The festival for us, just a few days away.

• KAT ROBINSON
• BOUNTY: Fresh produce at last year's Argenta Foodie Fest

The Argenta Foodie Fest is coming up in just a couple of weeks. It's fun, it's tasty and it's a good time. I can speak from experience here.

For those who haven't been — the festival itself happens at the northeast corner of 6th and Main Streets in North Little Rock. Restaurants from around Central Arkansas will be serving up dishes featuring local produce and grains and locally raised meats. There will be live music and a big tent with places to sit while you eat — though I do recommend you consider bringing your own chair (last year seemed like every seat was taken, it was so busy!).

On the southeast corner at 6th and Main, the Argenta Certified Arkansas Farmers Market will be going on — with all sorts of fresh produce, honey, meats, grains, flowers, pickled and canned items and whatnot. My favorite thing from last year was actually served over on this side — hot buttered sweet ear corn that had been picked the day before. Scrumptuous.

I'll be there. Come pester me, I guess. I'll bring Hunter and you too can marvel how big she's grown. Bring your friends. Enjoy the sunshine (but wear sunscreen!). See how much fun it was last year. We'll probably schedule an official gathering of the Arkansas Food Bloggers Network while we're there.

The event is July 2nd from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The official release, on the jump.

The release:

Summertime in Argenta means great food, music, arts and crafts, and the Argenta Foodie Festival. Join the Argenta Arts Foundation and the Argenta Farmers market at the Argenta Summer Foodie Festival celebrating the plentiful growing season in Arkansas.

The festival will take place Saturday, July 2nd, from 9:00 am — 1:00 pm in downtown North Little Rock between 5th and 6th Streets across from the Argenta Market and next to the Farmers Market. Admission is free. Participating restaurants include Ashley’s at the Capital, Argenta Market, Boulevard Bread Co., Ferneau, Hunka Pie, Starving Artist Café, and Union Bistro. Live entertainment provided by the Swingshift Band and Fire & Brimstone.

The purpose of the Argenta Foodie Festival is to connect people to fresh, healthy, seasonal food and the farmers who grow it. Another reason is to promote our local restaurants, chefs and catering services that support local farmers and understand the importance of creating a sustainable local economy and a strong connection between farm and table.

The Argenta Foodie Festival is sponsored by Pulaski Technical College, North Little Rock Visitors Bureau, and the Certified Arkansas Farmers Market (CAFM). For more information call Donna Hardcastle at 501-993-1234 or visit our web site at www.argentaartsdistrict.org.

Pieday: Coconut Meringue and Lemon Icebox Meringue at 65th Street Diner.

This restaurant has closed, but you'll now find Bobbi D's Southern Cuisine in its location.

A working man’s lunch doesn’t have to be plain. It doesn’t have to be fast food and it certainly doesn’t have to be tasteless.

The folks at 65th Street Diner are well cognizant of this idea. They serve up a hot meat and two veg lunch every day, along with salads and burgers and some of the best pie you’ll ever find in a cooler case.

The fried chicken on the buffet is some of the best workingman's grub in the city.  Crisp, lightly spiced and genuine, it's a fantastic choice for a warm, filling meal.

And then there's the pie.  In fact, coconut meringue is almost what I decided to choose for this particular week’s Pieday. The coconut meringue at 65th Street diner is rich, custardy and substantial. From its toasted coconut top through its foamy meringue all the way down to its impossibly silky custard, it’s a great pie.

But now I've had others. My dining companion du jour agreed with me on Monday that the chicken spaghetti looked impossible to resist. She paired hers up with the baked potato casserole while I went for a side salad. We both chose the fried zucchini sticks.

While she decided that coconut meringue pie was the way to go, I was intrigued by the lemon icebox. So I went ahead and ordered it with my meal.

The chicken spaghetti was of course the most nourishing, comforting food you could find anywhere… that didn’t surprise me at all. I liked it paired up with the zucchini sticks (I am a sucker for anything zucchini) and I cleaned my plate.

So when it came to the pie, I unwrapped my slice (they’re all individually wrapped and kept in a cooler until you order one) and noticed right away one very odd thing. It was meringue. No joke, there was a nice tight toasted meringue across the top of the scalloped-edge pie.

But that’s okay, because the lemon custard in the pie is so sweet and so tartly strong that it needs the null quality of the meringue to give a little relief from the citrus onslaught. It’s a very strong flavor, very palate cleansing and somehow cooling at the same time. I like it.

Only problem was, it tasted a little familiar... and there's a possibility it might actually be out of a box.  If so, it's a high quality version, and I shouldn't complain.  Still, it's quite weird that I was left with that impression.

Plate lunches at the 65th Street Diner are $7. Pies (and cake slices when they have them) are $2.25. I have yet to make it for breakfast — when they close at 9:30 a.m. you’d best have gotten done with your meal because they close the doors and turn off the lights. One of these days.

You'll find the 65th Street Diner on, imagine this, 65th Street, a couple blocks west of I-30. (501) 562-7800.

Burger joint of the week: Fred's Country Cooking

This restaurant has closed.

W'ave talked about griddle-smashed and kitchen char-grilled burgers a lot here. But what about a smoked burger?

That’s what you get when you order one of the burgers on the menu at Fred’s Country Cooking in Boles, AR — that’s north of Mena and south of Waldron on US Highway 71. Yes, it’s way the heck out there. But it’s got good eats — like catfish, fried pies, barbecue and, well, burgers.

Now, I have to say — the burger my traveling companion ordered on this trip was not what I might normally have ordered. Burgers are priced by the stack as it were — hamburgers start at $2.95, cheeseburgers are $3.25, all the way up to the Double Meat Bacon Cheeseburger at $6.95 — which my companion ordered. For the record, burgers come with a choice of potato. He chose the home fries.

The burger comes out, and it’s big and tall, with American cheese melted right onto the patties. One sniff, though, and there was this acknowledgement that this was one different burger. It smelled of hickory smoke, and it smelled wonderful. The seedless lightly toasted bun was a little wrinkly, as if it had been slightly steamed as well. The burger patties nestled right under the top bun; below, iceberg lettuce and a couple of slices of tomato along with ridgy hamburger dills and white onion ringlets sat on a little mayo on the bottom bun.

The patties were cooked medium well, with a Cavender’s style spicing to them. They were reddish on the outside from what I believe was exposure to air and smoke while sitting on the grill. They were topped with a couple of fat slices of country bacon that added a lovely saltiness to it all.

But where he lucked out were the home fries. They were absolutely perfectly seasoned, and heck if we could figure out what with. They were spicy but they weren't. There was evidence of paprika, black pepper, salt, parsley and at least one other spice there… they were buttery and soft but still held their composition without mushing up too bad. The griddle crust on them was especially tasty.

Me? I was tempted by a number of items on the menu but settled on the catfish special on the wall ($6.99 with coleslaw, potato choice and bread — rather than the dinner for $8.25 that includes potato, salad and bread). I wasn't expecting the beans that came with it — they were similar to baked beans but contained no meat, a relief to me. Somewhat sweet and syrupy but still firm.

The coleslaw was a long-cut version, non-sweet but with a nice chew to it. I assumed it was formulated in such a fashion to be best for serving up on BBQ sandwiches. I liked it, though. The French fries, sadly, were very typical and yellow.


But the catfish… I thought I’d end up with a few pieces here and there, but what I was served was a whole fresh catfish fillet. No bones about it (or in it), it was clean and juicy with no muddiness at all. The cornmeal batter was just light enough to give it substance and containment without being overbearing. It had just the right bite to it. I had it with some offered homemade tartar sauce. The hush puppies were a little sweet.

And I was brought both a biscuit (pretty average) and a lump of cornbread (non-sweet and yellow but with a nice texture, good with butter). I have to say, it’s about the best catfish I've had this year. Now I have to go back and try the barbecue.

So we got ready to leave to beat a storm moving in, and decided to pick up a fried pie to take with us. This little apple fried pie reminded me of the days when McDonald’s had a fried pie worth mentioning. It was just right for one hand, with a cinnamon packed crust and very tender apples. I must try another.

You’ll find Fred’s Country Cooking at 16538 Highway 71 in Boles. No website, but you can reach them at (479) 577-2676.

Chicagoland: The Exchequer Pub vs. Gino's East.

I lean away from reviewing popular joints.  I would much rather find the great out of the way place that has a good thing going than to either heap more praise on a well-established location or be disappointed with said place.  But sometimes I’m even drawn in by the hype… under the thought of “if there’s a line a block long, it must be good.”  Yeah, right.

We had just arrived in Chicago on a Thursday afternoon where the temperature hovered around 40 degrees.  It had been a long trip.  We weren’t interested in going far from our accommodations at the Palmer House Hotel.  My photographer knew about this place that served up good burgers and ribs, though, so we headed a block and a half down Wabash to The Exchequer Pub.

When we entered there was a small wait, but it wasn’t bad.  We sat up front at a table in the bar area while we looked through the menu and figured out what we were going to have.  Not five minutes later our names were called and we were shown to a four-top table in the back.

Our waitress was right there, ready to take our drink orders when we arrived.  She returned moments later for our order -- but not before we’d seen a procession of great dishes come from the kitchen -- racks of ribs, nachos, burgers, salads.  Big portions.

We ordered the Baked Goat Cheese Marinara ($7.50) while we tried to decide on our dinner.  It came out piping hot, four three-inch-square sections of goat cheese in a bath of marinara sauce, served up with garlic toast.  Though it appeared to be solid, the cheese had become a smooth spread-able mass in the hot sauce, perfect for smearing on the garlic toast.  The marinara was brilliant, fresh yet mature with slivers of mushroom and onion, tiny bits of red and green bell pepper, plenty of fresh basil and thyme and garlic.  I could have just dined on it and been happy.

But when we received the dish we went ahead and ordered a large Veggie #3 deep dish pizza.  The waitress just looked at us, then asked “how many more are joining you?”

“What?” I asked.

“It’s a big pizza.  You’ll need at least four people to eat it.  It’s very big.”

“Then… what about the medium?”

“It’s a lot.”

“We don’t mind leftovers.”

“That’s good, you’ll have them!” she told us, heading back to the kitchen.

We knew it was going to take a while on our pizza (which, for those keeping score, was $18.25).  But it was still less than 15 minutes before we received it.  Our waitress brought out the pan with a pair of pan clamps and a hot mitt.  She arranged the table items and put it down before quickly doling up that first slice of pie.


Now, I’d been prepared to see a Chicago style deep dish pie with the sauce on top.  This was something different, something gooey and thick and decadent.  The cheese went on forever.  When our waitress picked up that first slice she couldn’t reach quite high enough to pull free of the cheese strings.  They hung down, still attached to the rest of the pie while she picked it up a good two to three feet above the table.  She ended up sliding a plate under the edge of the pizza and using the spatula in hand to sweep the cheese strings onto the plate as well.  She did this deftly with much experience, not losing a single string of cheese in the process.

We snapped away with cameras as she performed this motion.  On her second slice she paused just as she started to lift the piece, allowing us to get several more shots of the hot pizza as the cheese slowly slid to each side.  Underneath the raised slice the overload of cheese on the remaining pie started to fill in the space left behind.

Once served, we were left regarding the hefty inch-thick slices of piedom that graced the little plates we were given.  There was no picking this pizza up.  It was hot and gooey and there was very little sauce.  The sauce itself, what little there was, was similar to the marinara but without the chunks of vegetables in the sauce.  That was all right, because there were vegetables in-between the layers of cheese in the pie.  It’s as if portabella mushrooms and zucchini had been layered in-between doses of four cheese blend.

The crust below was crisp, not quite a cracker crust but just as crisp, more like a fine Eastern flatbread.  I marveled at how crisp it managed to be despite its heavy payload of cheese and toppings.  It was quite simply one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had.  I’ve only had one finer.

We learned during our visit that the pizza at the Exchequer Pub was Roger Ebert’s favorite pizza.  Later on I’d find the great reviews from some of the most well known names in the food world.  But I had no idea.  That lack of a line and the sweet courtesy of our waitress belied any big-city major-success sensation, that lack of care that comes with a critical mass of good words.





I wish I could have said the same about Gino’s East.  Several of my Facebook fans had contacted me about it and told me I had to go while I was up north, and I had marked it on my book.  It was right next door to the Affinia Hotel Chicago, where we stayed on the final leg of our visit.  When we arrived at the hotel, there was a line a block long of people waiting to get into the pizzeria.  With our mutual aversion to long lines, the chances of actually sampling the cuisine there seemed small.

Except, on our final full day of work (Memorial Day), we happened to be headed back to the hotel around 3 p.m. and noticed the doors were open -- and there was no line.  Perhaps it was a sign.

We went in, waited five minutes for a table (which seemed curious, since we could see a number of empty seats around the restaurant) and then were ushered into a back section, where I kid you not, 16 cops were seated.  I took this for a good sign; Chicago’s finest were enjoying the eats at Gino’s, it should be a good deal, right?

We were told right off the bat that if we wanted a deep dish pie it’d be a 45 minute wait for the pie to cook.  So we went ahead and ordered a Bacon Cheeseburger ($23.95) pizza with mushrooms instead of bacon (it was easier than ordering a ground beef and mushroom burger).   And we proceeded to wait.

We noticed all the graffiti.  In fact, when you come through the door there’s a sign that tells you “Write On Our Walls!  Not On Our:  Dishware, Tablecloths, Picture Displays, Neon Signs, Restrooms, The floor, ceiling, windows or chairs and, most importantly, don’t write on our servers!”  Neither of us had the appropriate tool for the trade, but a bartender gave us a black Sharpie to make our mark.

That was entertaining for a few moments.  The men in blue in our section started receiving their orders, and I noticed that every one of them with one exception had ordered a sandwich.  The sole exception had picked up a personal thin crust pie that fit on a plate.  They ate hurriedly and left.

We ordered a couple of meatballs, just curious to see what they were like, and received them -- two big round meatballs covered in a bright low-spice tomato-packed sauce and Parmesan cheese, almost two inches around.  Later we found we were charged $2.50 for the meatballs. 
They were all right, and they at least allowed us to have something in our gullets instead of sitting there on empty stomachs drinking soda or iced tea and waiting for this pizza.

It took the entire 45 minutes and a few more before our pie came out.  Our waitress argued with us about where to put it down -- we had halfway decent lighting on one side of the table but not the other, and we wanted to be able to shoot it.  She finally dropped it, started hacking at it with her spatula and then grabbed the slice center-first with the spatula, slapped it on the plate and started to cut the other one.  I noticed that the yellow crust hadn’t been sliced before being brought to the table.


There was no great pull slice on this pizza.  And maybe that’s ignorance on my part, not having a traditional Chicago style pie before with the sauce on top.  The cheese pulled about an inch with the pie and then fell free.  The crust was so yellow.

I can’t get over that.  The crust was freakin’ yellow, almost Crayola yellow-orange yellow, crusty like a biscuit and a little hard.  The same marinara that had accompanied the meatballs was present here on the pizza, on top of a layer of mozzarella and Cheddar cheeses.  It was a very chunky sauce, just like the menu had said, but it was also a bright flavored low-spice sauce that just imparted a lot of tomato and a little flavor of fresh onion to the pie.  Under the cheese huddled bits of hamburger meat and canned mushrooms, a little bit of a disappointment.

Gino’s East is supposed to be known for its golden yellow crust.  I get that.  But it was weird and it was disappointing.  It was almost hard in places.  It reminded me, God help me, of the old Jiffy Brand pizza crust in a box mixes I bought when I was a poor starting-out TV producer in the mid 90s.  I kept thinking that it must have just been me.

That was, until my photographer sighed and blurted out “it’s not as good.”

“As good as what?”  I asked, thinking he was referring to the pizza at The Exchequer Pub.

“As what I used to get in the grocery store.”

Turns out, Gino’s East sells a frozen variety of their pies at select Chicago-area grocery stores.  And Grav felt this pizza wasn’t as good as what he’d had before.

I did eat it.  My slice, that is.  I was plenty hungry and I kept thinking it would get better.  It did not.  It was warm, sure, but between the tough crust and the spice-light sauce there was just no soul to the pizza for me.  We decided to box it up and try it later -- because pizzas always get better later, right?

Well, that was easier said than done.  We waited for our waitress for more than 20 minutes.  Another waitress saw us peering around for her and fetched us a box and a check, and then we waited another 10 minutes to have the check picked up.  Grav finally got up, found the second waitress and had her process our ticket.  We never did see that first waitress again.

Did it get better?  No.  We tried it the next morning, thinking it would be an easy breakfast before we took off… but it was not.  Maybe I’m a little thankful for that -- if it had been any good I would have never walked the three blocks to Leonidas Chocolate Café to pick up some primo chocolate croissants for breakfast.  If anything the pizza was worse.  The crust had tightened up and become dusty and bricklike despite all that sauce on top.

So there you go.  My photographer will go on for hours about how distressed he was about Gino’s East, but I’ll just think about that really good pie from The Exchequer Pub.  We had it for breakfast the next morning and for an early dinner, too.  It was so good.

So you know my recommendation.

You’ll find The Exchequer Pub at 226 South Wabash, a block and a half south of the Palmer House and a couple blocks over from the Art institute.  They have a neat website, or you can call (312) 939-5633.
 

And if you must, you can search out Gino’s East we dined at (there are only about a dozen or so locations) at 162 East Superior, a block off Michigan Avenue to the east.  They also have a website, or you can call (312) 266-3337.  Perhaps it’ll be your thing.  It certainly wasn’t mine.

Asian Markets in Arkansas.

When I have the time, I enjoy a spot of ethnic cooking.  The many years I've dabbled in historical food research has given me an appetite for trying all sorts of new things.  

Many of the items I utilize, I can't find in a staple Arkansas grocery store.  So here's a list of Asian markets for your own resources that might carry some of the more exotic items you can't find on Aisle 9 at Kroger.

Little Rock Greater Metropolitan Area:

Asian Food Market

408 West Main

Jacksonville, AR 72076

Asian Groceries

9112 Rodney Parham

Little Rock, AR 72205

Asian Mart

3002 South University

Little Rock, AR 72204

* Recommended:  This is one of Sue Khoo's enterprises.

K Oriental

303 Bowman Road

Little Rock, AR 72211

Lee's Oriental Market

118 Taylor Circle

Conway, AR 72032

Mr. Chen's Asian Supermarket and Restaurant

3901 South University

Little Rock, AR 72209

Mt. Fuji Japanese Food and Gift Shop

10301 North Rodney Parham

Little Rock, AR 72227

Recommended:  This is the tiny yet well-packed Japanese shop under Mt. Fuji.  I get my seaweed wraps here.

Oriental Food Market

1011 West Main Street

Jacksonville, AR 72076

Sam's Oriental Store

3704 South University

Little Rock, AR 72204

Recommended:  Fine selection of gifts and housewares as well as fresh vegetables, fish.  I get my banana leaves here.

Fort Smith:

Asian 99 Food Market

803 North 11th Street

Fort Smith, AR 72901

Laostar Market

3114 North Albert Pike

Fort Smith, AR 72904

Midland Market

3711 Midland Blvd.

Fort Smith, AR 72904

Truong Son

3901 North O Street

Fort Smith, AR 72904

Recommended.  Best Vietnamese store I have been to in Arkansas. 

Northwest Arkansas:

Asian Island Food Market

2323 S. Old Missouri Road

Springdale, AR 72764

Asian American Grocery and Deli

2190 South Lincoln

Siloam Springs, AR 72761

H&T Oriental Market

812 North Thompson Street

Springdale, AR 72764

Manna Oriental Market

907 South Pleasant

Springdale, AR 72764

Seoul Oriental Foods

729 South School

Fayetteville, AR 72701

(closed -- owner returned to Korea)

T's Oriental Market

1300 North Thompson Street, Suite L

Springdale, AR 72764

Tang's Asian Market

224 South Thompson Street

Springdale, AR 72764

Vo's Oriental Market

115 North Dixieland Road Suite 11

Rogers, AR 72756

Hot Springs:

Asian Food Market

4737 Central Avenue

Hot Springs, AR 71913

Jonesboro:

Kitt's Asian Pantry

3009 East Nettleton

Jonesboro, AR 72401

Texarkana:

Yong's Oriental Market

223 East Broad Street

Texarkana, AR 71854

Flavors of the East for lunch at Layla's.

Oh Layla's. You are so good to me.

Can't keep moving along on this website without mentioning this fantatic Eastern restaurant on Rodney Parham. If I invite you to come with me to dine, you must be something special to me. Honestly, I share there... and I expect you to share, too.

Small and Sweet: The Berryville Ice Cream Social.

I’ve been to some of the nation’s largest festivals, and now I’ve been to one of the smallest in my home state. Though I can’t imagine why the Berryville Ice Cream Social doesn’t have droves at its doorstep.

The annual event on Berryville’s town square is a great way to kick off the summer with music, arts and crafts and plenty of ice cream.

It starts off on Friday, really in the afternoon in evening with all sorts of
vendors selling everything from wind chimes to bracelets, kids playing in the park and an evening of local musicians jamming outside the Heritage Museum. On Saturday morning there’s a 5k run, tours of historic Berryville via tram, pony rides and a climbing wall for the kids. There’s music and dancing in the streets. And of course there’s ice cream.


This year I got the chance to be one of the judges for the annual cooking competition. The theme was berries. Last year there were more than 50 entries. I was a little surprised to see just 7 entries on the tables laid out for the judges to sample. No worries, though.

I was introduced to the other
judges, and we all took a look at the seven entries and did our judgments of appearance. From there we sat down, and the volunteers from Community First Bank came and brought us sample after sample of each dessert for us to try and judge on taste, creativity and overall.


There were many different delights. There was a chocolate ice cream confection with bits of berry in it, a strawberry cream cheese casserole dessert, a berry trifle with cream cheese and candied pecans, a selection of chocolate and strawberry parfaits, a whipped topping frosted cinnamon-infused pound cake with strawberry adornment, a Dutch oven blackberry cobbler, a selection of light pastry creations with blueberries and a strawberry cream cheese pie. We tried each one in turn, using tart green grapes and water to cleanse our palates between selections.

The votes tallied, we discovered that the little blueberry pastries from Maria Romero were our top choice. Maria won a $200 prize and bragging rights. Shirley Clark took the honorable mention and earned a $100 grocery gift card for her efforts.

After the judging, we went to hunt down another story at the festival. Along the row of vendors (including the Cattleman’s Association serving up brisket, a cart selling funnel cakes and pork tenderloin sandwiches and the Weinie Wagon) we found the Cajun Lunch Box cart.

My photographer had discovered the vendor while I’d been involved in the judging. He’d already procured two hand pies -- a shrimp fried pie and a crawfish fried pie -- and shared them with me. I had to go back and see what was up with this.

Turns out the Lejeunes travel to these smaller festivals in the area. They live in Oxford, AR but Mr. Lejeune is from far south Louisiana, south of I-10 and with that unique Cajun accent that’s almost incomprehensible. He and his wife were very sweet, though, and answered my peppering of questions.

The specialties served up at the Cajun Lunch Box are all authentic South Louisiana staples. They include Gator on a Stick (sold out long before we got there), etouffee, cajun sausages cornmeal battered and served up like corn dogs, gumbo, red beans and rice, boudin links, Po’Boys and sweet tea.

Unlike a lot of other immigrants from these parts, they didn’t come up because of Katrina. Seems Mr. Lejeune found himself a mate and partner and he came this way because of love. At least that’s what I was getting from the conversation.

The Cajun Lunch Box doesn’t make a whole lot of appearances. It’ll be in Melbourne for the festival up there in a few weeks and maybe a few more places but then they’ll pack it in for the season before it becomes truly hot.

Now how about those pies? They were awesome. The shrimp was good enough in its rich broth with rice and green peppers -- but the crawfish pie just blew me away with its low heat and lovely flavor. The pies are made from the etouffee. The dough is actually stretched out and rolled out when you order one, the filling dolloped onto the dough and the dough crimped by hand before the pocket is dumped into the hot grease. The whole thing is topped with nacho cheese sauce and handed out the window in exchange for $3. I found the dough satisfactory, even crisp despite the cheese sauce. It was filling and tasty, though I didn’t want to think about how much cholesterol was going into my system!

The social, which had been full of kids when we arrived, was slowing down. Claps of thunder and the occasional squall of a downpour had chased off many of the participants and attendees, but the folks with Community First Bank were dividing up the creations from the berry dessert contest and preparing to serve them for free to the crowd. The Cattlemen’s Association folks were huddled under the tent, the scent from the smokers almost hypnotic. I saw couples out by the gazebo, a few a little muddy from the rain, talking quietly.

I want to come back to this festival. I understand numbers were down this year, but that has a lot to do with the weather and goings-on elsewhere. Maybe spreading the word might get a few more folks to come park off the square and enjoy a day of it next year. I betcha that could happen.