markk

The sugar plums on the bottom were. The apricots and cherries were not - I don't even know if they grow those in New Jersey, do they? The melons - well, one of the melons, the orange one in the foreground, also was from the one farmer who makes up the market at Newport (Jersey City) and his melons are always fantastic. The plums came from one of the farmers at the Hoboken market.

"Insalata Caprese" - tomatoes and mozzarella (Hoboken), part of a summer meal from the farmers markets in Hoboken and Newport that included prosciutto and one very delicious melon from the Newport market. The tomatoes were not actually as good as they look.

THANK YOU !!! I've been saying this / asking this for years. But the way I ask it is even more troubling (to me). It's not just that they do all of that to extract the liquid, but the fact that they knew that the liquid contains caffeine (or at least they knew it contains a stimulant, if they didn't know its name). So how did they know that? And though it's not food, think about tobacco. How did they know that it has a calming agent, and that the best way to extract that is to dry the leaves, burn them, and inhale the smoke? My point is, it's not only astounding that mankind discovered the that the coffee plant has a bean that contains a stimulant that needs to be extracted with a water-brewing process to be available to humans, it also discovered that the tobacco plant has leaves that have a calmative that acts through absorption by the lungs! How was all this disovered and refined ???? Why isn't it that we eat the leaves of the coffee plant or smoke them? Why isn't it that we burn the coffee bean and inhale its smoke, and why don't we roast the tobacco leaves and brew them instead? I've been asking these questions for years, and nobody ever gives me an answer how this can possibly have been discovered! Even when they say "trial and error" it still boggles my mind as well. Did we at one point dry, roast, grind, brew, and smoke every plant on earth to see which things had an effect of one kind or another on us? (edited for clarity)

Celebrating summer (although the tomatoes were not as good as they look, still a few weeks to go, apparently) from the Farmers Markets in Hoboken and Newport (NJ), "mozzarella e pomodoro" (aka "insalata caprese) taking advantage of the fresh mozzarella in Hoboken; prosciutto and melon (finally, ripe melons!), and some assorted fruit.

I meant to post about this item a week ago, and forgot! I was there two weeks ago, and watching the foods go by - there was a couple in the booth next to me, and they were doing pretty good. I saw the fried Shanghai dumpling come to them, which I'd never had, and ordered it. (Afterwards I learned they were first-timers, but I would say they really got the hang of it, and got a really good taste of the place.) There was also an Asian family in the corner, and boy were they having interesting stuff! At one point something WONDERFUL looking went by; I tried to call the waiter over to ask what it was, but the first-timers next to me also saw it (how could you miss it?) and snagged him. Of course it was the shrimp balls, and the last order to boot. I went back a few nights later and had them, and they were indeed wonderful as you say. How do they do it?

When I read this post, I remembered reading about Sapore d'Ischia in several of the magainzes, so I decided to make the journey tonight, from New Jersey no less. My dining companion started with the "daily special" scallops, which were excellent, and I had the grilled octopus, which was quite good. Then, we split the fettucine with prosciutto tossed in the carved out wheel of Parmiggiano-Reggiano and tossed with white truffle oil, which was also quite good. For main courses we also had the daily special fish, the red snapper with asparagus and corn, which was quite good. The bill for food for 2 was exactly $100, surprising, since three days earlier we went to Lupa in NYC and had a magnificent, exquisite meal that can only be described as a "pig out", and the food portion of the bill was $75. The food at Sapori d'Ischia was truly okay; the food at Lupa was truly sublime; I'll leave you to do the math.

I checked the following books from my shelf, and i's NOT listed in any of them (granted they're not all current editions, but as the restaurant looks like it's been around for a while, that shouldn't make a difference): Gault-Millau France 2003 Le Pudlo France 2002 Guide Routard (Hotels et Restos de France) 2000 Guide Michelin France 2002 Bistros of Paris (Hamburger) 2001 Gourmet Paris So you've got a mystery on your hands. My method is to check it out in advance by going by at a mealtime and poking around. You can usually get a vibe that tells you if it looks good and if the people are enjoying themselves, and if you're clever enough you can usually see what the food that people are eating looks like. I've been known to check out restaurants several times (at lunch and dinner) before going to eat or writing them off.

I couldn' find this thread elswhere (although it if exists I hope sombody will point me to it) but has anybody eaten at Casa Mono? I love to hear about the food. (admin: merged into main thread)

My favorite restaurant in Hoboken is La Isla, although the last thing it needs is any more business! But it's great food, and the owner, Omar, is a great guy with a great attitude. There are yet more photos here: La Isla Dinner Photos

Not soon enough!

I took a slew of photos at China 46 last night, too many to post here... but there's one of them. There's a whole bunch more at the link below, and you're all invited to look - and I hope you enjoy. This comes with a gigantic "Thank You" to eGullet and Jason, without whom I never would have found this wonderful place. China 46 photos from July 10, 2004

I saw some beautiful Grouper fillets in the Shop Rite and baked them with slices of lemon and red onion and some fresh herbs and garlic under parchment: in the pan: a serving on the plate: accompanied by roast red potatoes and steamed asparagus:

That looks and sounds great! Can I ask you for ALL the details - what did you stuff it with, where did you get enough duck fat to confit it in, where did you get the duck neck, where did you get the inspiration - all those things?? Thanks!!!

In the 80's I worked with a guy who told me that there is NO Chinese menu in America that doesn't have a typo. It wasn't a derogatory comment, just an observation of his, and collecting menus to find the typos was his hobby - he'd go into every restaurant he passed, and never had found one that was clean. At that time I looked at the menu from a very upscale place near me, and sure enough, one of the appetizers was "Hadded Chicken", which turned out to be "hacked". And 20 years later, I realize he was right. But this isn't limited to Chinese restaurants by any means. I used to stay in hotel in Italy whose owner prided himself on his English, and whose beautiful color brochure stated, "The hotel is located in the most panoramic and spot." Years later when they got (presumably) the first frigo-bars in Italy, the slips on the foods said, "Please handle this slip to the concierge upon your demise." When I travel, I speak to people in several foreign languages, and I e-mail as well in French and Italian. I am sure that I have given many side-spittting moments myself to the speakers of those languages.

Thank you. No, they're not ethiopian at all. I take all the cloves from a nice head of garlic, purple if I can get it, and I peel them and put them in a little pot that’s very narrow and a few inches tall, and cover them with olive oil. Then I bring it gently to the simmer, cover it with aluminum foil, and simmer the cloves for about 20 minutes until they soften completely but don’t brown. Also, I dice a purple onion quite fine and sautee it, covered, in a regular large sautee pan for the same amount of time more or less. Near the end I add in a good amount of fresh thyme to the onions. Then, I dump the garlic into the onions, and mash the cloves into the oil and the onion. I add one or two packages of the Lunor brand lentils that Fairway in New York sells (any lentils, of course, would do, the French lentils being the best), and stir them to coat evenly. Then I add the tomatoes, crushing them as I add them, from a can of the Tuscan Organic tomatoes that Whole Foods sells, and I add a little bit of the juices if necessary. Then I give it a 15 or 20 minute simmer, and that’s it.

I think that we absolutely "eat" with our eyes, and I find that a beautiful visual stimulates my enjoyment of a great meal even more, although nothing makes up for lousy food. But when I entertain, I use that to my advantage - I like to get my guests as "excited" as I can before they even get to eating the food. As for garnish, I don't put anything on the plate other than the actual components of the meal, but I try to cram as many things into one main course as I can whose flavors complement each other and also look good on the (plain white) plate. Here's a duo of duck (leg confit and rare breast) that I served the other night as an example: (Crispy Duck Leg Confit with Thyme-Scented French Lentils, Purée of Yam and Turnip; and Pan Roasted Duck Magret with Truffled Mushrooms, Champagne Mangoes with aged-sherry vinaigrette and Maraschino Liquer) I also fussed a little extra with the table setting just to get people in a festive mood: I always also print up a menu for this kind of dinner; all together, the anticipation has people thinking it's delicious before they even start eating; this works on me, so I figure why not use it to my own advantage when I'm cooking. All of the photos of this dinner are here: My Duo of Duck Dinner Incidentally, many years ago I did one of these table settings and included foodstuffs that looked pretty and got the table filled in - and one of the things I used was large sun-dried tomatoes. When I found one of my guests eating one, I told him he shouldn't, and he said that in that case I shouldn't have set the table with them. He was right, and I've never again set out anything that wasn't edible.

Wednesday was a special occasion, so I pulled out all the stops. The menu was and then here's the table setting, followed by the food I never got around to cutting up fruit, so I just served it on a platter with a bowl of ice water for washing, and I served both ice creams and the cookies. Everybody had a great time.

I don't know its name. It's a green leaf, but the "ribs" are red. Cecil describes it as "like Swiss Chard, but not Swiss Chard". Tommy of course was eating it the other night, and he may, might know what it is. I myself am crazy for dark, leafy greens, and am astounded at the variety of them that the Chinese people eat. (The eGullet thread, elsewhere, on Ung Choy, (Tong Choy) is just fascinating beyond belief, by the way - worth looking for!

Pickled Beef Tongue. I can't believe nobody listed this. I admit that as I typed it out, it looked kind of strange even to me. But it's what they serve at Jewish delis. It's boiled, but it's boiled after it's pickled, and it's also referred to as "corned beef tongue". But I love tongue even when it's not pickled (or "corned") and just boiled (at least, I think they boil it unpickled). But I can't believe that nobody voted for tongue in this category.

NEW PORK SHOULDER IN TOWN: We went to China 46 last night and of course we had a wonderful meal. I ordered the "Ruby Pork", or at least I tried to, and Cecil told me to have another, new preparation of the pork shoulder instead. It was wonderful, although strangely, it didn't come with buns and we had to rush to order them on the side. He said that I was one of the first people to have this dish. When I asked its name, they all thought and said "new pork" for lack of a name for it. Has anybody else had this new dish yet?

Precisely. He established that, by his standards anyway, that Babbo's style "undercuts the kind of coddling that restaurants can also provide. They can muster a style of theater and degree of pampering that make more universally appealing sense than the sounds and scrum of Babbo." A previous NY Times critic (sorry, I don't remember who it was) once wrote in a review of Montrachet that what distinguished a three star restaurant from a four, in her mind, was how often you could eat there - if it didn't overwhelm your senses so much that you felt you couldn't eat there all the time, it couldn't be a four-star place in her mind.

Well, in many ways that's true. I mean, I believe in my heart of hearts that it's all about the food and should be that way, but it's also discussed in the restaurant world that the million dollars in trappings and table setting that surround you at a four-star place are what separate them from the three stars, the implication being that at three stars the food is truly spectacular anyway (or should be), so all you need are the luxury trimmings. Of course, it would be nice if what got places their fourth star was extra-extra special food, but that's not often the case.

The rotisserie, or outdoor grill, or whatever you use has to be covered, that is to say, with the lid down. The earlier posting is absolutely correct - you cannot cook the duck over direct heat. You've got to have a pan under it (a disposable aluminum foil pan of some kind, like a small lasagna pan, works great) to catch the dripping grease AND to spread the coals to the side so that they're never directly under the duck. Also - in Julia Child's "The Way to Cook" she talks about roasting ducks in general, and suggests that you cook the duck for 20 minutes or so in a covered pot with a little water to start steaming out some of the excess fat - this is a good idea, plus, when you de-fat that water, you get some duck fat that doesn't have the barbeque, smoky flavor (and the duck fat is worth its weight in, well gold or duck fat, you know).

I'll nose around at the Wegman's here in Syracuse (Dewitt store) to see whether that's the case here but I doubt that it is. You can doubt it if you want, but the bakery manager at the Woodbridge store explained that the breads are par baked in Rochester, flash-frozen, and shipped to the stores; he was telling me this as I was holding one of their premium loaves in my hand (in its package) and collapsing it down to nothing between my thumb and forefinger as if it was a loaf of Wonder Bread.

As a reality check, has anybody been to a Wegmans lately? I checked out the one in Woodbridge and was sorely, sorely disappointed. When they sprang up years and years ago in upstate New York they had the look and feel of a store that nobody in those parts had ever seen, and some authentic breads too. They were doing authentic French (hypermarket) baking, making all the traditional types of breads with real aged starters- the levains, the poolish - it was the real thing just on a large commercial scale. Then they started to switch over to German chemical-based agents for creating starters faster and they had a lot of German experts over and they were very happy with those results, but they were keeping the French Bakery model with the long rises. Now it's anybody's guess - the vast majority of the breads you find there just have no texture anymore - they're soft like Wonder Bread - anybody's guess how they're being made because now they're par baked in Rochester NY and flash frozen and shipped frozen to all the stores. And they're soft, and lousy. At Woodrbrige I also found that the prepared foods were loaded with chemicals - I found this out because before I finished strolling and sampling the first aisle I had an actual MSG headache, so I started asking for ingredients for what they were sampling, and what do you know - showy foods with no regard for what was natural or not. Who cares if the display is pretty? I don't see the attraction with this place at all. I think perhaps a Paramus "Fairway" from New York with it's fantastic produce and all of the great foodstuffs that's pretty much hand picked from the best of what's available around the world - I think that will go great. But I think compared to this kind of store, a Wegmans's is a low end "Disney" version. Well, that's just my opinion, but I am curious what people this close to New York see in them.