johnder

There is a 3 course prix fixe menu in the main room for $80. You can choose from 8 starters and 8 mains as well as desert.

I am not sure, I know they have a prix-fixe 3 course for lunch at $45. You have a choice of 3 picks for each course. If I had to guess I would think they would have an a la carte too, but you may want to double check.

When you walk through the door you immediately come upon a reservation podium/desk. The usually have between 2-3 people at this podium. To the left of the desk/podium is the London bar dining room which has all the tables for dinner. Straight ahead is the bar, and on the right side of the room is the casual bar area with banquet seating. If you walk straight ahead to the bar and hang a left and walk past all the tables for the London Bar, there is a set of double doors that lead into the main (formal) dining room.

So I stopped by last night to have some tapas at the bar. I got there around 7 and was the only person at the bar. The dining room was probably 60% full. My first impression when walking in the room was, "Jeeze, it is bright in here" At first I thought it was the xmas tree and all the xmas lights in the window, but then I realized the lights above the bar were the worst offender. It is really bright. Great for taking pictures, but not much for atmosphere. Also the big tv behind the bar playing ice age the movie was slightly weird. We sampled a few tapas some of the same ones that donbert had here. Jamon Serrano Pincho De Boqueron marianted sardines, sweet garlic, ginidilla peppers Cochinillo Confitado confit suckling pig, granny smith apple puree, star anise scented sauce Tarta De Ropa Vieja duck confit, pork chorizo, foie gras, truffles with chorizo aioli Patatas Bravas home fries dusted with paprika served with chorizo aioli The food was good, but not spectacular. I think for the money the preparation and size of the portions are a good deal, it seems that it is just lacking a bit on the execution. The highlight of the evening was the Tarta De Ropa. It was really well balanced flavor wise, but slightly too oily. Almost like it was fried at too low of an oil temp. It was fully cooked through but not as hot and crispy as you would expect coming out of the fryer. It is similar I think to the experience Sneakeater had. The Cochinillo was good, but I would have liked a crisper skin on the pork. Granted it is a confit of pig, but the whole crispy pig skin thing is what it should be about. The one big letdown of the evening was the Jamon. It was cold -- not just out of the fridge cold, but cold. It didn't have the glistening of the fat that a Jamon has after it has been out at room temperature for a few hours. It was also sliced too thickly for my taste. It was about double as thick as it should be. Unfortunately we had to leave pretty soon after, otherwise I would have just sat there for 20 minutes until the plate warmed up. Overall I think I would go back if I was in the neighborhood for the tapas. I am not sure if I would have the regular menu just yet.

Thanks, Bryan. I will have to defer to our resident NY Gordon ramsey expert, Johnder, to address that point. ← I guess it would be slightly more modern in the case of some dishes. Most of the dishes in the main room are classical dishes with a few twists where I would say the dishes in the London bar are the similar but probably have a few extra garnishes or plated in a different, more modern style -- especially in the case of the beet salad. That seems like a pain to plate. Another example would be the terrine in the main room versus the one in the bar. The one in the main room was a more complex terrine, foie layered with game and garnished with the blanched string beans, where the terrine in the bar was large slabs of foie interspersed with the duck and garnished with the sweet/sour onion napoleon. Different preparation and not so classical accompaniment in the case of the bar room. The onion veloute on the other hand was something that would be right at home in the main room.

I was lucky enough to have dinner with Doc Friday and was the unfortunate recipient of the luke warm espresso. I was late back to the table because I was assisting a lovely young woman who was trapped in the restroom unable to get the door opened, but that is another story. The silverware was quite disturbing, especially since there was no rhyme or reason for they took it or didn't. Some of the bussers did take the flatware, while others left it. For instance when I finished my onion veloute (which was amazing) they took my spoon and gave me a fresh one. As Doc noted they did replace they c-fold towels with a higher quality paper napkin, but the spare rolls of toilet paper were still sitting on top of the sink. For the food -- I started with the onion veloute which was topped with a nice slice of black truffle. It was really awesome, perfect consistency, great onion flavor, really well prepared. As far as the star of the evening, for me I think it was the salmon mi cuit served over scrambled eggs and puree of watercress. At first it looked just like a rectangle of salmon (cured and poached in olive oil) on top of some soft scrambled eggs topped with some caviar. The interesting thing about the eggs was the texture. The yolks had a very creamy constancy while the whites were fully cooked. Turns out the cooked the whites first, diced them up, and then added them back to the soft scrambled yolks. The surprise came after I was about half way through the dish -- under the eggs was a puree of watercress which was a surprise of green after breaching the scrambled egg shell. It added a nice bitter component to the dish and really helped cut the richness of the eggs. After dinner we got a tour of the kitchen which was amazing and HUGE. They broke the kitchen into two sides, one half for the main room and the other for room service and the bar menu. It was immaculately clean and from the 10 minutes we were in the kitchen running very smooth. The chefs table in the kitchen (seats 8) looks like a blast. It is situated at the end of the kitchen overlooking the pass for the main dining room. BTW, the bread they served in the london bar was much better than the bread they served in the main dining room when I went. I am not sure they upgraded the bread across the board, but compared to what I had in the main room, this was a huge improvement. john

Ok, now that I am on my 4th batch I have a question. Given I never baked bread with any regularity before this, what exactly would be the perfect crumb on this type of bread? I assume we are looking for a webby inside where the crumb is light and completely cooked and the thinner parts of the web are translucent and glistening in the light. And overall the smell of the crumb is yeasty but not that wet undercooked yeast smell. Does that sound about right?

NY magazine did his pork butt for a holiday dinny party article, recipe is here. The ingredients basically are:

Your killing me -- I want the results of the DDL tasting! The suspense is killing me.

I stopped by for a quick eggnog and the leche tasting before heading off to dinner at Ramsay (see the ramsay thread soon for more info on that) I didn't bother tasting any of the 12 hour batch besides one. The texture was very thick, almost peanut butter like. It would be great cut up and rolled in some nuts possibly. My favorite 3 were 14,10 and 17. I left before knowing the results of the double blind, so I am curious what the results were. #23 was bad news whatever that was. Also the stagnog rocks.

I have a bottle of Luksusowa at home along with a bottle of the blood orange charbay which is pretty good. I have a huge bottle of absolute that someone gave me that I just use for making tinctures and bloody marys.

whoa! I am sad I passed up on this food fest. Then again, I am not sad how I would feel this morning after drinking till 1:30am.

If you can find the Brizzard cacao you should pick it up. I have tried the Bols, H. Walker and Brizzard and the MB is by far the best of the 3 I think.

My local favorites are Rosewater, Applewood and Blue Ribbon on the upper end of the scale, Toto and Steinhoff for the mid range stuff and Tacos Nuevo Mexico for awesome 1 buck goat tacos.

I got a present for you don... it isn't scm, but could be an interesting dulche experiment. I will bring you some tomorrow.

woot! This bread was much better than the one a few nights ago. This was the combo white/rye/whole wheat. before the final proof I dusted it with some rice flour and cracked wheat. The combo of the flours and the nutty flavor of the cracked wheat really worked well.

Tonight, a variation on the High Hat. 1.5 Rye .5 Lemon .5 Cherry Heering 2 dashes angostura Shake, up, cherry garnish. Very refreshing. I also tried this with Kirschwasser instead of the heering. Way too tart.

I actually like gjetost, being part Norwegian I guess it is in my blood. I was bored one week and actually tried making it at home using this recipe hoping I would end up with something better, but the commercial stuff had a much better texture.

The lamb was from Ottomanelli's and the Chard was from the Union Sq Farmer's Market. Well...we did finish off that bottle... but there were two of us and it was only 1.8 L. edit: fixed embedded picture ← Sweet. Frank @ Ottomanelli's does have some awesome lamb. Loved the butter/rosemary quick brown technique.

Oh man. Oh Toro! Much better than the chicken wings I had tonight! Damn. That lamb looks awesome, did you get it at mitsuwa as well? I was getting worried you polished off that bottle of sake and forgot about us!

So I am on my 3rd loaf. My second loaf was the same as the first except I cut back on the salt. 18oz KA bread flour 13oz H20 1.5t salt .8g yeast cake I tried to cook this one with a thermometer in it and I pulled the bread at 207, big mistake. The center was yeasty and gummy, not a great loaf. Tonights batch is 14.4 oz KA Bread Flour (white) 1.8 oz Rye 1.8 oz Whole Wheat 1.5t salt 13oz water .8g yeast cake. I was unsure if I needed to bump up the water because of the additional wheat flour, I will find out soon enough though. I plan on pulling aside some of the dough to keep as a starter from this batch as well. Results in ~20 hrs.

Can always make a sangrita to go along with your tequila. 4 medium tomatoes, peels and seeds removed juice of 3 oranges and 2 limes 1 chopped white onion 1-2 tsp sugar 1 tsp salt 1-2 tsp cayenne Blend all ingredients in blender, serve with a chilled shot of tequila.

Wow, I think I need to move to New York. These look fantastic. How sweet are most of Pegu's cocktails? While I don't expect my cocktails to taste like pure alcohol or anything, I'm not really a fan of the kind of cocktail that's basically spiked sugary juice. ← Of all the drinks we had last night, I would qualify only one as "sweet", the jack rose, mainly due to the grenadine. But it is more like a sour than a sugary juice sweet. All the others are dry cocktails for the most part. The Holy Roller has a touch of brown sugar syrup in it, but for the most part the drink is 90% bourbon.

I had the saz 18. It is amazing. It is like drinking brown sugar. I had it straight and I also had a sazerac with it. Mind blowing. Definitely my favorite of the collection behind the now impossible to find Handy. John

Ouch. Too Much Booze Last Night. Head Hurts.