robyn

I did a little reading about the commercial standards. They involve things like taking the packages after cooking and getting them to X degrees (think it was 34) in X amount of time. And keeping the stuff at 34 degrees for no longer than (I think) 30 days (then you have to toss it). Nothing more onerous than what a salad bar in a fast food place has to do. Same general concepts about how you'd handle food safely in your own kitchen (e.g., hot should be hot and cold should be cold and you don't want cooked food hanging around in the "danger zone" too long while you're cooling it down if you plan on reheating it). You keep it in the refrigerator - and then you throw it out if you haven't eaten it in a week or so. By the way - I have no idea how you'd test for bacterial contamination in sealed food packets in the context of (small) restaurant production facilities. I suspect that sampling techniques are used in (large) commercial production facilities - and that they would be impractical in most restaurants. So I would think that the rules have to be based on how a restaurant handles the food (in terms of heating/cool down/storage/etc.). And I guess there would be labeling requirements too - because food cooked this way should only be kept for X days (and food inspectors can't tell how long the food's been sitting around unless it's labeled when it's cooked). Robyn

I would safely say that I would feel safer eating something cooked sous-vide than some random supermarket pre-ground beef. I am much more worried about ground beef -- to the point where if I need ground beef, I grind it myself. As people have mentioned, sous-vide has been around for years. It is hardly "trendy", it is just becoming more visible. Have you ever had beef stew, or other stew like dish from room service in a hotel? Sous-vide and they have been doing that for quite some time. I think there are far more important food safety issues that the NYC DOH can worry about than this. ← No - I have never eaten beef stew in a hotel room. Am I missing anything ? Sous vide has been around for years primarily in commercial food production facilities - where the preparation of the food is regulated by the FDA. There are some pretty strict rules (with regard to things like cooling the food down quickly - the shelf life - etc.). So are you saying that there shouldn't be any rules at all - or that New York health inspectors should simply adopt the FDA standards when it comes to using sous vide in restaurants? Robyn

Could someone please translate for me any remarks about Gyoza Stadium (or give me any personal impressions). I've read about it and it looks like fun. We are getting together with the son and daughter-in-law of some friends of ours (they live in Tokyo) - and I have suggested that it might make for a nice place to get together for lunch (they've never been there). Note that we would be going on a Saturday or a Sunday - and they will have small children with them (place looked like it gets very crowded - and it might not be a great place for a couple with young children - kind of like going to Disney in high season!). Robyn

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. With regard to "new drugs" (as that term is defined by law) - no one is allowed to sell them until they receive pre-market approval from the FDA. There is nothing similar when it comes to food (you don't need pre-market approval from the FDA to sell a new breakfast cereal). As for the New York City Department of Health - I don't live in New York - and don't know anything about it. I assume that it is supposed to work like other health departments when it comes to restaurants - but have no idea whether it does a good job of it. Robyn

In my opinion, these are all good ideas, especially the labels on grapefruits. (Not on individual grapefruits, but on the sign for all the grapefruits, showing the price: "Warning: May interact with statin drugs.") And don't forget that no-one is ever required to read labels. But while we're raising our hands, raise your hands if you ever amused yourself by reading the label on the cereal box. ← The warning would have to be on every grapefruit - and every can/bottle/jar of stuff that contains grapefruit - unless you think that every fruitstand in Florida is going to put up a sign (and what about people who buy those boxes of citrus fruit that are shipped from Florida). Plus what about the juice - or the jars of grapefruit segments I buy. BTW - we haven't scratched the surface of food warnings. Let's see - the one I see most often (because of what I eat) is the warnings associated with oysters and other raw shellfish products. That's required in restaurants here - and at supermarket counters - but - so far - you don't have to attach tiny labels to the raw seafood. Maybe you should have to do that - after all - I might buy some raw oysters to give as a present to friends - or I might simply present them on my dinner table to a group of unsuspecting diners. Then there are the sulfite warnings. They're on food labels - like wine bottles - but should I have little pre-printed labels on my wine glasses. What about lactose intolerance? Should every lactose product have warnings? Why should peanut intolerant people have greater rights than lactose intolerant people? And let's not forget the wheat sufferers. They have rights too. Or people with gout who shouldn't eat foie gras. Or people with hypertension (food with salt needs salt warnings)? Or congestive heart failure (they shouldn't have too much fluid - so we need warnings on things like ice cream and the like which aren't obvious liquids). Or kids who get all riled up when they have products with sugar (need some warnings on those breakfast cereals). I don't have all night - but I bet if we put our minds to it - we can come with at least 50 more things that various people need to be warned about. On my part - I am an adult with GI problems. I know what I should and what I shouldn't eat. And I don't eat the things that I shouldn't eat. And since I can eat and do love peanuts - I resent all the preferential warning status given to peanuts - which frequently leads some entities - like airlines - to avoid serving even little tiny bags of peanuts. Why should someone's peanut sensitivities be more important than my food sensitivities? As for California - there's a warning on or near just about every elevator that says (pursuant to state law) there's a cancer risk. Have never been able to figure that one out. Perhaps someone in California can help me. Oh - and my husband and I do read food labels all the time. He has been on hypertension meds for over 30 years - and the last thing we want to do is OD him on foods with too much salt (and there are certainly lots of those around - even in the highest end food stores and restaurants). If I were going to pick one single warning in the world that I would allow on food labels - it is "this product contains too much salt to be healthy for anyone". There are probably 1000 times more people in the US who suffer from hypertension than all the other food sensitivities out there. And I suspect the ratio of people who die from hypertension and related diseases compared to those who die from peanuts is about 100,000 to 1. Robyn

I also want to add that the regulation of drugs has just about nothing to do with the regulation of food. In a nutshell - new drugs cannot be sold in the US (under federal law) unless they are found to be safe and effective. There is no similar law which applies to food. Robyn

Most cases of food poisoning in the US (and there are lots of them) are relatively minor (people get the trots or throw up for 24 hours and never wind up in a doctor's office). Been there - done that (although my husband has done it worse - he wound tossing his cookies one morning in New York in a planter outside of Bloomingdales). As with many diseases - like the flu - you're not talking about serious life threatening problems unless you're dealing with a very young - or old - or infirm person. That is not - however - any reason to abandon or relax public health measures which deal with the safety of food products. I suspect that most of you arguing to the contrary in this thread would not argue as strongly if you were talking about less trendy things - like ground beef in fast food burger joints. Robyn

Dukeofurl - Where are you in Florida? We are near Jacksonville - and it now has reasonably authentic Chinese food (including chicken feet!). Most of these places are cheap buffet places - all you can eat for $6. Nothing fantastic - but at least it is edible/ok Chinese food (which it wasn't 5 years ago - 5 years ago I was probably the best Chinese chef in town). There's also a new higher end place opened by a CIA grad from a Chinese/American restaurant family in Jacksonville. It's pretty good. Just hope things remain stable or get better - one of our biggest Chinese buffet places just got busted the other day - turns out all that authentic Chinese food was being prepared by authentic illegal Chinese immigrants <sigh>.

Except when you're talking about things like botulism. Just because a food preparation method is trendy doesn't mean it's exempt from public health concerns. Robyn

Bargain!? Wasn't that the price of an average new car? Altogether you spent around $75k in today's dollars? Edited to say WOW! ← I don't think it's quite that bad. I bought my first new car in 1971 - a Mercury Cougar - and it was about $3000. But it's pretty bad . I don't have much to add about the commercial/non-commercial dispute except to say that if you're over a certain age - and cook a fair amount - it's really nice to have wall ovens so you don't have to bend over a lot (I have double 30" wall ovens in the middle of the wall - not too high - not too low - and I think they're great). Robyn

I laugh whenever I go to California. Every ten feet there's a warning that this - that or the other thing can give me cancer. Some are funny - but others simply leave me scratching my head. But for those of you who are so worried about labels - raise your hand if you're taking certain statin drugs (like many middle-aged people). Did you know you shouldn't be eating grapefruit? So should we start slapping warnings on grapefuit? What about labels on products that are bad for diabetics - or people who are lactose intolerant? Do you want to see the "peanut labels" extended (if they are - the labels will be so long you'd have to spend half your life shopping if you read labels)? Robyn

"Note, the extreme depth of field in the photo above is something that's difficult to achieve with most point-and-shoot digital cameras - especially older models." Amen to that. I am shooting with an older Kodak Easy Share. Just getting things in any kind of focus on close-ups can also be a chore (which is perhaps why I wind up throwing away 95% of what I shoot ). This is kind of typical of what you might wind up with. Note that this was a platter being passed around at an event in a restaurant. It wasn't moving faster than a speeding bullet - but it was pretty hard to get it at all. Still - any old camera is good enough if you're learning composition - which is perhaps the most important thing in terms of taking good pictures. And if things come out a little fuzzy - you can always say that your pictures are "arty" . By the way - if you put pictures like this in a slide-show that dissolves "in" and "out" - you don't notice the imperfections as much. Robyn

I am not a particularly skilled photographer (in terms of having an "artistic" eye when looking through the lens of my camera). And I like to photograph things like animals (which are usually moving). So my odds of getting a spectacular "raw" shot aren't terrific. Still I don't do much with most pictures. Throw 95% of them away - and crop and perhaps tune up the color/contrast a bit on the others. Like this one (note that the cropping here turned the original picture on a diagonal - looked better than a straight horizontal/vertical crop). BTW - these are all photos of food at Opus 39 - have you been there yet? Robyn

Hi Snekse - Sorry. Didn't realize the collection was designed to demo the camera. Liked the Blackbird stuff a lot more. Robyn

Now take a look at this picture. It's the exact same thing - just shot from a different angle. Has more of a sense of motion - and it draws you into the subject more. It's a more interesting picture. I have a really good book on digital food photography. Getting good pictures of the food is only the beginning. You have to think about the food in relation to the rest of the picture (on professional food shoots - they have professional prop people!). By the way - there is probably nothing wrong with your camera. I am shooting with what is now considered an antique. And there is nothing wrong with taking dozens of shots of a particular subject and sorting through them/editing them later. Look at how professional photographers work with professional models. Click.click.click.click.click.click.etc. Robyn

Since no one more expert than I am has said anything - guess I can . I really can't comment on things like focus and colors - they look good enough to me on my notebook (perhaps they'd look different on a larger monitor). There certainly isn't too much zoom. My criticism is with the composition. The marshmallows are ok. The plate and the rest of the background and the way the marshmallows are placed in relation to them are "blah". Just don't do anything for me. To give you an example - look at the picture below. It is ok - but - like your marshmallows - it doesn't do anything for me. [continued]

Al - Went back after I wrote my message and read yours back up in this thread. I am not very familiar with Las Vegas restaurants (have only been there once in the last decade). But I guess what you were saying is the place looked like the late V Steakhouse in the TWC (never ate there but I took a look when I went to Per Se). It was really an awful looking place. Kind of like a gussied up version of the most famous steakhouse in Tallahassee Florida. I don't think we even have places in Jacksonville FL (where I live) that look anything like that anymore (they kind of went out with men's diamond pinky rings). I think I place more emphasis on how a place looks than a lot of people here - but when you're talking about the upper echelons of dining establishments - I think decor is a significant factor in the total experience. Robyn

Hi Fat Al - Sounds like you liked the food more than Bruni did. I think judging from your description that perhaps the placement of a "traditional Italian meal" in a "deluxe" (or attempt at "deluxe") setting) - just doesn't work - at least not in a city like New York. The best Italian meal I ever had was in a no-name village in a no-name restaurant in the Italian countryside that my husband and I just stumbled on. Patio with simple wooden furniture overlooking a lot of hills. Lightly dressed very fresh green salad. Huge bowl of wonderful pasta that almost floated out of the bowl (just spaghetti in simple red sauce undoubtedly made with fresh local tomatoes). Beautiful roasted chicken from the grill. Some wine of the region. No dessert (no room!). I think that in general traditional Italian meals are pretty much like this (although you can upscale the ingredients for a more "upscale" meal). They are like California cuisine - where the emphasis is on the excellence and freshness of the ingredients as opposed to an exciting manner of preparation. And while I like this style of food very much - there are places where it "fits" and places where it doesn't. Would fit right in at a place that looks like Chez Panisse (especially if it were in California) - but it wouldn't fit at a place that looks like Per Se. And I guess it doesn't fit at Del Posto (have't seen the space in person - just the pictures of it - but it looks to me like an old stuffy 3 star restaurant in France - or a New York steakhouse that is trying to look like a stuffy 3 star restaurant in France ). So I guess what I'm saying is that you have to integrate the food with the decor of the restaurant - and you also have to pick up at least a little of the "vibe" of the place where your restaurant is located. For example - while I thought that Per Se was technically an excellent restaurant - it didn't spell "New York" to me the way David Burke & Donatella did. So I enjoyed the meal at the latter more than the meal at the former. Ditto with Ducasse and the late Le Cirque 2000. Again - excellent meals at both. But Le Cirque was a lot more New York than Ducasse. I am going to Japan in a few weeks - and I have certain ideas in my head about what I'd like to see in restaurants there. What will spell "Japan" to me. And those ideas have nothing to do with recreations of 3 star French restaurants - or the Italian countryside. You seem to have a vague sense of discontent about the restaurant - and I wonder if what I've said has anything to do with the way you feel. Anyway - that is my point of view as someone who travels a fair amount - but doesn't get to any particular place very often. My views of particular cities and countries are all "thumbnails". Robyn

Perhaps I'm reading too much into them - but these are the words in the review that put me off: "Of the three savory chapters of the menu, which cover antipasti, pasta (and risotto) dishes and the main courses, the most consistently impressive is the second one...Del Posto needs more blockbuster desserts..." Now 3 stars in the NYT is supposed to mean "excellent" - and to me - that means 4 excellent courses - not 3 that are perhaps so-so to very good - and one that's "consistently impressive". Especially at these prices. My impression at Babbo (which also got 3 stars from Bruni) is that while the pasta was 3 star - almost everything else didn't approach that level. So the two sentences above suggested that this restaurant was more of the same. I'll be interested to see what people think after they've eaten full 4 course meals here. Robyn

An out-of-towner point of view (read the review - where the 3 star conclusion didn't follow from what Bruni actually experienced). So Batali has now opened a restaurant more expensive than Babbo where nothing clicks except the pasta. I disliked Babbo because I thought it was an over-priced over-hyped pasta place - while I was expecting a high end Italian restaurant - and this looks like more of the same (except more expensive). On my next trip to New York - I will mark it "avoid". Robyn

Honestly, and I'm not being pessimistic or overly critical here, there is NO good Chinese food in Orlando. In fact, the Sentinel food critic passed on a winner in the Foodie awards. Instead, eat some Vietnamese or Japanese - there are good options there. Vietnamese - Lac Viet, Little Saigon, Viet Garden, Pho 88 Japanese - Nagoya, Hanamizuki, Amura Thai is OK here, couple options we've liked include Red bamboo and G&G Thai. ← Hi Bill - We're going to Orlando next weekend. Little overnight for some shopping. Will be staying near Hanamizuki. Can you recommend it over the other places your mentioned (we're like to get in a bit of practice before our trip to Japan next month)? Regards, Robyn

Bux - I think the foie gras situation in the US varies almost day to day - city to city. There was an old ban (now lifted) on fresh imported livers (and other bird parts) that had to do with the prevention of Newcastle's disease. Then there have been bans from time to time based on sanitary conditions in packing plants overseas. Then there are all the animal rights controversies - and the "voluntary" refusals by particular restaurants to serve the stuff. I don't know why there are producers of fresh duck foie gras in the US - but not goose foie gras - except that the former is cheaper. Robyn

D'Artagnan sells goose foie gras - so I suspect it's legal. On the other hand - I don't think it's produced in the US. Robyn

The only dish I felt was oversalted was the beef cheek ravioli, but that might have been just that night (and it was a long time ago). Other than that, I really enjoyed the tastes at Babbo. I do have a question, though. I haven't had the goose liver ravioli, but I was curious... is it made with foie gras (i.e. foie d'oie) or is it made with a basic unfattened liver? I wasn't sure if it was referred to simply as goose liver because it was not foie gras or because Babbo didn't want to use a french term on the menu. ← My understanding - and perhaps I am wrong about this - is that Babbo doesn't use French ingredients. Which is why there's no champagne on the menu. So whatever the goose liver is - it is probably not foie gras from France. I suspect it is simply the liver of a regular (as opposed to a force-fed) goose that probably comes from the United States (even if there is such a thing in Italy - I doubt a fresh bird liver would travel very well and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt in terms of thinking they wouldn't use frozen livers). Robyn

fair enough...though considering Cafe Gray's price point.... (btw, I don't mean that entrees at Babbo are bad..they're just not exceptional.) I wonder if part of the issue is simply the nature of Italian cooking...with the possible exception of Esca (which is more nominally Italian)....has anyone really had a superlative Italian entree? at least in the U.S.? (I haven't really had great ones in Italy either.) actually, on second thought, not everyone knows that BLT Fish and Cafe Gray require careful ordering...egullet readers, yes. but egullet readers also generally know that pasta is what should be ordered at Babbo. ← I wrote about Babbo a ways up in this thread a little over a year ago. The meal wasn't swell overall - and people said - "what did you expect - didn't you know this is a pasta place"? And I objected to this line of reasoning. After all - this place has a traditional Italian menu - starters - first course - second - etc. And one is encouraged to order like one would order in a serious Italian restaurant. So I basically considered this restaurant a failure in terms of what it purported to be. I have had excellent second courses in various Italian restaurant in the US - places like Casa Tua in Miami Beach - Quince in San Francisco - Cafe Spiaggia in Chicago - in the last few years. Also at Felidia's in New York - but that was years ago. I have also had excellent second courses in Italy - even in basic Michelin one knife and fork places (then again - I am very fond of things like roasted birds - which one finds on a lot of menus as a second course). So there's really no excuse for any restaurant which purports to offer a traditional Italian menu to treat the second course - which is the main course in an Italian meal - as an afterthought. Robyn