Favorite Meals of 2022 (Part 2)
Favorite Meals from some friends of Buffalo Eats (original published in December 2022)
For the 11th time, we have reached out to our friends to ask about their favorite meals of 2022. In what started as a fun way to connect back with all of our podcast guests at the end of the year, has turned into one of my favorite things we’ve ever done. We often get spoiled by the amount of thought and effort put into these responses and reading through these descriptions of meals that are fondly remembered just feels good.
So please enjoy our annual series and thank you to everyone who participated this year.
Joseph DeBenedictis (YouTuber, Emmy Winning Video Producer): The best meal I had this past year was in Grimsby, Ontario (about 45 minutes from the peace bridge if you drive fast! — 25 minutes from where I live in Burlington, Ontario) at a place called The Olive Board. It was totally unexpected. Maybe that’s what made it so good?
This place serves charcuterie boards as their main dish. I had the “Canadian” charcuterie board with smoked meat, cheese curds, maple bacon and Niagara gold cheese. It was divine. Then we ordered a peach caprese. Who’s ever heard of peach and mozzarella together? It was genius and so delicious. Also a great alternative for people who don't like tomatoes (like my wife) so they can enjoy some caprese too!
Lastly, I had a prosciutto sandwich. Now this wasn’t just prosciutto thrown on a bun. It was elevated to another level of taste bud heaven. I don’t even remember what was in it because I blacked out from joy.
I loved it so much I had filmed a quick video and put it on TikTok. The video got 400,000 views within a day and led to the restaurant's busiest day in history. I know this because the owners contacted me after it all happened to thank me. Now THAT was totally unexpected. I couldn’t be more happy for The Olive board and the family that owns it. They deserve every bit of success for having some of the best food around.
Tracey Maciejewski (Treasurer of Buffalo Beer Goddesses): Taking a page from Steve Gedras write up from 2021, I couldn’t pick just one favorite. Here is my (basically) quarterly edition of the Best Thing I Ever Ate 2022.
To start the year I had a personal culinary triumph. I have been trying to nail an Osso Bucco for a few years and for some reason this version was the one. All of the ingredients came courtesy of my favorite Italian grocer, Pelicano’s in Wheatfield and not only was the dish perfect for the occasion, the left overs were to die for. Finding a recipe for this that works for you just might be your cure for the winter blues in 2023.
In July I had my first true standout restaurant meal of 2022. To say Prescott’s Provisions is amazing would be an understatement. In a particularly rough week late in July I was treated to food and service the likes of which I had not experienced in quite sometime. The cocktail list paired perfectly with the seasonal offerings. The pate and crostini was meant for two but I managed to eat it all and (maybe) not lick the bowl. The sweet corn ravioli with truffle was both decadent and light enough for the summer heat. Their menu is constantly changing so make it a a point to get there is any season, you will not be disappointed.
The last two delectable offerings came very close together on the calendar.
In early November I dined at Moriarty Meats cafe while enjoying a Sunday Bills game. The vibe of this quaint Elmwood eatery is relaxed and inviting and the food and carefully curated beer and wine are the perfect compliment to their delicious snacks and large plates. On this afternoon I had the pleasure of partaking in their Beouf on Weck (pictured above). This is definitely not your grandmas weck from a 20 year old crock pot. The sandwhich is a perfect elevated version of a classic with killer beef, a horseradish sauce and a weck roll like none I’ve ever had created by the dough experts at Extra Extra (another local standout). Not just a butchery (but outstanding at that) Moriartys will be a neighborhood go to for me for years to come.
Last but not least on the list was my recent visit to the newly relocated Black Iron Bystro. Known for their cocktails (with good reason) I stared with a concoction centered around pickled beet juice. Stunning in color and lively in taste it was the perfect kick off. They have a nice variety of bar snacks but don’t let that moniker fool you, this is serious food. The agnolotti with honey squash and labneh in roasted vegetable broth with just a dab of truffle butter was one of the most unique pasta dishes I’ve ever had and the pork belly dish was unique in its play on all the senses. The crispy, sweet, sticky, spicy bites were not only perfect that night but the next day diced up to make hash with a fried egg on top they were the very best version of a morning after cure.
Thanks for letting me share a small glance into my foodie obsession. I can’t wait to see what tastes stand out in 2023.
source: Visit Buffalo Niagara
Melissa Winkler (Owner of Winkler & Samuels): We love to entertain at our house but we’re often busy with our shop during the holidays, so we tend to do the bulk of our hosting during the summer months, when we can sit outside on our deck with friends and relax. We try to find things to prepare ahead of time, so that when our guests arrive, we’re not caught in the kitchen too much. For an appetizer, we do the usual charcuterie board, but included in that is chicken skin thyme butter. It’s pretty simple, take chicken skin from some chicken thighs, spread it on some parchment paper on a baking sheet and roast it in the oven. The skin turns nice and crispy has lovely bacon notes. Chop it up and mix it with room temperature butter and spread on sliced baguette, it’s so good.
One of our standout meals this summer was salmon grilled on our weber grill over a cedar plank, paired with a skin contact orange wine. It’s such an easy meal to prepare ahead of time, and nearly foolproof to cook. Soak the plank all day, prepare a brown sugar and mustard seasoning rub for the salmon, and then you just have to put it on the closed grill. Closing the grill here is key - it keeps the fire from getting too hot, so when the plank burns, it doesn’t go too far and ruin the salmon. Secondly, the closed grill brings a key smokey quality to the fish. If it’s August, boiling some fresh corn on the cob in the same pot with some salt potatoes are the perfect side dishes. The sweetness of the corn is passed to the potatoes and you only have one pot to clean up afterwards. Add grilled veggies from farm stands, bell peppers, zucchini, etc. Grilling them caramelizes the vegetables like the salmon and gives a nice pop of color to your plate.
We tied it all together with a skin contact or orange wine. Orange wine is just white wine that sees a long maceration time on the skins, making it more aromatic and complex (called orange because of the color of the wine in the glass, nothing to do with the fruit.) The wines tend to have these lovely orange marmalade notes and complex aromatics that complement the salmon perfectly. One bottle that stood out to us this summer was from Elios, from Sicily. There was something about their wine (maybe is the was the second bottle of the evening for us?) that just paired perfectly with the grilled, smokey salmon. They’re two friends that make wine together, they only work with indigenous varietals. Elios’ Bianco Macerato is a blend of Grillo, Caterrato, and Zibbibo. It’s fun and fresh with aromas of candied citrus fruit, orange peel and dried apricots, and melon.
On the rare occasion that we get to go out, we always love going to see our friends at the Dapper Goose. The food always delivers and the wine and cocktail list are always enough to make deciding what to get a challenge. We were there recently for my husband’s birthday and enjoyed a delicious bottle of Champagne and then some after dinner delights of Armagnac and a herbaceous Amaro. We always order too many small plates but how can you resist? The ricotta toast and cauliflower with green goddess are always must.
Thanks to Donnie for including us in this list of esteemed food and beverage professionals and please shop local this holiday season!
Corey Muscato (Chief Operating Officer of The Beer Keep): If there's something Buffalo loves more than anything, it's Buffalo. Which is why I decided to write about a recent trip I took to Canada in August of this year.
My partner and I had been talking about taking an end of summer trip for some time but just hadn't made dedicated plans. When some unexpected time off from work presented itself we decided to pack up the car, bicycles and all, and fuck off to the largest city in Canada's Québec province - Montréal.
In Montréal the natural wine flows like...well wine. One of the first things we noticed when dining out was that "Natural Wines" were much more widely available compared to Buffalo and most of the US. Infact, restaurant wine lists consisted almost exclusively of Natural Wine. Instead of
them being some highbrow, esoteric version of mainstream wines, everyone treated them like normal wines, because they are.
We had already been there for a few days and made our way through at least half a dozen memorable meals. At each destination we engaged with the staff and other locals asking them where their favorite under-the-radar spots were. There were a few places that came up multiple times but we decided to go somewhere mentioned only once because it was in a part of town we hadn't visited yet, Entre-Duex.
We made reservations but decided to sit at the bar because it had an interesting design and provided more opportunity to interact with the staff. Their bar manager Alex was behind the bar, he asked us to begin by describing what traits we like best in wines and proceeded to recommend a number of options. Trusting his suggestions we started at one and went down the line over the duration of the meal. Once we tasted the wine we knew we were in for a treat.
The food menu was small but showed promise with a number of exciting not-often-seen preparations as well as some familiar items, including a smoked pork dish that I quickly denounced as pedestrian. We started by putting a little bit of everything in, including the pork dish.
The meal started off with at least two orders of raw oysters, a ripe heirloom tomato and pumpernickel panzanella salad, and quickly escalated with cuttlefish ink ravioli and some dang mushroom/chorizo dish. They were all terribly good, but then it happened. The dish that I pigeonholed as casual at best had turned out to be the defining taste of not only my time in Montréal, but the entire calendar year of 2022.
Silky panang curry cascaded over the gently crisped edges of a perfectly smoked cut of pork shoulder all the while resting on top of simple salt roasted potatoes. And if that wasn't enough, a healthy dusting of sherry soaked cracked peanuts topped off this dish that I had previously called "trivial" and thought would just be a distraction from the main event.
I've never been more wrong in my entire life. This inanimate piece of pork helped remind me that sometimes our expectations can create boundaries for our experiences.
We lingered after the meal was over and a bunch of the staff's friends showed up. It was a fun group, we all did shots and they introduced us to a stuffed animal they had brought along from home - it was a pink giraffe. I couldn't imagine a more fitting ending to the best meal I'd enjoyed
all year.
Take that trip you've been thinking about, make conversation with the staff everywhere you go, and always ALWAYS order outside of your comfort zone.
source: Buffalo News
Mark Goodwin (VP of Tweets & Contributor, Creator of 10AM Hayburner): Picking my favorite meal at the end of the year is always way harder than I think it’s going to be. I usually end up going through our Instagram page as if it’s a food rolodex to try and recollect which meal made me salivate the most. This Imperial Haddock Stuffed with Blue Crab Meatfrom Adolf’s Old First Ward Tavern wins Best in Show for me in 2022.
Let’s set the scene first. It took place on Good Friday, the last Friday of Lent but more importantly, the last day for special fish fry offers for the year. The smell of fried fish when you enter the place took me back to getting dragged to church events growing up, but at least I get to drink beer this time around. The bar, which is filled with equal amounts of Irish memorabilia and Irish people, makes me feel nostalgic for some reason. The old English phone-booth-turned-into-a-bathroom adds an unusual quirkiness. The big wooden tables and seats make it a great place to catch up with an old friend, or in my case, listen to my parents jokingly bicker about whatever was going on then.
But let’s talk about the food. This monster of a fish dish was so good that when I looked down at my plate to start eating, I didn’t come back up for air until all the fish was cleared from my plate. I didn’t touch a single fry, pasta salad, coleslaw, or piece of bread until all the creamy crab and tender haddock was in my stomach. Which is very rare for fry-loving me. Speaking of, their homemade fries are a perfect amount of crispiness, while not being super filling either. Shoutout to their homemade blue cheese too (not pictured).
Go check out Adolf’s Old First Ward Tavern soon. You won’t regret it. And hey, you might even have the best meal of your year there.
Lindsay Robson (Creator of Nickel City Pretty, Copper & Steel): My favorite meal of the year happened on one of my “Eat, Pray, Love” trips of 2022.
I wanted to take the year to do some traveling to some spots that I’ve always wanted to visit, and one of those cities happened to be Denver, Colorado. I had a few goals of the trip- visit my good friend Krys who lives there, cry on the steps of Red Rocks, and have dinner with a long, long-time internet bud (and celebrity chef *humble brag*) Johnny Iuzzini.
I somehow became friends with Johnny via Twitter approximately 80 years ago and have kept in touch ever since. He recently moved to Denver from NYC, so I reached out to him and said I’d be in the area if he wanted to grab a bite on my first night there. We went to a restaurant called The Fifth String, and him being a chef and knowing the crew there, had the kitchen bring out a smattering of different things from the menu.
Each dish that came out was better than the last, but the one item that will forever stick with me was the very first thing that they gave us. I was confused at first- it was a candle on a plate, surrounded by spices and chunks of bread. The server lit the candle and explained that it was made out of beef fat and as the candle burned, the fat melted onto the plate and it mixed with the spices and you would dip the bread into it. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like that before, and it will be forever engrained into my mind as the most pretentious and genius thing I’ve ever eaten (it was delicious.) The meal was lovely, the company was great, and the trip was life changing.
And yes, I did cry on the steps of Red Rocks. 10/10 would recommend.
Mike Dudek (Creator of @diningwithdudek): It was a chilly March morning, late morning to be exact. The kind that truly makes you question if spring or even summer for that matter would ever arrive. Even though I just checked moments before, I looked in my fridge to see what possibly could be on the menu for lunch. Surprise surprise, the same array of condiments and beverages presented themselves. Because I can be dramatic at times, I shut the fridge door with an overzealous sigh. I then began to put on my coat and boots to venture out into the world.
Sometimes when I get in my car to go get food, I have no idea where I’m off to and this time was no different. I drove around for a bit while listening to music, watching the time tick by and my hunger grow. While sitting at a red light shuffling through my “Liked Songs” on Spotify it all of a sudden hit me, and I knew exactly where to go… D.A. Taste.
I had seen all the pictures on social media and heard the hype and tried to go weeks before. Foolishly though I showed up around 1 pm that day, and the place was full. Not to mention the line of 10-plus people that had formed outside. I glanced down at the clock in my car showing 11:36. I knew that if I wanted to try their delicious birria tacos, I would have to go now and go quickly.
By the time I got there, about 11:45 (15 minutes before they opened), a line had already formed outside. Unexpecting people driving by must have thought this was a sneaker or video game release but no, this was a line for the tacos all of Buffalo seemed to be talking about.
As I got out of my car and found my place in line the familiar sweet smoky smell surrounded me. I was 4th in line, and two others were behind me. Though none of us spoke while in line, there was this connection. We all knew why we were here, we heard the hype and our taste buds led us to this moment. A few more people stopped by and some of the lesser devoted started to turn away. “This is the line to get in?”, “They aren’t open yet?”, “I can’t wait for this”, “You enjoy”.
The clock struck noon, the doors opened and the time had come. My linemates and I filed in with the same excitement as children on their way to see Santa. The small area was filled with the same smoky aroma as outside, except even stronger.
I read the menu out of curiosity but already knew what I was going to get. When it was my turn to order I went with my standard 2 tacos. I was EASILY talked into a 3rd when told it was only $2 more. I took my golden ticket, aka my receipt, and stepped off to the side.
To pass the time, I occupied myself with a few different things. Signed the fridge (you’ll know what I mean when you go and it’s left-hand side, bottom right-hand corner if you are wondering). I tried watching Hell’s Kitchen, which was currently on TV, but had to stop soon after because of the anxiety building inside of me caused by Gordon Ramsey’s yelling. And my final activity to kill time was mindlessly playing a game on my cell phone. But then it started happening, the order two ahead of me came out. 97. The time was coming.
I held tight to my ticket with the number 99 with the same enthusiasm as Charlie from Willy Wonka. Except mine was better Charlie, mine was for 3 birria tacos that I was going to dunk in beautiful consommé.
My number was finally called and due to excitement, I don’t fully remember the moments from being handed my bag to my car. I can only imagine the smile that was on my face. I started my car and drove off having to restrain myself from stopping at the nearest parking spot to devour the tacos. I knew this was a special moment and had to treat it as such.
With the aroma of the tacos filling my car, the drive to Cazenovia Park seemed like an hour but in reality, was less than five minutes. I parked, found a bench, sat, and then took in the moment before digging into these beautiful beautiful birria tacos.
I opened the box and the crispy orange tacos looked back at me. Melted cheese crept from its corners and diced onion along with cilantro fell out so perfectly as I picked up the first. My first bite was pure, I wanted to taste the taco itself before a bite with the consommé and WOAH! The rush of flavors ambushed my tastebuds with little warning. Tender shredded meat, gooey melted cheese, the slight bite from the onion and freshness from the cilantro all came together making my senses go wild. The slight crispiness of the tortilla provided almost a grilled cheese sandwich type of component.
The next bite though, that was the consommé dunk, the showstopper! Now for those who don’t know, the consommé is the liquid the meat is cooked in. Birria tacos are served with a side of this similar to the au jus served with a French dip. Now that I got that out of the way, let me tell you about this glorious bite with consommé. The deep red hue covered the corner of my taco slowly dripping down onto the other two tacos. I took my bite and everything hit me at once. The spicy rich consommé took that initial bite to an unbelievable level! Spicy, rich, savory, tangy, the list of adjectives could go on and on.
Have you ever eaten something so good you talk to yourself? Well yea, that’s what happened to me here. Anyone passing by legitimately saw or heard me talking to myself. I’m not sure what I was saying because I was focused on every bite, but I’m sure it was good.
After I finished my last bite, I sat there for a minute turning this moment into a memory. A memory of me sitting in this park enjoying a quiet lunch on a chilly March afternoon. A memory of beautifully orange tacos filled with spicy shredded beef and cheese. A memory of rich red consommé elevating every bite to the next level. A memory of the best meal I had in 2022.