snekse

Ditto. I'm leaving tonight. Looking for some varied places. Something fine dining and something hole-in-the-wall, but to die for. And of course something that is essential STL. Last I read he was sous chef at Jean-Georges Restaurant in the Trump Tower. Hey Ronnie, I think your link is broken. Do you have the topic ID's?Thanks, snekse

It looks like several Omaha restaurants are closing shop including Di Coppia at 132nd & Dodge Mother's Good Food on Saddle Creek Jonesy's at 8602 Maple St. Ellada's at 168th & Center Restaurant failure brings call for support

FYI... I wonder if they're still going to be serving the same type of food?

There's a pretty good thread here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=79178

Holy smokes, it's like we shared a table, just 4 months apart....

A recipe from Cyrus and a quick write-up was featured on the Today show website recently.

Actually that sounds perfect and the prices seem very reasonable, especially the wine pairing.

Now I really need to make a special trip down to KC. Sounds excellent. Just curious, what does a meal like that run in KC with/without wine? I know it's easily $125+ in Chicago, but I didn't know if they were charging that much yet elsewhere in KC.

As my father-in-law put it, TFL was better, but he's more likely to return to Manresa. For me, the food at Manresa was just more exciting and intriguing. I wasn't blown away, but my curiosity was peaked to a point that I keep wondering what I would experience if I went back. If I go back to TFL, I know I'm going to get more of the same. It will be different, but it will still be the same - if that makes any sense.

This info is a little old, but I think the by-the-glass and half bottle info is pretty accurate.

Just out of curiosity, why did you use the flash to compensate for the fluorescent lighting vs. adjusting the white balance? I've found recently that using the flash tends to flatten the image some how.

There's actually a blog meme that's doing something like that called Foodography.http://www.flickr.com/groups/foodography3/ On a somewhat related note, has anyone seen this site? http://foodography.my-expressions.com/gall...429823578/29838

It's not far off from the truth. As someone else pointed out, you are paying a 20% service charge with that price, but you're still paying about retail bottle price per glass. A glass of Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs was about $35. I'll dig up my receipt and report in more detail what we paid for wine.

Not that it needs to be said, but make sure you post on the Cyrus Thread.

I'm interested to know what exactly you did to adjust the contrast and color. It almost looks like the saturation was increased in the marshmallows. Also, you said you sharpened the image, but the background looks softened. Why would this be?

It sounds a lot like the Chocolate Mousse Cake at Au Coquelet Cafe in Berkeley, CA. Chocolate Mousse Cake A.K.A. "Chocolate Butter" Cutting through this "cake" is very similar to cutting through butter that is chilled, but not cold - firm, yet yielding. In the mouth it has a slight chew, but mostly melts smoothly over your tongue. It's a very dense, yet light mousse that borders on being ganache. This dessert as a whole is just a paradox.

You might want to ask for a well lit table when making the reservation and sit in seat that has the most light. Depending on your camera and/or your photoshop skills, you may not need a flash. I turned off my flash and I don't think my images came out too bad. They would look a lot better if I knew how to use photoshop, but I'm too lazy for that. Manresa Photos (via Flickr)

I understand where Robyn is coming from. I think the image lacks a little depth. I'm not sure what is trying to be accomplished in the photo, but I'm assuming it was supposed to feel a bit like the many macro fuzzy shots on a lot of food blogs. Maybe a bit like this. What I notice about this picture is that all of the cookies are in the frame, yet it's been cropped so that not all the cookies are entirely in the frame, it's been cropped to take up almost the whole frame and it has a shallow depth of field, so the front most cookie is the only cookie in perfect focus and it happens to also be dead center in the frame. Note, the extreme depth of field in the photo above is something that's difficult to achieve with most point-and-shoot digital cameras - especially older models. Again, I'm not sure if this is the look that you were trying to achieve, but if it was, then I'd say your image lacks a center of attention. I'm not sure if my attention is supposed to be drawn to the left most marshmallow or the group as a whole since it's pretty much all in focus and centered. I'd be interested to know how many other people were drawn to the wood background. It could play for or against this photo since the striations kind of mimic those on the marshmallows. For examples of photos that are similar to the one above, these are some of the most popular sites that have a style using a lot of the Martha look. http://chocolateandzucchini.com http://www.nordljus.co.uk http://www.101cookbooks.com/

Using that logic, I would expect to see the PB&J, something served on a pillow of scented air and something served with smoldering aromatics. Based on longevity of certain dishes, I'd expect to see the Sour Cream on the retrospect since it seemed to be one of the dishes that remained on the menu for the greatest length of time.

Is the champagne float just vanilla ice cream in champagne? Do you know if they used a Brut or Extra Dry for this? I'll definitely put this on our list for the next time we hit KC.

I'm not sure what being part of a chain has to do with a restaurant being able to produce good food. Isn't Bouchon now a chain? I've seen several threads that shun and berate chains, and while I understand where they are coming from, I think the wholesale discounting of any restaurant that is part of a chain is unfair. As for this particular restaurant, I'm not sure if they are still part of the CA Cafe/Napa Valley Grille chain, but I would have to expect that they are since their website is still listed with the other locations. Although this is my firs time to this particular restaurant, it's not my first time dinning within the chain. I had lunch at the California Cafe in the Mall of America about 5 or 6 years again. I remember liking the food and loving the duck pot-stickers that I had. That's the beauty of a chain. I can draw on that previous experience and expect something at least comparable to what I've had before half way across the country. That was actually a small part of the reason we decided to have lunch there. I think to compare the Napa Valley Grille to Bouchon or [fill in the blank] Jeanty is a bit unfair. The NVG has hardly a single entree over $15, while the other places mentioned have hardly an entree under that amount. I think Sam put it the best - "not a destination restaurant, but nice ambiance and decent food" Sam, can you share with us what you had that evening? Do you have any favorite dishes that you'd recommend to others? How's the "kobe" burger? Thanks!

Since I think every restaurant should get it's own thread, I'm starting one up for the Napa Valley Grille. We stopped at the Napa Valley Grille the last time we were in Napa. It was our first time there and I'm happy to report that it didn't suck. It didn't blow us away, but we didn't really expect it to. I'm interested to know what others thought of the place. I can't say I'd recommend any of their brunch items, but most of their lunch items were pretty good. The Harvest Platter and the fries stole the show for me. The focaccia was pretty tasty too. The only real let down was the Eggs Monterey. RESTAURANT REVIEW: The Napa Valley Grille (Yountville) PHOTO DIARY: The Napa Valley Grille (Yountville)

That at least makes sense. All lone dinners should get some extra special treatment, and of course being a journalist with the kitchen aware of your arrival and intent, I would expect nothing less than the best they have to offer.

How many items did you have total? Did you ask for an extended menu in any way or did you order the standard 9 course menu? Did they give different dishes to different menus in your party? I'm just really interested on how this works at this point because it could help me identify ways to improve our experiences here and elsewhere in the future.