Fat Guy

Between 7 and 9:30pm on a Friday or Saturday night, tons of restaurants are practically private clubs for their regulars. At many restaurants -- even some that aren't particularly good -- those tables are held for regulars until the day of. The only way you get one is at the last minute, if it hasn't been claimed.

Rao's is probably the toughest. I'm not sure I follow the reasoning that says Babbo is a tougher table than Per Se. There are several ways to game Babbo: getting one of the first-come-first-served tables, making reservations in person, getting in on a last-minute cancellation, just showing up and hoping for a no-show . . . Per Se is a much tougher nut to crack. They won't talk to you in person, they don't have any unreserved tables, they rarely get last-minute cancellations. The problem at both restaurants is, I imagine, that they have a lot of VIP holdbacks. The reason you can't get anything but 5:30 or 10:30 at Babbo isn't because it took an hour to get through. More likely it's that they never made any other tables available to the general public in the first place. So basically, if you offered a monetary reward for getting into Babbo or Per Se on a Saturday night between 7 and 9:30pm, I'd rather take the challenge with Babbo than with Per Se. (Also, given that the only reliable way to succeed at this task is to become a regular, it's just a lot more affordable to become a Babbo regular than it is to become a Per Se regular.) I'd also probably rather try for Babbo than for, say, Union Square Cafe at prime time. There are actually a whole bunch of restaurants where, unless you're known to the restaurant, you will simply never be offered anything but a very early or very late reservation on a Friday or Saturday night. Some of them are second- and third-tier places, but they have their audiences. Places like Sfoglia.

Not that there's any justification for it, but the picture I get is that you get treated better at Ushi if you have a reservation. Walk-ins are accommodated/tolerated but they want to clear those seats in time for reservations. Bone in sardine is sloppy, probably hurried prep. Not good. Very few sushi places serve what I consider to be excellent uni. I don't think I've ever had uni from a wooden tray that I thought was in that category. It has to be live to be excellent. Nobu Next Door often has it live on the raw bar, and it's so much better than any wooden-tray uni that it kind of ruins the experience of all other uni. That being said, my experience of Ushi's uni is that it has been as good as at any other place that serves high-end wooden-tray uni. The aftertaste issue isn't necessarily a quality indicator. Uni is highly variable by source and season. I did notice last time I was there that Ushi goes through a large quantity of uni. The chef I was in front of went through three whole trays while I was there and was into his fourth tray when I left. I couldn't believe it. So, at least we know the turnover is high.

The Ducasse organization thinks, fundamentally, in terms of Michelin stars. They think that way whether or not Michelin is involved. When ADNY opened, there was no Michelin guide for New York. Ditto for Mix. Nonetheless, they were conceived as Michelin three-star and one-star restaurants, respectively. It's not so much about getting Michelin to award the stars -- Ducasse has plenty of experience with not getting the number of stars that fit the model of a given restaurant in his group -- but rather about the way the team thinks through these projects. Indigenous New York restaurants above a certain level think this way too, but with New York Times stars: "We're building a four-star restaurant." The restaurant may or may not get that many stars. Nonetheless, the model remains.

My understanding is that Benoit is a Michelin one-star-type project, that Adour is a Michelin two-star-type project, and that Ducasse hopes to do a three-star-type project down the road (presumably this will be somewhat contingent on the success of Benoit and Adour). Several people connected to the Ducasse organization have told me this, though none officially.

It's weird that two restaurants named Crave (the other being Crave Ceviche Bar on the East Side) have opened recently. That's going to cause all sorts of confusion.

In the early 1990s, I believe it was, there was an epidemic of Hepatitis A in the Syracuse, NY, area. I've seen it written many times that the implementation of a glove law was what brought the epidemic under control. I don't know whether that's true or not, but it's an oft-repeated proof of the efficacy of gloves.

Much of the problem has to do with the limitations of banquet-style service. When you put 80 or so people in a room and serve all of them the same food at the same time, you run up against a lot of quality limitations. Some of these limitations can be compensated for if you have first-rate banquet facilities with the latest technology and you do this sort of thing all the time, but for guest chefs in a mediocre kitchen like the one at the Beard House it's very difficult to pull off. In addition, the dinners tend to be excruciatingly slow on account of the long breaks between courses. And the Beard House servers are just not particularly good at their jobs. In general, the crowd is pretty dull -- you'd think it would be all these in-the-know gourmets but it's usually a bunch of people who you can't even figure out why they bothered to come. Most every chef I've spoken to on the subject has said he or she would jump at the chance to do these types of dinners in a better venue, but for this sort of promotional event the Beard House is pretty much the only game in town.

Yeah, as much as it bugs me I've given up on trying to correct people on that point. It just makes me sound prissy when I do it. We have the redirects from eGullet.com to eGullet.org so there's no harm done if people type in the wrong URL. I should be back on in a couple of months. I'll try to post advance notice here.

If you go to the WOR website's page for Food Talk, you can listen to the recording of the broadcast. I was on for the second half.

My friend John Curtas, the Las Vegas-based food writer and commentator, was in town this week and invited me to a dinner tonight at the James Beard House. Even when, as tonight, I'm able to go for free on a press pass, I'm usually reluctant to go to Beard House dinners. They're boring, they're rarely good. But John was persistent and the theme did look compelling. The idea was to take the day-to-day chefs of the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas -- the guys whose names you don't hear but who run the kitchens at Le Cirque, Michael Mina, Prime, etc. -- and have each of them do a course. (In the marketing vernacular they are known as "rising stars.") So I got to encounter five journeyman chefs who were heretofore totally unfamiliar to me but whose skills are on par with those of just about anybody in the industry. The presentation was first class. The Bellagio put a lot of resources behind this and sent plenty of people, including a designer. Everything from the cocktails and hors d'oeuvres to the gift bags distributed at the end was done at a level much higher than what you'd normally see at a Beard House event. It was certainly worth going. The predictable difficulty with a meal like this is that each chef wants to show off as much as possible, so the meal winds up being a bit of a cacophony. Most every dish had a lot going on. There was nobody bold enough to do a truly minimalist thing like just serve a piece of fish. But I guess the "more is better" aesthetic is representative of Las Vegas anyway. We started (after an hour of hors d'oeuvres and cocktails) with a trio of foie gras preparations, all of which were terrific, from David Werly of Le Cirque (the Le Cirque at the Bellagio, that is). There was a very correct terrine, a well-made creme brulee, and a fantastic foamy mousse served in a tall shot-glass type thing with fruit on the bottom. The wine pairing was a 2004 Weinbach gewurtztraminer, which was a lovely wine, but I thought an even sweeter wine was called for. The Bellagio's wine guy, who has every wine credential known to humankind, was there, and in response to my position he said, "We don't think sweet is the answer for foie gras." And I agree. But David Werly didn't get that memo. He made a foie gras creme brulee with a caramelized sugar shell on top, and there was sweet fruit in with the mousse preparation. Next to those preparations, the wine didn't hold up. So, credentials aside, it needed an even sweeter wine. Next, a butter-poached Scottish langoustine sitting atop a pile of black truffle risotto and all surrounded by sea urchin foam, from Anthony Amoroso of Michael Mina Restaurant. So, yeah, again, there was a lot going on. But the dish held together pretty well. The langoustine was a little bit overdone -- just a little bit, which made it more frustrating -- but that sort of technical problem is pretty much unavoidable at the Beard House given the weak kitchen facilities. And again I thought the wine, a 2004 Chassagne-Montrachet from Morey-Coffinet, was a very nice wine standing alone but didn't work with the dish. I got the impression of a lot of new oak from this one, and new oak and langoustine just don't marry well. Then there was five-spice squab breast with bacon, green chickpeas, cauliflower and an Earl Grey infusion, from Edmund Wong, whose affiliation was listed as "Bellagio" so he must be one of the corporate chefs. My only complaint here was the choice of a somewhat denatured piece of squab breast -- in other words no skin or bone -- which I thought took away from the flavor potential of the dish. I mean, the way the breast was packaged in a little cylinder I'm not sure I'd have guessed it was squab without sitting around and thinking about it for a bit. And again I wasn't crazy about the wine, a 2006 Russian River Valley pinot noir called "George" that was billed as a blend of New World and Old World styles, but not the blend I'd have gone for. The last savory course was roasted venison with acorn squash puree and apple cider reduction, from Robert Moore of Prime. This was a very well executed dish, albeit a bit sweet. The wine pairing here was spot on, a 2000 Margaux from Chateau D'Issan. I wasn't totally crazy about the wine itself, and I actually think there may have been a problem with the batch, but it worked with the venison. For dessert, one of the Bellagio pastry chefs, Claude Escamilla, did a seriously impressive display of pineapple desserts. Pina colada chiboust tart, coconut tapioca lime milkshake, cardamom carpaccio, passion cilantro sauce . . . it was a very serious dessert situation. Those big hotels are really able to attract top pastry talent. The dessert was even served on rectangular platters that had been designed especially for this dinner and said Bellagio on them. Served with a nice tokaji. So what did I learn tonight? Mainly that the talent pool in Las Vegas is deeper than I had considered it might be. It seems obvious in retrospect that all these big-name high-concept restaurants need first-rate chefs-de-cuisine, but this dinner helped put it in perspective.

DeBragga and Spitler, wholesale meat purveyor to many of New York City's top restaurants, has just entered the online retail business. I haven't sampled any of the products yet, but DeBragga's reputation is stellar. First person to order, please report back. http://www.debragga.com/

Given the low freezing point of alcohol, what about using the freezer to get the batch really, really cold? If you did six hours in the refrigerator and then an hour in the freezer just before serving you might get good results. I don't know.

I think if your goal is to have a generally useful ingredient you should simply make as rich a stock as possible. That means either roasting the bones or simmering the stock for a really long time. So it's going to be a brown stock (or in the case of chicken more of a golden stock). White stock of any kind is a pretty rarefied ingredient that's only useful in very limited contexts. I don't think it's a particularly important ingredient to have around. And if you need a weak stock for something like risotto you can just cut your rich stock with water.

That is a truly unusual kitchen tool. I wonder how its performance compares to a Kuhn Rikon julienne peeler. I also wonder what they use in Southeast Asian restaurant kitchens to make stuff like Green Papaya salad. The Zig Zag thing? A mandoline? A food processor fitted with a julienne disc?

I think one simply needs to embrace the purposelessness of the Sterno.

I don't think there's a good argument for fest as a verb, though.

They lit it at the table, with great fanfare. We didn't choose the appetizers. That's the restaurant's preordained pu pu platter. You can get it for 2 or 4 people -- that's the only choice.

Yes, I think there are ways to mess it up. But once you get the basics down -- don't make it into a soup, elevate your proteins on a bed of veg -- I think you get really nice, fresh, vibrant results from broth-like sauces. As Paul notes, when you make those heavily reduced thick sauces, "You lose a LOT of flavor, especially the subtler, brighter, more aromatic flavor compounds." Whereas when you work with broths you can maintain very bright flavors and get good results from fresh herbs. You also don't have to anticipate what something will taste like when it has been reduced. Instead, you just taste. It's a much easier skill to master. Here's a good example of a top-notch restaurant dish using a broth-like sauce. I didn't have to go back far. The last time I ate out, two nights ago, I was at L'Absinthe, which is one of the better classic French restaurants left in New York City (or maybe the best of its kind). This was "free-range chicken in a black truffle broth." I don't think there's any way this dish could have been improved by a thickened sauce. Note the conservative quantity of rich broth, and the elevation of the meat over the broth. It's a totally professional restaurant dish but the style is really easy for home cooks to emulate.

Right, it's a whole different mindset. And you need to serve food differently. For example mashed potatoes and other purees, fritters, whatever, really need to be served on a side plate. Whereas some other vegetables, like mushrooms and peas, can benefit from being in the sauce. I agree that a whole steak sitting in a broth doesn't work. But I did a steak dish awhile back that I thought worked brilliantly with a broth-like sauce. I made lentils with diced carrots and onions, using beef stock as the cooking liquid. I also had a couple of leftover short ribs around so I took the meat from the short ribs, diced it, and added that to the lentils -- it was just a little bit but it was a nice addition. I also had beef stock simmering in a sauce pan, to which I had added a little red wine and, right at the end, a lot of fresh thyme. I had a boneless New York strip that I cooked and sliced. I spooned the lentils into bowls, then laid the slices of steak over them, then spooned the stock-wine-thyme "sauce" over that just enough to moisten the dish but not enough to turn it soupy. I thought it turned out as a very strong, near-restaurant-quality dish. Plus we got four nice, filling portions out of one steak.

I agree that gelatin (whether from the bones or added in some other way) is, alone, a flawed thickener. This is primarily on account of its temperature sensitivity, as Paul notes. Anybody who has made a rich stock is familiar with the phenomenon whereby, after a night in the refrigerator, your stock has the texture of Jell-O. But of course if you put that back on the stove and bring it to a simmer you have a liquid that's barely thicker in texture than water. So that's essentially the range of thickness you'll experience as your reduced stock drops in temperature. Meanwhile, a thickener like arrowroot is going to be a lot less persnickety as the temperature drops. You'll have a pretty consistent texture for the amount of time it takes to sauce, serve and eat your food. While there are a lot of good ways to thicken sauces, and while I don't necessarily have a favorite, I think it's useful to start out by getting yourself up to speed on roux as a thickener. It's a foundational cooking technique that's incredibly versatile and effective. Also, again, I want to make a plea for unthickened, broth-like sauces. Many of the tastiest sauces I've had have been at the broth-like end of the spectrum. I think home cooks can really benefit from getting into the mindset of broth-like sauces, rimmed-bowl serving pieces, and spoons as part of the place setting.

It seems to me the question relates to thickening rather than to reduction. If sauces are reducing to the point of disappearing, you're not having any trouble reducing them. Your problem is that you're not getting the thick texture you want. The problem is that straight reduction of wine and/or stock without any sort of thickener is not really a reliable way to produce thick sauces. You would need to be starting with an already-heavily-reduced stock or a coulis in order to get syrupy end results in a predictable way. If you're just using regular-strength stock and wine, you're not likely to have great results if thick sauce is what you're after. So, my suggestion would be to do one of two things: 1- learn about thickeners and start using the ones that work for you, or 2- accept that your sauces are going to be broth-like rather than syrupy. The latter is entirely okay -- it's the sauce-making style in many modern restaurants, where food is usually served in a broth-like sauce in a shallow, wide, rimmed bowl rather than on a flat plate.

This is perhaps a more informative, aerial view. Clockwise starting at 12 o'clock: 1- shrimp toast, 2- spare ribs, 3- pork wontons, 4- spring rolls, 5- vegetable dumplings.

On New Year's Day we went with friends to a Chinese restaurant in Springfield, New Jersey. They kept saying, we thought, that "We're going to Cafe 22." That seemed like an odd name for a Chinese restaurant. The 22 part I understood -- Route 22 is the main drag in those parts and there are restaurants named Rio 22 and the like -- but Cafe 22 didn't sound like a Chinese-restaurant name. Turns out, the name of the restaurant is Cathay 22 and my friends had not both newly and simultaneously developed a lisp. Anyway, it was a festive day so we went for it and ordered a pu pu platter. I hereby document it.

Pig pickin' is in the family even if pickin' is more of a gerund. Clam bake, of course. In college in Vermont we had a tradition of going once a week to "Mr. Mike's pizza pig out." I guess "pig out" is a verb phrase, so that should count. I agree that "food-verb events" is an utterly brilliant turn of phrase.