johnder

Guys, This topic seems to be drifting off from a conversation about D&D and Cittarella to be more of talk about organic chickens. Let's try to keep this thread on topic, I will be happy to move the chicken thread to a topic of it's own if people wish to continue to discuss that. john

I would think that dinner before Pegu would be wiser! ← When I meet Don at Pegu we usually go right after work around 6 before it gets too crowded. Sometimes we have self control and leave after 2-3 drinks, sometimes we don't. If I know I am going to Pegu that night, I will try to have lunch later in the afternoon, ~3pm so I have something in my stomach to absorb all the tasty liquid nutrients they provide us with.

This is what happens when you go shopping after pegu. A man with a mission.

Sounds like it may have been Cajeta. Recipe here.

I have seen him eat a lot of pork products.

LeNells still has the Baby Saz. I got some over the weekend. Along with some Overholt. Gotta stock up while you can! john

Party on Donbert. Party on.

Tonight a Pago Pago 1.5 Rum 1/4 White Creme de Cacao 1/4 Green Chartreuse 1/2 Pineapple 1/2 Lime Shake This was pretty tasty. I was wary about the combination, but hey it works. This recipe is from the Jones book, I would probably bump the Green up to 1/2 just to make it a little more pronounced. John

Wow. Ok, all I can say is wow. I always hated making bread as everytime I have tried making it in the past the payoff has always been sub par and totally not worth all the effort. I decided to try this recipe mainly because it seemed too good to be true. I used 18oz KA bread flour 13 oz water 2t kosher salt 1/2 t red star fresh yeast cake dissolved in 1T warm water. Mixed, let sit 18 hours, folded, covered with a mixture of corn meal and rice flour, let sit 2 hrs. Baked 30 minutes covered 450 and then 30 minutes uncovered. The bread had really good flavor, nice crumb, super crispy crust, overall I am super impressed with the results. Already have another batch ready to go tonight before heading to bed.

I wonder if they would sell it in a one gallon plastic milk jug instead of that crystal bottle.

looking at their website, I suspect given the bottles they show, this would be super expensive. ETA: yup: VILLA DE VARDA VIOLA 750. $99.99 Ouchy

I usually do two things, first I put a few drops in the palm of my hand and rub hands together to warm the bitters. It is a good way to get the "nose" of the bitters. For taste I will take a drop or two straight, and then take a few dashes in an ounce or two of plain club soda.

The funny thing is I actually have a micro-tripod that I used for most of the pictures in my eG blog. I accidently left it home. The glass idea is a good backup trick though!

Congrats Jordan! Where can we find it?

Lol, yah. I guess leaving the preparation out of the recipe quote makes a difference. I didn't want to post the whole recipe verbatim. Needless to say you infuse the tequilla with the horseradish and use only 1.5 oz in the final drink. Although using one cup could be an interesting twist.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! My wife is going out there in a few weeks and was told she needed to pick me up some. Crap. Anyone have any other leads for places in London?

Nope, no issues with the camera. I wasn't using a flash and was super discreet.

In today's food section of the New York times there is a pretty lengthy article on cocktails and ingredients contained in them that make people possibly stray away. The full article is here Another interesting passage: In addition to the article there is a photo shoot of a few cocktails, along with their recipes, that is here. Of all the drinks, the Horseradish Margarita sounds the most appealing to me at the moment. Of course it is 10:30 in the morning. Do I have a problem?

<geek> Awesome. Can you hook me up with a OC-192 to my house? </geek> Nice roaster. I am using the iroast2 at home. I actually roast about 6 oz at a time, which will last me about 4 days. I think I could save some considerable coin by roasting outside with propane. That iroast2 sucks up the juice. john

I noticed that about the locks. The booth I picked had a sticky lock, you needed to actually push the door into the frame and twist the lock to get it locked. We actually had a male waiter give us the cheese. The two in the dishes were an Epiosse and a Livarot. The Epiosse was on the left and had the orange washed rind.

An update on this: The New York Sun is running a story here saying the ban may be a non-issue, for now.

That does it - at least a star will deducted by the NY Times for the paper towels (another for the bread) and if they play music he doesn't like, it's all over - probably a "satisfactory" rating. To answer someone upthread. There was/is no "closer" place than the Stork Club. You sat on each other's lap. I was nine years old the first time I went there (fall of 1959 after the theater) and my parents and I were so close it was impossible to lift a fork. But seeing Sinatra made it worth it. ← There was no music in the main dining room. I don't recall hearing any in the bar area either, so they should be safe there. Unless Bruni hate's silence too, in which case Gordon is screwed. John

So we arrived around 8:45 for our 9'oclock reservation. The bar room itself was surprisingly huge. Straight ahead is the bar, probably sits around 8 to 10 people. On the right side of the room is a series of banquets and cocktail tables. The left side of the room is the London Bar area. We decided to have cocktail while waiting for the table, they have about 10 signature cocktails, I had their version of a gimlet and Jeannie had The London cocktail. They had one bartender behind the bar and 4 barbacks, so we had to wait a few minutes for the drink. The gimlet was ok, too sweet for my taste. The London cocktail was much better -- from what I remember it was gin, lillet, grapefruit and champagne. At 9, we were taking into the main dining room. We had a pretty nice corner table, just to the right as you enter into the room. The first thing I noticed, as a few others mentioned is the spacing of the tables. There really is a huge amount of space between them. Unfortunately we also noticed the sound level. It was higher than we would have expected giving how many people were in the room. When we were seated, every table but 3 we full. We found that 80% of the noise in the room was coming from the 7 bankers/traders at the table next to us. I think at some point the GM said something to them as their sound level decreased considerably after about 20 minutes. Here is a picture from our table looking out over the room As soon as we sat down the waiter came over and asked if we wanted sparkling or still water. No option of tap water was mentioned, a slight pet peeve of mine. I ordered sparkling, while the wife ordered tap. Even before the water came we were presented a small tray that had 3 dishes. One was a cream cheese with black truffle spread, the other was a foie gras pate. It came with 4 or 5 slices of toasted baguette. This was the best bread I had all night. Mainly because it was either slathered with the cream cheese truffle or foie. Pretty hard to screw that up. The cream cheese spread was amazing. It had to have truffle oil in it as well as the aroma of truffles was fabulous. We both opted for the Menu prestige. They have a vegetarian version and a regular one. The amuse was his signature white bean cappucino. It had truffles diced over the top. The dish was amazing. Light, airy. Very well executed and the single best dish of the night in my opinion. I took a photo of it, but it was too blurry to be of any use. Next was the pressed foie/game terrine. I too had the expectation of this being a super heavy dish but was surprised it was executed with a light hand. The pickled mushrooms added a nice compliment to the game in the terrine and the snap of the string beans added great texture. They served a lightly toasted bread with this dish that we after one bite decided to pass on. They grilled the bread over an open flame which gave it a nice smoke aroma which I could see working with the pate, but the bread texture was really bad. Speaking of bread, the bread service comes by on a huge tray. It looks like a book that has been opened forming a slight V shape. Imagine this book being the size of an atlas. In the middle of the V shaped tray is two rows of bread. White bread (sourdough) and a wheat. I got the wheat, Jeannie got the white. It was served with Normandy butter topped with Fleur de Sel. Blurry picture -- but the bread. After the terrine we had the Lobster raviolo. http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164708920/gallery_22527_3944_14381.jpg The aromas of this dish were amazing. The lettuce underneath and the celery root cream were spot on. The only complaint is the dish was slightly over salted. It took us a few minutes to figure out which of the components were oversalted and it turns out the lobster itself was the culprit. Mind you -- the dish wasn't oversalted to the point of it being bad. It is just the thing I remember about the dish most. My guess is the lobster was cooked in over salted water before sealed in the raviolo. Next was the striped bass. This dish was the second best dish of the night. Flawlessly prepared, sauce service performed tableside. The fish was extremely crisp on the outside, but butter tender, perfect temperature inside. The caviar sauce complimented the dish to perfection. The bursts of salt from each grain really worked wonders on the dish. Again -- nothing ground breaking in terms of the dish, just executed to perfection. The only thing I would possibly change is the pak choi. It was a little unwieldy to eat with only a fish knife. The pak was kept in relatively whole pieces formed into a bundle. You really needed to work getting the pieces cut down to a bite size. A small nitpick, but didn't detract from the dish. Main courses -- we decided to have one of each, beef and lamb Beef: Lamb: Sorry for the fuzzy pictures. At this point in the evening we were on our 5th glass of wine. The beef and lamb were both prepared to the correct temperature. I had the lamb and it was pretty amazing. Perfectly seasoned, extremely tender. I felt there was too much going on with the dish though. It had way to many condiments. It had a timable of braised shoulder, a roasted tomato. Confit of onions, braised lettuce and another onion / tomato mixture in the quenelle. Really too much. Each of the condiments were excellent, it is just the shear number of them was making each bite a major task in deciding what to try. The marjoram jus was perfect. I just wish I had some bread to soak it up with. The beef on the other hand was a big hit. It is really hard to miss with a excellent piece of beef and flawless execution of sauce Bordelaise The oxtail was a great texture component to the dish. He nailed this one on the head. We both opted for the cheese course next, mainly because we were seated next to the cheese cart and drooling over it all night. As far as timing, it was probably around 11:20 now, 2 hours 20 minutes since we have been seated. I lost the piece of paper I had with the cheeses we selected unfortunately. It was a great selection of cheeses, and there really didn't seem to be a number of cheeses we were permitted to have. We basically just picked all the ones we wanted to try. I really loved the service of the epoisse and livarot, serving them in little dishes with the spoons is brilliant. Unfortunately they served more bread with the cheese. I opted for the Carr's whole wheat crackers for my cheese service. Every cheese we had was perfectly ripe, really well done. The garnish for the cheese was just some simple grapes on the vine. Last course was the Apricot souffle. Forgot to take the picture. What was interesting is I went up to use the rest room at this point and the waiter as I was leaving mentioned the souffle would be right out and they will prepare another if I was going to away for a few minutes, which was a really nice touch. Nothing like coming back to a fallen souffle. As adamru mentioned, the souffle was spectacular. The bits of almonds in the souffle and the ice cream all worked together in perfect harmony. I haven't had a souffle executed this perfectly in quite some time. Actually I can't remember a time I had a better one. It was that good. We decided to get some coffee and tea. I ordered an expresso and Jeannie got the Chamomile tea. They brought out a pretty elaborate tea setup, precious little strainer, strainer holder, giant silver teapot, sugar tin and mini silver tongs. The waiter noticed when he was setting my espresso down that it was a bad pull. Lacking any crema at all and gave the coffee server a look like WTF. He told me that he is just going to set this down while he does the tea service and will prepare me another shot immediately. Really a good catch on his part and handled very well. The second espresso was much better. Excellent crema, a great pull. At this point it is 12:10 and we are bursting. The portion sizes were excellent, up until the main course which turned out to be about double the size of all the other courses. With the coffee service you also get the bon-bon trolley. My god it was obscene. Just groaning under the weight of sweets. 3 tiers, the bottom tier was all clear glass jars containing things like caramel corn, cotton candy, marshmallows, grapefruit jellies. The middle was just an array of house made chocolates. All sorts, at this point it was all a blur. The top tier was filled with yet more mixed macaroons. We ended up getting some of the cotton candy, some marshmallows and macaroons. All very good, but unfortunately I wish I could have gotten them to go as I was too full to really enjoy them to the fullest. Overall the night was great. Pretty much feel the way BryanZ did at lunch. All the dishes were classics, executed for the most part with perfection. Nothing was mind blowing, but all thoroughly enjoyable. Service was spot on. Really no complaints at all. The water service was great, the pacing of the meal was definitely set but us, and not them. The timing between the courses was just what we would expect. No sense of being rushed and the service was definitely adapted to each table. We engaged the staff and once they saw we were interested in hearing more they opened up and really started going into more detailed descriptions of the food and wine. We opted for the wine pairing, having between half and a full glass of wine with each course. Unfortunately the paper with the cheeses was the same paper that had the wines as well. Every wine that was paired matched well, no misses. My biggest complaint of the evening was the bathrooms. While each room is really beautiful, the C fold paper towels have to go. Seriously, this is the best they can do? On a side note when we were leaving the waiter asked how our meal was and if they could do anything better. We said there was one complaint, and they probably already heard it. Before telling them what it was she said "It is the bread isn't it" We all had a laugh at that and agreed. Obviously they know about the problem, hopefully it will be fixed shortly. John

I was indeed with a woman with long black hair. Although there was another couple sitting right in front of us in which the woman had long black hair as well. We were in the corner table to the right of the entrance when you walk in, in the opposite corner of the table of 7 banker types yapping on their cell phones the whole night. Blue suit for myself, black outfit for my wife. I didn't see any rhyme or reason to the dress code. I saw numerous jeans, although I am sure they were expensive jeans, one pair of sneakers, again -- expensive ones I would assume. There were also people dressed to the 9's. One woman there had the most amount of diamonds and pearls I have seen outside opening night at the Met Opera. I am uploading photos now, stand by for a full report.

Hah, Adamru -- we must have been eating in the same room. I just got back myself. We had a deuce at 9. I have a bunch of pictures and all the menus from the evening. I too am too tired to post much tonight. I will recap everything tommorrow morning. I kind of liked the swivel chairs. I guess in retrospect being on casters would be an additional bonus but they are still pretty sweet. We both had the "Menu Prestige" and everything was a hit, except for the lobster which we both determined was a bit too salty. The sauce was fine, it was actually the lobster which was just a tad salty. Still pretty good. We had a wine pairing with the menu and every wine they picked was a spot on match. The bread sucked. Bad. The whole wheat was horrible, the sourdough less so. The Normandy butter was saved slightly by the fleur de sel they put on top. I noticed the guy in the trainers. I think there were actually two of them. Also some Bon Jovi look alike dude. Overall the bill for us was 400, 220 for the menu, the rest in the wine pairing, tax, tip, coffee/tea. BryanZ -- you will be happy to know they fixed the moulding -- the room looks finished. Although the reception area of the hotel once you walk in the main door is still missing a few marble panels and has the wiring exposed. The food as Bryan mentioned wasn't awe inspiring but was flawlessly prepared, with the exception of the Lobster -- which was still prepared well, albeit a bit salty. I think the hit of the evening was the lamb and the cheese course. Pics and details tomorrow. John