dagordon

Oriental Garden does a mean version of lobster sashimi -- you eat from the tail as the lobster is still quivering. I think I read somewhere that the lobster they use for this is sourced from Whole Foods.

Have to agree with Nathan -- I make it a point to take out-of-town foodie friends to Fatty Crab if they're in the city and they're pretty consistently wowed. I also can't speak to authenticity but it's just fantastic food. Now I have to try the skate...

I made the same offer to the guy from Osteria I was speaking with on the phone and was also turned down. I completely understand charging a corkage fee, and even a quite substantial one; but to refuse any amount of money for corkage (unless you're, say, Bern's Steakhouse, which has a cellar of ~ 2 million bottles) seems insulting to me. What was particularly funny was that the policy that was repeatedly cited was "no outside food or drink allowed." As if wanting to pay corkage for a special bottle of wine not on their list is equivalent to wanting to bring in a cheeseburger from McDonald's for your main course.

Ended up getting a $150 Lisini Brunello that was OK; hardly profound, and not really up to the occasion. The food was great.

Our rocky relationship with Osteria continues... Called the restaurant just now to ask about their corkage policy. Their policy: no outside wine allowed, at all, no matter how much you're willing to pay. How ridiculous. Jean-Georges offers corkage. Per Se offers corkage. Get over yourselves. The explanation given was that the restaurant offers many unique wines, and that that's part of the experience. Well, again, Per Se has a great list, but they don't presume that a customer would never have a special bottle not on the list that he wants to try. Furthermore, most of the stuff I've seen on the list is just from the local state stores, or SLO. Our friends just got engaged, and I have a bottle of 2001 Feudi di San Gregorio Serpico that's I've been wanting to try for a while that I'd like to open. Seriously considering cancelling our reservation for tonight...

Shola's been doing regular guest chef gigs. Assuming you're not one of the privileged few in nyc or around here who gets to have Shola as their private chef, that's the only way to get a taste of his cooking for the time being.

Menu for the Blackfish dinner is up on Shola's blog: http://studiokitchen.typepad.com/ sounds freakin' fantastic.

I think the o-toro was $70/lb. I briefly contemplated using a blow torch, but I actually don't care for that treatment a whole lot; I always find that I can taste the gas.

There was some kind of magic going on at Yakitori Totto last night. We had the best meal we've ever had there. Everything was simply spot-on. For example, the shrimp yakitori, which I haven't been crazy about in the past, were outstanding. They released copious amounts of juice when bitten and were perfectly cooked (they'd been slightly overcooked previously). The chicken hearts were the best they've ever been; unbelievably tender, juicy, and flavorful. The tail, the skin... the chicken oysters were also stupendous. We also had sea cucumber and fried tofu specials (not yakitori, but appetizers) that were excellent. The only possible criticism I can think of is that they were out of soft knee bone by the time we sat down

Picked up some bluefin o-toro and some kampachi for sashimi at Mitsuwa last Saturday: Also got some fresh wasabi root; with freshly grated wasabi and some Ohara Hisakichi Shouten Soy Sauce, both were excellent. I would have been pleased to have been served either at a sushi place. Also, not sushi related, but I can't resist: I also picked up some wagyu rib cap:

This meal was an exceptional value for $60. For some reason the tongue "stew" is sticking out in my memory, and popping into my head at inappropriate times. I haven't had a whole lot of tongue that I've been crazy about, but this dish was delicious. The meat was indeed fork tender with great flavor, the tomato sauce was bright and the capers and cornichons provided nice touches of acid. The sweetbreads were also a standout. The texture was unlike any I think I've ever had, super creamy. Poached before grilled, presumably? After some pretty disappointing pork bellies lately (Supper, Lacroix), this one was quite welcome. It's always nice when a belly has a top, skin layer of crispiness. But crispiness on every side? Crispiness all round? That's thinking outside of the box. This rocked. Dessert was also great.

The chasyumen at Setagaya was pretty lame last night. We hadn't been in several months. The color of the pork loin was an oddly bright white; it had virtually no fat, was tough, and had no grill flavor or color. The belly was limp and also showed little evidence of having been grilled. The broth was weak. Maybe they figured no one in their right mind would want to spend valentine's day at a ramen joint? We barely ate our soup and bolted for Momo Ssam, which was great. The ramen was apparently so disappointing that it aroused certain issues in my subconscious. I dreamt last night that the grill operator at Setagaya had a family emergency, and they decided to boil the meat in his absence...

Just to clarify (it's a little confusing when we say that some place has "the bellota"): bellota jamon still not available in the US. Won't be available until around July 2008. But other iberico bellota products are available. The iberico bellota paleta (shoulder) just recently became available, and iberico bellota salchichon, chorizo, and lomo have been available for some time.

AFAIK Di Bruno's has iberico bellota paleta, which is shoulder that's cured like the jamon, and which is superb, assuming they slice it properly. But still no bellota jamon.

We had a pretty mediocre lunch today at the sushi bar at Morimoto. First, it is a truly bizzare setup that they have where even though you're at the bar, it seems that you're forbidden from interacting with the sushi chefs directly. You have to order your food (even non-kitchen items) from your waiter. This of course defeats a large part of the motivation for sitting at the bar in the first place. And it seems totally out of place here. I mean, perhaps it's to be expected at a very high-end place in Japan where the sushi chef won't deign to even acknowledge your presence if he doesn't recognize you, but c'mon folks, this is Philly, and it's a restaurant that has tuna pizza on the menu. What we wanted was, more or less, an omakase meal with a focus on sushi, nigiri in particular. It was impossible to order this. We could either order the omakase, which it seemed would not mainly feature sushi, or we could get sushi "combination platters" of various kinds. So we opted to get the combo platters and add on some dishes a la carte. We got the rock shrimp, the toro tartare, and the black cod. The rock shrimp were delicious, and pretty addictive, but were, I thought, kind of out of place; they were reminiscent of buffalo wings almost. I love buffalo wings, but not generally before a sushi meal. The tartare was perfectly standard. The black cod was a very well-executed version of this by now completely standard dish. The sushi was disappointing. It was one large platter, for three of us. Not a couple of pieces at a time, with the chef judging and adjusting to our reactions, as we'd hoped. The sushi itself was perfectly fine, but not any better than Zento, for example, or even Genji at its best. I should say that when we ordered the sushi we stressed that we wanted the very best the chef had to offer, and that we weren't really on a budget. But the platter had completely standard stuff on it, nothing special. After we finished the platter we ordered some more sushi a la carte -- toro, hamachi, fluke, kind crab. When the platter came the chef said that he'd included some hamachi belly, as well as some different parts of the fluke, which was welcome. This platter was significantly better than our first, though, like the first, shiso was overused, this time overwhelming the delicate fluke. I get the sense that this place is not about the sushi, but about the stuff from the kitchen. Fair enough.

I just posted this to the Blackfish thread, but I figured I'd post it here too: Shola has posted on his blog that he's doing a guest chef dinner at Blackfish on March 11. http://studiokitchen.typepad.com/studiokit...8/02/31108.html very exciting

Just noticed on Shola's blog that he's doing a guest chef dinner at Blackfish on March 11. http://studiokitchen.typepad.com/studiokit...8/02/31108.html

Got some more iberico bellota paleta from Despana yesterday. It's really shocking how much better this is than the Fermin iberico jamon. It has that amazing sheen that only the bellota products have, and the fat liquifies almost immediately on human contact. In my experience, though, it does degrade pretty quickly after being sliced. We consumed a fair amount of it in the car while illegally parked in front of Despana, and by the end of a drive to Philly it wasn't quite the same.

Despana now has iberico bellota paletilla (shoulder); apparently the curing process is the same as for the bellota jamon, only shorter. It's phenomenal. I actually don't think it has quite the intensity of flavor of the Fermin iberico jamon; there isn't such an intense cheesy funk. But the texture and appearance are spot-on for bellota jamon. It glistens to a far greater extent than the regular jamon, the fat melts much more readily at room temp, and it's more tender. $120/lb.

I remember you! You were the kid in elementary school who would remind the teacher that she hadn't assigned any homework! ← Ha I just want to make sure that this place sticks around

I've been meaning to post to this thread for a while... I just want to confirm that the Matyson tasting menus are an absolute steal for the quality and amount of food involved. In fact, last time we were there I tried to convince the manager to raise the price. I feel like Matyson has replaced Pif as our weeknight go-to place, especially when we have a bottle of wine we want to drink. The food is consistently excellent. FWIW, I think that the food at Matyson now is better than it was at the height of the Matyson hype. We always felt that the appetizers were solid but that subsequent courses didn't measure up. This is no longer the case at all.

I think Zento is the best in the city, and can satisfy a sushi craving. But omakase at Fuji with Matt serving you is just on a totally different level, so much so that I couldn't opt to go to Zento now knowing what's available at Fuji... Of course there was a bit of hyperbole in the 'no excuse' comment -- you have a kid, and if you just don't have the time to get out to Haddonfield then you don't have the time. But I personally would grab a slice somewhere or have a bowl of cereal for dinner rather than go somewhere in the area other than Fuji for sushi. I should mention that I didn't reserve an omakase meal last night -- I made a reservation at the bar, and when I sat down in front of Matt we didn't even say anything about what we wanted, and the food just started coming out... It was like the year and a half or whatever between last night and our last meal at the old Fuji hadn't occurred. Oh, and we brought our own chopsticks, and at the end of the meal our server offered to clean them for us; very classy. Oh, and on the way in we noticed in the coat closet a large bag on the shelf with 'Georges Perrier' written on it. Didn't see him there, though.

Just want to add to this thread what I just posted in the Fuji thread: that Fuji is now back to its old glory, with Matt and his son behind the sushi bar full time. In my mind this is by quite a large margin the best sushi in the area. Of course, sit at the bar and order omakase. Food of this quality would cost at least double in nyc.

It is with tremendous excitement and joy that I report that the old Fuji is back. It is now just Matt and his son, Jesse, behind the sushi bar. Matt said that he dismissed the other sushi chefs three weeks ago, and at first I thought he was kidding, but he was not. It seems that with these other guys behind the bar the restaurant was not conforming with his vision of it. We were of course thrilled to hear this news. And our meal tonight was as good as any that we had at the old Fuji. Which is to say, spectacular. Highlights were the chawan mushi, kumamoto oysters, hamachi belly sushi, toro sushi, amberjack sushi, scallop sushi w/ truffle salt and caviar, an unusual sea bream maki with salmon and salmon roe on top and a drop of a citrusy, berry sauce, and the always fantastic salmon that Matt cures overnight and marinates for several days. Fuji is just totally and completely back. There's now no excuse for eating sushi anywhere else within a 30 mile radius of Philadelphia. This is just phenomenal food. Oh and, Matt's son is obviously quite talented. He made a red bean and strawberry spring roll dessert with vanilla ice cream and a white bean cream that was terrific. No formal pasty training. lfabio, one of the wasabis is the typical colored horseradish stuff, and the other, less dense , tastier one is real wasabi (though not freshly grated).

Which it is, most likely. Just not free-range, and it's probable some of the other standards aren't met either. But, as I understand it, they incorporate acorns into the diet of all the Iberico-bound swine. ← Jamon iberico de pienso isn't fed any acorns. The Fermin product is apparently jamon de recebo (as opposed to jamon de pienso) so does have some acorns in the feed, but calling an iberico product 'acorn-fed', to most informed people, will just mean bellota. That is, something doesn't qualify qualify as 'acorn-fed' if there are some acorns thrown in with regular cereal feed, just as something doesn't qualify as 'grass-fed' if there is some grass thrown in with regular feed. At the very best calling a non-bellota product 'acorn-fed' is highly misleading.