AmyH

July 10 Dalat ordering a la carte requesting round table or, if necessary two round tables, with an egg timer for musical chair seat switching (I will bring the timer), equal division of bill absent extravagances by mongo at, can we say 7:30, for those of us who want it to be dark when they eat (mongo), who like to drink (at least Lori and Stephen and I) but who have to drive back to Boulder (me!). I second the motion of splitting the bill in equal parts. It really makes for a much more pleasant experience in my mind, unless you go with my friends back in Chicago, who shall remain nameless, who always ordered the kir royale apertifs and the poir williams digestifs and an extra appetizer even when (or one could say "because we had") agreed in advance to split the bill evenly between the four couples . . and did they ever offer to kick in a little more? Did we eventually decide not to invite them out anymore . .. . Amy

Consensus is building for Dalat on July 10. I am happy to monitor our numbers, cajole people into RSVP'ing and even make the reservation as we get closer, but do I have a volunteer (oh, food nut and Lori) to help with some pre-ordering or do we want to figure it out when we get there this time? Off topic response to Lori -- Treppada's closes at 6, so I think the child is going upscale and I will take her to Le Chantecler, I have always had very good food there, and lots of variety. fois grois, mmmmm.

Can we get a sense for Dalat on July 10? Anyone? Lori, thanks for the recommendation of Cafe Jordano. Worked out perfectly and I was very smug in not following the rest of the lacrosse team to Old Chicago after the game because I had three different local options to choose from. Very good ravioli, 11 year old lacrosse playing son had buffalo parmigiana (even he did not mind missing Old Chicago) and daughter had a very tasty and very homemade pasta pesto. Now, Niwot tomorrow night after girls softball . . . any thoughts?

I am also out of pocket for most of June. Will be roadtripping with the 9 and 11 year old back to the east coast, with stops in Louisville, KY, DC, NYC,Boston, Maine, Viagara Falls and Chicago. Don't worry, I have my priorities straight and most of my food stops are already planned out, thanks to Holly eats and other egulleteers. If June is out, and I'm not saying it is, let me throw out a July date and food suggestion, just to try and get everyone in the right direction or we will have this polite, "I'll go where you want to go" exchange well into September. Saturday night, July 10, vietnamese if peppered and someone else will assist in the ordering for us neophytes much like mongo did. On a more immediate note, I find myself at 285 and Wadsworth tomorrow evening due to a lacrosse game . . any suggestions of must eats in or aorund that area since we never travel south of Denver for food? Thanks

I was quoted $135 for the 7 course and $175 for the 9 course, which would have included the Kobe beef. Although these prices may sound high for tasting menus, given the prices on the a la carte menu with many appetizers in the $20's and main courses in the $40-50 range, in my opinion the tasting menus are the way to go. The portions for each tasting course were quite ample. Perhaps someone else can comment on the wine prices -- we brought one bottle with us and they did not charge the corkage fee. All I can say is that, unlike at Aureole and some other places, the wine list prices did not jump off the page as being stunningly outrageous.

Has anyone stayed at the El Convento in Old San Juan -- Mrs. B? We are spending only one night after a week at the Bitter End in the BVI and want to stay in Old San Juan to explore the city. I have a reservation at El Convento but just read some very mixed reviews. Obviously based on Bux' experience the Plaza des Armas is right out. Any other suggestions of where to stay? And Bux, can you give us a sneak peek of your feelings on the other two restaurants you ate at? Are they "thumbs up" or down? Thanks

sand- welcome to egullet and thanks for your great post. It is a little ironic that they still have not been able to train the front of the house to properly take reservations and explain the need for a reservation for the tasting menu -- I wish I had a copy of our tasting menu, but it turned out to be scrawled on a tiny piece of paper by John. I endorse your recommendation about timing of dinner. Again, another mix-up on their part. When I made the reservation, I very specifically told them that we would NOT be attending the Elton John show and that we wanted to make it for a time when the kitchen would be more relaxed. The reservationist suggested 9:10 -- I assumed the show started at 8 and that this made good sense -- we learned, of course, that the show starts at 7:30, lasts about 90 minutes and that 9:00 could not have been a worse time for a reservation for a special dinner. I also agree that the food, while not aggressively "cutting edge" -- for that, anyone reading this should check out the post with pictures on the Heartland website of the TDF at Trio -- was perfectly executed, an homage to fresh local produce and full of creativity. For me, a very much appreciated bonus is the knowledge that while many other chefs have come and gone (or not come at all which may be the case with Keller and Bouchon -- too busy concentrating on Per Se), Ogden has made a highly visible committment to the restaurant that bears his name. Although there are many other opportunities for fine dining in LV for sure, the next time I return, I will return to Bradley Ogden.

Wanted to report on a great meal at Bradley Ogden. If you only care about what we ate and drank, you'll have to scroll down past the setup/avoidance of disaster by fantastic General Manager John Cronin, that I shall now recite. The Set Up We were going to LV to celebrate husband's 40th. After consulting egulleteers, decided on Bradley Ogden and in particular, the tasting menu (recommended by Foodiegirl?). I called the week before and spoke directly with a hostess in the restaurant. Conversation went something like this -- we have a reservation for next saturday eveining at nine and want to know about availability of a tasting menu. She - I see your reservation, let me go back to the kitchen and check. music, music. She - there are two choices: 7 course with bison and 9 course with kobe beef. 7 course is 135, 9 course is 175. Me -- we want to do the 7 course. She -- let me check. music, music. She- OK, no problem, just tell them when you arrive. Me - are you SURE we don't need to tell you now. She. No, just tell your server. (you see where this is going, don't you). Saturday night - Sit down, menus closed. waiter arrives, we want the 7 course tasting menu. Told that it is not possible . .it is Saturday night, Elton John letting out in a 1/2 hour, too crowded . . . Me- Very unhappy and displeased. I explain the above conversation. He goes back to the kitchen. Husband is convinced only bad can come of this . .spitting in food or worse. Waiter comes back, cannot be done. Let me send over the manager. whisper, whisper. Along comes one John Cronin, the General Manager. I explain that I tried my best to "do the right thing" and order in advance. Cronin asks to join us at the table. Apologizes for the confusion, whips out a pen and piece of paper and begins to write down courses -- he's what we can do . .he has written down the 7 course tasting menu (as best I can tell) and a price lower than that quoted on the phone. Mutual apologies all around . . I'm sorry to be a pain, no we're sorry this happened to you . . husband starts breathing and stops worrying about potential food poisoning. We go on to have an incredible meal with incredible service. All is well, no dirty looks, recrimination. It is over the top attentiveness and eventually Bradley comes out to visit another table and comes by to introduce himself to the pains in the a--es that ordered the tasting menu on a Saturday night. He sits down, chats, nice as could be . . The food Treane Cenral Coast Viognier -Maytag Blue Cheese Souffle with crumbled maytag, candied walnuts, cubed pieces of quince, blood orange, grapefruit swirls on the plate. Signature dish going back to Lark Creek Inn. As we discovered with the rest of the meal (with the exception of a few misguided foams), this is not "cutting edge" cuisine, it does not come with directions a la Fera or Grant Achatz, it does not even necessarily combine unique or unusual flavors (no white pepper ice cream or pumpkin like at Mugaritz). It is simply, exquisitely prepared and presented food using the best ingredients that California has to offer. I don't offer this as an apology or negative, but an observation of what to expect at Bradley Ogden. -Dungeness crab with exotic mushroom flan in fish broth garnished with cilantro and lemongrass. OK, I guess I should retract the statement above. This was very unique and it worked . flan floating in fish broth, heavy lemongrass flavor, small pieces of crab and japanese mushroom , don't know the variety. -Artic char with celery root capellini and ginger foam. Foam was foamy but not very gingery. The intriguing thing about this dish was the celery root angel hair. I don't know how you would make it without coming up with a mushy mass, but this was individual, angel hair like strands of al dente celery root. -fois gras two ways - perfectly sauteed and a quenelle of fois gras mousse. We both tasted a hint of blue cheese in the mousse that recalled the first course, but the waiter said it was fennel.. Served with balsamic onion confiture and a split glass of Andrew Ridge Central Coast Late Harvest Gewurtzimener. Wine was good but I would have prefered a Sauterne (we let the waiter talk us ouf of a glass of sauterne and into the Ridge, so no one to blame) -sea bass sauteed with rutubaga and yellow potatoes . . nothing noted here - S. dakota bison tenderlon with red/orange beets and quenelles of whipped potatoes. The top side of the bison is perfectly pin and tender. The bottom is pan seared to a carmelized crsut that locked in all the flavor and juices. Extraordinary flavor. We are drinking a 2000 Burgess Merlot that we brought with us. -Incredible cheese course - eight domestic cheeses, triple creams, monton, aged cheddar, aged cows milk. An incredible cheese plate. Lots and lots of desserts Any questions?

chef- Thanks for the link. As luck would have it, our local wine shop is hosting a tasting dinner next week with some former French Laundry folks, including Lachlan Patterson (anyone, anyone, Bueller?), and one of the wines to be served is a 1964 Richebourg Grand Cru. So, for much less than the cost of purchase of a bottle, we will taste the '64, and if it wows us, the owner has put a bottle on reserve for me to purchase. The '64 Latour is tempting . . .

It was the quality of the wine and not the container. We did a blind test with a few people.

Thanks for all the help so far. It does not have to be a Rhone, but that is our favorite region. I hear you on those Cdp's. 2020 also has a 1964 Latour. Anyone know if they will ship just one bottle?

As a 40th Birthday present, I am trying to track down a 1964 Cdp, Hermitage or other Rhone. I have found 4 from vintners that I have never heard of and the price of each (around 100$) has me leary. They are: CHATEAUNEUF DU PAPE BROTTE ET FILS CHATEAUNEUF DU PAPE GRIVELET CUSSET LEON CHATEAUNEUF DU PAPE PATRIACHE CHATEAUNEUF DU PAPE MAS ST. LOUIS As compared with: 1964 Mont Redon Chateauneuf. $375 at 2020. Any thoughts? Any suggestions on how to purchase a single bottle and get it shipped. I suppose I could buy a case of something else +1. Any help would be most appreciated.

Based on the NYT article a while back, we decided to try the Black Box wines and found them to be very sub par for actual drinking -- we tried both plastic cups (to match the plastic bag ) and wine glasses . No discernable difference. Used the remainder for cooking and that was OK but the boxes actually take up a fair bit of room in the fridge and we always have either an open bottle of wine or a cheap enough wine in the cellar to use for cooking that is also drinkable! I do like the sailing idea, however.

Woodburner- We made the Bayonne Ham and Cheese terrine from the Hiragoyen cookbook twice. The first time, I ordered serrano ham from Tienda.com. Alas, the ham was flavorful but too thickly sliced and even though we applied pressure, the dish did not present well -- it tasted great. The second time was for a dinner party (see discussion on the travel/Spain forum (I don't know how to link, sorry). I actually went to Whole Foods and had them slice to the exact specifications 20 odd slices of a slighlty smoky prosciutto that they sell along with an equal number of slices of manchego. It may not be perfectly authentic, but the results were fantastic and we received rave reviews from every diner. Same dinner, we also made the scallop and artichoke bottom saute from his cookbook and duplicated the poached egg flower recipe from Arzak exactly as transcribed on the arzak website, including the plastic wrap poached egg technique. One caveat -- I doubled the number of eggs because we had more diners and foolishly doubled the entire menu -- the result was that I had way too much of all of the acompaniaments that go on the plate along with the poached egg flower. So, keep the recipe as is from the website. Good luck!

Follow Up- For anyone interested, here is what we cooked and learned: Thanks to Pepe, we made the Arzak poached egg flower straight from the website recipe. I was skeptical as to why one would go through the bother of plastic wrap poached agg versus using a traditional egg poacher but came out of the process a convert. The technique is simple. By lightly greasing the plastic wrap with olive oil, the egg does does not slide away, or I should say, it does not slide away too quickly. There is enough time to add salt/pepper/truffle oil and wrap up the plastic without the egg sliding off the counter! Each egg is placed in boiling water for 4 1/2 minutes and voila, a perfectly poached "flower" - our guests loved the chorizo/date stripe and the accompanying sausage/breadcrumb stripe as well as the spoonful of truffle to be sprinkled over the egg. Bayonne Ham and Sheep's Milk Cheese Terrine from Hiragoyen's book. Directions were easy to follow, accurate and helped us re-create a dish that I have now eaten three times at Piperade and enjoyed immensely. Fois Gras with Manzaras from the Berranchea cookbook. Just not that exciting and I found her times to be way off on both cooking/carmelizing apples and searing the foie gras. If I had followed the full time in her book for the foie there would have been nothing left of it. Overall, in reviewing her book, I could not find all that much that I wanted to cook. Scallops with artichoke bottoms and gratin of piquillo peppers, white bean puree from the Hiragoyen cookbook. Again, Gerard did not dissapoint. Directions were spot on. Ordered the piquillo peppers and pimenton from La Tienda and received rave reviews from the guests on the intense smoky flavors in the dish combined with the puree of white beans. Both these recipes are sure to be repeats at our house. Just wanted to report in. Editor, if this post does not actually belong "here" please feel free to move it!

Pepe- Thank you very much. The version served at the restaurant the day I was there had a stipre of pimenton along side a stripe of a melon infusion. I am thankful for this recipe as I am going to attempt it this weekend for guests.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. vserna, any recommendation beyond the critique of the Hirigoyen book? I did get a copy of his book from the library -- an often overlooked source for cookbooks, I went to four bookstores that did not carry either cookbook, decided to take a look in the library and there was the Hirigoyen -- the Barrenechea was MIA -- he has the recipes for several dishes that we enjoyed at Piperade, including the Serrano ham and cheese terrine and hake sebastian. I agree, other dishes were underwhelming and not particularly unique. As to the poached egg flower at Arzak, it is on the menu as Flor huevo y tartufo, and it is simplicity itself . . a perfectly poached egg (Cabrales posted elsewhere that is it is cooked in some sort of plastic sac?), drizzled with truffle oil, some cubes of fois gras on the plate and some simple bitter greens is all that I recall. Certainly not something for which one needs a cookbook, or in particular a Basque cookbook, but something we thought was fabulous.

Any recommendations of books that people have actually cooked from versus gaped over (like el Bulli?). In particular, have you used Hirigoyen's Basque Kitchen Cookbook or have others to recommend? Dinner party in several weeks and we promised to bring back some ideas of our recent Donostia area experiences, including the Arzak poached egg flower that I fell in love with! If this post is in the wrong place, please let me know where it belongs. I did a search and could not find any helpful thread. Just figured that with the lively Help in Donostia thread and Brown, vserna, Bux and others interest in this region, it would be a good place to post. Thanks in advance

Bux- I am not sure where in la Rioja your travels will bring you, but I can highly recommend two vineyards to visit if you are in the area of Laguardia -- Bodega Ysios and Bodega Ugarte, and if it is possible, do both on the same day to enjoy the contrast between the incredibly old caves at Ugarte and the state of the art machinery and presentation at the architecturally spectacular Bodega Ysios. Ysios was designed by famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, it has an undulating stainless steel roof that echoes the mountains behind. A foursome that was waiting for a tour was convinced that it was designed by Gehry, but alas, that is a different building entirely (for Riscal) and not anywhere near completion. We had dinner at Marixa in Laguardia upon several recommendations and we were quite dissapointed. I believe it may be more known for lunch versus dinner. We enjoyed our dinner at the Castillo del Collado (great small hotel) much better but we did not tell this to Javier, the owner of Collado as his nephew runs Marixa! Thanks for the warm welcome.

Please be kind as this is my first egullet post. We dined at El Corral del Indianu about one month ago. This was post San Sebastian dining at Zuberoa (tasting menu for dinner); Arzak (tasting menu for lunch) and Mugaritz ( the more experimental tasting menu for dinner) -- posts are on another board, because while I love reading the egullet forum, I don't feel I'm in the same league. We moved on to the Picos for some hiking with the expectation that we would also move on to some more traditional/simple cooking (roasted meats, fabada, cabrales cheeses etc). We also dined on a Saturday evening at about 9:00 and the restaurant was sparsely populated. I do speak bad high school/college Spanish. Our waiter (same as Tony's?) did not speak any English and yet we were able to communicate with Spanish and comical pantemime. We did not order the tasting menu and we did not have English menus. We ordered carmelized sweetbreads to start and the rape con limon and traditional grilled steak with cabrale cheese. Of all of the portions and tastings we ate during our trip, the carmelized sweetbreads have left the most lasting impression -- incredibly tender and perfectly sauteed in a deeply brown carmelized reduction. We literally groaned with each mouthful of this dish and it was a very good sized portion. I really can't explain why this dish has stuck with me so vividly, but there it is. The same with the fish and meat dishes -- we found the portions quite ample, the dishes well executed, seasoned and displayed --the flavor combinations were not overwrought or forced. The desserts were also very, very good -- a traditional arroz con leche, an incredible chocolate mousse combined with orange gelee and mint and a trio of very intensely flavored citrus ice creams. A woman came out of the kitchen, I thought it was the chef, but obviously given vserna's post, it was not, (perhaps his wife?) and inquired about our dinner. When I explained in my bad spanish that we thought the sweetbreads were incredible and asked how they were prepared, we were able to engage in a broken dialogue of discussion. By the time we left, it was a full on downpour and she offered my husband an umbrella to use to get our car. I defintely got the impression that if we (or Tony) had asked to either speak with the chef or tour the kitchen, we would have been most welcome to do so. While it is true that Elena or Juan Arzak consider working the room to be part of the *** dining experience, I don't think this is the norm at most restaurants -- we did not see Arbelaritz at Zuberoa. In short, we were pleasantly surprised by our meal. Sure, we assumed that since it was a michelin star it would have a certain quality, but given the location -- a poorly lit main street in a small mountain town, I really was not expecting the level of creativity or whimsy that we had in SS. And yet, we thought the meal -- foodwise, presentation and execution, was very, very good, with even a hint of great -- those sweetbreads! Thanks for reading