Todd36

I'e eaten at Woo Chon recently and if I have the right place, long ago reviewed by the NYT, it is good, better I think that then the usual places on 32nd street.

Barney Greenglass about once a month for brunch. Chop't and The Pump near Union Square several times a week combined for lunch. Shake Shack for lunch (I work across the street). Uishiwakamaru for Sushi about once a month. Sugiyama about six times a year. The French Diner on Orchard at least once a month. Fake Orchid on east 9th about once a month. Bouley Bakery upstairs about once a month. Hummas Place on St. Marks about once a month. All State Cafe on West 72. I also have 2-3 high end dinners a month. I'm also in Koreatown at least once a month, Seoul Garden is good for tofu, not sure it's that strong for other items, a friend likes the tofu..... Oriental Garden for dim sum and dinner.

I did some reseach today. All of the products behind the slice to order counter at the West 66th Street Balduchi's are clearly marked as being from Acme or Blue Hill Bay (an Acme brand). The slice to order Nova at the West 74th Street Citarella is clearly marked as being from Service Smoked Fish Corp. Their web site, such as it is, is http://www.servicesmokedfish.com/. They were also selling slice to order products from Banner and other producers. Pre-pack was from Acme. Zabar's counterperson told me that their source of Nova varies, although its mostly from Acme. Their Kippered Salmon was from Banner. He said they use at least 7 different sources for smoked fish. Their pre-pack nova does not say who makes it, but it lists the same plant number as Fairway brand pre-pack nova, which says it is made by Acme. The West 74th Street Fairway wouldn't say where the nova is coming from. It's big, big fish though, bigger than what Zabar's is selling. I did see smoked salmon in the slice to order counter at Fairway that was clearly marked as coming from Chenonceaux, which is AKA Portier. The Nova was in a similar package, making me suspect the Nova is from there. Their own pre-pack is from Acme, they sell pre-pack from Portier and others as well. My conclusions are that everyone sells pre-pack from Acme. Citerella is clearing not selling Acme nova sliced to order. I suspect that neither is Fairway. It is also clear that everyone who has a large variety of selection is selling salmon from several suppliers. The guy at Zarbar's says the supplier of Nova does vary. I think the basic proposition behind this thread not apply to smoked Salmon.

Had dinner there last night as a walk-in (at 9:45). Service was good; they graciously wrapped excess pasta. The tables are a little small for the size of some of the plates. 1. They heated the bread, which I think didn't do the bread any favors, it got wet. 2. Mixed Antipasti was very good---only issue was that they could have been more generous with the toast. 3. The duck meatballs were very good. As good as any meatballs I've had outside of home. 4. Duck angoloti was really good----only issue was that it's heavy. 5. Lamb Papardelle was very good----only issue was that it's heavy. 6. Side of mixed mushrooms---very good. 7. Bottle of cheap Burgendy, $35. A little thin, but perfectly drinkable. The wine list starts at the high twenties per bottle, which I find quite nice in a restaurant of this caliber. 8. Dessert was the sorbet, which was good. Overall, it was very good, and we felt like three NYT stars was appropiate. With tax and tip, total bill was approx $170, which we didn't feel was unreasonable.

Acme's own website contains the following statement:"We also produce private label products for selected customers." Again, I strongly suspect that they produce different grades of fish. They have at least two brands themselves, Blue Hill Bay is described on their web site as all natural. The only way to settle this is for someone who knows what Zarar's et al actual sells chimes in.

Went by Joe's Dairy this afternoon. Many boxes of curds, 45 pounds, not from Polly-O. Couln't quite catch the supplier's name. It was an Italian family name.

The Times pieces, taken together, are saying there is little variation and that they don't get different fish. ← The smoked Tuna loin behind the "we slice it for you" counter tonight at Fairway was from Banner, that was clear from the package. Couldn't see the labels on the smoked salmon. The pre-pack smoked salmon at Fairway was all from Acme. I don't believe that farmed salmon is all similar in qualitity. Since people seem to write academic papers on differernces in farmed salmon quality, I strongly suspect that it does vary in quality. http://www.onefish.org/servlet/CDSServlet?...W50cyYzNz1pbmZv People also seem to research differences in smoked salmon. http://www.onefish.org/servlet/CDSServlet?...aW5mbw~~#koinfo The way the salomon is killed impacts the qualtity of the smoked product. http://www.nafc.ac.uk/fdn/fdn1ikijime.pdf Produces of farmed salomon seem to think it varies in qualtity. http://www.scottishsalmon.co.uk/dlDocs/consumer.pdf There are are numerous service marks out there. Below is a producer's web site where they state that "90% of Salmon are superior grade and smoker quality" http://www.salmac.co.uk/eng/premium_farmed...rmed_salmon.php My guess is that (1) Acme probably sells smoked fish to almost everyone. (2) not everything sold at all the major retail places is from Acme. (3) even within a large supplier such as Acme, there are different grades.

I'm quoting here from the USDA website (http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/sausage_and_food_safety/index.asp#addendum): ADDENDUM TO "Focus on: Sausages" USDA and Dry Sausage Industry Act to Reduce Bacterial Risk Fermentation is one of the oldest methods of preserving meats. In this procedure, a mixture of curing ingredients, such as salt and sodium nitrite, and a "starter" culture of acid-bacteria, is mixed with chopped and ground meat, placed in casings, fermented and then dried. The amount of acid produced during fermentation and the lack of moisture in the finished product after drying typically have been shown to cause pathogenic bacteria to die. "Dry sausages — such as pepperoni, Lebanon bologna and summer sausage, have had a good safety record for hundreds of years. But in December 1994, some children and adults became ill after eating dry cured salami and sausages from a California plant. Illnesses reported from this outbreak are believed to represent the first time this product has been associated with E. coli O157:H7. These illnesses have raised some questions about the effectiveness of processes for producing dry fermented sausage free of this deadly organism. However, it is too early to suggest changes to basic handling recommendations for consumers since a complete scientific evaluation is not yet available. The presence of E. coli O157:H7 bacteria or a possible new strain of the bacteria could be due to continued survival during processing methods or contamination after the sausages were cured. USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has developed a specific protocol to identify problems, which encompasses options to correct them. This protocol must be followed or the product must be heat treated. These products will also be included in the FSIS microbial sampling program for E. coli O157:H7." I would surmise that modern information transfer has made it possible to detect food illness issues more readily than in the good old days. Two hundred years ago, no one might have known that home-made sausage killed three dinner guests. Food for thought is that the French started Pasturizing milk for a reason.......they did invent the process. As good tasting as many old fashioned products may be, I suspect that many of them are riskier than you think.

I meant the Fairway custom sliced case; they have at least a dozen different kinds on a typical day. Zabar's selection is significantly smaller, perhaps 4-5 kinds. Fairway often has fish in the original wrapper in that case. I would suspect that even within farmed fish, there is variation in qualtity, and smoked fish suppliers know that, and can send different fish to different people. If you buy raw farmed salmon at Fairway or Citerallia, and compare it to your standard supermarkt stuff, it's clear to me its different fish. The Fairway/Citerilla fish is clearly fattier, this is not a handling or freshness question.

Fairway usually has salamon in it's original packaging visible in the deli area----I don't offhand remember what brands I have seen, but more than one. I know they have Foreman from England, but according to the Acme website, they are the distributer for Foreman. I'm fairly sure I've seen stuff from http://www.seaspecialties.com/homarus.htm in their deli case. I'm not even sure if Acme really is the only producer left in Brooklyn, see http://www.goldstarusa.com/ or http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.07.11/fast1.html See http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertain...ls/13993713.htm for a comment about Banner as Avis compared to Acme. I think we are witnessing a marketing machine at work---I bet the statement that Acme sells fish to amost all of the usual suspects is true---not so sure that all (or even most) of the fish that the usual suspects sell is from Acme.

Todd36, I don't see those quotations or anything like them in the article. Can you be more specific? ← My fuzzy brain. I read another NYT article on the Acme website. http://www.acmesmokedfish.com/retail/news/NYTimesPrimer.html "With farmed fish, how the fish are raised, cured and smoked has more impact on the final product than nationality, although some would argue otherwise. Scots helped establish some fish farms in Chile, and many farms in Scotland and Chile are owned by Norwegian companies. But Mr. Billik would never sell Russ Federman a Chilean fish. Mr. Ortiz of Fairway thinks Chilean salmon are the best." Bilik is the VP of sales at Acme. The original article you quoted in the NYT Mag starts off with "buy their fish in large part from the same smokehouse". The Acme website has several other arrticles...none of them come out and say the fish is the same, they seem to me to avoid saying that on purpose. My fried brain conflated the articles.

The NYT article on smoked salmon seemed to be carefully written, with phrases such as "much of the salmon sold by xxx comes from yyyy" and "store xxx will only buy salmon from country z while store yyy never will." My conclusion was that they may not all be selling the same fish, even though the supplier may be the same. The stuff Fairway sells does not seem similar to Zabar's or Barney Greenglass, although the later two seem similar and could be the same.

I don't get this statement. What does NY having more Asian and Latin American stuff have to do with the loss of marzipan? ← It has to do with things that are "interesting and unique" and available in Manhattan. Granted that the reason for Elk Confectionary closing is not that New York has gotten smaller. That isn't the issue, as I discuss below. Did I limit my remarks to Yorkville only? Did you read the post by Atomic Lunch which, since it's directly above mine, I thought it would be evident I was replying to? Particularly, look at the following sentence: Think about this sentence again and tell me whether it really is more false than true: "There are plenty of interesting things in New York, they just are no longer Mitteleuropean." Is Manhattan "big enough" to have something of everything? That's not the issue. There has to be a community there to support it. As the German and Hungarian communities moved out of Yorkville and others moved in, the clientele for the large number of Mitteleuropean shops that used to be in that neighborhood as recently as 2-3 decades ago largely disappeared. The same, by the way, is largely true of the Jewish bakeries that used to be all over the Upper West Side (and now, I'm particularly referring to the high 90s and low 100s, my old stomping grounds). It's not that there are fewer Jews there, but that they are another generation removed from the Old Country and don't have old-fashioned Jewish cake and other buttery and sugary Jewish bakery items often enough to support the old-fashioned bakeries of yesteryear (though some of the bagel-and-muffin places do have a few similar cakes available for the small percentage of their clientele who want them). If you want to find a bakery like the ones we used to have up there, come to Moishe's in the East Village, which seems to be supported mostly by a dwindling remnant of the Lower East Side Jewish community plus a good deal of window-shopping passersby and folks coming in for a morning coffee, plus some people who come in from far away, and is in a low-rise building whose days, I'm guessing, may be numbered. When the clientele dies or moves or the rents go too high for it to remain in business or the building is torn down and replaced with high-rise condominiums, the shops close. So anyway, it's very regrettable if there is no longer a good source for marzipan in Manhattan, but that does not mean that there aren't other interesting and unique things to be found on this island. As for your inference that there was something xenophobic about my remarks, I'll chalk that up to my meaning being unclear and you not knowing me very well. ← Zabar's sells those heavy eastern European desserts, like Babka and Russian Coffee cake, and they have a large selection. Someone is buying it. It's true that as people move around, local populations shift and that changes local markets. Some of the changes are probably connected to deaths, as in owner/baker dies/and or retires, and the place shuts down. There are sizeable numbers of bakeries in Brooklyn that have eastern European desserts, try heading over to Avenue J in Midwood. As for Moishe's....ummmm.....their stuff seems like sawdust to me and isn't in my opinion a good example of the genere. Not sure how they stay in business, almost no customers. You can get a better babka pre-pack at the GI Polish Deli neaby.....

Soutine is fine, but not a particularlly impressive bakery while Levian (I think that is how you spell it) is basically chocolate chop cookies (big, heavy and gooey) and bread. In the area you also have branches of Buttercup for cupcakes and the like and Crumbs, for Brooklyn type stuff. There is also a decent bakery with cafe seating on 74th street, in the Ansonia, can't remember the name, they make great tuna fish BTW. There is also the latest reincarnation of William Greenberg Jr. on Broadway east side around 76th, or so. Not impressive. Further north, you have Georgia's Bakeshop and Silver Moon, not bad and with common ownership. You can also acquire good bread at Fairway and Zabar's and good cake at Balduchi's and Citerilla, with a little luck. There's no one stop shopping for baked goods on the upper west side, but you can get good stuff if you shop around. There are half a dozen or so places with 6 blocks of BWay and 72nd. I've been to Bouchon twice now, and it's better than OK, but not worth the hype. If you're looking for cake, I think best bets are Two Little Red Hens or Lady M. For French type things, Petrossian.

Landmark on 23rd Street is probably the best, he probably has 200+ kinds and seems to have tasted them all.

S&W has been a disappointment. Keen's is not bad, ate there two weeks ago. My money is on Spark's.

Had lunch in the cafe part last week. It was pretty good, but not three stars good, and it's fairly expensive, even in the cafe. I think the lunch prix fix is around $30. If the main dining room is proportionatly better than the cafe, I can see it as a three star.

I know people who go there monthly or more frequently. Heck, I seem to be going to Sugiyama monthly......

Kuruma is rumored to be significantly less expensive if you are a regular and are Japanese, more like $100 per person for the fish.

Had dinner last night at Craft's private dining room. OK, but not impressive. It does have its own kitchen. They served various types of beef, all of which were fine. The potatos in the scalloped potatos were undercooked, which shouldn't happen in this price range....

Given how much variability a human can introduce (less than clean machine, choice of water, tamping etc.), I suspect that any decent coffee beans in the right hands can turn something out that is quite good and some really good coffee beans can turn out garbage in the wrong hands. I think that coffee beans differences are somewhat overrated, in the right hands any good brand can make very good coffee. Even Starbucks with automatic machines seems to vary!!!

Oriental Garden. OK, it's small, they don't use carts much, they carry stuff around on trays, selection is a bit smaller, they tend to put shrimp in everything, but I think it does good dim sum. Slightly more expensive than say Jin Fong.

Grabbed a table at the take out area on Saturday. Chicken soup with herb dumplings was OK, but not special. A bit expensive at $8.95. Roast beef sandwich was OK, worse than the soup, had a sandwich (Sopressa) same night from Parisi that was ten times better at 25% the price per pound. Danish of the day, apricot with pistacho was OK, but not a big success. Pan au chocolate was first rate, one of the better ones in NY, but not as good as what Petrossian used to make. Overall, it's fine if you are in Time Warner, but not worth a big trip. Of course, I was underwhelmed by Per Se.....

Had dinner there last night. It's fine, but not special. I thought it was worth the $55 pre fix, and glasses of wine are reasonable priced by Manhattan standards. Started with the Yellowtail tarte and the quail with sausage. Both were fine. Next was the short rib with borscht and the tortellni, ribs were fine, tortellini was quite good. Next was the monkfish (didn't quite work) and the duck (which was quite good). Dessert was the wam chocolate cake (OK) and the quince parfat (quite good). Overall, a weak two star or a strong one star. Nothing was bad and I didn't leave hungry.

Given that chefs seem to be using Sous Vide for bulk storage in some cases, it seems to me that it is quite possible for a single restaurant to make quite a few people sick, or dead. Take a look at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fc01-a6.html. If you Google Sous Vide and botulism, you'll come up with a fair amount of material......