Rancho Grande, Port Chester

Posted: February 24, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Food | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

Rancho Grande As I first mentioned back on this thread I’ve been wanting to go to Rancho Grande since I first noticed it late last year. To say Rancho Grande is unassuming would be a huge understatement considering I’ve walked right by it at least 25 times over the past year without realizing it was a restaurant until a few months ago. No one goes in or out and the signage is virtually nonexistent. But my strange compulsion to try every Mexican place I see in hopes of uncovering hidden gems too over and I made a note to come back.

I finally stopped in for lunch a few weeks ago. As I expected, I was the only person in the restaurant. In fact, I wonder whether I am the only person who has ever gone to the restaurant. OK, that might be an exaggeration, I’m pretty confident I’m the only gringo to ever step foot in the place. The interior is clean but bare. To keep things simple, I ordered three tacos – chorizo, carnitas, and bistek – and followed it up with an horchata chaser.

After I made my order, the waitress quietly placed a phone call. I didn’t think much of it until two minutes later, a woman came through the door, made a comment to the waitress, and went straight to the kitchen to start making the food. Hmm… any place that needs to call their cook back to work when a customer comes in probably doesn’t do a lot of volume business. Now, in their defense, I’m guessing the cook was on her own lunch break. Nevertheless, it doesn’t dissuade my impression that customers don’t flow through their door with a lot of regularity.

The positive side of this, of course, is that the tacos (all $2.75) were freshly made and quite good. The bistek was the best with typically little chunks of thin beef steak, nicely charred from a hot griddle. The carnitas also had good flavor, and was appropriately fatty, but not as tender, rich or juicy as I would have liked. The chorizo was the weakest of the three. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary either.

So, all in all, I liked that my food was cooked to order and the food itself wasn’t bad either. But given the choice for tacos in Port Chester, I’d head 50 yards around the corner to Tortilleria Los Gemelos, where tacos are far superior, and now only $2 each.

Rancho Grande
8 Poningo St.,
Port Chester, NY 10573
914-939-8125

(I’ve also updated my ongoing Google map of Port Chester Latin food)

Finally, my empanada expedition is complete (sort of)

Posted: January 31, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Food | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

After more than two months of stringing together lunch hours and stealing away for random “errands” as much as possible, I feel I’ve finally tried enough places to put together a somewhat comprehensive guide to empanadas in Westchester County. One thing I’ve learned though is that as much as I might try, this list isn’t totally comprehensive. It seems like every day I find another place worth exploring. So rather than putting up a new blog post every time I find a new place, I’ve instead created a whole new page that can be updated at will. Here it is: The Empanada Lover’s Guide to Westchester County, complete with a detailed description of every place I tried, ranked by one, two or three stars, as well as a color-coded Google map showing all the locations.

My hope is that as I – or any of you – find new places I’ll continue to update this list. Just leave comments here or on that page if you have any suggestions, additions or edits. Your input will make it much more complete.

So, head over to that page to check out the complete list.

On this post I just want to share some overall impressions. First, the good news is that you can find some great empanadas here in Westchester county, spanning varieties from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay. Not many places around the country can boast that kind of variety. In short, there are a lot of very good, very traditional, very diverse empanadas to be eaten in Westchester.

The biggest difference in quality from place to place was whether or not they made their empanadas on site, and whether you could easily order them freshly made. You simply can’t beat freshly made empanadas. Only a short amount of time separates great empanadas from mediocrity. So, of the places I’ve listed, only those who made them freshly (fried or baked) got three stars.

Now, I have to be totally honest. Looking back on all the places I tried, I’m still left wanting. It isn’t that I didn’t find great empanadas here and there. But I still feel like we can do better. I guess I feel like I still haven’t found the absolute empanada nirvana here. Maybe nostalgic feelings of meals with many South American friends in Australia and great food I’ve had in Buenos Aires, creates a bar impossible to reach.  Maybe I’m chasing something unattainable? But whatever the case, it’s good motivation for me to keep looking.

So, I hope you enjoy the list. And please, be sure to let me know if I’ve missed any places and your impressions of any of the ones you’ve already tried.

The Impact of Corporate Culture on Social Media (IBM’s Case Study)

Posted: January 23, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Work | Tags: , , , , , | 54 Comments

My presentation from the Social Networking Conference in Miami yesterday:

 

I’ll be brief in this synopsis, since you can peruse through the slides yourself. But here’s the main point: That culture is, in my view, the most overlooked, underestimated factor determining whether social media succeeds or fails in a company. And when corporate culture and social media are pitted against each other, social media will always fail. Always.

Too often, people from company “A” will recognize great success that company “B” is having by doing XYZ with social media. So, logically, they decide to do the same at company A. But the results are dramatically different. Why? Because they didn’t account for the corporate culture variable which is inevitably different between the two companies.

This is also why it is so hard for any third-party vendor to really play a meaningful role in helping a company transform itself to be more collaborative and embrace these technologies. They don’t have that deep understanding of a corporation’s culture.

Now, all that said, that doesn’t mean that we can’t do a lot to influence culture to be more open, more collaborative and more receptive to social media. In fact, I believe that there is a lot that can be done to intentionally create a culture for collaboration. That’s really the heart of the IBM case study in the slides above.

So, to repeat the punchline of the presentation, any company’s use of social media needs to start with 1) the company’s core business model (what are you in the business of doing and with whom?) and 2) corporate culture. And when #2 is an impediment, take the long approach and find ways to stretch the culture to create a more collaborative environment.

A Chau Deli in NYC closing

Posted: January 20, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Food | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

Sadly, it looks like A Chau Deli in NYC’s Chinatown, is closing it’s doors due to high rent. A Chau has been my reliable banh mi provider for a few years now, so this is a big bummer for me. Luckily Baoguette is only a few blocks from work, but even still, this isn’t a positive improvement for the state of the banh mi in NYC.

I think it’s time for an all out banh mi showdown in NYC. First I’ve got to write up my Westchester Empanada report though…

Omar Restaurant (Comida Peruana Omar) in Stamford

Posted: January 16, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Food | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

 

This little Peruvian restaurant is in the same space formerly occupied by Rolando’s Tacos, which closed back in 2004 (sniff), and then Al’s Texas Chili, which closed in 2007-ish (hooray). Sitting next door to the Guatemalan Antojitos Chapines and just up the hill from the Mexican Casa Villa, it forms a nice trifecta of Latin food in this little corner of Stamford.

Ever since it opened about a year ago, I’ve been meaning to stop in and see how it fares compared with some of the other Peruvian places in Stamford. I decided to try the Peruvian standard, Lomo Saltado ($7) and was very impressed. The beef was freshly cooked, served piping hot with the usual stir-fried onions and tomatoes, topped with fresh cilantro, all sitting atop a huge mound of rice and french fries. Overall, this lomo saltado was quite good. A bit salty, but certainly up to par with any other lomo saltado in Stamford. Oh, and don’t fret when they bring you a red ketchup bottle. It’s actually filled with that wonderful spicy green aji sauce.

The restaurant has English menus, which is good because as far as I can tell, the staff speaks none. But the nice older lady manning the counter was very attentive and endearingly sweet. I’d like to go back and try all the other options on their menus, which seems to cover all the usual Peruvian suspects (Lomo saltado, pollo saltado, papas a la huancaina, caldo de gallina, pollo ala brasa, etc., etc….).

Definitely worth a return visit.

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