Ari’s Top 30 of 2025: Part 3
Need to catch up? Here’s Part 2.
21. Little Kim’s Eggs in Purgatory
Creamy gochujang marinara, chickpeas, soft egg, served with Zingerman’s toast
Chef Ji Hye Kim’s Eggs in Gochujang Purgatory is at the top of my list. It’s got a great gochujang (Korean chile sauce) spiked tomato marinara, lots of tender chickpeas, all topped with a sunny-side-up egg. Toasted Bakehouse Farm bread is served on the side! This super tasty treat is inspired by the culinary internship Ji Hye did many years ago in Rome. And that is only the opening bid on the great meals you’ll be able to eat and enjoy from the Little Kim kitchen!
Eggs in Purgatory is quite common in Italy, and other Mediterranean cultures make their own version of it as well. And now you can get Ji Hye’s awesome Korean-accented version at Little Kim! Worth driving over just to eat it!
22. Little Kim’s Paneer Sandwich!
A lovely lunch offering from our new vegetarian restaurant
One of the early favorites on the Little Kim menu is the Paneer Sandwich. Chef and managing partner Ji Hye Kim shared a bit about it:
It’s a paneer sandwich with Japanese curry mayo, farm tomatoes, slivers of red cabbage and pickled red onions, and the most delectable cilantro chutney from our line cook Raunaq. It’s based on Chef Nella Paniz’s Green Chutney—cilantro, serrano chiles, fresh mint, chickpeas, and a little lemon and salt.. People have been loving it!
The Paneer is flash-fried and then stacked onto slices of Bakehouse Farm Bread along with Japanese Curry Mayo, the Green Chutney, some shredded red cabbage, and pickled onions. Super tasty!
Little Kim is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11:30 am–5 pm. Swing by for lunch, either eat in or carry out! This sandwich is sure to become a signature item soon!
23. Herb-Crusted Whitefish at the Roadhouse
One of the Great Lakes’ greatest culinary hits
This dish has quietly become one of the regular bestsellers at the Roadhouse! And for good reason. It’s delicious! Fresh Lake Superior whitefish rubbed down with Dijon mustard, topped with herbs (basil and parsley) and toasted breadcrumbs, and then cooked until it’s golden brown on the griddle.
My grandmother cooked whitefish for the family regularly, just lightly floured, salted, peppered, and pan-fried. She used to tell us that fish was brain food and that we should eat it regularly to increase our intelligence. The Roadhouse’s wonderful Herb-Crusted Whitefish is sort of a 21st-century way to do just that. It comes with that truly remarkable Carolina Gold Rice and some sautéed spinach. I think it’s a meal that would make my great-grandfather and my grandmother happy.
Truly terrific taste of the Great Lakes—really good American food at its finest!
24. Butterscotch Pudding with a Bit of Better Butter
A long-standing Roadhouse classic is more flavorful than ever!
If you’ve eaten at the Roadhouse in recent years, you’ll likely already know that the Butterscotch Pudding is one of the tastiest and best-selling desserts! Made with Muscovado brown sugar and plenty of Calder Dairy cream, topped with a small bit of French fleur de sel sea salt, the pudding has been a fan favorite—the Roadhouse makes many gallons of it every week. That’s a lot of slow simmering and a LOT of stirring!
Last summer, the already amazing after-dinner treat took a step up to an even higher level of excellence when the Roadhouse chefs started using the remarkably good Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter in the pudding. Wow! Like I said, it’s been great for years, but now it’s getting more attention than ever! Creamery, richer, smoother, and more delicious!
The benefits of the Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter are evident in every creamy, smooth spoonful. If you’re taking some of this stuff home—or for that matter, if you’re enjoying it at the Roadhouse—try it with a bit of a Bakehouse Ginger Jump-Up cookie crumbled on top. Pretty terrific!
25. Tellicherry Texas Brisket at the Roadhouse
A marvelous taste of tradition
Over the course of the last six months, the terrificness of Texas BBQ has been front and center at the Roadhouse—and Head Chef Bob Bennett is bringing it to life in truly stellar form. He’s starting with super-premium briskets from Niman Ranch, known for their humane animal practices and exceptional flavor. The briskets are rubbed down with a LOT of the amazing farm-to-table Tellicherry black pepper from India that many of you will already know well from our wonderful pepper fries. Add some salt, a lot of hours of smoke over whole Michigan oak logs, and even more time in the oven after that, and you end up with a tender, super tasty, smoky, peppery, and ultra-delicious piece of meat!
Much to my surprise, Texas BBQ like this—incredibly popular today in the Longhorn State—is a much more modern addition to Texas eating than I’d have imagined. It’s only in the late ’50s and early ’60s that Texas BBQ took off—right around the time President Lyndon B. Johnson was here in Ann Arbor delivering the University of Michigan commencement address in May of 1964, Texas BBQ was getting really big! It had long been made from various cuts of meat, but the president’s caterer, Walter Jetton, is who seemingly decided that Texas BBQ should be made only from brisket. Over time, the popularity grew and grew and grew. And brisket, once an inexpensive cut that was hard to sell, became highly prized!
The big point is, it’s terrific! If you’re a meat-eater, swing by soon and score some! With the quality of the Niman Ranch beef, that amazing black pepper from India, and the oak smoke … man, oh man, you’ll have a marvelous meal!
26. Tiny Weddings at Cornman Farms
Three days of small ceremonies with big significance!
What sort of wedding one hopes for is, like anything else in our lives, mostly about what we want, not what others will think we should do. The answer to that question is certainly up to you. We love to host big weddings at Cornman Farms, and we do just that nearly every weekend in the summer! On the other hand, you might be someone who wants to avoid a lot of the coordination that accompanies getting a few hundred people together for a wedding. If, instead, you would like to create a super cool and very intimate event at an exceptionally memorable nationally-recognized farm venue right here in Washtenaw County, we can help!
Tabitha Mason, one of the two managing partners at Cornman, says,
Each year, we dedicate a number of days at our property to host a series of all-inclusive micro weddings in partnership with the best local Michigan wedding vendors. Our expert event producers coordinate everything from the ceremony to the cake cutting, making each wedding feel spontaneous, effortless, and stress-free. Meanwhile, each year we will feature an exclusive seasonal design from one of Michigan’s top event designers. The result is The Tiny Wedding—an elopement for the couple who desires the simplicity of a courthouse wedding but envisions a beautifully curated experience.
What is included in the Tiny Wedding package?
- A really wonderful little wedding ceremony with a totally official officiant
- An hour and a half of wedding time at an award-winning, nationally recognized venue
- A wedding coordinator (and witness if needed)
- Seasonal design and decor
- Our wedding photographer and 45 digital images
- A super tasty cake handcrafted by the crew at Zingerman’s Bakehouse
- One sparkling wine toast
- A surprise wedding keepsake
- Bouquet(s) and/or boutonnière(s) (a total of two)
- A lifetime of limitless joy and good memories!
27. Dark Chocolate-Covered Emirati Honeycomb from Dubai
A magical confectionery combination
If you’re looking for a gift for someone who loves great food and is intrigued by the unusual, this rare, terrifically delicious, sweet treat from Dubai might just do the trick. For years now, the folks at Mirzam have been quietly making some of the best chocolate confectionery around. This exceptional combination of spun-honey-“seafoam” dipped into bean-to-bar 62% dark chocolate is one of the best examples of their cross-cultural creativity.
To make this rare and magical confection, local mountain honey is brought to a light boil with a small bit of baking soda and vinegar. It makes the confectionery equivalent of the kind of foam that forms along the seashore from the waves, hence the name. You can imagine it as sort of a caramelly dark “honey brittle;” it’s made first into big sheets, then broken by hand into smaller chunks. The “honeycomb” creates a light, gently crunchy, melt-in-your-mouth confection that’s then dipped into 62% dark chocolate. Its chewy, gently bitter, subtly sweet flavor is unlike anything else I’ve ever eaten.
Available at the Candy Store.
28. Kieron’s Cured Ham from Zingerman’s Cornman Farms
18 ingredients come together to make a great holiday ham
We’ve been making Cornman’s co-managing partner and chef Kieron Hales’ recipe annually for many years. They have, for those fortunate enough to get one, become a happy part of the Zingerman’s holiday tradition. How’s the ham made? Here’s what the British-born Mr. Hales says:
We take a fresh ham … Bone it and clean it. Then we net the ham. We dry rub it with salt and spices like clove, cumin, nutmeg … there are actually 18 ingredients. We hang it for a week, so the air circulates around it and it begins to cure. Then it goes into a “wet rub” with sherry, brandy, and a good bit of honey from the farm. It stays in there for about four and a half weeks. After it comes out, it spends two days drying. We smoke it for 16 hours over oak that was harvested in northern Michigan. Then we sous vide (low temperature-controlled cooking) it for 24 hours, then baste it with the honey we get from the bees here at the farm, Dijon mustard, and Gingras organic apple cider vinegar, and then blast it in the oven at high temperature to encrust it.
Kieron’s love and passion, along with the quality of the ingredients, come through loud and clear. Just heat it at home and serve, and you will have a marvelously memorable main course for your holiday meal, not to mention some lovely leftovers for sandwiches and snacks the following day. Each ham is about two to three pounds and serves four to five people.
29. Summerdown Peppermint Chocolates
Made with English Black Mitcham peppermint
I love these remarkable mint chocolates, the story of the Colman family who created them to help revive the nearly lost tradition of heirloom variety British mint growing, the exceptional elegance, the balance of dark chocolate, cool mint, and sweet cane sugar. Let me just say I eat very little confectionery because I prefer bread and cheese, but I have a hard time if we don’t have some of these on hand in our house!
Mint-growing like this had gone missing from the British agricultural scene for half a century. The Colmans have brought it back, and in a wonderfully sustainable way to boot! As Sir Michael Colman, then already in his late 70s, said to the Guardian in the summer of 2007, “Everyone thought I was crazy. But occasionally in life you have to take a step and say to people, maybe there is more to this than you thought.” The Colmans use the Black Mitcham variety of mint, and man, is it marvelous!
There are Peppermint Creams (like an amazing artisan version of York Peppermint Patties). And also thin, crunchy Peppermint Crisps—like thin tiles of dark chocolate loaded up with slivers of caramelized fresh mint leaves! And now we have Peppermint Cream Dominoes—thin, creamy, domino-shaped rectangles of 55% dark chocolate and mint oil made from the Black Mitcham.
Available at the Candy Store, Deli, and Mail Order.
30. Zzang!® Bars from the Candy Manufactory
Exceptional artisan confectionery
The first of the now many amaZing artisan candy bars we craft at the Candy Manufactory! It remains a huge seller and for good reason! It has beautiful balance, great complexity, and a lovely, long, delicious finish!
For those of you who aren’t yet familiar, a Zzang! bar is a homemade peanut butter and honey caramel, mixed with giant-size Virginia Runner peanuts, dipped into dark chocolate, all accented by a small pinch of sea salt. A customer stopped me the other day to sing the Zzang! bars’ praises, and said it was “maybe the best candy bar I’ve had in my entire life!”
