madisonian

You went to good places last time! This year: breakfast at either Cadillac Cafe or Milo's City Cafe would work. Pho Van could be good for lunch-it's in the Pearl. South Park is worth a visit for dinner.

You can skip Volterra, in my book. If you want Italian food of that genre, I'd go for Cafe Lago.

I've now been back three times since I last posted on Crush, and have eaten well each time. Kudos to their pastry chef: I think our server said she is 19 and recently finished the pastry program at SCC. The pecan pie is fantastic.

They changed the lamb sausage sandwich, for the better. Now it has a flat patty which stays on the bun. That sandwich rocks.

They changed the lamb sausage sandwich, for the better. Now it has a flat patty which stays on the bun. That sandwich rocks.

Four of us went to the new Goldbergs' Deli in Bellevue last night. Both the kitchen and dining room were clearly overwhelmed. I ordered a corned beef and tongue sandwich on rye with coleslaw, and the waiter told me they couldn't combine two deli meats in one sandwich because there was no code for it in the restaurant computer! Eventually (90 minutes later) they did manage to make our four sandwiches. They were ok, but the crumb on the rye bread was dense and under-baked. I will say that while I don't mind seeing the pinnacle of American Jewish restaurant food, the gourmet delicatessen with Formica table, turned into a mall eatery, I do object to their "Goldburger," which is a plenty treyf cheeseburger. My grandmother never ate a cheeseburger in the shtetl, and she certainly never cooked me one. The Swampscott, Mass deli where she shopped had better corned beef and tongue, and the bakery down the street by far had better marbled rye.

I just got back from a rather awe-inspiringly good meal at Crush, made even better by the fact that a business associate footed the tab for the seven of us. We had an entire seared Hudson Valley foie gras with a huckleberry-balsamic sauce over brioche and endive, with a sprinkle of fleur du sel. Our servers did a pretty good job with what I think was a Russian service of the foie gras, sauce and salt. I had a citrus marinated beet and cress salad with a bleu cheese crisp to start, followed by the oft-praised braised short ribs with buttered carrots, gnocchi and horseradish parsley. One member of our group had the asparagus goat cheese salad with prosciutto chips and balsamic, which he thought was good, and the scallops, which he found a bit salty. Another person had the salmon, which he thought was quite good. I was perfectly pleased with my mascarpone cheesecake and rhubarb- the Mccrea late harvest viognier was very tasty, too. People at the table actually had nice things to say about the coffee press pots, although I didn't try any. We had a brief visit from the chef, Jason Wilson, who thanked us for trusting him to cook us about 1.4 lbs of Moulard foie gras. Since it was perhaps the tastiest thing I've eaten all year, I wanted to thank him for cooking it.

There seems to be a new restaurant going into a large, renovated house more or less across the street from Philly Fevre on Madison. Heidi at the Fargonian told me the restaurant should be open by February. Anybody know the full story?

I cooked for a few of us Jews and orphans far from home and family. We had a two-rib standing rib roast with Bordelaise sauce and pan vegetables, whipped potatoes with celery root, and orange-Dijon green beens. Desert was an apple-walnut cake and calvados. Not bad for three hours from shopping to eating :).