mamster

The thing I like about Noodle Studio is that they make a decent bowl of khao soi (Chiang Mai curry noodles), which is only available a couple other places in town. Did anyone catch Michael Hood's review of Thaiku on Friday? It sounds good.

I did know about the two widths, Steve. I've got the wide one. So far I've made pommes anna and a fennel salad. Thanks for the quick answer--especially tommy.

I got a Benriner for christmas, and it rocks. I am slicing everything in sight, and I still have all my fingers. Question, though: when using the plastic finger guard, by the time you get down to the end of whatever you're slicing, you end up smacking the plastic against the blade. Is this going to wreck the blade? If so, I'll slow down, even though that's not going to impress anyone.

So has anyone peered into this? I'm not much interested in Ducasse, but the idea of a nearly 赨 cookbook is intriguing and appalling; are people buying it?

Yes, I go to Thai Tom periodically. I like it the food a lot, but I don't go there so often because it's so cramped that having lunch is a stress inducer rather than relaxing.

I’m sorry to say that I haven’t found any massaman curry in Seattle worth recommending. I did have a pretty good one a couple months ago at E-san in downtown Portland. Siam serves it but I prefer their panang curry. I don’t know how you like your massaman, but I consider it the Thai equivalent of beef stew, so I prefer good-sized chunks of beef that have been stewed until tender (this is the way you get it in Thailand) rather than slices of stir-fried steak. Chicken is also fine, but preferably thigh. To get it this way in the U.S., I have to make it myself, and there will be an article on this in the grub shack this year. You might want to try Chantanee Family Thai restaurant in Bellevue. I had their beef panang curry for lunch one day and it had more chew than the typical Thai curry you get around here, so I would have high hopes for their massaman. Sorry I can’t be more helpful, but I’ll keep my taste buds peeled and let you know if I come up with anything. And please let us know if you find one you like.

Well, that's odd. I just came home from lunch at Ezo on Broadway to find a question about...well, you see. I'm a big fan of Ezo and it compares favorably in my mind to ramen I had in Hawaii in the 80s. I reviewed it for the Times here. Other people I know have been less impressed with it than I have, but for ŭ or so, there's no reason not to give it a shot. I've also heard (from the Weekly) that Hoki's Teriyaki Hut in Ballard has good ramen, but I haven't made it there myself.

Dornenburg and Page's Dining Out noted that a lot of restaurant critics are also (failed?) musicians. I've found this to be not an unfair stereotype. And opera singers are certainly not known for their moderation in things gustatory. It seems like artists in general with their penchant for thinking hard about bits and pieces of everyday life would tend to find pleasure, or at least interest, in food, but there really does seem to be something to the music/food link.

Like everything in life, tommy, it's a compromise. BKF is less harsh but also less, um, scrapy than a scouring pad. So try BKF first and if you're not getting anywhere by the time your hand curls into a claw from excessive scrubbing, switch to the steel.

That's interesting that the White Star was drier than the Domaine Chandon, given that you'd expect the opposite from the labels. Not that I'm second-guessing your taste buds by any means. Like Blue Heron, we just shared a bottle between the two of us on NYE. It was Veuve Clicquot, however. No complaints. I have a feeling there are probably some American sparklers (or German or Spanish) that I couldn't tell apart from the real stuff, but I kind of don't want to know. I've long held that if I ever happened to become wealthy, the main change you'd see in me is that I'd drink a bottle of champagne every month instead of once or twice a year. (Didn't John Maynard Keynes say something to that effect?) Okay, I'm really rambling. Continue drinking.

Boy, there's a mental image for you.

I get this at Whole Foods in Seattle. I was a bit skeptical at first, imagining that it might taste like some kind of health food version of salami, but I'm hooked.

I hate to say this, but Angelina's hot chocolate made me sick. Well, so sick I almost couldn't finish my second bowl of soup at La Régalade that night. It was the chocolate equivalent of drinking melted butter. They should serve it in a shot glass; unfortunately, you get a big mug. There was an Amanda Hesser hot chocolate article in the Times a while back that included a recipe that I found to be a good middle ground between Angelina and Swiss Miss: HOT CHOCOLATE Time: 10 minutes 1/2 cup heavy cream 4 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon Scharffen Berger cocoa 4 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon Demerara sugar 2 1/2 ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate (70 to 75 percent cacao), broken into 1-inch squares or smaller Large pinch kosher salt 5 cups whole milk. 1. In a small bowl, whisk cream with 1 teaspoon cocoa and 1/2 teaspoon sugar until it forms firm peaks. Set aside. 2. Using a fine grater, grate one 1-inch square of chocolate. Set aside. 3. In medium saucepan, combine 2.1 ounces chocolate, remaining cocoa and sugar, and salt and milk. (Reserve any leftover chocolate for another use.) Place mixture over medium heat; whisk gently. Once chocolate melts and cocoa dissolves into milk, raise heat to medium high; whisk more vigorously to form froth on surface. When mixture bubbles around edges and seems ready to boil, remove from heat. Do not let it boil. Ladle into 4 small cups with some froth on each. Spoon dollop of cocoa whipped cream on top, and sprinkle with grated chocolate.

Yeah, the eel is actually a good beginner piece, since it's cooked and sauced. I went to Shiki the other day and tried octopus, and loved it. Much better than the squid, which was pretty tasteless. I was also at Shilla on Denny a couple weeks ago and had a bowl of rice with a big piece of grilled eel on top. I liked it. I understand (maybe I'll ask BON on the Japan channel) that there are restaurants in Japan that specialize in eel, and I intend to look into this if I'm ever in any part of Japan other than an airport.

Bux-- First of all, the book is not simply a string of drunken misadventures. Neither is it a compendium of wise cultural observations. Bourdain eats a lot of good food and is sober enough to describe it to my satisfaction. There have been an endless number of books written about the "middle ground" between going native and going Hilton. My own travel writing--and yours, I think--is very much in this vein. When I travel, I want to learn things I couldn't from the guidebook, but I'm not particularly wild and crazy even though I'll eat anything. Calvin Trillin, Jeffrey Steingarten, and many others seem to fall into this same category. For me, travel is largely about the food, and "adventure travel" books that don't go into detail about the meals bore me. What is there for the food-obsessed reader who wants a little vicarious adventure? There's Richard Sterling, who I disbelieve most of the time and whose main goal seems to be impressing the reader. Then there's Bourdain's book, which avoids Sterling-style self-involvement by never straying far from the dinner table. And I think the book is much weirder and less macho than one would gather from reading this topic. As for the booze, I can recall one time that I've been in a cultural context where alcohol was being foisted on me endlessly. It was the first time I went to London, and I had friends there who took me to a string of pubs. I could have stopped drinking or gone home at any time, but pub culture was something I'd heard a lot about, and here was my opportunity to experience just a little slice. It was something best experienced drunk, and there are other bits of the world best viewed through the same blurry lens. I doubt I'd want to experience most of them, but if they involve great food, I certainly want to read about them.

Unless you hear something from the Powers That Be, I'd assume it's probably just someone using the name. I'm guessing the real Bourdain doesn't have time, but I could be wrong. Oops, just noticed his post. Guess it is him. (Edited by mamster at 12:19 pm on Dec. 29, 2001)

Hey, you're not allowed to say "nu" and "bacon fat" in the same sentence. (Just kidding.) Shaw, I can assure you that my home fries spend over an hour in the pan and are neither mushy nor fat-saturated. They're crispy as ####. There's probably a much quicker way to achieve the same effect, though, and the main reason I don't precook is that I don't enjoy dicing cooked potatoes--when I start with raw I get more even cubes.

You're right--my hash browns basically are roesti but without any precooking. I generally think of roesti as being a little thicker, too--for my browns I'm after maximum crunch.

Home fries aren't too far removed from hash, either, although I usually boil the potatoes first for that. A well-crusted hash made with leftover meat or fish is about the best breakfast I know; the best I ever made was from leftover five-spice duck from a popular local restaurant. In our house hash browns are made from grated potatoes and home fries from diced. The ingredients are the same, but when I make hash browns I want the potatoes to stick together into a cake, which I often wrap around something. Now I am really hungry.

Michael Hood in the P-I today named BOB the most underrated restaurant of the year. Cap, meet feather.

Thorne's recipe uses no onions, just salt and pepper, and pure butter, although he also recommends fowl or pork fat of any kind or peanut oil. He covers the pan for the first 20 minutes. Do you own Serious Pig? It's in there, along with his dynamite cornbread recipe and a lot of other good stuff. If you don't have it and would like me to post the whole method, I can type it up.

I want to give you a positive answer to this, but I haven't found any dim sum in the I-district that compares to what I've had in Vancouver or New York, or even Portland. I've heard some of the suburban places are quite good but have never made it out there. Anyone have an I-district tip I should know about?

I use Idaho russets and John Thorne's recipe, which is more of a technique than a recipe. The basic idea is to start with raw cubed potatoes and cook with butter over low heat for over an hour in a cast iron pan. It's fussy and slow, but I've never had better home fries. The potatoes shrink into crispy nuggets with molten centers and concentrated potato flavor. The main problem is that it's hard to make a lot this way; with a single 10" skillet you can do barely two servings. To feed four hungry people you'd need two 12" skillets on two burners. Thorne says he likes waxy potatoes as well as russets, but I tried it and disagree.

Good Eats kicks ass. It's the best show on the channel, hands down. It has the detail that made David Rosengarten's show good, but Brown is funnier. Re: Sarah Moulton, I liked her 10:00 show better when that was on; she would have chefs on from around town and not just the usual suspects. And since it was live, they would sometimes make the same kind of mistakes that I make at home. Also, I have a little crush on S.M. See, I can be positive. And Figure 8 is great too.

I agree completely about Ming Tsai, although I didn't like his cookbook. I like it when he says, "This dish is DONE." I'm not exactly sure what you mean about "the public" rallying around an underdog and then tearing them down; it's unclear why Flay or Emeril should ever have been considered an underdog, and I find their TV shows annoying. Naturally I would be less inclined to bash Emeril if his show weren't on *every time* I turn on TVFN, but I have no problem with a chef becoming popular. Oh, we haven't mentioned Sarah Moulton. Her show rules.