Omega and Alpha

This will be the last Treasure Valley Treats and Tragedies post.  I'm not quitting blogging, but honestly it's time for a change.  The main reason is that I'm just plain sick and tired of this site.  The name is the worst part, believe it or not. I thought the hyperbole was cute when Ms. Golden Rule and I came up with it (her suggestion was Treasure Valley Treats and Travesties, I just changed the last word), but I have a hard time meeting someone's eyes at an event when they ask for the name of my site. I mean a mediocre or bad meal is hardly a "tragedy", especially in a time when it seems like real tragedies are a daily occurrence.  It makes the name seem extra cheesy, and not the kind of cheesy that I like.

There are other issues.  I don't like that I've saddled myself with a name that limits me to a certain geographical region, especially when I write quite a bit about things outside of that region and end up feeling guilty for doing so.  I'm tired of spending hours on each blog post trying to make them seem more professional (or at least more family friendly).  I'm bored with the design capabilities of this platform (Blogger).  Hell, I'm tired of feeling like I'm only "allowed" to write about food (trivia FYI, my initial desire was to start a "bad movie" review blog).  All of these things have contributed to the lack of posts over the years.  If I don't enjoy doing it, what's the point?

The upshot of all of this is that in very short order (fingers crossed), my new site Good Taste / Bad Taste will be live at goodtastebadtaste.com, I'll let you know when it happens.  My posts will still be primarily about local restaurants, of course, but I'll no longer feel bad when someone says "Why do you post about places in other states so often?".  There will also be posts about movies, music, books, events, games, and anything else I feel like throwing whatever influence I have at bringing attention to.  The writing will be more of an "off the cuff" style, so you can also expect more profanity and off-color humor, because honestly that's a more accurate representation of who I really am.

Of course I recognize there's going to be a downside for some, or probably even the majority, of my readers.  I know a lot of you would rather just see pictures and reviews of Boise area restaurants, or even just restaurants in general, without seeing reviews and screenshots of horror TV shows, or kung fu movies, or comic books, or whatever else.  I did think about cancelling my Facebook and Instagram accounts and setting up new ones for that reason, but it's honestly more work than it's worth so I'm just rebranding them.  I mean I follow so many ostensibly foodie accounts where about a third of the posts are essentially advertisements or posts about beauty products and health supplements or whatever, but I like the food posts so I just scroll past the rest of it.  I anticipate a lot of unfollowing and unsubscribing, but maybe some of you will stick around to see how it turns out.  I fully expect that this new freedom will result in me posting more often in general, primarily local eatery write-ups as I said before, but I know that won't be good enough for some.  But who knows, if you can be patient I might in the end decide this has all been a horrible mistake, and it will end up just being a food blog again...

I don't know how much longer I'm going to leave this site up in its current form.  It might be easier to just leave it as an archive, or I might import the posts to the new site and redirect this site's traffic to that one (assuming I can figure out how to make that work).  In the meantime, as a parting gift for those of you who will be going bye-bye, here are some pictures from restaurants that I didn't feel like formally reviewing, and from return visits to restaurants I've already written up.  Granted, most of them have already been posted on my Facebook feed, but they've long since been buried unseen by most thanks to Facebook's idiotic algorithm.  Happy trails...

Tsukemen from Kizuki Ramen & Izakaya in Beaverton, OR

Brisket, pulled pork, and chili cheese fries from Big Daddy's BBQ in Meridian

Dim sum from Red Maple Chinese Restaurant in West Valley City, UT

Sushi from Shige Japanese Cuisine in Boise

Fondue and Meriwether cider from Melty Melty Cheese Night at Whole Foods Boise

Dungeness Crab Sea Pups from Ocean Bleu at Gino's in Newport, OR

Animal Style Double Double and fries from In-N-Out Burger in Draper, UT

Phở from Baguette Deli in Boise

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Taste of Mahider combo from Mahider Ethiopian Restaurant & Market in Salt Lake City, UT

Swedish Cured Salmon Benedict from La Maison Bakery and Cafe in Newport, OR

Thai beef jerky from Pad Thai House in Boise

Stuff that doesn't deserve its own entry...

Vermicelli from Baguette Deli

I ended up at Baguette Deli again recently, but I wasn't really feeling the sandwich thing.  Lucky for me they had another option.  Their vermicelli dishes come with a pile of rice noodles, all the veggies from their sandwiches, cilantro and your choice of toppings.  I opted for BBQ pork and sliced egg roll because, well,  I love Asian BBQ pork and I'm addicted to Baguette Deli's egg rolls.



Baja Tacos from Baja Fresh

 Those of you wanting to try "street tacos" without eating in a parking lot would do well to give the burritos a break and try the Baja Tacos at Baja Fresh.  You'll pay more than you would at a truck, Taco Time or Taco Bell, but it's damn good food with the old two tortilla, onion and cilantro combo and you'll have your choice of half a dozen salsas.

Speaking of tacos, I finally got a menu pic up on my old Tacos Mobile Primo entry.  They're good, they're at the corner of Franklin and Curtis, and they take debit cards!

Assorted recent yumminess...

Delicious coconut almond mocha from The Human Bean

Asiago bagel with light bacon scallion cream cheese from Blue Sky Bagels

Pesto turkey sandwich from Baguette Deli

Mounds (chocolate coconut) bubble tea from Yokozuna Teriyaki

Coconut bubble tea from Yokozuna Teriyaki

Baguette Deli

Is there anything you love so much that, whenever you experience it, you can't help but wonder why you don't indulge your appreciation for it more often?  Baguette Deli is like that for me.  Every time I go there, I end up asking myself why I don't go all the time.  The service is great, the food excellent, and the prices are extremely reasonable.  In fact, about half of their menu of 12' sandwiches are $3.25 or less (take that, evil empire!).  I realize that I haven't done a lot of write-ups for places where you actually sit down indoors and eat at the same place you buy the food.  And even at the places where I've had the option, I still usually get my food to go.  If that wasn't bad enough, I realized I've never actually eaten at Baguette Deli at all, so I was pretty excited by the prospect (not to mention the idea of finally getting my girlfriend, a confirmed cilantro addict, to try the place.)

Random bites...

Obon Japan Nite - After a few years of false starts, I finally made it out to this.  I don't know if people telling me about it had blown it out of  proportion or if I'd hyped it up a little in my own mind, but I have to admit that what I'd expected to be a relatively full-blown festival was actually more like a Buddhist church picnic.  I could go into a lot of details about the day, but it's all about the food here.  Most everything was pretty reasonably priced and somewhat like what you'd expect home cooking to be if your mother was Japanese and had to feed an entire family reunion by herself.  The most interesting thing was the mafa chicken, which my research tells me is a dish that might have actually originated in Ontario.  While I was in town I spotted a Japanese restaurant and martini bar that features it on their menu, so a return trip might be in order...

Five Guys Burgers and Fries - For those of you not familiar with this place, their intention seems to be to kill you.  The small fry easily feeds two people, and the normal burger selection are all double meat sandwiches.  The "little" burgers have one patty.  That having been said, my lady fair and I both got a "little" burger and split a fry, and we were still stuffed.  At least the food is good! 

Baguette Deli - I'm sure most people know about this place by now, it certainly gets enough write-ups in the local papers and blogs.  If you're not aware, it's a Vietnamese sandwich joint in the Fred Meyer Plaza on Orchard in Boise.  This is not only one of my favorite lunch spots, but one of my favorite eateries in town, period.  That having been said, I decided to forgo my usual BBQ Pork Thit nuong and try the House Special Dac biet. 

I don't know that much about Vietnamese food, but apparently "dac biet" means every kind of meat they have.  I rarely say this, but there was too much pork on this sandwich for me.  Still good, but very heavy.  At least I can say I've tried head cheese now...

Momofuku - Tried my first recipe from the cookbook (thanks again hon!), the ginger scallion noodles.  Partly because it seemed like the easiest, and a good place to start, and partly because I'm a total ginger fiend.

I used a tall, narrow bowl, but I can assure you there are indeed noodles underneath those bamboo shoots, cauliflower, chopped scallions, nori sheets and quick-pickled cucumbers.  Excellent stuff but it MURDERS your breath.  I think next time I might give the ginger and scallions a quick spin in the wok and see if that helps.

Giacinto's Italian Gourmet - This is a truck located at the northwest corner of Fairview and Maple Grove, if memory serves. 

I was overwhelmed by the fact that I had a limited amount of time for lunch and couldn't decide between the options, so in the end I totally wimped out and ordered the prosciutto and provolone sandwich.

It was a good sandwich, but there wasn't much special about it, the meat and cheese about what you'd expect.  The focaccia bread, on the other hand, was VERY good.  Nicely buttery and just enough garlic flavor.  I did severely regret not trying any of the more adventurous options, but a few things did stand out and will guarantee a return trip for me.  The guy running the truck is very nice, he cares about aesthetics (there's a patio if you look closely at that first picture), and he cares about his food.  I ordered a cannoli to go with my sandwich, and he refused to serve me one.  He explained that the filling hadn't turned out to his liking that day, and even went to far as to get it out of the cooler and show me WHY.  A lot of people would have just served it.  I hope he does well, because that kind of ethic is something we can use a lot more of, whether it's in restaurant chefs or street food vendors.