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dagordon

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Everything posted by dagordon

  1. Stopped by the 9th St Whole Foods today to reap the bounty of the weekly Wednesday Eberly poultry delivery. Only to be told that they are no longer carrying Eberly products. They are selling their own newfangled Whole Foods branded chickens. My girlfriend and I nearly broke down. Eberly chickens are the chickens used at many of the top restaurants in nyc. They consistently win chicken tastings. The chickens are, quite simply, superb. I posted today about what I feel is the lack of truly high-end meat and fish in Philly. One exception to this has been poultry. A simple roasted Eberly chicken is something to behold. According to the Eberly web site Lester Halteman at RTM has their stuff. I will have to see exactly what they carry tomorrow. Anyone know? Eberly has a pretty amazing store at their farm, but it's completely impractical to drive out there for a regular supply. I'm also aware that D'Artagnan organic chickens are Eberly... though we've found that they're not as consistently amazing as the Eberly branded ones. In fact we had an off one recently... I don't know what I will do if I cannot have a regular supply of Eberly chickens and chicken parts. Whole Foods has officially pissed me off one too many times. If I ever go there again it will be with a pet lobster on a leash behind me following a trail of foie gras bits that I will toss it as food.
  2. Fair enough. It's just that based on what I've had from them, and the frankly sorry state of the meat that's on display, I have a hard time believing that the best of what they have is what I'm looking for. (The sort of butcher I'm looking for would not feel comfortable selling and displaying that stuff, I think.) But I suppose it's worth a try. The relationship between price and quality is nonlinear after a point, of course. But I honestly believe that Lobel's regular beef has not yet hit the point of diminishing returns. I think their Wagyu has. If you've ever been to Peter Luger's, the beef is of at least that quality. After having a Lobel's steak, or a Luger's steak, you really wonder whether what you just ate deserves to be even in the same category as other things called "steak". I say this with great sadness, as I, like many, cannot afford to buy this quality of meat on a regular basis. But after having it, it's really, really difficult to enjoy other beef nearly as much as you did in the past. I was very excited when I heard that Giunta's has opened, and stopped by about a month ago to check it out... while the stuff may be a good value and perfectly fine for everyday eating, it's not the ultra high quality stuff that I'm looking for. For one thing, I remember (though I may be wrong) that the beef is grass-fed, which, of course, is going to rule out the kind of marbling and, as a result, from what I gather, the duration of aging that I'm after. I think you're probably right about that. One thing that I haven't mentioned, but that I think is worth mentioning, is this. One of the amazing things about the ultra high quality meat and fish under discussion is that someone like myself, who shall we say is of rather limited abilities in the kitchen, can make a pretty outstanding meal without very much effort. You just have to subject the stuff to a little heat. When I unwrapped the Lobel's porterhouse for New Year's eve and put it out to warm up, my girlfriend saw it and said that it was hard to resist taking a bite out of it right then and there, raw. With a lot of the stuff that I see in, say, RTM or Whole Foods, I think to myself, someone who is talented in the kitchen could probably make something quite delicious out of this. But the task at hand would be transforming a rather modest product into something delicious. There's a different project, that of taking a superior product and doing as little to it as is necessary to bring out its inherent qualities and make it edible. That's the sort of project that I have a hard time pursuing with a lot of the product that I see around here.
  3. OK, will definitely try Ippolito's. This is intriguing. But don't you have to dry age basically an entire primal cut, or a large portion of one? And what's the quality of the meat to begin with?
  4. Well, I have no doubt that I'm going to get accused of snobbery for this, but whatever. I can't seem to find anywhere in Philadelphia that has truly high end meat and fish available to ordinary consumers. Mind you, for most people, myself included, this would not be for daily consumption -- rather, for when you want to cook a really nice meal, every once in a while, say for a special occasion. For example, we had friends over for dinner on New Year's eve. We were settled on doing steak as the main course. But I couldn't find any high quality, prime, dry-aged steak anywhere around here -- I ended up ordering online from Lobel's, which, of course, was extraordinary. The level of quality I have in mind would be beef of the quality of Lobel's in nyc (or even slightly below), fish of the quality of, say, Citarella. The fish at Citarella just sparkles with freshness. The fish around here is, pretty uniformly, depressing. The stuff at Whole Foods on 9th is ok at best. The stuff at RTM (again, available to ordinary people) doesn't seem remotely to approach the quality I have in mind. Though maybe there's some secret to fish selection at RTM to which I'm not privy. It'd also be nice to have access to good quality Berkshire pork around here. And really superb lamb, like, dare I say it again, Lobel's. As far as beef around here I'm supremely disappointed. I think I've mentioned this elsewhere. What I've had from Harry Ochs has been extremely mediocre. (Though apprently there is stuff available at Harry Ochs that's been aged for substantially longer that what is on display, which you have to specifically ask for, and I haven't had that.) It's hard to believe that what is on display there is, in fact, USDA Prime -- if it is, it must be just barely. And the steaks are cut so thin. I've actually had some very good to excellent steaks from Whole Foods, but they're Choice, and not aged for nearly long enough, and the quality of stuff they have available is wildly inconsistent. I've also had great Prime steaks from Wegmans, though, again, not aged nearly long enough, but lately the quality there has been deteriorating. I had high hopes that the meat and fish addition to Di Bruno's would be what I have been yearning for. But the quality simply isn't there on the meat side. I haven't had the fish there, but it frankly just doesn't look very good. Doesn't Philadelphia need a high-end butcher and fishmonger? (Preferably under the same roof, but I'll take what I can get.) If a place opened, say, in Center City, with high-end beef and fish, I'd have to imagine that it would do quite well. Is this not the case? Can Philadelphia not sustain what I am looking for? I'm open to the possibility that there are hidden gems in this city that I have overlooked -- in fact, I'd love this to be the case. I'm just not optimistic that it is the case.
  5. I would guess the poster was referring to the "balance" of the alcohol in the wine vs sugar/acidity etc. Not necessarily the percentage listed on the bottle which is probably a normal 13.5% The wine was drinking "hot" because it was out of balance with relation to the sugar and acidity levels. Not that the alcohol was actually any higher than usual. ← That's right, but I was also curious about what the stated alcohol content is, which I normally don't pay attention to, but feel like I should perhaps start looking at...
  6. don't have the bottle anymore, and that was my only one... anyone have one on hand? Agreed.
  7. Off topic but which Delorenzo's? I'm headed to Hudson street for lunch in an hour. As a long standing customer for about 40 years, I must agree with your assesment of what comes out of those ovens ← Talk about insulting... if I were in a worse mood, I would have taken you to have just challenged me to a duel. Hudson St, of course. Who do you think I am?
  8. Yikes. Anyone know the alcohol content of the Whitehall Chairman's Selection cab? Tried it last night at De Lorenzo's (which, in my mind, continues to produce some of the most extraordaordinary creations that mankind has ever ever been responsible for), didn't much care for it... Thought the alcohol was completely overwhelming.
  9. Where? In any case, this is a different ground for complaint than what has been voiced here recently. I'm not sure I quite understand what that means (whether it's the facts that are doing the ruffling and the insulting, or whether the facts are doing the ruffling, and I am doing the insulting, I suppose as a result). But as far as the ruffling, clearly it's not assumed that we knew that this email of which you speak exists, as you ask above whether we know of it. So you can't think that it's the fact that this email exists that "ruffled my feathers". (Though I'm not sure that my feathers are at all ruffled. I'm just trying to understand people's criticism.) I'm not sure what other "facts" you think might be ruffling me. In any case, I didn't mean to insult anyone, and I hope that I didn't. It just seems to me that "deceptive marketing" is not a charge to be taken lightly, when there are genuine cases of it that demand action. I just don't see it here. If there's an email that states incorrect information about the product, that's another thing (and it seems to me that, armed with such an email, one could get a refund for whatever product one might claim one bought as a result) but that doesn't seem to be the main source of complaint here.
  10. I think my original statement was misleading... What I meant was that it is common for a winery to release multiple wines in a given year. Given this practice, it seems like if one is confronted with a bottle that has a radically different label than another bottle by the same winery from the same year, it would be natural to conclude that there might be different stuff inside.
  11. What exactly does it mislead one into believing? That it's the same wine as their regular bottlings? Then why would it have a different label? It's unfortunate if people had this impression, but it seems to me that the bottle label should have prevented that impression. Of course! But my point is not that this wine is a Chairman's Selection. My point is that the original wine label says "Chairman's Selection" on it, and as far as I can tell the label bears absolutely no resemblance to labels on any of their other bottlings. I don't know how you could see that and not think something was up. Well, I wouldn't take the retail prices seriously. If you do a bit of research I think you'll find that they often don't bear much resemblance to what price the wine is actually selling at elsewhere.
  12. Don't hold your breath on that one. The Whitehall Lane stunt was not the Chairman's finest hour. In fact, it was downright trickery in my book - however innocent the sentiment may have been. ← Can someone explain to me why people so upset about this Whitehall Lane thing? I'm genuinely asking the question. I think I may not have the full story. What I understand is that there is a Chairman's Selection that is a Whitehall Lane bottling specifically blended for PLCB sales. People are upset that it was quoted with a retail price? But does anyone take these retail prices seriously? The bottle says "Chairman's Selection" in extremely visible lettering on it, right there in the center of the label. Doesn't this give anyone pause? It would be trickery if this had the same label as other bottlings with which it is not identical. But it doesn't. I really don't get it. People are upset that a retail price was quoted? But, as I said, it's simply not reasonable to take this to mean, "This wine is selling elsewhere for this much money." It's simply a number that the winery is giving the PLCB -- unless I'm missing something. Are the retail prices displayed in general the result of anything like a statistical sampling of prices around the area or country? If, as I suspect, the retail price in general, is, as with most products, simply a meaningless number that the manufacturer is making up, then what's the harm in having one for a proprietary bottling? If the import of the number in general is, "Well, we might be able to find someone someplace who will pay this much for it," the same could be said for the Whitehall Chairman's Selection. Maybe they believe that if they decided at some point to sell this through other channels, they would quote a price of $40. Everyone knows that wineries produce different bottlings every year. There was no secret made of the fact that this was a special bottling for the Chairman's Selection program. It, um, says it on the label.
  13. That's funny, the first time we ate at Lakeside it was a fried bonanza, which is the principal reason why we didn't go back for a while. We didn't order dim sum off the menu, though. I remember our waitress coming around with various dim sum on trays and offering it to us, and virtually all of it was fried. I don't remember whether we asked her to just bring out an assortment of dim sum, or whether the trays were brought out automatically. So when we went back recently (our second time) we ordered specific items from the menu to ensure that it wouldn't be a repeat of the first time. Agreed that dim sum feels much better when the fried is minimized.
  14. Four of us went to Lakeside for dinner probably a little over a month ago and got a bunch of dim sum. It was all good, but the general consensus was that Ocean Harbor is substantially better for dim sum; I myself think there's no comparison. Speaking quite generally the depth of flavor I get at Ocean Harbor just wasn't there. I wish I remember what we got... tripe w/ black bean sauce (I think that was the sauce), pork buns, shrimp dumplings, tofu skin rolls with pork, rice noodle rolls w/ shrimp, rice noodle rolls w/ beef, kidneys. One memorable thing was that the rice noodle rolls w/ beef featured some sort of beef roll, as opposed to slices of the genuine article. The baby bok choy at Lakeside is simply fantastic, though. I recall that we got there like a half hour before closing -- maybe this wasn't Lakeside at its best.
  15. We were very pleasantly surprised by Megu sushi in Cherry Hill last night. We had heard of it from a guy sitting next to us at the sushi bar at our last meal at Fuji. We at ate the bar and had omakase from who I take it was the head sushi chef, "Steve". It was very tasty! The fish preparations were not traditional: many were garnished or lightly sauced, and I probably would have preferred more plain sushi, but it really satisfied a craving. The quality of the fish was quite good. Some excellent otoro. A very, very yummy tuna "dumpling" with the skin a thin layer of tuna. Will definitely return before Fuji reopens (though it's by NO means a Fuji replacement). www.megusushi.com
  16. Whole Foods sells Valrhona cocoa powder, Caviar Assoouline sells Guittard (though I think they may have to order it); I know that the Valrhona is dutched, I'm 99% sure that the Guittard is.
  17. I'm a big fan of the ngo gai -- culantro, saw-tooth herb, etc... I've only seen it a couple of times at Cafe Diem. Apparently grows more slowly than other herbs so is more expsneive, which might explain this. Though it always seems to be on Pho Ha's herb plate. philadining, thanks for post! I will have to try Little Saigon's bun bo hue asap. oh, and were you asked a question when you ordered the bun bo hue dac biet regarding whether you eat something or other? i'm fairly certain now that the question is "do you eat pork". Last time I was there the exchange after the question went on a bit longer than usual and for the first time my bun bo hue included what looked like slices of pork roll.
  18. From 95, Take the COLUMBUS BLVD exit- EXIT 20- toward WASHINGTON AVE. 0.2 miles Take the ramp toward WASHINGTON AVE / PENNS LANDING. <0.1 miles Turn LEFT onto S COLUMBUS BLVD. 0.1 miles Turn LEFT onto WASHINGTON AVE. 0.7 miles Turn RIGHT onto 7th St Make your first LEFT onto Carpenter St Make your first LEFT onto S 8th St Parking lot on your left; Cafe Diem is on the next block down on 8th St. They're closed on Wed; also I'm not sure how late they stay open. You can try calling them at 215-923-8347.
  19. Had one of the best bowls of soup I've ever had this afternoon. Bun Bo Hue Dac Biet. As far as can tell, any soup "Dac Biet" is a "special" version of that soup, which includes whatever interesting meat they have available that day. (My standard pho order there is now "Pho Dac Biet".) Today there were generous amounts of tendon, brisket, and unidentifiable fatty pieces as well, as well as a largely bony thing whose purpose, as far as I could tell, was not to be eaten but to continue to provide flavor to the soup (I have no idea what it was). The broth today was particularly incendiary. Every time I've ordered the Bun Bo Hue Dac Biet, the waitress has said to me with a concerned expression, "You know that contains" followed by something I can't make out. I nod my head and indicate that of course I know that. You know that whatever follows an exchange like this is going to be pretty damn good... I wish that I could communicate to them how amazing I think their soups are, but I don't think my past attempts have been successful. Anyone know how to say "This is one of the best things I have ever eaten" in Vietnamese??
  20. My impression is that he's been working a lot and is getting tired, and, in more or less his words, "wants to have a life". Dunno if this means he will be investing more of himself in Ansill, though I doubt it; in any case, it sounds like Pif in any form is done. It does sound like they'll remain open until the building sells, though, so it's unclear how much longer Pif will remain.
  21. It sounds like once the building is sold, that's it for Pif. Just got back from an oustanding tasting menu there. David's cooking just seems to match our tastes perfectly. Everything that comes out of that kitchen is spot on. This is heart breaking.
  22. Lobel's lamb, like pretty much everything they sell, is phenomenal. It's either from Colorado or somewhere nearby (the website says "Rocky Mountain high-country"). Whenever I've been to the actual shop they've only had rib chops, but they have loin chops as well on the web site.
  23. dagordon

    Fuji

    where???
  24. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Someone please find out what is happening.
  25. I just wanted to thank everyone for the suggestions, they were immensely helpful. We ended up going to Brick, and enjoyed it very much. We had the fig and artichoke salad, the foie, the confit buffalo wings, the shrimp and grits, the ribeye, and the fries. The quality of the food was quite impressive. It was a very nice way to unwind after a long and dehumanizing flight.
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