Dryden
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Posts posted by Dryden
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By the way, when we were there, the thai lettuce wraps were really great... What kind of lettuce is it?
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Thank you! Very glad you enjoyed it!! Hope you'll say hello next time you come by!
Will do!
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Sarma-
Just wanted to say that we had dinner at PFW on Saturday and it was wonderful. As we live in the neighborhood, we look forward to being back very soon!
By the way, what happens with the outdoor garden if it starts to rain?
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It could be that the found the prices somewhat high for what they were eating, though I agree with your commentary. I've always felt the same way about Honmura An - people say it's expensive, but I've never had a meal there come close to $100... How can it? It's only noodles. But for noodles, somewhat expensive.
PFW is somewhat expensive for just being vegetables. Compared to the average meat-serving restaurant, it's a deal.
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My folks will be there for their 30th wedding anniversary on the 10th of August. It will be their first time at Bouley since the original closed... I know they are looking forward to it very much.
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Depends what "everything" includes, I guess, although I like my bagels to be relatively uncomplicated, lest the flavor get too confusing.
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Four ways to eat a bagel, for me:
1. With butter, toasted (this is the only time toasting a bagel is acceptable, especially if you're in a deli where they shout "Hot buttered bagel!"
2. With cream cheese (scallion/chive or plain), untoasted (or toasted if the bagel is old)
3. With cream cheese and sliced nova (lox). This is the "standard" NY bagel.
4. The creme de la creme of bagels: An onion or garlic bagel from H&H with chive cheese from Zabar's, topped with nova and smoked sturgeon. It's doesn't get much better than this. Smoked fish from Russ & Daughters or Murray's is acceptable also.
Or you can do any of the above with a bialy, which is nice, too. But I've never toasted one.
Never seen the point of onions and tomatoes and lettuce and all that stuff if you have some nice fish on there, just ruins the flavor.
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From Busboy's original post:
The cut where the nova is represents a horizontal cut and is obviously vital to eating a bagel with anything on it.
The other cut (the one that goes vertically through the hole) is a crime against nature.
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Busboy's notes about his food trip around New York, and his question regarding bagel toasting, got me thinking. Over the years, I have gotten into many a heated discussion with New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers alike over what is inappropriate to do to a bagel.
As one who was born and raised in NYC, 13 blocks south of H&H and Zabar's, it has always been incomprehensible to me to cut a bagel in half vertically. To do so is to treat it like any other form of sandwich bread, which I categorically believe it is not.
What do other folks think of this? Am I the only bagel purist left in the world?
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Give anyone a seltzer spritzer (which are hard to find, I grant you) and a bottle of Fox's U-Bet and they can make the world's greatest egg cream. I used to make them at my fraternity house in Boston when I felt homesick...
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Paul Kirk's grill has, evidently, been found.
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Someone has stolen Paul Kirk's grill.
Read about it here.
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Ellen-
If you like 'em peaty, try most any Islay - Lag, Ardberg, Bowmore, Laphroaig.
They should all do good by you.
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Can't ever go wrong with Mac, or Lagavulin for that matter (although it is a bit peaty for some). How do you like your single malts? Peatier or lighter? More alcoholic or less?
Springbank 25 is another beauty to give a try.
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If you're looking for great food (and great congee as well, incidentally) you might want to try Big Wong King on Mott south of Canal. Their congee is first rate, and their steamed chicken and chow fun are out of this world.
One note on the chow fun - eat it in groups. It's delicious, but there is so much oil used in cooking it, you can literally feel your arteries harden as you eat it. I usually try to mix it up with some congee to mitigate this effect, your mileage may vary.
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Honmura An is still phenomenal, but I've never had the ramen, just soba.
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This may be the funniest thread I've ever read on here. Maybe you could have Mr. Trillin encapsulate it in his next book. Urbane NY folks going off the deep end for what is considered "everyday fare" in the parts of the US where it originates from.
I've always found this interesting with regard to Sunday brunch in New York, especially as a native NYer... So many of the chic popular places (Friend of a Farmer comes to mind) serve what amounts to Southern or Midwestern diner food, charge 3 to 5 times what you'd pay in those places, and people stand on line to eat it...
Mystifying. But for barbecue, well, great barbecue is worth anything.
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On another note, Jason's pics are making me hungry again, dammit.
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Well, better late than never, I wanted to check in with our experiences from the event.
A friend of ours, the wife and I arrived around 1 PM on Saturday - fortunately, we live on 22nd street, so we came up through the 23rd street entrance and got on the short line for tickets. $70 in cuepons later (which I thought would be enough, I couldn't have been more wrong), we wandered over to the barbecue free-for-all and got busy.
We thought we were on the line for Mitchell's, but apparently has ended up on the KC Barbecue line. This was for the best, as it turned out to be our best surprise of the day (we knew how good Mitchell's would be when we finally got to it...) At this point, I split off from my spouse and found the end of the Mitchell's line to start waiting.
Good tip for those in large crowds without benefit of many cell phones - If you have a hat, you can wave it around over your head so people can find you! This worked out very well for us...
When they finally got back with the KC brisket, it was amazing - so amazing, in fact, we didn't even realize it was beef until we had almost finished eating it (I swear, it tasted like pork). There was definitely some variability to the cuts, some with much more fat than others, but this is the best brisket I've ever eaten.
At this point, we had gotten to the front of the Mitchell's line, and my wife, always observant, asks if we can get some extra pork cracklins, which Ed and crew happily oblige. The meat was out of this world, but I have to say, the cracklins really did it for us. If you're a fan of pork rinds and skin of any kind, I don't see how it gets much better than this. Supremely crunchy, heavily salted - they were perfection.
At this point, I got on the line for Mike Mills and crew, while my wife went off to buy more cuepons and get some drinks ($40 later, we were good for the day). A lot of excellent line-bonding went on, and to be fair, the lines did move fairly well. It took about 40 minutes to cover most of the length of 26th street to get over to the Memphis ribs, and aside from needing to point out to line jumpers every five minutes that we were not the back of the line, it wasn't a bad experience at all. About 2/3 of the way along, we also had one of those great NY experiences. My friend noticed a mutual friend of ours waiting on the Salt Lick line, just about ready to get their cue. Well, 5 minutes later, we had Salt Lick food, and they were waiting on line for some ribs. The sausage was delicious, and the cole slaw was very well done, vinegary and not too creamy at all, but the brisket wasn't good. Too rubbery, and no real flavor. It was the only thing that didn't get eaten.
We finally made it to 17th Street around 3 o'clock, got 5 plates of ribs and sat down to eat. They were incredible, just the kind I remember from trips to Nashville and Memphis - easily the best in the city. Very sorry to hear they weren't as good on Sunday, because they were by far the best thing going on Saturday. We picked up a vanilla frozen custard to end our day.
Late Sunday afternoon, we came back around 5 PM to use up our remaining cuepons and try some of Bob Gibson's cue to round out the slate. Sadly, we were told the snoot folks had run out around 2, so we didn't get to try any. :-(
The lines were being directed far, far better, and the organizers had done a great job of setting up cuepon sales on each line by the pits, so people could get enough to use up their cuepons. Very well run at this point, I would imagine next year will be vastly better in terms of organization and planning. Bob's pork shoulder was good, if a bit cold by this point, but we got some ribs from Blue Smoke, which were delicious, and some more brisket from the KC folks. My wife also asked them to throw in some of the cut ends, burnt and fatty and delicious, which they did, free of charge. All in all, a great finish to the weekend.
If I had to rate 'em:
17th Street Ribs
Mitchell's Cracklins
KC Brisket
Mitchell's Pork
Salt Lick Sausages
Blue Smoke Ribs
Bob Gibson's Pork
Salt Lick Brisket
Can't wait to be back next year!
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If you like the macoun (my entire family is obsessed with them...) you might also want to try the honeycrisp. It's very macoun-like (I believe macouns are one of the parent strains) but quite a bit bigger, and we've found that the quality doesn't seem to vary as much. That is, while I've come across some really bad macouns over the years, there doesn't seem to be as much of a low end for the honeycrisps, possibly because they're so new.
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Having just read through this thread, I thought it might be worthwhile to add an actual review of the place, since having looked through John Whiting's review earlier, I'm not sure it paints an accurate picture of the establishment.
We wife and I were in France for our honeymoon in September. It was our first trip to France, and over the span of several days in Paris, we ate at L'Atelier (twice), Pierre Gagnaire, and cancelled a meal at Taillevent (to go to L'Atelier the second time).
First of all, going. The restaurant opens at 6:30. They take reservations for the 6:30 seating only, after that it is a strict no-reservations policy. We went twice for the early seating so as to better plan our evenings.
The decor of the restaurant is simply beautiful. If you think of food and cookery as art, this is the place for you. Try to get a seat with a good view of the center of the restaurant. The place is done entirely in red and black lacquer, and puts off a classy Asian vibe. The real star of the decorating is the food. The two counters are laid out in a sort of U shape, with the open kitchen in the middle. There is an impressive array of the nicest produce I have ever seen accenting the kitchen as well, which is used during service. The ingredients on Iron Chef are, frankly, not as nice as these. All of the hot preparation is done in full view of the diners in small copper saucepans. During the two occasions we were there, the preparation was as quiet as could be. Not 10 words were spoken by the staff, who performed all of their work flawlessly. Mr. Robuchon was not, apparently, in residence at the time of our visit. I am a pretty large guy, about 6 feet tall, 230 plus pounds. I carry some weight on my frame. The place was very full when we were there, but we did not have any trouble with having enough room on our stools.
This is not a restaurant to go to if you are looking for 3 star service. It is a place to go if you are looking for impeccable service without the stiffness and formality that a 3 star restaurant brings to the party. It is also probably worth mentioning that neither my wife or I can speak French worth a damn.
As for the menu, there are two parts: regular meal sized portions, and tasting sized portions. Here's a copy of the menu.
At any rate, we went in for several of the tasting portions. 3 or 4 per person would probably be appropriate, depending on how hungry you are. All of the dishes we had were great, but I will say that the more interesting you allow the chef to be, the more you will be rewarded. Foie gras, as much as I love it, eaten by itself can only be so good - it's not as if the chef is making it himself. It's very much akin to going to a steakhouse. The quality of the meal says more about their ability to choose great meat than it does the chef's ability to cook it.
In particular, the supreme of pigeon with foie gras is quite possibly the single best dish my wife or I have ever eaten. It is simply perfection on a plate. The creamed potatoes which come with the dish are somehow almost as good. How, as gingerbread noted, potatoes can be "too creamy", I have no idea. If I could cream potatoes like these, I would be eating them every day, dying of a cholesterol overdose by the end of the month, and be as happy as a clam doing it. The potatoes also came with a saddle of lamb the nights we were there, which was also excellent, although not as good as the pigeon. The sweetbreads and shrimp with herb vermicelli also stand out in my mind as having been exceptionally excellent.
The wine list is good, and not overpriced. We were able to find, with the help of the very friendly waitstaff, several excellent half bottles that complimented the food beautifully.
For dessert, the souffle is not to be missed. It is a thing of beauteous perfection, as is the scoop of pistachio ice cream that vanishes into it when inserted by the server. The assortment of ice creams and sorbets is also most impressive, as is the mille feuille.
Dinner for the two of us, about 8 tasting dishes, 2 desserts, a half bottle of wine and coffee, came to about 160 euro or so. This was easily the best value I've ever paid for a meal of this quality. The experience was vastly more enjoyable for us (and about 1/3 of the price) as what we experience 2 days later at Pierre Gagnaire, and the food was in many ways just as good, if not better in some instances.
This is a culinary experience not to be missed. If I only had one meal to eat in Paris, it would be here. If I only had one meal left to eat on earth, it might well be here, too.
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One of the best places in NYC to get Pocky (and Pretz, the sadly neglected savory half-cousin of Pocky) has always been Sunrise Mart on St. Marks Place.
How do I know this? They used to have a sign in the elevator, from Timeout NY, that said (and I swear I am not making this up) "Best Place In New York To Buy Pocky Award Winner". I planned to steal the sign for the longest time - sadly, someone beat me to it.
It's funny how you can have a huge discussion with a complete stranger just by mentioning Pocky in public. It's sort of a secret Japanese snack food code word...
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For those looking in Manhattan, my wife (who happens to be Chinese, so I speak with authority, or something like that) and I (who happens to be Jewish, so I speak with even more authority) have always had great eggrolls at, of all places, Ollie's on Broadway between 67th and 68th.
I can't even begin to explain how this is, but pork, shrimp - it's all in there. And just the right amount of grease to soak your napkin, too.
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In an effort to make sure that this thread is anatomically correct, this is the proper way to sex a lobster (all of that crap about tail width not withstanding)
Pick up the lobster in question. Flip it over. Look at the small pair of appendages in front of the walking legs. On the female, these are soft and feathery. On the male, they are hard shelled and feel not dissimilar from the walking legs.
You will never incorrectly sex a lobster again with this method. Why does it always work? Those hard things on the male are his genitals. They pierce the shell of the female to hold them still. The feathery parts on the female are used to sweep the male sperm into the egg sac, to ensure fertilization.
Anyone who tells you different is lyin'.
Per Se
in New York: Dining
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Can you shed some light on how the crispy bone marrow is done? It was amazing when we were there - we'd never seen anything like it.