Schneier

PM me your address and I will mail you a few. Bruce

Just the leaves. No roots or dirt. But no one asked me about theml, so I didn't volunteer any details. Bruce

Nope. No zebra the night we were there. And we left in a meat coma, too. Flew back to Amsterdam that night... Bruce

BTW, the wine list was terrible.

Thanks. There are two more reviews to run (I think), and maybe they'll figure something out. Bruce

On a recent vacation in The Seychelles I collected a pile of cinnamon leaves. This isn't the bark they export, but the more flavorful leaves that they use themselves. Anyone have any idea what to do with them? One dish I saw had four leaves added to a mild yellow curry. They add flavor during cooking, and then are removed (like bay leaves). An idea I had was to add them to a pork chops and apple cider recipe that I make. Bruce

The Carnivore Restaurant in Nairobi is the kind of place vegetarians have nightmares about. It's billed as a place where you can get exotic game meats, the very animals you spent the day seeing running around in the wild. I scheduled a stop there immediately. The restaurant is large, with many many tables and a huge toroid open flame barbecue grill. Large chunks of meat are roasting on spits, definitely a carnivore's dream. A board near the grill lists the meats on the menu: a bunch of traditional items and crocodile, ostrich, and impala. There's no menu; dinner is fixed. First comes soup. Potato leek soup in our case, and nothing special. Then comes a two-tiered revolving tray of salads and sauces. A waiter described the various sauces to us: garlic sauce for the chicken and crocodile, barbecue sauce for the beef, fruit salsa for the pork, chili sauce for everything, mint sauce for the lamb, and red currant sauce for game. A waiter brings a hot (and I do mean hot) black metal plate, and then the meat starts coming. It's brought to the table on spits and carved off directly onto your plate, like a Brazilian steakhouse. Roast chicken - Good and flavorful, much better than America store-bought chicken. Barbecued pork ribs - Tasty, but not special. Barbecued chicken wings - Eh. Beef roast - Overcooked; only okay. Ostrich - This was delicious. Rich and flavorful, and not too gamey. Maybe my favorite meat of the night. Crocodile - Honesty, it tasted like the grill, maybe a little fishy. It probably could have used a more mild preparation. Lamb - I thought it was pretty perfect, but my wife liked it less. Chicken gizzards - Man, these were good. They were cooked in some kind of tomatoish cilantro sauce (not on the grill), and totally unlike any gizzards I'd ever cooked. Chicken livers - Overcooked. Pork leg - Delicious roast. They left the skin on, which was an extra treat. Impala - These were spiced meatballs. Honestly, I thought it was a gyp. What does impala taste like? I have no idea. The spiced meatballs could have been anything. Pork sausage - Eh. Beef sausage - Better, but still eh. None of the sauces were really worth it, although the garlic sauce was the best of the lot. The salads--a corn salad, a spicy tomato salad, cole slaw, and a green salad with a nondescript creamy dressing--were unmemorable. (Although you had no choice but to eat salad, as a counterpoint to all the meat.) We also got served a baked potato each. It's an all-you-can-eat restaurant, but they do their best to control the amount of food you get. Waiters don't continually stroll the restaurant with their spits, offering you more and more food. They come to your table deliberately and in order, offering you a single serving of each meat. You can request more of anything you want, but you have to flag a waiter down and ask. And when you're done, you are supposed to take down the little paper flag on your revolving sauce tray. Then someone clears everything off--and brings your dessert menu. Dessert is also included. We had some terrible cheesecake and some delicious sorbets. And then the meal was done. Cost was $25 per person, including everything. The restaurant claims to have a vegetarian menu, but I can't imagine what they would eat. Carnivore is a tourist trap. It was filled on a weekday night, entirely with tourists. But it's a brilliant tourist trap. I'll bet that most tourists who come to Kenya for safari stop at the Carnivore restaurant either before or afterwards. How could they not? I'm glad I went there once, but I wouldn't do it again. Bruce

I wish I knew they had a kitchen table. Bruce

Tell everyone about "Homo Milk." It'll be great to see everyone from the U.S. argue about it. Bruce

We've been laid off. According to our editor at The Star-Tribune's "South" section, she has a limit as to the number of articles she can buy from freelancers. She knew that there was such a limit, but didn't realize that it was as low as it was. Se has to fire all of her freelancers, including us. She's going to try to fight this. Her problem is that the jobs she hires freelancers for are so small and so specialized that she can't hire a full-timer for them. Our job, for example, requires someone with food knowledge and takes about one day every two weeks. She can't reasonably find a single person to cover restaurants, high-school sports, the local police blotter, and whatever other small writing beats she has. At least, that's her argument. But this is undoubably a union rule,and that will make it difficult to fight. I'm looking into joining the union, but I don't know if that will help. So we're going to write up the Italian Pie Shoppe--with that fetching double "p"--and then we're done until we hear otherwise. We still have to review Singapore! for Mix, though. We'll try to organize an expedition there in mid-March. B

I'm going to Kenya tommorrow. (They've got lions, unlike...for example...Norway.) I'm overnighting in Nairobi on my way to the Seychelles, and don't know if I will have the time or inclination for any dinner. But I'll let you know. Bruce

Two nights ago I had dinner in La Rive, in the Amsterdam Intercontinental Hotel. It's a beautiful dining room, with huge windows overlooking the Amstel River. Once, glancing out of the window, I thought I was in Venice. The restaurant has a bunch of dishes a la carte, and two tasting menus: a six- and a seven-course. We had the smaller menu, with the wine pairings. On the table when we sat down were some fried green olives (delicious) and what can only be described as gourmet Terra Chips. The first Amuse Bouche was a piece of grilled codfish with onion and black olives. Very good. Then came a plate of three more treats: a small bowl of cauliflower mousse, some turbot with mashed potato, and a small piece of foie gras on toast. All very good, but the turbot was delicious. A nice hint of things to come. Course 1: This was a thin sheet of artichoke under some pasta in a cream sauce, and then topped with some crisp fried vegetables, with bits of green olive tapenade on the side. After serving the plates the waiter poured a Pecorino and basil sauce over the dish. (Pouring sauces tableside was one of the "things" at this restaurant. It happened with most courses.) It was a very tasty dish. The wine was an Italian Pinot Noir: 2001 St. Michael-Eppan. It was okay, but not great. Not a particularly good pairing, though. Course 2: Sauteed scallops with vegetables--tomato, onion, eggplant, zuccini--and a bouillabaisse sauce with rouille. It was much lighter than it sounds, and also good. The wine was a 2001 Marta San Giovanni Collli Ascolani. I thought this was too oaky, and didn't have enough fruit. Not a great pairing, either. Course 3: Dish of the night. A piece of grilled turbot wrapped in thinly sliced potato and served with stewed chard and veal sauce, with black truffles. Again, this dish was much lighter than it sounds. The wine was also a good one: a 199 Gruner Veltliner Smaragd Nikolaifhof, Wachau. Course 4: Slices from a roasted saddle of venison, served with a creamy green cabbage with bits of foie gras, pearl onions, and a beautiful finey-chopped vegetable sauce. The venison was very gamey, and occasionally tasted like liver. Another excellent dish. The wine was the best pairing of the night: a Bordeaux. 1996 Le Benjamin de Beauregard Pomeral. The fifth course was the cheese course. Instead of each of us choosing a few cheeses, we asked the waiter to select a whole lot of cheeses, and make us a single plate for the center of the table. We ended up with all kinds of stuff: Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian. For wine we were offered some Port, or more of the Bordeaux. We all chose the latter. Dessert was a pair of sweet vanilla tortellini filled with with white chocolate cream, and served with marinated blood oranges and more cream. The wine was a 2002 Freinsheimer Rosenbuhl , Silvaner-Weisburgunder Icewine, Rheinphalz. Very good accompaniment to the dessert. Service was odd. It was professional and friendly, which I appreciate. But on four separate occasions a waiter tried to take one of our dishes when we were still eating it. We weren't being rushed; there was no wait for the table and our meal took three and a half hours. But having our plates snatched away from us made us feel rushed, and we didn't appreciate that. Price: 350 euros per couple, including a before-dinner Kir Royale, much bottled water, and after-dinner liqueur. Too much for what we got, in my opinion. I think I prefer Amsterdam's less formal and lower cost options. Bruce

In my opinion, Kantjil en de Tijger (Spuistraat 291-293, Tel: 020 620 09 94) serves the best Indonesian rijsttafel in Amsterdam. I've mentioned it earlier in this thread, but I went there a few days ago so I thought I'd mention it again. A rijsttafel is basically a varying menu of all sorts of Indonesian dishes. It's all served together, and it rapidly turns into "too many dishes than can fit on the table." I can't even begin to list them all, but there was beef, pork, chicken, fish, shrimp, vegetables, and, of course, rice. The food just came and came, peanut sauces, coconut sauces, tangy barbecue sauces, ginger-tomato sauces. Everything is really good here, and it's great fun to come with a large group so you can share everything. Cost was about 20 euros a person, but that is because we ordered three "rijstaffel for two" for the eight of us. It was more than enough food. Bruce

Dining South: Junior's Cafe and Grill in Eagan Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune Published February 18, 2004 Strip malls don't work in Minnesota, and here's why: When it's 10 degrees below zero, you really need a second door between the bitter weather and the store. But once you've entered Junior's and found a seat away from the icy blasts coming from the door, fill up and warm up with the kind of basic grill cooking you used to find all over America before the rise of fast food. What we like best about Junior's Cafe and Grill in Eagan is the friendly, family-run atmosphere. No, we like the tender tasty pot roast. No, it's the mashed potatoes. Well . . .let's be honest. We adore the cheap, cheap prices. Imagine a huge half-pound burger on a grilled bun and served with a giant pile of hot fries for $4. Even better, try the blue-plate specials. These include the pot roast we like so much, country-fried steak lost in white-pepper gravy, meat loaf and several other choices. You'll get real lumpy mashed potatoes --the kind where you sometimes find flecks of potato peel -- and an OK piece of corn on the cob. And thick sliced Texas toast, grilled with some Parmesan cheese. It's a huge plate of food and will run you between $5 and $6. Sandwiches are just as affordable, with the Philly cheesesteak priced at $5. And that comes with fries. Philadelphia is a long way from here, and this version could use more onions, but it still is an acceptable rendition. The burrito is bland and uninspiring, as is the chili. And the soup and chili should both be served hotter. Junior's is open for breakfast, too. Where else can you get two eggs, hash-brownsed potatoes and toast for $3, with additional bacon or sausage for $1? The most expensive breakfast on the menu is $7, and that's for either the Cajun andouille sausage breakfast or the Tex-Mex breakfast. This place is one of the great south-of-the-river deals, make no mistake. Now, it's not perfect. Next time we're in, we're going to ask them to grill our burgers without using the meat press that squeezes the patties dry. We don't mind waiting an extra minute or three for a juicy burger, and neither should you. And we implore Junior's to ditch that butter-flavored oil they use to grill the buns. Spring for real butter guys, please. Minnesota is a dairy state, and we can tell the difference. And we want Heinz, not that no-name ketchup on the table, too. We want malts and fresh-made, hand-dipped onion rings. But hey, there's time. Junior's opened Nov. 2. They're still on a bit of a honeymoon.

Sorry. I was busy and forgot to post. Bruce

Our waiter told us about this. He said that it would b e a "dim sum" restaurant, whatever that means in this context. Bruce

I've been to Opus (many years ago), North 44, and Scaramouche. Susur is the best meal I've ever eaten in Toronto. Bruce

Citronelle is my favorite high-end restaurant in DC. I don't get to go very often, but I always enjoy myself when I do go. And it's even more fun now, as our very own Mark Sommelier works there. It was my first time meeting him (although me might have been there when I ate there previously), and that was kind of fun. They offer two set menus: the "Laurence Menu," which is what we had, and the even longer "Michel Menu." Wine pairings are offered with both menu. We had the Laurence Menu, which was more than enough food. And a wine pairing. "Amuse Bouche." It was a few spoonfulles of tomato water, with little bits of green bean, tomato, and caviar...served in an eggshell. Very pretty, and very tasty. Okay, it was very very pretty. "Eggplant Tart." Think of amini pizza, about three inches in diameter. Even worse, think of a mini frozen pizza: the ultra thin crust, the not-quite-there flavors. Eggplant and gruyere was what it was supposed to be, but I couldn't tell. This dish was an absolute clunker. "Irish Coffee, mushroom consomme and potato chantilly." It wasn't Irish coffee, but it looked like Irish coffee. It came in a tall bar glass, and was a thick dark mushroom consomme on the bottom and white potato--do I use the word?--foam on top. A straw stood up in the center. This was the only dish that came with instructions; we were supposed to drink from the top and the bottom with the straw, but not mix the two liquids. I really enjoyed this. "Vitello Tonato, caper emulsion." A beautiful and delicious dish. The thin slices of tuna and veal were perfectly assembled; it looked like a piece of layer cake. The caper sauce accented the flavors beautifully. Perfect in every way. "Boudin Blanc, cinnamon port sauce." The sausage was duck confit and foie gras--not your traditional boudin blanc by any stretch of the imagination. But it was tasty, even though the very fine forcemeat felt odd at first. "Lobster Medallion, roasted artichoke, citronelle sauce." Nothing wrong with this dish. "Squab, leg confit, minute steak breast, macaroni gratin, and black truffle." This was a complated dish. It came on a big square plate, with four little plates on it--kind of like a bento box. Little plate one: squab breast with squab jus and black truffle. Little plate two: penne pasta with squab mousse and foie gras, held together in a little cake. Little plate three: basil crusted squab leg. Little plate four: shredded snow peas. Dessert. We ordered two desserts for the two of us. I completely forgot about one of them, because I was so taken by the other. It's called "Breakfast for Dessert," and it is just about the silliest dessert I have ever seen. It's worth going to Citronelle just for this dessert. There's nothing breakfasty on the plate, but it all looks like breakfast. You get a yellow hemisphere of some peach something in the middle of a cream cheese sauce--that's the fried egg. You get two strips of crispy black-and-white chocolate puff pastry--that's the bacon. You get cubes of cinnamon apples with raspberry sauce; it looked so much like hash browns and ketchup that I had trouble eating it. You get two triangles of pound cake and a small dallop of vanilla ice cream--toast and butter. And finally there's a passion fruit merangue mixture that's served in an eggshell and looks for all the world like a soft boiled egg. Breakfast for dessert--you have to order it. And finally, Petit Fours. Some of them were really good, but my notes kind of petered out at that point. As usual, an excellent meal. Bruce

I had dinner earlier this week at Susur. Susur is probably Toronto's most interesting restaurant. Chef Susur Lee cooks creative Asian-French fusion cuisine, and is known for beautiful presentations. It's the one Toronto restaurant I was most interested in trying. The restaurant is muted white, with long clear lines. White walls, white cielings, white tablecloths, white chairs. The dark floors and small decorations are pretty accents, and the whole room feels serene. Unfortunately, it's also noisy when crowded. But when the room is empty, the feeling is serene and simple. Which is in stark contrast to the food. The food is complicated. Every course has a huge number of ingredients, and they're put together in interesting ways. Some courses are compilations of smaller dishes, arranged artfully on the plate. Everything is arranged artfully on the plate. Some of the plates are so beautiful you don't want to mess it up by eating it. But eating is the point, and thankfully the food doesn't fall over itself. With very few exceptions, the complicated dishes worked well. I really enjoyed my meal here. There are dishes you can order a la carte, but the real deal are the tasting menus. There is a three-course menu, a five-course menu, and a seven-course menu. The waiter explains that they can be tailored to individual tastes and allergies, although the menu warns that people with allergies may have problems with the menus. The menus are also served in reverse order, with the heavy meat first and moving backwards towards the lighter dishes. I don't know what I think of that. And here I am writing this up, almost 24 hours after the meal, and I STILL don't know what I think of it. It's interesting. It makes wine pairings harder. But I'm not sure. We didn't order wine. And, of course, we ordered the seven-course menu. But wait! There's more! They don't have one menu, they have two. And they send out one of each for the two of us, allowing us to try both. Of course we switched plates in the middle, which means that the number of different dishes we would try became fourteen. I liked this place already. (A note on the notes: I tried taking notes, I really did. I did okay for the first few courses, but there were just too many ingredients. I gave up about halfway through. The waiter was nice enough to write our menu down after the meal, and anything in quotes is from that piece of paper.) Amuse Bouche: A celery root blini, topped with lobster salad and Oestra caviar. A tuna crisp with saffron aoli and a dill pickle. Both were intersting and tasty, and a nice portent of things to come. First Course: "Smoked squab with a spicy barbecue sauce." This was the only questionable dish, so it was probably best to get it out of the way early. The squab was perfectly cooked, and delicious. It was served with mashed potato and a corn compote, both of which were fine. The harcot vert and rhubarb bundle wrapped in bacon was pretty. But the barbeque sauce was out of place. It didn't work. It didn't tie the dish together. it jarred. "Smoked beef filet tenderloin topped with a porcini and bone marrow crust. Back olive and artichoke Stilton sauces." Much better. There were three sauces on the plate: the black olive sauce, the artichoke sauce, and a tomato puree. They blended beautifully, and were delicious. There was also a potato cake thingy. Second Course: "Soy marinated foie gras terrine with a fresh fig and port aspic. Foie gras bavarois with a black currant preserve." This was the cold foie gras course. The figs worked perfectly with the foie gras. The black currant did, too. It was also the prettiest presentation of the night. "Squab ballantine, ball of duck confit, and seared foie gras. Flavors: green onion, lemongrass, tamarind, and mango-saffron." This was the cold foie gras course. It was really three things: the seared foie gras with a slice of tamerillo, the hot squab ballantine, and the ball of duck confit wrapped in, I think, leek. The "flavors" above were four parallel stripes of sauce. It was the second prettiest presentation of the night, and also very good. Third Course: "Wuxi pork with a pork braise sauce, roasted pear with apricot puree." My notes started petering out right about here, and I don't remember what else was in the dish that didn't get written down by the waiter. It was a good dish, though. Not great, but good. "Ham with a tamarind sauce, marinated endive salad." It was a piece of braised ham, a piece of cooked endive, and a very interesting daikon cake wrapped in tofu skin. It was only an okay dish. Fourth Course: "Hamachi salad with rice crisp vermicelli, julienne carrots, diakon, and cucumber, salted plum and ginger dressing. This dish was fantastic. It was cold and light and crunchy and refreshing, just about the best palate cleanser you could ask for. "Marinated citrus sable fish with citrus segments and an herb infused oil, topped with a squid ink crisp." Another good dish. Ignore the "squid ink crisp"; it was a tastless black noodle. But the sable was perfectly cooked, and the dish worked really well. Fifth Course: "Oxtail ravioli with a smoked oyster and truffle sauce, shaved black truffles." "Shrimp flan with lobster, pink peppercorn lobster bisque." Both were very tasty. I remember the lobster being rich and flavorful, and the oyster being huge. The black truffle worked well with the dish, which I didn't expect. Sixth Course: "Tomato consomme with tapioca and lemongrass." I thought the tapioca was more for show than for flavor, but the soup was delicious. It was hot and light, and the lemongrass gave it the slightest of kick. And it was the only course we didn't have to divide in half so we could swap plates in the middle. Seventh Course: This was dessert. It wasn't written down, so I'll try to work from memory. The two plates each had four things on them. The passion fruit flan was the absolute winner. The liquid chocolate cake--I know, I know--was second. The banana tiramisu was also delicious. There was another chocolate-cake-like thingy that was okay, and another flan topped with whipped cream that wasn't any better. There was also a gooseberry dipped in something, and a chocolate truffle. We were full, anyway. The bill came in at $125 per person--and that's Candian. A fantastic deal, I thought. Bruce

I know what you mean. I really enjoy writing introductions for books I'm glad to see published. Bruce

Wow. That is sad. I'm really curious what the story is. Bruce

I made that chicken dish two nights ago, and served a young Chinon with it. Bruce

This is great news. St. John is my favorite London restaurant. Bruce

Renaming bathrooms. Bruce

There's a U.S. map showing which words are used in what parts of the country. Bruce