Shalmanese

Why not produce an italian menu with a discreet "English menu available upon request" down the bottom? The italians get to have the italian menu, the hardcore travellers can luxuriate in their translating prowess and the typical traveller is accomodated for.

I get annoyed when there are minor but important ingredients left out of the menu description. A sauce with olives in it when there are no olives on the menu description? It completely changes the balance of the dish and wasn't at all what I was expecting. I'm not allergic but it's still annoying. That being said, I'm also annoyed when something interesting or tasty is featured on the menu (bone marrow! yum!) and what's on the plate just has the tiniest piece of it. I guess I'm hard to please in that regard.

taste them, side by side if possible.

Start running promotions during the game to start getting the word out.

How would they work in a carpaccio? I'm thinking the paper thin slices might help fix the lack of marbling problem.

Packets of frozen meat and mince sink in water and raw mince, added to water sinks so I'm pretty sure your burger mix will be denser than water. Do you have a kitchen scale? Try the #10 disher, it should be the closest to what you need.

Why not make a pseudo sous-vide then if you're worried about using too much oil. Pack the tuna into a zip lock bag and add the oil + flavourings and put in 50C water. You get the same effect, much less oil.

I like making a Frisee Aux Lardon with the livers. Fry up some bacon, flour and then fry the livers in the bacon fat, fry some eggs in the fat, then make a mustardy, warm vinagrette with what remains of the fat. Toss everything together with some frisee and eat.

Chinese: Ginger, Garlic, Spring Onions

How do you bread pre-marinated foods like buttermilk marinated chicken? The flour/egg/bread mix ends up being way too thick. I usually just put flour only.

As the starter of this thread, I just wanted to reiterate some of the claims that I made:

Had dinner there a few nights ago with a friend. We shared a smoked duck salad as an entree, I had the Veal Blanquette and he had the Venison in a blackberry sauce, finished with a tarte tatin for dessert. The blanquette knocked me out of the ball park. Amazing, understated flavour. The rest of the stuff was OK, not great.

This was going to be my nomination. As for wooden spoons, plastic just doesn't have the stiffness that wood does. Plastic is great for when you want to reach to the corners of the pan but you can't beat wood for stir frying or other tossing. My wooden spoon is older than I am. Being able to take the wooden spoon with me when I moved out was the one condition I was unwilling to budge on.

But ATP consumes calories which means you need to eat more which means more carbon is consumed to bring you that food...

Won't the finger kow-tow (light tap of the (middle) finger on tabletop) be sufficient and appropriate as a gesture of gratitude? Or is that not done at the "Drum"? ← What's the finger tap thing? This is new to me and I'd like to know more. ← Fingertapping

The potato thing doesn't work.

eggs poached in red wine is a classic french dish.

Fried and topping salads. Or "French Scrambled". Mix your eggs with a few tablespoons of butter and put in a cold pan over low heat. Heat, stirring constantly for 15 or so minutes until the eggs just set up. Add in salt, pepper and more butter which stops the cooking process, then serve over some excellent toast. The primary goal here is to drive out as much moisture as possible before cooking the eggs. What you end up with is a rich, creamy, decadent dish that's positively bursting with egg flavour. It's hugely time intensive but my favourite way to enjoy good eggs. They also make a great amuse if you fill a spoon with them and top with just a dollop of truffle/caviar/mushroom/pancetta etc.

I measure for simple syrups and brine. Simple syrup I make strong, and I measure the amount of sugar by weight that goes into 1L of syrup and remember it. Then I can roughly figure out how much syrup I need to make a 10% sugar solution which is roughly what I need for sweetened beverages like lemonade. Brine I measure by first placing the brined item in a tub and then pouring in 1L amounts of water from the kettle. For every L, I add 30 grams/1 ounce of salt to make a 3% solution and then roughly equal amounts of sugar. Apart from that, I can't really think of when I've used a measuring cup/spoon.

That sounds wrong to me, seedlessness is caused by a genetic mutation. Personally, I've found seeded ones just taste more watermelonly to me although I've tried both seeded and seedless in Seattle and there was a lot of inconsistency in both types so it was hard to evaluate.

It's about time. Glass is heavy, obsolete and only still around due to an affected sense of snobbishness. Look at how long it's taking for screwtops to become accepted, another technology with similarly obvious benefits.

Where were you working when you did the smoked dessert?

I would skip Seattle and keep on going up the road to Vancouver if it were not for this one place which does authentic bad chinese food. Imagine if you were travelling through rural India and all of a sudden you stumble across an absolutely authentic shitty New Jersey diner, complete with bad coffee, surly waitresses and greasy, stale food, named something like Le Chalet du Monde (Mostly Fine French Dining). That's the surreal nature this place gives off to a Chinese person. You should definitely check it out if you're ever in the area.

You can find all the videos on the youtube channel

I'm flying down this weekend to cook dinner for a friend. He wants a fairly adventurous menu so I'm throwing a few nice surprises in there for him. I'm staying just north of Melbourne Uni and we'll probably be shopping primarily at Queen Vic markets so I'm looking for places that are near to that area. I was wondering if anybody could give me some suggestions as to where to find these ingredients in Melbourne. Kangaroo Loin that would be suitable for tartare Marrow Bones that I could roast a la Fergus Henderson Squid Ink Kim Chee Natto Cheese Curds Speck Chorizo Dark Chocolate Coveture Good Quality Uni Salmon Roe I think most of them meat, I should be able to find at the butchers at queen vic but I'm not sure as I breezed through fairly quickly last time I was there. He can buy some of the stuff ahead of time if I tell him exactly where to buy it. Thanks and I'll post additional ingredients as I think of them.