Magma Pizza has one mission: to create innovative cuisine that is natural and delicious. They have a unique way of cooking our food. The heart of Magma Pizza is their new volcano oven/rotisserie where pizza is baked and roasted over lava rocks! They blend traditional Mediterranean with new American cuisines. They are committed to offering food that is nourishing and enjoyable. They believe that good health begins in eating healthy, fresh and natural foods - and that’s what you’ll find at Magma!

and natural
foods - and that’s what you’ll find at Magma!

Great Lakes Brewing celebrates its 20th Anniversary this year and is going big with arguably the world’s most highly acclaimed and widely available craft lager. The brewery has created a bolder version of its Dortmunder Gold Lager, doubling the IBU of the original and raising the ABV from 5.8 to 7.5%. The beer is currently available on tap at the brewpub and will arrive on store shelves in 4-packs in early July according to the latest newsletter.

For all you Beer connoisseurs out there, I would highly recommend driving to Cleveland or NE Ohio to pick up a 4 pack of this rare goodness. Cheers.

Source: Great Lakes Brewing

The World’s Most Expensive Burger - flame grilled Waygu Beef, topped with white truffles in an Iran saffron and truffle bun - is to go on sale at a fast food restaurant.

Burger King’s £95 sandwich, named simply The Burger, will make Guinness World Record history beating a similarly extravagant American Double Truffle Burger which cost just £65 in 1994.

The world’s most succulent Japanese beef is complemented with white truffles, onion tempura prepared in Cristal champagne and Italy’s finest Pata Negra prosciutto

Restaurant critics have dismissed the burger as just the latest stunt in a marketing craze which has seen Selfridges charge £85 for a sandwich and Peter Jones, the Sloane Square department store, ask £50 for a cup of coffee pre-digested by a Civet cat.

Source: Telegraph

Anytime a spice product comes with a disclaimer that you have to approve, you know it’s serious — and Blair’s 16 Million Reserve Crystals ($545 and up) are indeed serious. Limited to a run of 999, the gold and white wax-sealed bottle holds inside a 1ml pharmaceutical grade vial packed with pure capsaicin crystal, the main active component of chili peppers. To put it another way, this is absolutely the hottest hot sauce product known to man.

Buy Here: Uncrate

If there is one food we cannot live without, it is pizza. Above our images of my good friend Dave who happens to have the gnarliest obsession with pizza I’ve ever heard of. Dave is a from Jersey making him close to NYC, which means he does not mess around when it comes to a slice, or in this is case, a whole pie. Seen above in his therapeutic haven, Dave is gorging his brains out on an official Larry & Carol’s ‘King Kong’ Pizza. This bad boy runs about $30.00 depending on topping choice and is capable of feeding a large family. The pizza itself is actually very tasty considering its colossal size.

More importantly, Dave managed to scarf down six slices of pepperoni in about 30 minutes, certifying him as mentally insane. So if your ever in Pittsburgh and have a serious itch for a good pie, the ‘Kong’ is a must. But be careful, this monster doesn’t fit through most doors, so plan a picnic unless you want to unhinge your door to get this beast inside.

Attention Burger Connoisseurs: Le Burger Brasserie Sports Grille is located in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Paris Las Vegas. This upbeat spot is notorious (in my mind) for one thing: a burger. They offer a repertoire of burgers in a palette of “Le Boeuf” (beef), “Le Poulet” (chicken), “Le Salmon” (salmon), “L’Agneau” (lamb) and “Les Legumes” (veggies), but one stands alone. The kobe beef and Maine lobster burger with caramelized onions, Brie cheese, crispy prosciutto, topped with 100-year-aged balsamic vinegar!

Sliced, sizzled and slathered with cheese. The famous Philly Cheesesteak serves as an iconic representation of Philly and now, an expensive luxury. That’s because Chef James Locascio, of Rittenhouse Square’s Barclay Prime, created Philadelphia’s “haute” cheesesteak, an upscale version of the sandwich that includes butter poached lobster and shaved truffles.

“It’s every ingredient you want to try in a life time in one,” said Locascio. Still, that kind of lavishness doesn’t come cheap. For one cheesesteak, expect to pay $100. That is nearly 15 times more than the original. “We made sure we had the best beef we could find, the best lobster and the right cheese,” explains Locascio. To get top of the line ingredients, Locascio says it costs $17 per pound for cheese, $21 per pound for Kobe beef and $900 per pound for summer truffles.

So who buys the costly sandwich? On average, five or six customers order it per night and many share it as an appetizer. Locascio says, “It all adds up, a quarter of a million dollars a year in cheesesteaks is pretty good.” With other steak shops selling their sandwich for about $7 a pop, you might say that’s really good.

This sandwich has Dave Procaccini’s name written all over it.

Source: CBS

Ubud is a town on the Indonesian island of Bali. The town is located amongst rice paddies and steep ravines in the island’s central foothills in the Gianyar regency. One of Bali’s major arts and culture centres, it has developed a large tourism industry. The specialty in Ubud is the nasi babi guling (roast suckling pig), which can be found all over the island. This dish is an all-in-one platter of rice with pork meat, fried pork skin, pig intestines, gizzet, and vegetables and apparently the best place to get it is Warung’s Ibu Oka.

Babi Guling at Ibu Oku is considered a Balinese delicacy for locals and tourists. The food stall has stood there for the past 20 years, serving up what many say is some of the best pork in the world. Half a dozen live pigs are housed at the back of the compound, snuffling, eating, sleeping and generally enjoying life before the pre-dawn kill that will have them cleaned, gutted, stuffed and spitted by 4 a.m., ready for the Warung’s 11 a.m. opening.

For those of you who are curious to what Babi Guling actually is, it is a roast suckling pig packed full of Balinese herbs and spices, such as shallots, garlic, chili, ginger, galangal, turmeric and bay leaves, then roasted over an open fire for at least five hours while continulously being lathered with coconut milk. This is five hours of hot, heavy work for the cooks who rotate, non-stop, the wooden spit by hand, regularly dousing the flames with water to maintain the perfect cooking temperature. Getting the temperature right is an art that has been handed down from generation to generation, the suckling pigs slowly developing that warm golden sheen that makes for the best crackling, the inner meat cooking slowly until it is utterly succulent. Prominent chefs like Jamie Oliver and Anthony Bourdain say this is the best pork in the world.

Ibu Oka learned this art — along with the business — from her parents-in-law 25 years ago. She adds that her in-laws had been preparing Babi Guling for 33 years before she took on the business.

“The family has been making Babi Guling for almost 60 years. Two generations of us. Originally, the business started at the market. I ran it there for the first five years after my parents-in-law died, and then moved the warung to Jl. Suweta 20 years ago,” she said of the business that now involves her whole family.

For pork eaters, this is the mother of all pork dishes. The pork meat is nicely marinated and very tender. The fried pork skin is very crispy and delicious. The atmosphere is very casual, everyone sits on the floor, sharing a long low table while Ibu Oka, the owner of the stall I presume, shaves the tender juicy meat off the pig hanging on the kitchen. Ibu Oka is highly recommended just for the experience of a local food stall, and also for the lovely pork dish.

I received an e-mail this morning from my good friend Shane who happens to be in Toyko at the moment indulging in the fine art of Japanese cuisine. Shane specifically e-mailed me to inform me of what type of restaurants and food he has been experiencing daily. Yesterday seemed to be a big day for Shane after attending a Yomiuri Giants game, Shane ate at a famous Soba restaurant called Gonpachi. Soba is a type of thin Japanese noodle made from buckwheat flour. It is served either chilled with a dipping sauce, or in hot or cold broth as a noodle soup composed of soy sauce and onions.

For those of you unfamiliar with Gonpachi, it is the Japanese restaurant which was Quentin Tarantino’s inspiration for the restaurant The House of Blue Leaves in Kill BIll. The Interior of the restaurant is apparently incredible, which is arranged by two stories with everything opening up to the kitchen as the focal point. All of the wood work in the restaurant is done in Edo Style (Medieval Japanese).

Gonpachi has two different locations. One being in Toyko and the other in Los Angeles. If your ever in either city, please do yourself a favor and gorge.

“Whether you fill it with ricotta, farmer, or goat cheese, cheese curd, mascarpone, or cream cheese, the smooth taste is iconic.”

Watch The Making of Ciro Marino’s Famous Cheesecake

After watching this video, some of you might think I have a problem. I wouldn’t call it a problem, I would call it a passion. I do research daily and strive to find local eateries like this one. I haven’t had Ciro Marino’s Cheesecake YET and I already know it’s probably the best on the planet. So if your ever in Hollywood and feel like gorging cheesecake, cruise by Marino Ristorante for a slice of heaven. Check out Ciro’s famous ricotta recipe below.

Ciro Marino’s Ricotta Cheesecake Recipe

Source: Los Angeles Times

Dear fellow burrito eaters, I have extremely heart breaking news. Taco trucks are on the brink of extinction.

Living here in San Diego, eating Mexican is a must. This is important to those of you who live in L.A. as well and love your burritos and tacos to come from convenient, portable kitchens. Some curmudgeons down there are trying to essentially Legislate Taco Trucks Out of Existence. Some locals have even started a campaign against this patently ridiculous legislation, and they’ve come up with the best slogan in the history of the human race:

Carne Asada Is Not A Crime.

If they come for the taco trucks, will the taquerias be next?

Click Here and sign the petition!

Source: Burritophile

Papa John’s Pizza issued an apology to Cleveland and the Cavaliers for making T-shirts with LeBron James‘ number and the word “crybaby” under it.

To apologize, Papa John’s will sell Cleveland residents a large, one-topping pizza for 23 cents on Thursday (5-8-08). The company also will donate $10,000 to the Cavaliers Youth Fund.

The pizza chain’s T-shirts were featured during the Cavs’ games against the Wizards on Friday in Washington. Wizards fans taunted the Cavs, who won the playoff series that night in Game 6.

The shirts started after James complained about hard fouls, and Wizards center Brendan Haywood called him a crybaby.

So if you interested in gorging your brains out this Thursday, head to Cleveland to with a quarter and prepare to feast on ridiculously cheap pie!

Dubbed “the bad boy of cuisine” for his rock-star look and blunt observations about the world of restaurants, chefs and cooking, Anthony Bourdain is not your typical celebrity chef. Bourdain has been known for being an unrepentant drinker and smoker. Adding to his untamed image, Bourdain is a former user of cocaine, heroin, poppers, and LSD. A 28-year veteran of professional kitchens, Bourdain is the Chef-at-Large at New York’s famed bistro, Les Halles. His exposé of New York restaurants attracted huge attention in the U.S.A. and the U.K. It formed the basis of his critically acclaimed 2001 book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, which described in lurid detail his experiences in kitchens and became a surprise international best-seller.

Tony’s quest for the perfect dining experience was then smartly documented in his own television series: No Reservations. In No Reservations, Tony’s journey takes him to people and places far beyond the realm of food. Following his wanderlust, the show has taken the audience to far-out and familiar places, from Iceland to Vietnam and the Greek Islands to Indonesia. Having known about Bourdain for quite some time now, I thought I’d educate all the rookies who are unaware of his legendary lifestyle. Check out Bourdain on the Travel Channel as he travels around the world seeking the authentic experiences and food that flavor the world’s cultures.

Scott Weiner launched his pizza tour venture yesterday with a trip to Lombardi’s, Louie & Ernie’s, and Patricia’s. Pizza lovers with $55 to spare can tool around in a school bus on the first citywide pizza tour, which will hit premier pizzerias on a rotating basis. Wiener is hoping to feature up-and-coming joints — like Luzzo’s in the East Village, yesterday’s second stop — as well as established favorites. “They may not have the track record of Lombardi’s or John’s, but their pizza is still on the same level,” said Wiener, 26, who said his personal favorite among the 130 pizzerias he’s visited citywide — Brooklyn’s Grimaldi’s — will be on an upcoming junket.

Wired Magazine says it’s the water.

From the latest issue of Wired:

“Water,” Iron Chef Mario Batali says. “Water is huge. It’s probably one of California’s biggest problems with pizza.” Water binds the dough’s few ingredients. Nearly every chemical reaction that produces flavor occurs in water, says Chris Loss, a food scientist with the Culinary Institute of America. “So, naturally, the minerals and chemicals in it will affect every aspect of the way something tastes.”

Batali himself encounters the water problem at his upscale New York restaurant Del Posto, where he makes traditional Italian food. The tap water in Manhattan is far different from that of the motherland. His solution: create his own mineral-water composite. Working from a chemical analysis of l’acqua italiana, Batali’s team basically clones the H2O that gives the food in Italy its ‚Äî well, its gestalt. He plans to do this at Pizzeria Mozza in L.A….

I’ve never bought the water theory. My take has been that New York pizza is good because there are so many pizzerias, leading to a competitive atmosphere. You’ve gotta be on your game here to get raves. California: stick to burritos.