mondaybox

fyi, i emailed initially, then called, that's how i got the reservation. i've decided to take a blended NV champagne. specifically, charles heidseick brut reserve, which i really like. nice autumnal notes. also a half bottle of a vosne-romanee (nicolas potel 2007), and a very nice reisling auslese (dönnhoff schlossböckelheimer kupfergrube 2006), half bottle, for a possible dessert pairing, and earlier if there's any fois gras. i may tuck a half bottle of a white burgundy in my bag too, just in case; i am still looking around ...

thanks! well, i'll certainly select a white wine to bring along, based on your suggestions. probably go on the full-bodied end of the spectrum, one with good acidity, and let the champagne take care of the light-to-medium situations. sadly there's only two of us in our party which limits the range of wines we can take. though i suppose the beauty of BYO is i can always pack up anything we don't get through, if we only drink, say, a glass of red each. thanks for the info on the stemware, which i now assume we can have lined up in front of us, as needed, until we're done with out meal ...

I'm going at the end of the month with a friend, and am wondering how the wine thing works. I know it is BYO. Do they give you just one piece of stemware to work with? To be "safe", I'm planning on probably bringing a bottle or half bottle of Champagne, a bottle of a versatile light-to-medium red (cab franc from the Loire valley most likely, or maybe a Rioja reserva), and a Tokaji or a Sauternes, or perhaps a light Malaga wine, for dessert. Can I feasibly have two or more wines on the go so I can easily switch between them during the small plate part of the program? Thanks!

this may have been speculated on other forums, and addressed, but i've not read them. but one thing that seemed odd to me was that there were 17 contestants to start out, then they eliminated one, a woman, and then there were 16 - 8 men, 8 women, who they conveniently split into 2 equally-sized teams of men and women for the episode 2 elimination challenge which took place within a day or two of the first episode's elimination challenge. so they must have planned on losing one of the women in advance. it came down to two women in episode one, and one had to go. what do you think? double-check my math. but it seems pre-planned.

i assume you also use the tomato juice that's in the can, and not just the tomotoes? i'm going to make this this weekend!

What's the best place downtown to get veal and beef bones for make stocks, jus, etc.? Just in quantities for a home cook - 6-8 lbs. I shop at Ottomanelli's on Bleecker once a week or so, and occasionally the small place on Jones St (name escapes me right now). How does it work - do you buy them, or can regulars just ask for them? If that's the case I probably need to spend more time talking with the guys at Ottomanelli's so they can get to know me. Or, if you buy them, what do they run? Will they chop them up and such too? Thanks!

i need to try more places ... i always go to vietnam bahn mi so-1 on broome (i posted a reply to this effect on the times banh mi map. and, no, this is not a shill! ). i like it a lot but i must be missing out on something.

when i was a kid we'd take our summer vacation in the south of spain, where the chiringuitos, or beach shacks, would grill fresh sardines, sprinkled with sea salt, on olive wood in in the open air, the resulting scent being intoxicating as we'd take walks along the beach or promenade ... all they needed was a squeeze of lemon juice and some olive oil. i wrote about it in my blog recently: http://apricotcustard.typepad.com/apricot_...la-plancha.html

i see perry street has already been listed - great lunch for $24, was there last week! i was to go back, for dinner and lunch. smart marketing move on the part of the jean-georges group to run these lunches across various of their restaurants at, presumably, close to cost.

just chiming in on il buco here. after having it on my shortlist for quite some time, i tried it recently. it was not a good evening. bad service - dreadful server, who went from being curt and somewhat aggressive to actually being rude and insulting towards members of our party (her tactless correcting people's pronunciation of menu items), to incorrectly serving me a coffee instead of an americano cocktail when i order one "as an aperitif", and then getting defensive about it, and saying she "didn't know how to make one" as her excuse - when they have a bartender upfront! why not just say she mistook the order, and be done with it, rather than trying to make me seem like i'd put them all out by asking for a very standard cocktail? the food itelf ranged from quite good to very bland. overall, the food doesn't add up to the promise suggested by the restaurant's popularity (though popularity doesn't always mean quality, i know). what a lovely space though, certainly very charming. however i'll not be back. i'm sure there are things on the menu that are better than what i had (the quail say was nice, the salumi platter poor - way too dry serrano ham! -, the pork main bland and uninspired). my dining companions were all similarly unimpressed. i wrote about it in more detail on chowhound. are we ok with posting links to CH on here? my review on chowhound

it was a pretty good review, right - better than the star suggests? i've not been as often recently as i would like, but will head on fri or sat. i hope this place gets busy, i am quite fond of it. i will be moving though, so not around the corner anymore, but would hop on a train to visit taku. :-(

i've been a few times now, in fact once each of the past three weekends. i posted something long about it at another site, which i hope you won't mind me linking to here: (recent post on chowhound) on fri last we sat in the back garden, which is very nice, and had another great meal. this time i had handrolls stuffed w/ mushroom for starters, and my friend had the wings which were amazing. other friends with us had a nice longbean salad w/ a tofu dressing, and another had a seaweed salad (i'd had that myself before, it's good). all starters were really nice. for main course, i had the softshell crab, on a carrot reduction, and with avocado and (i think) julienned green papaya, which was very nice. my girlfriend had the ramen noodles. noodles are her favorite thing anywhere. she's had them before here, so getting them again is a good sign! my favorite thing at taku, however, is the scallops, which i had the first time i went. next time i go i am trying the chicken, which looks and sounds great. the weekend before last we sat at the counter along the kitchen, which was really fun. i enjoyed seeing the kitchen in operation, and each meal passing through the various stages of production. i was very impressed at how they handled a salmon dish that was returned by a customer to be be cooked a little more. as they refired the fish they totally reassembled the whole bowl of broth and rice etc that it it served on with with fresh ingredients, totally handling the whole thing in a very gracious manner. (this is my first post, i think, but i've been reading the boards for ages. i don't know the taku people at all personally, just glad to have this place around the corner from me!).