with beards and striped aprons.

Wonderfully, Kupros hits on almost every one of the connotations that comes with being a gastropub. The food was pretty darned good, with some homeruns and a few infield singles. The potted rabbit (part of the charcuterie plate) was ridiculously phenomenal. We all made satisfying carnivore noises while crunching it’s meat between our canines. Even the ladies at the table who swore they would never eat a creature so cute inhaled the little bunny like doughnuts at a cop shop. Continue reading “Kupros: What exactly is a “gastropub”?”

I get a little cringy when people call me a “restaurant critic.” I’m comfortable with “food writer,” but “restaurant critic” has such a host of connotations — none of them particularly good — that I try to stay away from the term. Think “restaurant critic” and you don’t think of someone fun, laid-back, drinking a beer and asking you if your sister is still single. No, you picture a fussy, possibly mustachioed, narrow-shouldered, whiny loser who will pick apart everything that the waiter (who will also be  picked apart, by the way) brings to the table. 

I mention that because as a diner I’m pretty uncritical. I let a lot of stuff slide. I don’t give much of a care is service is good, or bad, or horrendous as long as the food is good. There are, however, a few things that drive me f’ing bonkers, and I’ve been running into them a lot lately.

Crappy Bread– Uh huh. I’m looking at you, Plan B, you, Sweetwater, and you, Cafe Marika. It’s really not hard to order good bread from a good bakery. You have absolutely no excuse for the doughy, cold, chewy slices you’re trying to pawn off as dinner bread. Honestly, just buy rolls from Safeway and heat them up. Odds are they’re better than the 1) frozen dough that you’re cooking before the shift starts, 2) cheap bread that you’re using for way too many days, or 3) the misguided crap that you’re trying to make yourself. Call a bakery. Don’t be a hero. Or a tightwad. Continue reading “Super Unimpressive Restaurant Trends”

Over a year ago, I had my first experience with Masullo, the small, upscale pizzeria on Riverside Boulevard. I sung its praises on this here weblog  and vowed to return often to sup full on Masullo’s perfect pies.

Well, until last weekend I hadn’t been back once. Don’t ask me why. Life just has a way of moving right by you like a slick river of slurry underneath your feet as you stand in front of the slurry outflow of the slurry plant in slurry county USA. Slurry aside, I was a bit anxious about revisiting the pizza purveyor, worried my memories of the place wouldn’t quite add up to the reality. It turns out that my memories, instead of hyperbolizing the savory goodness that lies behind Masullo’s simple glass door, had dulled like…some…uh…thingamajig that gets dulled by slurry. Masullo is as fresh and vibrant as ever, pumping out pies that touch that little inner pizza child in all of us (and not in an SVU way). Continue reading “Masullo:Revisited”