dagordon

Ha, well, please remember us in late spring, I have a feeling that a bunch of us would be interested in trying the chickens you've been describing, munchie-fed or otherwise. Then we can start spreading the word...

The difference was fairly obvious -- as others have said, the verdicts were unanimous, and came very quickly. (I was not expecting this.) The blue foot flesh and skin both were just more straightforwardly chickeny, with a fuller and rounder flavor. But I also noticed a pretty substantial difference in the aftertaste. The Eberly had notes that were almost unchickeny in the aftertaste, almost metallic, though it was the sort of thing that was revealed only by comparison to the blue foot. That is, I'm not sure that it would even be noticeable if one were eating an Eberly chicken breast by itself. It should be stressed that if we had just been served the Eberly breast, I think everyone would have thoroughly enjoyed it. (If I recall correctly, everyone finished each of the samples, which were bigger than necessary for sheer comparison purposes). I too am still collecting my thoughts about the oils, and the pairing of oils with food. The food itself, however, doesn't require much reflection. It was some of the best food that we've had in a long time. I was not expecting a meal of this quality. The ceviche and sorbet combination was stunning. I probably could have had thirds on the bread. The risotto broth was the most aromatic, intensely flavorful chicken broth ever; it's scary to think what would happen if V got the urge to make matzo balls one day. The mozzarella ice cream w/ olive sugar was just completely over the top.

that's a little harsh V. his point seemed to be that the dashi wasn't subtle enough, and that it overwhelmed the pork. and maybe the financier was really unpleasantly dry? and maybe the chicken glaze had flavor, but it was one-dimensional -- "not particularly flavorful" might mean a lack of depth of flavor. just trying to be charitable here. yes, he made a mistake about the egg. and i agree entirely with the larger points you're trying to make. whenever i see or hear the phrase "molecular gastronomy" now I can't help but hear Marcel saying it...

We've only been to snackbar once, and had an experience very like Mr. Fenton's, though it was a weird time (I think fairly late on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, when the regular staff very well might not have been there). We will certainly give it another chance. I have to say, though, that the comparison you just made is blasphemous, and you should tear off the S key on your keyboard and send it to shola as punishment.

OK, the fresh King salmon purchased from Wegmans yesterday just made the single greatest piece of fish I have ever cooked. Mind-numbingly luxurious. Also, brussel sprouts purchased from Wegmans yesterday were unusually terrific.

Agreed, thank you Stan for your contributions here, please keep them coming...

This may be a difference b/w "free-range" chicken and "pastured" chicken... more info here, specifically under 'What is the difference between "free ranged" and "pastured poultry?'

I just called Meadow Run Farm and fresh chicken is indeed available only during the summer. So I guess this is a difference b/w them and Eberly (so I take it Eberly chickens this time of year are not pastured). The Meadow Run Farm chicken we made last night was pretty tasty. The dark meat in particular was very flavorful. But the texture wasn't great, I'm assuming b/c of the freezing.

Interesting. I'm immensely intrigued by the discovery, if it is true, that most of the chicken we've been eating has been frozen at some point. The reason why I mentiond the possibility that some chicken could be thawed prior to being brought to market is that it would seem to be the only explanation of the following, assuming that fresh Eberly chicken is not available most of the year: Whole Foods used to get its Eberly delivery on Wednesdays, and they definitely didn't arrive frozen, as we would often go Wed afternoons and buy one, and they were very much unfrozen. Please explain Merci

The Cherry Hill Wegmans fish counter has been pretty impressive lately. They've had fresh, wild King salmon for the past two weeks at least. Obviously they're not running anymore, but according to the fish guy if you find one in your net, you're allowed to keep it. The stuff they have is overnighted from Anchorage. We had some last week and it was awesome, as good as anything we had over the summer. We got some more tonight, and it looked even fattier than last time. The #1 yellowfin has also looked great. And they have various fresh wild shrimp that has been quite tasty. Also, it's a company-wide policy that they only sell dry scallops. Good for them. Also, their deli counter sells Snake River Farms Kurobuta ham. I don't know if this is a standard thing at nice supermarkets these days, but it's very good. $11/pound. The deli counter also has various Columbus Salame Company products, which is good stuff. Oh, and, I may get abused for saying this, but they make a pretty decent baguette that, I think, far outshines Metropolitan's, about which I've never understood the fuss.

In that area the season is basically Memorial day through Labor day. They can't put the birds outside in the cold weather since they never get older than 7-8 weeks. ← It might still be worth it to find out whether the Meadow Run Farm birds at the Fair Food Farmstand are shipped there frozen, or if they're thawed before shipping, in which case the frozen birds there have been frozen twice, and in which case it might be worth it to get one before it's been frozen for the second time. In any case we're making our Meadow Run Farm chicken purchased frozen tonight, I'll share how it goes. Oh, and FWIW, we actually didn't like the Zuni recipe for Eberly chicken as much as the (much simpler and quicker) recipe for roasted chicken from colicchio's "think like a chef". (though we've only made a Zuni Eberly once.) actually, it's not really much of a recipe. just rub the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper, insert rosemary and thyme into the cavity, truss, sear the chicken on each side, and then roast at 375.

Empire chickens are our soup chickens. They make a good roast chicken but I always found them to be unpleasantly hairy.

The Fair Food Farmstand has frozen Meadow Run Farm chickens, we actually have one thawing now. Given that you can apparently make arrangements w/ the Fair Food Farmstand to get Country Time pork unfrozen (even though it's regularly sold frozen there) maybe you can do the same thing w/ the Meadow Run Farm chickens.

Yup in wet aging the beef is just put in a cryovac for a while... But Wegmans and a lot of other places (Lobel's even) put their beef in cryovac bags for sale; this is after it's been dry aged. Thanks, Lisa for the post. I mentioned last week that I had picked up great looking Prime dry aged strips at Wegmans Cherry Hill. They ended up being not so great. Tougher than I expected, and not much flavor. The Wegmans stuff is just inconsistent, I think. And this is even keeping fixed what it looks like. We've had steaks from Wegmans that looked identical to what we had last week that were excellent. Just goes to show you that even if it has all the right characteristics like Prime, dry aged, etc., and it looks really good, that doesn't guarantee quality... Edited to say that I would have been happier with the meat if our had been $23.99/pound as opposed to the $30/pound that we paid. I'd be interested to hear what you think if you try the meat you described, Lisa...

Had the tasting menu at WD-50 last night. Before describing the food, I just want to note something that got the meal off on a slightly bad footing... We had a 10:30 reservation. I called for a reservation last Wed I think and that's all they had. Fine, 10:30 isn't really that bad. (I should also say that I specifically asked, when making the reservation for that time, whether it would be too late to do a tasting menu -- the last thing that I want to do is make the kitchen work later than they might want to. But I was told that it would be absolutely no problem.) So, we're not used to eating this late, and it turns out that we didn't plan our eating yesterday during the day as well as we should have; we thought that a late lunch would tide us over for dinner, but I suppose we ate too much, or ate too late. Whatever. So we arrived at WD-50 not, well, as hungry as we would have wanted. And we really wanted to do the tasting menu. But there was absolutely no way my girlfriend and I each could have done the tasting menu. So my girlfriend had the idea of splitting a tasting menu, and we asked the waiter whether we could do this. The water was extremely nice and checked with the kitchen, but the kitchen REFUSED. Now, we did NOT want anyone to alter the plating of any dish. That is, we didn't want anyone to split what would normally be on one plate onto two. One cannot expect a restaurant to do this. We just wanted them to put down a plate on the table in between us, from which we would share the food. It's not, of course, unusual for a restaurant to require a minimum number of people to get a tasting menu. Fine. But this is what pisses me off: WD-50 does not require a minimum # of people to do a tasting menu. You can order the tasting menu for yourself at the bar. That is, we were not asking the kitchen to do anything different from what they regularly do. From the perspective of the kitchen, what we were asking would have been exactly the same as if there were one person at the bar getting a tasting menu. So this is what we ended up doing -- we moved from our table to the bar, where I ordered the tasting menu + wine pairing, and my girlfriend sat next to me, sharing the food with me. Why it was necessary to do this I do not understand. It was just plain silly. Particularly for a restaurant like WD-50, which seems (or at least would like to seem) not to take itself too seriously; they clearly want people to have fun eating there. Why it isn't possible for two people to order one tasting menu at a table, when it's possible for one person to order a tasting menu at the bar (and, presumably, at a table by himself or herself) is beyond me. Anyway, the food. The first four dishes were exceedingly disappointing. As in just not particularly pleasurable to eat, we thought. These were: 1. Mackerel, celery noodles, coffee-hazelnut marshmallow 2. Carrot-coconut "sunny-side up" 3. Foie gras in the round 4. Sweetbreads, cabbage-kaffir, water chestnuts With several of these dishes there were elements that, we thought, overpowered the rest of the dish. The marshmallow in the first dish (particularly b/c the mackerel was virtually tasteless), the chocolate spheres in the foie dish, and the cabbage-kaffir with the sweetbreads. With the foie, my girlfriend discovered that if you took a spoonful of the dish and let the foie sort of melt on the tongue, you could keep the chocolate for the end, so that it wouldn't overwhelm the other flavors. But why there was chocolate there in the first place I just didn't understand. With the foie dish and the sunny-side up, I really could not appreciate what the dish was trying to do. The egg was of course fun to behold and to play with, but I'd have a hard time believing that someone could really crave that dish. For one thing, I couldn't quite place the flavor of the yolk. It was carrot-like, but not carrot exactly. And I really don't know why one would encapsulate foie into little pellets. I mean, it's one thing if it somehow served to concentrate the flavor, or do something otherwise interesting to it, but it didn't seem to. In fact, the foie flavor was pretty subtle. I have to say we were really disappointed after the first 4 dishes (although I was thankful that we had only purchased one tasting menu!); it was like our very worst suspicions about this style of food were confirmed. It really did seem to be pure theater, without any particular focus on taste. The next dish was a turning point. 5. Beef tongue, fried mayo, tomato molasses. OK, this was quite good. Then 6. Miso soup, sesame "noodles". OK, the noodles were fun, I suppose. The soup itself, though, could have come from one of those powdered ramen packages. Quite salty, lacking any depth. This was not an impressive soup. But fairly inoffensive. 7. Langoustine, popcorn, hibiscus, endive 8. Squab breat, beets, wood sorrel, coconut pebbles 9. Yuzu curd, spruce yogurt, pistachio 10. Cofee cake, ricotta, maraschino, chicory ice cream 11. Soft chocolate, avocado, licorice, lime These dishes were simply phenomenal. The langoustines were cooked sous-vide, terrific texture. The coconut pebbles were serving a genuinely enhancing role with the squab. The desserts were outstanding. The final dessert 12. Cocoa shortbread, menthol cream. was unremarkable; the menthol cream was actually a bit too subtle for our tastes. So, I'm quite glad we went. I think we would consider doing the tasting menu again at some point in the future. This is a testament to how good the last several dishes were, b/c as I've said, we were most disappointed with the first several.

Rosengarten mentions the method of pouring some oil directly into your cupped palm, taught to him by Marcella Hazan, but then says that wine glasses will probably be more practical... also mentions chunks of bread (and water) as palate cleansers. btw, rosengarten's latest shipment of oils for his "fresh pressed olive oil club" are freaking outstanding (imho -- i'm no expert). really rich, much more so than previous shipments. and they have pressing dates on the bottles of this past november, as in two months ago. info about this latest batch of oils is here. might be fun to see if you can convince them to contribute some bottles, 703.394.4931 is the phone number

This is hysterical. The best dirt that Rendell's people could dig up on Newman is that he stayed in expensive hotels?? I now have more respect for the guy.

Rejoice! David has taken the building off the market. And Pif is now open 5 days a week, Wed-Sun. Apparently the vicious rumours that I was spreading to the effect that the building is irremediably infested were successful. All is well with the world.

Adams house food has improved since then

Actually, not having met most of you, I really have no evidence that you're real people, as opposed to online personalities created by one person with a lot of free time. Wouldn't it be funny if "Holly Moore" and "bigboss" were actually the same person?

It's not complicated: if I went to Yasuda or Masa and was served an entire pound of mind-bogglingly great O-Toro, and that's all, I'd be bored out of my skull no matter how great the ingredient is. And it's a similar thing for me with steak at steakhouses. The main attraction is a large amount of one thing. Personally that doesn't generally flip my switches. I've had some pretty fine pieces of beef in the course of tasting menus, and indeed a piece of relatively unadorned Snake River Farms beef at Per Se was one of my gustatory high points of the last few years. Can't say I had an organoleptic seizure or anything, but it was darn tasty... But my point is that I personally would have been pretty disappointed if my meal there had consisted entirely of a huge portion of that beef, no matter how good it was. I'm not suggesting that the meat at Luger's or ordered from Lobel's or any of a myriad of "high end" steak experiences isn't good, or worth it to some people. I'm just saying that eating a large expanse of one thing, with maybe a couple of sides, doesn't especially appeal to me. It surely does to many people. Hence the many steakhouses in Philly, and any city, regardless of the presence or lack of "high end" meat. I'm not claiming the product itself is inferior or that no gradations of quality exist, just explaining why I'm not making any comparisons between Barclay Prime, Lugers, whomever. I'm just not generally a steakhouse kind of guy. Not that I'm ruling-out a field trip to Luger's... ← Yes, at a steakhouse (or at home, cooking a top quality steak), the steak should be the main attraction, but the meal should not consist entirely of a big slab of meat. Yes, that would be boring. And it should be said that a piece of, say, Snake River Ranch beef at Per Se is NOT steakhouse steak, in the relevant sense (I made it a point earlier to remark that high quality Wagyu is really a different thing.) You can only have a small bit of this at a time due to the fat content. That is to say, a Luger's steak is not just a larger version of what you had. Two normal people cannot split a 36oz grade 11 wagyu Porterhouse. Although, I've never tried... Just for future reference, the proper Luger's meal consist of Tomatoes and onions, with the Luger's sauce, which does not seem to be identical to the bottled sauce sold everywhere Bacon (ABSOLUTELY NOT TO BE MISSED) followed by lamb chops followed by Porterhouse for 2 x how ever many you need followed by cheesecake w/ schlag oh lord, forgot sides: creamed spinach, hash browns.

I have an extremely hard time believing that what the OP did was inappropriate in any way. The issue of proper eGullet etiquette w/r/t restaurant write-ups is completely independent of the issue of proper restaurant review etiquette in other media. It's generally accepted that you don't publish a restaurant review after only going to a place once. But obviously it's perfectly acceptable to post about a meal that you had at a place for the first time, postive or negative. I don't think that the OPs post, or most people's postings about restaurants, are "reviews" in the relevant sense. They simply don't purport to be giving anything like an accurate assessment of what the average diner can expect at the restaurant. They're just descriptions of people's meals. The evidential value of these descriptions is up to the reader to determine for himself. There should be no expectation among anyone reading these boards that when a person posts about a meal, it is anything more than (hopefully) an accurate, honest description of what happened on one particular occasion. And I don't think there is this expectation. I find it really hard to believe that someone reading these boards would regard a person's post in the same way that they would regard a published review, unless the poster's name is "Frank Bruni". And those who are familiar enough with the OP's name to know that he is in the industry are not the people who are going to be mislead into thinking that his post was anything more than what it was. People know that, for virtually any proposition p, no matter how crazy, you can find someone on the internet who has posted to a forum in support of p. That is, I think that people have realistic expectations about what it means when someone posts a message on an online board.

I've had it, it was quite good, I think by far the closest thing to what I'm looking for in Philly. But not quite there. For one thing, as I've said, I'm more of a short loin guy, in part because, I've found, unless you get a rib steak that's pretty close to the short loin, as opposed to closer to the chuck, it can be unpleasantly fatty (as in pockets of inedible fat). And the ribeye I had at Barclay suffered this problem. I have to say that I don't understand this. When you say something "more interesting", are you talking about the organoleptic experience of eating it, or the preparation of it? I do think that organoleptically the experience of eating a piece of fantastically high quality steak is pretty "interesting". In particular the dry aged funkiness overlaid on the more familiar beefy flavors, and the sublimely tender texture that beef usually doesn't have. Again, maybe the difference of opinion is due to the fact that you've never had a steak of the quality under discussion? If "more interesting than a piece of broiled piece of meat on a plate" is referring to preparation, do you generally not like to spend money on, say, fantastic traditional style sushi, which might be described as "cut up raw fish on rice"? Sometimes what's "interesting" about food is how amazing an exceptionally high quality ingredient can be, prepared very simply.

Indeed, and I wouldn't rule out lobel's donating a steak, it couldn't hurt to ask... with V at the helm the steak tasting would be much more professional.

i kinda like that idea. however, i would make it more of a taste-off. order a giant lobel's porterhouse, go to ochs and get a giant porterhouse that's the dry-agiest thing they got. have jasonz get one of his cappuccio's joints. heck, get one from dibruno's new shop and whole foods' dry-aged stuff too. maybe see if we can have someone get one from the good stuff esposito's sells to restaurants, although i guess that would miss the whole point of dagordon's original question about where we as consumers can just buy them. everyone bring a cast iron pan and we'll go nuts. after all, i trust the palates of the folks on here way more than i trust cook's illustrated's tasting crew. ← I'm totally down for that as well, though it would clearly be more expensive per person than the original idea of just Lobel's. also, like jeffrey steingarten in the article mentioned above, i am of the belief that there is a single correct temperature at which a steak (from the short loin, at least) should be served -- steingarten says it's around 120, i think that's about right, perhaps 2 or 3 degrees cooler. acheiving this requires taking a lobel's size steak out of the oven when it's around 102 degrees in the center. steak temperature is ascertained using a polder thermometer inserted into the steak while it is cooking, and is verified with a Thermapen. as you can see, this is quite a process. it's possible that having to cook multiple steaks at the same time will make my head explode, and, clearly, i don't have enough thermometers on hand to do temperature monitoring for more than 1 steak (and in a comparison it's going to be crucially important that each is cooked to the same doneness). but maybe we can work something out