mamster

It did change, because we went last night. This week's menu (sorry, not very specific) is salad vs cream of celeriac soup, ahi tuna vs pork loin, and gingerbread with persimmon ice cream vs red wine-poached pear. This didn't appeal to me nearly as much as last week's, so I went off-menu and nabbed that onion tart (good filling, soggy phyllo crust) and some lovely braised pork cheeks with parsnips and mustard greens. I skipped dessert. So call ahead and see what the current menu has to offer, because they're obviously changing it around a lot.

Okay, that was a total guess on the prices. Clearly I'm wrong.

Although they might make a pizza with peanuts and call it "Thai Pizza," even though peanuts are not a major part of Thai cooking.

I think the main local vendor of Viking is Albert Lee Appliance, near the Ballard Bridge. Furthermore, I don't think you'll find a big range of prices on new Viking equipment. Used might be another story, though, so check the used sections at Dick's and Seattle Restaurant Store.

Bux, you can't really be saying the New York Post isn't a paragon of ethical journalism, can you?

"Pleated ravioli" is making me laugh.

It's definitely cheaper to take it home once you factor in drinks and especially tip. It's also fun in its own way, since I doubt I'll ever make such an ambitious cassoulet at home. Not sure about the serving size; the "cassoulet for two" was about three servings.

Anything for science, tighe.

As an important research project, I brought home cassoulet from Cafe Campagne for dinner tonight. It's $16 per person, and you have to call or email a day ahead to order it. The cassoulet came in a bag with a card describing the ingredients and reheating method, and the actual food was in eight plastic containers, two each of breadcrumbs, beans and some meats, duck confit and sausage, and veal stock. You mix these all together, heat it on the stove, then pour it into a casserole. Bake twenty minutes, top with breadcrumbs, bake a few more minutes, and it's done. First, the criticisms. There's more stock than you need. After dumping in all of it, I strained it and put in half. The breadcrumbs soaked some up, so maybe 3/4 would be good, but using all of the stock would make soup. Although I'll probably heat up the rest of the stock and drink it for breakfast. Also, the beans are cooked just slightly past where I would do, but this is not a serious problem like it would be if they were undercooked. The meats are pretty unassailable. You get two nice duck confit legs, some very flavorful pork shoulder and smoked ham hock, and garlic sausage (this is especially good). Supposedly there is lamb in there also, but I couldn't find any. (On the other hand, the ingredients card doesn't mention duck confit. If they ran out of lamb and substituted duck, I can support that.) The bread crumbs are nice and buttery. The broth is full of bits of bacon and perfectly salted. I intend to eat the leftovers for lunch tomorrow and make my coworkers downright sick with envy. More restaurants should do this. In fact, many do, but you have to ask. The prepared foods sections of most supermarkets are embarrassing, but it's nice to be able to bring home interesting take-out from time to time. Can you think of dishes from other restaurants that would make good take-out? This could make an interesting theme meal.

It used to be Marcha, right?

The issue with the saltiness of the sandwich (I agree--it does taste like a murderous salt-bomb) may have to do with the way the ingredients are processed, or it might just be the lack of fat. Fat rounds out flavors, and dishes that are too low in fat often taste unpleasantly salty or sweet. Think of Snackwell's cookies, for example.

That's exciting to hear, tighe.

I think the bread they use for the porchetta sandwich (a length of baguette) is pretty good, although maybe a bit too crusty. The flat rounds used for some of the other sandwiches are dire.

Again: Because the sandwich tastes absolutely terrible. I tried it. A bunch of you tried it. Did anyone think it was better than merely edible? Here's the thing. I've tried the Santa Fe baguette and it's much, much worse than a Burger King cheeseburger, which is not very good. If I made a chicken breast sandwich at home on homemade bread with poblano chiles, onions, and bell peppers, it would be insanely better than a Burger King cheeseburger. It also wouldn't cost any more than a Santa Fe baguette, and I don't get any of the economies of scale BK does. The conclusion the average consumer should make from trying the Santa Fe baguette is that healthy food tastes like crap. What realistic justification could one have for promoting that?

Thanks for the report, tsquare. I've been wondering about this place.

Amir, you are already the head cheese in our book! Wait, that came out wrong. Congratulations, anyway.

mags, do you recommend books you personally think are no good? Not, "I didn't personally enjoy this, but people I know who are into this genre did," but actually say, "This is a great book," just to sell it? I'm betting the answer is no. I used to work retail in a kitchen store, and I would regularly sell items that were worse than useless. If someone is determined to come into the store and buy something stupid, I was happy to sell it to them. If, on the other hand, the person asked, "Is this good? Does it work?" I would shake my head and recommend something else, no matter how expensive the item was. Maybe you don't see that as any different from what Bayless is doing, and there's a natural and sometimes unfortunate tendency to rate sins of omission as less severe than sins of commission. Maybe you and I are just as bad as Bayless. But I really don't think so. I've never been in the position of being offered a ton of money to endorse a lousy product, and I don't know what I'd do. I hope I'd say no. But it might be impossible to turn down the kid's college tuition, in which case I hope all of you purists on eGullet would be ready to roast me over the coals, Santa Fe style. I'd deserve it. Come to think of it, though, I don't see Bayless's commercials as being any worse than any number of lousy chef-endorsed products like Wolfgang Puck's soups or Masaharu Morimoto's sauce packets.

I hear Flavor Flav got a job heat lampin' after Public Enemy broke up.

He says 100% of his fee went to some small farmer's coop.

"Anchor-Hocking" is also so much fun to say. I highly recommend the Magic Line pans that slkinsey linked to. I have no idea whether Magic Line makes pie pans--we use Pyrex.

Sorry to be coy. I can't remember the first half of the commercial--it may be Bayless walking through a BBQ competition, something like that. It probably doesn't say what state he's supposed to be in. But at the end he ends up at you-know-where, saying, "You know, some of the best BBQ around is at Burger King. That's right, Burger King." The Smoky BBQ Chicken features the same chicken patty, same "baguette," same onions and peppers, but with barbecue sauce instead of "Southwest sauce". I haven't tried the sandwich and won't, but I said this ad is worse because I don't care what stupid town Bayless is in, some of the best BBQ is not available at BK. Obviously, paying people to lie in ads is how business is done, but we're talking about a respected chef who knows full well that the line he is saying is patently false. What else could we pay Bayless to say? Some of the best tacos around are at the Bell? The best steak in the world is served at Tad's?

Am I the only one who has seen the second Bayless spot, for the Smoky BBQ sandwich? It's even worse.

Sometimes in Laos and Isaan, papaya salad is made with pla raa (they have another name for it in Laos that I can't remember), which is a chunky homemade or rustic-style fish sauce, much stronger than nam pla. Could you have gotten that? I've never heard of shrimp paste in papaya salad, although nothing's impossible.

Great, so I seem to be largely in agreement with William Grimes and Steven Shaw. Somebody poke me in the eye with a satay skewer, please. You know, this question of a natural pecking order of restaurants, cuisines, ingredients comes up all the time and I don't remember us ever exploring it without it turning into a sandbox battle royale. Maybe I'll try to start a thread on the topic over on general, because, frankly, some days I believe in it and some days I don't.

This is so unfair--I'm trying to be the controversial left-winger but all the ire is turned on ExtraMSG. There is no justice at all.