Fat Guy

Many of the best chefs in the world believe that producers, regions, and special products should be celebrated on menus. The expression of this belief can range from Georges Blanc's menu specifying "L’Aile ou la Cuisse de Poulet de Bresse Naturellement Rôtie" rather than just "Poulet" to a draft of a Cafe Gray menu I saw where the dishes are described simply but the bottom of the menu contains a list of producers, to Daniel Boulud's menus naming Tim Starck as his tomato supplier, to Alain Ducasse producing an entire book, Harvesting Excellence, containing photographs, bios, and other details about the American producers with whom he has relationships. There's not an insecure chef in that bunch -- they set the standards; they are the standards -- and I see no basis for complaining about being provided with this information. Certainly to call it "infra dig" is to reveal a lack of familiarity with menu writing at the top levels of cuisine today. There are menus that overdo it, and it's especially ridiculous when menus add meaningless modifiers that attempt to make ingredients sound better than they are ("ahi tuna" "USDA beef"), but real information, in moderation, can be a good thing.

No. The thread was going along just fine. You simply attributed things to me that I didn't say, and I called you on it. You don't have to keep pursuing it. Just stick to responding to what I said instead of what you imagined and we can get back to having a debate about issues rather than about my character.

I'd ask you to be careful about attributing incendiary statements to me that I didn't make. What I said was: I'm not sure you've introduced any new points that haven't already been answered two or three times above, so I'll leave it at that.

Incidentally, the "smaller filet" objection to the smaller porterhouses doesn't hold much water with most serious steak lovers, because such folk tend to prefer the strip over the filet. In my experience the problem with the assemblage has been that the smaller steaks aren't as thick, not that they lack sufficient filet (which I'd always happily trade ounce-for-ounce for strip). As I said, I haven't measured, but uniform thickness strikes me as the less likely scenario given the reality of how a short loin occurs in nature. I hesitate to disagree with Rosengarten, who is a fanatical fact checker and in my opinion the best restaurant reviewer in recent times, but the precision he implies is something that I think bears further investigation.

Glad you had a good Luger's experience, Tommy. If you always go for lunch, you'll most likely always have an equally great time. You may become disenchanted if you go for dinner, however -- the service and atmosphere become a lot less reliable when they're trying to turn the tables. For those who like dipping the burger in the butter sauce, if you're not also eating steak, you can order the "chopped steak" instead of the burger. The chopped steak is essentially the same hamburger patty but on a platter with butter sauce instead of dry on a bun. Jamie, I'm assuming that's Rosengarten writing? I believe what he means by "a collection of porterhouse pieces" is what I've been saying: that they might give you two small porterhouses on a steak-for-three platter (and, he seems to be implying, three smaller porterhouses on a steak-for-four platter). Smaller porterhouses, being cut from closer to the center of the short loin, will typically have a smaller filet portion than the larger ones cut from the end of the loin -- as you move along the short loin the filet decreases in size much more rapidly than the strip/shell does. I have, however, been served steak-for-three in one piece (as well as in two pieces) and the only time I ever ordered steak-for-four it was just steak-for-two times two.

It's not easy for me to see the universe of short loin cuts falling into the exact same ratio of twos to threes as the customers' orders. Allowing zero variation in thickness would be such a blow to inventory control that it's difficult to imagine it as policy. I also think you may be overestimating the need to remove judgment from the cooking process. Then again, there's only so much we can learn by speculation -- I'm sure someone could just ask whether the steaks are cut on a template or by hand.

Peter Luger maintains its own protected lot a few steps from the restaurant. Parking is free, though you are expected to tip the attendant. Just drive into the Peter Luger lot and you're all set. There also tends to be on-street free parking available at most times. Driving to the NJ Turnpike via Staten Island is in my opinion the best way to go -- far prefereable to retracing one's steps all the way back to Midtown and also better than crossing via lower Manhattan. Of course you could run into a traffic disaster on any of these routes, but the odds are more favorable with the non-Manhattan strategies.

I think I've had a steak for three that was thicker, but you can't trust that sort of impression without actually measuring. I've only ever taken actual measurements of one Peter Luger steak so I can't say for sure if the thickness is uniform, but I think it isn't -- even the steak I measured wasn't uniform across the steak (it was thicker at the T junction than at the end of the long bone). Logically, if you're going to butcher an irregularly shaped short loin to get porterhouses out of it that conform to specific target weight ranges of +/- just an ounce or two, you have to do it by hand (with a bandsaw, but positioned by hand) and you have to control the thickness variable to make up for variations in the other dimensions.

I don't believe the steak-plus-scraps theory of steak-for-three is correct. The steaks at Peter Luger are carved in the kitchen, but they're reassembled into the shape of the original steak. It wouldn't really be possible to reassemble one convincingly with extra pieces inserted. The times I've had steak for three it has been either a larger porterhouse or two smaller ones -- whatever they had to do to make the weight. Steak for four is just steak for two times two. It's hard to tell somebody else how much to order. For three normal people, steak for two plus bacon, bread, beer, sides, a shared hamburger, and dessert, is more than enough food. For the average eGulleter, though, such an order might set off alarms and induce panic at the earlier stages of the meal -- even though in the end there's little chance you'd be hungry. It also depends on how efficiently you utilize a porterhouse. Some people will only eat the premium pieces with very little fat on them, which will easily leave a half-dozen porterhouse chunks plus a meat-laden bone over. Steak for two, in that instance, is enough for two people. But if you're partial to every part of the steak and you have the patience to eat all the scraps off the bone, steak for two can easily feed a whole additional person.

Steak for 3 is a risky proposition because you don't know what you're going to get. You could get lucky and get a really massive, thick porterhouse -- in which case the steak for 3 is going to be better than the steak for 2. But you could also get unlucky and get two smaller porterhouses -- and that's bad because they cook quicker and don't develop flavor as well as the big cuts. Steak for 2 is the most reliable order. Note that the burgers are rather small by the standards of steakhouse burgers. A burger barely counts as an addition to the meal. During lunchtime there are some noteworthy daily specials as well, especially the corned beef. I think it's corned beef and cabbage on Thursdays and corned beef hash on Fridays. Skip the prime rib, which is surprisingly poor. The last time I checked the wine list there was, I believe, one zinfandel. Pretty sure it was Fife -- nothing to write home about. There were only about 25 red wine choices -- it's just a single small page. Red wines are served lukewarm in chunky goblets. The bartenders make decent drinks and the beer is cold -- that's the way to go.

The tomatoes are not good. Even at the peak of tomato season locally (which this isn't), they're the same shitty underripe massive grainy beefsteak tomatoes that every steakhouse serves. Getting them is strictly pro forma. I'd suggest starting with strips of bacon, beers, and a heavy hit from the excellent bread basket. Then go for the porterhouse for two rare or medium rare (which typically come out medium-rare and medium respectively), a burger (silly not to get it if it's lunchtime and you have an extra six bucks), German potatoes, and creamed spinach. The pecan pie is quite good, with schlag (sweetened whipped cream). The wine list is a joke, as are the glasses and other elements of the wine service. Stick with beer, in bottles.

I think the key distinction between the 4 and the 1 isn't coal versus gas but, rather, stone/brick versus metal. The properties of a metal oven are so fundamentally different from those of a stone (I'll use stone as shorthand for any kind of high-mass retained-heat oven) oven that the pizza just isn't being cooked the same way, which is why in turn I don't think you have comparable products emerging. A pizza at DiFara's cooks for, what, 3, 4 or 5 times as long as a pizza at any of the stone oven places? That represents a lot more than the difference between, say, 500 and 750 degrees. Those numbers tell only part of a story that involves complex issues of conduction, convection, radiation, thermal capacity, etc. In the end, I think the approaches just produce a different kind of crust with a different capacity for toppings. DiFara's has a crust that has more of the properties of bread. And DiFara's has better toppings, to be sure, than the others, but the toppings are also cooking long and slow compared to the blast-furnace approach of the others -- so even identical toppings would taste quite different.

It has been really enjoyable watching the pizza survey push through the big 5 pizzerias. Great work, guys, and thanks for providing this steady flow of information and impressions. Isn't it amazing how a methodical and careful comparison puts things in perspective? A few thoughts based on reading here: - Putting DiFara's in the big 5 grouping is somewhat idiosyncratic. The other 4 members of the group are serving one species of pizza, and DiFara's is serving another. The way I see it, the 4 non-DiFara's pizzerias in question are at or near the top of one hierarchy, while DiFara's is number 1 in a different hierarchy. To me it's similar to the comparison between two steakhouses, one of which specializes in the porterhouse and the other of which specializes in the ribeye. Assuming both steakhouses are doing everything right, if you say you like one better than the other, you're mostly expressing a preference as between porterhouse and ribeye. - Would it be possible for someone to assemble a master list of what pies were sampled at what pizzerias? Some of the emerging consensus here is, I think, predicated on unlike sampling. For example, would I be correct in assuming that at Patsy's nobody had mushrooms or sausage? Of the 4 places that I consider relevant to that comparison (in other words, excluding DiFara's, which I see as light-years ahead in terms of toppings but not overall comparable), Patsy's has the best mushrooms -- they use fresh portabellas and they cook up beautifully. I also think Patsy's uses an excellent sausage product. One of the best pizzas at Patsy's, also, is the one with red bell peppers. - I'm shocked -- shocked -- that alacarte was the only surveyor to express a strong preference for low-moisture over fresh mozzarella. I'm doubly shocked to see fresh mozzarella described as more flavorful -- I simply can't think of any measure of flavor by which that would be true. Maybe if we were talking about buffalo mozzarella, that would be one thing. But fresh "mozzarella" made from cow's milk is fundamentally low on flavor. The low-moisture alternative, which has had some time to develop, presents more flavor across the spectrum, as far as I'm concerned. It also melts to a more desirable texture. - That you need to time your visits to Grimaldi's so carefully in order to get pizza that doesn't suck is, to me, inexcusable. That indicates a level of incompetence so high that noplace with such practices deserves to be on a big-4 or even big-1000 list. - Kurl made reference to wet pies at Totonno's. Also inexcusable. These people are supposed to be professional pizza bakers. What possible excuse could they have for such a deficiency in the majority of the pies they serve? This is one of several reasons I think Totonno's falls short of its inflated reputation.

It's nearly impossible to know what Sifton did or didn't do for the section during his tenure. Editors operate very much in the background, and there's no logical basis for drawing a connection between the quality of his writing (which has always been good) and his effectiveness as an editor (all we really have to judge him by is the overall quality of the section, and even there we can't know what he did and didn't have the power to change). Kathi, do you know where this news has appeared? I don't see anything about it on Gawker, where I'd normally expect to find something of this sort.

A tale of culinary thievery, by Mandy Erickson in The Daily Gullet. +++ Be sure to check The Daily Gullet every weekday for news, articles, contest results, hot topics, announcements, and more.

We had the opposite experience at French Laundry: there was one course on the tasting that my wife didn't want -- one of the meat courses -- and she wanted to substitute something else for it. There was a tuna dish on the five-course that looked like it would make a good substitution but the waiter was very resistant to making the change. We asked him to ask the kitchen, and he came back and suggested a pasta instead. So I said, if it's a question of the dish being more expensive, we'll gladly pay an upgrade fee, and if it's a question of low inventory we'll gladly shut up, but if the dish is available what possible reason could you have for not accommodating us? He returned to the kitchen and came back with the report that it's a large portion and "Thomas doesn't like to waste food." Had I known how tiny the portions are at French Laundry, I'd have laughed in his face right then, but instead we said fine, just bring the tasting without any alterations. Later, when that course rolled around, the tuna dish came out. The portion turned out to be maybe 50% larger than the tasting-menu portions: six bites instead of four. Whatever. To the extent this is a thread about Per Se, I'm not sure if French Laundry experience is relevant, and when I dined at Per Se they seemed entirely accommodating, so it was probably a communication glitch of some sort, or a new waiter.

My sister lives in Princeton so I get there fairly often. May I just add one thing to the excellent lists above? Wegmans! Not a restaurant in the strict sense of the word, and not downtown, but it's my favorite place to eat with the family. There's a very hospitable upstairs dining area, where you can feast on Wegmans various prepared foods. Lots of choice, very high quality, and afterwards you can do your grocery shopping.

To me, the crust despite its attractive blistering is too spongy and flaccid -- puffy as opposed to crispy-but-pliable the way it's supposed to be -- and has no real flavor other than the char. What I've written in the past about the sauce is that it "tastes as though it's made from nearly spoiled tomatoes -- like bad unripe supermarket tomatoes left on the windowsill for too long in the naïve hope that they'll magically find within themselves the energy to become good tomatoes." The cheese is quite good, but I prefer Patsy's in Harlem, which uses low-moisture mozzarella -- for coal oven pizza, it's better. In my old pizza guide I had an illustrative quote from my friend Neil -- one of the greatest fressers in the land -- about Totonno's: "Jerry Pero, Totonno's old owner, the son of the original owner and the actual pizza maker -- he's the only guy I ever saw at the oven, ever, in my many visits there -- was a surly misanthrope. (As opposed to the sunny, cheerful type of misanthrope.) With him at the helm, there was a tense atmosphere -- analogous to the Soup Nazi's place, except that Pero didn't even deal with the customers; he had his back to us as he made pizza, and if he did turn around you'd want to avoid eye contact. It was clear that he set the tone, and that the workers were afraid of him. His pizza really was the best, better even than Sally's and Pepe's in New Haven. But with the king gone, the workers relaxed. The kids took over and, typically, liberalized the atmosphere, spent money and fucked everything up. They took some of the presumably abundant cash (or found an investor) and opened a friendly, chic Upper East Side place (the polar opposite of the Coney Island locale and atmosphere). They made the original branch more user friendly, actually painting the name on the windows to let people know it was there, opening their doors almost all week long, and decorating the walls with all kinds of cute and superfluous self-serving stuff (framed Zagat comments, etc.) that Jerry would have torn down and incinerated, not that anybody would have dared to post them in the first place during the Jerry era. The bottom line, of course, is that the new generation didn't learn to make pizza the way Jerry did. Now, it sucks."

I'm pretty sure section 848.04 doesn't apply to the types of stoves used in cooking. At least, section 848.01, which seems to be the umbrella for 848.xx says: "This article shall not be construed to apply to a central heater with hot air distribution, a central boiler with either hot water or steam heat distribution or a water tank, water heaters, furnaces or cooking stoves." The section seems to be silent on the question of ovens, assuming there is a difference between an oven and a "cooking stove." My understanding is that you can burn wood or anthracite coal or nuclear waste so long as you conform to the environmental and fire codes, which require that you provide various forms of insulation and fire suppression, and that your smokestack be equipped with a catalytic converter and that it clear the surrounding buildings by a certain number of feet. I don't have a particularly good mechanism for searching the codes, though -- I'm just reporting what I've heard from various people who have had success installing barbecue pits and wood-burning ovens.

It's noted in the article that he's going to be the chef at the Mandarin Oriental in DC -- not sure if you can count that as "his" place, unless it's a concession, but whatever -- but in two places it implies that he resigned last month, which is certainly not the case. In terms of his replacement, it seems one has been designated but not yet signed-on-the-dotted-line and announced. As soon as we get the official word, we'll post something.

Oakapple, if they keep closing these places, we're not going to be able to have much discussion on the classic-French-restaurants thread. I guess we'll have to rename it the Le Perigord thread.

You're very lucky to get good pizza on any given day even at the original Totonno's. The Upper East Side branch was always poor. There's no reason to think the managers of Totonno's, who give every indication of being completely incompetent save for the ability to turn out the occasional pizza that's as good what Totonno's used to serve, could open a branch with any sort of consistent high quality. In terms of the emissions and fire laws, I don't think they forbid coal ovens, wood ovens, or anything of the sort. I think the issue is that if you build a new one you have to conform to more regulations than if you just move in like a hermit crab and utilize an old one. Coals can either be in the chamber or under it. At Sally's they're under; at Pepe's they're in; etc.

There are a few misleading implications in that passage, standing alone: 1) It implies that Ziebold gave notice in the middle of the reconstruction after the fire, and 2) It implies that Benno is alone at Per Se, whereas I'm under the impression that Keller is there -- not that it matters, because Benno is perfectly capable of running that kitchen according to Keller's standards, and 3) It implies that Benno's sum total of experience with Keller is 6 days when in fact he was at French Laundry for something like a year before the Per Se opening.

(A new brain would be best.)

Some interesting discussion of Per Se today in the article Who Really Cooks Your Food?, by Julia Moskin. After documenting Keller's strategy for the phased Per Se opening and French Laundry reopening, the article goes on to say: Aside from the lack of supportiveness in the above quote -- which should have said "I have confidence in my people. Period." -- it's interesting that the Ziebold departure has received so little ink. Although, when the name of his replacement becomes public knowledge, it will make a big splash -- I promise. Not that the world needed another article about how -- surprise! -- the chef isn't always in the kitchen, but this one is at least worth reading for the ancillary information.