vengroff

Thanks for the report, tjaehnigen, and welcome to eGullet. I know you said you didn't want to rank them, so I won't ask you to, but since you have been to both Babbo and Laboratorio, I wonder if you could compare the style of cooking at the two of them.

Personally, I like the postcards despite the fact that they are not directly helpful to me. I'm not necessarily going to be in most of the cities he visits soon enough for his reviews to still be meaningful, if at all. However, I like the fact that when he talks about what is going on locally he has a national and in some cases international frame of reference to work with.

Find a partner who agrees to do the cleaning if you do all the cooking. There is no better system.

Is Tom going soft on us? With the exception of Farenheit, he seems to have quite liked most every place he has reviewed lately.

Sometimes the greatest evidence of genius can be found in the simplest of things. Last night at Zaytinya, I had a small football-shaped pizza with tomato, halloumi, feta and oregano. It was on the special list, and I had never seen it there before. The crust was hands down the best I have had anywhere in town. It was thin and slightly charred, with a tender interior and no sign of so much as a single bubble. The outer edge was a perfect half-inch wide golden brown rim. Move over Matchbox, Paradiso, and Two Amys--Jose Andres just made a pizza crust that puts you all to shame. I think Jose has that rare combination of an innate genius for what works on a plate and an incredible willingness to study and perfect everything he serves. Whether his next restaurant features food from Mexico, Outer Mongolia, Fiji, or Patagonia, I'll be first in line to try it.

I must lead a very sheltered life. Somehow these Chessecake Factories are everywhere, yet I've only ever run across one of them. It was in Providence, RI. I only saw it becuase it was right across the street from the train station where I arrived. I didn't see any line down the block, but it was about 3pm.

I have a collection of five or six aprons in different colors. When I invite dinner guests into the kitchen to assist with a course, I offer them a choice of what they want to wear to coordinate with their outfit. Now I'm going to have to order a bunch of extra eG chefs jackets in various sizes and male/female cuts to keep up.

I totally agree with the posters who have suggested that we should concentrate on what growers and winemakers do with the grape, as opposed to the specific grape. Suppose we had an analogous discussion about beef. I might say that I've tried McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's, and I didn't like any of them, so I'm not going to eat any more beef. But a corporate fast food burger is not the only thing you can do with beef.

You could also go to Zaytinya and construct a great tasting menu of your own for the $60 you are willing to spend. There are a couple of other threads going here where you can read all about it.

Tom Sietsema weighs in on Matchbox.

Here is a recipe for Crispy Buttermilk Waffles.

Anything I tool or gadget I can find at a restaurant supply store, as opposed to William's Pottery Barrel, usually falls in the cheaper category, even though the durability is better. Stainless steel bowls, mixing spoons, corkscrews, brass and bamboo spiders, cooling racks, splatter guards and everyday glassware are some of the items I have in that category.

Kaz Sushi Bistro does a very nice tasting menu of Japanese fusion dishes and sushi for $50. Call ahead to get one of the six seats at the sushi bar.

A cream tea is the meal, not the pastry itself. It refers to tea served with scones layered with clotted cream and jam, and possibly some butter too. It's all about packing as much butterfat onto one scone as possible.

Cafe Atlantico is in the Penn Quarter, on 8th Street at about E Street or so, just south of the Chinatown area. Alexandria is across the river in Virginia, south of National Airport. You can take the Metro to the King Street station, but you'll have to walk back towards the river a ways to get to the main part of Old Town.

Today's Post has a feature on Whitey Schmidt, a.k.a. the Blue Crab Guru.

Bistro-wise, there's Bistro D'Oc downtown, which was discussed here and here. The best known bistro in DC is probably the cavernous Bistro du Coin, on Connecticut Ave just north of Du Pont circle. It gets mixed reviews, and my experience mirrors that. A very nice steak frites one visit, a dry tasteless roast chicken the next. But it's a good place to sit at the bar with a simple glass of wine or a Belgian beer. I'm sure you gathered this from reading through other threads, but you really must stop in at at least one of Jose Andres's places. Zaytinya and Jaleo both offer small plates, the former Turkish, Greek, and Lebanese, the latter Spanish Tapas. For weekend brunch, the Latino Dim Sum at Cafe Atlantico is unbeatable. In Chinatown the only good Chinese food I've had are the Hong Kong style noodles at Full Kee. Last time I checked it was closed for remodelling. I'm not sure if it has re-opened yet. If you do head to Chinatown, try the mini-burgers and wood oven pizza at Matchbox. There's a new competitor a couple blocks away called Ella's, which I hear makes a good pie too. You have to be careful in Georgetown. The main drag along M street is lined with a series of steak/burger/raw bar/bloody mary brunch type of places, none of which really stands out for any particular reason. I would probably stop in for a sandwich at Dean and Deluca rather than visit any of them. It won't be a cheap sandwich, but the ingredients will be some of the best available in the area. That is unless you want to increase your budget to a higher level, in which case a trip to Citronelle would be hard to beat.

Ruth's Chris is carefully engineered to live off the expense accounts of travelling executives and professionals. You can hop off the plane in any of the top twenty or more business centers in the country and there's one nearby. You don't have to spend a second thinking about it. You know exactly what you are going to get, and the expense is a write-off anyway. Why take a risk on some unknown local place when closing the deal is riding on a successful dinner? Sure the food might be better, but the downside risk is too great.

Restaurant 821 is in Wilmington, DE. The address is 821 Market Street. Beyond that, I have no 411.

Speaking of chilled reds, what's the story with the sparkling shiraz that's now coming out of Australia? Is it worth tracking down, or is it just a novelty?

At a 4th of July cookout I went to, someone brought a pie that was 1/4 blueberry and 3/4 cherry. The blueberry quadrant was topped with little pie crust stars, and the cherries were topped with stripes. I only tasted the cherry part, but it was really good, with a homemade all-butter crust and fresh cherries. It was a great alternative to the usual flag sheet cake with crappy icing. There were also brats, simmered in beer, onions, and cloves, then grilled. After all the recent warnings, I was careful to avoid the ketchup option. Some great salads too. It was probably the best culinary 4th I've been to. Washed it all down with some Freedom Rose (from the patriotic people of Rhone). Afterwards, we went up on the roof and watched the fireworks on the mall.

That's too bad. I was hoping that I might be able to get some and do an actual head to head taste test vs. prime grain fed steaks of the same cut. So much for that experiment.

Does anyone know if the USDA currently allows Argentine beef (overwhelmingly grass-fed) to be imported into the US? I think this has gone back and forth over the years due to foot and mouth concerns.

How about grilling them? Cut open the shell, start open side down, turn after 5 min, brush with melted butter and cook through. That's about it. No exotic ingredients needed. Edit: And throw a steak on the grill next to it for surf and turf--a good way for your butcher friend to increase sales.

Nobu has been doing a squid pasta dish, i.e. using squid in the place of pasta, for years. At its best I think it is probably the finist hot dish they offer. However, if it is even mildly overcooked it gets rubbery quick. In fact, you can usually detect a texture change from the first bite to the last just due to the latent heat in the dish. Sounds like the WD50 version you had got a little too much time on the flame.