Rachel Perlow

Great reporting, I felt like I was there.

Aw, shaddup you "sick...hayseed"!

Klc, you really hit the mark with that post. Bravo!

I got a couple of butter specimens at International Food Warehouse in Lodi. 1) Makabi brand, Beurre de Normandie, $1.59 (on sale) for 125g/4.4oz. Fabriqué en Normandie, Ingredients: Pasteurised (sic) cream, lactic starters. The kosherness of this product is mentioned all over the label, Int’l Foods has a lot of products meant for the Israeli market. 2) Spomlek brand, Extra Maslo, $1.99 for 200g/7oz, 82.5% fat. They even have a website: Spomlek Dairy Cooperative. I believe this is a Polish brand, the product is pictured to the right. "In 1992 EXTRA BUTTER manufactured in SPOMLEK dairy took the second place at Home Butter Quality Assessement." Edit: just did a tasting of each on whole wheat toast. They both have a very clean sweet butter taste. I didn't detect any tang from bacterial starters. I think I liked the flavor of the Extra Maslo a wee bit over the Makabi, but only by a fraction of a percentage point. Given that the price is 20% less (by weight), if I were presented with both I would buy the Spomlek Extra Maslo. However, since Int'l Food Warehouse never seems to have the same brands of things in subsequent visits, there will probably be more experimenting in the future.

Chinese Chicken Corn soup. If I'm feeling under the weather, Jason'll pick me up some from the good take out place in town. Usually don't want it at any other time. Oh, Ginger Ale for an upset tummy, otherwise tea with honey and lemon.

Just a friendly reminder that we believe Saigon Republic is about to get incredibly busy, like from this Sunday onward. :wink: So if you haven't tried it yet, or it's become your favorite place, go now before the maddening hordes "discover" this cute Vietnamese bistro.

Which reminds me, Bangkok Garden in Hackensack is open Mondays while Wondee's is closed.

There is a similar thread in the cooking forum, but I thought this was better suited here. King Sushi inside Han Ah Reum in Hackensack (by Rt 46 circle) or Little Ferry. I have a business card for the one in Little Ferry: 201-814-0400 - Sushi Corner phone 201-814-1426 - fax 206 Bergen Turnpike, Little Ferry 07643 "Phone orders are welcome" Sashimi Deluxe: $60 (7-8 people), $50 (5-6), $40 (4-6), $30 (3-4) Sushi: $50 (7-8), $30 (4-5) I only have the card for the Little Ferry store, but the one in Hackensack, behind Value City had a bigger sushi corner, if that matters. I've never ordered a platter from them, but their sushi to go area is very good and the pictures of their platters looked good.

Actually, in addition to the crab (which should be an acceptable substitute for the dungenes crab mentioned above, we have both Normandy Butter and some other kind of European butter to contribute due to a recent trip to the International Food Warehouse in Lodi. (I told the manager there they need to stock Pocky.) Shall we come over on the Fouth?

As discussed in the East Saigon thread, Ciao Bella in Cresskill is open on Mondays, actually 7 days a week. Rosie is the Ciao Bella in Hackensack run by the same people? I haven't been to either. Solaris in Hackensack is also open on Mondays.

The Ciao Bella was in answer to the 'what's not closed on Mondays?' part of your original post.

I know what you mean. Meatloaf is a dish that a diner should do well. I was in a "big salad" mood, and that one sounded good to me. It probably wasn't as much the 'seafood in a diner' thing as it was the 'seafood on a Monday' thing, I suspect. My dad's regular order at the Millburn Diner was the whole baby trout or flounder. My mom almost always gets stuffed flounder or sole, but I wasn't about to try the halibut francaise they had as a dinner special. As for soups, Jason loves to get matzo ball soup as a diner test, TCD didn't have it, we tried the soups they had. I didn't think either was bad. Actually, I liked mine.

Oh, I'm so sorry you ended up at East Saigon. If you had only done a search, the thread titled Vietnamese Restaurants in North Jersey mentions and dismissed that place pretty quickly. On the other hand, you could have had a decent chinese meal at Taipai Noodle House, owned by the same family that owns East Saigon. I think it is the best of the asians on Cedar Lane. Here's a Monday suggestion that I wish Jason and I had taken. Ciao Bella in Cresskill is open 7 nights a week. We were heading there when we did our usual, "let's see if the diner is packed again" detour. Since it wasn't (well it was packed, but there was a table available w/out waiting), we didn't go to Ciao Bella, to which we've been recommended several times, but it always has a line. I called, they were open and not packed, we should've kept driving. Well, there's always next Monday.

Jason wants me to add my comments, but I think he summed it up pretty well. For the record, my "Key West Salad" had shrimp and scallops, the scallops were better than the shrimp, which tasted a little fishy. Maybe I shouldn't have ordered seafood on Monday? My soup was good, I thought Jason's was just OK. Service issue - the main course came about two minutes after the soup, in other words we were still eating the soup. Bussers were non-existant. When I was ready to start on my salad a more competant server than our own was nearby and grabbed the bowl. Jason didn't mention the bread. We were served a plate of sliced bread, laid out in a spiral pattern with a little dish of diced tomatoes, like for do it yourself bruscetta. Half of the bread was toasted hard, presumably to be eaten with the tomato, half was soft, and an eggier bread. However, the bruscetta toasts were much, much thicker than the fresh bread, too thick for bruscetta. I would reverse the thickness, or just skip the bruscetta thing and simply serve good bread or rolls, which I was hoping would be served. We were asked when we left "how was everything?" What could we do? We told them. I was trying to be nice about it, because I really want it to be a great diner, as we live in the area. I gave them the web address and hope they take the notes offered here by us and others as constructive criticism and make improvements. If you are here, please feel free to log in and post replies. Let us know what changes you agree or disagree need to be made. I'm surprised Jason didn't mention this part: the first time we were there he noticed their computer ordering system. Very sophisticated for a diner. Cool. I think they have aspirations to be a sophisticated restaurant with a diner atmosphere. However, what Tenafly needs is not another sophisticated restaurant, but a real diner. We'll go back in a while like Jason said, I suppose we shouldn't judge too harshly without having sampled the standard diner fare like a turkey club sandwich or burgers.

I've seen those in the store. Very cool, but I only have so much room, those things take up even more counterspace. Not to mention money.

I have recently been chastised for not posting about our Gramercy Tavern experience in a GT thread. So, here is what I posted in the Crisis Management thread about our dinner on June 25th. Addendum: I believe it has been mentioned elsewhere, or at least known that Christopher is no longer at GT. He has been promoted to Front Manager/Maitre'D at Union Square Cafe. We wish him much success with his new job.

You may want to back up and review the links to our photos. I've added some, deleted others, and written captions. Click here is the current album, Kitchen Construction. The roofer we found (thank you for all the referrals) worked out great. We ended up using someone recommended to me at work, but I had some of your referrals out for estimates. As I mentioned earlier, we removed the skylight and are doing a tray ceiling in the Dining Room. This created a much larger feel to the Dining Room and I think it will help to differentiate between the two adjoining spaces. We have ordered the pot-filler and the plumbing for it is installed. Unfortunately, all the work on the plumbing necessitated turning the hot water heater and gas on and off over the course of last week and on Wednesday I noticed a lack of hot water. There were worries of having to replace the HWH, but the repairs were pretty minor, just needed an new thermocoupler (whatever that is). Tomorrow the electrician comes back to finish up, then we have the town inspections of plumbing and electrical. Hopefully the finish construction will begin soon.

I don't know about Nina, but I am. RPerlow Former Special Events Vice President* Hillel at the University of Delaware * I cooked or organized all the food events, shabbat meals, Passover, etc.

I think you should've said observant Jews, orthodox or conservative denominations. From what I understand, kashrut isn't as important to reform & reconstructionist. I consider myself a conservative jew, because that the denomination I was raised with, but I've never kept kosher.

AHR - Sounds like Jon and I got back to NJ before you got back to Brooklyn. To get the last part of the evening out of the way, here's an NYC tip I forgot to follow: always ask what time the garage closes before leaving your car. Also, I would have sub-headed this thread, "Going, going, gone!" ~~~ Since Steven Shaw was unable to make the final evening of Bid, the restaurant where his good friend, Chef Matt Seeber*, cooks, he asked me to do my best to get there so there were some friendly faces in the dining room on its last night. I PM'd numerous people I thought might be interested in joining me and we ended up as a party of four. Our evening started with the best Cosmopolitan I'd ever had at the bar, then a tour of the kitchen. I'd never been inside a restaurant kitchen in NYC before, it appeared efficient, clean, the staff welcoming. We proceded to our table and had a chat with Chef Matt, we looked at the menu, but basically said "Feed Us" which resulted in a 7+ course tasting menu, wines paired with each course. After an amuse bouche of brandade on toast, my starter was Calamari stuffed with a seafood mousse, accompanied by rhubarb and a pea puree. Next was Braised Lobster Chowder with diced celery root, morels, fennel and bacon. Lobster bisque was poured over the solid items at table. This was my first "close my eyes and groan" dish. Lobster and morels are magical when paired. The mastery of Bid's sommalier** was fully appreciated with his pairing of a chianti perfect for our course of Potato Gnocci with a tomato and yellow pepper relish, roasted morels and fried sunchokes. These were the most tender gnocci I had ever had and we started playing a "name this ingredient" game during each course. Picking out the bits we were unsure of in the various plates, trying to figure out what is was with Chef Matt verifying the answers between courses. (I will immodestly announce that I won, correctly identifying the sunchokes as being the same as Jerusalem artichokes, celeraic, black mustard seed, turnip not parsnip, diced rhubarb.) The gnocci was followed by Sauteed Quail and Foie Gras with dried cherries for Jon and I, Veal Sweetbreads for Cabrales and AHR. It was the first time I ever had a piece of foie that wasn't pate. Very delicate in texture, but I think I prefer the creaminess of pate to the straight liver. At AHR's insistance I tried the sweetbreads, I can honestly say these were the best sweetbreads I had ever tasted. OK - you may have gotten the impression that these were the only sweekbreads I had ever tasted. Not true, I have had them on two other occasions and was not fond of them to put in mildly. I expect credit for once again sampling something I had a pretty definite impression I would not enjoy. I could appreciate the dish, but I'm still sure that sweetbreads are not for me. Between us we sampled 7 of the 10 appetizers on the menu, and an appetizer sized portion of a main course (the braised lobster). For our mains they brought out one of each of the meat dishes. I had the Roasted and Braised Rabbit with fava beans, radish, crispy pancetta and sherry vinegar. This sounds like a description that lists every item on the plate, but it does not go far enough. The rabbit was actualy many different plated items: a braised leg, roasted breast and rack of ribs, liver (both sauteed and pureed for the sauce), and kidney. I believe this is the most ambitious dish I have ever had in any restaurant. The Cheese Course was a slice of a Coach Farm Aged Goat, accompanied by a carrot-celery salad and walnut/fruit bread. This was followed by a delicious dessert amuse of rhubarb soup with rhubarb/goat cheese sorbet. When our dessert course arrived, we couldn't resist playing pass the plate so we all got to sample: - Fresh Cherries and Cinnamon Macaroon with Cherry Sorbet and Tarragon - Fromage Blanc Island "Cheesecake" - Valrhona Chocolate Popover, Chocolate Cream and Warm White Chocolate Sauce - Apple Tart Tatin with Granny Smith Granita and Pink Peppercorn Ice Cream My favorites were the studies in Cherry and Chocolate. You'd think we were done, but no, petit fours followed. Lovely delicate one-bites of strawberry shortcake, toasted coconut coated marshmellow, cocoa dusted chocolate truffle and an incredibly thin sesame cookie. Many thanks to Pastry Chef Chika Tillman. Final impressions Bid was so much better than any of us preconceived. Over the course of the evening the music got louder and the crowd at the bar got bigger and noisier. These were the current and former employees all come back for a final wrap party. We got to enjoy Chef Matt's appreciative parting words and thanks to his loyal employess. We were sad we hadn't come earlier, but glad that we didn't miss out on experiencing his first, but surely not last, stint as head chef. ~~~ * For more information on Chef Matt, go to fat-guy.com, here are a couple good links: Risotto Day with Chef Matt and Matt & Steve's Ultimate Braising Weekend. ** I did not get the details of our wines or the name of Bid's sommalier, but Cabrales took home the wine list, so she may be able to provide these details.

Just another reminder. See you all at 5:10 PM on Sunday. Also - a bunch of us are going to Bid in NYC for their last night. Chef Matt really wanted to see some friendly faces. PM me if you are interested in going.

So, Margie - how'd it turn out?

Cabrales - I know you've had that whole live food thread, which I haven't really been following. But I had to laugh at that image Jaymes just created. How do you propose to get the flesh off a live fish w/out killing it first? Wait, please don't answer in gory detail. I don't want to debate the cruelty, but what fishing tour operator is going to let you slice a filet off a flopping fish? I'm afraid the freshest possible sashimi is the best your going to get from an organized tour. Your question sounds like you're going to be imitating a bear!

Natural gas, 6 burners, no griddle or grill, I wanted the griddle Jason didn't. He usually gets what he wants, it saves arguments. Jay - why didn't you want the grill or griddle again?

See previous page for some of your answers. Actually Jason's been bugging me to put in one of those pot-fillers. I should at least check to see the cost before they close up the walls and have the plumbing inspected...