tighe

Reading the info on the Field & Stream site reminded me of some other nicknames for King salmon that I've heard in the past: 'spring salmon', 'tyee' and 'blackmouth salmon' (what my Dad always called them). The other issues that no-one has touched on is the occasional appearance of "white" King. I've had it a couple times and couldn't discern any difference with the more conventional pink variety, except for the price! Has anyone else here tried it?

You may be right, but the salmon-trout that we used to use ran smallish (like a coho). In my limited experience with steelheads, the flesh seemed to me more amber. Kind of like a char. In fact when I was cleaning some pretty good sized arctic char recently, I was struck by the similarity (color of the flesh, not the skin) to that long ago wild steelhead. Wild Steelhead. Something I miss. I remember that the pin-bones used to be a bear. I'll run to my AJ McClane later. It's out of date, but has good taxonomical info. Nick According to the Field & Stream web page, 'Sea Trout' and 'Salmon Trout' are the same thing, but are actually of a different genus that the other species that have been discussed here (Cynoscion vs. Oncorhynchus ). I also learned that Steelhead and Cutthroat were, until fairly recently, classfied and genus Salmo, but have been reclassified as genus Oncorhynchus . Of course the other difficulty is that its quite possible, if not extremely likely, that common usage of these different names doesn't always correspond to scientific classifications....

The couple who writes the wine column for the WSJ was on FTV the other day saying that a good, older (before 1995) American Cab Sauvignon was their reccomedation to go with the typical eclectic holiday meal. Personally, I prefer a good Oregon pinot noir.

Nick is a little over the top, but I love his shows. Sometimes he comes off as an Italian charicature I think. He's actually based here in Seattle I believe. I'm a little embarassed to to admit it, but one of the first time I saw his show, I spent a few hours trying to figure out where "his restaurant" that he regularly refers to in the show was. Turns out no such place exists! What the point of the reference is, I'm not sure.

Not that its any of my business, but out of curiosity, how does this statement reconcile with the fact that you had two courses of fish for your dinner? Do you mean that you don't eat shellfish perhaps?

Scrat and I went to Flying Fish tonight for their $25 menu. Hadn't been there in a number of years, but my worst memory of the place, the deafening noise level, remains unchanged. Fortuantely the food was good. For my first course, I had spicy calamari with a jalapeno sauce. Very tasty with the calamari cooked perfectly. My entree was blackened swordfish with wasabi steamed bok choi and a risotto cake. The risotto cake, in particular, rocked! Dessert was a lovely, if not astounding, grappa brownie with black and white chocolate sauces. If anyone can find the "grappa" in this dish, please let me know.... Scrat's starter was salmon cake with a basil aioli and balsamic. Yummy! Entree was mahi-mahi something that she felt was just OK. For desert she had a coconut cake with a sauce made from some bizarre type of Australian tomato that is sweet and tastes like strawberries! It was excellent. We're planning to squeeze one more of the dinners in before time runs out this week. Just can't help ourselves....

So glad you enjoyed 727 and the beef. Having my interest sparked, I have surfed for more info on the subject and came up with at least a couple interesting items. One is that part of the traditional feeding regimen is to give the cattle beer! How bad of a life can that be? The other is that when cooking it, its important to cook it rare. Apparenty, anything beyond that results in tough flavorless meat. In fact, one web site I read said it should be treated pretty much the same as cooking ahi.

No, chum salmon (aka dog salmon) and pink salmon (aka humpy salmon or humpies) aren't the same. I occasionally see pink salmon in the market. Neither are very good for cooking fresh and primarily go into canned salmon. Some smoke houses will have smoked pink salmon, which can be good too.

Pink salmon are also sometimes called 'humpy' salmon and chum salmon called 'dog' salmon. Don't know the origins of these aliases, but since neither are really worth eating (except maybe smoked) it probably doesn't matter.

As scrat said, the Kobe-style beef at 727 was phenomenal. I poked around a little and came up with a web-site where you can order it. Not cheap my any means, but it sure was good.... Snake River Farms Kobe Style Beef

Maybe Herb started the fire to put himself out of his (and everyone else's) misery......

Don't know if this is the truth, but the story I heard was something about Carrie having her hand up Jerry's wazoo and making him dance on a table while he sang a song about that evening's menu......that's just what I heard.... (I'm really terribly sorry, I just couldn't help myself once the thought occured to me )

Is that all? What a rip! Don't get me wrong, both dishes had full foie gras flavor, just no actual pieces of foie gras. My main critique of the meal would be that the actual amount of foie gras served was pretty minimal. A few small morsels in the terrine, some bits with the scallops and a nice sized slab with the chicken. For just over $50 US, I'm not inclined to get too uppity over it however. I could easily imagin having paid more than that here in Seattle for the same menu prepared sans foie gras.

Sure thing. See you tonight....

Scrat and I have reservations at 727 Pine at 6:30 tomorrow (Wednesday) evening to try their $25 menu. The menu looks tasty! If anyone would like to join us, just PM me or post here and I'll add you to the reservation. Either way, a full report will be forthcoming.

I went to A La Turca for dinner last Friday and discovered a menu item that I think is quite noteworthy, both for sheer tastiness and uniqueness. The dish, called 'Manti', consisted of lamb dumplings in three sauces that were 'layered' over them: mint yogurt sauce, a light tomato sauce and a butter sauce with toasted chili powder. Obviously everything gets combined as you eat it, but the presentation is quite striking. The combination of flavors is unique (very non-Western it seems to me at least) and perhaps not to everyone's liking, but I thought it was fantastic. The dish was made by the fact that the dumplings were more meat than dough. Apparently this dish is only offered on Friday and Saturday nights, along with the belly dancing (not that I was watching since my eyes were firmly affixed on my lovely wife)....

I'm jumping in since I was there too! I thought the goose foie gras was great. A somewhat milder flavor and creamier texture compared to duck. I am only guessing, but I suspect that the last two courses did not actually use any additional foie gras. I'm pretty sure that the brioche were just fried in the drippings from the seared foie gras and that the creme brulee just had drippings added to the mixture. Probably why it tasted like a fat-bomb going off in your mouth. As far as the waiter goes, my favorite moment was towards the end of the meal. He strolls over to the table, turns his back to my wife and asks me if "sir would care for a liquer or brandy this evening?" I declined, and he nodded and walked away. I'm thinking, this guy has no idea how close he is to getting impaled with some piece of silver! As scrat said, it was so incredibly blatant that you almost had laugh about it.

You can pencil in scrat68 and myself. I'm pretty sure we're going to be able to make it.....

Actually I haven't made it back to NYC since. I will be in town around the holidays and am planning on a trip to the Turkish place in Queens that you reccomended. Maybe Beyoglu also, since many here have had good things to say about it. Given the limited number of meals I can squeeze into four days, Dalga probably won't make the cut, this time at least.

See, what you don't understand is that simply stating that one enjoys a restaurant or food that Mssr. Plotnicki deems inferior is tantamount to starting a quarrel. Just asking him about the thrashing I got for daring to compliment the Turkish restaurant Dalga.....

I like House of Hong in the ID, especially since their remodel. They have a good variety and if you go when their busy, the food is pretty fresh. I hadn't heard of Jumbo, but would like to give it a try....

The most recent issue of the weekly says that the Poor Italian Cafe space is now occupied by the Buenos Aires Grill, which features performers dancing ON the bar. Apparently its packing them in: DANCING ON THE TABLES

My wife and I spent the (extra) long weekend in Vancouver, attempting to personnally verify all the great things that people have said here about the restaurants there. Life's tough, but somebody's got to do it! More on that later..... We drove up on Thursday evening and decided to stop in Mount Vernon to forage for food. Brew pubs are usually a good bet, so we stopped when we came across the Skagit River Brewery, which turned out to be a stroke of good luck. The menu features wood fired pizzas and barbecue. I went with the pork ribs and scrat68 had brisket. Now, I'm not saying that it was Klink-esque, but this was some really solid 'cue, with a nice 'fall-off-the-bone' tenderness and a flavorful, if thin, sauce. The meat definately had a smoked, as opposed to cooked quality, if that makes any sense. The stout I had was very good, with a smokiness that went well with the ribs. I would have loved to try more of the beers, if there hadn't been a lot of road ahead of us.

My absolute favorite kofta recipe is one I originally tasted when I was in Istanbul. Ground lamb mixed with chopped pistachios and onion, seasoned with garlic, salt, chili pepper flakes, cumin and black pepper. Served with Pomegranate molasses. There are so many great variations on kofta, but this one stands out for me.

Did you guys see Min Lao's survey of falafel in Seattle? 'In pursuit of felafel' I was amazed that there were even that many places in town serving felafel. Min was very high on Zaina's. I'm ashamed to say that I've never tried it despite claiming to be a fan of middle eastern food....