philadining

Finally got to Franny's. Thought the pizzas were pretty spectacular. The crust was impossibly thin, in fact, if you look closely, you can see light shining through it... I thought the thinness might be a problem, but I actually liked it quite a lot, I thought the flavors, textures, proportions were very nicely balanced. I was actually amazed that my favorite pizza was the one with very little on it, just tomato sauce, garlic and basil. I didn't miss the cheese at all on that one, each remaining ingredient was clear and present, and, well, delicious. I guess I could see how someone wouldn't like this style I can't for the life of me figure out how one wouldn't like this style, but I can recognize that it's quirky. But it really worked for me. Probably didn't hurt that it was a lovely afternoon, and we sat outside, and had a nice cocktail or two, but I really do think it was about the pizza...

Wow, I've never had that problem with the pizzas, and I've had a few... Similarly, I've always been really impressed with the pastas. Sounds like they were really off their game that night, sorry it had to happen when you were in town! It really is a good place, honest!

I've heard others make that point - I guess I'm not knowledgeable enough about Italian wines to get bored! But one thing to keep in mind is that it's always worth asking if they have anything interesting that's not on the list. This is especially good if you're sitting at the bar where the wines are kept, there often seems to be a few bottles around that they're considering adding, or perhaps someone requested them, or who knows, but there are sometimes some bottles that haven't made it to the printed page yet. They're even sometimes open, and one might be able to get something by the glass that's not normally offered that way. Never hurts to ask...

I was there not TOO long ago, and thought it was pretty great overall. It's hard to go wrong with any of the pizzas or pastas, and the roast pork, if they have it, shouldn't be missed. But it's pretty rare that I'm disappointed in anything, so knock yourself out. I've never been able to get all that excited about their antipasto platter - it's perfectly pleasant, just a little plain. I've always liked their salumi, although a recent selection seemed a little meager compared to some of the impressive platters we've gotten at other places around town, like James and Fork. But that's not really a comment on the quality of the product, more on the portioning and presentation. Anyway, yes, good choice, go.

I grew up in Rochester, and probably ate Hartman's sausages without even paying attention, so maybe that's why they didn't seem all that distinctive to me! But I feel that even the basic white hot that one can get at most places around Rochester have a bolder flavor. Those might all be Zweigles, for all I know, I'm sure many of my favorite places use those. But I should be clear, I thought Bark made a very tasty dog, it just wasn't quite as intensely flavored as I was expecting. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

I dropped by Bark dogs mid-evening on a saturday. Not very busy at that time. Sadly I was still pretty full from Ramen at Ippudo, so I didn't manage to sample as much as I wanted. I stuck with a basic Kraut Dog, didn't even get fries or onion rings, which was probably a stupid omission, but hey, all the more reason to go back... I thought the flavor of the hot dog itself was a little on the mild side, good, but not especially distinctive. The texture, however, was really great. It was firm, with a satisfying snap. I'm not exactly sure what their term "griddle roasted" means, but whatever they're doing is working, I thought it was very nicely cooked. I generally like a little char on my dogs, but didn't miss that aspect in this case. The bun is very nice too: griddled to a deep brown on each side, a real advantage of the split-top design. So the whole package worked very well. I've only got a couple of small complaints. I had a good beer in a really annoying plastic cup. Like, worse than a keg-party plastic cup. These are reusable thick plastic, and at least the one I got had a rough edge around the lip that was quite irritating, literally. Other than the metal trays, I'm not sure they have much else to wash, but hey, if you're going to wash the cups, why not go for glasses? The only other problem was that the hot dog cost about $5. I'm not terribly offended by that, but it is just a normal-sized hot dog, served in a pretty minimal way in a minimal setting. If I hadn't just eaten, I would have gotten two, at least, and a side or two, and by then would have been spending something... I felt like it took kind of a long time for me to get a basic hot dog, but wasn't too bothered by that, they seemed to be griddle roasting each one to order. I presume they get a bunch going during busier times. It's a fairly minimal menu, but there are some more interesting toppings, and some good-looking sides. I'm not going to make a special trip up there from Philly, but if I find myself in the neighborhood, like I did this time, I look forward to trying some more of the menu. barkhotdogs.com

Wow, there seem to be about 15 Morimoto topics scattered around, and I can't find the ones that I recall seeing with recent reports, but there have been more current updates than in this thread!! I know a few folks have reported being weirded-out by not being able to order sushi directly from the sushi chefs, even when seated at the sushi bar (you have to place your order with a server, not the guy right in front of you...) But I think the sushi itself is still at least decent, if not spectacular, but I'm basing that on second-hand reports, i haven't been there in quite a while. If it's a place you'd been to and liked, and wanted to revisit, it's probably pretty much the same, I get the impression that the menu hasn't changed much. If you were just in the mood for their particular style of Asian fusion, they still do that pretty well. ... and I know several people still swoon over their chicken ramen. If you were just jonesing for sushi, and have a car, you might want to check out Fuji, it's not that far over the bridge into New Jersey. Why were you thinking of Morimoto in particular?

I think you are splitting hairs - may I quote your original post? So do you really labor over skimming your stock to be fat-free?

I honestly don't know what I'm doing, so I can't authoritatively say what's happening to all my roux oil, but as I mentioned, after adding the stock and letting it simmer, I had a LOT of oil break out. That was undoubtedly some stock fat, some andouille fat, some residual chicken fat, and surely some oil from the roux. All I know is that the final product did not, in fact, taste fatty, more like what you described: roux-thickened chicken soup. So think at least some of the fat from the roux is being released, and removed, just at different times in the different techniques.

I think this one of yours looks especially delicious, precisely because it looks greasy! Are you really suggesting that your roux doesn't have fat emulsified into it? Yeah, I know you pour a bunch of oil off, but I really doubt you're left with just browned flour.

Fooey, your gumbo looks awesome, and I think I need to try making one your way too and see how they compare... I'm a rank newbie at making gumbo, but I've done a lot of reading beyond this thread, and it seems clear that there are many paths to the destination, and I doubt any one is inherently correct. I certainly look forward to trying many techniques. But I don't think I buy the idea that cooking the trinity in the roux is going to suck all its flavor into the oil, which would then get lost in the skimming... Edit: FWIW, I had a TON of oil break out that needed to be removed, I just waited until the very end to do so, kind of like you did.

Thanks for the kind words! Indeed there were enough leftovers to pass around to some friends, and to keep me fed for several days... I'm eager to take another run at it soon, making some adjustments. One thing I was unsure about - after adding the trinity to the 8 bazillion degree roux, where should I be setting my flame at that point? I reflexively turned it down to medium-low-ish, but I had to wonder if I was supposed to keep it cranking for a little while, and just keep stirring like a maniac? I did keep stirring them, over the lower heat, for about 10 minutes before adding stock, but I was kind of guessing about that part. I felt like my vegetables stayed intact much longer than I anticipated, although finally, by the time I served it, they'd pretty much all dissolved and disappeared. But I wondered if I should have been cooking them a little further before I added stock. Any thoughts? And I'm also wondering about different timing and technique for adding the cajun spice blend. I was riffing off the original recipe posted in this thread, but it called for dusting the chicken with the spices, and then adding it to the pot, but I wanted to cook my chicken off early to get some of that fat, and I don't think I wanted those spices in my oil at that early stage. So I tossed them in a pan with some already browned-off andouille, and toasted them up a it until they smelled right, then dumped it in the gumbo. Turned out fine, but I'd be happy to hear alternatives. Big thanks to everyone who shared their experiences, this thread was a big help. I'm planning on making this for a group of about 25 in a few weeks, so I felt the need to run a few tests first!

It's worth keeping in mind that much of what Holly shoots is at a regular restaurant table, in an active restaurant, so the choice of position, angle, distance from the subject, etc is not always based what would be ideal, rather what can be done practically. And Holly, remember that depth of field is affected both by aperture and focal length. So, yes, if you want a larger amount of the scene in-focus, the easiest thing is to stop the aperture down (higher f-stop value) but you can also zoom the lens back to its widest setting (then move the camera position in) which will also increase the depth of field. Also, you might be able to make that effect work for you, to dramatically highlight one part of the sandwich, etc. Try some different angles, even with the same camera settings.

I agree with most of what's been said here, but I don't think you have to be too annoyed by the big white plates in general. As folks have mentioned above, move the camera or move the plate to optimize the lighting, most importantly, to avoid that nasty glare. But even doing that, you may need to do some exposure compensation when shooting a dark food against a white plate. You can still do that even in Aperture-priority mode, you just need to stop it up or down a little by holding the little plus/minus button near the shutter, then adjusting the thumbwheel to stop up or down by the amount you like. Take a shot, look at your screen, adjust, try it again... you'll eventually get a feel for which way to go, and by how much. And I completely agree that you may want to use manual focus, it's very hard for the autofocus to find the right thing to highlight, especially in odd lighting. And then, ultimately, I think you can crop in tighter that you did, if you come into the inner rim of the plate, you still get a sense of scale, especially if you keep some part of the outer rim. David tweaked the curves to bring the mid-tones up a bit, I did a similar thing using the "Levels" adjustment in Photoshop. That middle slider can be pretty handy... Then, a touch of the sharpening filter. Photoshop will be your friend, but there's only so much it can do, so it's better to get the shot pretty close in the camera. Watch the position of the light, and your orientation to it, and try to shoot the shot you want, rather than planning on fixing it later.

Not sure that this solves any mysteries, but I did a recent gumbo-making experiment and tested a couple of issues that came up here. I started my roux with chicken fat (although I carefully strained out any little crispy bits) and my roux certainly had no problem browning. Also, just to stoke the controversy again, I added hot stock to hot roux and had no problems with lumping or integration. I added it in 2-oz ladle pours, but that's what I would have done with any temp liquid, at least at first until things loosened-up a bit. Here was the whole procedure (and yes, after doing this one a hot August evening, I completely understand why folks might keep a jar of pre-made roux standing by, rather than making it each time!) I browned-off some bone-in chicken thighs, rendering out as much fat as was practical, then tossed them in some simmering stock to finish (and enrich the stock further). After a while, I pulled the thighs out, let them cool, picked the meat, skimmed the stock, but kept it hot. Chopped some Andouille, and threw that in the hot chicken fat to brown off. Removed the sausage, strained the fat through a fine sieve, and ended up with some very nice chicken/pork fat to start the roux with. I augmented it with some peanut oil to bring it up to the right volume. Chopped the celery, peppers and onions, had them standing by. Cleaned out my pot (actually deglazed it with stock, added that to my simmering stock, then washed it out thoroughly) then added my fat/oil combo and a little more than a cup of cake flour and started stirring. Heat was on medium-high on my relatively wimpy gas burners. Didn't take long at all to start seeing some color. Getting there. (Man, you folks were NOT kidding about not being able to stop stirring. I had to keep stirring with one hand, while hitting the camera shutter with the other!) Looks (and smells) about right: Got the trinity in, indeed amidst some steaming and sputtering and sizzling. Roux went a little darker, just about exactly where I wanted it, which was largely luck... After maybe 5 - 10 minutes, started adding (hot) stock. I know the conventional gumbo wisdom says not to use hot stock, but it worked just fine for me... After maybe an hour of simmering, I added the chicken and sausage, which I'd tossed with cajun spices, and given a quick spin though a hot pan to toast the spices up a bit. Let the gumbo simmer another hour or so. I have to say that it turned out pretty darn well, and got some good reviews from friends. I wasn't very careful in measuring out my stock, so I think I ended up making it a little looser than I might have in a perfect world, but I'm not sure that was too tragic. I'll be taking another run at it soon to see if I can get the thickness right for my taste. If I had half a brain, I'd wait until the weather cooled down a bit to do that, but I'm in the mood to experiment with this now. I find it's tolerable with one particular lifeline: Next time: cold stock, to see if it acts any differently...

We had some more really enjoyable cocktails recently at the Franklin. Our bartender Catherine had picked up some Muscadines and Scuppernongs (they're grapes, but I think they're grown on Venus, or maybe synthesized in some laboratory that makes delicious grape-like objects.) She proceeded to muddle some of them and include them as elements of some very interesting drinks. Here's one with Scuppernongs, Junipero, Dolin Bianco, and a few mysterious dashes and drops of something: This was so clean and refreshing and delicious, just a great summer drink. Here's another one with Tequila, and jeeze, I forget, whatever it was made it just as tasty as the first one. There was another one with ginger that I liked quite a lot, but probably still needed a tweak or two. Hey, I'm happy to be a test subject when the experiments are this tasty. Later, for a change of pace, I asked Nick to make a Hanky Panky, and he offered to make something kind of like that, but not quite - so here's his Not a Hanky Panky: Very complex and tingly, sparkling with minty Fernet. And speaking of which, we have been entertained by exploring the Fernetification of their drink menu: substituting Fernet-Branca for some element in each of their cocktails. It works better than you might think! Yet more great cocktails, and an entertaining evening all around. All that was missing was some pretzels.

I'm almost reluctant to say too many nice things about this place, because, even in the slow days of summer, the Franklin seems to be finding an audience, making it harder for me to score one of those coveted bar stools... But despite our initial skepticism, we've been getting some truly excellent cocktails, especially from those rare seats at the bar. My favorite drinks have been off-menu, either some obscure recipe that one of the bartenders had at the ready, or some new concoction they've been experimenting with. We've found that really interesting things happen if you give a bartender a base spirit and a few hints about the kinds of flavors you're in the mood for - or maybe just throw it wide open and see what shows up. The best news is that you've got pretty good odds no matter who's behind the stick. At first, I was only confident taking chances when Nick or Alex were there, but as it turns out, we've been getting delicious and interesting drinks from whomever is working on any given night. They seem to have a very deep bench, so go ahead and challenge them, they're all pretty serious. Of course, you're going to have a little more luck getting a thoughtful, complicated concoction when they're not completely slammed, so you might wait for a slow time to ask for something really whacky, but you shouldn't be reluctant to go off-menu at any time. Which is not to say that the drinks on the menu aren't good - I really like a few of them, like the Doc Daneeka, and the above-mentioned Center-City Swizzle. I've just been more amused by being surprised by what they can come up with. It's easier to communicate with your bartender when sitting at the bar, but given the small number of seats, odds are you'll be at a table. The good news is that your server might be one of the bartenders, and even if not, he or she probably has a good amount of drink knowledge, so you can always ask them for advice or communicate your desires for a classic or custom drink, and your request will very likely get delivered to the bar intact. I just wish they had a bigger bar, and something to eat - even just salty snacks of some sort. I'm certainly going to continue getting cocktails at Southwark and Chick's, and APO on quieter nights, and from Katie over at the Oyster House, but the Franklin has also made it into the regular rotation. I guess that just means I have to drink more...

We were just thinking the same thing at a local bar, watching lots of egg yolks get tossed. It's probably not very practical in a fast-moving bar workflow, but it seems like there must be something they could do other than just discarding them. We thought it would be nice if they made zabaglione for everyone who was still hanging around at the end of the night...

oooph, did I eat least get the restaurant name right? thanks for those corrections Andrew, that actually makes more sense...

A few of us dropped by Modo Mio again recently, and had one of those classic modo Mio experiences: a combination of awe and frustration at how incredibly delicious some of the dishes were, and how clumsily careless some of the others were. Their famous bread was simultaneously burned around the crust and wet and gummy inside. The really weird part is that it was kind of tasty nonetheless. What they called Roman-Style Tripe got rave reviews all around, I think I liked it as much as a similar preparation I'd had at Osteria, and I loved that one. Porchetta Tonnata was pleasant enough, but not as vividly-flavored as we'd expected. The thin slices of pork were fine, but not given much of a flavor boost from what was supposed to be tuna-spiked mayo. Three of our pastas were heartily doused in lemon, sadly not just a touch of acid to brighten the flavors, but so much that it made them puckeringly sour and overall kind of weird. This is a special shame because the pastas are so often transcendently great here. A couple other pastas at the table did not suffer that fate, but were not especially noteworthy either. A secondo of Cotechino with Sweetbreads was absolutely delicious: the cured spiciness of the sausage offsetting the creamy crunchiness of the perfectly fried sweetbreads. A Bistecca Fiorentina garnered similar raves. Duck sausage was also very good. Some found the pork belly dish to be too sweet, but I actually liked it quite a lot, at least for the few bites that I stole. Desserts were strong all the way around, although the blueberry granita was clearly a mix of berries, and only good, as was the tiramusu, but the panna cotta, and zabaglione were both quite excellent. Our server was very friendly and helpful, if a little strong-willed about which dishes went best together... we had a couple of glitches over a special request, but it's not entirely clear if it was the waiter or the kitchen that forgot about it. Repeatedly... So, all in all, a pretty typical Modo Mio meal in our experience: head-spinningly delicious food, head-scratchingly odd mistakes. And still a bargain, so it's hard to get too upset if one element comes up a little short. I'll be going back, I'm OK with taking my chances...

Made another stop at Jimmy's on rt 30 in Malvern. Brisket was pretty dry, but still incredibly tasty, it had great flavor from the smoke and the rub, so I didn't mind at all, I probably just dipped it in the sauce a little more than usual. Ribs were similarly delicious, but had a weird texture to them - the fat was kind of stringy and chewy, I wonder if they hadn't really smoked long enough. Still the meaty parts were quite good, so again, I didn't really care. Really like the collard greens here, mac and cheese is still merely serviceable. Overall, still very good, and I'm already jonesing for more brisket.

Cochon Butcher is right around the corner from Cochon, I'm not sure, they might even be connected internally. They offer meats and some prepared food to go, and have a few tables and a small bar when you can order casual stuff, like sandwiches and charcuterie. We liked it pretty well, but wouldn't trade it for a meal at Cochon. I'd go back in addition to a trip the the main restaurant...

It's a nice bike-ride from the Quarter, and we appreciated the exercise... But if you're not up for that, it's only a few blocks from the st Charles streetcar, as Doc suggests, which is a nice ride, or there are busses on Magazine. One thing to remember is that the distances we're talking about are not as daunting as they might look on a map. Hansen's isn't WAY out in the middle of nowhere. And you don't want to spend all your time in the Quarter.

It's mostly just a personal preference thing, but, although I had three Verti Marte Po boys on my last trip, that was primarily due to its location and 24-hour-ness. I just don't love the rolls they use, I much prefered the po boys at Parkway, especially the hot sausage. But, a chacun son gout... But I must object: Hansen's isn't JUST shaved ice!! It's, ummm, MAGIC!

Bryan: I can't answer many of your questions, but: Move Hansen's up into the the Definites list. As for PoBoy places, it probably depends on what kind of Po Boy you want. If it's the classic debris-style Roast beef, go to Parkway or Parasol. If it's shrimp or oysters, Parkway is also very well thought-of, although I haven't had them (but saw some nearby that looked pretty rocking) or you might want to try Liuzza's. Or, maybe it's more geographic - get one from Domilise's because you're going to be out that way anyway going to Hansen's. If you are just picking one with no other variables, I might say Parkway, but you're going to get a good, interesting sandwich at any of the places you mentioned. Go to the trouble of tracking Chris McMillan down. It's worth going to the Napolean house, especially if you like a Pimms Cup. For a non-cocktail bar AND music on a random night, try d.b.a. out on Frenchman Street. They have cocktails, but it's not a fancy cocktailian place, just a good bar with reasonable prices and a very deep selection and usually a listenable band or two. And if it's not doing it for you, there are a few other places right nearby that might. I've eaten at the bar quite comfortably at both Herbsaint and Mila, which might assuage your guilt over killing a table for something less than a full meal. BTW, Casmento's is closed until Sept 15.