mamster

Whatever shoulder cut is on sale. Sometimes that's a "pork shoulder steak" (which would make a lousy steak, IMO), often boneless country-style ribs, sometimes a shoulder roast. Generally you also need some pork fat, which your butcher should give you for free or at least really cheap, since no one wants it. My favorite sausage at the moment is a Thai one with lime juice, fish sauce, garlic, cooked sticky rice, and cayenne. Great for breakfast if you're not self-conscious about garlic breath. Whenever you grind, start with everything really cold. Aside from complying with the health code, it keeps things from gooshing around in there. (Did I really just use the word "gooshing"? Yuck.)

Don't bother with anything but chuck (do I have to specify boneless?). Keep the machine on its slowest setting, and see whether you like a single grind or two grinds. You could throw a little onion in, but in general, if you want seasonings, mix them with the meat after it's ground. That grinder will work great for hamburger meat, but what you've really got there, of course, is a homemade sausage maker. If there are any types of fresh sausage you like but can't find near your house, try making some. You don't have to stuff it into casings if you're lazy like me.

I'm also partial to Chaokoh (careful of the spelling--there are a lot of knockoff brands, some of which are OK and some really lousy). The couple of times I've had freshly made coconut milk in the U.S., it was a lot of work and the result was no better than canned. I most often use it in Thai curries, but the Indian influence on these is obvious: coconut milk, tamarind, garlic, chiles, and so on.

Welcome, Malarkey! I can't say I care for the uni, but I'll try everything once and usually more than once, so I may go after it in a different context. The sweet shrimp are served moments-from-live at Shiki and I highly recommend those. I've eaten at about a half-dozen different sushi places in town and Shiki is still my favorite, but I haven't tried any of the high-end places, nor Mashiko. And yes, omakase is just letting the chef serve you whatever he thinks is best, freshest, most interesting.

Thanks for the cheer. You know, this violates the merchant's contract with the credit card company. If you're good at dropping veiled threats, you could probably get them to quit, although perhaps not without damaging your status with the restaurant.

To be fair, low-priced Asian restaurants are operating on particularly thin margins and have to compete on price to a degree that some other types of restaurants don't. I really think the Vij model has a lot to offer, though.

Welcome, Nana_Kat, and thanks for the writeup. This reminds me of something we were talking about over dinner tonight (not at En), something we've mentioned on this forum before, I think, but in case there are any restaurateurs newly joining us: Stop charging for extras! Running a restaurant is scary, from a business perspective. Unless your restaurant is subsidized by a hotel or a drug kingpin or something, you spend money on countless little things but 100% of your income comes from customers paying for food and wine. Your object is to convince us that you aren't overcharging, even when you technically are. Cooking everything to perfection and having effortlessly great service is a good start, but it's not enough. You have to make us feel like we're getting a special deal, even beating the house. André Soltner used to do that at Lutèce by convincing everyone that he was inventing a dish just for them (he wasn't). The complimentary amuse-bouche that most French restaurants send out is another example. I, the customer, am paying for that little terrine, but I don't feel like I am. Instead I feel like you, the restaurant, have given me a special favor. Nobody in the business that I know of understands this better than Vikram Vij, the proprietor of Vij's Indian restaurant in Vancouver BC and a genuine customer service genius. Vij's is always packed, and I've never gotten a table without waiting for an hour. But while I wait I am plied with spicy little pooris, paratha, and chai, all free. Then when we're finally seated, Vij himself makes an appearance to apologize for the delay and promise us that our food will be out quickly (it is). Ample rice and naan is served at the table, all free. Free? Of course it's not free. A percentage of the menu prices pays for the free hors d'oeuvres and starches. Making customers pay for rice is just plain stupid. I know how much rice costs because I buy big bags of it at Uwajimaya: it costs jack shit. Sure, you can pad out your bill by charging everyone a dollar for steamed rice, but at what cost? A customer who feels nickel-and-dimed is not a happy customer. Now, raise the app and entree prices 50 cents each and make the rice free, and I'll tell my friends how generous you are. I probably will still try En because I'm interested in the concept, but you've offered a valuable grain of salt, or rice.

If you don't introduce your kids to McDonald's, their friends will. I'm not sure how to handle that, though. Sometimes I wonder if the best way to raise a food-savvy kid would be to declare all the good stuff off-limits and wait for that rebellious streak to kick in....

Well, I'm hooked! Thanks for doing this, Malawry.

That must have been why he was out of toro last time I was there--interesting. Does anyone else find that toro reminds them of beef?

For that matter, write a letter if you have an especially good experience. Once (before I was a critic, of course) I wrote to the Deluxe to compliment them on an unusually enjoyable meal and got a free dinner for two in response.

I note that Daniel's current menu features foie gras-stuffed morels. I'm not actually suggesting you do this at home, or at least not without inviting me.

I have some friends who live right nearby so I always walk past, notice something on the menu that looks good, and vow to try it soon. Let's hear about your bad meal, tls.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through, and I agree with you, JD, about Bruno Jamais: he's the only interesting character, and not just because the villain is always interesting. Has everyone here read Ruhlman's Soul of a Chef? Ruhlman understood going in (because he's experienced) that just because restaurant work is repetitive and done by a succession of hard-luck characters, there is no excuse for a book to be repetitive or without character. Two-thirds of the way through The Fourth Star, I know (by job title, at least) who Daniel Boulud is, who Alex Lee is, and who Bruno Jamais is, and I don't remember anyone else who works in the restaurant. Oh, hey, one other thing. I haven't hung out in a lot of kitchens, but wherever I have, the staff is constantly joking with each other, making rude remarks that would be shocking in other contexts but help keep the work interesting. Does this never happen in Daniel's kitchen, or did the author just not want to show it? (I remember one bit where staff are accused of hanging around holding each other's penises, and I don't suspect it was the only time Brenner heard this kind of joke. If that's the case, it shouldn't be the only time we hear it, either.) Don't get me wrong--I'll finish the book, and I enjoy even second-rate descriptions of restaurant kitchens as much as I enjoy second-rate kickboxing.

Frankly, I thought Galerias was lousy at their old location and continues to be lousy at their new location. Guaymas's al pastor continues to rock my world, however.

Alaska is now part of Pacific Northwest, and after reading this thread, I couldn't be happier.

As far as I know, his case is still in process. There's no word on whether he's being deported, coming back, or if he does come back, whether he'll have enough money to reopen the restaurant. If anyone hears anything, do jump in.

I haven't been because I can't get past the concept. It sounds like a fusion idea leftover from the 80s. And unless Blue Heron says great things about Les Tamales, now I'll probably never experience this particular fusion. I really enjoyed my last meal at La Medusa, it will break your heart to know. They passed around some free focaccia while people were waiting, and then I had a nice dish of spaghetti with chicken livers, and some of those Grandma's Greens, a soupy bowl of tender greens with little corn muffins. Where you should have gone, however, was the newly redone Salumeria on Hudson, because then you could have told me about it. Anyone else been?

I've been to the PD once. The atmosphere is great, the food okay. Laurie had a fish special, some halibut and pancetta thing, that was really good. I had a pedestrian orecchiete with broccoli rabe and sausage. Apps were unmemorable. I'm not one of these "you must always seek the best possible food at every moment" types, so I could easily see myself going back there, especially for a drink and snack.

Sunfish is just a bit west of Spud on Alki. I find the fish at Sunfish a little less greasy, and the real draw at Sunfish is the fish kebab, big chunks of halibut with onions and peppers on a skewer. The fish gets a nice sear from the griddle. The only problem with Sunfish is that it has much less old-time beach atmosphere than Spud.

Oh yeah, I kept meaning to respond to this after I went to the wine shop on 15th that I keep meaning to go to after a friend brought a great Cotes du Rhone from there to our house. Well, that sentence should be taken out and shot. I still haven't made it in there. In the meantime, sometimes I shop at Delaurenti; they're quite expensive but have a good selection of Italians. Ditto that for the Spanish Table and port. La Tienda Cadiz has well-run monthly tastings. At the last one I was introduced to an unusual basque white, Txakolina. La Tienda also sells a delightful cheap tawny port (I love port) from one of the Portuguese-owned houses, Porto Barros. It's $17 and way more than twice as good as the $10 tawnies.

Actually, Laurie informs me that we didn't have dessert when we went back. Guess that's why I couldn't remember.

Yeah, when Laurie and I went back we tried other desserts (can't remember what) and they were still mediocre. Maybe Steve K will see this thread and point out that a restaurant that can't do dessert right isn't worth supporting, but frankly I still like the place. I'd especially go for, say, wine and rillons. Now, we're supposed to be helping Tom D. I also like Cafe Campagne, a little French place down in Pike Place Market. It's the bistro offshoot of Campagne, a more celebrated French restaurant, but if you've eaten at the better French restaurants in New York, I expect you'll be disappointed. Cafe Campagne is especially nice for lunch. How do you feel about lavish Italian meals? Portland has Genoa; I haven't been but am planning to go later this summer. They do an many-course Italian dinner with matching wines, and it's one of those only-in-the-Northwest experiences. There are many good Italian restaurants in NJ, I know, but I doubt there's one quite like Genoa. We talk about it a bit on a recent thread; try the newly working search engine. I like Etta's Seafood, but I know there's some difference of opinion--it attracts a lot of tourists, which tends to make some people edgy. The menu is a good example of what most people think of as Seattle seafood, though. If you don't make it there, it's worth going to at least one of Tom Douglas's restaurants--see http://www.tomdouglas.com for details. More as I think of them.

Le Pichet I liked--now, E & O, that's another story. Let's see--the venison sausage thing I had at Le Pichet was great. The rillons de porc were wonderful. The beignets were blah. Um, what else did I try? The desserts I thought were pretty lousy overall. I like the wine service. Since then I've had the French onion soup, which was average, and the roast chicken, which is great. I guess I am inscrutable.

I don't have time to do a full post right now, but in the cafe/bistro vein, it would be hard to do better than Le Pichet. If you do a search or scroll down to old topics, you can get details of the Seattle eGullet gathering there. I'll definitely have more recs for you later.