markk
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"Chinese in Rome. It was subpar to say the least"
"Chinese food in Frankfurt one night. It was buffet and subpar"
"Chinese in Italy at a family friends restaurant that was also poor"
"Chinese restaurant one night in a small village somewhere outside Stuttgart many years ago. Unpleasant, though it was quite popular among locals."
THANKS to everybody who has replied so far! I'm certainly not surprised by the adjectives. What I'm most curious about (unless people other than me just blot these things out) is whether it was lousy because it was adapted unwisely or badly to the local cuisine, or just poor in the way that much Americanized Chinese food can be.
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With all the fascinating discussions on eGullet about Chinese foods (one topic is the vast range of authentic Chinese cuisines we're now being treated to in the US; another, the understanding that Americanized Chinese food is a unique style that many Americans grew up on and remember fondly, while never trying to claim that it's authentically Chinese in any way) there's a question I've wondered about all my life that I pose now...
Having grown up in New York City's suburbs in the 1950's, I certainly understand Americanized Chinese food (and have a fondness for it, in its place). And so whenever I've traveled in Europe, in France or Italy, let's say, and seen a Chinese restaurant there in the past - they always seem to have these guilded, elaborate, "exotic" outsides, I've always been fascinated that the menus seem to list in French or Italian (or German, in Germany) those same foods we think of as Americanized Chinese food (and that are probably based originally on Cantonese cooking); Oh, you know, shrimp and lobster sauce, fried rice, sweet-and-sour pork even, but translated into French, or Italian, etc.)
I've always been extremely curious as to what the food would taste like.
But, being in places where I'd have to give up a French or Italian meal to try the Chinese food, I've never been able to bring myself to do it! I always assumed, just as you would assume if you saw a lone Chinese restaurant in the US Midwest in the 1960's, that it's not going to be a very authentic Chinese cuisine. But would it be what we call "Americanized"? There'd probably be no reason for it to be.
So then, would it be "French-ized" or "Italian-ized" - that is to say, adapted to what the cooks think the local diners in that country would would like? (And if the Chinese food were 'French-ized' - would that necessarily be a bad thing?...)
So I ask - specifically not talking about cities like London with long-standing Chinatowns, has anybody ever eaten Chinese food in France, or Italy?
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[...]The person in front of me was a teenage kid dribbling a basketball in the gutter, bouncing it up and down with his hands. When his turn came to be served and he reached in his pocket with those same hands to get money, I realized that he was about to hand it to the proprietor, who was then going to handle the money touched by those hands, and then touch whatever hot dogs I ordered. (He wasn't wearing gloves, so there were none to change.) I got off the line, my craving for a hot dog suddenly gone. (The guy called out after me to ask what was wrong, but I just kept going.)[...]
Why didn't you explain?
Well, I was disgusted, and it seemed pointless. Here's a guy who owns his own foodservice business, not practicing any visible sanitary measures at all. I don't get the feeling he would have run out and bought enough disposable gloves to change after handling each customer's money from that day on, and from what I could see from peeking into his wagon, I think that if he needed to wash his hands he'd have had to close up shop and drive somewhere. So I left before letting him handle my food.
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Well, that's a very fair answer. I had posted my next (cafeteria) message before you even replied. I would say that you and I are at opposite ends of the scale on this issue.
Most likely. Actually, your cafeteria story makes me just now understand why buffets suggest you get fresh plates every time you go up, I always thought it was odd, as the food is going from serving dish to plate, not vice versa. I always kinda though buffets did it just to track how much you were eating so they could kick you out if you had been there for a while...
Omigod! The horrors of being at a buffet where, notwithstanding the fact that people must take fresh plates every time they come back for more, you still have strangers eating spare ribs and such with their hands and then touching the serving utensils... (!!!) Dont get me started !
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If you saw a street vendor in New York City drop some coins in the street (not just the sidewalk, but the street with the gutter and the traffic), pick them up with his bare hands, and then reach for your hot dog roll a second later with that same hand, would you eat it?
(I wouldn't.)
Honestly? Yes, I probably wouldn't even give it the thought that he just did something unsanitary... Food safety is just hardly ever in my mind to any degree, so, it would likely just not even occur to me to be worried about what he did, I would already be salivating over the hot dog.
Well, that's a very fair answer. I had posted my next (cafeteria) message before you even replied. I would say that you and I are at opposite ends of the scale on this issue.
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As an adult, some years ago, I had lunch at a school cafeteria (admittedly a very prestigious private school) where I did some work one day. Many of the kids brought their plates back up to the serving line for seconds, where the servers would scoop out another portion of food with the big stainless serving spoons, and dump in onto their plates by tapping the edge of the spoon onto the plate to ensure that all the food would fall out. Personally, I was horrified - they're touching the serving spoons right into the plates where the kids have just eaten with their forks, and then basically taking all the germs that each kid might have on his or her plate, plunging them back into the warming tray of food, and then serving them to the next people in line.
I expressed my horror to the adults I was with, and they just shrugged and didn't seem to get it.
Is it me? Does anybody see my point? Or am I overly phobic here?
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I'm always appalled that people who handle food don't understand the problems with sanitation and food safety, and aren't forced to learn, and in answer to the original question, I have a zero tolerance as well.
One day last year I decided to have a hot dog from one of Jersey City's most popular hot dog trucks. (This is something I never do, but the craving hit and I see that it's a very popular place.) The proprietor himself was serving, and as usual, there was a long line, which went out to the curb and then along the street. The person in front of me was a teenage kid dribbling a basketball in the gutter, bouncing it up and down with his hands. When his turn came to be served and he reached in his pocket with those same hands to get money, I realized that he was about to hand it to the proprietor, who was then going to handle the money touched by those hands, and then touch whatever hot dogs I ordered. (He wasn't wearing gloves, so there were none to change.) I got off the line, my craving for a hot dog suddenly gone. (The guy called out after me to ask what was wrong, but I just kept going.)
I try not to have unrealistically high standards about sanitation, but this was just too much for me.
I think part of the street food appeal is the potential 'dirtyness' of it. IfI saw a street food vendor wearing sanitation gloves I'd be turned off by it honestly.
If you saw a street vendor in New York City drop some coins in the street (not just the sidewalk, but the street with the gutter and the traffic), pick them up with his bare hands, and then reach for your hot dog roll a second later with that same hand, would you eat it?
(I wouldn't.)
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I'm always impressed by the counter guys with gloves handling the money and then going back to work with the food. Then there are the guys with one glove. One hand for the food and the other for the money as if you could make a sandwich with one hand.
I'm always appalled that people who handle food don't understand the problems with sanitation and food safety, and aren't forced to learn, and in answer to the original question, I have a zero tolerance as well.
One day last year I decided to have a hot dog from one of Jersey City's most popular hot dog trucks. (This is something I never do, but the craving hit and I see that it's a very popular place.) The proprietor himself was serving, and as usual, there was a long line, which went out to the curb and then along the street. The person in front of me was a teenage kid dribbling a basketball in the gutter, bouncing it up and down with his hands. When his turn came to be served and he reached in his pocket with those same hands to get money, I realized that he was about to hand it to the proprietor, who was then going to handle the money touched by those hands, and then touch whatever hot dogs I ordered. (He wasn't wearing gloves, so there were none to change.) I got off the line, my craving for a hot dog suddenly gone. (The guy called out after me to ask what was wrong, but I just kept going.)
I try not to have unrealistically high standards about sanitation, but this was just too much for me.
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A favorite of my husband's that you never see on menus anymore is Lobster Thermidor.
I LOVE Lobster Thermidor, and no, you don't. But when Emeril's opened the first Delmonico's restaurant in New Orleans around 1996 or 97, it was on their menu, and it was absolutely sensational. I've never seen it on a restaurant menu since. I think it's a dish that needs to make a comeback!
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The thing about prime rib, with respect to Jewish cuisine, is that the rib is the best steak- or roast-like cut of meat that Jews who keep kosher will typically eat. Because the sciatic nerve runs through the short loin (which is the source of all the "steakhouse steaks" other than the rib: the New York strip, the filet mignon and the porterhouse) none of the cuts from the short loin are kosher unless the nerve is painstakingly removed (the nerve has many, many branches and requires a lot of careful work to remove entirely). This is virtually never done in North America or Europe, where the most economically viable move is just to sell the short loin to non-kosher purveyors. In Israel, where that option is not as available, it is worth investing the labor in removing the sciatic nerve, so you will find kosher porterhouse, filet mignon and New York strip-type cuts in Israel.
That's a fascinating observation. While I guess I always knew about the sciatic nerve making the hind portion off-limits for Jews, I never thought of it in terms of increasing the popularity of the "rib" as the best cut left. And now that I think of it, on the nights we didn't go to Bar Mitzvahs we used to drive to Delancey St. to eat at a place that featured "Mush Steak" - at least that's what my parents called it and ordered it as - and of course, it was a boneless rib-eye, from the chuck, or fatty end of the rib, and it was delicious. (It's what's now called a boneless club, or Delmonico steak, I suppose.) I never realized that (although we weren't kosher ourselves) steaks from the short loin were not an option in these places.
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The American prime rib dinner, which is taken to the most abusurd extreme of over-representation in Las Vegas but is prevalent throughout many regions of the country, is a very close relative of the British classic meal of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.
Indeed. But does anybody put a Jewish interpretation on this? Well, I'm sure I started this wrong and phrased that incorrectly, but similar to the fascinating discussions on Jews and Chinese Food, does anybody (besides me) associate Prime Rib with Jewish people? I say this because growing up (in New York City) in the 1950's, I think I ate more Prime Rib at Bar Mitzvahs than I ever thought there were cattle in this world. As Bar Mitzvah (and wedding) food is how I got to know the dish, and was surprised when I got out in the world and found other people eating it as well.
Many years later, I was distressed to find that people actually roasted a Prime Rib without the bones! My dad was a lover of Prime Rib end cuts, served on-the-bone, and taught me that when you went to a Bar Mitzvah or wedding, you could actually request this, and talk the waiter into bringing you said cut. (Man oh man...)
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So, where can I find real canned San Marzanos, or any other high-quality canned tomatoes?
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the "Precious Tuscan Tomato", an organic, vine-ripened, peeled, whole canned plum tomato from Tuscany. I first saw them at Whole Foods and read on the label "For centuries, Tuscany was renowned in Italy for the distinctive flavor of its tomatoes. When modern harvesting techniques were introduced in Italy, it became impractical to grow and harvest tomatoes in the region's small, hilly farmland. Therefore, the Tuscan tomato slowly lost commercial fame... taste these tomatoes and rediscover a flavor delicately preserved in time" and I fell for it and bought a can. I found that the tomato is intensely flavorful and lives up to its hype. I've compared it side-by-side to the brands of San Marzano tomatoes that were always my favorites, (some of which were organic to boot) and much to my surprise, "The Precious Tuscan Tomato" is significantly riper and more flavorful than any of them.
Anyhow, they're in a yellow can which says "Rediscover the Precious Tuscan Tomato", they're produced by a company called Bionaturae (www.bionaturae.com), and are at the very least available at Whole Foods. I'd be interested to hear the opinions of anybody who tries them.
(They come whole, or diced, or pureed - I prefer the whole, as with any canned tomato.
Whole Foods seems to carry all three.)
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The first WP "Express" that I ever encountered was in one of the terminals at LAX - in fact, it was out by the gates. It was somewhere around the early 1990's. And the food was great. I remember the Caesar salad - the lettuce was crisp, and the dressing was garlicky and vibrant. We used to have the pizzas, the salad, and the sandwiches, and they were good eating for sure.
Fast forward to 2003... and a Wolfgang Puck Express opens in a large, prime location in Hoboken, right on the waterfront, in the ground-floor space of a brand-new office building on the banks of the Hudson River with specacular views of the New York City skyline. Most restaurants in the world would kill for such a setting.
And amid much hype and a visit from WP himself, the restaurant opens.
And the food is as sad, as dull, as sorry, and as lackluster as what you get on a no-frills airline on a flight that is delayed many hours, or the food you remember badly from your school cafeteria. Not believing it the first time, we ate here on three separate occasions several months apart, having several of the "signature" pizzas, the "signature" Chicken Bolognese pasta, the Caesar Salad, and the roast chicken on various occasions.
It all tastes like something you get from a can and reheat in a microwave.
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And as the wait staff grows increasingly surly and the customer base grows weaker still, is the management so unaware of the status quo and the gossip about the service and/or food?
Or is the markup on the things they sell so high that it is more and more of the customer be damned?
Isn't there ample competition in that area for the same chazerai Jewish-style deli? Pumpernicks?
It is, a shondeh (shame) to be sure
Pumpermicks is gone - perhaps for a long time, now, and there really are no other similar places around. But please bear in mind that we're talking about food just so horrible that they don't need to hear it from anybody - there's obviously been a 100% about-face in their purchasing and cooking, and they would know all about it themselves.
I can't possibly tell the story of the all-gristle, inedible Flanken, and the several different portions they brought me trying to get me an edible dinner, with no success. What were once luscious boiled short ribs was now some horribly tough pieces of marginally boiled all-gristle chuck just waiting for somebody to tempt fate. So the next night I ordered a pastrami sandwich. The pastrami was light, pale pink, shaved paper thin, and it was shiny from a brine-like glaze, and to demonstrate what it was to my dining companion, I picked a slice off the sandwich and held it between the fingertips of both my hands and pulled - the meat was elastic, and stretched without breaking several inches, before retracting (and falling hopelessly into my sandwich). The guy at the next table who had watched the whole thing said to me, "You know, that's GOT to be Turkey pastrami!"
And so it went. Over two nights we sampled a lot of foods, plus take-out for the hotel, with no better luck, and then called it quits.
The answer may be that there are a ton of people who like the decor and the hours and who come for the turkey club sandwiches and not the Jewish foods, and that they will stay in business serving those, or the answer may be that like me (and the other people posting here), a lot of people who want the tradional Jewish foods and are not getting acceptable versions of them will simply stop coming. Being America, either scenario is possible, I think. But management (this would now be Jerry's Famous Deli, of course) has to know exactly what it has done. I don't think I'd ever go back, but on the other hand, on future trips I might be very curious to drive by and see if the place is even still there.
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I pan seared some lovely salmon fillets for a late lunch. Mighty tasty, but the salmon smell is lingering. Is this a sign that the fish was less than fresh, or is it just the nature of salmon? I gave it a sniff when I bought it, and it smelled fine. Whats going on?
I get that too, and it's bad enough that I'm going to stop making salmon, I really am. The fish I get is really fresh, and it's not a "bad fish" smell that I get, but when I get up the next morning after cooking salmon for dinner, my entire apartment has the heavy smell of salmon oil hanging in the air. I too would love it if somebody could explain to us "what's going on?"
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I see this almost daily here in Japan, as a foreigner I often get handed an English menu in restaurants or many restaurants have menus written in both Japanese and English, some of the translations are so funny I can't stop laughing.
No - I wasn't talking about English translations of foreign menus - they are indeed always uproariously funny. I was asking about menus for a restaurant featuring a particular nationality of cuisine where they mangled that language on the menu, as in, if somebody opened an "American" restaurant in Japan and then bungled the English, giving away that they weren't of that nationality at all.
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"Sharing Charge for Split Secondi's and Split Primi's Without Ordering a Secondi"
Do they actually use the apostrophes to make the already plural words plural?
YES.
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I'm not pretentious or stuck-up or any of those things - I'm really not, and I don't know how to ask this without running the risk of coming off like that. My crime is that I've studied some foreign languages (back in college a million years ago) and have what you'd call more than a passing knowledge of them (and use them all the time when I travel in Europe, not that I don't think people cringe, at least a little, and probably severely in France, when I speak their language to them).
So I cringe when somebody on TV asks "Care for a biscotti?", because that's the plural of the word "biscotto" - but then, I realize that TV has worse stupidities than that, and I give it up.
But how about restaurants that serve a particular nationality of food and then bungle the language?
I'm looking at the menu from a recently opened Italian restaurant - it's not a spaghetti parlor, but rather they offer Osso Bucco, fish in parchment, grilled veal chop - it reads very nicely. And the categories are named in Italian: "Antipasti", "Primi", "Secondi", "Contorni" and so on.
The problem for me came from a notice printed at the bottom of each page that made me really cringe: "Sharing Charge for Split Secondi's and Split Primi's Without Ordering a Secondi" [sic]. I trust that anybody who is Italian or knows the language will cringe as well. (Primi and Secondi are the plurals of "Primo" (as in Primo Piatto) and "Secondo" (as in Secondo Piatto), and with that sentence they've just gotten out of hand. I don't for a moment think that you have to be Italian to cook good Italian food, but when you go playing around with a language that you obviously don't speak... well, does anybody else get my point? (For the record, I think that that notice on their menu would have to read "Sharing Charge for Split Secondi and Split Primi Without Ordering a Secondo").
I'm absolutely not drawing any conclusions about the food from this; I'm sure that whoever put that sentence on the menu has nothing whatsoever to do with the chef. Still, I'm sure that in this day and age I can't be the only person cringing from this, and wonder what take everybody else has on it ? If you are familiar with a foreign language, how does it strike you when you see that language mangled on a menu by somebody who obviously doesn't speak the language and didn't check with somebody who does?
edited to add the "[sic]" when somebody questioned whether they had used the apostrophes
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Also, their old "schtick" with the short-tempered waitstaff has really turned into downright rude and no longer entertaining.
That's for darn sure. Each of the two nights I was just there recently I witnessed customers in seriously unpleasant confrontations with their waitresses - scenes that really were downright rude and downright ugly, having nothing to do with the "schtick" of yesteryear - waitresses giving customers the most unbelievable hard time and then telling them off, and customers really not liking it.
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I know they had been bought out by Jerry's...They've opened a branch in South Beach and I'm not sure how it's doing.
This past July (when Rascal house was still great) I was in South Beach at lunchtime, so I ate at the Jerry's there. (I had read some horrible reports about it somewhere else on line and couldn't believe they were true, so we went.) It was worse than horrible - pastrami and tongue just so terrible it was hard to believe. But at that time, Rascal House was still fine. Now it seems that they're interchangeable with the lousy food.
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Since you're not getting a ton of firsthand reports, I thought I'd tell you what the 2004 Gault-Millau has to say (it's one of the books I rely on myself when planning trips to the smaller, lesser visited parts of France).
They give the following ratings to the following restaurants (I'll explain my take on them after):
Le Gambetta - 14
L'Escargot - 13
Les Ménestrels - 13
And in fact these are the only three restaurants they list for Saumur. If you're not familiar with this guide, it's out of a possible 20 points, and the 19/20 point restaurants always correspond with Michelin's 3-stars; a 14 rating is usually comparable to a Michelin 1-star, and I have always found, for my taste anyway, that restaurants with 12 Gault-Millau points are where really good eating starts - it's not necessarily fancy at that point, but it's good enough that the food may actually be "conversation-stopping", and by that I mean that in a 12 point restaurant, you're likely to interrupt your conversation to remark "by the way, this food is actually quite delicious". 13 points then, is quite something in its own right- and bear in mind that both the 12 and 13 correspond very highly to Michelin's "Bib Gourmand". If it were I going to Saumur, I would definitely plan a visit to these places, especially since my preference is not necessarily 3-star restaurants over the kind of hearty local cusine you get at these places, and since Gault-Millau 13 has always represented a seriously good level of dining in France for me.
For cross reference, the 2004 Pudlo does not list any restaurants in the town (only one hotel), but the 2003 English translation of the Guide Routard lists only Les Ménestrels, and says "Without doubt the best restaurant n Saumur."
Hope this helps.
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My suggestions are not witty, but I toss them out anyway. I do think that Melt is quite clever, but back when you were choosing the name, I really liked Glenn's Grilled Cheese (it wasn't my suggestion even) and I think a reason may have been given that it tells people what you actually specialize in. So my suggestion is one of the tag lines that has "grilled cheese" in it. A permutation of one that's already tossed out, such as Grown-up Grilled Cheese, or Grilled Cheese for Grown-ups. Or "Melt: We Make Grilled Cheese Right!", or "Melt: Grilled Cheese with Choices", "Melt: Grilled Cheese Never Tasted So Good", "Melt: Explore the World of Grilled Cheese". Or "Melt: Grilled Cheese with Strings Attached" (or Grilled Cheese, Strings Attached).
And violating my own rule, "Melt: There's Gooey Goodness Inside"
Well, hope this helps.
Edited to add 2 items.
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It's not the produce. These guys are just better cooks than we are. A reasonable facsimile of 4-star cooking is not 4-star cooking. It may be great stuff, but it's not 4-star.
Busboy hits the nail on the head with this one. After reading through the entire thread, I think that people who cook great meals at home are discounting the incredible skill, creativity, and execution of the 4-star chef and kitchen staff. (I don't mean '4-star' as in a dinner guest who comes to your home, eats a really good meal, and pronounces it 4-star, having never actually eaten in a New York Times 4-star, or French (Michelin) 3-starred establishment, although I'm not trying to discount the compliment, just establish a perspective. I take 4-star to mean a meal of the same level of cuisine that you'd get at a 4-starred establishment.) I too cook some great meals at home (and my photos are also on the "dinner" and "tasting menu" threads) and my dinner guests are considerably impressed when they come on a night when fortune has smiled on me and my foie gras and truffled duck breast dinner has come out great and I serve a fine old Bordeaux from my dwindling cellar; but as great as my meals are sometimes, for me, it just increases my own incredible respsect and jaw-dropping awe for the truly great chefs of the world - to sit and eat a meal prepared by one of them, knowing so very much about cooking yourself, and tasting each course and thinking "I can buy most of those same ingredients myself... HOW DID HE DO THAT???"
So I think the correct response is Busboy's: "These guys are just better cooks than we are." That's my vote.
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Are there any eG members in Miami who have current experience with Wolfie Cohen's Rascal House (at 172 St. and Collins Ave.)?
I was just there twice this past weekend, and it was just all-around horrible; the foods (such as the Flanken, the Brisket, and especially the Pastrami) were inedibly bad. And they managed to make it quite clear that they really don't care any more - don't care what they're serving, don't care how you feel about it. On the second night, it seemed that every table in the place was complaining and having problems with the food. The servers were explaining to the complaining tables that it was out of their hands, things like that. (I had planned a few more meals there and cut it short, needless to say.)
But I was there as recently as this past July, and the food was as wonderful as it has always been, and at that time they had already been bought (for some time, actually) by the Jerry's Famous Deli group, and had done a refurbishing of the place - but the food clearly wasn't affected.
Are there any Miami members who have any recent experience or who can shed any light on this?
Corned Beef (and cabbage?)
in Cooking
Posted
I've always thought that the corned beef that's served in traditional Jewish delis is completely different in taste and texture from the corned beef that's sold in cryovac in the supermarkets (especially around St. Patrick's Day) which you either steam or roast yourself. If indeed they are different, can anybody explain the differences? Thanks.