Fate is a fickle temptress. The very day my diploma was placed in my hands, I received an invitation to audition to host a show for The Food Network, which will feature cheap, hidden, gourmet food around the country. The casting agents had found my bar menu deal map as well as my Chronicle piece, and requested an audition video talking about myself, inexpensive deals around Boston, and the ways they were found.

I chose to focus my audition piece on Estragon, in Boston’s South End, which serves dollar tapas at the bar from Monday through Thursday from 5:30-7pm.

Items on the dollar tapas menu may include:

• Pan Tumaca con Jamón – Serrano Ham on Tomato-Garlic Toast
• Queso de Cabra con Tomate – Warm Spanish Goats’ Cheese & Tomato on Toast
• Boquerones con Manchego y Tomate – White Anchovies, Manchego Cheese & Tomato on Toast
• Patatas Bravas – Feisty Fried Potatoes
• Lengua con Mojo Verde – Beef Tongue, Canary Island Salsa on Toast
• Torreznos - Crispy Fried Pork Belly, Salsa Picante
• Tortilla Española – Traditional Spanish Omelette
• Chorizo - Grilled Spanish Sausage on Toast
• *Pringá - Braised Beef Shank, Pork Belly & Bone Marrow on Toast – Garbanzos Fritos
• *Crispy Paprika Chickpeas – Aceitunas Marinadas
• House-marinated Olives – Alcachofas Fritas
• *Crispy Fried Artichoke Hearts, Alioli

* = Especially recommended

Estragon is among my favorite places for tapas in the city, mixing exceptional food with reasonable pricing (especially with the dollar menu). Despite its chic decor, with walls adorned with pictures of Salvador Dali and half-naked women, Estragon serves traditional tapas from Chef Julio de Haro’s childhood in Madrid. Incidentally, Chef de Haro claims that Estragon is the only tapas place in the greater Boston area in which the chef is actually a Spaniard. This is a leg up on the McDonald’s dollar menu, as I’ve yet to have a true Irishman make my McDouble.

If you do stop by for dollar tapas, make sure to order the artichoke hearts and pringá (a buttery marvel). You will not regret it.

We’ll see how the audition goes. Wish me luck….

R u @ 1337 haxor? Then eat at the Busy Bee Diner on Beacon Street in brookline:

Sure it was just a bill for $13.37 given to me by a brusquely Bostonian septuagenarian waitress with an accent worthy of “Ask This Old House”, but I thought it was pretty awesome.

Is the name of a cheese or is it the name of a font?

This is not an easy game!
http://www.cheeseorfont.com/

Kenmore just keeps getting better.

Island Creek Oyster Bar will be replacing the empty halls of the ill-fated Great Bay at 500 Commonwealth Ave in Kenmore Square.

The team behind the oyster bar will be Skip Bennett, founder of Island Creek Oysters, Jeremy Sewall, Chef/Owner of Lineage and Executive Chef of Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks, and Garrett Harker, Proprietor of Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks.

Incidentally, Chef Sewall was also the chef that opened the Great Bay and cooked there during its glory years.

The team’s goal is to make the Island Creek Oyster Bar  “a high-energy oyster bar and seafood restaurant dedicated to highlighting the best of New England’s local purveyors, ingredients and talent.”

Along with the announcement of the closing of the Foundation Lounge next door, the addition of the Island Creek Oyster bar looks to be the herald of new and exciting changes in the Kenmore Square area.

(Thanks Sen!)

For the past few years, the Washington Post has been hosting a Peeps Diorama Contest, in which readers submit peep-centric creations of whimsy.

The winners this year were Michael Chirlin, 25, and Veronica Ettle, 27, whose submission “EEP” recreated the floating house from “UP” using a mixture of plywood, popsicle sticks, and of course Peeps.

From the Post:

The diorama re-creates the moment in the film when the house takes flight, with the elderly widower Carl tucked away inside and Russell the Boy Scout clinging to the front door. “We’ve always liked Pixar movies,” Chirlin says. “We saw ‘Up’ this year, and it seemed like a logical progression from ‘Wall-E’ to ‘Up.’ And we thought the balloon would look really good with Peeps on it.” (read more)

Click here to view a full video on “EEP” and other finalists, and click here to browse images the top 38 semi-finalists.