Fat Guy

Meet George Faison of DeBragga and Spitler. A while back George and his wife Stephanie (who is DeBragga.com's publicist) invited me in for a tour. It took about a villion years to coordinate but earlier this week I finally made it down there. George is a partner at DeBragga. The legendary, late Marc Sarrazin's son, Marc John Sarrazin, is the other main guy at DeBragga. George is a more recent addition, having come from D'Artagnan (where he was a founder). We mostly toured the aging rooms. DeBragga, like most purveyors these days, doesn't take in a lot of whole animals. The economics of the meat business are such that cattle are typically broken down out West, closer to the slaughter. So DeBragga gets mostly boxed subprimals particularly the short loins from which top steakhouses get their most popular steaks: porterhouse, strip and filet. The aging rooms contain about 20,000 pounds of meat at any given time. The meat is on metal racks as far as the eye can see and there are giant standing fans all over the place blowing air over the meat to help keep it dry and inhibit mold growth. On account of both health codes and the low temperatures, we were given nifty DeBragga butcher's coats and stylish head gear. My son got a sweatshirt. But we didn't get to keep any of the gear, except the paper hats. To me the most interesting sight in the aging rooms was a set of racks that had the same cut and quality of meat but were dated over the course of a month of aging, so it was possible to see a time-lapse image of aging beef. Here's what the meat looks like before any dry aging. This is dated 21 July, the day we were there. This rack was dated 18 July, so just a few days of aging here. These are the short loins that went up on 14 July, so they had been aged about a week. This rack had been filled on 9 July, so the meat on it had been aged about 2 weeks. And this was the oldest rack, dated 2 July, which meant the meat had been aged about 3 weeks. George also showed us how the weights of the aged short loins compared to the originally recorded fresh weights. That particular short loin had, after just a couple of weeks, gone from about 21 to about 18 pounds. That's just from the moisture loss. On top of that, all the exterior material and then some needs to be cut away by the butchers (George estimated as much as 50% butchering loss). So meat that starts out at $10 a pound (DeBragga's cost) can easily wind up closer to $25 a pound (restaurant's wholesale cost). For those who are new to dry aging, a quick refresher course: most supermarket beef is "wet aged." This means it's vacuum packed in plastic and allowed to sit for a while under refrigeration. During this time the meat becomes more tender. In dry aging, the meat is aged out in the open in a controlled environment. So there's a lot of moisture loss (there's no loss in wet aging) and the exterior gets dried out and has to be cut away (again not an issue in wet aging). The reward of dry aging, however, is that in addition to tenderness (which you get from wet aging anyway) you get concentration and excellent development of flavor (that doesn't happen with wet aging). I knew all this but had never actually touched a dry aged whole subprimal, and when I did I was surprised at how hard and leathery the surface was. George explained that this leathery surface helps protect the meat inside, which remains red and vibrant. I want this contraption in my home. Here's a steak all aged, butchered, packed and ready to go. George was kind enough to send us away with a sample of Japanese Wagyu steak. I decided to bring the steak with us to lunch at Beacon and ask Waldy Malouf to prepare it as an hors d'oeuvre -- my first-ever BYO meat experience. Waldy seasoned the steak and threw it on the grill for just a couple of minutes. He then sliced it and plated it up in several small portions. The Wagyu was pretty fabulous, though given its street price (I think this was about a $100 steak) and preternatural fattiness (it's more like foie gras than steak) I think I'm happiest with normal American dry-aged beef at the Prime or high-Choice level. All in all I was tremendously impressed with the DeBragga operation. What I like in particular, from the standpoint of the retail consumer, is that if you place a .com order you're getting meat from the same pool as the better restaurants in New York City. While there are some special set-asides for restaurants like Craftsteak, the general inventory is not segregated into restaurant and retail. Here's some meat destined for Craftsteak, a major DeBragga client:

Another advantage of screw tops.

Kimchi butter is pretty great, especially if you have it at a David Chang restaurant, however I'll give a nod to a much humbler condiment: equal parts ketchup and mayonnaise (the stripped-down version of Russian or Thousand Island dressing). When you mix Heinz and Hellman's you get something greater than the sum of its parts and it tastes great on just about anything.

Kim Severson, the New York Times dining-section reporter who has covered post-Katrina New Orleans extensively, has a large feature in the paper (the New York Times, that is) today about Brett Anderson's return to reviewing. She does a much better job justifying Anderson's absence than Anderson does, but in the end I think that whatever convincing arguments there are to be made expired a year or two ago.

It's here and it's as good as we remember. Also the local tomatoes are coming in now, so there's a fine tomato salad (Eckerton Hill Farms) with cubes of fried tofu -- though it was overdressed. The pork shoulder steak from Bev Eggleston's Crossabaw (a cross between the Ossabaw breed and something else) pigs is well worth a try, and it's huge -- I recommend it for sharing, as I lacked the motivation to finish it myself and that's saying something. The hanger steak ssam is up to $28, however it now specifies Brandt Beef. I haven't tried it in this version. The only ssam items currently on the dinner menu are hanger steak and bo. I had a better service experience than I've had in recent memory, perhaps because Cory was on the scene. Also Hitachino seems to be gone from the beer list.

It's interesting to me that there's no mention of any sort of consultation with editors, leaving one to think that this individual critic was allowed to grant himself a leave of absence and end it at his discretion.

My guess is that it's braised in the oven at a low temperature, rested/refrigerated, then finished at a higher temperature (perhaps with convection).

One way to address the "greasy butter" issue -- which I agree is an issue in long basting -- is to change the butter part way through the process. You just tip the pan into a receptacle and then add a new knob of butter. But I don't think the best move is to have only white, foamy butter. Letting it brown a little is also nice, for that nutty flavor. You just don't want to let it break down completely or burn. Moderate heat and the constant motion of basting help with this. I think a lot of cooks -- especially busy line cooks -- think of butter-basting as a finishing technique in meat cookery, but I think that's in part because in a restaurant setting it's too labor intensive to do longer basting. But if you baste earlier and longer, you develop a better crust -- simple as that. At one restaurant where I trailed for like a minute, the main difference between a regular order and a VIP order on the meat station was that a cook would take more time with basting the VIP meat by starting the process earlier.

I disagreed with his self-imposed hiatus at the time, and still think it was the wrong decision. I sympathize with his reluctance to kick restaurants when they were down or to review restaurants that were in flux on account of disaster recovery, but ultimately it was a disservice both to readers and the industry (not to mention the cause of arms-length journalism) to stop his restaurant reviews for such a long time.

Some questions the answers to which might make a difference: 1 - Does the review just mention some items that have been off the menu for two months, or is it based entirely on outdated information? 2 - What species of publication carried the review? Magazine, newspaper, online . . . ? 3 - Did the restaurant publicize the chef change or keep it quiet? 4 - Did the reviewer or someone at the publication contact you for fact checking?

Ronnie, thanks for doing all this organizational work. It can't be easy.

Frank Bruni has just reviewed Szechuan Gourmet in the New York Times and given it two stars. He makes a number of comparisons to Spicy & Tasty, including:

PDT is also open on Sunday nights. At least it was last night when I was there.

I guess I should add to the advice above: subscribe to this topic and set your subscription to immediate email notification. There's still an empty seat at Ko tonight for 8:30pm. I hope one of you grabs it.

There was one brand-new dish in the tasting tonight and it was not fabulous: dashi broth with turnips and slices of Australian black truffle. The Australian black truffle seemed promising: it had an amazing aroma. But on the palate it was relatively flavorless. The dashi itself was very well made and certainly could be the foundation for any number of dishes better than this one (seafood -- like scallops or shrimp -- comes to mind). Two dishes I wasn't wild about last time have been improved. The corn ravioli, which was too sweet before, now has more acid and spice and it's great. The duck, which has a lot of components, has changed but I wasn't able to keep track of all the ingredients last time or this time. It's a better dish now, though, and somehow the breast meat was more tender this time around. These changes indicate a pattern: dishes are tinkered with and improved after they come on the menu. Also, I had the first Ko dessert that I thought was an unqualified success: tri-star strawberries (you may remember these from the shortcake dessert last year at Ssam Bar) with "yellow-cake ice cream" and crumbled peanut and sesame (I think). The pre-dessert sorbet course was cantaloupe sorbet (my favorite of all the Ko sorbets I've tried, though all have been excellent) with cashew praline. My guest and I ordered one of the $150 beverage pairings and one of the $50 pairings and tasted both offerings with every course. Certainly, the $150 pairing is better. For serious connoisseurs it might be worth the premium. But the $50 pairing gives great value and is plenty good enough for me. I still think the amuses are a distraction and don't show the restaurant at its best. I was thinking back to the tomatoes from my previous two visits and also thinking about the English muffin (which is the best of the amuses). I wonder if a combined amuse (a riff on a BLT, perhaps) wouldn't be better than the three amuses they go with now. [Moderator note: This topic continues here, Momofuku Ko (Part 2)]

Yeah, like I said, with the new 24-hour notice requirement the likelihood is that late afternoon most days we'll see cancellations for the following day. Sunday 8:30pm for 1 is still available.

Here's the link to the menu. I'll have to see portion sizes etc. but just from looking at the menu the prices don't seem all that low compared to, say, the neighborhood Vietnamese places. I mean, I imagine $14.95 for chicken ahmok would get you banned from Lowell and $17.95 for the fish dishes (choice of salmon or tilapia, both farmed I assume) seems steep.

Tonight I'm planning to go to Momofuku Ko for my fourth visit. I'm not the record holder -- apparently there's a guy who has been nine times -- but one of the cooks told me that there are only about 20 people who have been more than once. So, I figured I'd try to summarize the ways in which I've been able to get reservations. In the beginning, it was easy enough to get reservations. All you had to do was be online at exactly 10am and be reasonably diligent and decisive about clicking on an opening. This didn't work every single day, but if you did it a few days in a row you'd get a spot. That was when only Momofuku regulars, online foodies (admittedly a large population already) and restaurant reviewers (who for dramatic effect exaggerated the difficulty of getting reservations at the time) were competing for the, by my calculation, 12 reservations per evening (2 sittings, each consisting of 1x4-top, 3x2-tops and 1x1-top). Then a huge wave of publicity hit and things got much more competitive. A few weeks ago the reservations situation seemed hopeless. I was failing every day for days on end. So I had two choices: give up or up my game. I implemented a number of strategies, all of which have been effective. I've made something like 8 reservations now (most of which I had to cancel because of scheduling conflicts) and as you may have noticed I've posted about several other opportunities that I haven't used for myself. So these strategies all work, I promise. In addition, these are all above-board strategies. I haven't engaged the help of a computer programmer to develop the Momofuku Ko equivalent of the Auction Sniper service, nor have I relied on scripts or macros (though I have done some limited experiments). First, there's the brute force approach to the 10am situation. It's possible to improve your chances a lot by doing a few simple things. One thing to bear in mind is that the number of 4-tops is very limited yet those reservations are in high demand. I've never succeeded at getting a 4-top at 10am. The 1-tops, while there are fewer of them than 2-tops, seem to be in the least demand -- those aren't so hard to get. The 2-tops are a decent bet because there are so many. You need to decide in advance whether you're going for a 1- or 2-top. Because when the choice comes up at 10am, if you take even half a second to think about it, you'll miss the boat. The way the system works is you log on a little before 10am and it says you have to wait until 10am. You can keep refreshing that screen and it will tell you the time on the Ko system clock. At 9:59:59 you should refresh and then get your cursor to approximately where the dropdown menu for number of seats will appear. Choose 1 or 2 immediately -- you've already decided in advance which you'll pursue. As soon as you make that selection get your cursor over to the right a bit because that's where the green checks will appear. There may be a delay here because the system gets hammered. Sometimes the delay will be so long that when the next screen comes up there are no green checks left. But most of the time green checks will show up. Click one immediately. Again, don't think about the time or anything. Just click the one closest to your cursor and hope for the best. If you're lucky, the next screen will be a confirmation screen and you'll be all set. If you're not lucky, it will say someone just grabbed your spot. If you're really unlucky you'll get the confirmation screen but the system will hang up on you and you won't actually be allowed to confirm. Now, even assuming you don't get a reservation at 10am, don't give up. Because there often seem to be one or two super-unlucky people out there who lose their reservations at the confirmation stage. That means that on many days at almost exactly 10:01am (because the confirmation screen stays up for 60 seconds before sending the reservation back into the pool) a couple of green checks will show up. Keep refreshing in the seconds leading up to and immediately after 10:01am. Jump on a green check if you see one. Most people will have given up by now so you have less competition. But you still have competition so be decisive. Also some people will now back out on account of the credit card challenge and others will cancel reservations now that they have new ones, so keep at it for another minute or two. You may see another check. The other main strategy is to look for cancellations throughout the day. These pop up all the time seemingly at random, but around midnight seems to be a relatively fertile time. There used to be day-of cancellations but these are going to be a thing of the past now that Ko has implemented a credit-card guarantee and $150 no-show penalty (or at least the threat thereof). I imagine that now, with a 24 hour cancellation notice requirement, there will start being late afternoon cancellations for the following day each day. So I'd suggest looking for those. Finally, although this has never happened to me, I have been told repeatedly by Ko's cooks that seats left empty due to no-shows and late cancellations are filled by offering them to customers at Noodle Bar and Ssam Bar. The aforementioned guy who had been to Ko nine times has, I was told, picked up several of his meals just by being at one of the other Momofukus. So if you're at the Momofukus a lot anyway, I suggest you mention to a manager that you're interested in a Ko cancellation if one comes along. But the credit card policy will make this a less common occurrence, I bet. I think that's all I have for now. Good luck.

The much-awaited Cambodian Cuisine has opened on Third Avenue between 93rd and 94th Streets. The restaurant used to be in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where it operated successfully and received many accolades (I thought the food was tasty but not fabulous the one time I went) but the owner, Jerry Ley, wanted to relocate to Manhattan. The renovation process was a tale of woe that you can read about if you like. But now the place is open, making it one of only two Cambodian restaurants in New York City (it used to be the only one, but while it was closed Kampuchea opened on the Lower East Side). I live on East 93rd Street, and I occasionally walk by the location where Cambodian Cuisine was slowly renovating. I walked by a few days ago and was amazed to find it open. I picked up a takeout menu. It references a website where you can also see the menu. The menu also notes free delivery on the front page. I called today to place an order for delivery but, much to my disappointment, I was told they're not yet offering delivery service. So, I'll have to walk over there another time.

The menu with prices is on the restaurant's website: http://cambodiancuisinenyc.com I'll start a new topic for discussion of Cambodian Cuisine soon.

One thing I'll add to Ronnie's comments: at this point in time anybody who wants to function in the world of ecommerce really needs to have a working PayPal account. There are now so many transactions that require PayPal -- everything from millions of eBay transactions to donations to the eGullet Society -- you're eventually going to run across one. So by setting it up now you're preparing for the next time you'll need to complete a PayPal transaction.

To your credit, the wording was ambiguous at best.

The Kampuchea A/C must have given up the ghost some time between when I was in and when you were in. Pretty much my only clear memory of yesterday is that Kampuchea was an oasis of cool at around opening time. I'd also like to go on record as saying that, on account of my ample bulk, I have a special love of air conditioning. I love it so much. I especially enjoy traveling to places like Houston, Phoenix and Las Vegas -- cities that were essentially uninhabitable before the widespread adoption of air conditioning -- because they really know how to air condition. In a place like New York City, which is habitable without air conditioning for most of the year, we're A/C amateurs.

I was on the Lower East Side yesterday late afternoon when it was, I believe, 91 degrees and very sunny. I stopped in at Kampuchea and Spitzer's Corner. I didn't take careful notice, but I think both places (which are designed with large window-doors that open on to the street) had their windows open and also had the A/C running. I must have been imagining things but I thought I saw the same arrangement in play at 'inoteca. Or maybe there were some tables outside and a very wide open door in the front-middle. I guess this is why eyewitness testimony is so unreliable.

There was a link posted today on Eater to the new Artisan book catalog. If you look on page 4 there's a bunch of information about the book. (My only issue with the title is that it's unoriginal.)