In case you haven’t heard of him, Alan Bedenko is one of Buffalo’s better bloggers. With his blog Buffalo Pundit (found on WNY Media), on a daily basis Alan comments on political news that range from local to national. His strong and informed opinions on various topics have known to create some intense twitter exchanges. While I respect his political commentary and enjoy watching the occasional twitter conversations, the main reason I asked Alan to be a Buffalo Foodie is well, he’s a foodie.
Alan writes food reviews for the Buffalo Spree and has been doing so for a couple years now. He is one of the local area’s food writers that I go out of my way to read. I trust his word about restaurants, he has high standards but he seems very fair and has an incredible depth of knowledge that has inspired me to work to increase my own food knowledge base. Ask him about Neapolitan pizza and you’ll immediately realize you are talking to someone who knows about food. Along with writing, he has occasionally been a judge in Nickel City Chef challenges and was a judge at a NCC event at this year’s Taste of Buffalo (the event before our Taco Challenge).
We asked Alan a couple questions about his favorite places to eat, some childhood food memories and what he’d like to see in the area. Here’s what he had to say..
Right now, where are some of your favorite places to eat?
Alan: I’m in something of a state of flux right now, when it comes to local restaurants. Some of my old favorites have gone downhill, have closed, or have re-invented themselves. Right now I think the items I crave the most are the grilled burger at Ruzzine’s Rock Bottom, and just about anything they make at Shango, but especially the brunch menu, starting off with some gumbo and then enjoying shrimp & grits or eggs benedict. I also love Amaretto, which makes excellent, homemade, genuine Italian food from a nondescript little plaza in Williamsville. These places are consistently good, have a good handle on giving the customer what they want and expect, and make at least one item that is outstanding.
Where do you like to grab a drink and relax after work or on the weekends?
Alan: Home. I have two small kids and I have to drive to get to and from anywhere. My wife and I enjoy going to Premier Wine & Liquors and picking out a few wines to try, and when we settle on one we really like, we’ll get a case. Our days are long, and the kids usually have stuff to do after school, so we will kick back with a couple of glasses of wine after a long day. Preferably on the back patio. An old Buffalo Wild Wings near my home just recently transformed into Rocco’s Wood Fired Pizza. The food there is hit-and-miss, especially the pizzas, which have great toppings but lousy crust. The ambiance, however, is quite comfortable, and the bar / lounge in the back is pretty nice.
If you had a friend visiting from out of town, where would you take them to show them a good “Buffalo” time?
Alan: It depends on whether they had been here before or not. If they’ve already done the whole wing pilgrimage to Duff’s or Anchor Bar (which is where I’d take first-timers), I’d go to Tempo because it provides the best big-city restaurant food and atmosphere you’re likely to get around here. I also enjoy Amaretto’s at Main & Transit, which is worth hunting down in spite of the odd location. As far as entertainment, we enjoy going up to the Falls or Niagara-on-the-Lake, although the latter has become less unique and more pricey in recent years. These are world-class attractions, so even though they’re not technically “Buffalo”, we use a more regional approach. We’ve done the locks on the Erie Canal, a show at Kleinhans is always fun, as is a Bison’s game. We do some – but not all – of the summer festivals in the city, but also the ToyFest and Roycroft Festivals in East Aurora. We frequently go up to Toronto for shows, festivals, (especially September’s “Word on the Street” publishing fair), and just general big-city stuff like walking Queen West, exploring North Yonge, or poking around the St. Lawrence and Kensington Markets.
What are some food memories you have from your childhood?
Alan: I grew up downstate in Westchester County in the 70s. My favorite dish growing up was veal parmigiana, which was served up by one place near my house called “Pizza and Brew”. Ask John Fusco, who owns Zetti’s, and he’ll tell you he used to cook at the Greenburgh location. For like $9, you could get a soup or salad, a massive veal parm with spaghetti side, and dessert. The sauce was always really good, and the meal wasn’t burnt to a deep brown, like a lot of the veal parm I’ve had around here. The pizzas there were also great – my favorite was a “casalinga” which has sauce, ham, ricotta, and breaded, fried eggplant on a NYC-style pizza.
My mom used to make stuffed peppers a lot, and I loved the rice & meat filling with the tomato sauce, but didn’t much care for the peppers themselves. She also makes a mean minestrone, pasta e fagiole, and Wiener Schnitzel; basically all of the great meals from the long-gone Austro-Hungarian empire. I also have fond memories of the lowly hot dog cart – dirty water dogs, preferably Sabrett’s, with ketchup & onions (the onions prepared in Sabretts’ own special tangy sauce). Although usually obtained in Manhattan, there were Sabrett’s trucks parked along the sides of roads throughout Westchester, so it was even an option for lunch during high school – a short drive from Rye to Harrison.
What types of cuisines do you wish Buffalo had more of?
Alan: There’s no particular cuisine or restaurant I think is missing. We’re quite fortunate to live so close to Toronto, so anything we don’t have is almost guaranteed to be about 80 miles down the QEW. What I think needs changing is people’s attitudes and expectations. We’re a blue collar town that is famous for snow and bar finger foods, both of which are fine; but I think that we too often rely on our wings as a culinary innovation and that this limits our perspective in terms of what dining should be. I recently dined at Jose Andres’ new, temporary Washington pop-up restaurant “America Eats Tavern“, which is run in conjunction with a great exhibit now showing at the National Archives about the government and its promotion and regulation of food. Andres has taken classic American recipes, some dating back hundreds of years, and reinterpreted them into something truly special and memorable. Yes, Buffalo Wings are on the menu. He de-bones the wings and cooks them in a sous-vide, which produces a perfectly cooked, juicy chicken. The skin, meanwhile, has been detached and fried to a memorable crispy consistency, properly seasoned, and the entire wing is then re-assembled to look like a fat flat, served with a dollop of blue cheese cream and some greenery for garnish. I can’t explain how great it tasted – I used a knife and fork to take small bits so I could savor every bit of it. But what it shows is that, with some creativity and ingenuity, you can take a simple, ubiquitous bar food and make it something more – something better. And what I really began to understand is that Andres’ avant-garde techniques, when done properly, aren’t about showing off – they’re about taking risks and making good things better. We have to seek out and support local chefs and restaurants who aspire to that, which is why I’m such a big supporter of Nickel City Chef.
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We’d like to thank Alan for taking time out of his very busy schedule to answer a couple questions for us, to hear more from Alan you can follow him on twitter or read his blog Buffalo Pundit, which he updates daily.
