markk
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Posts posted by markk
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I have bipolar feelings about the current incarnation of the magazine.
You say that so kindly, as if there's any magazine left to read. I've been reading the magazine regularly since 1973 (I believe) and what's happened to it now is just sad. There's nothing there. No substance, nothing to read! I don't think there's any need to be bipolar about it.
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Markk -
wow, those people are fascinating.
I'm glad so many people are enjoying these tales. As I've mentioned, this was a relationship that was forced on me, although I did eventually end it. But in the meantime, I've remembered the "Chinese Restaurant" story...
After I first got to know them, I did them a fairly large favor - they didn't ask for it, but it was something that I knew they could use, and I volunteered, and did it because that's what life is about - if you have something to share, and one of your friends can benefit from it, you share. So I did something nice for them, and it was a fairly 'above and beyond the call of duty' thing, but I was happy to offer, and happy to do it, and had no ulterior motive or reward in mind.
Still, to thank me, they announced that they were taking me out to dinner. We went to a fairly expensive Chinese restaurant that they liked. It was just me (as it was a night that my other half was out of town on business). This restaurant had a few specialty items, one of which was a "Dim Sum" appetizer that consisted of 3-each of 3 different dumplings (total=9 pieces).
They ordered one of those to start for the 5 of us. And let me say at this point in the tale that they had mentioned a few times before the dinner started that I was their guest, as they were treating, so I didn't feel it was my place to say anything as they ordered.
They asked the kids what they wanted, and the kids chose a noodle dish (which they immediately halved and served themselves upon its arrival, naturally). Then the Mrs. ordered a main course for the adults, and asked the husband if he wanted another dish. He asked us if we liked 'curry'. The wife replied "honey, you ask me that every time, and you know I detest curry", and I replied that I dislike curry and don't eat it either. So the husband replied "great, more for me!" and ordered a curry dish as well, for himself, of course.
Anyway, back to the tale. The Dim-Sum appetizer arrived in a gigantic and festive steamer basket, and inside were three groups of three-dumplings each. The husband took the basket, and of course took one-each of the dumplings. Then the basket passed to the youngest child (6 or 7 at the time) who took one each, and then to the older child (10 or 11) who took one of each. Of course, for those of you who are counting cards, that's all nine dumplings! And there was "mom" and me, the guest of honor, left. So once again mom feigned horror (where was she ten minutes earlier when they ordered the dish?) and screamed at the kids to "put some back", so each one returned one dumpling. When the two dumplings came our way, mom asked me "you take one and I'll take one?".
Then the "main" dishes arrived. The kids had theirs, and of course, some of what mom had ordered for the table. Dad had his curry dish all to himself, and you know it, some of what mom had ordered for the table. And I, stuffed from my one dumpling, had one-fifth of the main dish, this being of course the "thank you" dinner that I was taken out to.
Well, I'm glad you're enjoying these tales. I got a million of them.
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True, my parents like most had a perculator until drip machines came about and made the process easier. However, their coffee is terrible and I finally had to say something...
Any thoughts?
Maybe you should just leave them be and consider yourself ahead of the game. My parents also started with a percolator, and then in the late 50's or early 60's switched to Instant, and then Freeze Dried coffee (which they thought was one of the greatest scientific inventions of all time). Of course it was hideous, and after many years, my dad decided to work on the problem. At one point we were over for dinner, and he showed us that the "secret" was to make it not by the cup, but by the pot, and to use a good two or three spoons of the freeze dried granules per cup of water, and then a good few extra spoonsful "for the pot" as well.
Of course, he was making and drinking mud, but there was no way in the world my mother was going to have anything as messy as coffee-grinds and a percolator to wash in her kitchen, and you just had to pretend you were watching a Seinfeld episode.
So if you're getting drip coffee instead of instant, maybe just consider yourself ahead of the game and leave it?
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Many years ago, a very dear younger friend of mine got married. I was invited to the wedding, but as it worked out, one branch of our friends got overlooked by the bride's 'orthodox' parents and was not invited to the wedding - well, these things cost dearly, and obviously you have to draw the line somewhere, and everybody understood. Still, everybody in that bunch was great friends with the younger bride and groom and wanted to celebrate the happy event, and so, feeling flush, I decided to throw the "party to end all parties" for us all the night before the wedding in my high-rise apartment overlooking the Manhattan skyline. It was a Saturday night.
There were 18 people in all. I had caviar, and whole sides of smoked salmon (and salmon knives to slice it to order), and gargantuan cocktail shrimp (and tons of them), and I enlisted the help of the very upscale Chinese restaurant in the lobby of my building to help me out with some of the food as well. At the beginning of the evening, with ice-buckets of Champagne everywhere (including out in the hallway by the elevator, to set the mood for the arriving guests), the Chinese restaurant sent up waitresses to circulate with platters of dim-sum that they steamed in my kitchen. I had set up a station with the caviar, salmon, and all kinds of smoked fish, and every other luxury item I could find.
A while later, the restaurant sent up a tuxedoed waiter and chef, who stood at my butcher-block cart in the dining room and carved several Peking ducks. And throughout, great wines flowed.
The party started at 8 with champagne and wound on till the wee hours.
I'm not trying to be pretentious here, (really!) but I am trying to set the stage for my greatest dinner disaster. As for the expense of the extravagance, I figured well, if you can't splurge on a wedding, what's the point. And I loved doing it. The bride and groom came for a while (although I should point out that the groom had been living with me for about ten years at that point, and eventually came to sleep his last single-night in my house, around midnight or 1, with the party in full-swing.)
For the main courses, I had roasted a 7-bone Prime Rib, and the Chinese restaurant had gotten me two 7-pound lobsters, whose meat they cooked in various fashions and served on platters with the lobster heads and empty tail-shells at either end, to re-create the size of the lobsters, and everything was served buffet-style. Of course, it wasn't the perfect pairings of food as you can tell, but the theme was "extravagance and festivity" and everybody certainly caught the mood! People were having the time of their lives, and in fact the few people who were going to the official wedding the next day were hard-pressed to get there, as my own party ended at 4 in the morning.
Well at one point a few hours into the party, with the main courses yet to come, I heard "hello?... hello?" coming, at first faintly, and then louder, from down the hallway in my apartment that leads from the living room and the front of the house, to the bedrooms in the back. When I investigated, I heard that it was one of my guests, who was calling out from the bathroom with the door cracked open. When I asked if everything was alright, she asked, "um, is there any toilet paper?"
And so I checked the storage closet, and there was not.
Nor was there any in the other bathroom.
There were cases of Champagne and fine Bordeaux, caviar and lobster, and Peking Duck carved to order. But toilet paper? Well, it was inevitable that I'd forget something !!!
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We were invited, some years ago, to dinner at the home of some new acquaintances, whom we already knew not to be great hosts. When we arrived, we were told by the Mrs. that they had just returned from an all-afternoon cookout at one of their neighbors' houses, and were stuffed beyond belief, and so dinner was cancelled and she was going to send out for a pizza for us if that was okay. I told the truth (as I always do) that I really hated pizza, but also that it was perfectly okay with us to stay and chat for a few minutes and then take our leave and go have dinner. Instead, she begged us to stay and make-do with the pizza, so we did.
Sometime thereafter, a large pie was delivered. She set it out on the table and called her husband and two kids (7 and 11) to "dinner". The husband sat at the head of the table and opened the box and took two slices, then passed the box to his right, whereupon the younger child took two slices, and then the older child took two slices, before passing the box around to the side of the table with the two invited guests and their mother. Of course, the pizza only had 8 slices, and so that left two for the three of us.
At that point, the mother noticed for the first time what had happened (I had seen it in progress) and feigned horror, and looked to see what food she could take back from the kids. But the youngest had already covered her two slices with a genuine quarter-inch layer of garlic salt (pronoucing it 'inedible' - to her, or anybody else). The older child had disappeared from the table, but at that moment re-entered the dining room with two soggy pizza crusts on her plate. The mother asked what happened, and the 11 year-old replied, "Mother, you know I hate tomato sauce! I took the pizza into the kitchen and washed the sauce off under the sink." When the mother asked "what happened to the cheese" the kid replied, "that washed away too."
And so Mom divided the two remaining slices of pizza into three portions, and after being served 2/3 of a slice of pizza each as our dinner, we excused ourselves, and went out for something to eat.
Unbelievable!
Did you ever see these people again? What made you think that they weren't great hosts before you went?Are they still alive?
What made me think they weren't great hosts is that the first time they invited us to dinner, they explained that they were "tired" and didn't want to cook, and so they sent out for a little bit of Chinese food. When I told the story to their in-laws that I had gone for dinner, the in-laws said "let us guess - they said they were too tired to cook and sent out for Chinese food. And not enough to go around, either!" When I asked "how did you know?" they replied, "they've never cooked a meal in the 30 years that we've been related to them!" And in the one or two subsequent times that I've had to accept invitations to their house for "dinner" it's been a repeat performance - not nearly enough food, and the same table-passing ritual, where it became clear that the husband and kids know that the rule-of-survival in the house is obvlously "watch out for number one!", and so they'd take, or should I say 'lay claim to' all the food they're going to want when the tray passes, and each time, there's nothing left for the people at the end of the line. And each time, the mother, who certainly wouldn't ever bother to cook a meal for her family, or actually order-in enough food to feed the people she had invited, would feign 'horror' when the last people, always the guests, went hungry.
There's also a story of going out to eat with them at a Chinese restaurant, where by the time the food got to our end of the table, there was one dim-sum dumpling left for two people, the rest of them having sufficiently loaded up their plates with dozens of dumplings as the steamer baskets were passed, without any regard to who still needed food. It's actually a great story, and even funnier than the pizza story, but I've blotted out the details, and all things considered, just as well!
And once, when we arrived for a dinner invite, there was a note tacked to the front door that said "sorry, we got a better invite - see you another time!"
To make a long story short, we were forced for a while to socialize with them because of our friendship with their in-laws. And after the third time they starved us out at a "dinner" invitation, we realized that we needed to eat a substantial meal on the way to one of their "dinners", and so we did.
There was a great diner on the way to their house, and we'd stop there and eat, and that way we just didn't mind when there wasn't enough food. But for a lot of reasons, this being the least of them, we cut our blossoming friendship with these people short.
Are they still alive? Yes, I think they are. But I wouldn't want to be around them in a crisis or an emergency.
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We were invited, some years ago, to dinner at the home of some new acquaintances, whom we already knew not to be great hosts. When we arrived, we were told by the Mrs. that they had just returned from an all-afternoon cookout at one of their neighbors' houses, and were stuffed beyond belief, and so dinner was cancelled and she was going to send out for a pizza for us if that was okay. I told the truth (as I always do) that I really hated pizza, but also that it was perfectly okay with us to stay and chat for a few minutes and then take our leave and go have dinner. Instead, she begged us to stay and make-do with the pizza, so we did.
Sometime thereafter, a large pie was delivered. She set it out on the table and called her husband and two kids (7 and 11) to "dinner". The husband sat at the head of the table and opened the box and took two slices, then passed the box to his right, whereupon the younger child took two slices, and then the older child took two slices, before passing the box around to the side of the table with the two invited guests and their mother. Of course, the pizza only had 8 slices, and so that left two for the three of us.
At that point, the mother noticed for the first time what had happened (I had seen it in progress) and feigned horror, and looked to see what food she could take back from the kids. But the youngest had already covered her two slices with a genuine quarter-inch layer of garlic salt (pronoucing it 'inedible' - to her, or anybody else). The older child had disappeared from the table, but at that moment re-entered the dining room with two soggy pizza crusts on her plate. The mother asked what happened, and the 11 year-old replied, "Mother, you know I hate tomato sauce! I took the pizza into the kitchen and washed the sauce off under the sink." When the mother asked "what happened to the cheese" the kid replied, "that washed away too."
And so Mom divided the two remaining slices of pizza into three portions, and after being served 2/3 of a slice of pizza each as our dinner, we excused ourselves, and went out for something to eat.
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Recently was offered the recipe for "a great chicken dish." I declined. Ingredients? Chicken (raw, cut up, OK). Apricot jam (OK, on it's own). Thousand Island Dressing (not my thing). All mixed together. Baked. I'm not sure if it was covered with foil while baking. Suddenly, when the ingredient list was mentioned, my pen ran out of ink. Funny how that happens.
Holy apenuts- my grandmother use to make this "special" dish for us every time we went down to visit her (in Florida). .. with chicken breast and store bought jam.
Scary.
she also fed us canned asparagus.
Well, this was a famous "recipe" in the late 70's, and as I knew it, was made with chicken, a bottle of "Milano 1890's French Dressing", a jar of apricot jam, and an envelope of Lipton Onion Soup mix!
My introduction to it was at a rather fancy party at a sprawling estate (mansion, swimming pool, etc.) in Pennsylvania. The host was clearly well-to-do, and I was told in advance that he was a 'gourmet chef' who would be cooking the food himself and that it would be a treat. The main dish turned out to be this Apricot Chicken, as he called it, for about a hundred people. Somebody of course commented on how delicious it was, and he took everybody to see his kitchen, and of course, it was industrial size, big enough for a dozen people to cook in, and in fact, if you loved to cook, was the kitchen of your dreams! Islands. Professional stoves. Everything you ever wanted.
Then he revealed the recipe to us. Then, he threw open the cupboards. One entire cupboard was stocked with a supermarket's worth of Milano 1890's Dressing, one with a matching quantity of Apricot Jam, and one with the Lipton Onion Soup Mix. Well, he loved to "entertain" and this was his favorite party recipe.
This wasn't the worst meal I ever had in somebody's home, just one of the strangest.
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I spent a few months in Mannheim, and I can honestly say that one of the gastronomic highlights (and there were very few) was a local bakery with a number of branches throughout the region called Grimminger. The baked goods, the pastries, the desserts, were all just outstanding. They're the more substantial German style, as opposed to the French pastry style, and I love them. (And that would be the only thing about German food that I do love. The food in that region was especially, especially heavy.) You may even know Grimminger from Heidleberg come to think of it. However, if German pastries appeal to you, you might ask around if they have a branch near to Mainz.
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How much do you like (or love) German baked goods?
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Thanks, and to answer the various questions:
No teenagers, and no kids. And I should have used quotes around "cellar", because I live in a high-rise, and my "cellar" is one of the bedrooms that long ago got turned into a den/library/wine cellar. (No, it's not ideal, nor cellar like, but it's all I have, I keep the heat off in the winter and the a/c on in the summer, and the wines have done just fine in there over the years; even the wines from the late 70's have done fine, except for the one with the imploded cork that is!) And as for foul play, there aren't many people to go in there anyway, but as it happens nobody actually goes into that room without me as it turns out. Four play and mischeif are just not options in this scenario.
This happened sometime in the past year - I sometimes won't go into that room for a couple of days at a time, but one day I noticed the wet floor and the imploded bottle. To answer the remaining questions, the missing dust was from my thumb when I removed the bottle. It was sitting there in that spot undisturbed for a good ten to fifteen years I'd say. And the foil is completely im-ploded... nothing's pulling out. I've added some close-ups. I have never seen anything like this. It's complete mystery that I'm still hoping to solve, so thanks for the help!
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Where you saw the wine on the floor, did you see much sediment?
Of course, another explanation is foul play.
No, it wasn't foul play. Nobody goes into that room but me.
As far as the sediment question, I just don't remember. I probably cleaned it up too quickly to notice. Why do you ask?
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Visiting my cellar, I found that the cork in a bottle of wine (1978 Leoville-Las-Cases) had imploded - what tipped me off was the puddle of wine on the floor, and then I found the bottle with the foil imploded in. The cork was (and still is) floating inside the bottle with the wine that didn't spill out.
Does anybody know what causes this?
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Adam brought up a great question in the French Cuisine Questions thread. Before it get's buried in a tomato fight, I'd like to introduce it as a new topic.In terms of French home cooking, is there a French 'cuisine' or is it more regional?
I too thought of this when reading that thread.
I think that if the question is "French home cooking", the answer is that it is by definition regional, because it's entirely unlikely that a home cook in Provence, and a home cook in Normandy, and a home cook in the Southwest (and a home cook in Alsace) would be making the same things at all. Historically, they wouldn't have had the same ingredients.
But if you take out the word 'home' and ask whether there's a 'French' cuisine or it is more regional, I think that it is only regional as well.
As far as what we call French "classics", I think it would help to give some examples. Are what we're calling classics those dishes that have traveled the world and have always represented "French" food in other countries? The first dish that comes to mind for me is "Duck a l'Orange", and while I can remember it well from "French" restaurants around the U.S. for the last 40 years, I can't recall ever seeing it on a menu in France. (But then, "Veal Parmesan" was what all "Italian" restaurants ever served for the longest time, too.)
It's my understanding that the cuisines of France and Italy (for example) are each made up of vastly different regional cuisines, and that historically it is a few dishes from one or two of the regions that, until recently, were considered the "classic" dishes from those countries. Of course, they came from certain regions, and I think that in the case of France, some regions exported their "haute" cuisine, whereas the dishes that have always represented Italy have always been from the poorer regions.
I also think it's a question of semantics, and how you want to use the word "classic". It may mean the fancier dishes from each region that are made for special occasions there, as opposed to the dishes eaten at home on a daily basis; still, this would vary from region to region as well.
I'd be interested to hear what French dishes come to mind for other people as "classic" French, and I think that establishing those would be helpful to this discussion. And if each person suggesting a "classic" dish knew of its regional origin, that would help the discussion as well.
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Well, this may be a long-ish tale, but this seems like exactly the place to tell it, what with the general opinion of 3-star restaurants here.
A few years ago I was having my tenth dinner in a row at Faude (photos above), just because I love the place and it's my "base" restaurant in the region. We had been considering trying a 3-star restaurant that trip, debating between Auberge de L'Ill and Crocodile, but for all the reasons expressed in this thread, weren't sure. We had been told a few days earlier (by a very famous winemaker we were visiting) that Auberge de L'Ill was a "must", and so we had made a reservation there for later in the week.
Well, dining behind us at Faude was a French couple in their 70's (I would say) who it turns out were from Strasbourg, an hour away. They looked quite well to do, and they looked like they were no strangers to fine dining, and they were indeed having the Gastronomic tasting menu. And, they did something that while it might be considered "odd" for Europe, is something that I've noticed happens a lot the world over in restaurants where the food is really great - they struck up a conversation with us, complete strangers, at the next table. (I have come to realize that when the food in a restaurant is really, really good, it sort of breaks the ice and promotes strangers to become friendly.) It was also the case that the chef had come out to visit with me, and that too served as an ice-breaker for them, to ask "How is it that you know him so well?"
Anyway, we got to talking, all about food. They were indeed gastronomes, and they had come to Faude for the weekend because they'd heard about it and wanted to sample the fare (in that it's an hour from Strasbourg, it might not necessitate a weekend stay, but they went for it). And in fact, they were getting ready for a two week trip to the Orient.
Anyway, we decided to ask them about Auberge de L'Ill and Crocodile, and they had lots to say. They told me in no uncertain terms that Auberge de L'Ill was terrible and had been coasting on its reputation for way too long, and that as they actually lived in Strasbourg, were very familiar with Crocodile, and thought that it was terribly overrated, and just not very good. But then they added that the one 3-star restaurant that was great, and that they wholeheartedly recommended was Buerehiesel, just on the outskirts of Strasbourg. They said that the food was genuinely sensational.
Well, on the one hand it sounded like they knew what they were talking about. On the other hand, we had a reservation for two days later at Auberge de L'Ill... so we asked ourselves, "whom do we trust?" - a complete stranger we met at a restaurant, or a very famous winemaker in the region?
And so we went with the latter and kept our reservation at Auberge de L'Ill, where we had a most disappointing, very sad meal, all food-wise, although the setting is beautiful. I think that all of the comments the winemike made about Crocodile's food would apply here as well.
But that made us think that perhaps this woman knew exactly what she was talking about. We haven't made it to Buerehiesel yet, but this seemed like a good time and place to tell this story and suggest it to anybody looking to try a 3-star in that region, and having doubts about it at the same time.
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North, up just past Strasbourg, I've had superb meals (2 each) at the restaurants Le Cerf in Marlenheim (Michelin 2-stars, and very well deserved), and the restaurant Au Chasseur in nearby Birkenwald. I was at Le Cerf in December of 2002 during perhaps the greatest truffle season ever, and the photos are of the Truffle Dinner. (That year, come to think of it, Au Chasseur had truffles too.)
Both are great. Chasseur is a smaller, simpler place (in the middle of nowhere, and the silence is amazing), but its cellar is truly superb, and they will serve you a meal fit for a king with delicious wines to match, based on the two times I've been there. If you do go, let them suggest what you eat and drink; they'll ply you with magnificent local whites to start, and they have great strengths and finds in both Red Bordeaux and Burgundy.
And if you're disenchanted with 3-star dining, you might want to do what I did and check out a 2-star place, which is what got me to Le Cerf (that, and the Truffle Menu). These might be the places on their way up, hoping to earn that third star, who haven't yet become complacent and decided to coast on their reputations. (Well, I don't know if that's how it works, but I can tell you that Le Cerf is a magnificent place to dine.)
Hope you enjoy these photos as well:
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I have spent a lot of time dining in that specific region (many recent winters I have spent 3 weeks at a time there) so I can offer some opinions.
I at at Auberge de L'Ill three years ago and had a most disappointing meal, boring and over-rated. It was actually the least good food I've had in that region, and a few dishes tasted like what you might get on an airplane - I mean, uninspired and mediocre in quality. I share your thoughts about 3-star restaurants, but I generally like to try one every now and then. After Auberge de L'Ill, I may just give that up altogether. But, the region is full of great dining (and that's one of things that made the meal all the more unusual). On to the happier places...
A restaurant that I have come to love over the years is in the village of Lapoutroie, perhaps ten or fifteen minutes above Colmar: the Hotel and Restaurant du Faude. They have always had a menu that includes sumptuously good local specialties, including Trout and Truitelles that they catch from a stream on the property at the moment you place your order, and they've also always featured some very creative gastronomy (boneless pigeon with foie gras and truffles, etc.). I learned of it through a conversation at my hotel in Strasbourg with a Frenchman who was also on an eating tour of the region; he had eaten there the previous evening and thought it was one of the best meals he'd ever had. I went the next night, and have become a regular, eating my way very happily through the menu.
Last year they re-did the place, and separated the menus into two different restaurants, the "Faude Gourmet" (obvious which that is) and the "Grenier Welche" which serves the local cuisine. I have not been since this change, but I have heard from other eGulleteers who go every year that the food at both restaurants is even better than ever.
I've posted dozens of photos of the foods here:
Of all the places I've tried in the region, Faude just has the best food, and I keep going back there night after night. Other places are okay, but it just seemed pointless to go back to them when Faude was an option.
If you're willing to venture to the northern end of Alsace, that is to say just north of Strasbourg, there are 2 restaurants that I could recommend there (with photos as well).
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First there was Olive Garden, then Houston's and then P.F. Chang's (well, I don't know if I got that chronology right at all), and now I see that there's an "upscale" chain of Rodizio restaurants with some apparently substantial interior decors. I wonder how long before they dot the roads in Paramus and open in some big space on 42nd. Street in New York...
Texas de Brazil Churrascaria chain
Has anybody been to one?
Is everybody horrified by the concept?
Are there eGulleteers thinking "Hey, if it's a franchise, let's open one!" ?
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In the mid 1990's I dined with a friend at an upscale restaurant in London that had a very high score and glowing review in the Gault-Millau, the Time Out Guide, etc, and was highly praised for its wine list as well as its food. When we got there, we found that it had the briefest of set menus, which was fine. You could choose either a half-dozen chilled oysters or a terrine of foie gras to start, continue with either venison or pheasant, and there were two dessert choices.
So we studied the extensive, several-inch-thick wine list and chose a half-bottle of a very nice Sauternes and decided to start with the foie gras. Many of the reviews had talked about their depth in Bordeaux, and we decided to do a nice half-bottle of red with the venison. But the list was arranged entirely by 'wine characteristic' - i.e. "Youthful, Light Reds", "Medium Bodied Reds", "Hearty Reds", etc, and not by country and region, which I much prefer. So we asked for some help, and when the tuxedo-ed fellow came over, we asked "What red Bordeaux do you have in half bottles?" He replied, "You're holding the wine list, why are you asking me. It's all there!"
Stunned, we said "okay" and after a while, after searching all the red categories, we found a half bottle of 1981 Sociando-Mallet (which was delicious).
But... when the foie gras arrived, the slices were frozen. Our forks "clinked" when they hit the medallions, and would not cut through them. We tapped all around them with the forks, but they were frozen solid. We called the waiter over to complain. He angrily took the plates back to the kitchen, and came out a while later to say, "The kitchen says the foie gras is absolutely fine." We replied that we wouldn't know, it was too cold to take a bite of. He replied, "That's how foie gras is always served."
Starving, and feeling the effects of the Sauternes on our empty stomachs, we held our plates over the candle on the table, and exhaled onto the medallions, trying to bring it to an edible temperature. Finally when we could wait no longer, we ate it.
The venison was nondescript, although the wine was lovely. The service throughout was strangely unfriendly, and my friend and I checked to be sure that we were fully dressed (we were) and not looking out of place (we were not) and as we're both not strangers to fine dining and fine wine, were genuinely puzzled. When the time for dessert came, we declined, wanting to get out of there.
As we were waiting for the check, the chef/owner made her rounds. She greeted a few regulars, and then came to our table to ask how we enjoyed our meal. We told her that it had been rather disappointing all around. She said that she knew that we hadn't liked the foie gras, but added, "You are wrong - I tasted it in the kitchen and it was delicious, as always. It's a specialty here!" We said that we couldn't actually tell that, because it was served frozen-cold. She replied "That's how foie gras is supposed to be served." Rather than get into an argument, we sat silent for a moment. Then, accusing us, she said "If it was too cold for you, why didn't you ask for something else?" My companion replied, "because we had already started on the bottle of Sauternes, and as the only other choice was the oysters, we didn't really think it would go."
And the woman sniped "We would GLADLY have changed the wine for you as well!"
At that point, we both responded "Madame, it doesn't seem like anything in this restaurant is done 'gladly'", and she stormed away.
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5. ...fried chicken wings covered in hot sauce on top of pork fried rice...
I too only know this from the Chinese Takeout places here in Jersey in the towns with a heavily Hispanic population, where it is a very popular dish, although it never comes with the sauce on it. And as was mentioned upthread, you can have either a big heap of wings, or a half of a chicken. Most of the takeout places here have a special box that starts the menu with these dishes, as you can get them with steamed white rice, plain fried rice, pork fried rice, or French Fries.
What I always noticed about this when I used to go and take out food from these places was the great number of people ordering these dishes, and the gigantic plastic tubs of half-chickens or wings that they'd have at the ready to toss into the deep fryers in an almost constant rotation. After a while, those things have got to be frying in mostly chicken fat!
And I guess that would account for why those places always have the best tasting egg rolls?
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Okay, will check out Tulala and stop by Joes for some stone crabs, any other recs? Will be in SoBe this weekend.
I'd love to hear ALL about Joes when you're back !!! (thanks)
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To get back to the point, we have recently been purchasing a lox-and-cream-cheese spread at Fairway. It is made from the unusable pieces of lox down towards the tail end of the salmon, the pieces that can't be nicely sliced and sold for $30 a pound. Those little pieces are chopped up and mixed with cream cheese to form a spread.
The amazing thing is that this spread is in some ways better than the real thing.
Do you have any examples of when cheaper is better?
Funny you should mention that. Fairway also sells those bits without the cream cheese, and I always stock up on them. Actually, Zabars and Russ and Daughters also both sell smoked-salmon "trimmings", or "ends" cheaply as well. I kind of prefer them, because they usually contain a lot of the fattier sections, which I prefer. The Fairway ones usually contain more of the dry "skin" that forms in smoking that must be trimmed off as they prep each new side for sale, but it's still a mix I love for the same reasons you give. In fact, sometimes the only time I go for an order of full-priced "sliced" salmon is when I can see that they're down to the really fatty part of the salmon. But compared to the disappointment of an order of dry, thin smoked salmon slices, I'm usually happiest with a nice container of "trimmings", and as you say, the price is right!
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That's the question I have been asking.
When I am in Texas, why would I want to seek out a good seafood restaurant; whereas when I am in Maine, that I would try to look for a good steak house? Why go out of the way to look for good wonton noodle in Italy, and try to look up a good pizza/spaghetti restaurant while visiting Hong Kong?
But that wasn't the original question that started the thread. THAT question referred to what we all call "Americanized Chinese Food", and was posed as: if you ever have eaten Chinese food in in a city in France or Italy, or Germany, outside of a Chinatown, would you say that the food was lousy becasue it was adapted in some way to what the people cooking it thought was a nod to the 'local' cusine - that is to say, Italian-ized, French-ized, etc?
There were a lot of responses that said that Chinese food in Germany was greasy and heavy, and that makes a lot of sense. I was wondering if anybody was going to write in that the Chinese food in Rome had any Italian flavorings or ingredients, for example.
As far as your phrasing of the question, of course nobody American willingly gives up a local European meal to eat Chinese food. But as I've seen the more than occasional ornate, 60's style decor Chinese restaurants in most small cities in France, Italy, and Germany, I presume that the locals go there for variety from their cuisine, and I just wondered what it tasted like; I've never tried it either.
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I know that when I've bought those supermarket ones, I've never been satisfied with the spicing. At the very least, if you have to use those, don't be satisfied with whatever spicing they are including by default. The Nathan's brand adds a little spice packet along with the meat, but I found even that to not be enough.
I'm actually very tempted to try budrichard's suggestion. Perhaps someone with more time on their hands, a good digital camera, and a bit more patience will do so and document it here for us.
P.S. - I'm moving this to "Cooking". It seems like a pretty straight-up "how to" question.
It's not that the spicing is "not enough" or anything like that, really. It's that the whole texture of the thing, and the overall flavor as well, just seem totally different to me. Maybe primarily the texture even, because if anything, I might have described the deli corned beef as much milder, and more delicate... but I can't put my fingers on it.
Also, I wasn't actually asking how to make a corned beef to taste like the ones at the Jewish deli, I was looking for a description of the differences, because I was trying to explain it to a friend who only knows the cryovac one you buy at St. Patrick's Day but has never had the kind you get at the deli. And that's when I realized that I can't put my fingers on it.
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I note that when it comes to "interesting," many folks automatically think "variety." I know I do...I am curious though as to what makes cities particularly "interesting" to my fellow eGulleteers and why.
I also think that variety is important; it certainly would be of the utmost importance if I had to choose one place in which to live.
But as variety has been the focus of most of the replies, I'd like to mention a city that, while I wouldn't nominate as the "most interesting" food city (I might nominate it as one of the best, though), is an utterly fascinating place because, while it has probably more high-end, and specialty food stores both per-capita and per-sqaure-mile than any other city I've ever seen, it has no variety whatsoever: Strasbourg, France!
I've never seen a city more obsessed with food stores, or more of them. And it's all the local cuisine. It truly seems that as you stroll the city, every store you pass is either a very fancy "Foie-Gras" boutique, or a pastry shop whose window displays look like the entries in a high-end pastry competition, or a luxury butcher shop with fancy, manicured barded roasts and game birds of every kind in the window, or an incredibly elaborate cheese shop, or an artisanal bread bakery, and then as you keep walking, this order of shops just repeats, and repeats, throughout the city. And these are all small jewel-box types of shops. Just as when you stroll the most exclusive neighborhoods in most other cities and see high-end jewelry and designer clothes boutiques, in Strasbourg you see dozens of Foie Gras shops - off the top of my head I can name Lutz, Frick, Bruck, and Artzner, and there are plenty more, and each one looks like Bulgari or Fendi, only all they sell are cans and jars of Foie Gras and truffles. And next door is the fancy butcher, or the pastry shop, or the bread bakery.
And then when you get to the hypermarkets, they're all incredibly upscale, with food departments the size of a football stadium, and high end aisles that have foie-gras in one, smoked duck and goose products in another, and always a display of foods just baked in puff-pastry larger than the average American deli counter alone.
And yet as you wander the tiny city, tucked in the middle of nowhere in the northeast corner of France, you realize that there are simply not a lot of tourists, and what tourists there are are certainly not taking most of these foodstuffs back to their hotel rooms. The local consumption of these things, based on number of stores they support, is obviously staggering. This dawned on me after I had spent some time there. It's a city obsessed with food, and none of the "variety" of cuisines or ingredients that other cities seem to care so much about.
Anyway, it's clearly not the most interesting food city in the world, but it is a fascinating one.
South Beach Suggestions
in Florida: Dining
Posted
Although I've loved Rascal House for years, I was there twice around Thanksgiving, 2004, and the food was just hideous! I mean, it was horrible !!!
I posted about it at great length, and there was some discussion.
Rascal House on eGullet
In particluar, the pastrami was dry, synthetic, and rubberized to the point of elasticity. When I complained to the waitress, she told me "take it or leave it - we haven't made our own pastrami in years".
I read the above post and thought I might post a contrasting point of view.