It’s that time again . . . time to talk about how much fun it is going to Eastern Market. Shout out to Alex & Toni Aloe for introducing us to Eastern Market about 15 years ago! You seriously changed our lives!

This Sunday is the official Flower Day - the Sunday after Mother’s Day. While flower day is great for getting your summer flowers to beautify your home, our favorite day is the regular Saturday market which is every Saturday 6AM - 4PM year round. While there are so many great vendors to get your fresh veggies and other favorites, there are also a lot of places to eat and drink within the market as well. Whether it is an actual vendor, selling in the shed, or a brick and mortar building in the market district, there is something for everyone’s taste and new places keep popping up every year.

In 1989 there was a restaurant in Farmington called Rueben’s Rueben which I ran with my family for 3 years. It has been many different places since then, and is currently Taqueria Victoria. Rueben’s Rueben featured sandwiches and subs, burgers and fries, and homemade chili and soups. I’m not 100% sure how or when it started, but sometimes on Wednesdays my mom (being the southern woman that she was) would make chicken and dumpling soup. It was an instant hit and became so popular we made it our regular Wednesday soup. It was so popular that people would call the day before to pre-order it for the following day. We only made a certain amount and some days we would run out before noon…and we opened at 10:30.

As you know, we like to feature cool and unusual places. This week is no different. We are back at The Congregation which we featured back in 2021 when we first stumbled across them. A lot has changed since then and we wanted to bring them back to front and center, to highlight all the cool and exciting things they have to offer.

Many of us will spend time downtown at a ball game this season, and if you do you may want to visit one of Detroit’s many new exciting restaurants or bars or maybe one of the old time favorites.

As we have mentioned in previous posts, there are so many cool, new and exciting things in Detroit.  It seems that between Downtown, Midtown, New Center and Corktown there are numerous new bars and restaurants popping up every month.  This weeks feature, which we featured back in 2019, is one that is not only creative but it has lot’s of space and something for everyone’s taste: The Detroit Shipping Company. 

Every March 17th we all get to be Irish for a day.  It’s a day that a lot of us flock to our favorite local Irish Pub (or any local bar) for some “good craic” (Gaelic for a good time) Guinness, maybe a shot of Jamison’s and definitely some green beer. It is also a day for indulging in some great Irish food like Corned Beef and Cabbage, Sheppard’s Pie or maybe a good Irish Stew with a hunk of soda bread.  We have family and friends in Ireland, and have had real Irish food from real irish pubs…..so St. Patrick’s Day is special to us even though oddly it is not celebrated in Ireland like it is in the states.

Have you ever said...”That place sounds familiar” or “I have heard of this place but I don’t know why” well that is how we feel about this weeks Fun Food Friday adventure Michigan and Trumbull. If you haven’t heard about Michigan & Trumbull, you have now.

This week’s post has been quite the learning experience for us. Like so many other people that live in the suburbs of Detroit, when we are downtown and have a craving for Mexican food, we would end up at the usual suspects Mexican Village, Xochimilco or Mexicantown.

Is there is a bar or restaurant that whenever you happen to be in the area, you feel it drawing you in? With us that is Second Best, the most misnamed bar in the City . . . because, to us, it is the First Best! We find ourselves coming here all the time and we love sharing it with all of our friends and their friends. There are times when we are the only ones there, and times when we can barely find a place to sit. In the summer, they roll up the garage doors and you can enjoy the open air.

Ooops they did it again! The Four Man Ladder group, John Vermiglio, Josef Giacomino, Will Lee and Michael Gray, the talented crew behind Grey Ghost and Second Best in Detroit’s Brush Park neighborhood, have recently opened their 3rd restaurant…Basan!

What we love most about venturing out in Downtown Detroit, and sharing our fun food and beverage finds, is researching and finding out the history behind the buildings or businesses in the buildings. This week’s feature has been mentioned before, back in October of 2019, as a great place to go for a good pour of bourbon or craft beer . . . but not for their food: The Grand Trunk Pub.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday filled with Fun, Family and Food . . . most of all food! We all know that today is a famous shopping day, known as Black Friday. However, something that is often overlooked, Small Business Saturday, is happening tomorrow. There is so much happening in downtown Detroit in general, but the holidays are extra special. If you haven’t been to downtown Detroit recently, and/or its surrounding areas (Eastern Market, Corktown, Midtown etc.), you are really missing out!!! This is “not your grandparent’s Detroit”. There is so much going on, and so many things to see and do. Not just the people, or the stores or the restaurants, but the decorations, lights, beauty, history, and most of all THE ENERGY. We refer to it as BIG “D” ENERGY.

When we are trying to decide what and where to feature each week, we try to mix it up so we aren’t constantly downtown or featuring the same style food week after week . . . and that is not an easy task. With that being said, we have featured this restaurant in the past since it is, BY FAR, our favorite restaurant. We have actually featured it a few times and usually this time of year since they always do a family style themed dinner for Halloween. If you haven’t guessed by now it’s Grey Ghost in Detroit’s Brush Park neighborhood.

If you are like us, you love Italian food, especially old school Italian.  We all know the local places, which we love to go to, that do it right.  There’s Carraba’s in Dearborn Heights, Corsi’s and Mama Mia’s in Livonia and Redford and DeLuca’s in Westland.  Then there are famous Detroit eateries with historic mob backgrounds like Mario’s on 3rd or Café Roma (formerly Roma Café) .  In our travels, we found something for this week’s Fun Food Friday location and it is super cool.

It’s Friday and it is time for this weeks edition of Beckerz Bites! For those of you who know Teresa and I, you know we are always looking for something unique and cool to share with everyone. This week we have something that meets this criteria and more. I believe this to be a true hidden gem of a speakeasy, located in Detroit’s Financial District. It is located in the actual bank vault for the old Michigan Bank, which was located in the US Mortgage Bond Building, in the 1920s. We are talking about Shelby Detroit!

Back to food: This week we are featuring a new place in Corktown: Supergeil. We first heard about this restaurant during the Eat Detroit event a few weeks ago. Sadly, because of the rain and power failures in Corktown, we were unable to try it, but it looked so awesome from the outside . . . So, of course we had to go back and we are so glad that we did!

Happy Friday! We are back, as promised, with our highlights of this past Wednesday’s Eat Detroit foodie event. Eat Detroit, which is put on by S.A.Y. Detroit, had their first event in the summer of 2019. Because of COVID the 2020 and 2021 events did not happen but it came back stronger than ever this year.

This week we are featuring a newer restaurant we have been wanting to try since it opened in Fall of 2020, during the height of the Covid craziness: Oak & Reel, Hour Magazine’s 2022 restaurant of the year.

This was our first time attending the Detroit Burger Battle so we were not sure what to expect. It didn’t disappoint. The Burger Battle is a burger competition between local restaurants, showcasing their signature burgers. Each participant could sample as many burgers as they could handle and then were asked to vote for their top 3 choices.

As mentioned earlier this week, we were out doing some recon for this weeks post. It is actually a revisit to one of our favorite places, featured back before the Covid shutdown . . . IMA!

We have become huge fans of noodles with rich broth. It can be Ramen, Udon or Pho. When it is done right, it is delicious. Of course we are not talking about the store bought packaged ramen, but real legitimate noodles and broth that has been simmered and seasoned for maximum flavor.