Chezhoff

I live in Erie and the only Chinese restaurant that I know of is Lui's Chinese (Lui's web site). I can confirm that it is pretty tasty. I'm not a conisseur of Chinese food but I liked it. Apparently the chef/owner is pretty well thought of. With them, Mina's, and the Colorado Coal Company (no site that I can find) steakhouse Erie has some reasonable dining options.

What/where is Craftwich? Is this related to Craft/Craftsteak? Last time I was in LV I had the best piece of meat of my life, a Kobe beef skirt steak from Craftsteak. I'd be interested to try their sandwich! ← Oops, my bad on not calling it wichCraft! I must have still had too much alcohol in my system when I posted.

My wife and I, along with several friends/relatives were in Vegas over the weekend of the 14th-16th so I thought I’d give a quick report of the dining highlights. On Friday night, we met, after our various flights in, at the Pub and Brewery (not sure if that is the official name or not) at the Monte Carlo. I was starving as I hadn’t eaten since lunch, but the pizza, and the beer for that matter, was uninspiring. We had the mushroom and three cheese and barbecued chicken pizzas and they didn’t taste much better than a frozen California Pizza Kitchen pizza. Very bland, overly soft crust (I’m a pizza snob who wants his crust crisp with a good bit o’ charring). The beer (I had the stout, most others had the amber) wasn’t great, especially compared to the great micros that I can get at home in Colorado. Saturday for lunch we went to Emeril’s NO Fish House in the MGM Grand. Had the oyster sampler as an appetizer. I’ve learned lately that I really don’t enjoy Louisiana oysters raw. The Pacific NW (not sure of the exact type as it wasn’t listed and I forgot to ask) varieties were good though. I’d appreciate it if they would provide mignonette (spelling?) in addition to the cocktail sauce. My wife ordered the crab cakes and I had the rock shrimp poboy. The crab cakes were ok in flavor and the included salad with goat cheese was nice. However, you’d think that they be able to use at least some lump crab meat in a dish that cost $16 for two small to medium cakes…the texture just wasn’t up to par w/ what I consider a “good’ crab cake. The poboy was big, with a good number of shrimp. I enjoyed it but would’ve like it more if the remoulade had been a tad zippier. Others at the table had the steak sandwich which was good, it had quite a bit of good quality smoked meat, all nicely rare and tender. The shoestring potatoes were very good as was the banana cream pie which has been raved about (with good reason) on other posts on this site. I don’t know that I would feel a huge urge to return here, except maybe for a late night desert. For Saturday dinner we ended up at Mon Ami Gabi at Paris. We ate outside on the heated patio which was cool as it afforded a great view of Bellagio’s fountains and good people watching – kind of a perverted version of sitting on the Champs-Elysees I guess!  For starters, we both had soup, onion for my wife and the soup du jour, a cream of butternut squash, for me. The onion soup was good though a bit oversalted. The butternut was great, very good flavor and the crème fraiche garnish a nice touch. For entrees my wife had salmon with a mustard and bread crumb crust and I had a hanger steak w/ maitre d’hotel butter and frites. The salmon was good, though not superlative. On the other hand, I was very pleased with my steak. I love the very beefy flavor you get with a hanger steak. This one was cooked to a very nice medium rare and the melting butter, combined with the meat’s own “juicy goodness” made for a nice sauce. The frites were unlike others I’ve had before, kind of more like thick shavings of potatoe than the shoestring fries that represent the more common interpretation of frites to me. They tasted good, especially the ones that were more crisp. The house Bordeaux was nice and reasonably priced. All in all I’d recommend Mon Ami Gabi for a fairly reasonably priced meal in a good setting. We paid approximately $90 for the two of us. We didn’t have desert as we were stuffed. On Sunday morning we tried to go to Craftwich for a breakfast sandwich but were unable to eat there as they don’t open until 10:00 and we had a plane to catch. You’d think they’d at least open by 9:00 if they are serving breakfast sandwiches. All in all, it was a good trip.

Hmm...guess I'm too young to remember that. Thanks. ← Yep that's correct. It's that house that is now the offices of some moving company I think. The location at 75th and Arapahoe is still open.

(Jumping up and down and raising hand) Ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me! This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. My favorites in town are: 1. Brother's BBQ (several metro area locations)- great meats, with good smoke taste, good sauces, wonderful beans. They also have reasonably good French Fries (another of my passions as readers of the ICON Burger thread know) that are tasty dipped in the sauce of your choice. Having fries w/ my Q is something I learned to like in KC. In my experience, places here don't have them on the menu as often. Good ribs here as well. a close second... 2. KT's Hickr'y Pit (locations in Boulder and Broomfield) - a little less consistent than Brother's and not as good as it was when they were operating out of an old house on the east end of Arapahoe in Boulder, but still darn good. Ribs aren't as good here as Brother's. Pork is the best choice in my opinion. Very friendly people. Don't miss the "June Bowl" which involves meat, sauce, and two sides (cole slaw and beans for me, please) all mixed up in a bowl!

I'm not sure how reliable the Yellow Scene's reviewer is. I've got a friend who owns a restaurant in Lousiville (the Old Louisville Inn) and he was telling me that they only review places that advertise...

Sorry I'm too late Mongo...I hope you were able to avert your crisis...

when I have to be... I thnk most self-cleaning ovens now lock the door until they cool down after the cleaning cycle, so this wouldn't work for most. Though he's my favorite chef, Sometimes Alton doesn't think stuff through. Try not using cornmeal, just use a bit of flour on the peal and you won't have as much of a burning problem. Note that I didn't say you won't have a burning problem, it just won't be as bad...there's a reason I remove the smoke detector that's nearest my kitchen when I make pizza. Good idea, but it might cause a big fight on where to have it...though I suspect that Proto's might win out in the end.

I make my own and am constantly experimenting trying to get the crust right. I come close, I just wish my oven would get hotter....

I just love it how it is somehow de rigeur for restaurants to turn verbs like 'burn' and 'mash' into nouns to describe their dishes!

First off, sorry that I didn't do a good job of setting the context for this thread, i.e. that it started on the We're Famous - Kinda thread. Thanks foodnut for doing that. Now back to your regularly scheduled fries... From RLM: I'm not sure, they didn't taste especially...goosey... Does Bouchon use goosefat entirely or just add a tablespoon or two? I can't imagine it would be practical to use all goose fat (can you imagine the poor low level cook whose entire job it would be to render out goose fat?) but I don't know. I will sometimes add a tablespoon or two of bacon fat when I make french fries, it makes them better I think.

Yes, I agree, we do need this thread, so here it is! Fries that I love, other than my own homemade ones... CityGrille any that are made at Kevin Taylor's restaurants Brasserie Rouge for fast food, I agree that Mustard's are great. Those at Steak Escape can be passable at times. There's a hot dog place called Gabe's Chi-town Dogs on Washington (tween 104th and 120th) in Northglenn that has both great fries and great homemade chips (another passion of mine) plus pretty darn good dogs.

Does the blue haze have anything to do with the drinks mentioned in step 6? Seriously though, these sound great. I wonder if you could adjust the blad on one of those rotary apple peelers so that it would form these...a worthy experiment in my mind.

Matt, please enlighten us (or just me) on what pommes Chatouillard are. I'm always interested in new potato related information (well and russet potato information too...get it?)

I don't know that it is unrealistic. Arby's manages to pull it off...not well, but they do offer at least 3 different "fried potato products". The old Paul's Place (in the 16th and California Food court and the Cherry Creek Mall) did it as well. Paul's is actually a fairly good comparison in my mind to what Icon Burger is going for. Paul's also made incredible onion strings but that's a whole 'nother Oprah. Fred, I agree that double cooking would improve frozen fries. One other comment on the fry issue, the menu specifically mentions that the burgers come with a large portion of fries. The portion on our plates was definitely not large, maybe this was just a mistake?