What's in a name (and a logo)? The new Jugs and Mugs makes me wonder

First, the background: Steve Barnes ran a short piece in his Table Hopping blog last Friday discussing the concerns expressed by the city of Albany over the name and logo for the soon-to-open restaurant/bar called Jugs and Mugs, which will be located at 849 Madison Ave., just down the street from St. Rose.  The city apparently is worried that the provocative name and logo are harbingers of trouble--rowdy late night partying, that sort of thing.

That's all speculation.  I'm more concerned with the name and logo and what they represent for Jugs and Mugs in concert with the type of restaurant the chef and general manager, Chick Hawksley, is going for.  In the Table Hopping piece, Hawksley says, "This is not a college bar; things are not going to suddenly go crazy at 9 p.m."  Barnes goes on to say that the restaurant expects to feature compelling food--the kind that I say is missing from most pubs and casual restaurants in the Capital Region (in favor of unimaginative Sysco stylings)--including New Orleans shrimp, pork belly and manchego tacos, fried chicken, house-made corned beef.  None of it will be frozen, and the shot of chicken wings included in the article makes the food look promising.

So what's the problem?  I say this as a non-prude, someone who doesn't care that places like Hooters--or even Nite Moves--exist and are popular.  I may not frequent such places, but unless a place is bringing real problems to an area, I don't see a reason for the government to step in and stop it from opening or shut it down.  The problem is that the name and logo for Jugs and Mugs don't seem to jibe with the type of restaurant Hawksley is going for.  In one fell swoop, the restaurant has effectively eliminated a significant portion of their potential clientele.  And that just seems like bad business to me.

A West Coast Beer Sampling, featuring Deschutes Obsidian Stout, Port Brewing Mongo IPA, and Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine

As I go through everything I meant to write over the past two months but didn't find the time for, here's a post highlighting some of the best stuff that came back with me after a quick trip to the west coast earlier this summer: the beer.

It's kind of sad to think that, as a California boy, I didn't really get into craft beer until I was long gone from the state, and I've since discovered that there are some really great west coast beers that we don't have access to on the east coast.  I would have liked to have gotten my hands on some Pliny, but there wasn't any available in the areas I traversed--except for the Davis Beer Festival, where Russian River had a tent and was pouring out some Pliny the Elder.  I got a small taste, and yeah, it was very good, but I'd need a bottle to savor at home to really get a sense of how it compares to so many other great double IPAs out there.

But I can't really complain.  I got to try a ton of great beers at the festival, and the beers I was able to try while there--and bring back with me to New York--were varied and all quite good.  I can't talk about them all here (and I'll have a post coming soon highlighting a variety of just Sierra Nevada beers and another on saisons), so I'll pick the three that stood out to me the most.

Good Granola from Gatherer's

While I was up to my knees in papers (this seriously isn't much of an exaggeration) over the past month for a summer program I was teaching for at UAlbany, there was a campaign afoot that I nearly missed out on publicizing--the Kickstarter fund for Gatherer's Granola baked locally in Schenectady.

I learned about Gatherer's earlier this summer when they found my little blog and asked if I'd be willing to review their three granolas.  An offer for free granola?  That was an easy answer.  I'm a sucker for granola, though usually it comes from Trader Joe's or Target (on their Archer Farms label).  Or, if I'm especially lucky, homemade and neatly packaged as a Christmas gift from K.

I'll admit I like all those mentioned above, and K's still reigns as my favorite, but Gatherer's three different varieties--Chipmunk's Choice, Squirrel Bait, and Fox's Fancy--are creative and tasty, all while featuring high-quality ingredients.  And that's something I'd be willing to say even if Gatherer's hadn't sent me those three bags.

Going Local: Sampling the Fare at Ted's Fish Fry and Gus's Hot Dogs

I've mentioned before that we've lived in a lot of places over the past decade.  There are a lot of drawbacks to doing all that moving, but one of the fun aspects is getting a sense of local cuisine in several cities and towns.

Some of these are obvious: Pittsburgh's known for a number of local specialties, with the loaded sandwiches of Primanti Brothers being at the top of that list.  Of course we tried their sandwiches loaded with fries and coleslaw--and yeah, they were good, though I'd still prefer my fries on the side (and no coleslaw at all, sorry).  But some local traditions, like chipped ham, I don't think we ever sampled.  Probably not the biggest loss. 

In Ohio, we sought out some slightly interesting and disgusting nearby food institutions, and in Boone, NC, probably the most interesting regional "food" we found was the very popular "shrimp sauce" served and bottled at local hibachi restaurants.  Mayo-based and not at all shrimpy, I think it might have been an annoying import from Florida, not unlike the terrible-driving summer tourists heading to the mountains.

So after spending several months here in New York's Capital Region, I was pleased to find that there were some local delights we could try--specifically the area's unique take on fish fry and the Watervliet/Troy mini hot dogs.  We headed to these two places not only to sample some unique area specialties, but to get a brief glimpse into a city's or neighborhood's past, a look into restaurants that, for whatever reason, have been able to persist and succeed over the course of several generations when most of their peers fell off the landscape.

Ala Shanghai, Latham's Gem; Red & Blue, Still a Ways to Go

I've had this post in the hopper for a while, but seeing the results of the Times Union's Best of 2013 poll, I was inspired to come back to it from a different angle.

You see, I was initially just going to write about how we tried out Red & Blue, the new Asian restaurant in Troy, and, like so many of our dining experiences in the area, were left underwhelmed.  But then I saw the Times Union poll results and realized that despite the good things people have written about Ala Shanghai, the excellent Chinese restaurant in Latham and my write-in vote for best restaurant, it clearly is still under the radar of many folks in the Capital Region.

It's not like Ala Shanghai really needs my praise or any poll victories; the place is consistently packed, and with the wasteland of restaurants that I'm surrounded by in the Latham/Watervliet area, we don't really need to be increase the fight for seats at one of the few decent-or-better restaurants in the area.

But before I get to that, and look at how Red & Blue stacked up to Ala Shanghai on our first visit, a few thoughts on the ridiculous Chinese/Japanese/Korean category in the Times Union's poll.

Bad Role Models

One of the hazards of doing a food and beer blog is that, through eating and thinking about food and beer all the time, it's kind of easy to develop a bit of pooch around the waist.  I know it's not good for me, and it's something I need to work on eradicating, but it sort of comes with the territory.

On the flip side, I also like to spend some of my free time watching sports.  Now, sitting to watch isn't exactly good for my waistline, but you'd think that watching athletes in prime physical condition run and skate across my TV screen would serve as visible motivation for me to get in better shape.  These guys could be considered role models, in a way.

I was a 13-year-old sports obsessed kid who read Sports Illustrated but didn't have cable TV when Charles Barkley made his famous role models remarks: "I'm not paid to be a role model.  I'm paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court."  I might have been naive or uninformed about a lot of things in my middle school days, but I'd heard the stories about Barkley--the bar fights, the spitting incident, the on-court fights (those were the best; I was really just a future hockey fan, as it turns out).   So his comments gave me something to think about.

Now, as an appropriately-jaded adult, I don't really have any delusions about athletes being role models--not for their off-the-playing-surface behavior.  But on-field, it's hard not to be impressed.  The current athlete is in better shape than ever before in sporting history: lean and muscular, ripped and toned, fast and strong.  But then I look at my baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, winners of two of the last three World Series, and what do I see?

Bellies.  Big, round, bouncy bellies.