ExtraMSG

It was just a thin layer. Poured off the excess before putting the eggs in. It wasn't greasy.

I made one today. Used bacon grease instead of butter, though, and then put the bacon inside the omelette. A question: how runny should the insides be when I get done? When I cut into it a bit of warm but unset egg trickled out. Sould I have left it in the pan to finish a bit more after rolling it?

Here's a link to the crawl (with a couple pics): http://www.portlandfood.org/modules.php?na...=viewtopic&t=19

I keep telling a friend of mine that hunts for deer and elk to bag me a young one and I'll take all the parts he doesn't want. I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and special order some expensive stuff from one of these places.

I don't know Houston, but in Dallas the fine dining problem seems to be that places don't maintain well. (It's obviously a problem everywhere, but it seems pronounced in Dallas.) You have people like Pyles who can't stay put or just focus. Rathburn, the same. Seems to be the norm. Maybe it's the culture where million dollar homes are demolished to build 10 million dollar homes and everything is a potential "concept" to be franchised. The Mansion is maybe a pleasant exception (though I agree on the decor), although there are some promising new places, like Lola's Tasting Room. Even if Dallas and Houston aren't fine dining destinations like NY, Chicago, and San Francisco, are they any worse really than the second tier? And honestly, I think there is haute cuisine in Dallas that's as good as that in the destination cities. It's just not known as such. I imagine it's the same in Houston. I think there is a question when someone is visiting Texas as to whether they can find anything in haute cuisine that they can't get at home. But there are always regional differences, especially with the rise of local/seasonal emphases. Places like The Mansion would seem to be better representatives of this than most places you would find in SF. In fact, why would anyone travel for haute cuisine? It's generally more similar across the nation than the low-brow foods. Dim sum in SF is going to be on average much better than that in Miami, which will have much better Cuban on average, than that in SF. Should eating out while travelling only be for low-brow?

tommy, it helps if you think of smoked salmon as fishy bacon. Who doesn't love bacon? Crazy people.

Here are some of my food-based pics. I wish I had more and better but I was using those crappy disposable cameras and a whole roll actually failed on me. btw, I've just picked some of the better ones that I scanned in. You can find more here: http://www.portlandfood.org/uploads/mexicocity/ Panaderia Ideal Typical little streetside place Nopales in Mercado Merced Typical Merced Fonda Huaraches and Quesadillas in Merced Toppings options

Can't acid cause coagulation here, too? Maybe there was something acidic.

FG, so you don't think you get a little more even cooking from using a spatula to swirld the contents a bit?

No one ever had to convince me to clean my plate. I'd clean mine and the person's next to me (and the person's next to them). I don't have any serious food aversions, though I share tommy's dislike for cooked salmon and can only actually enjoy the best wild salmon cooked and prefer it medium rare. Bugs gross me out, though, as do seabugs if they're still in the shell with their wigglies. But I have eaten whole soft-shell crab anyway, which is about as gross as it gets. I don't know how I'd handle balut. Nasty sounding from people I've talked to. But I haven't had anything set in front of me yet that I didn't eat. But I haven't traveled in SE Asia.

One thing that sucks, too, is that you really can't get good corn husks in the US. At least I haven't found them yet. You see the ones available at markets in Mexico and it's like Jenny's response to seeing Forrest Gump's member for the first time: "where have you been all my life." (book, not movie) Good corn husks make a big difference, I think, in the ease of making tamales, not to mention the options it gives you with size. I end up using two husks per tamal way too often. Speaking of las abuelas. The talk on the Mexico City thread of El Bajio made me think of the open kitchen with all the abuelas working away. I could spend hours just watching them work.

Sounds like you need starch to allow the cheese to bind with the cream.

Man, my farewatcher alert for Mexico City went off yesterday. If I had the time and money right now, I would be there, wife or no. I need to hurry up and win the lottery or something.

chickenlady (your name brings up Kids in the Hall memories): I'd suggest going ahead and letting the water come to a full boil and seeing how the results turn out unless you have a digital thermometer and can tell exactly when you're taking the eggs off the heat. I imagine a lot of other factors can affect it, such as the metal that the water is in and how much of it there is, since it could change the speed at which heat is lost from the pot. Also, how relatively full the pot is, since a big pot with little water might also cool quicker. But eliminating the factor of at what temp the eggs actually get taken off could answer a lot of questions.

Ugh. I just wrote a response, hit the backspace while I wasn't in the field, and it went back on me erasing everything. SOB!!!! Anyway, basically what I said was that pain is an issue of toleration. Pain is sensation that is no longer tolerable. eg, if I scratch my arm it may relieve and itch and be pleasurable. But then I scratch harder and harder and suddenly that same sensation begins to hurt. The change is in the intensity. Likewise, when my mother made me gargle salt water for a sore throat, it was painful. I gagged. What is normally something pleasant, saltiness, was so intense that it was intolerable. I think this can be classified as pain. I have a similar reaction to unsweetened grapefruit juice. I know people with similar reactions to vinegar. The confusion comes I think because fiery is a sensation that's not only felt while eating. Your hands can't feel saltiness, bitterness, or sourness. But they can feel a burning sensation. So "burning", that fiery sensation, is more commonly associated with pain. But one man's pain is another man's pleasure. You mention that the fiery sensation neturalizes or obstructs your ability to taste otehr flavors. The same can be said of sour and bitter flavors. But whether it's intolerable and a bad is contextual, both in how it's used and by whom it's eaten. I said this all much better the first time. But the point is that no one would be surprised to see grapefruit or vinegar or other such ingredients on a haute cuisine menu even in concentrated forms (I've seen them as such). I don't think it should be surprising to see something fiery on a haute cuisine menu, either. But currently it is. btw, on liquamen I don't think it's made anymore either. That's why I used the past tense. I wish it were. I love fish sauce. "Umi" is one name for that "meaty" flavor, I believe. Another is MSG. And as you might guess, I say the more of it the better. I have seen recipes for it in food history books. I can't remembe how specific they were. It'd be interesting if someone tried to make some. I can't remember why it disappeared. Was it the fall of the Roman empire that did it? I thought it was used more widely.

So, if the food network decided to make you their star and pay you to go around the world eating whatever's disgusting, would you do it? Fear Factor/Survivor no problem? btw, just remember that the difference between a crab and a spider is only that the former is bigger and lives under water. If you've eaten crustaceans, you've eaten bugs.

I've been asked at the end of meals if I'm a reviewer because when I go out of town I take notes on meals and get a copy of the menu. Maybe everyone should except the reviewers. I think it's cool that some, like you, do try to maintain anonymity. It provides a different perspective. But I don't think it's feasible or necessary for everyone.

I think it makes it easier to bring everything together to shape it. Though I don't try to shape it much. I'm eager to try to shape it more in the future and especially try the pre-cooking. My problem is that when I plop the egg in some generally gets loose. That happens much less when I swirl. I generally am using old eggs, though, since I go through a dozen eggs no quicker than every few weeks unless I go on a binge like today where I use nearly a dozen in two meals (without any baking). I'd really like to try Irwin's method. Though, even more, I'd like to see 120 dozen eggs getting poached. That's amazingly impressive to me. FG, have you used a digital thermometer to watch the temp while you've done your testing? My times seemed shorter.

They wouldn't need to still be pliable since you could soak them. I imagine that you could go about it several ways. It'd be interesting to have someone test it. I'd probably start by putting the oven on the lowest setting and putting them in there. Or maybe the lowest setting with the door open. I wonder if a dehydrator would work at all.

Lots of good suggestions. I'd like to add a couple in Centro Historico: Sanborn's Casa de Azulejos ( http://www.frommers.com/destinations/mored....cfm?h_id=39880 ) Decent food, like a really, really good Denny's of Mexican food, but you should visit it for breakfast just to see the cool place. And really, the food is decent, just nothing special, and a little more expensive than some places. (Sanborn's are an excellent place to find relatively clean public restrooms in Mexico.) Hosteria de Santo Domingo ( http://www.fodors.com/rants/rrread.cfm?des...&sort=name&pg=2 ) About on the level of Cafe Tacuba, maybe a little nicer and more interesting. A better dinner spot, I'd say. I got my first chiles en nogada here. Yum. Also, definitely go to Mercado Merced and bring a camera. It's an amazing place. There's more than a full airplane hangar worth of food stuffs. (Beware, this is a dangerous area at night with $5 AIDS hookers, drug dealers, shootings, etc; only made that mistake once.) My favorite thing to eat here are the huaraches. They're like big Mexican pizzas with thick masa tortillas piled with whatever you want. There's a panaderia in Centro Historico that was extremely cool. Maybe Sharon knows it. I can't remember the name. I only have pics of the inside. It has a lot of pan dulces, but the most interesting thing are the cakes. Lots of huge, magnificent wedding cakes. I just re-read Sharon's post and realized she already mentioned this one, Ideal. Oh well, a second. There are lots of little windows and small places and street vendors in Mexico City, especially around the streets where all the vendors line the sidewalks. If something looks good and it's busy, I go ahead and buy. Plus, it'll give you a chance to buy cheap software and CDs (don't trust the DVDs, though). You'll get blue corn items and churros that I actually like a little better than the ones at El Morro, though you should definitely go to El Morro and get some chocolate and churros. If it's bullfighting season, the taco filling options at the bullfights were some of the most interesting I've seen in DF. Also, outside several of the busier, central Metro stations were some great taco places. There was this one that I went way out of my way for. I can't remember where it was, though. Maybe Juarez, Hidalgo, Bellas Artes, or Balderas. But I can't remember which. Fabulous and cheap. The salsas would melt concrete. If you'll be there on Sunday, go to the park where everything's free and so is packed. Lots of snack foods and fruit cups, but it's just really fun being around all the families. If I get a chance, I'll scan some photos in sometime. EDIT: El Bajio, an excellent choice, is hella far away from downtown. We took the metro and then walked *a long ways* to get there. Grab a cab. But use the metro a lot. It's cheap and easy, though stifling inside sometimes.

My guess is that the problem may lie in "not quite boiling". That can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. That's why I used a digital probe thermometer. At least then I know exactly when my eggs came out. I was watching the temp and the pot along the way, from about 150 to 180 it's really hard to notice any difference, and above 180 can look a lot like a light boil, but you've got 30 degrees to go. And if you don't let it come up to a certain temp it's going to cool as it rests a lot more. That's why I like the CI method of going until it does come to a boil before removing. I think they do 10 minute wait, but the results are about the same as mine, if I remember correctly.

FG, I think the "vortex" actually works. I use it. However, you don't truly want a vortex. That implies that you would get the water swirling as quick as possible. You really just want the water moving at a mild pace in a circle. And then after you drop the egg, you want to swirl it some more. I'm interested to try other methods, but it does work. I made poached egg with sauteed scallops and fish cakes in a champagne reduction finished with butter. Not as pretty as yours, though, that's for sure (fish cakes came out a little dark, too, though they weren't burnt; too much egg, I think):

I think we need an egullet book exchange program.

Very cool. What's the texture like?

Salt doesn't only come in its refined, crystallized form, however. Soy sauce, fish sauce, and the Meditteranean version, liquamen, all provided salt. I'm sure there are others. Though I'm not sure how that helps the discussion too much.