dagordon

Giunta's Prime Shop has been kind of irking us lately. It seems that when it comes to providing information about where their poultry is sourced from, they tell us whatever we want to hear. A while ago, when Whole Foods stopped carrying Eberly stuff, we went to Giunta's and were told by the main guy there that the only Eberly poultry they carry is the Eberly whole chickens in Eberly packaging, as well as the loose chicken wings they sell. I ordered an Eberly capon from them for soup shortly after and was told it would be in on a Friday; I went to RTM that day just to pick it up but was told that Eberly was out of capons. Giunta's had taken down by phone number when I'd placed the order but hadn't bothered to call to tell me that they were unable to get it. The main guy suggested a stew hen instead, and when we asked if it was Eberly, he said yes, but of course this contradicted what he had said shortly before about which of their products were Eberly, and it seemed to us that he was just telling us what we wanted to hear. Incidentally, the hen made one of the most flavorless broths I've ever tasted. A couple of weeks ago we needed some chicken thighs and legs. My girlfriend asked a woman at Giunta's if she knew where the loose thighs and legs they were selling were from, and the woman responded "No" and just continued to stare at her. My girlfriend asked if she would be so kind as to find out, and a guy came over and described the poulty as FreeBird. We got some and it was pretty good. Today we got more thighs, and when we asked the woman there if the thighs were Eberly, she said that they were FreeBird, "from Eberly". Cursory web search reveals that FreeBird is a product of the Hain-Celestial Group, a big conglomerate that seems to have no association with Eberly. In other news, we've tried the Duroc pork at Giunta's and found it to be pretty mediocre.

I was among those who enojyed phil's icewine and, FWIW, I greatly preferred it to the Inniskillin Riesling that was a Chairman's Selection around 2005, which I found pretty unidimensional. I don't have tasting notes either but this had, among other things, some definite peachy notes for me. Didn't detect any oak either.

I believe it was just because he was quoting Matt. Not really necessary, but I think that was all it was, not to denote uncertainty. ← oh no, http://www.fujirestaurant.com no longer loads. i'm getting a bad feeling about this...

I had the Senor Barriga (their take on a mojito, with tequila and thyme). It didn't do much for me; in fact, I found the loose thyme leaves kind of unpleasant in the context of a beverage.

I should preface this post by saying that I know next to nothing about Mexican food, a fact which I'm trying to remedy by sampling some of Philly's offerings. It was in this spirit that I was excited to try Xochitl tonight, along with eG's ever-popular Vadouvan, and eG up-and-comer rae, who rumor has it is going to do a detailed review of her namesake tomorrow. I'm not able to assess authenticity or how Xochitl's renditions compare to similar ones elsewhere; however, in terms simply of, as one person I know is fond of saying, "deliciousness", the meal was, well, very, very diasppointing. We started with the sopes, the escargots and rabbit stew-like thing (don't remember the name), and the gorditas. The goat cheese sope was good; the duck breast sope didn't taste at all like duck to me; and and the chorizo was reminiscent of cafeteria-style taco meat. (I should say that I'm not really familiar with Mexcian, as opposed to Spanish, chorizo; I don't know if it tasted how the Mexican variety is supposed to, but I suspect not.) I couldn't really taste the huitlacoche in the gorditas; they just tasted like fried. The broth in the rabbit and corn stew was very one-dimensional. V hypothesized at one point that they had cooked the chunks of corn in the broth, which had imparted an overwhelming corn flavor to it. The squid hot pot was the best dish of the night. The squid themseleves were pretty tasty if fairly unadorned, though there were some quite hard to chew peppers in there, and there didn't seem to be anything particularly Mexican about the flavors involved. We also had the pork shank, which was second to the squid for the best dish of the night, though really just a completely basic braised pork shank, with not much depth of flavor. We also had the lamb; I don't remember how this was prepared, but it was quite dry and displayed no evidenced of having been seasoned in any way. Oddly, our check came right after the mains were served. This was completely inexplicable. V had asked for "share plates", but it didn't seem like this could have been misconstrued as "check please". The restaurant itself is quite nicely done, and the drink side of the menu quite elaborate; it seems more than a bit too upscale for the quality of the food being served, though.

Yeah. When I hear "fudgy aftermath" I think the morning after eating Szechuan...

I'm hesitant to perpetuate discussion of this issue, because it seems entirely inappropriate for the board, let alone a thread about M Restaurant, but: In the interest of interpreting posts how they are intended to be and avoiding future misunderstandings, I feel compelled to say that anyone who knows V knows that he has strong opinions and doesn't mince words, but is also one of the truly nicest and most pleasant people you'll ever meet. His posts are not at all manifestations of anger or bitterness but are simply expressions of strongly held beliefs.

yeah, some bentons would have helped. ooh, i forgot about the chicken skin yakitori, which we also had. damn good. though immensely fatty (predictably).

We, at least, couldn't care less about the trappings of fine dining, unless it's some special occasion where that's part of what we're looking forward to. And I should add that we didn't have any problems at all with the service or ambiance at Ssam. That is to say, one should not discount someone's failure to be blown away by the food at Ssam on the basis that somehow the larger context of the meal was preventing him from fully appreciating the food. It may be that the food just doesn't speak to everyone in the way that it evidently speak to you. We haven't been to Jean-Georges in several years. But even if that's true, it might be that the five best dishes at Jean Georges are not remotely the five best dishes in the city, whatever that could mean.

We bumped into Doc at Ssam last night; it was our first time as well. I think overall our impression of the food was a bit more positive than Doc's, though, as in his case as well, nothing blew us away. Perhaps the claim that they're serving the best food in nyc right now was simply meant to be provocative, but I'd have to agree that this just isn't the case. I agree that the uni was overwhelmed by the rest of the dish. The chawan mushi, fried brussels sprouts, scallops, and hamachi were all excellent, but not earth-shattering. We got the middle country ham of the three listed; I've had the Benton's before, which I love, so I wanted to try something new. It was fanastic, perfectly cut, not too smoky, the red eye gravy was a great touch. The Sullivan St bakery bread was awesome. The asparagus was very good; the egg and miso butter sauce itself was fantastic, though it was kind of hard to appreciate it on the asparagus; the asparagus flavor dominated. If they could find another application for that sauce... Bahn mi was very good, but seemed totally standard. Sea bass was perfectly cooked but forgettable. My dining companions were stuffed at this point and just wanted the mochi dessert, but I insisted on trying the spicy tripe. This was easily one of the best dishes of the meal. Completely cravable. The tripe was in this intensely flavorful broth with some kind of braised meat in it, maybe brisket or short rib. I have to agree with slkinsey that if I'd just stumbled into the place I'd certainly be raving. But not that it's serving nearly the best food in the city. Our meal was very, very good; we'll certainly be back.

How much was dinner, if you don't mind me asking? Sounds like a great meal ... What did you drink? Beer? Sake? ← I think it was $106 before tip; this was for two people, and I had a glass of Onikoroshi sake. Edited to add that this was for an obscene amount of food for two people; whenever we're trying a place for the first time where there isn't a standard number of dishes that one orders, we wildly overorder, out of fear of missing out on something. That's to say that you can eat comfortably at Totto for substantially less than $106 for two.

This place is busy enough... but I have to post about the meal that we just had. I heard about Yakitori Totto through a recent rave on ruhlman's blog. We had 7:00 reservations tonight -- they stop taking reservations at 7:30 (I'm pretty sure). Our meal was simply outstanding. -- cold tofu in a basket: quite good, but passable (takes up needed space) raw octopus appetizer: fantastic. pretty spicy (a fair amonut of wasabi), but also a bit sweet, similar to some tuna tartare preparations. fried sardines: utterly addictive. served with a bowl containing green tea powder and salt, for dipping. -- ok, onto the yakitori. for many of these there was a choice of shiso, sea salt, or some kind of brown sauce for a topping; we chose sea salt for all. unfortunately, the only stuff they had from the exotic chicken portion of the menu by the time we got there were the soft bone and the tail. soft bone: interesting to eat, glad we tried it, not a whole lot of flavor tail: WOW. one of the best dishes of the night, just bursting with flavor hearts: fantastic, texture was unlike other hearts I've had; not at all chewy. again, immensely flavorful. liver: WOW. like no chicken liver i've ever had. foie-like in texture, milder in flavor, absolutely delicious. gizzard: WOW. quite chewy in texure, but not at all unpleasantly so, immensely flavorful. here's the thing. after eating these pieces of organ meat, which were like pure chicken flavor bombs, going back to regular chicken meat was bound to be a disappointment. thigh with scallions: not a ton of chicken flavor, but very good chicken meatball: we actually didn't love this; it was good, but quite mild. i take it many have had this with a sauce on the side; we didn't have any sauce, perhaps this was needed. shrimp: great, very flavorful. eggplant with miso glaze: good, but passable; save room for other stuff, imho. bacon wrapped enoki mushrooms: wouldn't order again. texture was nice, but, surprisingly, not much flavor (not even much bacon flavor!) pork with mustard: get the pork with scallions instead pork with scallions: terrific. this was either belly or some other quite fatty cut. dessert: frozen banana with coconut milk, tapioca balls, and mint: superb. i think that's it, but i could be forgetting stuff. sorry no pics. btw, they no longer have chicken sashimi, but our waitress said that their "sister restaurant" Torys on east 52nd does.

Damn... we don't even have a patio or a backyard and I'm about to pull the trigger on this thing (if you see the guy grilling his dinner on a konro grill on the corner of 15th and locust, that's me) i'm not seeing the discount, though -- the sumi, for example, is showing up as $128, even after I add it to my cart. is there a code or something?

Well, dinner last night was just delicious. Highlights for me were the chick pea stew and the cheese sorbet. These were insanely good -- they would not, I think, have been at all out of place in a StudioKitchen meal. The meal was particularly impressive given that it was only $50/person (a downright steal), and that Shola was cooking in someone else's restaurant kitchen (and the Apamate staff working under a different leader than usual). Though I don't think that anyone who's ever met Shola would have had any doubts about the quality of the meal going in... And, I think the evening served its primary function -- we'd somehow never been to Apamate before, and we'll be going back.

I would, easily. Totonno's makes a nice white pie; I've never understood the fuss about their other pizzas. As far as Grimaldi's, the only explanation that comes to mind is that the extended wait and proximity to Brooklyn Bridge traffic exhaust induces severe delusions in most people. That pizza is just downright mediocre. Brooklyn Ice Cream factory next door, however, that's good stuff.

Me too!! Buckethead, you suck.

New-age rolls that are pre-doused with sauces of various kinds are one thing, but shoyu isn''t really an enhancement for traditional style sushi (maki included), it's a basic part of the food itself. That is, people shouldn't feel like dipping sushi in shoyu is intended to elevate or mask lower quality fish... At several of the high-end places the sushi even comes pre-brushed with shoyu!

Geez... I said the dish was lacking flavor, but I don't think that assaulting the staff would have been appropriate...

Whoa... wait, was V saying that that Osteria actually makes their own dried pasta with that machine? That would be hard-core... but I didn't think that's what he was saying. V?

Aw, come on, that's what I meant. I knew from you, V, that that's how they made the candele, and I figured they did the same thing with the bucatini. I suppose "fresh pasta" or "home made" would have been more appropriate. I was contrasting it with dried pasta. And I was NOT suggesting that I could replicate this at home. We actually have a bunch of their bucatini (Di Bruno's sells it), we made some for dinner on Tuesday. It is great dried pasta. But, like guzzirider said, once you've had Osteria's...

If that stuff is imported dried pasta, I'll treat whoever can tell me what brand it is and where to get it to a Pizza Lombarda and a glass of wine. It's has a completely different texture from any dried pasta I've ever had.

Hmm. I wonder how much of the goodness of our dinner there last Friday was due to the fact that we were the only ones there, and they could take their time with us...

What would they have said if you had asked them, "OK, can we make a reservation at the bar for right now?" This is so silly...

I feel obliged to say that we've been back to Osteria a couple of times since my first extremely glowing post, and, while it's been very good, it has not been at the same mind-blowing level as our first meal there. For example, tonight we had the manila clams, which were good, but the broth that the clams were in could have been so much more flavorful. We also had the bucatini with testa ragu. The texture of this pasta was just incredible; like the candele, it has a chewy, noodle-like quality that can only be achieved with hand-made pasta. But the dish was, overall, shockingly tasteless. One could tell that there was some butter and oil and cheese in the dish, but none of these elements (let alone the testa) registered particularly strongly on the palate. It's possible that some salt would have substantially improved things, though unfortunately I didn't have my jacket which contains my travel box of Maldon with me and I didn't think to ask for salt. But that the dish was enjoyable to eat is a testament to the quality of the pasta itself. Again, the quality of the food is still very good; unfortunately, though, it seems like there was some kind of magic going on right after they opened that, for now, has been lost.

They could be using real wasabi, even if it's not fresh real wasabi. Real wasabi is significantly better than the colored horseradish stuff, even if it's not as good as freshly grated. I had good luck with the wasabi powder at www.realwasabi.com a while ago, but the 2nd container of the stuff that I got was vile. So I got the frozen real wasabi paste from www.freshwasabi.com, which has been very good.