Fat Guy

Trying to play the game, and backing into it from the general to the specific, I imagine it sort of has to be an Audrey Saunders signature cocktail because she's the mixologist of the decade. If it's an Audrey Saunders cocktail, probably the two it comes down to are the Earl Grey MarTEAni and the Gin-Gin Mule. I'd go for the latter, in part because I like it and in part because it has been so widely acknowledged.

In terms of quantity at dinner, when they were ending dinner with the deep-fried short rib it felt like a big meal even for an abnormally big eater like me. When they switched to duck it became possible for normal people to remain comfortable through to the end of the meal. For lunch it's not the $160 in isolation that deters me. It's the check-builders and multipliers. I mean, if I had to choose between the Ko dinner for $100 and the Ko lunch for $160 I'd take the lunch. But let's say there are two of you and you want wine. The cheapest wine option at lunch is $95 per person. At dinner it's $50. So, building the check here's what you get: Dinner Food $100 Wine $50 Tax on $150 = $12.94 Total for one person $162.94 Total for two people $325.88 (before tip) Total for two people with 20% tip on the $300 base ($60) = $385.88 (Although, a lot of people ordering the meal and cheap wine pairing are just rounding to $200 per person) Lunch Food $160 Wine $95 Tax on $255 = $22.06 Total for one person $277.06 Total for two people $554.12 (before tip) Total for two people with 20% tip on the $510 base ($102) = $656.12 So anyway, to me the difference between $385.88 and $656.12 (aka $270.24) is far more substantial than the difference between $100 and $160 (aka $60). Someone check my arithmetic, please, but if my numbers are correct I think I'm sticking with dinner even though I enjoyed my lunch very much.

Google led to Grub Street which said 7 August 2008 was Sosa's first day.

As I've been noting on the reservations topic there are, again, lunch reservations available for this weekend -- both a Saturday two-top and a Sunday four-top -- presumably due to cancellations. And there was an interesting note on Eater, citing Kottke, about an open four-top on Friday that went unclaimed all night -- even after the lunch hour on Friday there was still a green check showing for a one-top. So I'm thinking the demand for lunch has come close to equalizing with the supply. They must be seeing empty seats at lunch seatings. I don't know how much of that the business model accommodates, but I imagine if they consistently see empty seats they'll revise the lunch strategy.

Merkato 55 was one of this past year's major openings, in large part because of the association of Marcus Samuelsson's name with the project (discussion of that incarnation of the restaurant here). A couple of months ago, Samuelsson ceased his involvement with Merkato 55 and Angelo Sosa came on as consulting chef. This all came as a complete surprise to me, but Sosa and I are friends on Facebook and one day he invited me in for free dinner. I greatly enjoyed Sosa's cooking at Loft during his brief tenure there (Sosa has also been at Jean Georges, Spice Market, Buddakan, Yumcha and others), so I was happy to accept the invitation. I never made it in to Merkato 55 1.0 so I don't have any basis for comparison. And Sosa was supervising our meal so whatever we had the other night was the best the Merkato 55 2.0 kitchen had to offer, chosen by the chef and error-free. That being said, the food I sampled was absolutely first rate. Sosa is not African (I think he told me he's part Italian, part Dominican) or particularly versed in anything African (he has mostly worked with Asian and Middle Eastern flavors) but he's quite comfortable with and skilled at working in the idiom of spice. The spice trade being global in nature, Sosa has been able to engineer a menu that evokes some African flavors but is international and contemporary in style. Sosa is manifestly not trying to reproduce traditional African recipes. He's trying to do something that will work for a variety of palates. On the topic about Merkato 55 1.0 there was a lot of talk about the influence the restaurant's Meatpacking location would inevitably have. I think we're seeing some of that play out now. We started with a couple of unremarkable cocktails (Sosa told me he has implemented his food menu but has not involved himself in the cocktail program yet) and an excellent "kidogo" assortment. This is available in three sizes -- what you see here is the small, priced at $20 -- and it comes with hummus, marinated olives, baba ganoush, cucumber salad, apricot blatjang (a chutney of sorts) and house-made pita and spiced cornbread. Two of us then proceeded to taste our way through a lot of the menu (though not all of it), one dish at a time with share plates, until we almost exploded. We also had some sparkling wine and an enjoyable South African white the details of which I don't remember. "Grilled shrimp piri piri, shaved coconut, ginger salad" -- two large prawns with a robust spice rub. I thought the dominant flavor in the "ginger salad" was red onion, but throughout the menu I noticed that key components of dishes were ignored in favor of brevity. I'm not sure that's such a great idea. "Spiced yellowfin tuna kitfo" This is a good example of a dish that I'd never order based on its description but that I thought was amazingly good and would be tempted to order based on a full description. Excellent-quality tuna tartare comes on a bed of avocado, and you see that smear of brown stuff on the plate? That, and the same-colored sauce drizzled on the tartare, is chocolate. It's a great combination: tuna, avocado and chocolate. Who would have thought, after all these years, that someone could improve tuna tartare? "Kitfo beef tartar, spiced butter, crisp lavash" with a side of spiced Merkato fries The dish is described as "tartar" but it's actually cooked. Rare, but cooked. This is apparently the way they roll with beef tartare somewhere in Africa. Then again we've given up on the menu descriptions by this time. Very good fries. "Bulgar tabouleh, citrus-mint dressing" If like me you grew up in the 70s and were subjected to leaden tabouleh from the health-food store, you probably -- like me -- run screaming from tabouleh whenever you encounter it. But if there is an argument for tabouleh, this is it. The bulgur is unobtrusive and just contributes a little texture to what is an amazing, minty salad. What makes the dish, though (big surprise: not mentioned on the menu), are the little puffed pita croutons that taste a little like a more delicate version of Stacy's Pita Chips. Then on to entree items: "Wild striped bass, coconut, cilantro, green apple salad" That dish description seems like it might be fairly complete, but guess what? The best component of this dish also isn't mentioned on the menu: the banana puree you see peeking out under the piece of fish. "Ceebu jen pink tile fish, mussels" -- comes with a side of very good, buttery rice. "Spiced hanger steak, pickled mushrooms, tamarind ketchup" -- a slam dunk "Chicken doro wat, injera, candied ginger yogurt" This was probably my favorite dish of the entree progression. I took little pieces of the falling-off-the-bone chicken and pinched them between bits of injera, then dipped in a little of the yogurt sauce. The injera was the best I've had (not that I've been to Ethiopia or anything) and the ginger yogurt (served on the side, not pictured) provides an ideal cooling counterpoint. And I believe this is every available dessert other than the ice-cream sampler: In the center is shaved coconut ice in tamarind broth with caramel sauce poured at the table and crunchy bits of roasted corn. Then starting up and to the left of that and going counter-clockwise there's the Amarula "ice-cream sandwich," the peanut butter chocolate "Congo bar," the vanilla cornmeal cake with apricot jam, the lime chiffon with olive oil and the the molten chocolate chai cake. All strong desserts. The Merkato pastry kitchen is very accomplished. My favorite was the use of Amarula (an African liqueur a little like Bailey's) in an ice cream. The name "Congo bar" is a bit much. The space is huge. There are three levels. We were there early on a Tuesday and it was quite empty, just starting to attract business when we left a little before 9pm. There's also outdoor seating (we sat outdoors). I think it's going to be a big challenge filling all those seats but we'll see.

Marcus Samuelsson is no longer involved in Merkato 55. There is a new menu in place now, designed by Angelo Sosa. I was there the other night and tried a lot of stuff. I'll start a new topic to reflect the new culinary direction of the establishment. (Edited to add: Merkato 55 2.0 topic here)

The reserve list at Benoit is primarily intended for high-roller private functions upstairs, however they'll give it to you downstairs if you ask for it.

Assuming there's a pattern to be discerned here, it sounds like in response to increased popularity the restaurant is cooking pr par-cooking more dishes in advance, and also reducing the default spice level.

I envy you. I consider Kaplan to be the world's leading expert on French bread. More importantly, many French bakers do too.

That corn ravioli dish improved dramatically after a weak start.

Did anybody else (besides Eater) notice that Josh Ozersky (Mr. Cutlets) is no longer doing the Grub Street blog and is now working for CitySearch?

Also a two-top at 10pm same night Mon 9/22.

Mon 9/22 there are two 1-tops available for dinner: 7:10pm and 10pm.

I'm pretty sure the round Katz's knishes are supplied by Yonah Schimmel's. If not, they're strikingly similar. In any event, we're talking about a scenario where someone seems to have a desire to go to Katz's but doesn't eat red meat. So in that situation I'd say a round knish is an appropriate part of an order.

Okay, there's some more to be said about the knishes. Not that I'm a major consumer of Katz's knishes (whereas I've had so much Katz's pastrami in my life that the navels of cows quiver when I pass by), but having been there with the occasional vegetarian I can say the following: First, there are two species of knishes available at Katz's: square and round. The square ones are utterly unremarkable, no better than what you get from the average hot-dog cart. The round ones can be excellent under proper circumstances. Second, the knishes are much better earlier in the day. Though you can get a knish any time at Katz's, my understanding is that the establishment really considers them breakfast food. So in the morning they're nice and fresh and there's turnover. In the evening you may get a reheat or something that has been sitting for too long. Third, there are several varieties available (potato, sweet potato, broccoli, kasha) and I think potato is the least good. I'd suggest going for kasha. Round kasha in the morning. That would be my recommended knish order at Katz's.

The turkey at Katz's is, in my experience, as good as turkey gets. It should be at $14 for a turkey sandwich. The fries -- thick-cut steak fries -- are quite good, I think. They have good kinshes. They also have matzo ball soup, potato latkes and some other items that, in a million visits, I've never tried.

I think it's helpful to ask the cutter for "juicy" pastrami.

I was there Monday night and the pastrami was wondrous. I stopped ordering the knoblewurst about a year ago because it was leathery and uninteresting on too many occasions. I think in that department the hot dogs are the way to go, in part because of turnover. Not that the hot dogs are so incredible, but they're better than the knoblewurst.

So the release of the book is getting ever closer. There's now a usable page on the HarperCollins website, complete with some video we shot in-studio (there's also B-roll from the Heartland gathering in Chicago). http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061...ules/index.aspx Look for the pace of updates here to increase in the coming month.

So Kampuchea finally got reviewed today, in the New York Times, in "$25 and Under." It's a double review, shared with the other Cambodian place. It's the first review in the Times I've seen by a woman named Ligaya Mishan, who also writes some of those little reviews in the New Yorker. One thing that irritated me about the review was the tired old harping about "authenticity," for example: and Not that I care whether Kampuchea is authentic or not, as long as it's good (and I'm older and well rested, and live uptown), but about two seconds with Google and the phrase "Cambodian grilled corn" yields dozens of recipes for poat dot, aka Cambodian grilled corn. For example this one was published in the Washington Post recently and most definitely includes coconut. (Note: Ratha and I have become BFFs as I've tracked Kampuchea over the past year, and the restaurant is hosting my book-release party next month)

Here are my ramshackle pot racks: You can also see the dusty top of the refrigerator, topped by three Cambro storage bins in the same color as the fridge -- these hold all our potatoes, onions, tomato-sauce products . . .

Here's some more info about yield etc.: http://www.ht-accessories.com/Popcorn-Mach...de_ep_51-1.html

I believe it refers to the quantity of unpopped kernels the machine can pop in one cycle (you can of course run it for many cycles), and I believe the rule of thumb is that 1 ounce (weight) of unpopped kernels yields 1 quart (volume) of popped popcorn. A quart of popped popcorn is a small portion -- it's a good portion for a kid and I think the little paper bags typically used for popcorn at kids' parties and such are about a quart.

I think you've hit upon two huge, critical strategies: pot racks and wall mounting. If you have limited space, these are tremendously efficient ways to utilize it. Once you start trying to put pots in cabinets or on regular shelves, you eat up so much space. I have relatively high ceilings, so I use ceiling-mounted pot racks that hang down enough that lids can go on top of the grid. I also have no wall space that could accommodate a pegboard, grid system or a whole lot of wall hooks -- but I wish I did. A couple of smaller strategies: use square containers rather than round ones, and get various cabinet-organizer things that allow you to utilize the full interior height and depth of shelves.

The Alinea tickets are now available. http://www.astorcenternyc.com/class-the-alinea-experience.ac