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Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but from the information on the Splenda web site it appears that Splenda in packets and granular Splenda in boxes have identical carbohydrate content per equivalent sweetening power; that is, the granular stuff has no additional filler, but is simply the stuff in packets fluffed up (and perhaps differently textured). Therefore, there's only a minimal advantage carb-wise in using polydextrose plus packet Splenda instead of granular Splenda, since polydextrose contributes relatively little sweetening power. It's the liquid Splenda that's the low-carb key.

The very icicle of Damocles.

So is Splenda Granular (not Splenda Sugar Blend for Baking) a mixture of Splenda powder and polydextrose? If not, then why not?

Piss 'n' Vinegar, a Bar

With Dr. Atkins’s dispensation (and how could he refuse?), I snacked this past week at both Dinosaur and Pearson’s. Those biker guys could teach many an established NY restaurateur about opening and operating a business: Dino felt like it had been up and running for years. In fact, the rightness of the place itself, the service, and the side dishes led me to believe that the ribs were exactly as management intended them to be, which to me was overly tender—just this side of falling-off-the-bone, peeling off in layers rather than chunks—and over-rubbed with black pepper to the point of obscuring any smokiness. Prices seemed upstate, including $2.00 for excellent unlimited iced tea and $1.50 for pretty decent coffee. The ribs at Pearson’s, however, were the best I can recall having eaten in the Metro area—thick and meaty, moist and tender (but not too tender, with just the right amount of toothsome “snap”), brown without and smoke-pink within. Served unsauced, they had an austere purity, tasting of nothing but pork and smoke. Given previous Pearson’s experiences, these ribs may have been anomalous, but their quality may also have been a fortuitous benefit of competition; the restaurant was nearly empty during the peak dinner hour. Full disclosure: In general, I prefer the Pearson’s KC cut to the St. Louis served at Dino; I enjoy gnawing on the cartilage and the extra bits of moist, fatty meat.

Will someone dare to rank and compare the pork ribs at Blue Smoke, Dinosaur, Fink's, Pearson's, Stickey's, and Virgil's? [Aside to Jason: Doesn't BS serve both KC and StL cuts?]

Our Grill. Your Thrill. Cheese Don't Kill. (No Matter What You Been Told.) Hey, it's in Jersey, right?

Eisenberg's egg salad? Isn't that supposed to be tuna salad? Hellmann's® is Hellmann's®, so maybe it's both. Continuing Holly's original theme, the New York Burger Co. received a great deal of eG attention when it opened, though a number of us turned out not care for it all that much. NYBC is, however, but a short walk from the Shake Shack and sufficiently different in concept to make the comparison worthwhile. Just be sure to order a double to balance out the bun and to emphasize that the meat not be overcooked. Edit: Typo corrected.

Exactly, but the Double Shack Burger, medium rare, is a perfect thing of its kind.

Packing material, when the foam peanuts run out?

Call those nice folks at the Guinness Book of World Records. A few weeks ago, I sent a Peter Luger steak back to the kitchen—not once, but twice. A childhood friend returning to New York for a week’s escape from exile in Texas wanted to visit Luger’s for old time’s sake; not having been for about a year, I readily agreed. We ordered a portion of lamb chops as a shared appetizer, and then the ritual tomatoes and onions, bacon, steak for two, German potatoes, and creamed spinach. The salad and bacon came out first. We ate them happily enough, out of order, though tomatoes were very clearly already out of season in Brooklyn. The waiter then left an inverted dessert saucer on the table, which we took to signal the arrival of the lamb chops, their platter tipped to pool the savory juices (and Worcestershire sauce?). What arrived instead, however, was a beautiful porterhouse and our vegetables, all of which we rejected pending delivery of the missing appetizer. In retrospect, this may have been a mistake. After a wait, we got the chops and then shortly another steak, visibly smaller than the first, and its accompanying vegetables. The steak this time was done on the charred-to-death side of medium instead of rare as ordered, so, once again, back it went. Finally, with a round of apologies from the waitstaff, we got what we ordered, more or less, this third steak midway in size between the first two. (Brief aside: Their reputation notwithstanding, I never find Luger waiters to be anything less than good-natured and helpful.) The lamb chops, ordered medium rare, were slightly overdone but very good. The steak—the one we finally ate—ordered rare, was almost raw, though parts of the filet and the thinner outer perimeter were a bit more done, and the rest did continue to cook just a shade sitting on the hot platter. Tenderness and taste were not up to the Luger standard as I recall it, lacking the hint of gaminess and minerality indicative of the finest aged prime beef. In fact, it was pretty bland, though tasty enough in comparison to most other places’ meat. Desserts and coffee were fine. By the way, Mr. Cutlets appears to be correct, at least in this instance. The top of the third steak was lightly charred but the underside merely gray, suggesting that it was par-cooked on both sides, plattered, sliced, and then finished again, on the platter, under the infernal broiler. Whatever happened to that Nebraska place?

Hmm... So eG has two accountant-raconteurs.

Well, now that the ultra-luxury concept has been proven in New York, what about one of that handful of world-class New York chefs stepping up to show the culinary interlopers a thing or two?

Nice hat!

A web search reveals that the Automat also served a famous huckleberry pie, and that someone named Tom of Montana sells huckleberry-pie-in-a-jar, crust included. It’s probably too late, but I’ll give Vento a call. Thanks—I think—for renewing an old obsession.

Lost youth is lost forever, but where in NYC, at this time of year or any other, might one find a real huckleberry pie?

DAY ONE Breakfast: Fried clams at Farnham's in Essex. (They also used to sell a pretty decent blueberry muffin.) Lunch: Fried clams at Essex Seafood, also in Essex. Dinner: Fried clams at the Clam Box in Ipswich. SUBSEQUENT DAYS Repeat Day One.

Your mentions of “Brooklyn-by-the-Sea” and “huckleberry (not blueberry) pie” in the Truly American Cuisine thread brought the following to mind: Which do your mourn more, the long-time absence of Lundy’s—which served fine blueberry (not huckleberry) pie—or its current state? How often do you pine for Ebinger’s, which did sell the real (huckleberry) thing? What about Gage and Tollner? Sutter’s bakery on Flatbush and Caton? More generally, what do you miss about the Brooklyn of your youth, and which recollections might you be able to share with us here?

Several more Double Shack Burgers. They come overcooked about a third of the time, but are replaced with a smile. Still a messy favorite.

How about if it were a TV network?

Bux, my reading of the question (bolding added)... I’d like to hear not just a recount of signature dishes of famous or less-so chefs, but your experiences and thoughts on dishes, perhaps as old as you are, which still provoke the fervor of pleasure and are as contemporary now as they were 10, 20, 30 or more years ago. ...does not preclude discussion of the classics. (Actually, some of our elders may even have witnessed their creation. ::joke::) Might a related question perhaps concern which modern dishes are most likely to enter the canon?

I can't bear to discard books, but, lacking room to archive magazines, I tend to clip interesting articles for friends before discarding them (the magazines, that is). I find that so far I've clipped nearly every food-related article from this issue of the New Yorker. Have some of our more experimentally minded chefs already read the Futurist cookbook?

Avoiding the custard, I've now had three Double Shack Burgers (or is it four?). One was slightly overcooked, but the others were so good that they defied all attempts at analysis or deconstruction: I just wolfed them down greedily until they were no more.

See here for Seymour Britchky's early take on the Quilted Giraffe.

As I recall, Britchky disliked the Quilted Giraffe. Intensely. [Trudges to bedroom, flips through newsletters...] Yes, here's what the man had to say, in the February 11, 1980 issue of The Restaurant Reporter: "In any talk about the new styles in food, the name Quilted Giraffe is usually mentioned. Rarely, however, with delight or recollected fun. There is a strange sobriety in this fairly new restaurant. Which is unfortunate, since going out to dinner is meant to be lighthearted, particularly when newness and creativity are on display." He proceeded to trash the decor ("The overall feeling is one of disorientation. You can't relax."), much of the food ("In evidence next to the beans is a pale pink, nearly flavorless mush. Perhaps an astute eater will guess what it is. It's puréed radish, nothing more, nothing less... None of this food [Raw Scallop Salad with Walnuts] is bad, mind you, it is simply an array of acquired tastes, and if you haven't acquired the taste within seconds of your plate's arrival, you may be dissatisfied... This is also the Cuisine of Denial, and Mousse of Three Fish points this up. It is almost ridiculously stiff from the predominance of nutritious, low-calorie egg white. It may be a scientific miracle that it holds together, but with the exception of the salmon in the middle, the fish flavors have been eliminated along with the cholesterol... What would it be like, Barry Wine wondered, to cover a rack of lamb with Chinese mustard? It would give some exquisite, rare little chops the aftertaste of a frank at the ballpark."), and the value, at $130 for two, approximately $300 in 2004 dollars ("You have to love it a lot to make it worth the money."). He praised the wine list. I have no recollection from Britchky's other writing that he was unfamiliar with or necessarily hostile towards Nouvelle Cuisine (though he did co-author the Lutèce Cookbook), but that was his take on QG. He gave it one star out of four, and the also-recently opened Chanterelle two stars in the same issue. Edited to flesh out the menu: Confit of duck with flageolets and radish purée Raw scallop salad with walnuts and seaweed Mousse of three fish Salad with sweetbreads in hazelnut oil "A slightly hard pastry shell with some soupy ham and leek mixture within" Cassis sorbet refresher "Bloody duck breast... in a creamless liquid" (ungarnished) Rack of lamb with Chinese mustard and lattice-work potato filled with par-boiled cherry tomatoes "Almost-raw kidneys" with five-peppercorn sauce Ragout of lobster with coriander (ungarnished) Soufflé for two (e.g., banana, pistachio) Coffee Chocolate-dipped strawberries (unripe) Cuban cigars Chateau Latour '71 ($80) Richebourg (DRC) '70 -- $85 Le Montrachet Marquis de Laguiche ('??) -- $75 Clos Vougeot (Lichine) '72 -- $32.50 Sancerre (Neveu) '78 -- $20 Ducru-Beaucaillou '71 -- $42.50 Martin Rey Chardonnay '78 -- $30