The perfect order

We had to get a picture of this. A table at lunch yesterday ordered five different beers. Bowden poured each of them in their own logo glassware, and Kelsey was ready to take them to the table. It's like our own little beer commercial (sunshine, cheerful staff, perfectly poured beers).

Alterations done while you drink...

... though I wouldn't necessarily trust him with anything valuable.

Chris, one of our bartenders, is multitalented. Not only is he the singer, songwriter, and driving creative force behind Other Desert Cities, he's an amateur avant-garde fashion designer.

During the 10-11 am hour when we're closed to get important work done, Chris managed to turn our bar mats into dubiously trendy apparel. Rory, our Grill Manager, modeled Chris' creation to absolutely no critical acclaim at all.

And you thought our menu was a little crazy...

Your Shultzy's correspondent is on the road again. This time, I headed down to Los Angeles and had the opportunity to eat at Pink's.



Pink's is an L.A. institution since 1939 that serves up a variety of hotdogs and burgers to the 15-20 million non-vegans left in Southern California. As you can see, it's a place with modest decor and an even more modest dining area (who needs a roof over your head when it never rains).

From their giant menu, I chose a Millenium dog (not shown in their online menu) that was a jalapeño-flavored footlong hotdog topped with chili, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions and guacamole and my wife opted for the basic stretch chili dog.



They were both pretty tasty. And very filling. Even 8 hours later, neither of us were very hungry.

In the interest of culinary adventure, I wish I had tried their Pastrami Burrito (Big flour tortilla wrapped around 2 hot dogs, Grilled Pastrami, Swiss cheese, chili & onions) or their Bacon Burrito Dog (Big flour tortilla wrapped around 2 hot dogs, 2 slices of cheese, 3 slices of bacon, chili & onions), but I had other plans that day and couldn't resist succumbing to a food-induced coma.

Overall, it was pretty tasty and worth a visit if you're in LA, but sadly there's no beer served. I'm ready to get back to Seattle for a Junkyard Dog and a Weltenburger Barrock Hell (if the keg holds out 'til I get back).

FRESH Squeezed Orange Juice!

We cut 'em...
We squeeze 'em...
You drink 'em...

Who Doesn't love fresh-squeezed ORANGES?

[Editor's note]
Tim is the coolest! He's our General Manager at Shultzy's and was resourceful enough to figure out how to post to the blog while I was out of town. I never told him how, but he managed to do it all on his own. The bad part for Tim is that now I'm going to expect him to fill in for me, since I know he knows how to do it. DOH! Sorry, Tim...

Back to the serious topic of orange juice.

Shultzy's is offering a 12 oz. Glass (about 3 full oranges!) worth of fresh-squeezed Orange Juice is only $3. I had one for breakfast last week myself and was wowed. And to put that in perspective, you can't even buy a gallon of gas for $3 any more and that wouldn't taste as good anyway!

Or, maybe you're not an early riser; how about fresh-squeezed orange juice in your favorite cocktail for only $1 more? From personal experience, a Screwdriver with fresh-squeezed orange juice is a clearly superior concoction. Or how about a Tequila Sunrise (do people still drink those)? Or an Orange Blossom (orange juice, gin and sugar)? I've clearly forgotten my bartending class of long ago.

Thanks to a harmonic convergence of circumstances including delicious oranges, an FSA rep (Andrew) who used to squeeze oranges at Wild Ginger as a bartender there, and a bunch of fresh-squeezed orange juice fans working at Shultzy's, we added a new toy. Just like any proud parent, we have to show you a picture of our new "baby".



It doesn't have a name yet, but I'm sure it will (after all, our paper cutter is named "Ryan", but that's another story).

It's a dee-luxe fruit squeezin' machine, and it's all ours. And when you add fresh oranges, you get fresh-squeezed orange juice. And that's NOT the "fresh-squeezed" orange juice that some people pour out of a brightly-labeled plastic jug and that was squeezed and flash-pasteurized in Dinuba, California by robots! OK, maybe they don't employ robots, but it's still not freshly squeezed in front of you by Tim, Emily or one of our other all-human/no-robot waitstaff!

So, come in for breakfast or happy hour, and we'll be glad to squeeze you some fresh orange juice to make your day a little sweeter.

A cautionary tale...

Mike's finished. He's out of here. He's given his two-week customer notice. He's taking his wife and moving to Virginia. Just to buy some gigantic house for the price of 3 days of U-District parking. And where is he going to get his Sweet Tea, Baked Beans, and Kosher Beef Frank? He didn't think about that, did he?

Let that be a lesson. Never leave Shultzy's.

OK, maybe I'm overstating things just a bit.

Back from Tokyo!

I'm back from Tokyo and sitting at the bar in Shultzy's -- traveling is fun, but it's good to be home. And I did try to do some "homework" over there, too.

The first exercise was palate broadening. We had an informal tasting of unusual tidbits this morning: strawberry-chocolate coated Cheetos (consensus: not good), Ritz Bits sandwiches with coffee-flavored filling (consensus: great coffee aroma would go well with Van Gogh Double Espresso Vodka shots), and melon-flavored white chocolate crunch (no consensus, but no one liked the pale green color).



Then there were the things I had to try there and couldn't bring home. First Kitchen is a major Japanese fast food chain with a broad menu and many limited time items. This trip, I ate a Curry Dog, and it was surprisingly good; the dog had a nice snap to it and the curry was surprisingly spicy. Maybe we'll have to explore that one in the R&D Lab.



I saw, but did not manage to eat at R-Burger which sells burgers on Chinese "Bao" buns. R-Burger is a small chain with two locations that sells burgers featuring marine collagen, insecticide-free Shiso leaf topping, and a burger sauce with 19 ingredients. I'd like to try one and see what it's like; the fillings seem tasty, but I'm not so sure about the buns -- it seems like they would be too filling and sticky. I'll have to try it next visit.



I also didn't get a chance to eat at Tokyo's Madison Park Cafe. Really! MPC is the restaurant's name, like a tribute to its namesake Seattle neighborhood. They even serve Seattle's Best Coffee there! They feature hotdogs with intriguing names like "Tokyo Taxi Dog", "A Dog That Swims", and "Hold The Dog". The one that sounds most appealing to American palates is the "Pig Dog" with bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado & horseradish sauce. That'll have to wait for next trip, too!



I did some drinking, too. I found Hoegaarden on tap in Kabukicho, and had 0.25L for about US$8.00 (yikes!). But, given that a bottle of Bud at the same place was $7.00, Hoegaarden wasn't a bad deal at all. The bar also had Bass Ale, Guinness, and Asahi Super Dry on tap.



And finally, just when you thought outsourcing was the only threat to jobs these days, there's the robotic beer pourer. Japan has actually had these for a while; they're a standard fixture in most airport lounges. It's a machine that pours a perfect beer every time using a spigot that starts at the bottom of the glass and then recedes as the glass fills. You get a perfect beer with a perfect head every time.

Great pictures of Shultzy's online

And we didn't even take the pictures! :)

Euphtw has a blog called Blue Seattle. For many of our friends, the blog might be difficult to decipher because it's in Chinese (fortunately, my Singaporean-Chinese wife is conveniently located in my living room). If you don't have a Chinese wife conveniently located in your living room, you can try the Google "translated into English" version, but it's mostly a demonstration that computers, like me, have a long way to go in understanding written Chinese.

Back in mid-February, Euphtw did a write-up on Shultzy's, but what especially amazed both Don and I was the quality of the photos. They are fantastic! EuphTW knows a lot about lighting and composition -- the photos reminded me of some professional photos of the old Shultzy's from long, long ago that were done as part of a Microsoft advertising campaign.

I think we know who to talk to next time we're in need of great photos of Shultzy's. Thanks Euphtw!

Signs of spring

I don't know if the swallows returned to Capistrano this year, but the Seattleites have returned to Shultzy's patio. On sunny days, it's a great place to hang out with food, friends, and beer (not necessarily in that order).

The other recent return to Shultzy's is Major League Baseball. Shultzy's has 5 flat screen TVs and MLB games on satellite, so when the Mariners or your favorite team is playing, stop by. If the game you're interested in isn't on when you come in, ask your waiter or the bartender, and we'll try to put it on.

What is Chimichurri?

Spy photo of Chimichurri sauce from the Shultzy's R&D Lab.

The origin of this month's cheesesteak was fairly simple: free association.

Cheesesteak -> Steak -> Argentina -> Chimichurri

I've been to Argentina a couple of times, and Argentinians both love steak and cook great steaks. Argentina's favorite condiment is probably Chimichurri, a spicy-tangy pesto-like sauce that goes great on grilled beef. What's in the sauce? Fresh parsley and garlic, lemon, olive oil, and a little crushed red pepper.

So, it wasn't a great leap of imagination to think that it might make a dandy cheesesteak.

So, off to the Shultzy's R&D labs. We started off with a Chimichurri steak with no cheese; I loved it, but it's too hard to explain a cheesesteak without cheese to customers, so we started exploring cheese combinations. Provolone worked best, and we were on our way. The sandwich was tasty, but a few slices of sweet roma tomatoes perfectly complemented the other ingredients in taste and texture.

And, the Chimichurri Cheesesteak was born...


But we weren't quite finished. Emily Schulze liked the ChimiCheesesteak (as it is affectionately known here), but wanted to try the same preparation with a veggie burger. Eureka! The Chimichurri Veggie Burger was born. Emily tried adding some grilled onions and liked it, so some onion-lovers may want to try that option. Yes, I know Argentina's not known for vegetarians, but perhaps they'll forgive our successful experimentation.