markk

Thanks. But I have to tell you that I've been invited into just as many kitchens, and have had just as many invitations to come back during daytime prep to watch and take photos, just by showing an interest in the food, as I used to get with that letter. I find that chefs, at least in France and Italy, are very taken by people who genuinely love their food, and I've yet to have the scenario where I've gone back to a restaurant 3 or 4 times (because I couldn't get enough of it) where the chef didn't come out and sit with me after the meal and invite me to observe a meal from the kitchen. That letter was keul then, but it doesn't really make any difference, I have found.

And notwithstanding the many languages being discussed in the theoretical sense, I called back the restaurant in question, had another conversation with them in problem-free English, learned which night they are closed to reservations because of a large party, and made a reservation for a night when I was hoping to take some friends there who are coming from out of town.

Funny how life works, but I just called them (3:07 Eastern Time) and spoke English, (not speaking Cantonese, or Mandarin, or Taiwanese or Fujanese) and the fellow who answered the phone explained to me in English that they do indeed take reservations, except when the restaurant is fully booked for a party, and said that if I wanted to give him a date, he'd let me know if it was possible to make a reservation for that night. (212) 619-0085.

You don't, of course, have to be a blogger, to take photos of what you eat. If anything is said, you could always say that one of your party was too ill/elderly/unable to come on the trip at the last minute, and you promised him/her a photo of everything you ate. It's a touching answer that I have kept at the ready. The only place I ever had to use it was at a hold-in-the-wall Cuban joint in New Jersey when some guy (who wasn't even inconvenienced by the photos) demanded to know why we were taking them. I said that it had been my mother's favorite place many years ago, and as she was now to old and infirm to travel, she asked me to take a photo of everything we ate there for her. If the guy was going to go into an anti-blogger rant, he went away with a tear in his eye. Then again... I was doing this in the 1970's before there were blogs, when I traveled through Italy with a letter of introduction from an Italian-American magazine I wrote for and which my traveling companion shot photos for. The letter opened the door to many restaurant kitchens for us and got us invited during the day to shoot prep work and interview them. Once on the Isle of Capri, we spent the day interviewing the elderly family that had founded a now-chic restaurant, and arranged to return the next night for dinner. When we did, we couldn't reach the front door because of the thick mob of paparazzi there, who informed us that the restaurant was closed for Christina Onassis to have dinner there privately, having just arrived by yacht. Well, we pressed our way to the front door, and the owner opened it a crack and let us in with our cameras while keeping the paparazzi out, and there was a minor riot. The two of us and Christina Onassis's party were the only people dining in the restaurant, at nearby tables, though my photographer had his back to her. When his lobster dish arrived, he photographed it several times with flash. Then an Onassis henchman built like a bouncer stood up, grabbed my partner's camera, and was just about to smash it to the floor when Christina yelled "shut up and sit down, you big goon - he was taking a picture of his lobster - didn't you even see that he had his back to me!" Even she didn't object to our food photos.

well...... YEAH..... it's just wrong to do it any other way! The very fabric of the universe is in danger of unraveling if we don't pay attention to details like this (I am so with you on this one) Well, absolutely. I sometimes am halfway through making sandwiches and have to stop and re-examine the bread to be sure that I lined it up correctly to work; if the slices were flipped left to right and the indents didn't line up when I closed it after condimenting, I for one would not be able to eat, or serve the sandwich. Could anybody, really? By the way, I love all the comments that have to do with stuff falling out of the sandwich. I hope I'll be forgiven for posting this (I've posted it once or twice before), but no matter how you'd have sliced this sandwich, how the heck does it not all fall out when you cut it or eat it?

Well, let me share with you some of my experiences taking photos in restaurants in France: We were in one place in Alsace (a Michelin "bib gourmand" restaurant) where we took photos of everything we ate. After a few nights (we kept returning because we loved it) a stern-looking, matronly woman who had seen us snapping flash photos every night marched up to us at the end of the meal and asked in German if we were Germans, and I replied that no, we were Americans. She exclaimed "Wunderbar!" and went on to tell us how wonderful she thought it was that we cared enough about our food to photograph it. That restaurant is here. A few nights later a French family at another table held out their plates for us (as they had ordered different things than we had) and suggested we photograph them. And when we dug into our dessert one night, a Belgian woman at the table next to us (who then became a friend) turned to us in a panic and said "STOP! You forgot to take the photo." Now we move on to a 2-star restaurant. We had gone and eaten an all-truffle dinner, and had been afraid to bring the camera. The meal was so great we made reservations to come back and eat it again a week later, and asked the chef sheepishly if by any chance we could bring the camera, and the answer was "Absolutely! You have every right to photograph your meal." And after we did, he invited us to take photos in the kitchen. That restaurant is here. And if you go to the "France" page of the 'extravaganza' site in my signature, you'll see loads of other meals photographed in lots of upscale restaurants there. Nobody has ever minded. Nobody has ever been less than happy that we do it. (And nobody has failed to invite us into the kitchen either.)

I know exactly the feature/filter you mean, and I used to rely on it all the time to search for "bibs" myself. For a while recently, you had to find the "site map" link at the bottom of the page, and then choose "restaurants", and you could still do it. Now, if you go that route, you can show "michelin-chosen" or "other" restaurants, but you can do no additional filtering. I can't tell you how many times I'd re-filter a list and print it out for a trip! Maybe they want you to buy the guide now. (hmmmm.)

I believe that this is exactly true. But the "how and why" foods have become lighter in many cuisines over the years (and I believe they have) might well be a separate thread. I believe it's for a few reasons, probably interwoven. For one, thinking of many dishes, there was a time when all that was available was heavy cream, or as in the case of when that got left out in a bowl, crème fraîche; it worked well to thicken many things, tasted wonderful, and was available in many places, so it was used. It may be the case that as transportation and travel improved and people tasted dishes from other places that were lighter because they were made with lighter ingredients, they thought "oh, it's nice not to feel that fullness I've felt in my stomach for the last 50 years", and started incorporating other ingredients into what they cooked. And maybe people lightened up on the stuff that was found to be bad for you when they realized that they were cooking a meal for grandpa since his heart attack, and thought "oh, I'll just put in less butter, or maybe use some olive oil instead..." But I do think that foods are lighter now indeed than they were 50 years ago. And I find that when I make a recipe and use the amount of butter and cream that we thought nothing of using 50 years ago, even I feel bloated - and I don't like nouvelle.

There wouldn't really be any discussion. I'd suggest a tomato, and that would be that.

I noticed that too. I don't think it can mean anything. I think it's a reflection on what we've become a society, marketing wise, I mean (maybe in general). I had to laugh myself once when a local Chinese take-out place had printed on their new menu that went from dish-names only to verbiage, that not only is their Tangerine Chicken made with the finest imported tangerine peels (I'm quite sure it is not, them being a slop-house), that they said of a dish containing bok choy, "Our chef uses only the tender, center-cut part of the bok choy" - the irony in my case being that I adore the green leafy part of bok choy and sometimes have to beg local restaurants to save it for me as a vegetable instead of throwing it out - and this was one of those places. And once when I was dining in a Jewish deli with a non-Jewish friend who was familiar with the lingo, we heard a woman come into the takeout-side and order "A pound of kosher salami, center-cut!". My friend asked me, "I know that with tongue, center cut can make a difference, but does it matter with salami?" As far as Wendy's using only the chicken breast's "tender center cut", I think that's one advertising man who should be reprimanded, at the very least. Unless the woman ordering the salami was his mother.

I too have heard the legend that it was created during the war by Italian cooks asked to make use of the GI rations of powdered eggs, and bacon, but I don't know that that's true. A recipe for it using "pancetta" appears in my copy of "Il Talismano della Felicita", which dates from 1929, though there is no date on my edition, which I purchased in Italy in the early 1970's. I have written to the publisher to ask if a recipe for the dish appears in pre-WWII editions, and will post the answer when it arrives.

The spaghetti will be a "primo (piatto)", the meatballs a "secondo (piatto)", and the vegetable or other item you serve on the side will be a "contorno". When you change the vowel at the end to an i (or an e in the case of things feminine), you make them plural.

Sorry for all your bad experiences. I love my Lincoln MKX! (Okay, if you don't get it, click here)

I didn't grow up with traditional Italian food, I don't think. When I was a kid (I'm dating myself), Italian-American restaurants offered Veal Parm and Spaghetti with meatballs, and they all could've been using the same pre-printed menu, the same as Chinese take-out joints today. My first taste of real Italian food was when I started spending 7 weeks per summer in Italy the year I graduated college in 1973. I traveled at a slow pace around the various regions for ten summers and got to taste all the various cuisines that make up "Italian". Though if I read you right and you grew up Italian-American, Doc, you probably ate the same red-sauce dishes at home that were what my family went out for (n'est-ce pas?). Are you saying, though, (not trying to twist your words, honest) that those people who have experienced traditional food first have a harder time with the modern/creative versions? I thought the argument was that those people brought up with tradition were the ones who (supposedly) craved something new and different. Hey, let's discuss my drug-induced psychoses in your office, or by PM, Doc!

Thank you! But you meant my photo of those green gnocchi : BTW, I admire hathor tremendously for posting this comment: I understand that at the moment she realized the mistake, it was too late to roast a porchetta, and i feel her pain. And in response to Doc's comment, I say that I too sometimes feel the need to shake things up a bit, and enjoy it. But the farthest I've gone, with Italian food, are these two examples: One night I took an ultra-ripe cantaloupe and honeydew, and scooped each into a blender to puree. Then holding them in two large measuring cups with spouts, I poured them simultaneously into opposite edges of serving bowls - the purees of orange and green meet at the center of the bowl, and then I used the back of a spoon to make a swirl pattern along the edge where they met, and I served this with prosciutto curls. Another night, in the height of great NJ heirloom tomato season, I sliced some tomatoes and let them sit a while with fresh basil and some olive oil; then I breaded and sauteed some chicken breasts, topped them with thick slices of the fresh tomato, obtained some of Hoboken's finest and freshest warm, homemade mozzarella, and melted it a bit over the top, for an updated version of "Chicken Parm". But there was no foam, and there were no molecules, and no dust. But what jerk (with obviously too much marijuana in his past) dreamt up this dish ??!!?? :

Here's another recent Miami meal that I forgot to post, The Oceanaire Seafood Room. This is an upscale chain, and it was pretty much was I was led to expect by all the responses I got when I posted asking about it across the country; Just about everybody said it was really good. And with one exception, everything was. But the food lacked soul, and the service was a turnoff, which is a shame, because they're certainly using top-notch ingredients. A few days after we ate here, I compared notes with some foodie friends whose opinion I really trust, and they said the same thing - it was technically correct, but somehow very lacking. To start, the steamed mussels, which were excellent, and the Oysters Rockerfeller which were totally lackluster and disappointing: Main courses were halibut, a beautifully fresh piece, broiled to perfection, and topped (this was an extra) with a generous amount of excellent lump crab. Still, the dish lacked something, maybe "soul" as I said earlier: The sides, a crispy potato cake, and string beans almondine, were exceptionally good: Dessert was kinky: I can think of a lot of cities I've been to in my travels where I'd have killed for this meal. But though I didn't hate it by any means, I won't be going back here.

I just realized that I never posted photos from our dinner at Timo in Sunny Isles Beach from our recent trip. This is a favorite from trips past that we had one dinner at, and remembered that we've never had a disappointing dish here. Foie Gras (we each had an order, because though it's delicious, it's not very large): Sweetbreads (we shared one of these, extremely delicious): And then we each had (and devoured) one of these, which is basically the rib steak that you'll see described on the menu below, combined with a daily special of an enormous shrimp (perhaps a 'prawn') - our server, who's been steering us towards great meals for years, came up with the combination on the spot and thought we would enjoy it, and he was right: And because I'm too lazy to type in descriptions of all the above (and thought it would be of interest), their menu: That was followed by their delicious homemade roasted banana ice cream, but apparently no photo.

And I surely didn't mean to say that it does. All I meant to say is that if I go back to Italy, and they've forgotten how to make Bolognese sauce, I'm holding you, and Doc and BryanZ responsible .

Intending absolutely and positively no disrespect to the OP whatsover, (and not realizing when I read it who she was, actually), I was thinking of a restaurateur (not hathor) who uses sodium alginate to form cantaloupe pearls, then inserts a tiny straw into them to blow them up like spun-sugar globes which he then dips is liquid nitrogen to solidify them, pokes a hole in, fills with freeze-dried prosciutto powder, and serves to the guest with the instructions to take a little shell and a little powder from the inside in each spoonful, add a drop of Italian spring water to, and eat, and discovering that it's not as good as a plate of old-fashioned Prosciutto e Melone. I'm not sure that this is a forward-looking approach, just because it is a new one. Moving forward to decide that the best results are gotten from obtaining the best melons possible, and possibly combining them with Pata Negra ham (no insult to the people of Parma), might be the next step in culinary evolution here. As for restaurants vs. home cooking, there are no easy answers. You go to a small town in Italy with a centuries old culinary tradition. The restaurant cooks have been cooking those dishes all their lives, and want to try their hand at something different; they can eat those foods when their grandmothers cook them at home on the day their restaurant is closed. And you probably have people in town who want to eat something different when they go out. Whether it's molecular versions of their traditional foods, or whether it's Thai food for the first times in their lives, who can say? But you also have townsfolk who are working now and may be too busy to cook, and when they go out, they expect to eat the dishes that their dearly departed grandmothers used to make. The permutations are endless. All I can say for sure is that when I travel all the way to Emilia Romagna and get the nouvelle nonsense I got at San Domenico instead of the bowl of gnochhi I posted earlier, I'm really pi--ed. And if it turns out that all the people who knew how to make that have passed away and the chefs at some point only know how to make molecules and foam, I'm going to be even more p-ssed. I'm willing to state on the record that for me, I don't need anything that hasn't already been cooked, or invented, or fused by the year 2000. If I miss out on the next thing that turns out to be as big and as significant as the introduction of the tomato to Italian food was so many centuries ago, I'll still die happy.

If you do consider it, I think I need to add a bunch of caveats for your consideration, especially if you're like me, and think of a vacation trip as a certain number of meals, and get really annoyed if one of them is lousy - well, isn't that why we do so much advance research before a trip? I can tell you that in the years before Jerry's deli bought Rascal House, it was great. I'd eat there every night for a week when I was in Miami, as I've said earlier. Though this may not be the most appealing photo, it was one of the most delicious Flanken in the Pot dinners I've ever had, and it's from 2002, which is probably from before RH was bought, but might be from that period just after they bought it, but before things went downhill: And though the top is burned in the reheating, this was a stuffed cabbage every bit as good as my grandma Ethel used to make: Since then, I can remember several visits on several different trips that didn't go well. I remember one November trip where I had to send back two orders of Flanken in a row because they were stringy, tough, inedible, undercooked, and full of gristle. Not in any way pleasant, not the original one, not the one served as the replacement. But we went back the next night and I ordered a Pastrami sandwich, and got one that was equally horrible. Rubbery and elastic and unchewable, instead of crumbly, and when I complained to the waitress, she said she'd get me one from better, fattier batch. A few minutes later she returned with the original sandwich, bite missing, and said "the kitchen says take it or leave it, that's all we have". That same night, I heard another table fighting with their waitress over not getting the famous bread basket (onion rolls. etc.) with their dinner, and their watiress saying "The new owners don't care any more". I can flash forward to about two years ago, giving it one more try. I had called in the afternoon to ask the manager if they were still making the Flanken at all, and if it would be better avoided, after telling him my previous experiences, and he said that though he was new, he'd promise me a good piece. And when I got there and called him over to remind him, I did get a very delicious order of Flanken, and my companion got a delicious order of stuffed cabbage. It was like eating in a mausoleum, though. In a place that seats hundreds, we were two of only six people dining there. It was early in the evening, too, and we guessed that they had at that point driven away most of their customers. So I don't know what to tell you. At this point, it's a pig in a poke. As I said upthread, I'm going to give Mo's in Aventura a try for dinner rather than go back to Rascal House at this point even if it is still open.

You are correct, for sure. I understand the process and concede your point. What I'm saying then, what works for me, is that I would like to hole-up in time at a very specific point, and wait, while the process continues around me. Here's a dish I ate on a daily basis in 1973 in the town of Busseto (where Giuseppe Verdi was born) in Emilia Romagna; it's poetically called "Le Chicche del Nono Giuseppe Verdi", and it is gnocchi (turned green with spinach) in a sauce of heavy cream, parmigiano-reggiano, smoked bacon, and [gasp] tomato; indeed, it's from the period after tomatoes were introduced, and though the legend may not bear out the fact, it's claimed that the previously traditional golden gnocchi were turned green in Verdi's honor, and that this was his favorite dish (the latter statement is probably true, the former, who knows?) But that's the moment in time, and the exact trattoria, where I want to freeze and wait, and perhaps fossilize, while they experiment around me. I'd be willing to come out every ten years to taste what they've come up with, and I promise that if it's better than what I'm eating in my cave, I will admit it. I understand fully what you're saying, and concede that when we stand still, we lose, not the other way around. I'm just saying that I don't want to be a guniea fowl for the process. I just want to be awakened when they've got something I think I'll like. And if I oversleep, and the molecule and foam thing turns out to be a fad and we're right back at those gnocchi, I won't kick myself and feel that I missed something. That's just speaking honestly for myself.

So to follow your timeline, when I go to the next snapshot, in Modena, 2010, to enjoy a Lasagne Bolognese, and the waiter brings me a plate that on the left has a pile of dust which is the noodle component, freeze dried and pulverized, and on the right are shimmering quarter-inch cubes of tomato and pork essence, and in the middle a lighter than air foam that represents the Béchamel, and the waiter instructs me to take a little of all three on my spoon at the same time, I am supposed to... enjoy this? Find it as satisfying (after a long journey flying into Milan and renting a car to get to Emila Romagna) as a hearty plate of actual Lasagne Bolognese? If this is an academic exercise in extrapolation, then I guess that for technical marks the creator gets high marks from his instructor. But for eating pleasure, I'm really going to lament that the cook took a wrong fork in the continuum of culinary evolution, or forced the wrong direction in that continuous process of evolution. Of course, if I assemble a bit of pasta dust, tomato/pork aspic, and Béchamel foam on my spoon and taste it and think that this is way more pleasurable than biting into a bowl of old-fashioned Lasagne Bolognese over which the waiter has just grated some Parmigiano-Reggiano, then I retract my comments.

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?

Vell, I tink I may have your number, then . Well, Jewish food has always been an important part of Miami Beach vacations for me. In times as recent as the 90's, I'd take all my dinners at Rascal House, which went hideously down hill after Jerry's Deli bought it, and I'm told that the property has already been demolished as announced recently, though I didn't think it would happen this soon. I'd eat stuffed cabbage, boiled beef flanken in the pot, etc. every night and pretend I was back in the 1950's on the "meal plan" somewhere. Since then I have discovered Mo's Bagels in Aventura, but have only had great lunches there, i.e. "eggs, onions, and lox", etc. They have the same dinner items I crave, but they close too early for me - I will get to try dinner there next month because I have to eat at the ungodly hour of 6:30 one night. And I am told by a person I'm very fond of that the Sage Deli on Hallendale Beach Blvd. is great, though I've never been, and I don't know if they serve the dinner food I'm looking for. The same source tells me to check out "Harriet & Bob's Bagel Cove" in Aventura, but I just learned that they won't start serving dinner until October 1 and don't yet know what the menu will be, and they will be closing at 8 pm - still too early for me to have dinner really. Rascal House was open 24 hours at one point, and then until 2 am at another point, so it always fit my 10:30 dinnertime. And if they had stayed open and stayed great, I'd probably still be dining there, and wouldn't have discovered the restaurant whose thread this is, or any of the other places I now eat in Miami.

Well, I don't mean to be indelicate here, but by any chance, any stretch of the imagination, are they interested in Jewish food? Would they by any chance (not prying you realize ) enjoy a meal of chopped liver, stuffed cabbage, etc. at one of the remaining Jewish places...?