johnder

For my 2nd cocktail tonight I had a variation of the Kelly Cocktail. 1 1/2 oz Lairds Bonded Applejack 1/4 oz Noilly Sweet Vermouth 3/4 oz Lemon Juice 1/2 oz Homemade Grenadine Dash simple syrup 2 dashes Peychaud Bitters I changed the bitters from Angostura to Peychaud because like a few other people (Phil) I think Peychaud and applejack are a match made in heaven. I also used my homemade grenadine and as a result added a dash of 1:1 simple to bring the sweetness in line. (My grenadine is on the slightly tart side) Pretty good cocktail overall. Very close to a Jack Rose, but the addition of the vermouth and bitters make it completely different. I am going to try making a Jack Rose with Peuchaud and see what happens at some point. John

Today I was playing around with ideas that can help use up some of my lemon verbena plant that has decided to take over the garden. I came up with a new cocktail that I am calling at this point It's frigging hot outside cocktail. Lightly bruise 3 lemon verbena leaves 1/2 oz lime simple syrup 1/2 oz lime juice 2 oz rum (I used Plantation 1995 run for this batch) Shake with lots of ice, double strain - up Garnish with small verbena leaf. It was very tasty. I made up a big batch of lime 1:1 simple syrup today that I was going to use for some daiquiris and used some for this drink. It really worked well. I am going to try another round with some Rhum Agricole later tonight.

Let's see, I started with a Ramos fizz that was passed around the bar in the proper fashion -- ending up with Sam doing the last shake. (Hence his quote above). I also had a Pink lady and ended up with a preview of their new drink a lemon thyme daquiri. My lovely wife had a French Pearl and after eyeing my initial ramos jealously got one for herself. Promptly passed around the bar for the proper shaking time. Oh man, good time.

I just returned from Vegas and originally had a reservation at Robuchon but changed it to Guy Savoy at the last minute. While we did opt for the tasting menu which ran $290 each, I was surprised to see on the menu they did have an a la carte menu. We changed from Robuchon to Savoy after seeing mixed reviews of it on here and on a few other sites. The big deciding factor though was the fact Guy was in the kitchen and overseeing things. That said the meal was amazing. In the end the 9 course menu turned into 13. Unfortunately I can't remember the dishes right now, but the amount of truffles and fois in the courses really made it special. john

how about... not only you bring your own bottle of bitters, you actually made the bitters in the bottle.

Take a look at the thread here.

Ah beef fat. Tasssty beeef faaaat. I am assuming it was part of the same batch they drove up, the only difference I could taste today was todays was more well done than yesterdays, so I imagine the longer cooking time allowed more of the beef fat to baste and drip out. I agree with you, their sausage is really amazing. I would love to go to Elgin, TX one day and eat it in it's home setting. Speaking of other great sausages (well keilbasa actually) there is a small polish place down the block from the larger well known eagle here in brooklyn called Jubilat that makes an awesome house smoked kielbasa. They have a fierce looking smoker in the back of the store, along with a large plastic bucket full of house made kraut to go with it. Their kielbasa is a fixture on my grill this summer. john

Today was definately better than yesterday. My transactions at the register were in the order of 10 seconds processing as opposed to 45+ seconds yesterday. I think the lines were about the same lenght as yesterday for the fastpass, they were just moving through quicker. For me the highlights were definately the whole hog, and the elgin sausage. I really liked 17th streets ribs too. I noticed when 17th street was cutting the ribs instead of just saucing them, they also sprinkled some of their rub on it and mixed it all in. Very tasty. The Elgin sausage today was I think better than yesterday. The piece I had yesterday was good, but it was *very* greasy. Each bite I took included a large squirt of grease along with it. While I usually the last to complain about pork fat, I was a little eh, queasy from the grease after a few bites. Todays sausage was better, it may have to do with the fact it was cooked a little crisper. I need to detox now. No more pork for at least, uh, 2 days, yah that should do it.

Last year the problem with the fast pass was that you had to purchase a ticket at one register and decide all the stalls you wanted to visit at that time. Then take your ticket to the stall to pick up the food. The obviously fixed specific problem this year by adding card swiping machines at each stall. The problem then became the time per transaction was so high. I think Danny and his crew do a great job pulling this off and given the scale of the logisitics involved have still find time to make improvements over last year. The single biggest problem this year aside from the slow processing time was the problem Steve mentioned, 2 people with one bubba pass loading up a tray full of food. More than once I was directly behind someone doing this and it took them at least 8 minutes to fill their order of 25 elgin plates. While I agree that the rules of the fast pass don't prohibit this, if USHG does do this next year again, I am sure you will see a disclaimer saying each pass is only allowed 2-4 orders of food. I really hope to see the BABBQ continue, but from Jason's podcast with Danny, he seems to think this event is growing out of control logistics wise. I actually spoke to the micros guy outside their data trailer, as I was admiring their Micros 1.0 layout diagram that they had taped to the side of their trailer. He said that they underestimated the total number of simultainious transactions that would be occurring at one time, hence they delays. He was hoping they could get things processing faster today. I guess we will see. john

It is a movable/zoomable camera on top of the empire state building. A few minutes of tweaking got that view.

You can actually get a pretty good view of the street setup from the ESB cam here.

For me most of the items have been covered up-thread, but a few others: For places without tablecloths, please don't spray your windex/409/whatever-toxic-cleanser you use while cleaning the table while I am trying to enjoy my food. Wobbly tables are definately a big thing. I remember the first (and only time) I ate at Charlie Trotters I had to ask them to fix my table. It was so bad the wine was sloshing around in the glass everytime we touched the table. Also, when bussing the table, please don't scrape leftover food from one dish into another in front of me so you can stack the dishes better. Thats just nasty.

Originally I think he was going to head up the cooking over at Danny Meyer's Hudson Yards Catering, but I have heard rumors that he is no longer there, so I don't know where he ended up.

Stephen updated his blog with Episode 8 where he was kicked off. While he did acknowledge that the spoons were his own fault, he ends up saying he wasn't going to sacrifice his ethics for $100k and which is why it was ultimately kicked off. http://stephenasprinio.com/ john

This is great timing, I am actually going to 11 mad tomorrow for dinner! I will report back, I am hoping it will be as amazing as what you just described! John

I agree this annoys me, also anywhere I see "Kobe Beef" on a menu here in the US.

Personally I would not be surprised to see Stephen back at some point before the show is over. Not as a contestant but in some other form. I think the producers picked someone that can be antagonistic in the show and I don't think they are ready to drop him completely yet.

awesome work! Looking forward to your further experiments! j

Wow the folks at Mikuni are really nice. I ordered 2 bottles of BLiS from them, one of the bourbon barrel and one of the vanilla infused. I also couldn't resist and got a 4oz tin of the infused steelhead roe, bourbon / maple / smoked fleur de sel. John

Really? For a condiment? I'd be upset by that, considering that, at least for me, it is not possible for me to use up an entire jar/bottle of something...no matter how small it is. Also, condiments rarely go bad, as far as I know. ← Well we have a unique situation where the company purchases a large selection of condiments (along with other food items) monthly here, so not many people bring in their own, especially ones that require refridgeration. After just looking in the fridge now there is only one bottle of some organic mayo in there, all the others are condiments that are purchased by the office manager monthly. John

Our rule here is every friday at 3pm the fridge gets emptied. Period - no exceptions except for sealed bottles or cans of beverages or condiments (per the rule below) As far as condiments the rule is you need to put your name and date on the condiment to store it in the fridge. No name -- trashed No date -- trashed If the date is older than 30 days -- trashed People have gotten angry at the cleaning people for doing this, but they quickly learned not to leave their stuff in there.

Thanks Vadouvan, going to call them right now! John

What I giant load of crap. My theory on these things is if you don't like it don't eat it. I am sure in the months leading up to the ban they will see an incredible increase in foie sales.

I had this at Moto last week in which a server came to the table with a steel plate that was dipped in liquid nitro was presented and the server squeezed out some liquified cooked pancake from a syringe onto the plate. After a quick flip it was served on a spoonful of BliS. It was amazing -- you can really taste the barrel aging on it, in this case it was bourbon. The nose of the syrup really reflects the barrel aging.

Tonight -- A Pat Bra cocktail 1 1/2 oz gin 1/2 oz sweet vermouth 1/4 oz maraschino liqueur 1/4 oz fresh lime juice Pretty good overall -- I added a dash of orange bitters after a few sips and it really made it pop. Tried to find some history on this cocktail but couldn't find the origin of the name, anyone have any info?