dagordon

While the Chicago dog at Blue in Green is excellent, so is the egg sandwich. It's served on a homemade croissant, and the sandwich is available during the day until the guy runs out of croissants. The ham, egg, and cheese sandwich is really outstanding. And cheap.

Jonathan Best Gourmet Grocer at RTM has the single greatest orange-style juice in the history of mankind, their Honey Tangerine juice. Mind blowing. Apparently honey tangerines are not going to be available for much longer, so get it while it lasts. It's $10/half gallon (apparently they're a real pain to squeeze).

The bubble tea is also good Agreed about the pho ga, it's remarkable.

On the subject of bone marrow at Ansill: You know how bone marrow is so rich that usually it's served with something to cut through the richness, even if it's just some parsley? It takes a particular kind of evil genius to come up with the idea of the cutting the richness of bone marrow with perfectly cooked pieces of NY strip steak. That's right, the NY strip steak on the menu is billed as coming with bone marrow, but this isn't just steak bordelaise, with marrow either in the sauce or slices of it as a garnish. This is a freaking gigantic bone on the plate right there next to the pieces of steak. Let me tell you, it's a killer combo. (Quite literally, I fear; I've only eaten fruit salad today so far.) Extremely low quality picture, but perhaps it conveys a sense of just how evil this dish was. What you see is a humongous chunk of marrow that I harvested from the bone on top of a piece of steak. I think there might be some leeks in between. Everything else was delicious, btw. The grilled romaine with anchovy vinaigrette is highly recommended, in particular.

Actually you can get wild pacific salmon year round: http://wdfw.wa.gov/outreach/fishing/salmon.htm You can even find king salmon during the winter. Wegmans had it last year. Google "king salmon winter" and you'll find a lot of charter companies that will actually take you fishing for king salmon during the winter. -- On a different topic, the shellfish tasting menu this week is absolutely spectacular. Perhaps the best tasting menu I've had there. Tonight's the last night -- don't miss it! I'm hard pressed to think where else I could get a meal of this quality in Philadelphia, regardless of the cost. That this menu is $45/person is just incredible.

We've had very good experiences with Thai Chef and Noodle. We've eaten there once and have had delivery from them once. We too had that wild boar dish, and we thought it was excellent. We had the appetizer combo platter when we ate there and it was actually quite good -- everything was warm, and tasty. Moon Dumplings ("fried stuffed minced pork, vegetables, sweet and sour chili soy sauce") are very good. "Jungle Queen" ("boldly spiced tofu sauteed with vegetables medley, exotic spices and Thai herbs") tastes a lot (sauce-wise) like the Panang Curry (which we had w/ chicken when we ate there), and both are delicious. Crispy Duck ("double cooked half duck, outside crispy, inside tender served with ginger black bean and plum sauce") is fantastic. The description is (surprisingly) accurate: the outside is perfectly crispy, flaky even, and perfectly seasoned, and the meat itself is tender and flavorful. We had this both when we ate there and when we got delivery, and -- incredibly -- it might have even been better when we got it delivered. The styrofoam container had slots punched out to prevent condensation, and it worked. Leftovers even reheated remarkably well the day after. We also like the Pad Thai a lot, but we're not experts by any means.

Have to disagree with some of the comments here: Blue Ribbon is one of our favorite food destinations in Manhattan. (The sushi places are pretty unexceptional, imho.) The bone marrow & oxtail marmalade appetizer is better than "very nice" -- it's arguably the best appetizer in the city. The foie terrine and fried oysters are also outstanding. They also do a pretty darn good matzoh ball soup. For mains they do an excellent rack of lamb, and the fried chicken is by a pretty wide margin the best fried chicken we've had in Manhattan.

This week's tasting menu was perhaps the strongest one we've had at Matyson: "Out of Our Gourds" Sugar Pumpkin Soup Pumpkin seed tuile, cider gastrique Spaghetti Squash Carbonara Pan roasted diver scallop, pancetta, parmesan Butternut Squash Coconut Curry Stew American red snapper, steamed mussels, peanut sambal Sautéed Acorn Squash Gnocchi Five spice roasted quail, porcini mushrooms, quail jus Pumpkin Napoleon White chocolate mousse, honey sauce -- This was really flawless (well, the third course should have been served with a spoon, so that you could get every last bit of the delicious broth). Matyson continues to serve some of best food in Philly, imho. At $45 the tasting menu is always a steal, and this week's particularly so. The level of execution of the food here is very high.

All I wanted was a good strip steak to cook last night for dinner. I went to the 9th St Whole Foods, which has served me well in the past. Unfortunately, the regular (non-aged) strips looked pretty lame. The dry-aged strips were kind of hiding in the back of the display case, for good reason; they looked even worse, greying around the edges and with uneven marbling with evident lines of tough fat. So I went to the 20th St Whole Foods. The regular strips looked about the same as at 9th St; the dry-aged strips here, though, had virtually no marbling at all. They looked like USDA Select. Kind of shocking, actually. So I went to Di Bruno's center city; the last time I had a steak there was at the tasting we did over a year ago, where it didn't fare so well. But the butcher area at Di Bruno's has looked better these days, so I decided to give it a try. They didn't have any aged strips; I got an unaged strip that was probably a high grade of Choice. I gave it the special treatment. I seared it briefly to get some Maillard flavors, as well as to sterilize the exterior, as I then used a Jaccard meat tenderizer on it. nathanm has done some experiments proving the benefits of the Jaccard not only in improving texture, but also in preventing the loss of liquids during sous-vide cooking. But there's some concern that when you use it you're pushing possibly dirty meat into the sterile interior of the steak, which if you're cooking to rare to medium rare might be a problem; hence the sterilization. So I put it in the water bath for an hour and a half or so at 50 C. I salted and peppered both sides and then seared again, this time for a crust. What resulted was this: A perfectly cooked, perfectly tender steak, if I do say so myself: nice crust, but perfectly and evenly rare to medium rare in the interior. Only one problem: the steak had no taste. I conclude that it's way more difficult than it should be, if it's possible at all, to get a high quality steak in Philadelphia on the spur of the moment.

This is a perfectly reasonable attitude, and for all I know I too was missing something during my meal at Kuruma. But I deliberately waited to go to Kuruma until after we got back from Japan and had eaten at what are regarded as the best places in Tokyo, so I'd have something of a benchmark. All I can say is that, for me, the greatness of the greatest sushi meals I've had has not been all that subtle. On the contrary, they kind of hit you over the head with their greatness -- the freshness, purity of flavor, perfect balance of components is pretty obvious.

We had our first meal at 15 East a couple of weeks ago, and it was on the same level as the best meals we've had at Yasuda, we thought. Which is to say a distinct level above Kuruma. Factoring in price, I can't see any way to justify going to Kuruma, given that there are at least these two options available that to my tastes are better, and a fraction of the price.

Sadly the place just isn't the same since the original owners left. For a while after the new owners took over the menu was even exactly the same, but the food wasn't on the same level. I believe Ito En now owns it, the tea people, same people who own Kai (which never impressed). The couple that originally owned Donguri were lovely, and adorable -- we even tried to track down their new place when we were in Japan, unsuccessfully.

We've eaten at BH@SB at 10 and it's been no problem at all. Also, we got married at BH@SB recently, so we know the hotel options around there pretty well. I recommend the Castle on the Hudson, and I'd avoid Tarrytown House like the plague.

At a certain point one feels silly complaining about the quality of the food at a Starr establishment. I'm not sure why I even posted my comments initially. The place is going to make a fortune, and the overwhelming majority of people who go there will like the food well enough, but will be going primarily for non-food-related reasons in the first place. That is to say, it seems like the restaurant is going to perform exactly as it was expected to, if not better. The purpose of a Starr restaurant isn't to wow the sort of people who read this or other food boards, or even food critics, but to make money. Of course most restaurants have making money as their primary purpose, but some try to accomplish this precisely by catering to the tastes of foodies, critics or the sort of people who read this or other food boards. The Starr organization has a model for making money that doesn't involve this.) Perhaps this will change some time soon... There's no reason why a Starr place couldn't have fantastic food, even if having fantastic food isn't its raison d'etre.

I was wondering if anyone has noticed a decline lately at Zuni. Our most recent visit before tonight was about a year ago, and the chicken was as spectacular as ever. Every time we've had the chicken there it's been spectacular. Tonight the chicken was mediocre. The skin was flabby, the white meat was dry, and it lacked that subtle smokiness that elevates the chicken into the sublime. Also, we were seated next to a large table that was excruciatingly loud. Two other tables next to us were also visibly annoyed, and we exchanged many an eye-roll with them over the course of our dinner. At one point I asked our waiter if anything could be done about the noise, and he responded that he'd talk to the manager, but that one of the people at the table (and, we're almost certain, the source of most of the noise) was one of the owners. A Google search reveals that there's a relatively new owner, Gilbert something. People kept on referring to the ringleader of the table as Gilbert so this must be the guy. He was intolerable. It's wasn't even the volume of his conversation -- it was the singing, and the sound effects (at times he sounded like the retarded white half-brother of a member of Ladysmth Black Mambazo). We moved to a different table when the chicken arrived. FWIW, our waiter was extremely apologetic. We couldn't help but wonder if the new managment has had an effect on the food... Needless to say we won't be going back any time soon.

We just got back from our first meal at Manresa, and were extremely dissapointed. I'm not sure I can recall ever having spent so much on a meal and having been so unhappy with it. We had the tasting, and the "premium" (or something like that) wine pairing, for $160 additional. Petit fours "red pepper-black olive" Sweet corn croquettes Golden beggar's purses Melon soup confit, almond tofu Summer squash and foie gras royale Arpege farm egg Melon soup was delicious. I expected more of a punch from the beggar's purses (some kind of roe, quail egg); they were surprisingly subdued. The foie gras royale was oustanding. The Arpege egg was about the same as my crude attempts at replicating the Arpege egg before having actually had it; it lacked the elegance and refinement of the real thing, and my yolk was overcooked. It was also slightly perturbing that it wasn't billed as an "Arpege" egg when it was presented (though it does say this on the menu we got at the end of the meal). Marinated shellfish with golden raspberries, fragrant green curry oil I thought the green curry oil overwhelmed the delicate fish. Horse mackerel with ginger, seaweed ice and lemon flavored herbs Pumkin veloute "petit rouge", nasturtium ice cream unremarkable Info the vegetable garden Not Arpege. The quality of the vegetables just wasn't there, and the magic of the dish at Arpege was completely lost. It was a mediocre plate of veggies. Roast monkfish in a young garlic boullion, seaweed persillade The monkfish itself was a bit tough, and as with most monkfish had virtually no flavor. Pheasant with morels, braised garden greens and tart morello cherry Both of our pieces of pheasant had significant parts that were inedible (cartilage perhaps?), and the pheasant itself was fairly tasteless. Roast beef bavette and garden vegetable roots with horseradish The beef was borderline offensive; it tasted like a piece of USDA Select sirloin. Tough, no apparent marbling, and not much flavor. I took one bit and left the rest. Olive oil ice cream with sea sald, carnaroli rice with cherries Tasty, though Batali's olive oil gelato is way better. Sheep's milk yogurt mousse with nectarine, coriander We were confused as to what exactly this was doing as a dessert course, as there really wasn't any sweetness, and there wasn't a particular need for a kind of palate cleanser after the previous dish. Blackberries and bitter chocolate, caramel popcorn croustillant This was truly delicious (there was a popcorn milk that was amazing). The wines were a big disappointment, especially for the price. Part of me wonders whether we were given the non-premium pairing by accident (though we were charged for the premium one), as if this was the premium pairing, I shudder to think what the non-premium one is like... An unremarkable Albarino, an oak monster CA sauv blanc and semillon blend, an unremarkable white Burgundy, and maybe the single most unimpressive Barolo I've ever tasted (thin, really restrained fruit, truncated finish). Though there was a nice Lucien Boillot 2004 Pommard burgundy. The pacing of the meal seemed to get slower and slower as the night wore on, which started to take its toll on us. Even apart from the price this was an uneven but mostly unimpressive meal; but factoring in the price, well, the quality of the food and wine wasn't even in the same ballpark as similarly priced meals we've had elsewhere.

I don't think everyone agrees that thicker fries are better. They're just different. Especially in the context of a steak frites, shoestring fries aren't out-of-place; L'Ami Louis' steak frites, for example, which may be the ultimate expression of this dish, comes with a giant stack of shoestring fries (which, at their best, are probably the best fries in the world). As far as Les Halles, it's probably best not to take that as a model, what with its severely sucking and all.

Well, I think part of it was that we were trying to find something to be positive about, food-wise, and that we were so enthusiastic about the fries indicates just how mediocre most of the rest of the food was. But the consensus when we had the fries was that they're pretty darn close to McDonald's fries, and McDononald's fries fresh from the fryer can be pretty darn good. (Though I think it was more the frying in beef tallow than the starting with whole potatoes that made McDonald's fries so much better back in the day.) Belgian pommes frites are just a different animal, in my mind. I embrace a kind of fry pluaralism.

I was with rae and a couple of others at dinner last night. I concur with most of what she said. The noise was a huge problem. I can understand the SRO wanting a certain level of chatter in the place to make it seem exciting and lively, but this is way over the top. It was just horrible. If we had only been able to sit near the bar and the main room, where the noise was loudest, I don't think we would have stayed. It's kind of shocking that the SRO wouldn't have taken steps to prevent this from being such an issue. The place is covered in tile. A lot could have been done to mitigate this issue. Anyway, the food. The bread was truly excellent, as was the charcuterie platter. It could be very nice to make a snack or light meal out of this at Parc at an off-hour. The mains were problematic. The chicken was indeed mushy. There was some speculation as to what might have caused this; we think it might have been over-brined. In any case, though, the sauce it was in was cloying. It was one of those standard brown demi-glace based sauces (didn't taste much different from the one on the leg of lamb). The dish was not particularly chickeny. The steak frites was OK. It was a hangar steak, and it was unusually thin, but long (in fact, curled over itself). The meat itself didn't seem of great quality; it was a bit sinewy and didn't have a whole lot of flavor. The fries, A+. The duck confit was a disappointment. It was dry and a bit too salty and not all that flavorful. I agree that the leg of lamb was the best main course, but it was cold by the time we got it. Not just not warm, but actually cold. Overall I was expecting much better. I didn't expect to be wowed, but I did expect to have solid food; I was hoping that this would be a go-to spot for good, solid food on the Square. As of now it isn't, imho. A "bistro" should be able to make a great roast chicken and steak frites blindfolded. This isn't complicated food.

Hell yeah, the carrier could be used for melted butter... I think it would probably melt pretty quickly by itself. But I could vacuum pack some butter, fill the carrier with very hot water, and then put the pouch in the carrier. That would totally work.

Forgot to add: the ramen is $10, and filling enough to make a meal out of for lunch.

Tokyo But you should be able to find Yagenbori togarashi in Asian markets in the US. You can definitely get it online.

I guess I'm pretty late to discover this, but the sushi and sashimi at Morimoto is not their strong point, whereas some of the cooked stuff is quite good. The "Morimoto Ramen Soup" on the lunch menu is very, very good. We've had it for lunch several times in the past couple of weeks. It's more reminiscent of Jewish chicken soup with some Japanese accents than any ramen I've had, however. The broth is super intense, and the pieces of chicken in the soup are super tender. The thing is, though, the soup is crying out for a good slow-cooked egg to be put in there, as well as some good shichimi togarashi. So, I decided to take matters in to my own hands. Aladdin "Micro Lunch Bowl", $12 from Target: 2 fresh Meadow Run Farm eggs from Fair Food, cooked in the water bath at 63.8 F for about 1 hour. Lunch was at 1:30. I put the eggs in the bath at 12:30. At 1:25 I transferred the eggs into the container, along with some of the water from the bath: I grabbed some Yagenbori shichimi togarashi: and headed over to Morimoto. When the ramen came we surreptitiously took out the container, retrieved the eggs and broke them into the soup, put the shells back into the container, and hid the container. Then a slight dusting of the togarashi. OMFG. This was transcendent. Out-of-control good. In part because (for whatever reason) the MRF eggs are maybe the best they've ever been, and the togarashi provided just the right level of heat and added complexity.

I dunno... for $25/lb there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of edible meat on that thing, what with the solid blobs of fat in the middle, and the bone...

Disturbingly, Fairway is still advertising jamon iberico bellota at (at least) their Broadway and Red Hook stores, even though they have known for some time now that they do not have this product. I was at the Fancy Food show today and spoke with the guy in charge of Fermin's exports, and he said he's actually aware of the issue, and he has spoken with Fairway's distributor about it. But nothing seems to have come of this. I won't shop at Fairway anymore because of this. Are the pruneaux d'Agen that they're selling really from Agen? Maybe they're from somewhere near Agen, and Fairway thinks it's close enough... Is the wild salmon really wild? Maybe it's farmed, but Fairway thinks it tastes close enough to wild... Again, it's one thing to make an innocent mistake about what you're selling. But this is now just dishonest. There are plenty of other food purveyors in nyc whose honesty isn't questionable where I can take my business.