emsny

Does anybody know of a product that can be added to the dishwasher to remove tarnish from silver flatware?

The Museum of Modern Art gift shop, in New York, sells clever collapsible funnels made of silicone. They store flat, but open up into a full-sized funnel. Made in Denmark. See: http://tinyurl.com/ap3uh

<Sigh>, but I suppose I can only echo my post of 19 March.

Here's my periodic query: Any news of Pierre Koffmann?

As you discovered, the bones are of little use. But the scraps can - should - be mashed with some fat and seasonings to make rillettes.

Thanks for the update.

Has anybody been since the new menu was put in place?

I think it is in the blurb on Otto that the guide explains a quartino of wine as containing a liter. That'd be quite a bargain, were it only true.

On the issue of the Michelin inspectors making themselves known: my understanding, from reading the tame "tell-all" book written by an inspector a while ago, is that all dining is done anonymously and that when they're all done with their visits one of them makes himself (rarely herself) known and does indeed ask questions and poke around to make sure the place is clean and tidy.

Well, whether one likes all of his dishes or not, Johnny Iuzzini is doing really interesting things at Jean Georges - and because the desserts are plated as four separate items on a single theme you get to taste lots of things on a single platter.

Thanks - sounds like just the ticket for a post-opera beer.

Any ideas for a post-opera supper/snack near the State Opera in Prague? Do restaurants/cafes tend to stay open late in that part of town? The preference would be for a Czech restaurant - attempts at pan-Mediterranean food we can find elsewhere.

On Second Avenue and 43rd Street something called Goodburger is about to open. 90 seconds of Googling (usually enough for any research task) came up with nothing convincing. Is this part of a chain, as I'd assumed, or could it be an independent operation? There is some kind of non-meat franchise called "Mr. Goodburger", but this place has a drawing of a cow on one of the signs covering the windows during the renovation.

Just back from Russia - nine days in Petersburg. We did not eat in any fancy restaurants, but the Caviar Bar in the Grand Hotel Europe looks excellent if you want to go that route. There's a kind of oligarch/mafioso feel to the very fancy places that is not especially appealing. The best meals we had were in a Georgian restaurant on Petrograd island - Salkhino (Kronverksky Prospect 25; Tel: 232-7891) - and near the Mariinsky Theater at a bakery/cafe that sells nothing but pierogi/kulibiaki: Stolle (ulitsa Dekabristov 33 and a few other locations). The better-known Georgian restaurant Ket (off Nevsky) was nowhere nearly as good as Salkhino, where we ate twice. Salkhino has an English menu of sorts; at Stolle you can just point to what you want - and what they have varies from minute to minute as pies come out of the oven. Theoretically there are nine or ten savory and half a dozen sweet pies. On our first visit there were four and four available (when we were leaving we saw that the selection had changed). On our second visit (we went there twice too), only one of each was available; but again, others came out in the course of our half-hour stay. Sorry - I shouldn't assume that eGullet members don't speak Russian!

We'll be back in early August and I'll pass along anything that turns out to be interesting.

I got the same or a similar press release and, curiously, remember something of what it said. The chickens are from the Central Valley in California and are said to be very well cared for.

My experience was more akin to Jay Rayner's than to Andy Lynes's. The maitre d'hotel avidly tried to sell me unwanted items at additional cost; one dish (scallops with squid or cuttlefish ink sauce) seemed a very weak imitation of Koffmann's, which I'd eaten a day or two earlier (I was on vacation); I ordered it expressly to make the comparison, not that it's any sacrifice to eat scallops twice in the space of a few days. (It is, of course, possible that White arrived at his dish independently - any chef would find it a visually striking combination with the potential to be delicious too.) Koffmann's was lifted with a few splashes of chili puree, I recall, perhaps piment d'Espelette; the ink sauce itself was flavorful and interesting, and the scallops were SO perfectly cooked. The Hyde Park version was as monochromatic as its inky sauce, and the scallops were overcooked - not enough to be rubbery, but enough for it to be obvious that someone wasn't paying attention. The atmosphere in the room was funereal, I thought. I felt uncomfortable and even a little suspicious throughout dinner (thanks to that attempt to sell me things I didn't want). It's unfortunate that evenings like that can stick in the mind as vividly as the great ones - though had it not been for this nearly A-B tasting I'd probably have forgotten Koffmann's scallops, so in a way I have White's unsuccessful dish to thank for the memory. I had a terrific after-theater supper once at Mirabelle, though.

Has anyone been to Mechta Molokhovets in St. Petersburg? Fascinating menu, and one wonders whether they can deliver all they promise by way of old-fashioned elaborate Russian dishes. Any other suggestions for the fancier kind of Russian food in St. Petersburg? We'll be there for eight days, so I think we can spare an evening or two for that sort of dinner. Thanks.

We ate at a fish restaurant called Piccolo Molise, maybe five or six years ago. Inexpensive and good. You'll have to look it up for yourselves; I don't have any notes. The procedure there is that you let them serve you the evening's dinner - quite a few courses - and the house white.

Look in Plotkin's book.

Our (very well run) building has a policy by which restaurants whose delivery people repeatedly leave unwanted menus can no longer bring food up to apartments - after due warning; residents can order from them, but they have to go downstairs and pick up the delivery. A list of these restaurants is posted near the mailboxes. Undoubtedly, residents are less likely to order from them than from the 99 per cent of restaurants that follow the rule. There is a table in the mailroom where menus can be left (and they are nice to have), so it is only needless clutter and litter that are being combated, not the free flow of information. And, of course, a restaurant can get itself un-banned after a time by undertaking to follow the rules. A long spiel, but there are rarely menus to be seen carpeting the hallways.

I endorse Chiang Mai Kitchen. Old building (which once housed either Bleu, Blanc, Rouge or La Sorbonne); good Thai food. I agree too that Gees is nice and that Cherwell Boat House is uneven, but very pleasant on a summer's evening. In past years I've eaten three times at Petit Blanc, never really well. No one has mentioned the riverside Italian restaurant Aquavitae, at Folly Bridge. I very much enjoyed my one meal there, I think three summers ago. It is sad that there are no terrific non-Asian restaurants in Oxford. And baffling.

We shouldn't forget the Greenmarket(s) - not for beef, that's for sure, but certainly for pork (Flying Pigs Farm and Paul what's-his-name) and lamb (3-Corners Field Farm).

I'll bet you a dollar you didn't put enough salt in it. Nothing will kill the flavor of an otherwise good loaf of any bread than a lack of salt.

K43: That's a helluva gizmo, isn't it? I'd seen that on a previous search, but it is just too bulky for apartment living: I need something that can just be slid away into a tall, skinny tray-storage cabinet. From the third photo on that page, though, it looks as though it also comes in a 12 x 24 version to sit over two burners.