jrt

Definitely make sure you have reservations for Matt's at lunchtime -- or you may end up with a view of the counter. I always liked having a few cocktails at Lowell's just because of the crowd that hangs in the bar there. I only ate there once... and I plan to keep it that way.

Seems like not the greatest location to me. Until a couple of months ago, I lived a block away. I don't ever remember seeing those restaurants busy. Maybe they get all their business during the day, when I was at work. I have to admit, I never even got around to trying Chin Chin's. I did try the Mexican place next door, and I don't remember being terribly impressed. ← Very much agreed -- I noticed the same thing. It was especially difficult for them, I would think, because of Chinese Wok. Have you tried that restaurant? It's on 4th. For that kind of Chinese food, it's quite good.

This place has, of course, gotten a ton of praise and buzz, but as I just treated myself to a dinner there last night I thought I'd say one more thing about a particular item on the menu. Christopher, the sous chef there (I believe), allowed me a tatse of the duck prosciutto as I had already eaten more than any human has a right to. All I can say about it is wow: I plan to go back this week just to have another taste of it. A little oily, with some citrus (orange?), and a few Spanish almonds (I forget the name of those things now) on the side... it was sliced so thin it was nearly translucent. The texture was just a little creamy... Beautiful. The full portion is a ton of meat. Just a few days ago I had a bit of the duck prosciutto they have at DeLaurenti in the market, and Christpoher's knocked my socks off.

I'm convinced -- I'm ordering from Jacob's tomorrow morning (I'd much rather call than send them my credit card information via email ). ...though if you think one of the others you mentioned would be a better place to start, please speak up. I'm just assuming that you mentioned them in order of (personal?) preference.

Is this a case of the word 'pizza' being applied to something you don't think of as pizza? If that's the case, well, I guess I understand. I mean, I'm from Chicago, so I know what real pizza is and can forgive you Brooklyn "snobs" for grossly misunderstanding the definition of the word 'pizza'. ;-) What I meant to ask: is there something about the quality of the product that turns you off, or is it that it doesn't look like what you think of as pizza?

It's incredible, I think. I've never had *anything* but a great experience from that business, and I don't know anyone who has. One wonders how well that can continue to scale (or if it is intended to) but... yeah, I'm glad someone else notices what a pleasure Pag's makes it to call up and surrender money.

Are you folks postive that Uli's has real andouille? I'll run down there tomorrow (today I guess) anyway and will double-check, but I've never noticed it there before... Poor Uli -- I love nearly everything there, but the linguica just isn't spicy and it isn't light on the palette. <sigh>

A friend and I finally made it into Cafe Lago last night. All of the praise has already been said here (btw, the grilled eggplant is unbelievably good and was perfectly executed) so I'll actually get to my dissenting opinion as fast as possible: I didn't really like the lasagne. My dining companion and I both thought the same thing about the dish: very light, marvelous consistency, and just wonderful to look at, but surprisingly and disconcertingly sweet tasting. I could have sworn I was tasting a sauce with corn syrup in it from the taste, but knowing it did not I was completely puzzled and still am. As soon as I had a taste of it, I wished I had ordered one of those beautiful looking pizzas instead. That said, I'd recommend the lasagne to others, I think, who probably haven't seen something like it before. I'm looking forward to another night there.

Whoa... sorry to go a few posts back, but that looks fantastic. I'm a sucker for roe & caviar, though; is it wrong to ask what you spent on it? Eggs looking that beautiful and edible and purportedly cheap are always something I'm looking to get my hands on. By the way, you could fry my hand in chicken fat and I'd eat it with a grin. Editing to say: by 'eggs looking that beautiful' I mean to refer to the fish ones, not the chicken would-bes.

For me, it's super simple: wrapped up in a basket of foil with (yes) a splash of water, some crushed white pepper, and a tiny sprinkling of smoked paprika. When it's done, I take the good EVOO out (the stuff I never use otherwise) and drizzle it on top.

Although I think its kind of funny, , why have you been saying "lalalala" about Lalalago? Just curious. Carla ← Oh, it certainly wasn't a comment on any perceived fault with the restaurant... rather, I tend to eat very near where I live: the downtown area, lower QA, and up on Cap Hill. I like to have a few glasses of wine and am super paranoid about driving afterward... so taxi bills add up. The first time I was told about it by a good friend, she said, "this may become a new regular place for you," and then, after a pause, "of course, you'd probably want to get a new home near it." That was reason enough to pretend it doesn't exist.

After putting my fingers in my ears and saying 'lalalala' about Cafe Lago for too long (I'm just too lazy to get out to the area it's in), I actually made reservations for a friend and I tomorrow evening. I'm quite looking forward to it. I was surprised though, to hear that I was able to get exactly the reservation I was looking for only a day ahead of time. Is Lago just not that busy on Wednesdays? Or is it typically easy to get in?

Tried the Salumi Primo today during the Super Bowl. I really enjoyed it -- for me, the highlight was actually the addition of the peppers. The finnocchiona was delicious. While I thought the pizza was basically perfect, a friend noted that he thought it was quite greasy, concurring with the folks on here. Great pie, though.

Is it still the case that Pair has no liquor?

Palace? Naturally. That curry looks great.

After seeing your picture, I had to make this dish myself. It was my first time on Kasma's site, and I came across her method for steaming Jasmine rice, so I decided to go down the entree route and try her method out (I've never liked my simple method much, and I've never met a rice cooker I really liked). The result was fabulous. I can't believe how incredibly well the rice turned out -- I will never, ever cook rice another way unless I have a seriously good reason to believe it will compare. I was shocked; it tasted like rice at some of the best meals in my memory. The shrimp were great, too, but a ricepiphany is (for me at least) a wonderful thing. All that basil was delicious, and the whole dish paired wonderfully with an albarino. Thanks so much for the link, ScorchedPalate. I've been cooking Thai food routinely for a long time, but tonight it really clicked.

Yikes. I plan to try them as well, but this is the kind of thing that I think of as absolutely intolerable. I literally could start pouring myself a cocktail at home, realize I was out of some kind of booze, go to the liquor store, come back home, pour it over again, and get halfway through drinking it in less time than that. I don't fully grasp the relationship between this place and Peso's, but it's interesting to me that Peso's service is horrifingly slow or otherwise apparently apathetic on any given day.

How was the salmon? I got home from a tiring day at work and just wasn't inspired to cook. I threw a few slices of a peppered sausage onto a plate next to a few different Spanish cheeses (manchego and cabrales), mustard, pan-fried polenta, and some crackers. After a shot of ouzo and a few glasses of wine, I had a cigar while listening to American roots music on a local radio station. Strangely, it was one of the most enjoyable dinners I've had in quite a while.

Offtopic: one of my favorite things about drinking after dinner is when it goes a bit long and the kitchen ends up looking like only a kitchen drunk people were in can look.

Yes, really, Jin, please do continue. As a mostly lurker here, I can say that even I look forward to the posts. Last night I made a pizza I made a few weeks ago... normally I try far too hard not to make something I've made recently, but Jim Harrison points out in his book The Raw and the Cooked that it's an overly difficult, senseless enterprise. The pizza: garlic & oil base, sun-dried tomato and red onion "sauce", prosciutto, mozz and fontina and basil. A little snack from the other day (yogurt cheese & sun-dried tomato):

Based on the discussion here, I tried to stop in at Portage Bay today, but the wait was absurdly long. Driving back downtown, we saw that Serafina has a Sunday brunch and stopped in there. Started with some very reasonably priced and decent prosecco with a glass of their fresh-squeezed OJ as well as a bruschetta app. Wow, the bruschetta was fantastic... it was simply a bit of toasted bread with three bowls with different toppings in them. One was a mild feta with spicy roasted bell peppers, another was an expertly made green olive tapenade, and the last was a tuna and caper sort of mix. We were really happy with those... The menu has a few interesting things on it (roasted rabbit, a duck dish), but we stayed pretty simple. The "French toast" was very tasty, though a bit uninspiring (is there an inspiring French toast? I don't know). I had the ham "basket" dish with polenta, mushrooms, and poached eggs with a glass of wine. All in all, one of the better breakfasts I've had in this city.

legourmet, what's up with the eel cake? I've never heard someone say "eel cake" and I'm sure if I did, someone like me would say, "what's up with the eel cake?"

Queue Lebowski quote: "f'in amateurs." I agree completely -- holidays are the worst days to dine out, go drinking, or spend any time at all in public for that matter. Generally, the human population that decides to keep itself indoors most of the time is doing so for all the right reasons, as far as I'm concerned. Okay, aside from being cynical, I have to say that a nice evening around Valentine's day but not quite on it with a bottle of bubbly, a bottle of red, and a few random dishes all enjoyed at Le Pichet happens to be my idea of a very romantic evening. The amount of bustle is just right to push two folks closer together... To me, a romantic evening doesn't work if the place is on the level of Lampreia or Mistral. For romance, the place and the food need to be good enough to be exciting, but not so elevated or rare that they take away from the person across from you.

Oh. My. God. That trumps anything I can think of, and I've made some real winners.

Wow, the Thai foods are looking amazing, Susan. Last night I made pizza with a sun-dried tomato and onion "sauce" over a garlic and EVOO base with prosciutto, mozz, fontina, and basil. It's the first time I've actually made a pizza that I liked -- I've almost always screwed up the dough. Tonight I threw together a quick rigatoni all'amatriciana while waiting for my tomatoes to finishing roasting (later tonight I'll throw them in a jar with the yogurt-cheese that has been in the making in my fridge for the last three days). It turned out to be a good use of the extra tomatoes and prosciutto... had it with a glass of O'Reilly's pinot noir as well as a glass of Mason Sauvignon Blanc, which was used in the sauce.