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The Naked Burrito from ‘El  Fuego’ tastes better than it looks in what passes as a picture from my cell phone.   They use fresh, never frozen, ingredients, and the food is quite good.

Rice, black beans, peppers & onions, chicken, salsa fresca, salsa verde, and lettuce for $7.22.  It’s a big enough lunch for the price and the promise of fresh ingredients cooked in house.  I want to believe this has less fat and calories than the exact Qdoba equivalent, which I’ve included below.  It would be a shame if the ‘Fuego’ naked burrito reached the same fat and sodium content.  Imagine what that Qdoba burrito is like with cheese, sour creme, and guacamole! Lunch shouldn’t have 60-100% (depending on where you look) of your daily intake of sodium.

El Fuego
723 Walnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19106-3208
Phone: (215) 592-1901

[El Fuego on Citysearch]

Blake Royer’s recent post, “Pasta Cacio e Pepe: Are Fancy Pastas Worth It?” inspired my purchases and cooking tonight, and here’s the resultant blog post. I think we made some similar conclusions through some slightly different foods. I’ll be somewhat brief as to not just echo his article.

My mother would probably faint knowing I paid SIX DOLLARS for a package of pasta today. Well, mom, wake up and smell the durum wheat semolina– the only ingredient listed on the Bartolini Emilio Ciriole package– because it’s amazing.

Supermarket pasta is good, but it serves as a background item to the sauce. It’s filler. The Six-Dollar-a-Box pasta, though, is a reason for a meal in itself. Okay, that might have been an exaggeration, but if I have to overplay the issue so you buy some, then so be it.

I couldn’t cover the expensive noodles in any old slop. Rather than using the standard Pathmark or Rienzi canned tomatoes and tomato paste, I went for the big guns. The La Valle San Marzano tomatoes are double the price of normal ones, ($1.50 / 14 oz.) but it’s absolutely worth it. They’re less acidic and more flavorful than their American counterparts. The Mutti tomato paste clocks in around four times more expensive, but it makes sense. First, it’s in a tube rather than a can, so it’ll last longer. More importantly, it tastes fruitier and lacks the metallic taste of canned tomato paste.

Let’s get on to this recipe. I’m sure it’s great even with normal pasta and tomatoes– just not lick-the-pan great.

Ciriole with Fennel (for two)

• Pasta, 2 servings
• Fennel, 1 bulb quartered
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• 14oz can Tomatoes
• 2 tsp Tomato Paste
• FRESH Rosemary (I said Fresh)
• Cracked red pepper (optional)

1. Brown the fennel over medium-high heat, in olive oil.
2. Put the fennel off to the side, to make room for the…
3. Onion and garlic on medium heat. Don’t burn them…sweat them.
4. Crush up the tomato using your hands (I like to do it in the can, so it’s less messy.) and add it to the onions and garlic.
5. Add the tomato paste, stir it all around, and…
6. Throw the fennel back in the pan.
7. Add a couple springs of Rosemary and some cracked red pepper.
8. Simmer, covered, for twenty, twenty five minutes.
9. Check the fennel– it should seem like it’ll be done in less than ten minutes. You want it to have some bite when it’s all said and done– not just a mush. If it seems good, uncover pan.
10. Pasta goes in the boiling salted water until al dente.
11. The fennel should be done about a minute before the pasta finishes. Remove from the sauce into some aluminum foil so you can keep in warm and arrange it nicely. Or keep it in the sauce, and have a big old mess. Either way is fine.
12. Transfer the pasta to the sauce using tongs. You want some of that pasta water to carry into the sauce. Not drenched, just mildly dripping. Mix it all around.
13. Mound the pasta in the center, surround with fennel, sprinkle some chopped rosemary, and put a sprig of rosemary in the center.
14. Drizzle with olive oil.

** You should be seasoning with salt and pepper the whole way through. If the sauce is too acidic add a few pinches of sugar.
** You could probably add parmigiano-reggiano, because that makes everything taste better.

If you’re thinking of going out to dinner in Philadelphia, make a reservation at Cochon.  The French BYOB in South Philly blew me away.  I would recommend any and all of what we had: Scallops on Frisee, Escargot, Pork Shoulder, and Lamb Shank.  I’m considering writing something more expansive than this, but until then:  It was great.

Sometime in the next few months, I’ll be participating in a video project where I’ll be artificially rendered blind. I was absently thinking about blind people eating when I realized, as with everything else in your life, you’d need a really strong system to keep track of what food was where as a blind person. It’s easy to take a can of beans off of the shelf when you can see, but how do you know if you grabbed black or garbanzo when you’re blind? I don’t recall ever feeling braille on food products. Do the blind grocery shop? My next step in this jumbled mess of thought had me thinking about applying technology to make being blind a little bit easier.

Let’s give Mr. Blind an ear piece, like those blue tooth headsets all the cool kids have. Now, let’s attach it to a voice-activated computer with GPS. Our BlindEye will guide Mr. Blind to the nearest grocery store (assuming, for argument’s sake, he doesn’t already know how to get to his local store.)

Mr. Blind: BlindEye. Locate Grocery store.
BlindEye: South Square, 23rd and South, BlindEye enabled. Would you like to go here, or another?
Mr. Blind: Go here.

Then it would give street-by-street audio directions, like those Tom-Toms all the cool kids have. The real magic happens once Mr. Blind enters the BlindEye enabled grocery store. Every item in the store is embedded with an RFID tag. Mr. Blind can search the store using the the BlindEye. If he had the BlindWand wireless attachment, he could touch that against specific products to hear that it was, in fact, Goya Black Beans, and not the store brand. Meta-data such as nutritional information, sales, and coupons would also be accessible through the wand.

This whole operation is largely optimistic, as implementation might be cost prohibitive. More and more products are being stuck with RFID tags though, and their storage and range continues to increase. Dozens more tags placed around the store to make localized navigation possible couldn’t be too hard to put in either.

As far as I know this is possible to build with current technology. Get together some programmers, industrial designers, engineers, and human-computer interaction specialists, and Mr. Blind could be using his BlindEye in no time. I’m sure with only a few minutes more thought, many more ideas for this would form– I’ve only scratched the surface so far.

Hell, I’d work on it– someone find me a blind Venture Capitalist.

[Edit - Adding more…]

In the future, forget the BlindWand, you could have something implanted into your fingertips which synced with the BlindEye.  And forget the blue tooth headset, let’s just implant that thing right into the ear.  And if you think that’ll turn you into some kind of weird cyborg person, it’s not that much different than a pacemaker.  Hopefully there’d be a way to restore sight, or a computerized version of sight hooked right into the brain by then.

Dinner at Marrakesh really started in the tiny waiting area. Valentines couples canoodled, exchanged long gazes, and made out in the mostly communal seating arrangement. We were joined by a J. Crew couple– reservations under ‘Chad’– who were far too kissy-faced considering their proximity. I weighed my options of, “Dude, Chad, I know it’s V-Day, but control yourself” versus keeping quiet, and decided not to ruin their night. Plus, there’s a good chance we’d be sitting near The Yacht Club Couple, which would be Awkward City. (more…)

I went to Di Bruno Brother’s in Center City last night for some cheese, olives, bread, and cured meat. Walking by the small packages of meaty goodness, I noticed a ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ sign. I bought a ticket for that salty Meat Parade right then and there, copping some Coppa and bagging some Bresaola.

I was greeted warmly at the regisiter, and told the lady, “These were buy one, get one.” She eyed me up, untrustingly, “There’s a sign over there by the counter,” I assured her. She went to check. It was taking a moment too long, so I went to mediate. The Counter Guy pointed out that the sign was for sandwiches. “I don’t want two sandwiches…I don’t even want one sandwich,” I said lightly. Then, in an act of Customer Service, unheard-of in most companies, The Counter Guy said, “Y’know, it’s my fault, the sign was on the meat. Just give it to him.”

Amazing! I thanked them thoroughly, and went on my way. If only Bally’s could have been so easy.