This morning I read a "restaurant review" in Buffalo Rising about Left Bank. It was a typical fluff piece that they write for all of their advertisers. I felt the need to comment because it was so poorly written and just screamed of being edited to death. Right after I found the original much more honest review on the author's blog here: and posted it to Buffalo Rising's comments. Both of my comments were promptly erased and my login is now denied!

Buffalo Rising is such shit really. They are worried only about advertising dollars. When I worked at a restaurant and served BR's reviewer I was told to comp the whole bill. Not only did we know we were being reviewed we gave them the fucking meal for free! They aren't reviewing anything. They are advertising.

Not that it's really much different at the Buffalo News, although at least they don't get the meal comped. But every chef in Buffalo knows what Janice Okun looks like. Not much of a surprise that everyone gets high marks. Although I don't necessarily agree with these two all the time at least they follow ethical standards. Neither of which BR or the News adhere to.

A couple of weeks ago I was Spar's Sausage on Amherst St. and noticed a large jar of chocolate covered bacon on the counter. I had to try it considering my love of both.



As much as I love everything about Spar's, really everything they make is absolutely great. The bacon was one of the most foul things I have ever eaten. I have had bacon as a dessert before ie. (candied bacon, caramel corn with bits of rendered bacon) and loved it. But this stuff was totally inedible. The second piece ended up in the trash.

I love watching the cooking shows on PBS Saturdays. I know I should probably be productive but I learn so much by watching these guys. It also usually inspires me as to what I'm going to cook that week.

One of my favorites is "Avec Eric" which is Eric Ripert's cooking show. He usually has a couple of segments one usually is him either with a farmer, cultivator or artisan of some sort and the other he cooks something. Frequently his preparations use expensive ingredients, which most cooking shows do, and last week was no exception. On this particular episode he made Paella. I had never made it prior to last week and never realized how easy it is. It is however pretty freaking expensive given the price of seafood and saffron, but totally worth it for a special occasion.

I more or less followed his recipe but deviated a little bit.
I didn't use authentic bomba rice, not only because I haven't a clue as to where to procure that in Buffalo but because frankly I doubt I would notice a difference from any quality short grain rice that is available to me anyway. If I made it again I would definitely not even bother with the saffron at all. I don't really see what people love about saffron. It has a strange plastic taste to me. Considering the cost I don't really see any reason to use it ever again. I also think it would taste a little better if I had used homemade chicken stock, but I can't be bothered to boil chicken bones constantly.

I would like to make it for a large group and think it would be so much cooler if it were cooked over and open flame. Totally a dinner for company you want to impress with your cooking skills. Anyway here is the final result: