GUP Cuban

WOW! is the one word way I would describe my experience for lunch on Sunday at Lincoln’s newest food truck. I found out about GUP Kitchen from friends and social media (both Twitter and Facebook). Their location hasn’t been convenient for me in the past, but on Sunday it did and I knew I had to give it a try.

GUP, stands for Ground Up and is a concept for both the food and way of making it. It comes from the idea that you should know where your food comes from; “literally from the ground up.” The reality is that everything you will eat is seasoned with hand-ground and custom-blended spices and sauces. Chef and Co-Owner, Erik Hustad studied Culinary Arts at The Art Institute of Seattle and came back to start GUP with cousin and co-owner, Gabriel Lovelace. http://eatgroundup.com/the-story/

GUP is a modern take on a food truck. It is actually a large trailer pulled behind a pickup truck. The white outside is decorated with their logo, website, twitter address, Facebook, QR code, etc. The menu is on a flat panel monitor too, pretty neat. From word of mouth I had heard that the Cuban Spiced Pork sandwich was fantastic so that is what I got along with the Mac n’ Cheese (More on that in a minute). Ordering was simple and quick.

From the first bite of my Cuban Sandwich I knew it was going to be good. The sauce makes this sandwich stand out from your average Cuban. There is a reason GUP calls it awesome sauce. It was a mayo based sauce with some unique spices. I could taste garlic, a little sugar, some citrus, and other flavors I could not really pick out distinctively, but that doesn't matter, because it was amazing. The pork meat was very tender and juicy. It also had onions, lettuce, and small sweet peppers on it. I was a little surprised not to find pickles since this is pretty traditional on a Cuban. All of this goodness was served on a ciabatta roll from Le Quartier. I happened to eat this at my parents house and my dad wanted a bite. His response was that it was as good of Cuban Sandwich as he has ever had. I have to agree.

I had originally ordered Potato Salad with my sandwich but at the last minute decided to go with the Mac n’ Cheese because it had bacon in it. Typically Mac n’ Cheese is not something I order. It is never something I crave, but this was pretty good. This was a rich Mac n’ Cheese made with cheese, onion, and bacon added in. The bacon added something but not quite as much as I was expecting. With bacon the more the better right?

Service was fast and I enjoyed talking with the guys in the truck as they assembled my meal. They explained that it is tough to find locations where they can operate (Private Parking lots) because Lincoln’s laws do not allow them on public property or on in a parking place on,say, O street in Downtown Lincoln. Prices were very reasonable for the amount and quality of food I received. I paid $6.95 for a sandwich and it must have included a side as well because I was not charged for the Mac n’ Cheese. Portions were good, not huge but not small. I would put the value ranking higher than other “Fresh Local” food places in town with expensive overhead (Review of that place to come someday).

In conclusion I hope these guys continue to have success. Going in to the dark months of winter won’t be easy but their food is worth a trip into the cold outdoors to get. The food is outstanding, and I am happy to support young entrepreneurs in a family business venture. I will be going back and trying the Chicken Salad for sure and some of the other sides. I encourage everyone to find these guys (social media is the best way) and try them out.

GUP Kitchen Facebook Page
GUP Kitchen Twitter Page
GUP Kitchen Website

Today was the first major snow storm in Lincoln. Predictions called for up to 4 to 6" but in the south part of Lincoln we only got about 2-3". I made a timelapse video of the storm and of me scooping the driveway. I took about 750 individual frames totally 8.5gb to make this. The music is Emancipator - First Snow (Ooah Remix).

Make sure to watch this in 720P or 1080P at full screen!

Click here to view the embedded video.

On 11-22-11 I visited PepperJax Grill (2801 Pine Lake Road, Lincoln NE) with my family at 6:30pm for dinner. This is a new Philly sandwich place very near my house. I would call it custom made to order fast food, similar to the way Chipotle makes their burritos. The line was long, way past the queuing area, past the front door and bending into the dining section. There were roughly 64 people in front of us when we got in line. To be honest I am surprised we waited, as there are other good options nearby (Crave review to come sometime soon I hope). It took about a half hour to get up to the first station where you place your order.

The Food:
Your choices at the beginning are your choice of meet (beef, or chicken), single or double meat, and then your choice of vegetables that are grilled along with the meat (onion, mushroom, green pepper). Your food is grilled in front of you as it moves down the assembly line. At the end they slap some cheese on the meat and pile it into a slightly toasted 12” hoagie roll.
The sauce table follows the cash register and is filled with lots of great stuff. They had several liquid sauces such as Au jus, mushroom sauce, and creole. Then they had toppings/sauce such as Spicy Ranch (my personal favorite), ranch, hearty steak sauce, bold steak sauce, salsa, mustard, ketchup, and many more.
I experimented and found that my perfect mix that night was a bit of au jus, followed by some bold steak sauce inside, followed up with a bit of spicy ranch in place of mayo. This combination proved to be very messy but good. Probably not the best food choice for a first date, but it would be a fun date place because of all the different choices and things to try. I really enjoyed the French fries. They were thin, straight cut, and fried to a perfect crisp. Portions of fries were small by most places standards but with such a large Philly I found that it was about the perfect amount. All of the toppings/sauces were great for dipping too.

Decor and Atmosphere
The place had a nice feel with bright colors, stainless steel, etc. The décor on the walls was neat too. It was many historic photos of Lincoln from the 1950’s and older. It was neat to see the evolution of town while waiting in line. They also had flat screen TVs in a few places as well.

Value
This place is a good value. The sandwiches are large (See picture below) and could easily be split for 2 meals if you ate a portion size with some fries. I believe the cost was about $5.50 for the beef, fries were an additional $1.50 or so. I am guessing that this place will be busy at lunch because of the good value and large portions.

The Cons
There were a few things that do need improving though. This is a new place and it was obvious that staff was still being trained on what their responsibilities are, so I am really hoping these problems will improve with time. The lines were long, and slow, let’s hope that the hype of a new place dies down and the employees are trained. While the grill team had multiple people, it was essentially made one at a time. I think they will need to improve on the workflow to speed things up to reasonable standards (10 min). The floor was dirty, lots of crumbs, some used napkins, etc. Tables were relatively clean though. I am sure this is just because they were super busy.

To sum it all up, I enjoyed my time at PepperJax Grill. I really think they will smooth out the few problems and have a lean, fast operation up in maybe another month. The food was good for fast food, and a great

Last night on 8/6/11 Lincoln experienced a damaging thunderstorm. The air has been full of humidity and there was lots of heat in the atmosphere so energy was abundant. The storm had tons of lighting, it knocked out power all over town and made it pretty unstable for the rest of town. One of the local TV stations took a direct hit (During the weather cast) and was offline for a little while. After the storm there were reports of lots of down trees, fences, etc. Nature repeated itself later that night with a second round.

The pictures below were all taken after the storm except the first one. The storm rolled through when the sun was starting to set so this created some great colors on the clouds. The bubble clouds are mammatus clouds. These were some of the most defined mammantus clouds I have seen recently.

I am always a little slow posting things to the blog but am much better about posting to the new G+ which I love. Follow me at http://Liquidretro.net/+

Driving by Ricks Steak Out on 70th & Ost (right beside Taco Inn) twice on my way to work each day I knew I had to stop and try it out. I recently read the Lincoln Journal Star review and decided I had to try one of the Philly Steak sandwiches. Today, the weather was great so I decided to go take a visit. I arrived at 12:35PM thinking I would miss some of the lunch crowd and was wrong. There were 8 people in line in front of me. At a normal lunch place this would not be a problem but because Rick’s Steak Out is a mobile operation his grill is small and he was only able to make 3 to 4 sandwiches at a time, so there was a considerable wait for a sandwich place. It took about 25 minutes for me to wait in line and then get my food. The wait allowed me to socialize with the other Linconites, who like me had been driving by the place every day to and from work, heard about it from coworkers (including the Prairie Life Trainer), or had saw it in the news paper and wanted to try it out.

The menu options were brief but because each sandwich is made fresh to order it was able to be customized. Diners had 2 basic options mild (bell peppers) or spicy (jalapeno peppers). Each sandwich came standard with finely chopped breakaway steaks, sausage, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, Swiss cheese, and secret seasoning on a large hoagie bun. I ordered a mild 12” with everything on it.
The 12 inch sandwich I ordered was pretty big. It came wrapped in aluminum foil and I had it cut in ½ so I could save some for a future meal. That was a good idea because with the included chips 6 inches was all I needed.

So how did it taste? The taste was good. Lincoln does not have a good Philly steak sandwich, from a local place that I know of. The super finely chopped steak was perfect. It did not have the fat or gristle that cheaper cuts of meat had. It was also cooked so the edges were slightly crispy and this was perfect. I was not expecting sausage in the mix but it was really good. It was similar a chopped up bratwurst type of meat. The smoky meat added to the flavor complexity of the sandwich. The peppers were good, I think next time I would try the hotter sandwich because the mild was mild. It was a messy thing to eat and I wish I would of saw some napkins to use, but you have to expect this with a large Philly steak sandwich.

Price:
7” Phillies are $6.50
12” Phillies are $10.50
Buffalo Wings are 15 for $8.50 ( I did not try these but according to the newspaper review they are worth your time and money)

The Philly sandwiches include a small bag of chips as well.
Cans of pop or bottles of water are $0.50 each

I would rate the value as above fair. The sandwiches were pretty big and very fresh.

Atmosphere: Rick’s has some things going for it right now. The weather is beautiful this fall so far and a 100% outdoor place works well, but being at the edge of a parking lot that borders one of the busiest streets in the city it can get a bit noisy. Add to this the generator running, and this is not the place I would take a girl on a romantic first date. Rick does have a table setup so you can sit and eat if you want to. I did today so I could sit out in the great weather and that made everything else irrelevant.

Overall Impression: Rick’s Steak Out makes a really good Philly steak sandwich. I can’t think of a better one in town. The biggest complaint I have is how long it took to get my food. Some of the people in line behind me had to leave because they could not wait so long. If Rick’s Steak Out wants to capture the work lunch crowd his speed has to improve. Another thing that will be interesting to watch is what happens when winter gets here. Waiting in line is not something that the cook or customers will want to do. I hope Rick’s figures out a way to make it all work because he has one hell of a Philly sandwich.

Hours of operation are Monday to Saturday 11am to 6pm, closed on Sunday. Delivery is available, just call 402-601-8133

I have gotten very interested (With the help of an influential friend) in some of the older classic manual lenses, so I now have a SMC Pentax 55mm F2 Type K in Pentax mount and a Jupiter 9 85mm F1.8 M42 that I have been mounting on my 7D and I wanted to try them out so I went out with a friend and had some fun around town. The 85mm is hard to focus because it has such a small DOF and its goes through 2 converters to mount on my camera so its no perfectly tight. The lens is also a bit stiff, but optically its good. I need more practice. The Pentax is a great lens & I am getting the fever for more. Its very sharp and extremely mechanical. Great little lens. Thanks to my model Megan for the great job, I could not have done it without you.

Pentax 55mm

Pentax 55mm

Pentax 55mm

Pentax 55mm

Sigma 10-20mm

Jupiter 9 85mm

Jupiter 9 85mm

Jupiter 9 85mm

Canon 50mm F1.8

Canon 50mm F1.8

To see the full gallery Click http://liquidretro.net/photo/gallery3/Megan1/

Better late than never right? The city of Lincoln's annual firework display was postponed one day due to the large amount of rain on the morning of the 4th of July. The evening of the 5th was perfect weather wise. I met up with some of the #LNK tweeps out at Oak Lake Park to watch the display. It was a nice time and I got a few good photos that I will post here. This was my first time watching the fireworks at Oak Lake Park and it had its pros and cons. The space is better for the amount of people that come, parking was fairly easy and emptied pretty quickly. However the background they shoot the fireworks against has too many lights, and is pretty industrial. In that regard Homes Lake was better, and much closer to my home. Hopefully someday they will decide to move it back to Homes Lake.

I have a soft spot for sunsets of all types. I am not sure what it is, maybe the intense colors or cool clouds that often occur. Lincoln has a great sunset every once and a while, especially when storms are rolling in. Sunday May 30 2010 this exact thing was happening and I just happened to catch it out the corner of my eye. I grabbed the camera and went out on the deck and snapped a couple of photos. I then decided to drive to Holmes Lake. Unfortunately the lovely pink had disappeared from the sky and the clouds had rolled in more. I still got a couple of nice photos though.

More photos of the trip will be posted over the coming weeks. I am going to make a real effort to keep this blog updated. We will see how that goes.

Backstory: I bought a Specialized Hardrock bike 4 or 5 years ago and rode it quite a bit but stopped because the drivetrain was not working right. The bike had trouble shifting gears and staying in gear. The place I had bought it from in Lincoln got a chance to fix it twice and really did not do much but charge me to fix it.

Review: So deciding I wanted to bike again I pulled the bike out and found, it was likely (After some Google searches) that I needed a new freewheel because I could peddle put not put any power to the ground. After hearing good things about Monkey Wrench Cycles in downtown Lincoln I gave them a call. Monkey Wrench is a service oriented bike shop. While they will sell you a bike they specialize in repair of any problem, big or small. These guys know their stuff! They are racers and hard core bikers, not some college student who are their just to pay the bills. They were able to get my bike in and explained a possible estimate on the price from the problems I had described over the phone. So the next day I dropped it off and explained all the problems I had been having and was told it would be ready in 2 days.

Two days later I went to pick up the bike. The best part of the service was how they explained to me everything they did and why. Being a detail oriented person and mechanical I like to know why and how things work, so this was great. On my bike they put on the new freewheel, and then went to test drive the bike. The technician felt more vibration in the drivetrain and went on to further diagnose that my chain was way stretched. This was news to me as I had no idea chains stretch but after further explanation this is a very common problem. If you ride your bike for 30-40 minutes a couple times a week they recommend you change your chains every 3 to 4 months. Don’t worry they are cheap about $12. A stretched chain can cause your other drivetrain components to wear prematurely. After replacing the chain they adjusted my brakes. The design of my calipers is poor, and because of this a cap cracks, falls off which causes a critical spring to not function as designed. As a result most of the brakes only pull from one side cutting in ½ your stopping power and causing uneven wear. Since this is a design flaw the part is no longer made so the solution becomes modification of the part. The mounting bracket was taken off and drilled for a new cable run location. Now the brakes work great and pull from each side.

At the end of the day I am very impressed. These guys did quite a bit of work on my bike, they spent time doing great work and then checked their work by going out and putting a couple of miles on it. The bike is now better than it has ever been even brand new from the factory. The price was very reasonable too for the amount of work that was done.

If you live in Lincoln, Nebraska or surrounding areas I cannot recommend Monkey Wrench enough. A+ Local business! Check out their website http://www.monkeywrenchcycles.com/ blog http://monkeywrenchcycles.blogspot.com/ and Google customer reviews as well for their address and phone number.

Monkey Wrench Cycles LLC
1225 P Street, Lincoln, NE 68508-1429
(402) 477-4104