Jason Perlow

Whats the general consensus about using Charles Shaw as a cooking wine?

The last time TAB was reformulated was in 1984, when it became a Saccharin/Aspartame sweetner blend. So its been 20 years, and thus its about time for them to do it. TAB can still be purchased today although its up to the local bottler to make it, so its hard to find -- I think a renewed push with a new Splenda formulation would make it very popular today, provided they did it with retro-marketing.

Actually Diet Coke with Lime is pretty decent. But Diet Pepsi Twist is a better product. I'm hoping Pepsi comes out with a Lime flavored Cola soon.

By the way I met the owner of Dinosaur at the BABBP, he's working on starting a place in NYC. No exact timeframe yet.

King Yum in Fresh Meadows, Queens. Although the ones at the Char Siu/Duck shop in the East Buffet complex in Flushing are really good as well.

BTW, now that Coke has fucked up with C2 and its probably going to be a immense failure, I think there is only one way for them to salvage the diet soda mess -- NOSTALGIA. How can they do this? I think they should reformulate TAB. And bring it back in the original groovy 1963 glass bottle design, with maybe a screwcap as a minor improvement. And they should use the original Groovy Can Art too. But it should be a new generation TAB, one sweetened with 100 percent Splenda. See, the way i figure it, if it had a "Coke" name to it, people expect it to taste like Coke -- which you cannot achieve with 100 percent Splenda. It will taste like Diet Rite. But if they call it TAB, nobody will say anything and people will have lower expectations -- it will have zero calories, it wont taste horrendous, and it will be a new product. Plus, you'll have this whole generation of baby boomers and people in their 40's who will remember it, and the 30-somethings who remember their parents drinking it and their memories of growing up and watching Love Boat, Charlie's Angels and Starsky and Hutch and all the TAB commercials. And you could do this really cool ad campaign with like retro-70's disco stuff and 1970's tv actors in it, and people will love it.

Yeah, but you are over sensitive to it. You hate all diet soda. The important thing is this product tastes a LOT more like real Pepsi than C2 does Coke Classic.

Just tried my first Pepsi Edge. I bought it at the Englewood NJ Shop Rite, which looks like they just started stocking them in the last day or so. One word: Awesome. Provided Pepsi continues to make it, I'm never buying regular Pepsi ever again. As a product I think its even more groundbreaking than Diet Pepsi Twist, which I thought was an excellent product in and of itself. I'd love to see a Pepsi Edge Twist or a Pesi Edge Vanilla. Tasted warm, it has a very slight Diet Pepsi aftertaste -- Tasted on ice, it has almost no diet soda taste whatsoever. Rachel, who has a serious dislike for diet soda and would rather drink no soda at all said "Its definitely better than Coke C2"

Here is a page with pics of Molteni Stuff: http://www.hotellerie-equipement.com/fr/molteni.html Apparently these are what Ducasse uses. Per Se, Daniel and WD-50 has Bonnet stoves, but I cant find a web site for it. Manressa restaurant in San Francisco apparently has one of the only 5 in California, and its made of Titanium. Gordon Ramsay in the UK has a Bonnet and paid £130,000 for it. Here is a quote from Daniel about his Bonnet excerpted from an article at the Institute of Culinary Education web site: It looks less cheesy than the Diva or La Cornue stuff. Still, even with a Titanium steel frame, the French aren't exactly what you would call geniuses in industrial design. Unless you're Mssr. Eiffel. Now I bet that dude could make a stove.

Yeah, but do they all have to have the same Louis-XIV inspired garish ornamental look to them? Can't they make something that looks modern and streamlined? And are they all engineered like French peices of shit like the Diva?

That looks like either a Diva de Provence or a La Cornue. For a while, Craft had Diva de Provence ranges, but they didn't hold up to daily wear and tear in such a busy kitchen. According to Marco Canora and Tom Colicchio, they had to be repaired constantly.

What an exquisite dessert montage of photographs, Bond Girl! I am in awe of the entire array of delectable desserts! also in sugar shock! Thank you for this pictorial! Is the final photo of you? Bond Girl is actually a lot hotter than Bai Ling.

Bond Girl's post updated with images.

In reviewing their site, Its interesting that Pritchards uses the smaller, 15 gallon charred new oak barrels -- that adds a ton of money to the cost of production and its hard to say whether or not it actually is a better approach than to using used oak barrels. New Orleans Rum, which also uses Louisiana Molasses (also small production but is not a pot still rum), uses oak casks that used to hold bourbon -- which imparts an interesting flavor to their rum. Edit: Pritchards indicates that it uses "premium, Grade A Fancy molasses from the plantations of Louisiana" and not "black strap molasses, the bitter residue from the processing of granulated sugar". New Orleans uses Louisiana Blackstrap Molasses so I am not sure how that is different from regular Blackstrap Molasses.

I'm really looking forward to this place. After I received the proper education on what cut of brisket to ask for (flat -- I don't like the deckle) and sampling some of their burnt ends, I've become a Paul Kirk R.U.B. convert.

I hear you. I had leftover Ed Mitchell's for lunch yesterday and we had a rack of Mike Mills baby back ribs for dinner last night, accompanied by Tater Tots and Memphis Championship BBQ baked beans. And tonight I'm thinking about more meat as well.

Does Afterwords, the restaurant in Kramerbooks, do take out? Their lunch menu doesn't look bad: http://www.kramers.com/www/lunch.htm

This is going on ancient standards, but I'm gonna say Zorba's, for Greek. EDIT: You've been to Zorba's. Sorry.

A few new developments. Saigon Republic has decided to change its name, in order to avoid litigation with Republic Restaurant in NYC. The name has not been decided upon yet, we'll let you know when that happens. In more pleasant news, the name of the Fort Lee restaurant has been decided upon: The star-shaped design in the Mo' Pho logo is the Star Anise, the essential spice in Pho broth. Also here is a picture of a new fish special we had at Saigon Republic today, prepared by Chef Benang, who is currently working the Lunch shift at SR but will be the full time chef at Mo'Pho when it opens. Benang was trained by K.T.'s mom, so he really knows how to cook in the family style. Mo'Pho's menu will be like Saigon Republic's, but more centered on the pho soups and summer rolls and will be overall simplified. The current projected opening date will be either the end of this month or mid July.

From Lara over at Charbay:

Lobel's of NYC takes pride on calling their Wagyu just plain Australian Wagyu.

There will also be some new news on the Chef de Cuisine shortly. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised -- and a fine example of poetic justice, if I may add.

AWESOME! Now I have a medical reason to buy those Cinnabons when I head out to the mall!

What it sounds like to me, is that Bruni really wanted to give it 3 stars so that it would rival Nobu, and for the most part it has 3 star food and ambiance, sometimes reaching for 4, but the service issues are so screwy and that it had enough bad dishes to warrant the 2 star rating. So it sounds like it a really good (albeit expensive) restaurant, but one must tread carefully, like a Ninja entering the warlords' castle filled with Samurai. Hopefully they will sort out some of their issues, prune the menu down to just the good stuff and a revisit will give them the 3 stars they are striving for.

I for one, am a fan of the kasha knish. In particular, I really like the ones that are a mix of kasha and potato. Most kasha knishes I find these days are dry, because they use only kasha. I've had good 100 percent kasha knishes mind you, but I find that the kasha/potato mix (with the kasha cooked in chicken broth and chicken fat mixed into the mixture) with sauteed onions in it is really the best type there is. The Carnegie in NYC and Yonah Shimmel I think makes the best examples of this type.