markk

Three star restaurants in Europe tend not to be in major cities (except some are by coincidence) but the majority are in the "middle of nowhere" , and unless they changed the description in the newer guides, the explanation of 2 stars has always been "worth a detour", and the description of 3 stars has always been "worth a special trip". Don't know if that has been changed but it's read that way for years and years.

The hair-dryered whoppers were in Berlin, and yes, that was for real. In Germany, the country closes down for December 24, and we were lucky to have found a Burger King even open till noon. In Alsace, everything stays open Dec. 24 for last minute shopping, and being at one of the great hypermarkets to see everybody stocking up at the very last minute is quite a site. But most people spend that evening with family, and so the number of restaurants open is limited indeed, but the Strasbourg Tourist Office will now be offering this year,s list of what,s open. A lot of the rustic hotels outside of Strasbourg offer dinner that night for guests of the inn only. And then on Christmas day you,ll find more things open. Again, the tourist board has this well covered and can fax you the list early enough to make your plans. And while I do prefer American style hotels for many reasons (not the least of which are staying for free at the Hilton with Hilton Points for weeks at a time), it is true that the small family hotels in the surrounding towns offer a totally different, and wonderful experience. If your plans include the Colmar area, do definitely stay at Le Faude (and let me know so I can hook you up). This is the "Welche" region of Alsace, where, as opposed to the regular Alsace people who are warm, outgoing, and loving, these people are effervescently extra-warm, extra-outgoing, and extra-loving. I would advise to make your trip a combination of Strasbourg, and some of of the smaller hamlets - the hotel and restaurant Le Chasseur, in Birkenwald, is only about 20 minutes from Strasbourg, on a fascinating drive through roads that get smaller and quieter, and it's so deadly quiet when you get there that you can hear the snow falling (and eat spectacular food as well, and drink from an especially great cellar). Well, I don't know how much I answered, but feel free to keep asking more. I don't think you can go wrong anywhere there.

I thought of some more answers to your questions... We stay as I said in the Hilton or Holiday Inn in Strasbourg, because I like "American" style hotels, and both are pretty luxurious. I also love Strasbourg, because on those days that you don't feel like exploring the region, the story-book town has plenty to captivate you for many, many days of strolling. But I tend to take the majority of my dinners at Le Faude, a micro-village partway up the Vosges Mountains, near Colmar, which is actually 56 miles (and one solid hour of driving) from Strasbourg. People think I'm nuts to drive that far for dinner (I am, but that's the same time it takes me to go the 1.5 miles from where I live in NJ to midtown Manhattan for dinner during rush hour) so it's nothing to me. But if you were looking for a place to stay in the Southern (Colmar) end of Alsace, I would recommend staying at Le Faude, which was beautiful to start, before they underwent major upgrades and renovations last year (I had seen the plans). (By the way, as far as the restaurant, it was this one. And there's one other thing I should tell you about Christmas in Alsace, which you'll already be familiar with if you've spent Christmas in Europe. Restaurants close for Christmas and Christmas Eve, more of them closing on the Eve. You'd need to get from the Strasbourg Tourist Office the official list of "Restaurants Open for Christmas" and be sure in advance that you have a dinner reservation for those nights. Of course, I've spent Christmas Eve in Germany, where we had to stock up on Whoppers from Burger King before they closed at noon, and then heat them up at dinnertime with hair-dryers in our (luxury) hotel. So this is only a problem if you don't deal with it in advance. If you plan to explore the region, you will have to have a car. Strasbourg is an enchanted city, so staying there without a car isn't a problem, but the great restaurants are in the surrounding countryside, where you get to experience the bounty and gluttony that the locals enjoy on a daily basis - that's what all the photos of my meals were. None of those places can be gotten to without a car. Hope this helps.

YOU DIDN'T MENTION PACKING THE CAMERA. PLEASE SAY YOU'RE TAKING A CAMERA !!!!

I've been there many (many) times and have stayed either at the Holiday Inn, or the Hilton, both across the street from each other at Place Bordeaux, which is now a very convenient tram stop. As far as you being a smart ass or anything, I don't mean to be one either, but what do you mean by "what else is there to do besides eat?" There's strolling - every street is filled with food specialty shops, cheese shops, bakeries, markets, bookstores, wine stores, food shops, food stalls, bakeries, cheese shops, and there are stupendous Hypermarkets with great food sections. If you referring to some part of travel that doesn't have to do with food, I wouldn't know about it - not here, or any other place I've traveled to. When I travel, I like to stroll the streets aimlessly, and take in what's there (okay, in Strasbourg, there's a lot of food retail) and see what I discover where my feet take me. If you meant things like museums, churches, etc., I'm pretty sure they have them, but I can't help you there, sorry. I guess what there is to do is stroll and take in a way of life that doesn't seem to exist much any more. There are really cute towns and villages all throughout the Alsace region, and at Christmastime they all come alive with wonderful Christmas markets of their own. Most of them are based on wine as their "industry", so you can do an astounding amount of wine-tasting, mostly visiting "wineries" that are the size of an average suburban house somewhere in the US. And you can sample (and buy) the most astounding wines, for mere pennies. Festivity is in the air for visitors. Life in Alsace is good for the people there, and it's reflected in their effervescent personalities and their extremely warm and helpful attitude towards visitors. Well, I don't know that I've answered your question, but if I haven't, please let me know.

Which reminds me that I forgot to post that we gave it a second chance and went back two weeks after our lousy meal, again before the opera. Starters were Lyonnaise salads with poached eggs, and we reminded them beforehand that the previous time our eggs had been way overcooked - they came nice and runny this time, and the salads were delicious (textbook, too, as I've had tons of these in Lyon). My smarter half had the Steamed Mussels this time, which were delicious. I ordered a strip steak (because the last time, when I saw a great looking steak go by, I asked the waiter what it was, and told it was a strip). I think I was told wrong, becuase what I got didn't resemble the great looking one I had seen, but oh well, that's life. Next time maybe I'll try the ribeye which is what I thought it was. I asked for it crispy on the outside and rare inside. It came just really overcooked. However, I opted to eat it and not say anything, because we had a curtain to make, and my expectations really weren't that high anyway. A wine person (not our waiter) came over to serve the wine, and she asked each of us how our dinner was, so I told her that my steak was way overcooked. Instantly, she reached down and took the plate off the table, ad said with a smile "if you'll tell me how you wanted it, I'll get you another one done properly". I mentioned that we had an 8 pm curtain, and she said not to worry. And I really liked that she whisked it away and then asked what I wanted, instead of leaving it there and asking "did you want something else". She returned quickly enough with a steak that was much better, and with a fresh basket of extremely crisp and delicious fries (the ones that had come with the first steak were soggy). Dessert was a shared blueberry crumble and two vanilla ice cream cones to melt in the crumble. The tab? Reasonable enough that we will go back there again before the opera. Funnily, I had been looking forward to having the liver and onions again and asking them to cook the liver a little less, and they had taken it off the menu. Does anybody know when Daniel's place opens? After my recent mediocre dinner at DB Bistro Moderne, I'm not holding very high expectations, but I'd give it a try once.

I have spent at least 4 Christmases in Alsace - it's a magical, story-book land that comes alive at this time of year. There are wonderful Christmas markets in every square in every town, and the decorations and the spirit in the air is infectious. I don't remember if I specifically have photos of all the wonderful things in the Christmas markets in my pages, though there are probably a few, but I know that this page at least has a video of Christmas Eve Mass in the Cathedral in Strasbourg (outside of which is just one of the many Christmas markets in town): http://www.guyarts.com/alsace/mark-in-alsace.html And here's a page of links to all the restaurant meals we've had in Alsace at Christmastime over the years: http://www.guyarts.com/france.html If you have any questions after seeing these, don't hesitate to ask! What would I eat? Street food by day, and restaurant meals at night - you'll see plenty of that.

I tried to search for a thread on this but got "One or all of your search keywords were below 4 characters" - how frustrating. If there's not a thread to point me to, how is the food at this place? I'm still looking for a nice place to take some guests for Christmas Dinner (Dec. 25) and they are open, but over the years I've heard mixed comments? Any recent experiences? And if you know of a better place open on Christmas Day, please say. Thanks!

I have eaten at Billy's Stone Crabs several times, the last time (funnily enough) having been on December 25, 2006. The stone crabs were hideously awful. I'd had them there before twice and they were fine, though I've had other things there that had seen better days. So last Christmas, having eaten way too much food in Miami and seeking something light and refreshing for Christmas Dinner for a change, and wanting to take advantage of them being in season, we went to Billy's. The crabs were old (old) tasting, with off putting odors and tastes. Considering that this is their primary business item, they have to have known what they were serving. I'm not talking about one bad claw, I'm talking two full orders. We complained to our server that the flavor and smell were off, and he went back to the kitchen and returned to tell us "as far as we know, they're fresh". So, I'll never go back, and in good conscience, I couldn't advise anybody to go there, especially at Christmas-time. What bothered me the most is that they served them - what I mean is, they'd have done way better to realize that the batch they had was off and to tell people they were out of them.

This isn't quite true: if you take a cup of water and put it on a hot plate for 8 hours at 180 degrees it will all evaporate, without ever "coming to a boil." So I think what markk is saying is that cooking at 180 F for that long causes the moisture to evaporate. I agree that that has not been my experience. Exactly, with the exception that the fat is not actually completely airtight: duck fat, in particular, is quite porous. This is why Wolfert recommends using a thin layer of lard to seal your jars for long-term storage. I'm just guessing here, but I was thinking that the ripening process depends on this porosity, and that if you completely seal the confit in vacuum pouches, it will not ripen at all. So I was wondering if you could "simulate" the porosity by poking a small hole in yoour vacuum bag in an area where there is a relatively thick fat deposit, allowing just a tiny bit of oxygen in. ← I searched for the reference where I originally learned this but couldn't find it last night. I thought it was McGee. It had to do with methods of preserving meat and a discussion of salting and drying, and an explanation of how air-drying meat, and salting fish, are twp methods of removing the moisture (oxygen) that allows meat to go bad, and that the "confit" process in which the moisture evaporates slowly until you see no more steam rising through the fat means that when it cools and the fat forms a seal, the dried (no water) meat is preserved under the fat. I'll keep searching for a source to cite unless somebody here bails me out.

Where are you getting the legs from? and how many are you confit-ing? I'm of the belief that even if you put 4 legs tightly packed into a narrow vessel, they will render enough of their own fat to cover themselves in it. Also to the slkinsey, you're not actually cooking them sous-vide, are you or just sealing them after they're done? The idea of confit is that the moisture content evaporates (through the fat cover) and when there's no moisture left in the meat, it is preservable because there's no oxygen to go rancid, at which point leaving it under an airtight covering of fat is safe. If you're cooking it in a sous-vide package, the moisture is surely not escaping? edited to add slkinsey's name instead of calling him "the sous-vide person"

They (doctors) are specifically using the timed-release version on Niacin, which avoids the flush - but Niacin still has to be monitored by a physician for various reasons related to the liver. Still, it's great for artery health and lowering cholesterol, as is Omega-3 which is proven effective in daily doses of 2 grams (best to buy the "no repeat" capsules at that strentgh. But taking these doesn't let you eat a fatty rib steak with a pat of butter on it - and boy, I wish it did, because that's how I ate for 30 years!

Omega-3 fatty acids tend to do more for lowering triglyceride levels (related to sugar intake) when taken at a dosage of 2 grams/day. Also, twice daily doses of timed-release Niacin have been shown to have great affects on lowering cholesterol and increasing artery health, but as with the Statin medicines, some monitoring of liver function is necessary. But don't rule out diet, much as we all want to. You need to examine and lower your intake of saturated fats, and you should watch out for foods gratuitously high in cholesterol - you know what they are. Fatty meats, butter, egg yolks... Aerobic Exercise is a must, and can turn quite pleasurable too - when you reach a level with a form of exercise that gets your heart rate up and keeps it there for a minimum of 20 minutes, the endorphins that cause "runner's high" start to kick in, and it feels euphoric. If you're allergic to exercise, try 'power walking' - walking as fast as you can (build to it slowly) and then stay at maximum speed for 20-30 minutes. But while all these things help, you'll (sadly) want to cut those fatty pieces off the steak and forgo their eating pleasure, and you'll want to lower your intake of cholesterol (and the saturated fats that also raise them).

Oh, I dunno. Lots of times when I travel, I'll be in a hotel that gives you a coffeemaker and coffee and sugar and those damned yellow packets, but not the pink Sweet n Low, so I'll pocket a few for the room when I stop somewhere for something even if I'm not having their coffee. I know, it's Grand Theft Sweetner and they ought to throw me in the slammer. But what I'm usually buying is some upscale pastries for the room, and though I don't need a rationale to steal a few Sweet n Low packets, I figure that if I'm buying twelve dollars worth of muffins or pastries for a late night snack, I can help myself to a few S n L packets. Or I'll order an iced tea with my lunch somewhere and take a handful of them.

Well, you did answer my question - thanks. Two unrelated notes: This thread was in honor of my dad, who loved to eat, and could never get a decent meal at home, or a steak that wasn't gray. And he always craved a great steak. When we'd go out to steakhouses, he'd ask for his steak more dramatically than any actor I could imagine, as if by his tone and inflection he could convince them just how he was drooling over it- he's say, "Charrrrrred on the outside" with a bit of excitement, and then drop to sotto voce and add "and rare on the inside". The other unrelated note is that I've never gotten a gray steak, or one cooked without a great crispy sear, in France, or from a French chef for that matter.

We may in fact disagree on this one (it'd be our first, too ), but when the fat sizzles and crisps, are you considering that burnt?; and are you considering 'black and blue' burnt? I consider burnt when I can taste burned char, like from a grease fire, when the steak tastes like the smell of a burned out building. That's unpleasant. But the crisping from sizzling fat causing the flames to lick it (in a controlled fashion) is not to me burnt. So where are you drawing your line. I wasn't talking about people who leave the steak in a flare up for five minutes; on the other hand, I despise a grey exterior, so I'm just trying to zero in on where you call it burnt. (I once had to send back a severely overcooked steak, in a place that later told me their chef had quit and was operating without one, because the next steak that came out totally grey was followed by the explanation from the manager that the remaining people in the kitchen were afraid to cook my next steak and came up with the idea of tossing it back and forth between two very hot plates until the outside turned grey as their protection against overcooking it - honest, this happened. Would you have gone for that?) PS - I'm not being argumentative, though it may sound it, just trying to zero in on the grey area.

Sure, I'll take your Maillard reaction steak over a grey one with a few decorative, branding-ironed grill marks any day! And I'll certainly take a steak crisped to sear it in it's own rendered fat and then finished off another way. That's not what I was saying. So I re-phrase, who'd want a steak gray and not with Maillard reaction sear, even if you don't want a char? I don't usually use the words Pittsburgh when I order _ I try to ask for seared crispy on the outside and rare inside - they always come back with "Pittsburghed" or "black and blue", and I still opt for that over grey. The only steak I like with some actual "char" is a fatty one like a ribsteak, where the dripping gratuitous fat does cause some flare ups, though I'd like the steak not to burn to a crisp in an oil fire, but I do like the good bit of char that such a steak gets over an open fire when it's controlled well. And when the flame is controlled with sand (a la Fiorentina) you still get a ferocious amount of heat searing and browning the steak uniformly. I was just asking, "who'd want a grey exterior, ever?" because I was served one the other night.

Now I realize that many people don't like their steaks rare, but that's not what I'm going to ask here. I do, and I also like the exterior of the steak nice and crusty, some might say "charred", with a rare interior. It goes by such names as "Pittsburghed" or "Black and Blue" and several times recently I've had restaurants with the "wrong" grills (so they tell me) not be able to make me one, or bring me one that was badly overcooked and then replace it with one that was gray outside and rare inside. But as my dining companion points out, why, no matter what degree of doneness you like the exterior of a steak cooked to, would you want a pale, grey exterior, instead of a nice seared, crispy, or even "charred" outside - that's how you get any steak in a serious steakhouse anyway. So what's the point of a few criscrossed markings on the outside of a steak that's otherwise grey. I know that the grill marks simulate a real grill with a fire beneath it and the marks are where the metal grill gets as hot as a branding iron, but the heat from the fire also produces a fine sear on the outside of the meat as well. So is there anybody that prefers these few grill marks to a nice crusty steak exterior, no matter how they like the inner doneness?

The photos are on my site mark-eats.com - just choose Michy's from the menu. I'm not a big dessert person, but I pick at what's ordered. I'll try to post some for you. The full orders are made for family-style sharing, so if you're comfortable picking away communally with the people you're going with, just order up a storm and dig-in.

Mee too - I use Open Table all of the time with no problems. Restaurants I go to regularly still recognize my name and greet me the same way they would have if I had made a phone call. Also, I've put special requests in and had no problem with them recognizing those.

We just returned from Miami (went down primarily for the operatic tenor Juan Diego Florez's concert at the Carnival Center) and had several meals at Michys and loved it as we always have (and I've posted lots of photos of these meals on the Michy's thread). We had the jumbo prawn and found it to be utterly delicious, and until we read your post earlier this morning, and compared notes, we realized that it had never crossed either of our minds that it wasn't entirely worth the price of the dish. However, if you're afraid that at $20 the large prawn will disappoint you, there are of course lots of other delicious things on the menu to order. I just had 4 dinners there in 6 days and found it to be as good as the very first time I went and all the (now dozens) of times I've been back since. Still, if you have hesitations, and other places to try in a limited time, maybe you'd want to skip it this trip. In which case I won't mention that the night of our concert, we needed to eat very early, and dined at Mo's Bagels and Deli in Aventura (while the traffic died down getting to downtown), and had an utterly delicious meal of Boiled Beef Flanken in a pot of Matzoh Ball Soup, and Stuffed Cabbage, both every bit as good as my old Jewish grandmother used to make, both being even better than the versions we used to get at Rascal House. I'd have gone back here again for dinner if they didn't close so damned early (you have to be done and out the door by 9 pm which is before I even leave for dinner in the first place).

I just returned from a few days in Miami (went down specifically for a concert by operatic tenor Juan Diego Florez at the Carnival Center) and of course took my meals at Michy's (except for a pre-theater meal at Mo's Deli in Aventura, an extravaganza of delicious Jewish foods, though as some in my party said, maybe not what you want to eat before sitting through a concert unless you were born with a Jewish digestive tract) though I digress.. We tried several brand new dishes from Michy's menu. "Not Your Grandmother's Chicken Livers" was a truly sublime mousse of chicken livers (and probably more cream than I want to know I was eating) and rivaled some great versions of this dish that we've had in France: The first night we got there, although there were no sweetbreads on the menu, they were running them as a special that night, over what they called a "cassoulet" of beans, though it wasn't reduced and thick, but a very light and totally tantalizing concoction that really did enhance the sweetbreads themselves - and that night as the special they had a shaving of black truffle on them, though we discovered that they were added to the menu the next night (minus the black truffle) and still every night they were truly delicious: We also had a "giant prawn" that was grilled with fresh tarragon and served over a creamed-corn concept, that was thoroughly delicious: And we had an old favorite that had returned to the menu which we had never photographed before, Seafood Linguine with Tiny Seafood, which is a dice of lots of fresh seafood and shellfish in a very delicious and sensuous dark seafood reduction that tastes a lot like her famous Bouillabaisse, and is just a great dish: We had the braised short ribs again and found them better than we remembered from the unctuous texture of the meat - I had thought I was short-ribbed out (especially since I had just had them as "flanken" at Mo's the night before), but they were great, and we chose to accompany them with the current incarnation of the Truffled Polenta, which this time came with a fricasse of exotic mushrooms, and was thoroughly delicious: And it was several nights of very delicious meals. Of course we've been there so many times now that the entire staff comes over to visit and fawn over us, and Michelle herself came by our table to welcome us back, so while my judgment might be affected by my emotional attachment to this place now, I do think that the food was as delicious as it was the first time we were tempted to go back for more oh so many meals ago.

At the moment, the only place I can vouch for is Mo's Bagels, which is actually a large, full-service restaurant that looks a lot like Rascal House inside, and serves a full dinner menu. Based on how good their lunch items are, I myself am going back for dinner. It's all the standards, and I've seen the dinner specials being posted as I've finished lunch there, and they call to me. And Mo's is open till 9, so of the other places I mentioned above but haven't been, they're actually the only one open at what could be dinnertime, since Sage closes at 4 and Harriet's will close at 8. Sorry if I got your hopes up; Mo's may be it, though that might not be bad at all. I'm getting my first dinner at Mo's next month as I said, and if it's as good as the lunch was, maybe I'll bite the bullet and eat early another night as well so as to get another dinner there. Does that help you at all? ← Well I guess I'm replying to my own message, but I am in Miami at the moment, and just as planned, we did eat an early dinner at Mo's before our concert at the Carnival Center. It was outstanding - better even than our memories of Rascal House dinners. I indeed had the Boiled Beef Flanken in the Pot of Matzoh Ball Soup, and it was out of this world. The meat was meltingly tender and rich, and the broth, matzoh balls, and noodles were perfect. My other half had the Stuffed Cabbage, and indeed it was as good as my grandmother used to make. We didn't make it back for any more dinners, sadly, because we're on a very late schedule here and haven't been leaving for dinner until long after Mo's has closed for the night. But I have taken out many things to nosh on, and they've been exemplary: the whitefish salad, the shrimp salad, and the baked salmon salad. One day I took out a large chunk of a Large Whitefish, and let it come to room temperature, and it was in fact one of the best pieces of whitefish I've had in many (many) years, and better than the last few I've bought in NYC, which have been way too salty, and too dry. Mo's whitefish was moist and juicy, and absolutely not salty at all. So I can say that if you're in Miami and craving Jewish food, Oy is this the place for you!

I've tried all the aforementioned oils, and if I can make a suggestion for the tastiest steak of all - use some beef fat. If there's gratuitous fat on the steak, you can trim a little off and heat it in the pan as you would the oil, and if there's not, ask for some - the butcher, and even the butcher department at the supermarket will give you some. Get your pan good and hot, and then throw the fat in to melt, and when it's good and hot, add your steaks. If you think about it, the tastiest parts of the steak are where the fat crisps - now you can have that crisp all over your steak. And though you didn't ask, I'll throw in an additional trick of mine - I take some cake cooling racks and heat them up in my oven. Then I cook the steaks in the hot pan of fat until they have a fantastic char on both sides. Then I lift them up (without piercing them) with a hot spatula, and using oven mitts, slide the hot cake racks under them and turn the pan off. This gives them a good ten-twelve minutes to rest and for them to finish cooking through (I like them rare) and it works great - although people say to put them in the oven, I think that just cooking them to almost the desired doneness in the pan gets you the crispiest steak, and this method lets them rest perfectly as well. Anyway, that's how I make my ribeyes. I've gotten some off-flavors from oils, at least flavors that I don't like in my steak.

Many years ago in Vancouver I discovered that the Chinese restaurants there didn't try to "withhold" food from Westerners (with such famous lines as "You won't like that") as so many US restaurants have historically done, so while I was there I became a regular at a place near my hotel and pretty much feasted on all the things they had to offer and all the things in the tanks, and I certainly ate the heads-on shrimp (salt and pepper style). When it was too late and we were leaving the last night I asked the guy who had gotten to know me (as an adventurous eater) what he thought the best preparation of the live shrimp was and he said without hesitation "Egg Foo Young". So how would you do it? I mean, would they take them in and shell them, or cook them and shell them, or what would they do? I took it from the way he said it and how willing he had been all week to let me order stuff that this was a traditional preparation?