markk
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These were highly recommended to me, and I'm wondering if anybody's been to them who can post feedback. Thanks.
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You can probably see a great portion of the show in that time.
As to your question about what producers to see (though it wasn't directed at me), I'd suggest that you lose a lot of time if you try to pick them out and go from one to the other. I think a better way is to start at one end and work your way through, and I think that you can accomplish a lot in a day and a half, and finding things in strange juxtaposition is quite interesting.
Aside from Beanie's excellent suggestions, here's my take:
I like to start in the North East hall - where you'll see the banners that say "Italy", but that may be because I can eat my body weight in prosciutto and Parmiggiano-Reggiano. I work my way back to the main entrance, and then I do the north-west part of the hall, where I find lots of interesting things. Except for the fact that D'Artagnan is sometimes in the South Hall (south-west corner last year), I don't have great luck in that hall. I do a fast walk through, and then head downstairs, where the booths are smaller, as a rule, and very intresting as well.
Of course, I'm not a candy or chocolate or dessert person, so I usually bypass those booths, and if I have spotted one that I must try, I try to end up there at the end of the day.
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"I'm no longer finding Loire Valley whites that are reasonably priced that are any good any more here in the East Coast."
there are plenty of muscadets available on the east coast. i bought alot of 2005 from various importers. kacher,dressner,sussex, etc.
You are correct. But for me Muscadet can get a little one-dimensional, or boring, and when I said "Loire Valley", what I had in my own mind was the other end, Pouilly-Fume and surrounding areas (I'd name the grape, but we're not supposed to get too serious here) - that's a wine I crave in summer, that I no longer find in the reasonable range. But depending on what I'm eating, I sometimes reach for a Muscadet.
And regarding the "not too serious", I have to say that I have a friend who buys her wines by letting her child pick them out by which labels are the "prettiest" - but it's always hit or miss for her when she brings home a mixed case, because without knowing which regions or grapes she likes and which ones she doesn't, she can never actually buy what she enjoys - some knowledge is a good thing.
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I'm no longer finding Loire Valley whites that are reasonably priced that are any good any more here in the East Coast.
But the wines of Alsace, especially the lower-end Pinot Blanc, still makes a great showing. You can get such wineries as Alsace-Willm, or Wunsch et Mann, for under ten dollars, and as long as you don't drink them with foods they clash with (where something herbaceous or pungent is called for, like a Sauvignon Blanc), you get delicious drinking.
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How many days can you attend? That'll make a big difference in the answer. (I go every year.)
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A very trusted media source has recommended The Oceanaire Seafood Room, which is apparently an upscale seafood chain with restaurants in Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Miami, Minneapolis, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle, and DC, with 3 more major cities coming soon.
I've never even heard of it!
Have any of you had any experience at one of their locations? As it's a national chain, I didn't know where else to post this.
According to a description I found, "Prices sail high, with entrées between $20 and $35 for lunch and $25 to $60 for dinner", - that's extracted from a glowing review from a very reliable source that has never steered me towards a less than great meal.
(I called one location, and was told that the menu changes twice daily. This reminded me that the only other "upscale" seafood chain I tried also said this (McCormick & Schmick's) but my meal there was thoroughly mediocre.)
So, anybody been to The Oceanaire yet?
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Well, what a surprise that Mario would bite (or worse, disrespect) the hands that feed him.
In the days when his restaurants were never-fail, I allowed him that abrasive part of his personality, because he could put his money where his mouth was, so to speak.
But I have now had many more disappointing meals at his places than good ones, so I for one have written him off. I won't be photographng his food any more because he won't be seeing any more of my dining dollars.
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I ask to smell, and touch foods all the time, not just fish (breads, in particular) but I always ask them for a glove of a piece of waxed-paper from the dispenser to touch with. Yes, the fish will be cooked, but as a rule, the more people who are taught and who practice safe food handling, the better.
Yes, there are germs all over and around us. But we don't have to try to spread diseases unnecessarily.
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Shake hands with someone? Germs!
I'm not naive when it comes to germs and the real world. On the other hand, I do want to ask you a question, given your certification and obvious knowledge. You meet somebody who's obviously got a bad cold or flu and sneezing constantly into tissues in their hands, and after the introductions, they reach out and shake your hand. Do you make some effort or mental note to wash you hands before you eat, or touch them to your face (for any reason), or prepare food? Or do you just decide that's for the germ-phobics and go about your way?
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It seems as if it's possible that A) The FOH staff you speak of may, actually, be washing their hands between shaking hands with guests and delivering food to tables, but it is done out of sight, so you aren't aware of it or B) The staff isn't washing their hands because, in that particular restaurant, it isn't convenient or common practice to do so.
They're very definitely not washing their hands. It's a tiny place and they're in full sight the entire time - they never even go into the kitchen because the food comes out through a pass between the kitchen and the dining room - except if one of them ducks into the bathroom (in plain sight) at some point in the evening for personal business (when I hope they're washing their hands), they don't, certainly not inbetween shaking hands with arriving customers and serving plates.
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Well, now I guess it's time for me to press my luck.
I've told this story before on eG and have been told I'm crazy (which may well be for many reasons) but here goes-
There's a local restaurant that I love, and which has delicious foods. And the place is sparkling clean. If you're there at closing, you witness them scrubbing the place down to a degree that would please a surgeon, including the open kitchen. The owner is a good guy and really knows his business.
It's also an extremely friendly place, so when you walk in there, even in the height of cold and flu season, the owner, and all the wait staff come over to greet you and grab your hand to shake it and welcome you. Then they go to the pass and pick up the plates of dinner and serve them, passing on to the warm plates of food whatever germs they just got from whoever just came in with a cold or the flu and sneezed on his hands a minute before he entered the restaurant.
This drives me nuts. Does anybody agree, or think I'm out of my mind?
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Well, (I say with great trepidation)... this is clearly the last bunch of people I want to argue with. But...
It's often, to the customer, an indication of the level of sanitation that's been taught to the staff (if any has) and that's being practiced in the front and back of the house, though I have truly no delusions about what goes on in the kitchen. It's just that when restaurant workers are truly aware of all the rules of sanitation and cross contamination, they tend to behave one way in front of customers, and when people do what this busboy did instinctively, it can send a message that no sense of sanitation has been taught or practiced in this restaurant. I mean, it'd be a lot worse if your fork dropped ont he floor and he came by, picked it up, and put it back on your table, but in restaurants when workers instinctively take what's fallen on the floor and do not re-use it, it gives me the sense that they have some idea of what sanitation is (though I have no delusions about what probably goes on where I can't see it) - I'd like to think that in a real sanitary emergency, the staff would know what things are bad to do.
I was in a restaurant once that was out of glasses, and the waitress brought two finally that clearly was not the cleanest, or dryest they could be, and she explained that she had washed them herself, (though it would've been better if they were completely grease and stain free and didn't look as if she had done just that) - I'd like to think that restaurant personnel know that glasses and silverware are supposed to go through a dishwasher that heats to a particular temperature, and again, I always take this as indicitave of the restaurant's attitude as a whole about sanitation.
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I'm going to be staying in Hollywood, which is farther north than I ever stay when I go to Miami Beach, so I'm thinking that trips to Coral Gables and South Beach might be too far.
I will however, make the drive for Michy's.
Any recommendations for good dining in Hollywood or even north of there? French, and casual upscale dining would be great. I'm not looing for Asian cuisines. Seafood would be great.
I had a truly lousy meal at Billy's in December and don't want to return there, though.
Thanks in advance for the advice!
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I'd also argue that the "sob" is only appropriate in Italian opera in the verismo style (post 1890 or so), and certainly never in belcanto opera (roughly 1810 to 1840).
Just to stray OT for one second, sing or hum through 'Casta Diva' (especially the high passages) and tell me that isn't identical to a cantorial outpouring (though it's not specifically a sigh, it's cantorial wailing for sure, I think) - and I guess you should PM me if you want to continue this discussion or point me to another board. But back to food....
Jewish food does not neccesarily have to be made by Jews today to be Jewish,No, it certainly does not. I have to go back just a few years in my tales of Rascal House when it was going strong - on my fourth night there in a row with my favorite waitress, pigging out on all the things that tasted like my Grandmother was in the kitchen cooking them, I asked if I could perhaps meet the Jews in the kitchen who were cooking all the delicious foods, and she replied "There hasn't been a Jew in that kitchen in over 40 years". I questioned that, and she thought for a second, reminded me that she'd been there for at least that long (a Rascal House specialty is waitresses who'd been there for 80-90 years), did some mental figuring, and said that indeed it had been over 40 years since a Jew had cooked in that kitchen.
So if we're talking about food being "Jewish Food" by the criterion that it could fool a Jewish guy into thinking his Grandmother had come back from the dead and had cooked it herself, than no, Jewish food does not have to be made by Jews today to be Jewish.
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Back some years ago the legendary Italian tenor Franco Corelli, who was just coming the Metropolitan opera with great fanfare and consequently stealing the thunder of legendary (Jewish) American tenor, Richard Tucker, asked Tucker for his advice on how to sing Puccini. Tucker was said to have replied, "to sing it right, you have to be Jewish."
Well, undoubtedly he said that with a lot of humor mixed in there. But with a great deal of truth as well, because of Tucker's cantorial background. A lot of the unabashed wailing (and I mean that in a good way) that cantors do is frequently a very good thing in singing opera, and something that more restrained singers don't do (though in truth I'd have thought it applied as much to singing Bel Canto as Puccini). What is know to Italian tenors as the "Italianate sob" is know to cantors as the "cantorial sob". But back to food...
I think that if you're Ashkenazic-Jewish, you think of all the 'New York Deli' foods as "Jewish". If you're not Jewish, you probably indeed thing of them as Hungarian, Czech, Polish, etc.
But I think the reason that the views are so skewed is just what FG said upthread:
The reason we equate Jewish cuisine with Ashkenazi cuisine is that about 80% of the world's Jews are Ashkenazi. And I believe the number was over 90% prior to World War II. -
The reason we equate Jewish cuisine with Ashkenazi cuisine is that about 80% of the world's Jews are Ashkenazi.
Right on! Well, to be polite, I was going to say that that's why I make that equation.
And I vas tinking, oy, a photo would be nice, so here's my beloved Flanken in the Pot from Rascal House, before they trashed it. At this point, the Flanken is half-eaten before I thought to snap the photo, but mmmmmmmmmmm:
(By the way, I do realize that if you didn't grow up with an Askenazic grandmother cooking these foods, you probably won't wax nostalgic over this photo.)
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Third, the knowledge and experience needed to make traditional Jewish food well has largely been lost in the past couple of generations (based on a lot of personal experience, this is even true in the orthodox community).
This to me is a culinary tragedy. Are there any bubbes left who can cook these foods via "tradition", that is to say, having learned them passed down uninterrupted through the generations? Many years ago, in the beginning, when it seemed that the Food Network was serious about what it did, I wrote to David Rosengarten, who had made several Jewish dishes on "Taste", and suggested that it would make a great series to locate the last surviving bubbes and video them making their foods before the knowledge was lost. Nothing, of course, ever came of it.
Personally, I had made a vow with myself when I went away to college that when I returned, I was going to have my grandmother teach me how to cook all her repertoire, and she agreed to the plan. But four years later, sadly, it was too late.
When I walk down the aisles of today's markets like Fairway (in New York) and Whole Foods (just about any city), and visit all the great farmers markets and specialty stores across North America, I want to cook and eat stuff that emphasizes fresh ingredients and bright flavors.This is an extremely interesting comment, and it's related to a thought that I have frequently, though I don't know if I can explain it.
I too am an ingredient-driven person, and I love to buy the freshest seafood and the freshest produce, and cook seasonally. I am one who buys exquisite organic (though not really) Scottish salmon and grills it over wood simply, with the freshest corn and tomatoes the market has to offer on the side. Yet, when I remember my grandmother's comfort foods so fondly and the way she was respected as a cook, I have to remember the great compliment paid her by so many people - "She could take a wilted carrot, a half-rotten onion, and an old shoe, and make you the most delicious meal you ever ate." Well, needless to say, a lot of cooking from olden times was specifically devised to mask food that was going "off", and a lot of the sauces that are traditional to many cultures are specifically "strong" to mask the flavors of the principal ingredients, not showcase them.
But what would happen if someone were to cook the traditional foods with fresh, contemporary ingredients? Would we not have even more delicious versions of stuffed cabbage, boiled beef, etc?
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Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I feel savethedeli's pain.
I love the comfort foods that I think of as "Jewish" that are probably just middle-European, and I crave them. Chopped liver. Stuffed Cabbage. Boiled beef Flanken in the pot of broth with matzoh balls and noodles. Brisket with potato latkes. Chicken Fricasse with Helzel! I think of these as Jewish because my Jewish grandmother made them when I was growing up.
Am I wrong though? Are they not really "Jewish"?
As far as the modern re-interpretation, I don't think that you have to get all "fancy" to do it. I think it's simply that a chef (probably somebody who remembers these foods from his childhood) has to set out to make them fresh and delicious again, and by that I mean for example, make a brisket without using Lipton onion soup mix. Or make boiled beef flanken as carefully as a French chef would make Pot au Feu. A lot of these dishes (and traditional dishes from other cuisines) suffer becase the people who have been making them for years make them by rote, by formula, instead of by taste. "There! I followed the recipe and made your flanken!" - without caring if it's dry, or heavy, or greasy, or interesting; well, that's what happens to a lot of cuisines as they fade away. I would like to think that the foods of my childhood are not going to disappear, even in my lifetime.
For me, I would love it if a chef would make these dishes again from scratch. I commented on the Deli thread about Rascal House in Miami - before they went donwhill, I'd go there every night for a week on vacation, and simply re-create my childhood, eating all of the dishes I mentioned in my second paragraph above.
Though I live in Jersey, I'm not in a part that's got one of these remaining Jewish delis. If I did, I'd probably eat from there several times a week.
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Nice pics, markk!!
Thanks. Here's one of the famous Scallop Dumpling - it was delicious, and always is
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Which of the dozens of Chinese recipes would you like? The deep fried, the roasted, the minced in lettuce cups, the loo'ed in master sauce.... ??
The family next to us was having a whole roasted sqaub, and I mean whole - neck, head, and all. I wondered what the preparation is like and how it compares to the ducks that they roast and hang in the noodle shops.
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I was in a very favorite restaurant in NYC's Chinatown 2 weeks ago pigging out on soft shell crabs and lobster (and pea leaves) and I noticed the Chinese family next to us was having a whole roast squab.
I'm just wild for squab, and have it all the time in French restaurants (though the breast is usually served rare, separately from the legs, which are well done).
What's the Chinese preparation like?
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No posts about this place for a while, so I figured I'd bump it up,
That's so funny (to me) as I was positive I posted photos from a meal we had here two weeks ago, but I never did.
We started with several of the dim sum, and they were delicious.
Then, from the impeccable seafood refrigerators
we started with a platter of soft shell crabs that were simply outstanding - much better than any I've had in Chinatown (I've had them here before just as delicious)
and some outstanding sauteed pea leaves
We also had the Lobster with the "Country Sauce" over noodles
This was a little disappointing in that it was a little dry, the lobster and the noodles. I had wanted a large lobster (in the 3 pound range) but the manager Choy talked me out of it, saying that the "standard" 1.75 pound lobster was a much, much better deal. But it wasn't as succulent as the jumbo ones we had last time.
However, being gluttons, we felt the need for another platter of soft shells, the only difference this time being the shape of the plate and the fact that they may have served them a tad out of focus
But all in all another great meal here. The Chinese family next to us was having the Roasted Squab, and I think that I must try that next time!
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Tipping the sommelier more than what one might otherwise in a situation in which the corkage fee was waived by the sommelier raises a sticky question. Can that be seen as a kickback by the restaurant management and potentially get the sommelier in trouble despite the best of intentions?
Doc is 1000% right. I don't think that in this case, or in most cases, a sommelier, or any other restaurant employee in such a position in a restaurant like this has waived a charge in return for that money going directly into his pocket, and I think you'd be wrong to turn that into such a situation and get him in trouble by making it equate that. (Sure, if you go to a low-echelon restaurant and the waiter is running a side-business and makes a point of telling you what things he left off the bill, he's probably hinting that he expects half of that in his tip, but that's not what's happening here.)
The offer to waive the corkage fee was made in a nice spirit, and you have to accept that generosity, and not think in terms of "kickback". That said, let me say that I doubt that it's necessary for a sommelier to taste your (or any) Cotes-du-Rhone to be able to tell you what would pair well with them from their menu. It might be a "romantic" gesture, or a "show" gesture if he has the time for it, but I think you'd be fine just to let him recommend by looking at the bottles.
My suggestions would be to tip nicely on the entire check, and inquire of a restaurant manager on duty if there is a way to tip the sommelier. If he doesn't give you an answer that helps you, you could always fold up a twenty-dollar bill discreetly, and when you're done, ask to say good night to the sommelier, and give to him as you thank him. But I just don't think that more than that is necessary, or you cheapen the spirit in which the original offer was made.
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Wood grilled with black peppercorns also sounds good to me. But I'm not so sure about the pounding. I say this because when I was a kid (wayyyy back in the 1950's) skirt steak was a big thing, and many people opted to have it run through a "tenderizer" which is like a hole-punch that perforates the meat - it's used for tough cuts. But skirt steak is not really "tough", it's just dense, and chewy, which many people (me included) think is part of the appeal.
What might be open on Sunday, 15 July?
in France: Dining
Posted
It's considerably more than "a bit" outside of Strasbourg. You'd have to figure a half hour (minimum) each way if you're driving. And I ate there just a few years ago, and had an incredibly, incredibly mediocre meal; truly, it struck me as something you'd eat on an airplane. And I have had many hundreds of meals in the area around Strasbourg.
How fancy a meal are you looking for? If you've never been to Strasbourg, it might be worth it to wander around and scrounge (as it's a wonderful city!)