tighe

My reading of Mamster's piece is that he agrees, and that he goes further: his implication is that the populist portrayal of the traditionalist line is a straw man. Yes, a more careful reading makes that clear. My original comment wasn't aimed at the article in any case, more of a blunt, inelegant restatement of what is couched in Mamster's piece....

This whole issue has become such a Holy War, I find it amusing. A few years ago, I had a opportunity to talk with Alan Pangborn who was, at the time, the winemaker for Domaine Ste Michell (sparkling wines). He said that the use of real cork in sparkling wines adds $2-$5 to the cost of a bottle and that a 'pop-top' would do a supperior job of sealing the bottle. Obviously this price difference is incidental for any good sparkling wine and I have to admit that not be able to pop the cork would take a lot of the fun out of drinking it.

A few disjointed remarks about the original article.... a) Hasn't the "anything goes with wine/the only thing that matters is what you like" thing become so prevalent with populist wine commentators that it is nearly as cliched as the traditionalist line? Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with it necessarily, I was involved for a number of years with a group called WineBRATS whose sole aim was to make wine accessible to youngish people. It just seems like it is now getting pushed past its logical extreme in some quarters. b) One of the most remarkable food/wine pairings I've ever had was a grilled pepper steak (heavy on the pepper) with a white zin. I've never had the cojones to actually order a bottle of white zin in a steak house however.... c) If drinking little-known German Rieslings makes one 'cool', how cool am I for drinking hand-imported Mosel Riesling from Luxembourg?? d) Good piece....

Thanks for the great review. Its been way too long since I've been there. HV is such a fantastic place and unique in Seattle. From your review it sounds like the new wine cellar is open and weren't we discussing the possibility of reserving some space there for an eGullet dinner, back when the news first came out that the space was being added? Anyone interested in going sometime in May maybe?

It all makes so much sense now..... It's official: Great blue heron flies away with Seattle votes gc is just trying to get in good with the new official Seattle bird ... (This is my completely transparent ploy to get something on the board that is not even remotely related to food. I humbly await the axe)

Did the bahn mi crawl discussed B.t. (before tighe) ever happen. I stopped by Pho & Bahn Mi Saigon on Rainier today for lunch, mostly because of the ample parking and while munching my sandwich decided I really needed to have the different competing BBQ pork side by side to be able to decide on a winner. I understand that I could probably run the experiment myself for under $10, but doing it with other bahn mi devotees would be more fun. By the way, I thought the sandwich today was quite good. The main difference I noticed was a mayonaise based sauce that I don't think 88 has. At $1.75, the sandwiches ARE a little pricier. If you sit down in the restaurant to eat your sandwich, the price jumps to $3.50. The bowls of pho I saw go by looked large and chock full of beef. I'm assuming that this is not the Saigon Deli discussed in this thread?

Duoh! Where's the love for the fellow southender gc?? I think you made it WAY too easy; a 5000 word essay on how and why attending this event would have a) benefitted your enjoyment of it; b) furthered the said individual's desire to deepen their understanding of mollusks and c) how said individual's attendance would have served the community of south King County would have separated the wheat from the chaff....

I left out a notable detail of the pate. Instead of being wrapped in caul fat, as most country pates are, it was wrapped in bacon! (could have been pancetta) It added an interesting dimension to the dish in any case.

Sounds good. What about the texture. Did you have to cut it against the grain? I bet it'd be just lovely anyway you ate it. Yes, I sliced it across the grain, as I usually do with flank steak. I went for very thin slices, but it was tender enough that thicker slices would have been OK too. What I had read about cooking Wagyu is that the fat structure is very delicate and if you cook it much past rare, it breaks down and the meat gets very tough, so I definately tried to err on the rare side of things.

I had great success with grilling a Wagyu flank steak that I got at Uwajimaya here in Seattle. Marinated it in soy, vermouth, garlic and sesame oil, grilled it briefly and sliced it very thin. If I say so myself, it was tremendous. The good thing about the flank steak is that its WAY cheaper than most of the other cuts.

Yeah, the Kobe beef was good (the potatoes with it were even better), but the pork was all that AND a bag of corn nuts. I really enjoyed the soup although rumor was the smoked cod was great too.

MsRamsey, scrat and I went to Brasserie Margaux’s Rhone Valley wine dinner last week and I was awed by the meal. For a second time in a row, the food-wine pairings were flawless. Just so I don’t get too redundant, the following adjectives apply to every course: fantastic, tremendous, sublime, etc., etc. Warm Salad of Artichokes and Roasted Peppers with Roquefort, Walnuts and Chive Oil. Cotes du Rhone Blanc - E. Guigal 2000 What the description doesn’t capture is that the salad was served in a ring formed by a long strip of grilled zucchini, which stood out, along with the peppers, more than the artichoke. For once, a salad that advertised cheese as a main ingredient had an ample amount of cheese on the plate damn it! This was the first time I had tried a white wine from the Rhone, and I’m completely sold. Housemade Country Chicken Liver Pate with Frisée, Cornichons, Whole-grain Mustard and Baquette Chateauneuf du Pape Blanc Andre Brunel Les Cailloux 2001 I made a country pate at home a couple weeks ago and thought that it came out quite well, this dish demonstrated that I still have a ways to go. Everything that is good about pate and another superb wine match. Petit Cassoulet with Smoked Sausage, Lamb and Duck Confit Gigondas Chateau du Trignon, 2000 On another thread we discussed the relative merits of different cassoulet preparations in town. I would offer this one up as a contender for the best. Meaty, but not fatty or heavy, with more veggies than I’ve seen in other renditions. It will be on their dinner menu for the next few months and the entrée portion is only $16.95! I think Gigondas is one of the most distinctive wines around. I understand it’s not everyone’s taste, but I love the pronounced earthy/musty character and this one was a beauty. Pan Roasted Venison Loin with Forest Mushroom Strudel, Green Peppercorn Sauce and Herb Tomatoes Saint-Joseph Offerus J. L. Chave 2000 If there was any stumble in the meal, it was that my venison was a little over-done, although MsRamsey’s was perfectly medium-rare, not sure what happened. Despite being cooked through, the meat was extremely tender and flavorful, but the sauce was just over the top. The peppercorns must have been fresh because they were soft and mild enough to eat. The Chave was wonderful, but I’m sure would be even better in a few years. Double Chocolate Bavarian Cream with Champagne Strawberry Coulis and Seasonal Berry Compote Muscat de Beaumes de Venise – Domaine de Beaumalric I simply can’t do justice to this desert without a picture. The Bavarian Cream was a layer of dark chocolate under a layer of white chocolate, laid out in a teardrop shape, garnished with the coulis and a couple pieces of chocolate art. The texture was like eating a chocolate cloud, airy, but powerfully flavorful. Superb desert wine that strikes that rare balance of sweetness and complexity of flavor without any syrupy texture. Among the post-meal discussions that scrat and I have had are what the best course was and why the food-wine pairing are so much more effective than at most of these kinds of dinners. To the first, I really can’t meaningfully rank the courses. We’re talking degrees of excellence that I really have trouble distinguishing between. Maybe I could just resort to rating them based on the complexity of technique required, but I don’t have energy to go down that path. On the second issue, the main conclusion we reached is that the pairings are so good because Chef Zarkades has the humility to create dishes that really have a synergy with the wines as opposed to many chefs who’s egos demand that their dishes be the star and step to the fore on their own. Interestingly, the former approach yields a superior ultimate outcome. If you haven’t been to Brasserie Margaux before, please go, I can almost guarantee you’ll love it. And if at the end of March you are having 25 for $25 withdrawal, they offer a 3-course $25 prix fixe menu every night. Edit: No one needs to use 'ultimate' twice in a single sentence..... Edit #2: Just in case anyone was wondering, the fact that I enjoyed such a sumptuous dinner of French food and wine does, in fact, mean that I hate America and if anyone tries to rename cassoulet 'Freedom Bean Stew' I'm chaning countries!

Haven't tried it. In fact, hadn't heard of it 'til Schielke's post. Probably demonstrates how limited my south end dining knowledge really is. I'm definitely up for trying it some time....

So, when you bake these tartlets, do you use a pale fire??

Welcome to eGullet! You could have a great weekend in any of the three cities that you mention, but if high end dining is a priority for you, I'd have to recommend Vancouver. As a Seattle native, I feel like such a traitor saying this, but I don't think the best here approaches the best there. Vancouver is definitely able to fill the bill on the other types of activities that you mention as well.

Yeah! More tap beer for me! I think the underlying quality of the beer is a lot more important to my level of satisfaction than the method by which it dispensed frankly. I will admit that I really enjoy the 'cask conditioned' beers that are offered at some places here in Seattle. Most use a nitro tap instead of an actual hand pump. Have to say that the places that do this usually serve their best quality beer in this manner. You want lots of choices? Go to the Sunset Grill in Boston. When I was in school, they had something like 50 taps and another 200 beers by the bottle. Last time I was in town they were up to 110 taps and had a few hundred bottled. Its beer Disney Land.

'Frambosen' is correct, although I've seen it spelled 'frambozen' as well. Perhaps one is Flemish and the other is Dutch. I hate to be the dissenter on this thread, but in my experience, France has uniformly mediocre beer. I've tried most of the brands discussed here and they all seem to be at about the same level of quality as the mass-produced American lagers to me. Still better than Italy or Spain, but when in France, I drink wine and save my beer drinking for points north.

This reminds me of a shot a bartender in Montreal made for me once called a 'Bloody Brain'. Sorry if I'm vague on the specifics, but it was a long time ago and wasn't my first shot of the evening. My recollection is that it was some type of clear alcohol plus lemon juice with some Baileys added. As you say, the Baileys then curdles, in this case forming a brain-like mass in the middle of the shot-glass. The bartender then added a dribble of a red liquer (grenadine?) that coated the 'brain'. The taste wasn't bad, after the visual, the blob of Baileys rattling around in my mouth was a little weird.....

I think the confusion is because the article is from May of last year. I did some poking around on the web to see if there is any recent info on Bulent, but no luck really. I just get depressed when I think of not being able to have that divine doner kebab sandwich anymore.

Dude!! What kind of cruel and sick mind do you have?? You expect to post pictures like that and still maintain public order? Oh, the humanity!!.....

Hey, that there is my neck o' the woods. If girl chow and I go with you, the other locals will leave you be.....

Probably because the Four Seasons has what, 3 or 4 restaurants in it?.....

I had the $12.50 lunch at the Hunt Club today. I would reccomend skipping it. It wasn't a particularly good deal compared to the regular menu. Small cup of soup, half a sandwich and sorbet. Scrat had their soup and sanwich special which was a full sandwich and full bowl of soup, but no dessert for only a couple dollars more. I also thought the sandwich I had, salmon BLT, was a little funky.

Good luck!! This is the week that the graduating student chefs each run the kitchen for a day. I tried to get reservations last week for tomorrow and they were already booked.....

The latest issue of Sunset Magazine has an article on the sustainability of the Copper River fishery and included is a chart of different species of fish and reccomendations on whether or not they are a good (sustainable) dining choice. I was hoping it would be on the Sunset web page, but no luck. In searching the web though, I found a more comprehensive resource that is pretty interesting. The orgainzation is called Seafood Choices Alliance and their website provides a database of different species, descriptions of issues to consider and reccomendations from different environmental organizations. All of you who had the Chilean Sea Bass at the BOB dinner should be publically stoned, or at least flogged!! In all seriousness, I find this to be quite helpful, as I can never remember what is taboo and what isn't.