Kevin72

The Mansion or Stephen Pyles's respective bars are pretty impressive and worth a visit.

Ounce Prime Steakhouse closed Sunday. But according to the article there may be a plan afoot to try another location in Frisco or Allen.

Announcement Here That's too bad. But having lived in Atlanta myself, I can see why he'd want to get back there. I admired how he threw himself into the job and made it a point of revisiting/re-reviewing the top Dining spots in Dallas. He definitely made an impression and regalvanized the DMN restaurant and food team and was an active part on their Eats Blog.

Yeah, um. What Tupac said.

Tagliatelle with Ragu Bolognese, or Tagliatelle al' Ragu for short. La Fiorentina: the enormous Tuscan porterhouse, grilled rare and hit with salt and olive oil. Not strictly Italian per se, but a good roasted chicken smothered with rosemary.

I'll join the "good concept, execution needs work" crowd on this one. I think Ted Allen was pretty impressive in his responses. Buford was a little too intellectual about it and I get the impression that the other two, whoever they were, were lost. Probably needs to be half an hour, better to leave people wanting more than have them get bored around the 40 minute mark like I did.

OK, the Galicia ep got a little redundant for an hour: team goes someplace to eat, gathers around, goes on and on about how good it is with precious little closeups on the food itself. The winery visit was weird: they play up alborino, then go to one of their wineries, just to eat again, and then nothing on the wine itself. I like it more when they meet a chef and watch him prep a traditional item, instead of just eating in a restaurant for 15 minutes.

That's a really interesting observation you make about your market shock moving over there and how it juxtaposed with Marcella's. As for her state of American Italian cooking today vs. yesterday . . . I may need to relisten because she seemed to be much more optimistic about where things are today vs. 30 years ago. But I think it goes back to the "what you leave out is as important as what you put in" mentality. I'm conjecturing here, but based on what I've read from her and other native Italians, Americans fuss around too much when we're making Italian dishes. We dump too many herbs in, either too much of one or too many different kinds. For example: the couple times I've been to Italy and had tomato sauce on something, it really was just a puree of bottled or canned, top-quality tomatoes cooked very briefly in olive oil. That's it. No celery, carrot, garlic, onion, basil, oregano . . . etc. (all of which, ahem, are in my "simple" tomato sauce ). MAYBE a bit of onion or garlic is simmered in the oil at the beginning, but if you notice, Marcella usually has you swish it around in the oil and then discard it once it has scented the oil. If a tomato sauce comes with an herb, then it's called "tomato sauce with . . . " which is why and how Marcella gets so many variations of tomato sauce in her books. So, I suspect that Marcella, like other native Italians, may be put off by all the bells and whistles we put in our Italian food and can't just leave well enough alone. But I still think it's miles better than the tomato sauce and burnt garlic scene of the seventies.

I like the idea too. Harkens back to when FTV first started, when they had a restaurant talkshow on in primetime where critics would discuss hot trends and have notable chefs on, etc.

It's way too short of course. It's a promo for her memoir out soon, so it's more focused on her life and how she came to cooking. She makes some sharp and understandable observations about where Italian cooking is in America right now.

The Gulf of Taranto, the instep of the heel, has a very rich oyster bed. Consequently there's many Pugliese recipes for oysters. But, in my opinion, they're treated similar to mussels in most regards: broiled or grilled on the halfshell with a breadcrumb and pecorino topping. On the opposite end of the eastern side of Italy, up in Venice, there's a couple of recipes from the Da Fiore cookbook. One is very similar to the preceding recipe: breadcrumbs and parmigiano this time, then broiled. They also have a tasty papardelle recipe that involves shelled oysters, the liquors(sp?), saffron, speck, and leeks. But probably the most Italian way with impeccably fresh oysters isn't too far off from what you're already familiar with: shelled and eaten raw, with a jot of fresh lemon juice or olive oil and that's it.

In a cooking geekgasm for me, Marcella Hazan was on Lynne Rosetto Kasper's Splendid Table radio show October 4th. Could've taken the whole episode, as far as I'm concerned. Link to ep.

So, is there more to the menu or is that it? Either way, that bacon tart . . . . *slobber*

I gotta say, whatever she makes, I get a craving for afterwards. She seems to show a good mix of flavors; things go together very nicely on the show. Our little girl appears to like the grunting; she keeps imitating her whenever she heard her yesterday.

Very jealous of you getting to preview Textile. I've been watching this one with interest; never ate at Aries but I have a definite soft spot for Gravitas and what Tycer's trying to bring and do to the Houston food scene. And let me add to the requests that you go ahead and indulge in that minutiae of what you ordered; it'll be a long time I fear before I can even try this place.

I thought the new additions in the judges' panel worked well and hope to see them in future eps. They explained their reasoning and perspectives quite well. **Spoiler** But, urgh, the final judgment. Tie?! Just seemed too pat and neat. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention but it seemed like the challenger really got pummelled for his first few dishes; one of the judges even said that like his fourth or fifth dish was the first really good item prepared. Symon did get a couple of tags on his own food but seemed to have done better by far based on just the comments he got. Plus I hate that they leave ties at that and don't go into overtime ala ICJ; those were some of the best eps.

Beautiful shot. Those fish on top are just perfect.

From what I've seen and read, I think that back in the day you'd be right but more recently Italians are trending to just a pasta for the main. When my wife and I last went to Italy in most restaurants we ate at we were the only ones doing the full sweep (antipasti, pasta, secondo, contorno, dolci) while the locals were more inclined to do pasta preceded by the antipasto or with a simple piece of fruit for dessert at the end. Maybe it's still more traditional in home cooking or weekend cooking to do a full spread. Italians don't seem have the same hangups we do about doubling up on starches and carbs in one meal, so bread's fine. But from what I've read (actually, I think it was Marcella herself!), they save it for the meat course to mop up anything left on the plate.

Since it's been way too long since I've gotten to see Mario geeking out over food on TV, I didn't think it was too bad. The two girls are nice eye candy. Haven't been too keen on Bittman's persona before so he's the only odd one out as far as I'm concerned. But bear in mind this is from someone who found a way to make Mario Eats Italy tolerable also.

Great idea. Marcella was indispensable to me in learning the ropes on Italian cooking. I basically cooked out of her first cookbook for an entire year. This is where having an "older" cookbook comes in handy--Marcella originally started writing at a time when most people thought of Italian food as checkered tablecloths and red sauce. She had to cook with what was readily available and thus her recipes are, as you pointed out, very accessible.

Just a reminder to start checking your local programming to see if it premieres soon. Looks like the big rollout date is 9/27 for us as well.

Another outstanding review, UE. I went here for my birthday dinner in early June. We decided against the stratospheric Chef's Tasting and Chef's Table options (there's four dinner options: bar, dining room, Chef's Tasting, and Chef's Table) and went for just the dining room experience. Even though it was only mid June the temps had already been in the upper 90s for the past couple months and I felt that the menu hadn't adjusted to the season yet: lots of braises and rich menu items. Good to see they shifted focus later in the season though. I was a little frustrated that it seemed like the true focus of chef was more on the Tasting and Table options and that it almost seemed like the regular menu items were less tended to. Despite the seasonal differences, I still couldn't help but order the duck confit ravioli and a foie gras starter. The foie was excellent; the duck dish was fine but not terribly noteworthy. I left feeling a little let down that we didn't try the chef's tasting, but also a little frustrated that apparently you have to really plunk down to get that sort of great dining experience. But the service we had that night was exemplary, maybe the best I've ever had. They had a birthday card personalized to me waiting at the table and our waiter at one point whisked our enjoyable wine away to steam off the label and give it to us to remember. I admire what Tesar's doing and his efforts to revitalize the operation, and with service that good I'd like another try at it too.

It's closing in the next week or so.

I could've sworn that this season he was going to do a show about and in San Francisco. Did I miss it? Am I wrong?

Tom Spicer at FM 1410 next to Jimmy's has been carrying some since the start of summer as well. He used to have a big drum of it and you brought your own container to fill but the past few times it's been individual bottles for $17. I like it; one of the big disadvantages of shelling out money for premium oil from Italy is that it would inevitably be a year or more older and olive oil is best consumed within a year.