BryanZ

The interweb has been surprisingly quiety about this much-anticipated opening. Augieland posted a short but nice recap of the Menu Prestige, Eater has covered whatever bit of gossip (true or otherwise) they can find, but largely there's not a ton being said. Yes, it's true it's been less than a week, but weren't people already up in arms about Ducasse by this time? Wasn't Per Se literally on fire? I'm looking forward to my visit.

Hey everyone, I'm roasting a turkey breast--yes, just a breast--tomorrow for some friends. I usually roast whole turkeys or do turkey cutlets sous vide. I usually go 160ish in the the thigh when roasting or 140 sous vide. I think for this roasted breast I want go somewhere in between. So what's a good internal temperature for the breast alone? Thanks.

Wow, good find. I had no idea the history goes that far back.

Good episode this week. The offal challenge was very interesting, especially given the time constraints. That these elimination challenges have revolved around cooking small plates and the like seems to play into Ilan's hand, having cooked at Casa Mono and all. The last three courses in the lunch looked pretty pathetic. What was more telling, however, was the entire group's inability to communicate to put together something of a cohesive menu. As an aside, I'm pretty sure Marcel's prom analogy was taken from personal experience.

Bruni would've one-starred it if they simplified a lot of the dishes. He said the quality of the ingredients was marred by the "swagger" of the rubs, accompaniments, sauces. Not that I think this place deserves a star or not, but Bruni, confronted with a simpler restaurant to a more ambitious or creative one that sometimes missteps, will usually prefer the former.

Bruni laid on the smackdown with a "Satisfactory" aka zero-star review today. Ouch.

Apparently you can heat the liquid, though. At least ideas in food uses the consommes for poaching.

You probably could, but the shaping issue again comes into play. And you can't just go about loading it with gelatin or what have you because then it won't melt after it's been scooped and poached.

I've just finished the second season. While I felt it wasn't as engaging as the first--I missed Giles and found Janet Street Porter quite off-putting--the second to last episode with the slaughter of the pigs was some pretty powerful television. Carry that to the finale when you could tell that Gordon was particularly passionate about putting together a great meal with Twinny and Susannah and it made for an uplifiting experience.

Supposedly this place opens to the public on Wednesday. It was supposed to open this past weekend, then someone busted her knee or something. Will try to report at least once before the holiday.

Agreed. The whole point of real wagyu is the melting texture that still manifests itself in whole slices or as a steak. I'd much rather pay $125 for a five oz. steak than $65 (or whatever it is) for a five ounce burger.

The comments on Bruniblog could spur an entire discussion themselves. Yes, most of the commentary there is rather innane, but make sure you don't tell them I said that or else I risk being sacrificed to the populist masses. I just thought the two-hour limit in itself was interesting for a restaurant with Michelin 3-star aspirations.

Fair enough, in retrospect she admitted she did something wrong. But based on what I saw initially (as in before the challenge begain) I don't think they explicitly said the recipes were locked down. After it came out and the rules were made more clear, yes, she did break them.

Some interesting points to be conisdered as found on the Bravo boards: According to some quick back of the envelope style calculations, assuming Betty did take out 1 white per cookie and added two tablespoons of sugar to each the meal still would've been in under the 500 calorie limit, though just barely. The calorie content of egg whites and tablespoons of sugar are easily calculated and thus can be easily changed without requiring the nutritionist's presense. I don't even like Betty, but according to what I saw she didn't really do anything wrong.

I've found that if you lightly grease the scooping surface of the spoon, ladle, ice cream scoop, etc you get a cleaner release and the gel is less subject to small surface tears that can make it seem somewhat waterlogged and appear less smooth.

At least he's not complaining about cost a la Gilt.

This is not Top Baker, jeez.

I'm posting this because it's my first truly fall-y meal, an autumnal overdrive if you will. Too bad it was like 80 degrees today. The hot ice cream turned out quite well tonight thanks to guidance of Rocklobster. My camera's battery died though, so I couldn't take a picture.

This is bizzare but worth reading. Supposedly when Bruni et al was calling for reservations in the main dining room he was informed of a two hour time limit on late tables, but no time limit on early ones. This happened to Bruni twice and a colleague as well. While GR media personel seem to have cited this is a major oversight on the part of the reservationists, it's bizzare that they'd even consider instituting this policy. With that said this could easily be like the the whole "no photo" controversy that popped up with this restaurant a couple months back. I'm waiting to see this place open and am hoping for the best. The Bruniblog post.

I see a ripe opportunity for Luckylies to take some revenge on Sneakeater here. People who read these boards as compulsively as I do have to know what I'm talking about.

Now that's an excellent idea. You can't have too many kinds of porky goodness. ← I think I'm stealing from Alinea, though I can't be certain. Someone mentioned a bacon powder in that thread, so rendered bacon drippings in tapioca maltodextrin just seemd to make sense. I think I went wrong when I tried to add a drop of liquid smoke. Maltodextrin really seems to hate water, a lot.

This may come off as rather callous but at no time did the judges say to limit the use of sugar, only to limit calories. While what Betty did may have been against the rules (which weren't all that clearly explained according to what we saw on show) you can't fault her ethically for using sugar if it in fact was under the 500 calorie limit. It is not the responsibility of the chefs to know or care whether the kids were diabetic or not. The rules were 500 calories, make it taste good. This is a competition and if using sugar while staying in the rules works, I'm fine with it.

I thought the disclaimer said the opposite, that production staff does not play a role in deciding who goes. In any case, that's the way it should be, and under that assumption the fact that the production crew had the footage of Betty cheating is irrelevant. The judes have to judge based on what they see in competition and are told by the competitors. Given that there could have been cheating by a number of individuals on all teams I don't necessarily blame the judges for not sending anyone home. Doing so would have only perpetuated the idea that cheating is acceptable if you can get away with it (as Betty seems to have done). In regards to the Otto situation, you have to keep in the mind that he took himself out and that the "cheating" was limited to one team. In that case, the "cheating" team lost anyway so the judges could eliminate someone with minimal ethical controversy. This was not the case in this week's episode so, again, I stand by their decision. I'm not sure I agree with those of you who are critcizing Sam for speaking up but not pointing fingers. The judges clearly had no idea this was going on and were better of for being informed of it. At the same time, Sam did not have to single out any individuals by any means and in doing so possibly increased his chance of being sent home.

If you're just looking for gel-like sheets why not just make a thin sheet of gelatinized sauce and cut shapes to fit?

A couple quick results: Peanut butter: Great results, very peanut-y Truffle Oil: Good results, though with no color the powder is kind of soulless on its own Whole Milk Yogurt: Errrr, that one was messy Bacon Drippings: A work in progress; it was the first thing I tried, and I ran out of bacon to render after a couple mishaps. I was, however, able to use the maltodextrin's fat absorbing capabilities in a more transparent way for a different take on a bacon powder.