g.johnson

I use these chemical storage bottles. Amber glass is good since it's light protective. I got mine from VWR (catalog number 16180-025) but any scientific supply place should have similar bottles.

You could be right but it seems arse about face to me. A touch of mint with peas is classic but the other way round? Dodgy.

Yes.

Isn't the grain of the meat in the wrong direction, i.e., parallel rather than perpendicular to the circular surfaces?

I think they're filled with a pea puree but when I had them the mint overwhelmed any pea flavor. That may have been deliberate since this was a few weeks ago and the peas would not have been at their best. The lamb sausage ragu is great, though.

We had dinner at Babbo on Friday evening. Normally I would have made every attempt to harass, insult and confuse our servers to ensure that they knew that we were connoisseurs who wouldn’t accept the slop that they keep for the tourists. In the past I have insisted on standing in the kitchen to ensure that Batali personally plates every last spring of parsley. I also make it quite clear that I expect only the finest wines from Bastianich’s personal cellar, sold to me at cost. However, on this occasion we were with friends who, technically speaking, were tourists, so we just ordered things that sounded good on the menu and asked the sommelier for a recommendation. Given this risible approach to fine dining, it was a small miracle that we had a thoroughly enjoyable meal.

when i was in london around this time last year i enjoyed many excellent "balti" dishes. i remember being surprised that i hadn't really encountered these dishes at restaurants in NY/NJ. there's a relatively new restaurant in NYC that supposedly offers many balti dishes, but i have not had a chance to visit it yet. they don't have an online menu but if i go i will report back. Thanks for your post, do you know the name of the rest. in NYC? Brick Lane Curry House on 6th Street and Haveli on 2nd Avenue both have balti dishes. I had one at Haveli a while ago and was underwhelmed. BLCH might be worth a try as it's a pretty good English style Indian restaurant.

Good food is the sine qua non. Inconvenience, poor service, high prices and an ugly room might be reasons for not returning even if the food is good. But no matter how good those other aspects are, if the food is poor, I'm not going back.

20 minutes will give you well done, no? I never time it when I sear them but I'd guess 10 minutes or less on the skin side and <5 on the other.

Isn't that like being PETA's most vocal advocate of fur coats, or England's greatest cricketer?

No comments but a question. Do you think that the rib steak ($35.00) is worth the extra $0.05 over the sirloin ($34.95)?

Voice of my mother from beyond the grave

(not A) does not imply (not B), as you say. But (not B) does imply (not A). Hence if polite (A) implies waiting (B), not waiting (not B) does indeed imply not polite (not A). Smug Boolean Bastard.

Etiquette is a matter of convention, so there is no certain way to extrapolate from a banquet to a small private dinner. I believe the reason different standards apply is that the latter is a personal affair. It’s intimate to share food with friends – more intimate, I think, than any other social event*. Sharing food, rather than fighting over it, is a socially important activity for humans. And, if I may be evolutionary biological for a moment, innate knowledge of that fact may be encoded in our genes. An echo of that knowledge is found in the convention** of waiting for the party to be complete before eating. * Excluding orgies, I suppose. ** A convention that, like it or not, does exist, at least for some.

As I posted on the other thread, I think that there is some small rationale for starting to eat together: you will then finish together and avoid embarrassing the accidental laggard. (I don't find this a compelling reason.) I suspect, however, that the real reason for this practice is that eating together is a significant social act. To start separately is to weaken the ritual aspects of that act. Acts 2:41-42

I’m not trying to defend waiting and I would not be offended if others started while I was away. However, I know that it is considered polite in Britain to wait. Tommy and Nick Gatti both think that this is also true in the US. There may be no logic to it, but that’s often the case with questions of etiquette.

Thank you, Tommy. Garbled syntax aside, I couldn't have put it better myself. Indeed, I obviously didn't put it better myself.

I really think you're barking up the wrong tree here. Again, you're failing to distinguish between right conduct by the restaurant and the customer. No, I'm asking why simultaneous serving has come to be seen as right conduct for the restaurant.

It's easy for a professional: I am trained in explainiing away facts that disprove the pet theory. If it's acceptable for everyone to start eating as soon as they're served, why would it be wrong for the restaurant to serve each person separately? It would make more sense to serve separately to minimize the delay between plating and serving. Yet every restaurant from diner* on up** makes an effort to serve everyone at the same time. The only conclusion I can reach is that they believe their customers expect to start eating together. * Serving multiple people at one table simultaneously also minimizes server trips. ** Except Lespinasse. Edit: Couldn't spell Lespinasse. Clot.

Edit: Multiple post.

Adds to the show? So the food won't get cold? Adds to the show I guess, but there still has to be some rationale behind it. The temperature of the food will depend on delay between plating and serving. By insisting on simultaneous serving at least some of the plates will be colder than if they been served as soon as plated.

Yes, but the only reason it's a faux pas for the restaurant is because people are expected to wait for all to be served.

If it’s not considered polite for everyone to start together, why do high end restaurants sometimes have multiple servers present everyone’s plate simultaneously?

Edit: Deleted pointless badinage.

There is, of course, Cooking for Dummies. No idea what it's like.