What I CRAVE

My earlier post "My Starbucks" I talked about going to well to Starbucks to has some delicious coffee and to people watch.  Well the place I chose to go to Starbucks was the Mall of  America it has two of them besides if I wanted to go walk around and it was a great place to choose.

When I got to the MOA I was hungry so I thought maybe I would go to Chipotle, instead I walked past a restaurant called CRAVE.  I have been to CRAVE many times since I have friends who work there a few servers and a chef who was my executive chef while I was the sous chef at OM restaurant, which later I became executive chef of.

I made the decision to go to CRAVE since they have a great small plates happy hour from 3pm to 6pm.  What a great choice it was the Kogi Beef tacos were delicious with a side of beer, I ended up having to sets of those tacos, one set being comped.  I got to talk with Amanda one of the friends I talked about and Jaime Sierra the Chef I mentioned.

Here's some photos.

Beer and Kogi Beef Tacos

Close-up of Tacos

I Love a Great Gyro

I had a craving today and that craving was a gyro (yeer-oh) a great place to go just happens to be in the neighborhood walking distance (big smile on my face).  The place is call Gyropolis I actually go quite a bit however today I thought I would share a picture and a bit more.  Here's the local Urbanspoon rating 96%.  I give it 100% for my satisfaction factor. 

@Mnmissy and my Beef Stew ( @epwait )

@Mnmissy and I made Beef Stew tonight. This makes a large batch of stew

2 onions quartered
2 pints mushrooms we actuall bought pre-sliced
4 lbs of stew beef cubes
2 bottles of beer your favorite type, I like a dark ale.
1 lb carrots cubed or thick sliced
6 large potatoes
1 cup water
1 can diced tomato
1 tsp dry mustard
3 tbsp of catchup yes it's a surprise.
1 tsp chili sauce if you love heat add a bit more you will love it.
Salt & pepper to taste

Braised BBQ Beef

These are so good they need nothing else, unless you want to go Memphis style by adding slaw

@epwait voila! braised beef bbq. I shared it with friends earlier and they all loved it. Thanks chef :)pic.twitter.com/5o1cgWDW via @edo_au

3 pound chuck roast
2 medium onions
1 28 ounce can of tomatoes
4 cloves of Garlic minced
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup malt vinegar
2 1/4 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce or your homemade BBQ
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

1. Caramelize onions in a large heavy pot add garlic when oinion are caramelized. 
2. Ad beef to the pot cut into 4 inch cubes then ad tomatoes and have the can again of water to get all the tomato juice. Braise the beef until its about to fall apart.
3. Now ad rest of ingredient and cook until all the beef is falling apart on low heat and the it thickens up.

This will take 4 to 5 hours to cook perfectly