vengroff

Excellent. I though Le Zinc was the only place to get a devilled egg in this town.

On the savory side, there aren't too many dishes that I repeat too terribly often. I'm more likely to try something new, or at least a new variation on something old. When it comes to pastry, however, my tried and true is a rustic fruit tart. I use a crust from Bittman, but with a little more flour and a little less sugar. I roll it out into a single flat sheet and fill it with fruits of the season. A few inches of the outer part of the crust are folded over the fruit, brushed with cream, and sprinkled with coarse-grained sugar. Often I'll make a homemade ice cream to go with it. For example, caramel ice cream with apples, a lime-chili ice cream with peaches, creme fraiche ice cream with berries, or vanilla ice cream with cherries macerated in brandy. It's simple and rustic--any moderately serious pastry chef could mop the floor with my sorry ass--but people really seem to like it.

I've been to Le Zinc many times, but I can't remember ordering the burger. I'll have to give it a try next time. Almost everything else I've ordered, such as the beet salad, the deviled egg assortment, steak, chicken grandmere, a veggie entree they used to do, and various fish specials, have all been good. The only thing to avoid is that onion-fritter appetizer thing that looks like it belongs at Chili's. And you should definitely get a group of friends together sometime and head over to City Hall for a seafood tower and a round of burgers.

I'm with busboy. Put 'em to work. We even have a special collection of guest aprons in a variety of fashion colors to coordinate with any wardrobe.

Yellow was taken...

Welcome Al! I agree with you that a very good steak can be made at home. The only caveat is that good ventilation is essential. I'm partial to the bone-in "cowboy cut" rib steak myself, but there's something to be said for a good porterhouse.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I settled on a dinner party approach that has proven to work very well in practice. For each course, I invite one guest into the kitchen to assist me. This arrangement serves two purposes. First, it ensures that guests circulate through the kitchen, rather than leaving me back there to fend for myself. Second, it reduces guests' impulse to volunteer to help at inopportune moments, as everyone knows they will get a chance. Knowing the guests and the dishes in advance, we can usually do a pretty good job of picking the right person for the work that needs to be done for a particular course. If I know they are inexperienced, I try to give them simpler tasks, generally more oriented towards plating and presentation than actual cooking. If I know they know what they are doing, they are given more to do. For example, I'll hand them an onion and ask them to dice and sweat it. So far, it has worked marvelously. Even total non-foodies get excited about seeing what ingredients and techniques go into their meal. The only complaint I've had was from someone I asked to whip cream by hand. But at least he worked up an appetite for dessert.

I've only been to the P St. original. In both cases it was at an off hour (mid to late afternoon) so the infamous crowds were not present and we were seated immediately.

Looking back on the original post, I really geeked out. The simple intuition behind what I was trying to say is that it takes a lot more heat (80 times as much) to melt ice than is does to change the temperature of water by 1 degree Centigrade. Warming ice takes about half as much heat as warming water the same number of degrees. So, if you start with a bunch of really cold ice with a large surface area, then warming the ice to the melting point will use up so much of the heat from the cooling drink that there will be little or none left over to melt any significant portion of the ice. That's the theory anyway. Is that some kind of disaccharide sugar in your sig?

This got the old high-school physics part of my brain churning. Working through what goes on made me come to the conclusion that if you use very cold ice, as you suggest, increasing the surface area will make a big difference, but if you use ice-bucket ice right at the melting point, it won't. In fact, if your goal is to minimize dilution, really cold ice cubes are only marginally better than ice-bucket ice. Please correct me if you think I've got this wrong. I'm assuming that since you have an organic molecule for a signature, you'll know what I'm talking about here. Here's how I worked through it: Suppose that before the ice is added, the drink is at a nice room temperature of 20° C. Your goal is to chill it 17° to 3° C, not far above freezing. Assume that the drink (prior to adding ice) is 60% water, with a heat capacity of 1 calorie per gram degree celsius (c/g°C) and 40% alcohol, with a heat capacity of 0.57c/g°C. To cool a gram of the of the drink 17°C will require 17 * ( 0.6 * 1.0 + 0.4 * 0.57 ) = 14 calories If we shake the drink with ice that has been sitting out at 0° C, then the only way it will cool the drink is by melting and diluting it. It takes 80 calories to melt a gram of ice, and 3 more calories to raise it to 3° C, so we will need to melt 14c / (83 c/g) = 0.17 grams of ice. So, our final drink will be diluted by 17%. Now suppose we start with ice at -18° C, which is approx. 0° F. Ice does not conduct heat especially well. As a result, most of the action when we shake the drink for 15-20 seconds is at the surface of the ice. If we use large cubes, then the temperature at the center will hardly have changed by the time we strain the ice out of drink. Assume, for the moment, that ice at the surface melts, and the rest of the ice remains at its original temperature. Ice has a heat capacity of 0.5c/g°C, so it will take 9c/g to raise it to the melting point of 0° C. We then need the same 83 calories to melt it and raise it to 3° C. The warmed and melted surface ice would thus absorb a total of 91c/g, meaning that 14c / (91 c/g) = 0.15 grams of ice would be melted for each gram of the original drink. The final result is a drink diluted by 15%, not much different than if we had started with 0° C ice. If the ice has a large surface area, then almost all of the ice will warm up to the melting point before any of it starts to melt. In the extremely high surface area case, if we have more than 14/9 = 1.6 grams of ice per gram of drink, then no ice will melt at all, since the evenly warmed ice will not even reach the melting point. So, it seems that the key to chilling without dilution is to use cold ice with a large surface area, so that all of it absorbs heat and warms up before any significant amount can melt. However, returning from physics to actual drink-making, shouldn't a good martini be diluted with some water that melts from the ice? I seem to recall that the ideal was about 20%, which would argue for starting with ice at 0° C with a bit of water clinging to the surface of the cubes. I guess we'd have to do some laboratory exercises to find out which drink ends up tasting the best.

Ditto.

The three Volta rivers (red, white, and black) are still called that, as far as I know, as is Lake Volta in Ghana. Upper Volta got its name because it was further up the rivers.

Several friends recommended Paradiso to me, and I have now been twice. I've been meaning to write something about it here, and all the Otto excitement over in the New York forum reminded me to get back to it. I didn't know about this thread until I searched, but it seems like the right place for it. Our first visit to Paradiso was just a couple of days after arriving in DC. We had heard from several sources that it was the best pizza in town, so our expectations were high. Unfortunately, our initial trip fell short of what we had hoped for. We left thinking that it was the kind of place we would frequent if we lived within walking distance, but would be relatively unlikely to trek to. I am happy to say my opinion of the place improved after I gave it a second chance. The pizza is hard to argue with, making it the focus of your meal seams to be a good bet. I think the real problem on our first visit was that we started with something other than the pizza. Our first course was a tuna and white bean salad. The tuna was decent quality canned product. No real objection so far. The beans were a bit too al dente for us. That's actually saying something, because we like texture in our canellinis, as opposed to the mush one finds on bruschetta at a lot of places. The real problem, though, was that there was not really anything more to the dish. It just didn't have any depth of flavor. I understand that this was a simple rustic pairing, but that's no excuse not to bring out the inherent goodness of the simple ingredients. For example, it needed a good dose of salt-- not to make is salty, but just to bring out the flavors. Some fresh ground pepper would have been nice for a contrast. There was a bottle of olive oil on the table, so we drizzled some over the salad. Unfortunately, it lacked the fruity punch we hoped for. It was an acceptable oil, but it was defintely a couple of steps below the top level EVOOs that are intended to be sprinkled raw over finished dishes. None of this is rocket science. It would only have taken a few simple steps to turn our salad into a dish that really stood up and said something, instead of falling flat. In a similar vein, there was no lime available to go with the pellegrino, only lemon. Simple inexpensive things can make a difference in the dining experience. Next, we shared a pizza with tomato, mozzerala, spinach, red onion, and mushrooms. Unfortunately, the salad experience had soured us, and we were wondering more about whether we should trust further recomendations from our friends than whether the pizza was going to be any good. Despite our mood, the crust was undeniably good. Thin, crisp on the bottom, but not blackened, with a nice chewy layer that you could bite through without having to pull. The toppings were well proportioned, and laid out so that they could be sampled both independently and in combinations. The pizza is clearly what makes people come back. On a second visit, I skipped the salads and went straight for the pizza. This time I went with anchovies and capers. Again, the crust made it. It was actually even better than the first one. Wheaty and mildly yeasty, like a good bread, with only a few significant crumb-breaking bubbles around the edges. Crisp enough to hold its shape, but tender and elastic enough in the middle to avoid cracking apart. It takes some skill to get these two distinct layers working together in a crust that is only a few millimeters thick to begin with. No question in my mind, they nailed it. The anchovies and capers went well together. I would certainly order this pizza again. With the pizza, I had a nice european-style fizzy lemonade. It was light and refreshing, somewhat sweet, but not overly so. A very pleasant suprise. To finish, I selected a pear marsala dessert. This consisted of a ramekin of thinly sliced pears, soaked for several days in marsala, then topped with a crumbly crust and popped in the pizza oven for a few minutes. A dollop or cream meling over the top completed the presentation. Aside from being served at the temperature of molten lava, the dish worked well. Once I allowed it to cool down it was a nice rustic treat to end the meal. Paradiso has some other salads and sandwiches that I haven't tried, but unless I'm feeling particularly adventurous, I'll probably stick to the pizza from now on.

If the kitchen can't produce a consistent level of doneness even within the same order, someone should be fired. They're just wasting expensive ingredients. I would have sent them all back. At least db knows what medium rare means.

According to Britains favorite pop bad boy Robbie Williams, London's got its gimmicks And New York's had its minute. As far as I know, he has yet to weigh in on the park issue.

So has St. Mario got it all wrong? Whenever someone on his show asks him, he always says that EVOO is traditional in the dish he is making. Lately, I've been using light olive oil for all cooking short of deep-frying. It's a highly filtered form that lacks the intense fruitiness of an EVOO, but takes high temperatures better. I don't detect any taste difference in the final product vs. what I would get with any other neutral vegetable oil. I started down this road when I saw a big bottle of the Goya brand on sale and decided to give it a try. I agree with FG on finishing with a drizzle of a top quality EVOO.

New York wins hands down for mid-range neigborhood restaurants. I'm talking about the kind of place you would never cross town for, but that you know you can count on for a decent meal on a moment's notice. London, on the other hand, crushes New York when it comes to the local pubs, with their selections of ales and ciders. Both sort of serve the same purpose as a third place to relax and unwind between work and a cramped home.

Sorry I can't help other than to say that I have also heard good things. I'm going next month and will report back in this forum.

Only two options outside W/SW? I haven't been to London in a couple of years, but surely these days there must be some interesting choices further east, and perhaps even north. Club Gascon? Pont de la Tour? There must be new places popping up from Clerkenwell through Islington to Shoreditch.

What never ceases to amaze me is how long Nobu makes people (tourists?) sit at the bar at Tribeca Grill, clinging to their orange and pink scraps of paper, waiting for the phone to ring to call them to the table they reserved a month ago. I mean, after four martinis what's the point of trying to eat a good meal. Does Nobu just hope to piss them off enough that that won't try to come back? My eight or so visits to Next Door have been consistently more enjoyable than my two trips to the main NYC branch of Nobu. Much more relaxed, and with the exception of an overcooked squid pasta, one failed noodle dish, and generally unmemorable desserts, the food has been uniformly excellent. My impression of Morimoto, to which I have not yet been, is that it feels more like Next Door, but with reservations. Can anyone comment?

1. Pears 2. Mangos Both have to be at just the right point of ripeness.

Whenever I see tilapia for sale, I can't help thinking of Mark Bittman's Fish book. He says it has a muddy taste and recommends avoiding it. But nowadays, I see it everywhere. Every fishmonger and supermarket fish counter seems to have a big pile of the fillets front and center. So, my question is, have farming techniques improved to produce a better tasing fish? Are wild specimens available, and if so are they any less muddy? I suppose I should just buy some and try it. Can anyone recommend a good way to prepare it?

In the neighborhood, try Acappella and Scalini Fedeli. The former has a classic menu, a heavily-sequined crowd, and a killer homemade grappa. The latter is a NJ transplant with an updated take on northern Italian.

It was amazing how Avedon was able to expose so many of his subjects so completely. What did he say to these people in the studio? The one that got me the most was the anonymous twisted scarred torso that turns out to be that of Andy Warhol. I mean, this is a guy who wore a giant wig around all day.

CFS is one of those things that can be a lot better than you might imagine. This sort of cuisine is often called "comfort food," a sort of hybrid kitschy/derogatory-but-in-a-good-way term. I don't like this description because I think it misses the essence of what CFS and it's country cousins are all about. The point of this sort of dish is that it makes the best possible use of cheap, commonly available ingredients. However, that doesn't mean it was just thrown together one day. If you have ten cheap ingredients around the house, or chuckwagon even, you can still make a thousand different combinations, and there are endless variations on those. A cook with a good creative mind can come up with the few of those that work at some level. The best of these become classics, like chicken-fried steak. I haven't made CFS more than once in the last five years, but here's the basic idea: Save up a week's frustrations, get a big tenderizing mallet and let loose on an inch thick round steak. By the time you're done it should be about 3/8" thick and barely hold itself together as a steak. Soak in buttermilk spiked with tabasco for 20 minutes, then salt it and dredge in flour seasoned with cayenne, black pepper, or other spices of your choice. Dip in beaten egg, then back in the flour again. Pan fry, preferably in bacon fat left over from breakfast, turning once. Pour off most of the fat, add flour to make a roux, then add cream and lots of black pepper to finish the gravy. Serve with mashed potatos or french fries, if you prefer, and biscuits or soft yeast rolls. You are right about needing a cheap steak. I've seen it attempted with better cuts, but that's just foolish. Chicken-fried sirloin makes no sense at all.