Jason Perlow

Remoulade, man. Maybe chipotle.

Pho, Hu Tieu, or Bun Bo Hue. Definitely. Or matzo ball soup. Or as rachel mentioned Chinese velvet chicken and corn soup also works well too. With the fried crunchy noodles.

So the weather in Ottawa over Canada Day weekend was BEAUTIFUL. High 70's, low 80's. The protesters were pretty much rained out on wednesday. Ottawa is a really fun city and most definitely has good restaurants if you know where to find them -- By far, most of the best restaurant action appears to be centered around the "Market" area, which is a touristy sort of area that is similar to South Street Seaport in NYC or Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. The two fine restaurants I went to were in this area. Vittoria Trattoria on Willam Street is a great place to get top notch pasta dishes, and if youre a lone diner the bar is a great place to be because the bartenders are friendly, really know the menu and are VERY knowledgeable about their wine and spirits. If Ivan is on duty, and you are a lone diner, you'll want him to take care of you at the bar. They've got a great selection of high-end spirits as well as lots of good Canadian, European and Californian wines on the menu (and by the glass) that they'll help you select with whatever you want to eat. I had the house Reisling -- a Canadian one, which had a beattiful apricoty bouquet, and had a racy spicyness and perfect acidity level that went great with my seafood pasta dish -- defintiely on par with any Alsatian Reisling I haver have had, although a bit high on the alcohol. But Canada most definitely deserves to be on the wine map. Vittoria has a very large and expansive menu, and they have anything you could possibly want from a trattoria-tpe restaurant, but I decided to go with the basics. For an appetizer I ordered the bruschetta, which had finely chopped fresh tomatoes on it, lots of garlic, good olive oil and was served on slices of toasted crusty french bread. Perfect. The soup was a home made minestrone, not too heavy, pastaless, with lots of fresh veggies in it and had a strong plum tomato and veggie stock flavor. My main dish, a fettucine marinara with shrimp and scallops (the little scallops) was excellent -- the shrimp was perfectly cooked, the scallops were plentiful and not at all tinny tasting like a lot of american bay scallops are. The marinara was defintiely home made and clinged to the pasta perfectly, and had a great zing to it. The pasta, which might have been fresh, was cooked perfectly al dente. My dessert was truly a happy ending -- a perfectly executed creme brulee, with a nice crisp and properly burned crust, with a sinful custard cream underneath. Its such a simple dessert, and yet so few american restaurants do it well. I had this with a warmed XO calvados -- I cant think of a better way to end a meal. My other really positive dining experience in Ottawa is also near the Market on York street -- a high-end asian/fusion sushi restaurant called KINKI. I sat at the sushi bar -- this place is a great place to go to see Ottawa's beautiful people, in particular the restaurant is popular with the dancers who work at a large classy strip club next door, who made intereresting dinner conversation. I started with a spicy tuna roll (tuna was clean tasting and delicous, spicy mayo did not overwhelm and complimented it well) and something called a Black Pearl roll, which had braised scallops in it combined with tempura flakes, avocado, and a few other things, rolled in black sesame seeds -- it was devine. I had these with a really good sweet unfiltered sake - they have about 8 or so high end sakes on their list, ranging from 8-20 CDN a glass. I think I had a 10 dollar one. For my main dish I had a curry chicken udon noodle bowl -- very spicy, with strong flavors of lemongrass and had lots of peices of white meat chicken in it. Defintiely hit the spot. Ottawa is also blessed with lots of little eateries, most of which unfortuantely I couldnt go to during the day. Lebanese food is definitely abundant in the city, and if you want a good quick and cheap lunch, I'd definitely go with one of the many local shwarma/donair places you'll find. I had never had a smoked meat sandwich before, but if you are going to have one, you'll want to try one of the two Dunn's Smoked Meat locations or Biggs (where I had mine). Biggs is on Rideau street right across from the main LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the only place you can buy liquor and wines, as the industry is state run) so if you are looking to bring back some good icewine and canadian whiskey, go to Biggs for their smoked meat (which is a massively huge sandwich and comes in two sizes, I had the small one) and then hit the main LCBO across the street afterwards. A smoked meat is like a NY-style deli corned beef sandwich, but the spice mixture is a little different. I certainly am biased towards the NY style one but I wasnt disappointed in the Canadian version.

chopjwu: For starters, the NYT New Jersey food section doesnt rate by "stars". It rates by fair, good, very good, outstanding. I wouldn't condemn a food writer for not having any formal food background. The main writer of that section and one of its best reviewers, David Corcoran, is normally the editor of the NYT Science section and is serious an eater or reviwer as anyone else. Steven Shaw, who just won a James Beard award, and is one of the principals of this site, also writes for the NYT NJ food section, and is a former attorney. To say that someone has no right to write about food just because they have no formal training or experience in the food industry is silly. I'l forward this to David, and see if the writer of the peice in question wants to reply to your inquiry.

Well, at Craft, I dont think they do anything to them except saute them in butter and add fleur de sel. They are so rare, and their flavor so profound, that I think futzing with them too much is a bad idea.

I'm thinking shelled seafood, butter, heavy cream, morels, some herbs, salt and pepper, ladled over thickly sliced toasted brioche. Or over fresh pasta. Maybe something green to go with it so your cardiologist doesnt freak.

Buy a shitload of Normandy butter. Invite me over to dinner. And drag Seeber over there while you are at it. I have several pounds of alaskan king crab legs to contribute.

The menu is more limited than other Vietnamese places in Jersey that I have been at, but Katie is a perfectionist and buys only the best produce and she really puts her heart into what she cooks. So what she does cook she cooks REALLY well. She is more expensive than your typical Pho house, but her style of cooking is very inventive, not at all traditional Vietnamese, and well worth it. Englewood is an expensive neighborhood in terms of rents, its not like Jersey City. I'll also note if you run out of stuff on the menu, she is always more than happy to craft something up exactly to your taste -- she enjoys inventing new dishes for people and frequently comes up with some very impressive stuff.

Saigon Republic threads on eGullet (click)

For crying out loud man, SAIGON REPUBLIC in Englewood. You'll be lucky to get into the place after July 7. The Times is writing it up. Look back a few weeks in the Jersey board or do a search.

Well, we finally got to eat dinner at the TCD this evening. I ordered chicken noodle soup, the meatloaf dinner and a side salad greek style. Rachel got a mesclun salad with grilled shrimp on it and the yankee bean soup. Although I specifically asked for the regular meatloaf and not the turkey meatloaf, out came a plate with very white slices of meatloaf which appeared to have a lot of herbs in it. I sent it back, and they brought me back the same thing, insisting that it was the regular meatloaf. I ate it, it had no beefy taste whatsoever, perhaps it was heavy on pork, or had a lot of fillers as well. Either way, rachel didn't like the taste of it either. However the mashed potatoes that came with it were very good, and the vegetables (a mixture of zucchini/yellow squash, carrots and broccoli) were properly steamed and were not overcooked. My chicken noodle soup had a very watery broth and had no peices of chicken in it with mushy noodles. Not good. Needed a ton of black pepper. My salad, which I expected to be a small greek salad, was a regular green salad on a plate with some raddichio tossed with some feta cheese. No olives, no dolmades. No red onions. I expected it to cost $2.50 like the regular side salads (maybe 75 cents or a buck more for the greek treatment?) but in fact it was r $5.75. This seemed like a huge premium for little bit of feta cheese and a vinagrette, but they happily took the whole thing off the bill. Rachel had to ask for salad dressing as her salad had virtually no salad dressing on it, and felt the grilled shrimp on it did not taste fresh. Her yankee bean soup according to her description was very tomato-ey and tasted like pasta fagiole with no pasta. To top it off, the service was pretty spotty and rachel felt that it might have even been the server's first night. I'll give this place the benefit of the doubt, perhaps we'll go back in a few months after they get their service issues ironed out and get burgers or breakfast or triple decker sandwiches there, as it seemed the other diners were enjoying those things and they actually looked pretty good. But to call yourself a good diner and screw up a meatloaf and serve watery mushy chicken noodle soup with no chicken in it? I dunno.

I always liked KLM coach service when I flew to europe during my summers in high school. Food was much better than average, the seats were nice, and they gave you unlimited free alcohol. I remember asking the waitress on one flight to Holland to bring me a bottle Heineken every 10 minutes until I passed out.

Amazing shugga. Evey time we try to go back to this joint for dinner it is PACKED, like its freakin Balthazar. But if its still got kinks, we'll probably wait a month or so while the novelty wears off.

f@#%^&g lovely.

edmuth: See Rachel's post on the DC/Delmarva forum re Cafe Atlantico on the food. Its awesome. You'll have a great time. I -highly- recommend their beef kebab appetizer if you like spicy food. http://forums.egullet.org/ibf/index.php?s=...=cafe+atlantico All the rums he had were worth trying, I suspect it as it was several months ago he may have slightly different ones. The Bally, the Flor de Cana 7, the Pyrat, the Cruzan Estate Single Barrel are all EXCELLENT rums.

Leaving on Wednesday. I'm still expecting Fat Guy to draft me a list of places to go.

they are lacking in alsatian and germanic selections This was my immediate observation as well. Actually their Alsatian section is somewhat better than their German. Their Port section is pretty lousy. Their prices are good though, especially on liquors. They had Belvedere Chopin vodka (over $30 a bottle anywhere else) for $25.

On June 27th, eGullet is thrilled to host Lidia Bastianich, who will be answering questions that day. Lidia is widely regarded as the First Lady of Italian cuisine and restaurants in the United States and was the winner of the 2002 Outstanding Chef Award, James Beard Foundation. She is the star of Public Television's Lidia's Italian American Kitchen and Lidia's Italian Table and author of two companion cookbooks of the same name as well as La Cucina di Lidia. In addition to her television shows, Lidia was also one of the five top television chefs to be featured on a Julia Child hosted millennium cooking special, An American Feast, which aired in December 2000. Born in Pola, Istria, she came to New York in 1958, opened her first restaurant in 1972 and is now co-owner of Felidia, Becco and Esca in New York City and Lidia's in Kansas City and Pittsburgh. In addition, Lidia is the author of the monthly column "Lidia's Italian Table" distributed by Universal Press Syndicate. Her sauces, "Lidia's Flavors of Italy" can be found in stores nationwide as well as an exclusive line of sauces with Williams-Sonoma (stores only, not online). Together with her daughter, Tanya, she runs specialized food, wine and cultural tours to Italy. Visit Lidia's website, http://www.lidiasitaly.com for more information on this Renaissance woman. We are very glad that Lidia has decided to participate in this eGullet Q&A. Due to her time constraints, Lidia has indicated that she will only answer 25 questions. So, please get your question in early! Lidia will also pick a winner to receive a copy of one of her books.

eGullet can handle Japanese just fine. The character sets have to be installed on your browser, though.

What was it about the service? I dont think we've had a bad experience there. But yes, the food is fantastic.

Thanks Tony for such a wonderful, thorough and personally revealing Q&A session! Congratulations to Jinmyo and Pariah Kerry each for winning copies of A Cook's Tour! Please contact RPerlow with your shipping address!

Dodge: I'm not sure what kind of criterion they gave for it being Best Of, but certainly, the pasta dishes we had were no better than you would get at an average neighborhood pizzeria. The reason why I chose spaghetti bolognese and a side of meatballs (and Rachel's chicken parm) is that they are benchmark dishes for an Italian-american restaurant. If you can't do those well, you likely can't do anything well. I felt the meatballs were a bit too stiff (I think meatballs should be soft when you cut into them), the sauce was watery and not particularly flavorful, and the sphagetti was NOT al dente. The one thing they did seem to do well was the broccoli aoli with garlic -- thankfully, cooked just right and had just enough oil and garlic was plentiful. I was kind of hoping for pasta fagiole that evening but they only had chicken soup and lentil soup -- I almost ordered the chicken marsala, but I didnt think that was a good enough test. We didnt try any of the desserts, but if they are baked on premises as Kelly says, maybe we should have.

Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (heart pounding)

Hey Lin! Thanks for posting your mom's recipe! Are there any other spices you are supposed to use in either the batter or the filling? I remember the five-spice taste when I came over in those lotus root fritters.... Is that optional?

RUM DRINKS!