vengroff
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Posts posted by vengroff
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Anyone been to the restaurant supply store at the DC Farmer's Market that sells to the public? I'm curious what's available (especially concerning knives, skillets, stockpots, ramekins, and bakeware) and at what quality and prices.
I've been. It's called Best Kitchen Supply or something like that. If you go, absolutely stop in at A. Litteri on the next block for some serious Italian groceries and wine. Best stocks exactly what you would expect from a restaurant supply store--bulletproof pots, pans, dishes, glassware and supplies aimed at high-volume restaurant kitchens where function comes way ahead of appearance. If you need a big stock pot, or two dozen old-fashioned glasses this is the place for you. To the extent their inventory overlaps with Pottery Barrel, they are on the order of half the price. For glassware, it's even lower.
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Welcome to eGullet, dbortnick. We're all over brining around here. Check it out.
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Here are the details for the place in Eastern Market:
Capitol Hill Poultry
202 544-4435
They are taking Thanksgiving orders now for fresh free-range turkeys. They are raised in Pennsylvania and priced at $1.39/lb. in all sizes.
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I'd like to throw Mr. Henry's on Pennsylvania Ave SE and 6th(ish) into the Quality Burger Ring.
The only down side is the fries which are more like potato rounds then fries and you usually find more than a couple that are undercooked.
Sadly, I can't say that I have ever found the cuisine there at all inspiring. But it's always crowded, so people must like it.
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Sunday night at Timberlake's on Connecticut Avenue is "Three Dog Night". They feature 3 different good quality hot dog/sausages every week. Cool idea.
I'm going to have to hit Timberlake's for that. No question about it.
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I hit Five Guys-Springfield a couple of months ago. There was a whiteboard on which some worker had scrawled: "Today's potatoes are from: IDAHO."
Today's were from North Cackalacky.
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On a positive note, we are FINALLY getting a Crate and Barrel! Yes, I get to give my UPS man a rest from the catalog orders from their lovely store!
The people on the "eGullet" of design and/or furnishings are probably having this same type of thread bashing Crate and Barrel for making middle-brow products that the masses love.
Is Crate and Barrel the Cheescake Factory of the furniture world? Or is that Pottery Barn?
The funny thing is that some of my design geek friends love Target (always pronounced as the French). It must be their equivalent of really good greasy burgers or barbeque.
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So at long last I found myself at five guys today for lunch. The burgers were good, and in my opinion could be even better if they didn't insist on cooking them well done. I would vote for higher heat to char the outside but leave some pink in the middle. That would be my vote, and they would cook faster too. Still, a good solid burger with plenty of topping options.
It's known as a burger place, but the burgers were without question blown away by the fries. Those fries are what fast food is all about. Peanut oil and crisp fresh potato flavor. Just amazingly good simple food.
Next time I might try a hot dog with my fries. Are they recommended?
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How about some mini burgers at Matchbox? It's near the Chinatown and Metro Center stops, so you can get to it easily no matter where you are coming from.
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Some additional ways a list can be bad:
1. It's a list that nobody on the staff understands, so they can't answer any questions you might have.
2. It's a list of high volume brand names that the proprieter hopes will catch your eye because you walk past big displays of them at the supermarket every week.
3. It lists WS or Parker ratings that increase in proportion to the price of the bottle. Hmmm, should we spend the extra $10 for a 94 point Merlot instead of a 92 point Cab Sauv?
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My wife and I sometimes do something that she and her sister originated growing up. We agree to split two dishes 50/50. The rule is that when the dishes arrive, you eat half and then switch, no matter how much better one ends up looking or tasting than the other.
On a related note, I've always been amused by the thought that all across Asia there could be American restaurants where diners go in and share platters of cheeseburgers, fried chicken, grilled salmon, tacos, lasagna and pot-roast spinning around on a lazy susan. Everyone starts with a plate of fries, and then piles the other stuff on top.
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Sounds interesting, although I have a hard time understanding how anything inside the tightly closed Dutch oven could be any warmer than 212 F -- the 450 F oven temperature notwithstanding.
I agree in principle, but it also depends a lot on how much liquid there is and how "tightly closed" the lid is. If the pressure inside is high or the liquid has all become steam, it can get hotter.
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I decided I wanted to make pasta for some visitors from NYC. So, I bowed down before the altar of St. Mario and asked for guidance. "What should I do?" I asked. "There are so many different ways to approach pasta. Should I serve dry pasta? Freshly made pasta? A cool pasta salad? A sauced pasta? A stuffed pasta? A baked pasta? A traditional ragu? Something that pushes the envelope?"
As I knelt, head bowed before the altar, I heard a single word from my orange-clogged Buddha. "Yes," he said.
So that was it, the answer to all my questions. I should make them all. Inspired by St. Mario himself, I would do a pasta tasting menu. I had visions of seven, eight, or even nine courses of pasta. But that would push me beyond my limits. How could I do it? I decided the solution was to combine the ideas into four courses. I've tentatively settled on:
1. Pasta-Anti: A salad of orzo incorporating bocconcini, grilled eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives. Dressed with EVOO and just a bit of vinegar.
2. Porcini Ravioli: Homemade pasta stuffed with porcini, shallots, thyme, and garlic bound with a bit of cream and a few drops of truffle oil. Sauced with a light parmesan cream.
3. Pastaella: Homemade safron linguini in triple-reduced stock topped with shellfish and chorizo.
4. Pulled duck lasagnini: Red wine-braised duck with rosemary, carrots, onion and pancetta layered in homemade pasta rounds with bernaise and asiago. Baked and served in individual eathenware dishes.
The only problem is, St. Mario didn't tell me anything about what wines to serve with the pasta. I knelt at the alter again, and the response I got was, "eGullet." So here I am, asking all of you. I thank you in advance for your suggestions.
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For a discussion of fried chicken, how it can or should be fried and in what, please check this thread in the cooking forum.
Sadly for me, apparently, I prefer to roast or grill my chickens, so I'm ignorant when it comes to the finer points of frying them. A good pan-fried chicken-fried steak, I know, but chicken-fried chicken (as we used to call it when I was growing up) not so much. I am, by the way, a graduate of Lubbock High School, if that matters in the West Texas culture department.
Back to chicken, I wonder if it's possible to find out what days they clean the fryers at the Guatamalan places and see if their quality varies from day to day as at their competition.
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I don't think you have to be older than thirty to recognize that fast food today is different than it once was. I may have been a kid twenty years ago, but I know that the McDonalds burgers I ate back then were superior to today's in appearance, taste, and texture. And it was pretty obvious even back then a proper home-grilled burger was even better.
As for the social aspect, I grew up in West Texas. Today, if someone opened a fast food place that served legitimate tacos al carbon, tamales, borracho beans, and so on, I would would wait in line for it. If they had chorizo and egg tacos or huevos rancheros in the morning, I would go twice in the same day.
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Rocks,
Have you had the whole fish (often red snapper) escovitch at Ortanique? If so, how would you compare the two.
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No, the easiest thing to do would be to have the death penalty for shopping cart theft. A few well-publicized executions would cost very little money and would put a stop to the problem rather quickly.
And how would that make me as much money as selling some bent metal rods with four wheels attached for $50?
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What does a shopping cart cost?
Apparently about $100.
Seems to me the real way to make money isn't by inventing shopping cart security devices, it's by figuring out how to manufacture $50 shopping carts.
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Retail industry officials say a shopping cart is taken from a U.S. store every 90 seconds. That adds up to 1.8 million carts worth $175 million.
Over what time period? A day? A year? The known history of the universe?
1.8 million carts at one every 90 seconds second means 162 million seconds, which is 45,000 hours, which is 1875 days, which is 5.13 years. I wonder why they picked that amount of time out of the air and didn't mention it.
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Monkfish is farily widely available these days, and seems to suit the tastes of many people who don't normally like fish. It can be roasted, or sliced into medallions and treated like veal. I guess I've never really seen it in a freezer case, but anyplace that sells any fresh fish at all probably has it or can get it.
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As someone who has experienced neither, I wonder if those who have been to both Pollo Campero and the Cheesecake Factory could recommend the better place to spend an hour or two in line.
It must just be me, but I barely have the patience to stand around waiting at Zaytinya, and at least they have really good food and a nice bar to hang out in while you wait.
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My local grocery uses this system. On most busy weekend afternoons they are completely out of working carts. That's not to say they are completely out of carts. It just means that the twenty or so sitting on the sidewalk in front of the store are unusable because their locking mechnisms have malfunctioned and rendered them unusable.
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Steak!
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Citronelle was very good, and not nearly as stuffy as I had somehow incorrectly believed it would be.
I'm glad to hear you thought this. In my experience Citronelle is as open, friendly, and fun as any place you will find. That goes for the food, the wine, the service, and the room. The whimsy of the food, in particular, and the care and detail put into preparing it, is really fantastic.
El Bulli--From wonderful to absurd
in Spain & Portugal: Dining
Posted
Joe,
Since you are in the DC area, you might consider a lower risk introduction to Adria-influenced cuisine at Jose Andres's new minibar. Jose is a disciple, and at $65 it's a lot cheaper than a trip to Spain.