mamster

Mostly I come away from this hugely impressed with the King County inspection program. They're clearly doing a thorough job. Did anyone else read the piece in the New Yorker's "food issue" about spending a day with the New York restaurant inspectors? After watching restaurants get busted for some shocking violations, the reporter asked the inspectors, "Do you still eat out?" "Of course," they said, going on to imply that nothing they saw on their rounds would deter them from eating almost anywhere in town. Me too.

As Shaw mentioned, I copy-edited this piece, but I changed very little; Klc is a pro who writes clean copy. I never particularly noticed Schrambling either, although I remember that Deborah Madison review. Why didn't I cry foul? Because I think it's to TDG's credit that we let our columnists get away with this sort of thing. It's not libelous, it's a curmudgeonly opinion piece, and it doesn't reflect on all of us. I'm not going to defend TDG further, since I obviously have a vested interest. But c'mon, folks, did anyone get this far without realizing that Klc doesn't pull punches?

Beef chuck, which is also a shoulder cut. It's the best stew meat for stews both European and Asian; you can grind it; and treated with care it's got an enormous amount of beef flavor and, because it's several muscles coming together, a variety of textures. About the only thing you can't do with chuck is cook it like steak.

If you want to start a different stereotype, Japanese restaurants tend to have fewer than average violations.

Perhaps the stickiest part of the whole affair is dealing with the friend whose enthusiastic restaurant recommendations have failed to pan out again and again. Because I'm a "pro," writing reviews for the Seattle Times, people are constantly asking me, "Where should I eat?" Talking to a real-life restaurant critic seems to make people forget that they have preferences, and that their preferences may be different from mine. I'm also hesitant to recommend a place that I don't consider the best of its class in town or unique in some other respect. This is compounded, of course, by the fact that my reviews (I concentrate on inexpensive ethnic and neighborhood restaurants) are de facto recommendations from me. There are several downsides to this. First, my threshold for recommending a restaurant in the paper may be lower or higher than my threshold for recommending it to a particular person. I can't review every Thai restaurant in town using the best restaurants of Bangkok as a standard. The question I ask (I have to give every place a "recommended" or "NR" rating) is: does this Thai place do the neighborhood proud? Should people living nearby feel good about saying, "Hey, let's grab dinner at Udon Thani." Second, cheap-eats restaurants can let people down in ways that I don't care much about, such as decor. The upside is that if someone acts on one of my recommendations and has a lousy meal, at least they didn't spend much. I don't dwell on it, but once I recommended a top French restaurant in New York to someone on eGullet, and they had a terrible time. I felt pretty bad about that and naturally concluded that my palate was unsophisticated, even though many other things could have gone wrong.

I'm not an expert on this topic by any means. All I can tell you is that (a) I haven't heard about a new deli, and (b) I've never had pastrami or corned beef in Seattle that in any way compared to what you get at the better places in New York, like Katz's or 2nd Avenue. An exception, of course, for col klink's smoked corned beef, which is every bit as good but a different animal. Okay, it's the same animal. You know what I mean.

They have pho on the menu, but only one variety, and there's a cheaper good pho place across the street from my house. So no.

Mr. heyjude and I went to Green Papaya last night. It's the new Vietnamese restaurant at Pike and Belmont, in the Press apartment building. We had a light meal of three dishes. First, green papaya salad, with thinly sliced pork and five butterflied shrimp. Vietnamese-style papaya salad tends to be more frankly sweet than Thai-style, and I prefer the Thai, but this was good. Nice and crunchy, with good shrimp. The pork didn't really add anything. There were also mint leaves, and I don't always like mint, but this worked. The calamari is excellent. There's nothing unusual about it, just lightly breaded and fried and not too chewy. It was served with chile-garlic sauce that appeared to be right out of a jar. I'd like to see something a little more interesting than that. We split the large seafood soup, which includes sliced scallops, more shrimp, squid, and halibut (I think it was halibut). The fish was especially silky. This was all in a tamarind broth with that spongy green Vietnamese vegetable, and celery, pineapple, and other veggies. Very nice. Total was about $33. You could spend a lot more here, though--some entrees hit $24. I assume they think of Monsoon as their closest competitor. It's much cheaper at lunch, when the most expensive thing is king salmon for $14. People mentioned the austerity of the decor on another thread. I liked it a lot. Nice views of the street, very clean lines, identifiably Asian without being stereotypical.

You started this topic just so you could say "metallurgy". My chemist friend tells me that by adding metals with different potentials, you can make the iron oxidation reaction less electrically favorable. I asked why you wouldn't get oxidation of chromium instead, and he said, "'Cause, when they're alloyed, they don't react like individual elements. You have to look at the whole Fe + Cr + whatever + O2 reaction, and it's disfavored." Does that help?

Hmm. I don't add any liquid to scrambled eggs, but my father taught me to add water to eggs for an omelet (I think...memory is fuzzy here), perhaps with the idea that it's harder to overcook it that way.

I keep printed and copied recipes in a 3" looseleaf binder, which is almost full. It's divided into the following sections (Laurie came up with the scheme, which works very well): Italian Soups and Stews Asian Potatoes Desserts and Baked Goods Mexican Meats Miscellaneous That says a lot about my priorities right there.

Good question! Mine was the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook in a late-80s edition. I was sent off to college with that, Norman Kolpas's Pasta Presto and Killeen and Germon's Cucina Simpatica. But I think the first book I ever cooked out of was a Good Housekeeping cookbook. Chili con carne.

Well, it's sort of comparable. Saltimbocca when made with veal doesn't have skin, of course, and generally when I've seen it done with chicken it's with pounded boneless breasts. Fusing the bacon to the skin is the key innovation here. Obviously I wouldn't say no one's ever done it before, only that I was goofing around and figured it out.

Laurie and I had dinner at Barbacoa with heyjude and M. heyjude. It was an excellent meal despite the fact that my brisket was sliced wrong (with the grain) and not cooked long enough. The "borracho beans" that came with the brisket were great, and Barbacoa has some of the best onion rings I've ever had. Mr. heyjude had the mussels appetizer, with some nicely charred onions and a slightly too-rich cream sauce, and the chicken-fried steak, which is made with actual steak rather than cubed beef. I'll let the others talk about their entrees. Dessert was a "crock of key lime pie," which sounds stupid but was just good pie. How they screwed up the brisket so badly I don't know--it obviously wasn't the same stuff Nancy ate when she reviewed it. I really like this place. It's got good bustle, quick service, and some superb side dishes.

Jinmyo-- 1. What does "gintchy" mean? 2. While I enjoy cooking off the cuff, I enjoy cooking from existing recipes more. This may seem a lazy tack for a food writer to take, and I plead guilty to that, but the world has no shortage of recipes, just a shortage of reasons to make them tonight. Most of my favorite cookbooks include many recipes from other sources--sometimes credited, sometimes not--along with a couple of great new ideas. Part of what you'll see happen in my column is that I'm highly reluctant to post a recipe even vaguely inspired by another source without giving credit. In the case of the peperonata recipe in my first column, I changed ingredients, cooking times, and serving style. It's my way of making and serving peperonata. But the first time I made it, it was Biba's book I used. I'd like to introduce people to this recipe, because it's great, but I'd also like to send them back to the original inspiration so they can find something else great in there and tell me about it. Much of what is included in cookbooks, I find, is padding done out of a sense of obligation. Even the best cookbooks--you can't publish a book with your ten really great recipes. That's part of the reason for the popularity of the "Best American Recipes" series. Genuine originality in cooking isn't the province of recipes, and therefore it's rarely the province of my little recipe column, either. Coming up, for example, I have an article on a particular area of Thai food that is very poorly represented in Thai restaurants in the West. So I had to recreate it, with the help of reference materials, but largely from memory. That doesn't make it my recipe, though, since the result is (I hope) close to something you'd get at almost any restaurant in Bangkok or Khon Kaen.

Yes, not having to hang out with me while eating your donut can add something to the experience.

We must have just missed each other, tighe. I was in there grading papers this morning. And eating a chocolate-glazed chocolate cake donut.

I wanted to work that phony food embosser somewhere into this story, but it didn't fit. I guess I could have Photoshopped "YUMMY" on top of the pancetta. Jinmyo, I have something else coming up that I think you'll like, but it's a couple weeks off.

That sounds great, Vengroff. I'm collecting a royalty of $2.50 per thigh.

Pancetta Embossed Chicken My creation is no penicillin, ice cream cone, or Toll House cookie, but it could save your life if you are starving and has at least as many calories as the latter. There's nothing wrong with the "bacon-wrapped" motif, but its execution is so often inferior to its promise. The bacon is frequently over- or under-cooked; bacon is sliced so thick that it overwhelms whatever it is wrapping; too much bacon fat is absorbed; and so on. Here's a technique that avoids all of these problems and pairs bacon with one of its ideal partners: chicken skin. It started with a recipe for "Chicken with Pancetta and Balsamic Vinegar" from Mark Bittman’s column in the New York Times. I halved the ingredients and used chicken thighs, and it was quite good. But the best part by far was that bits of pancetta had been caught under the chicken while it was browning. They had become fused with the chicken skin! The crispy chicken-bacon, combined with the tender meat, made for a terrific eating experience. Again this triumph was an accident. I had been trying to avoid the bacon bits when I put the chicken into the pan, figuring I'd end up with a pancetta-laden pan sauce. Good thing I blew it. Unfortunately, because I had chopped the pancetta, these moments of glory were rare. I wanted all of the chicken skin to be bacon-infused. The solution was obvious: give each thigh its own slice of pancetta. It requires no more bacon than the original recipe, but it all ends up in exactly the right place. If you put this stuff in a plastic pouch at the 7-Eleven, it would put jerky out of business. Plus it's my recipe so I get to give it a ridiculous name. 4 chicken thighs (bone in, skin on) 4 slices of Pancetta, round and thin 1 T olive oil salt and pepper Place the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add pancetta and cook a few seconds until translucent. Add chicken skin-side down, placing each thigh directly onto a pancetta slice. Reduce heat to medium. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook 15 minutes or until bacon and skin are well browned. Turn chicken and add a bit more pepper. Cook until underside is browned and chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes. Alternatively turn the chicken, transfer the pan to a 400-degree oven, and bake until cooked through (about 10 minutes, but check around the bone for pinkness and pull it as soon as it's cooked through). If you're using the oven, you may want to transfer the chicken to a foil-lined jelly roll pan so that you can use the skillet to make a pan sauce. For the pan sauce: pour off most of the chicken fat, deglaze with 1/2 cup white wine, reduce by half, and season with salt and pepper. Off the heat, add a pat of butter and a tablespoon of white wine vinegar. Pool it under the chicken -- you worked hard for that crispy skin, and it would be a shame to spoil it now just because you were feeling saucy. Serve on hot plates with mashed potatoes or egg noodles and your choice of vegetable. Keywords: Chicken, Main Dish, Intermediate, Dinner, Italian, The Daily Gullet ( RG191 )

And I can't believe no one has mentioned the best line ever on the show: "Mmm...unexplained bacon."

There are actually two Russian bakeries right there, the piroshky place and Yarmarka. We recently had Yarmarka cater a party at work, and they went all out--several types of pelmeni and piroshkies, salads (lots of beets), and fresh fruit and vegetable trays from the market. Everything was good, and the price was jaw-droppingly low. I particularly like the pelmeni.

You get fresh green peppercorns in England? I'm green with envy, since I've never seen them in the US. They turn up in a variety of Thai curries, particularly the coconut-milk-free jungle curries. They're left on the stem--otherwise, the fruits would just fall to the bottom of the bowl. A little simmering seems to mellow them a bit. Wonderful stuff.

Excellent, BH. What were you having? Since I'm from Seattle, let me pipe up to defend the evil empire. I think the product is okay. A lot of places do espresso better, and a lot don't. But I think Starbucks is bringing more than middle-of-the-road affected espresso drinks with it on its road to world domination. Here in Seattle many people carry around an image of life before Starbucks, with independent coffeehouses on every corner before they were crushed by the tail of the spread-eagle mermaid. This is bogus, of course. Starbucks (along with SBC and Torrefazione, among other, but mostly Starbucks) created the demand for that type of coffeehouse, at least in the U.S., and as a result my neighborhood is full of corporate coffee chains, but also full of indie coffee spots, most of which are doing fine. One sells good donuts. One is aggressively punk-rock and puts out an A-frame with anti-Starbucks slogans. Many offer internet access. All offer near-clones of the Starbucks menu. I certainly find it hard to imagine Starbucks turning England into a nation of coffee drinkers, and I think London can integrate a large number of American-style coffeehouses without losing its essential Londonness.

I looked at it early this morning and then immediately forgot. It was basically, "At Mashiko's in Seattle they have a BLANK roll," and I can't remember what the blank was.