Jason Perlow

Thats normal. Its just the way cast iron is. Basically every time you finish cooking in the pan, you want to wash it in the sink in hot water, clean the grime out with a sponge, and then put that cast iron pan on your range, heat all the way up, and let the smaller particles evaporate away. Let that sucker get hot for about a half an hour or so, fires of #### hot, and that will carbonize the remainder of the small particles.

just remember we are talking about Grand Sichuan International Midtown on 50th and 9th. Its not related to the Grand Sichuan downtown.

Ah yes. The kung pao chicken at Grand Sichuan. There is nothing else like it anywhere in NY.

Kervan 2 -was- the Tenafly branch of the restaurant Leff reviewed in Cliffside Park. Soon after the WTC disaster, the restaurant was vandalized and it was sold to new owners after that. The re-opened restaurant is called Sapphire and has a Turkish-mediterranean menu. My understanding is they kept a good amount of the staff, but I have not tried it yet. They still have banners outside the restaurant, which means this happened very recently.

Tezpur chile? Interesting. (edit) apparently the method of determining the Tezpur's scoville rating is a controversy: http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/assam_chile1.html http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/assam_chile.html

Nice work steven... great accompanying picture of Fadia and family from Bennies too.

See my latest post on La Posada.

It can usually be said that great Spanish and Mexican food can not usually be found in the same place at the same time, but it seems I've found an exception. La Posada, on 368 Cedar Lane in Teaneck (201)287-0412, is co-owned by a Spanish man from Galicia and a Mexican gentleman from Mexico City, and the food is prepared by their wives. The restaurant is small but nicely decorated in earth tones, with both mexican and spanish artwork adorning the walls. We went with the intention of having Spanish food that evening. I've generally been disappointed with Spanish food served outside of Newark, but this place had 3 stars from the Bergen Record, so my interest was piqued. The menu has two sides to it, a Spanish side and a Mexican side, and there are appetizers and main courses on both sides. All of the dishes we ordered last night were on the spanish side -- for starters, we had the sauteed chorizo sausage, which was of really good quality meat, very tasty, and a fine example, but not necessarily as spicy to my liking -- I asked the owner where he gets it, and he explained to me it was from an authentic spanish butcher in Jersey City, and being Galician, he prefers the less spicy type typical of the region -- apprently in Ironbound, most butchers prepare it in the Portuguese fashion, which has more spices in it. For main dishes, we all went on a garlic binge -- I ordered the garlic shrimp, rachel had the garlic chicken, and jhlurie had the pork chops with garlic sauce. All of the dishes came with vegetables and rice, but we ordered a plate of papa fritas for the table, which were freshly made, cut in french fry style and fried in vegetable oil -- these were excellent. All of our dishes were very, very good -- however unlike most places you would find in Newark, all the dishes were plated and presented with the vegetables and rice and dish itself -- there were no clunky cast iron pans on the table, which was an elegant touch. The vegetables (carrots, potatoes and broccoli and cauliflower) were blanched and cooked just right, and were not overdone at all, which a lot of spanish places tend to do. Each plate also had a nice mound of yellow rice on it, which was quite tasty and I belieive had real saffron in it. My plate was filled with plenty of small shrimp sauteed in olive oil with a ton of garlic and a little bit of chili pepper, simple but excellent. Rachel's chicken ajillo was all breast meat, cut into peices and sauteed in a savory garlic gravy, perfectly cooked and tender. Jhlurie got two nice size pork chops, which was in a similar sauce to rachels -- also tender and perfectly cooked. At some point toward the end of the meal, we struck up a conversation with both of the owners, and I inquired about the mole poblano sauce on the menu -- which any self-respecting Mexican restaurant who goes through the trouble to make should be proud of, as its a very time intensive and very difficult sauce to make, and there are no less than thousands of combinations. The national dish of Mexico, its a combination of several kinds of dried chiles (usually Ancho, Mulato, Guajillo and Pasilla), and has other complex flavor elements in it including cocoa, anise and cinnamon -- to some it may taste kind of strange, and its definitely an acquired taste. Its normally served over chicken or pork or in tacos. In any case, we were treated to a tasting of their various sauces on their crusty bread -- their mole sauce is nothing short of one of the best examples I have ever tasted -- spicy, very savory, sweet, and yet bitter at the same time, I'm definitely looking forward to ordering this the next time I am there. We also tried their Guajillo and Adobado sauces -- the guajillo sauce, orange in color, was a little sweet but also somewhat on the spicy side -- the adobado on the other hand, which was of a similar preparation but a little thicker was VERY spicy, and any self-respecting chile-head would approve of. After trying these 3 sauces I feel confident in saying that their Mexican food is probably very good indeed, as a lot of care is going into their sauce preparation. We went on a friday night at about 9PM, and the place was mostly empty -- run, do not hesitate to go to this place if you are looking for top notch Spanish and Mexican food in Bergen County.

If the water there is a hazardous as you imply, the residents should be taking legal action Heh. There are many lawsuits on the books for that one, class action stuff with hundreds of plaintiffs. But as Fat Guy can tell you, those things take years.

My diner of choice is the Royal Cliff House in Englewood Cliffs off of Sylvan Ave/Palisade and exit 1 off the Palisade Parkway. Great sandwiches and burgers and breakfast. You can always tell if you have a good diner if they make turkey club sandwiches with fresh oven-baked turkey. If they use yucky slimy deli turkey stuff, you dont wanna eat there.

But what a thread this is - give it up, everyone, and drink from the tap. This is only salient advice if you live in New York City, as the water that gets piped in there comes from very sophisticated water purifier plants in Westchester County -- this results in some of the best tap water in the nation. However, in other parts of the country, and this includes Long Island and New Jersey, drinking the tap water is probably not a good idea as there is evidence of many kinds of hazardous chemicals in them -- in the case of L.I., much higher than normal levels of radioactive isotopes of Cobalt and Strontium, which have caused the breast cancer levels there to skyrocket. Nobody sane on Long Island drinks tap water. Most people I know that live there have bottled water delivery to their homes.

http://www.ironchefusatv.comRequires Macromedia Flash Player to be installed. The show premieres friday the 16th (tomorrow), 9PM on UPN affiliates. William Shatner hosts. God help us all. :)

Bottled water can be good, but the Evian and Pellegrino served in most restaurants are in my opinion among the worst bottled waters on the market. I vastly prefer tap to either. I take it you don't like sparkling mineral water then. Pellegrino does have a large amount of sulfites in it, but thats not a flavor that bothers me, I happen to like it.

I like the bit about the 躔 plate of pasta for Warren Beatty...

Check out this cool cuban website: http://www.icuban.com/food/drinks.html Of note is the Canchanchara, which is the cuban equivalent to the brazilian Caipirinha, the "Papa Hemingway". and the Havana Special.

I had them fax me their menu this afternoon. Sapphire "Fine Mediterranean and Turkish Cuisine" Tel (201)871-4550 / (201) 871-4568 37 River Edge Road, Tenafly NJ 07670 Notice the absence of the words "Middle Eastern" which graced the restaurant before.

Just noticed in Tenafly that Kervan 2 on River Edge Road, the middle eastern restaurant, has re-opened as Sapphire. There are grand reopening signs and banners there, so this must have happened recently. Has anyone tried it yet? Apparently they have many of the same menu items as Kervan did but they have some new stuff as well. New owners.

Carlotta: Rosie is not a reviewer -- she's a food and restaurant news writer, although she has done reviews from time to time. So it should be noted that what she says in eGullet is her own personal opinion, and is not representative of any journal she writes for. In the context of the type of things Rosie writes, I dont see this as crossing the line.

Joe's Stone Crab of course, 11 Washington Avenue Miami Beach, FL 33139. Not in South Beach proper per se but probably one of the best restaurants in Miami. Very expensive, long wait times, but the stone crabs are superb.

The "Philadephia" Brand itself may be a New York trademark as Bilmo says though. I wonder of eating bagels with cream cheese originated in NY, however, and not Philadelphia.

Lily an AMERICAN Gewurtztraminer? Yikes. I didnt know we had any. After all the alsatian ones are pretty cheap..

The nouveau is a good idea. Just remember to drink it and dont let it sit for months.

Gary's Wines (formerly Shoppers of Madison) in Madison is a serious store. Probably too far out of your way though.

Over the last few years I've been serving Gewurztraminer and off-dry Reisling during Thanksgiving. They go good with hearty food like this.

I recently opened a bottle of Port Morant Blackbeard's Reserve 24 year old, truly amazing stuff, the finish is at least an hour, lots of complex flavors and it has such strong aromatics you can smell it from someone else's brandy snifter across the room. Port Morant is a Guyanese Demerara rum, they also have an 18 year old as well (๖ per bottle) which I have never tried. Hi Time Liquors on the net sells the Port Morant Blackbeard's Reserve for 99 dollars a bottle. Which of course is nearly 3 times the cost of Ron Zacapa, but since you cant get any Ron Zacapa, well...