prasantrin

I think I've read that brown sugar has more moisture than white sugar, so you might have to adjust for that, but I would probably just do a straight 1:1 substitution. It's just banana bread, after all, so a little extra moisture won't kill it (plus I'm just too lazy to bother thinking about it ).

I once had a recipe for a caramel apple loaf cake, and the caramel flavour came primarily from creaming butter and a lot of brown sugar together. You could start with a basic banana bread recipe that uses butter, and sub brown sugar for the white sugar. See how that works, then tweak from there.

ok, which exact one are you talking about? Did you see the picture that I took of the first thing that I thought he was talking about? Was it that one? ← Just above and just behind the progeny of the robot and lobster, there's a long pointy thing that is ridged like a lemon reamer, and it looks like it's made of opaque plastic. The pointy part is above the head of the meat tenderizer, and points out to the right. I wish I had some kind of photoshop thing so I could draw a circle around it for you!

I don't know if the situation for DVDs is the same as that for books, but Cook's Illustrated has a reputation for putting people on mailing lists after the first purchase, and mailing out unwanted and unrequested books (expecting payment for them). If you do order from ATK, make it very clear that you do not want to be the recipient of further items unless you have ordered them.

My favourite okonomiyaki place puts konnyaku in all of their okonomiyaki. It's sliced match-stick style, and mixed into the batter. I assume it's cooked before added, but I've never asked. To me, it makes no difference whether it's there or not (i.e. I don't notice it at all), but a former friend used to pick out every piece of konnyaku from the okonomiyaki. It was very annoying, especially considering how much konnyaku was actually in the thing, and how small the pieces were). When I make it at home, I never add it, but that's more out of laziness than anything else.

That long pointy thing is an ice cream scoop? I'd have thought cucumber seeder, should you even need an intact cucumber without seeds... OK, I found which one Rob was referring to, but what's the long pointy thing for? Juicer for the finger of a buddha hand citrus (those things don't even have juice, do they?)

If you give me a bag of anything, I can eat the whole thing in one sitting. I'm not picky, and that's why I try not to buy snacks. But I am especially fond of Old Dutch Bar-B-Q potato chips and corn chips.

I'm making bread pudding tonight, too! I'll have to check out lucylou's recipe. I"m kind of winging it, because I had a whole lot of quiche batter leftover from the Bouchon quiche I made last weekend, so I'm using that. I love the way you eat!

Before lunch, let me show you my last treat from Tokyo--a little Jean-Paul Hevin florentin. It was much better than his macarons, but not as good as other florentin I’ve had. I’ll have to try his chocolates next time. Finally! Lunch! I think there's supposed to be a new topic with my "report", but I'd rather just add it here. Though if any of the mods think it should be split off, that's fine, too! I made my way to Uguisudani Station with a brief stop-over at Tokyo Station so I could leave most of my stuff in a locker. Leaving the platform, who should I run into but torakris! Looking fabulous with poker-straight hair, might I add! We went outside, and debated whether we should go ahead to the restaurant or wait. I noticed someone else waiting, and thought she might be one of our party, and she was! She was jean_genie’s friend, who reads eGullet though is not (that I know of) an official member. But she loves macarons, too, so she can be a member of my own personal club! smallworld arrived shortly after, and jean_genie did, too. helenjp was running a little late, so she joined us after we arrived at the restaurant. Sasanoyuki is a traditional-looking restaurant in the middle of what seems like a typical, even perhaps run-down, area of a big city. There was a school across the street, but according to smallworld, we were in the area with one of the largest love hotel concentrations! Five of us ordered the basic set, and one ordered the next level up which had a soymilk ice cream dessert, and a “main” course that I think had shrimp in it. The basic set—at the bottom right-hand corner you see two of the same thing. I don’t know why there were two, but they were tasty so it was nice to have two of them. We were instructed to cut the tofu into four pieces—not three, not six, but four. Who knows what would have happened if we had disobeyed, so I don’t think any of us did. Well, one of my pieces broke into two, so I actually had five pieces for one of them. Oops… My favourite of the set was the gomadoufu. I love gomadoufu! And the miso stuff on top was not too sweet like it sometimes is. I wish I had had two of those! I can’t remember what the other stuff was. I don’t have any close-up pictures, either, or pictures of what was in the covered bowl. I’m not a very good reporter, am I? Perhaps someone else could chime in or add some pics (or links to pics)? After lunch, the rest of the party humoured me and took a look at my dessert place print-outs. I hate making decisions, plus I don’t know Tokyo well enough to know which places were closer or farther, so I let them decide which one we would try. They decided upon Pierre Marcolini in Ginza! Pierre Marcolini is a Belgian chocolatier with shops all over the world (not quite, but Japan, Luxembourg, France, the UK, Kuwait(!!?!??), and the US). For some reason, in Japan he has a couple of shops in Tokyo, and one in Nagoya, but none in Kansai? What’s up with the Kansai snub? Perhaps that will change when the newest Mitsukoshi/Isetan hybrid department store opens in Osaka in 2010 (or was that 2011?). Anyway…the café was too crowded to accommodate our party of six, so we ended up in the ice cream shop. We still had to split up into tables of three, unfortunately. I was at the prim and proper table. I ordered chocolat chaud (I’ve been on a quest to find the perfect chocolat chaud), and others had a caramel banana parfait, caramel parfait, ice cream sandwich (which was really chocolate ice cream sandwiched between two pieces of chocolate loaf cake), ice cream, and coffee. My chocolat chaud was very very very thick and rich. I think they might use cream to make it. At the very least, they use ganache as the chocolate base, and then add just a bit more milk to it—just barely enough to make it viscous I’m sure I finished it, and smallworld had a wee taste (as did my shoe ), but I felt sick after (keep in mind I ate nine macarons that morning, and feeling sick after gorging myself seems to be a trend lately). I didn’t try any of the other desserts, except someone’s caramel ice cream which was very very good. I should have had that, instead! We didn’t take any group pictures, so I have none to show, nor do I have pictures from Pierre Marcolini (I sat across from his picture, and he’s quite cute, by the way!), but I hope others will post more information or pictures if they have them! It was really great meeting everyone, and I hope we can do it again! Soon!

← The study is for soybean oil in particular, and oil taken to 365F. There is no mention of other types of oil, except to extrapolate the results to include "oils that are highly unsaturated and contain linoleic acid" (but no further experiments have been done to include those other oils), nor does it mention results for frying at lower temperatures, such as 350F (which a lot of recipes call for).

OK! If they take reservations 60 days in advance, I'll try 90 days in advance and see if I can get it. The worst that can happen is that they tell me to call back a month later, and I have plenty of time to do that!

I think that's the same place! We were actually supposed to go further in, but my friend thought we were already in the main part (she had never been there before), so we stuck by the park area. Oops. Day 3--my last day and the day of the eGullet Get-Together! When I woke up, I decided I should do my macarons taste test. I purchased 9 macarons at Isetan the night before. My favourites are caramel and coffee ones, so I those are the flavours I concentrated on. The ones on the left side are caramel (some are salted caramel, but I can't remember which), and the ones on the right are coffee--there are 5 caramel and 4 coffee. Top to bottom, left to right: Sadaharu Aoki caramel, Chez Cima caramel, Pierre Herme caramel and coffee, Henri Le Roux caramel and coffee, Jean-Paul Hevin caramel and coffee, Dalloyau coffee. Unfortunately, Henri Charpentier did not have any macarons that day, so I couldn't add them to my test. I do like them, in general, so I'd like to include them in a future test. Innards are very important when it come to macarons. There has to be good balance between the filling and the shell--too much filling and you feel sick to your stomach. Too little filling and you feel ripped off. Or at least I do. Plus in my opinion, the shell should have a bit of chew. If it's too dry, it feels like you're eating dust. Sadaharu Aoki--this were crappy. I don't even think they tasted like caramel. They didn't taste like much other than sugar, if I recall correctly (I took notes, but I can't find them). Chez Cima caramel--these were perfect! Excellent balance between shell and filling, slightly chewy shell, and a lovely burnt caramel flavour. Unfortunately, there's no Chez Cima in Kansai, but perhaps that's a good thing. I think these were the Jean-Paul Hevin ones (caramel on the left, coffee on the right). The caramel ones tasted like chocolate, which made me wonder if they had made a mistake and given me the wrong ones. But JP Hevin is a chocolatier, so maybe most of their macarons taste mostly like chocolate??? Neither was particularly good. I think the texture was OK, but the flavours were weak, and it just wasn't very impressive overall. These are the Henri Le Roux ones. The caramel one (left) was very caramelly, and it had a nice bit of salt to it. There was a bit too much filling, though, so it was quite sweet. I don't remember much about the coffee one. Pierre Herme--I expected a lot from these, but perhaps that is why I was disappointed. The coffee one (on the right) had a very nice coffee flavour, but both macarons were too sweet, and had much too much filling. They were also amongst the largest macarons I tried. I think macarons are better a bit small, because you should be able to eat one is just one or two bites. The caramel one had decent flavour, but again, too much filling and too sweet. The texture of both was quite good, though--a bit of chew, and not too dry. Finally, the Dalloyau coffee one. I don't remember it at all, but I think I wasn't very impressed. I took a bit of each one, then I decided I needed a break from the sweetness, and I also needed to eat something a little more substantial, so I had my leftover bread and cheese, and also a cheese croissant from Hediard. It looks good, doesn't it? Well, looks aren't everything! All the cheese was on the outside, and there was none on the inside! I was terribly terribly disappointed. The croissant itself was fine, but all that lovely crispy cheese was just a tease! I polished off the other halves of the macarons, and then felt sick. But today was the day of the eGullet lunch, so I needed to be in fine form! I then decided to walk off my queasiness by checking out, and touring Isetan depachika one last time. I bought a few more things (some bread from boulangepicier, some sweets from somewhere, and most importantly, my complete Pierre Herme Re-ment set!) for the train ride home, and then left to meet the others! And the results of my taste test? In first place in the caramel division, we have the Chez Cima, and I think the Henri Le Roux placed second. Or maybe it was the Pierre Herme. On the coffee side, the Pierre Herme was first, and I can't remember which was second. But the Pierre Herme was not a perfect coffee macarons, and was basically placed first because the others weren't very good, either.

Those pb&js look awesome, and I don't even like pb&j! Do you ship to Japan...

How far in advance are they taking reservations? One month? Two?

I think you have to be from the UK to appreciate fried mars bars with a hint of fish.

That's not a fair or accurate comparison in the situation of which this topic is discussing, so it would hardly be calling "a spade a spade". If you insist on comparing the two, then you're actually making an argument against the free bread basket. After all, a restaurant does not provide a pasta basket (or bowl) free of charge, does it? A customer must order it. So then why not insist the customer order and pay for a bread basket? And nowhere in my comment did I say anything negative about freshly-made bread. I merely commented (keeping in line with the topic), that I don't believe bread baskets need to be provided by a restaurant. Should one desire a bread basket, then go ahead and order (and pay) for it.

There are many, many references (some of those are for resusing motor oil, but the bulk are for cooking oil) that can be found regarding re-using cooking oil. Basically you should consider what you're frying, and what you want to reuse the oil for. If you're frying french fries, then using the same oil for chicken won't be a problem. But if you fry fish, you might not want to use the same oil for french fries, because your fries will then taste like fish. Just use your best judgment.

Peter asked me to mention that he's having technical difficulties--many sql errors and the like. Hopefully he'll be posting again today! (I stifled my impulse to post that he was just slacking off...I'm such a good girl! )

Ah, that tendon. It was from the soon-to-be-closed Cui-daore. It wasn't bad, but wasn't really good, either. I'll have to ask about the oil next time I try Ten-you. I don't think they had more vegetables than Tsunahachi did, but I had the cheapest lunch kaiseki. Their more expensive kaiseki options may have more. Now on to Day 2, which I started earlier but then lost, and was so dejected I gave up for a few hours. I'm a firm believer in breakfast being the most important meal of the day. I normally like to have a good bit of protein in the morning, but since I was still in my hotel room, my options were limited. I found a Chestnut and Tree Nut Danish I had bought two evenings earlier and had planned to eat for breakfast the previous day. Oops. While it wasn't as good as it would have been two days earlier, it was still a fine breakfast (and the nuts were my protein!). I'd have liked it better if it were heavier on the tree nuts and lighter on the chestnuts (aren't chestnuts technically tree nuts?), but I was satisfied. Despite my satisfaction, I still needed dessert. I bought this the previous night at Isetan--Henri Le Roux's CBS Tart. Christ this was good. I treasured every bite. In the background you see plenty of wasteful wrapping and enclosures, but you also see two bags of his very famous caramel beurre de sale. These were recommended by David Lebovitz in this topic. On the left are the plain CBS, and on the right are flavoured caramels which I bought as a gift for someone. I had planned on throwing some of the plain ones in the gift box, as well, but I ended up eating them all. I'm embarrassed to admit that, but not so embarrassed that I regret eating them. I wish I had bought more and eaten all of them, too! I had a one o'clock lunch date with a friend from grad school, so I dropped by Isetan first. This may have been a mistake, because I found too much to eat there. I tried to restrain myself, though, and only bought a couple of things from Boulangepicier: a spinach thing (I can't remember the name), and a cheese thing. I loved the spinach thing--it had olives, pine nuts, and I think anchovies, too. The cheese thing was slightly less successful due to the bread's toughness, but I love the mingling of caraway and gouda, so I still enjoyed it. After my second breakfast (snack? pre-lunch?), I headed out to meet my friend. She's from Chiba, originally, and now lives in Saitama. She's doing her PhD at Waseda University, but her Tokyo experience is mostly limited to the university. Thus, it was up to me to find a decent place for lunch. She wanted something Thai so I went to bento.com and found Plik Chee Fah. She had the "Kao mun kai" which is basically the Thai version of Hainanese chicken rice. She said the flavours were good, but I thought it looked old. Like the chicken had been sliced hours earlier, and the rice plated, as well, so they both looked like they had crust on them. (no picture). I had the "Kao Gapao kai". The flavours were very good, but it had much more "filler" than I would like--some finely sliced bamboo shoots (I think they were bamboo shoots) and even some broccoli!! Who puts broccoli in that dish??? But I'd still go back, because at least it tasted like gai pad gaprow should (although it could have been spicier). And they get bonus points for serving it with an egg fried in oil! After lunch I really needed to walk. I think I ate too much that morning! We went to the area where Budokan is for hanami. Tokyo hanami was in full-swing that week, so it was a great time for a visit! We also stopped by Yasukuni Shrine which was just across the street. I had never been there before, and it was jam-packed with hanami-revelers and food stalls (no pictures of those, though!). I realized during our hanami sojourn that cherry blossoms are not so good for my newly-diagnosed allergies. Because of that, I felt it necessary to recuperate in my home-away-from-home, Isetan depachika. We went to Jean-Paul Hevin's cafe for some chocolat chaud and sweets! She had macarons (I think framboise and caramel), and I had brioche (one can never have too much bread in a day). We then spent an hour or so buying stuff around the depachika (purchases that I can remember include 5 million macarons, a lot of bread, cheese, etc. etc.--most were hers, by the way), and then we went our merry ways. Back at the hotel, I rested a bit and then had dinner. I had originally planned to dine at a Mexican place that was a train ride or two from Shinjuku, but I ended up going for something a little more simple. How can one go wrong with bread and cheese? The bread was from Boulangepicier, and the cheese was roquefort. Or maybe gorgonzola. I don't remember now (I think I went into carb overload that night). Surprisingly, I didn't have dessert.

So the darker colour is standard for Kanto tempura? Do you know of any other differences between Kanto and Kansai tempura? I don't go to the Kanto-area very often any more, so I have few chances to have tempura there. I've actually never posted any pictures from Ten-you, because I never take pictures there. I love the shop, but I feel very self-conscious taking pictures there. Something about the atmosphere tells me "No pictures" though they probably wouldn't mind so much if someone did take pictures. The pictures may have been tendon from somewhere else, though. I like tendon a lot!

I can't seem to edit my previous post, so I just want to add something before moving on to the next day. I checked Tsunahachi's website (English here), and I had the Kodawari set which was Y5250, and that's actually cheaper than my favourite high-end tempura place's lunch kaiseki. Because Ten-you and Tsunahachi are so different (Tsunahachi is a mid-range place, while Ten-you is definitely high-end), it's not really fair to compare the two, but I wanted to mention a couple of points that I noticed. First, Tsunahachi had much thicker batter than Ten-you. I've seen both places make new batter (not really new, because they both just add ingredients to whatever batter is leftover), and Tsunahachi will crack open some eggs to add to whatever is left, add some flour from a big bucket (which has a filthy bottom, but the bottom doesn't touch anything important, AFAIK, so it's all good), then add a bit of water. The resulting batter is a bit thick--thicker than I usually associate with tempura. And their tempura is cooked a bit darker and crispier. At Ten-you, they have a huge container of beaten eggs, and another container of what I think might be flour and water (it's already batter-like). They add the two to whatever batter is leftover in their dipping bowl. The resulting batter is not very thick, nor is it very thin. Neither place measures--the chefs just pour whatever amount of additional ingredients that will give them the desired consistency. I love tempura (anything fried is good!), so I'd like to try a high-end tempura place in Tokyo one day. Maybe the one Blissful Glutton went to would be a good choice! Or the original Ten-ichi (I haven't been that impressed with the Kyoto-ten, though, so I think I'd rather try another place).

I vaguely recall places like Tokyu Hands selling equipment for home-brewing, so there must be a market for it. I don't know much about it, though, since I don't drink much, so I could be wrong!

I was wondering the same thing! ← Maybe he drank so much that he really had to pee, but the producers wouldn't let him leave until he had finished yelling at Lisa. Good TV trumps bathroom breaks, after all.

How much more time does it take than, say, taking additional drink orders from a table? In the hotels I mentioned, the same person who served my meal (and that of at least three other large tables) also served bread. I think they only came around twice, which was enough. Personally, I don't think bread baskets are necessary. The only time bread really should be served is if it complements whatever dish with which it is served. Beyond that, why should a restaurant bother?

Why don't restaurants which serve bread offer it by the piece rather than an entire basket? At Steirereck in Vienna, they have a bread cart where they slice (if necessary) and serve a little at a time. Certain hotels in Japan I've been to (the Osaka branches of Ritz-Carlton and the Imperial Hotel) also have waitstaff bringing around baskets of bread from which you choose one or two pieces, but they don't leave a basket filled with bread at the table. In both cases, I was more than satisfied with the amount of bread I received, and more importantly, none of the bread I took went to waste.