Jason Perlow

So you consider it to bee too authentically chinese?

By New York standards I think Brandy Ho's is a particularly good Hunan restaurant. Whats up with you guys? Sure, it mostly caters to white people, but that doesnt necessarily make it bad. Mind you, I've had a awful lot of Chinese food in SF (although, for the most part Cantonese) and in NY.

The extra orders of rice are perfect for making a nice lunch of fried rice with whatever extra veggies and peices of meat lying around. Toss in some thai fish sauce, some soy, some chiles, and you got one heck of a meal.

NO no no. KASHA, Kasha, kasha. Egg noodles? Feh. only for the leftover kasha, to make kasha varnishkes. He did say YANKEE pot roast. Not YIDDISHER pot roast. Now as to the varnishkes... what size varniskes do you use, and what grain of kasha do you prefer...

The babies dont have much of a heart for harvesting, so I would probably whack the suckers in half, salt and pepper, pour a ton of olive oil on em, and throw em in the broiler. Instant appetizers. Peel the leaves off one by one and pull the meat off with your teeth. http://www.foodtv.com/foodtv/recipe/0,6255...5,22666,00.html

More and more, I find that the only acceptable pairing to the coffee we get out of the machine at work is the Drakes Coffee Cake. Not Sunny Doodles, not Devil Dogs, but Coffee Cake. And yet I feel compelled to try and find a superior, less artifically produced specimen, but I cant seem to find anything which approaches the Drake for sheer portability, and its perfect crumb-to-cake ratio. Sometimes you find coffee cakes that are way too crumb heavy, or the cake part is too dry. I find that the Drakes is very well designed in this way. The Entenmann's one is not bad, but they dont sell them in self-enclosed wrapped packages, you have to buy a whole cake, which is inconvenient.

$36.99 in TULSA? For Appleton 21? Shit man, its $50-$60 dollars a bottle BEST PRICE in Jamaica. Hell the 12 year old Extra (the one above the VX that Ed mentioned) almost goes for that much in most places. Whats the name of that liquor store? Maybe I can get them to ship me a few.

Also, are we including hot dog variants in here, including the knockwurst or the kielbasa? Cause texturally they are different from a Frankfurter.

Thickness is the only determining factor here. Length really doesnt enter into it. This of course, only applies to hot dogs.

Well, truffles are technically fungus, not a mushroom. Truffles grow underground. Mushrooms are type of fungus and grow on top of dead items like logs and soil with lots of decomposing twigs, leaves, etc. The fungi that produce truffles are obligate symbionts (required partnership) of certain trees. The species are native to Europe. In Italy and France landowners buy inoculated seedlings, oak and Corylus (hazelnut) from nurseries. See http://www.epicurean.com/articles/ie6.html Mushrooms make you sick? Thats an interesting allergy.

from Suzanne's notes: Sagrantino di Montefalco 1998, Cantina Terre De’Trinci

Them thar's fightin' words. No, these are fighting words: Fried oysters kick the ass of fried clams any day. They had fried oysters at Gage and Tollner, but we decided to order them pan seared in the cream sauce instead. I bet they are good there fried, though.

You could use the wonton skins to make lamb kreplach. Or better yet, deep fried lamb wontons. Just put some scallions into the mix with a little soy sauce, suff em in the skins, fry.. mmm.

'Stock, the talented old chef reduced to an assistant because he's a drunk--played by Ian McNeice (aka Baron Karkonnen in the Dune mini-series on the Sci-Fi channel I really thouight McNeice did a phenomenal job at playing Harkonnen -- in my opinion he made watching that Dune adaptation worth it, and played it very close to the book. I didnt much care for the one in the David Lynch/De Laurentis production.

Legal Seafood in the Palisades Center Mall off 287 and in the Garden State Plaza does really good fried Ipswitches. Not a shack, but not rediculously expensive either.

Jason, were the clams really fried, or were they the broiled rendition? Were they crisp outside, or tender? They were really fried, and crisp outside and nice and tender inside. I agree about the prissiness, but damn they were good.

I must say, it was a much nicer dining experience than I thought it would be -- I expected the cuisine to be tired, whereas it turned out to be a fine example of old-fashioned "grand hotel" or cruise ship type of food. There's nothing inventive at this place, but thats OK -- its not what you come here for. Here's my short synopsis, as I didnt take heavy notes like Susanne did. Here is the dinner menu, in PDF format (you need the Adobe Acrobat reader to view it, from adobe's web site at www.adobe.com) http://www.gageandtollner.com/MenuDinner.pdf We started off with Calamari -- lightly fried and cooked to perfection, with a spicy marinara dipping sauce. It turned out we got them by mistake, but the restaurant gave them to us on the house -- they were delicious nonetheless. We followed up with the fried belly clams, which were served on the half shell on top of a light cream sauce with a brunoise of mierpoix. These were excellent as well, and they did not need the tartar sauce on the side which accompanied them. We also shared a main-dish sized portion of pan-seared oysters in a sherry cream sauce -- this was excellent, but extremely rich, and having just one oyster was more than enough. I would find it difficult to eat a whole plate of these. Rachel and I both had Ceasar salads -- while not prepared at table, which was a slight disappointment, these were obviously freshly prepared in the kitchen and the dressing had a very strong anchovy flavor, which I actually like. A fine example. For main dishes, I had the signature dish, the Crab Virginia, while Rachel had the Veal Oscar special. I will note that these two dishes had similar preparations, using a light cream sauce with spinach as a base. The Crab Virginia is essentially a huge mound of lump crab, with a breadcrumb crust on the top, served on top of a layer of scalloped potatoes and spinach with a light cream sauce. This was probably one of the best lump crabmeat dishes I ever had, it was cooked perfectly, and quality of the crab was excellent. I ordered a side of the Creamed Spinach for the table, which was probably overkill considering how much cream we've already had, but it was a excellent example, although it was probably more cream than spinach. I prefer Maloney and Porcelli's version, which is more spinach heavy, but this was nothing to scoff at. I finished up with a slice of their home made pecan pie, served warm with vanilla ice cream, which had a perfect nut to filling ratio (it was nut heavy) and was very caramely-tasting. It was more like a pecan tart as it was flatter than your typical pecan pie (which usually have a lot of glop). They have a stunningly good wine list and a very knowledgeable and personable Maitre'd, Nicola, who helped us match appropriate wines to our selections and made very pleasant conversation with us about food and wine -- he knew right away we were serious. We had a very nice, very acidic NY finger lakes Johanisberg Reisling, as well as a Italian "Sangantino" from Umbria which is a Sangiovese-offshoot of medium body and tannin, which had very earthy, olivy undertones similar to a Cabernet Franc although not as in your face. Both of these went very well with the food and were quite reasonably priced. All and I would say we had an excellent meal, but it was very rich and not the kind of place I would go to all the time, you might want to try finding out in advance which dishes use heavy butter and cream, so you can match accordingly. The current managemnt obviously knows what its doing and they know how to please -- but stick to the traditional dishes. SobaAddict tried one of their non-classical entrees which was their attempt at an Asian-flavored dish, and it was a huge disappointment. I will also note Gage and Tollner, which is the second oldest operating restaurant in NYC (While not as old as Fraunce's Tavern which opened in 1719, it predates Luger by 8 years, opening in 1879, Luger in 1887) is the only restaurant that still has operational gas lamps, which they light in an impressive ceremony at exactly 7pm every day. Definitely something worth coming early for. Gage and Tollner 372 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 875-5181

Don't they list this as a crime against humanity in some countries?

Ciao Bella is pretty good, at least the one we have here in Tenafly. Provided any kind of ice cream is properly temperature controlled and doesnt form ice crystals, its going to be good. I don't care how supergourmet of origin the product is, if they dont properly monitor the storage equipment its going to be yucky. I've been to Cones, but no comparison to Bertolotti's of Cliffside Park in its day (which hasn't had a store in almost 2 years, but still commercially produces some damn good stuff for restaurants and high end supermarkets). See http://www.bertolottidesserts.com I also wonder why Arthur Avenue doesnt have a kickass gelato place. Enzo's is OK, and Arthur Avenue Cafe doesnt serve gelato to my knowledge.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/dining/11WINE.html registration required...

Thats pertty interesting that you say that. I had a heated argument on Chowhound a few years ago with many San Franciscans who claim Chinese food superiority in every way to New York. Of course, I told them they were full of shit, but they didn't want to hear it. :)

The oils are necessary in order to convey the heat of the chiles in Hunan and Sichuan cuisine. I like Brandy Ho's because its so unlike any other chinese restaurant in SF in terms of the types of dishes they offer. There are so few Hunan and Sichuan places in the bay area, with all of the Cantonese influence. But I'll give Harry's a whirl next time, for sure.

Youve had to have gone on a bad day. I've been there like 5 times and it was great every time. Their fried dumplings in the spicy chili oil are really quite phenomenal. Grease? What the hell is wrong with grease?

I would avoid Brandy Ho's (Sorry Jason). Surely you jest. You have a better suggestion for Hunan style food anywhere else in San Francisco?

Tadich Grill for that real San Francisco experience. And if you are up for SERIOUS Chinese, Brandy Ho's. Also I am partial to Aliottos on the wharf for basic seafood stuff, their cioppino is really good and have pretty much first shot at the best dungeness.