BryanZ

Honestly, this whole thing reminds me of foodie's Ayn Rand novel. Bumbling, misinformed politicians and encroachments on individual freedoms abound. I'm just waiting for the likes of chefg and inventolux to show everyone else the light. Now, all we need is a brilliant and attractive but temporarily misguided female heroine and we're set.

Yes, he does.

Ginger and grapefruit is a classic combination for me. I've seen it done in a few different applications. Incidentally, the pairing of grapefruit and dill came stemmed from a dish of fish and dill with a citrus aquavit. I like the subtle, savory herb quality that dill brings and it was interesting to see how a delicate garnish such as dill can actually take center stage in the face of a super light "air."

Patrick is right in that the restaurant style "meat glue" applications that us eG'rs enjoy is really only one very small part of the TG world. While the scientists at Ajinomoto undoubtedly get a kick out people creating novel applications for their products, the company makes its money on large-scale industrial food processing applications. I am indeed very familiar with ideasinfood. It's a great blog and I will refresh myself on their work. I've got some short ribs dry aging right now. I'll trying the cross layering technique. I'm not sure it'll change much, but we'll see.

First visit to this thread. I usually avoid pastry like the plague and have no baking skills at all. While I'll analyze how a savory course was created for days after the fact, I'll dig into a great dessert, note the flavor combinations or novel techniques and forget it in a week. I'm definitely not one of those "dessert makes the meal" types. With that said, there's some sweet (no pun intended) food here. I'm flirting with desserts now only because I find them to be fun creative exercises for me. So here's my first go. Grapefruit in three textures or Pomelo en tres texturas for those days I pretend that I'm a famous avant garde Spanish chef (never mind the fact I'm neither famous nor Spanish nor a chef) Grapefruit Stoli Granita - subtle vodka bite on the finish but hard as hell to plate Mint and Ginger Grapefruit Sorbet - this was awesome if a little bit passe in concept Grapefruit "Air" with dill - grapefruit juice reduced, sweetened, strained, fortified with lecithin, buzzed, lightly frozen Obviously the theory here is to present a rather harsh but tasty ingredient and tame it by highlighting different flavors and texture. I'm upset that my plating isn't totally evenly spaced and the granita isn't a tight cylinder. Next time.

Hmm, I'm very intrigued. I've dined at 11MP a few times and have always found it good to very good( at times) but no more. It's the place you take your grandmother when she's in town. But this review, if we're to trust gaf (and let's be honest, who doesn't trust gaf), makes me want to go. I've got a reso at Danube this Saturday but am contemplating changing locales based on the comments and pics. I wonder if they serve as many amuses on a Saturday night. It's a tough life.

That seems shocking to me. The Modern is no doubt a great place and caters to a large number of people, from causal museum visitors to serious diners. Still, Alinea has really redefined American fine dining in only its first year of existence. I suppose the fact that it is rather expensive and the food isn't the most accesible to the "common" diner led to the award being given to The Modern. One could apply the same logic to The Mansion (or whatever it's called)-it's probably simply too expensive and too formal.

Fair points. See, I can understand how something like wd~50 gets two stars, even though it puts out arguably my favorite food in the city. The Gilt review bothered me, however, because Gilt taps into a niche that I feel is under-represented in NYC. But then again these are my opinions and ones that I have voiced in the past. I brought all this up because my reading Hesser's review of Aquavit resounded more deeply than most all of Bruni's.

See as how extreme you are, I believe you.

Supposedly you're not supposed to inhale it or get it on moist skin. I'm hedging my best and am going in there without any protection. I'm a rebel like that I guess. The crab ravioli idea is cool. I'm playing with a couple ideas for ravioli-type things with both TG and sodium alginate. I promise I won't let this thread die or let a cool idea go untried.

A recent meal at Aquavit got me thinking about the different inclinations of past reviewers. Aquavit holds 3-stars from Amanda Hesser in a review in 2001. In this review she praised the restaurant's creativity and was willing to overlook early creative misfires when they were later refined. I personally loved the food at Aquavit and found it to be refreshing and surprisingly creative in the context of a plethora of New American/French that dominate NYC fine dining. Bruni, however, does not seem to award creativity in the least. To prove this statement, I will cite reviews of Gilt, Perry St., and Cru. In the Gilt review, Bruni, besides his complaints about pricing which don't directly relate to the food or overall dining experience, seems to demote the restaurant from three to two-stars because it overextends itself in the reach of the cuisine and tries to do too much on too small a plate. In the Perry St. review, Bruni repeatedly asserts that this is Jean-Georges-lite. While JG's food is certainly great, it hasn't changed much since the late 1990's. This suggests that Bruni is bumping up a very good restaurant (2-stars) to an excellent one (3-stars) on the basis that its chef is finally returning to what he does best, rather than forging new ground. Finally, in the Cru review, Bruni does praise Chef Shea's ability to balance nouveau techniques with accesibility and awards the restaurant three stars. He, however, pans Will Goldfarb's desserts. Anyone who knows anything about NYC pastry puts Goldfarb in the avant garde category. Bruni's rhetoric in this section of the review almost seems like a direct attack on all avant garde chefs in NYC. I realize that everyone has different tastes, but it just seems that Bruni is completely creativity-adverse.

But this problem isn't limited to American cuisine but rather kitchens in America. Granted, the label, in most instances, is useless, but in today's world what modern cuisine is concretely defined? If you compare modern interpretations of French, American, and Japanese cuisine (respectively from three very different parts of the wrold), they're shocking familiar. In essence, boundaries between cuisines are breaking down all over the world, not just in America.

I enjoyed a surprisingly strong meal at Aquavit tonight. As others have mentioned, Aquavit does not get as much hype as other restaurants in the city, thus I never went out of my way to dine there. Something newer, or purportedly better, always came along, so, even after a few years, it remained on my "list" without ever being checked-off. My table had the Chef's Tasting Menu consisting of: Lobster Roll w/ apples salmon rode, bacon, and egg dressing Hot Smoked Trout w/ salsify puree, clam asparagus salad, and apple horseradish broth Foie Gras Ganache w/ duck pastrami, cherry chutney, and goat cheese Poached Lamb Loin w/ spring onion, hearts of palm, ramp vinaigrette, and sunchoke goat cheese puree Manchego w/ chocolate cream and tangerine sorbet Rhubarb Soup w/ cardamom and pistachio ice cream Almond-Olive Cake with rose hip sorbet and yougurt In addition we received two flights of amuses (#1 a raw tuna salad w/ horseradish foam and a cauliflour soup with capers and golden raisins, #2 an assortment of cured fish and shellfish with varying accompaniments) and a complimentary dessert (green apple sorbet w/ anise flavors). This meal was startlingly good. The food is creative, unique, and clean yet not overly complex or challenging. The progression of lobster roll, trout, and foie was one of the better sequences of courses I've had in NYC. I wasn't in love with the lamb (it seemed somewhat out of place in the context of the other dishes), but the strong flavors grew on me and mellowed as opposed to becoming tiresome on my palate. I enjoyed 2 flights of aquavit (that's a sampling of six infused liquors, surely an experience but not something I would repeat often) shared with my dining companions for the first few courses, then moved to a mediocre glass of Pinot Noir for the foie and lamb. This place deserves more attention than it gets. Service was solid and knowledgeable if not totally flawless. Aquavit is an exceptional three-star restaurant that easily flirts with four-star territory in some cases.

Cool. If my noodle-zooka doesn't work, I might buy this thing. $23 isn't cheap though for whats essentially a ricer.

A kind of lame start to the pictures, but here's my extruder. I asked my mother (she's Japanese) about finding a shiboriki, the traditional Japanese tool for extruding fish paste noodles, but she said I probably wouldn't be able to find one. Apparently, they're not even all that common in Japan these days. I digress. My extruder is comprised of pvc pipe, a pipe cap with a hole drilled into it, a wooden dowel, and some tape. It's pretty self-explanatory, I think. When I push through I'll wrap the dowel in plastic wrap so it doesn't get all gross. For now, the extruder makes a pretty sweet water gun. ETA: Should I enlarge the hole. I thought too small would be better than too big to start.

Great link, thank you. I'm surprised I never read through that before. It's great to see big names like Sean Brock and Wylie chime in. I hope I can do this fascinating product justice.

So I've got a couple packets of Activa-brand Transglutaminase. This stuff is quite the hot commodity for molecularly inspired home cooks, so I want to try do some cool experiments with it. I would love to hear from ANYONE who has experience with the product. As of right now, I'm just planning on sprinkling it on this and that, hoping for some sort of magical meat glue creation. If anyone knows the best way to apply this stuff (in terms of technique and applications), it would really help me out. So far I've created a steak-cum-shrimp deal in which I sliced in half (length-wise) a random sirloin I had lying around, and added a layer of thinly sliced shrimp (which also happend to be lying around). After sprinkling some TG here and there, wrapping in plastic, and refrigerating overnight, I had a somewhat stuck together mass of beef and shellfish. I apologize for not taking pictures, but after grilling the amalgamation it was a rather humble looking specimen. I also ventured to Home Depot today in an attempt to create an "extruder" analagous to what Wylie used on Iron Chef America to make his tilapia noodles. This was a strange experience in which I got a lot of very strange looks from sales associates when explaining my idea and accompanying diagram. As a result, I'm currently the proud owner of a random section of pvc pipe, an ill-fitting pvc pipe cap, and a wooden dowel. I think I can make something to extrude noodles from this, but if anyone has any ideas as to how to create the TG-infused shrimp/tilapia/protein noodles, it would be great to know. I've heard something about 1% TG by weight, but that could all be a lie. So as you can tell, I need the help. Ideas, stories, anything. Please.

I recently picked up an ISI Dessert Whip. I've looked through the various threads on this product and am learning a lot, but have yet to come across recommendations for procuring reasonably priced refills. I don't need a case of 600, I'm a home cook who's actually at home only a few months a year. With that said, William Sonoma destroys me by charging $12 for 12 chargers. At a dollar per charger, it doesn't exactly lend itself to tons of experimentation. I've seen chargers sold online for in boxes of 24, so I suppose I can order a couple boxes of those. ISI, unfortunately, happens to be the most expensive brand. I know they say not to, but will the other brands' chargers work in my whipper? Can I find chargers lthat will fit in a sporting goods store or something for cheaper? As an aside, does anyone know if I can use xanthan gum instead of gelatin in dairy-free foams? If so, what proportions should I be using?

Lying on your resume doesn't cut it in any world, end of story. I have limited restaurant work experience and, in general, find that creative embelishment is commonplace across many industries. To fabricate completel lies, however, is dishonest and shows no integrity.

adamru, you're a very lucky man.

The video option is really cool. Although they don't have a huge selestion at the present, I'd love to see this concept expand. It would entice me to visit a place I had not yet seen and offers an preliminary insider's view to many of the city's best-known restaurants.

We'll likely know what the contestants were told when Stephen puts up his episode 8 journal/blog entry. He's usually quite forthcoming on the limitations and restrictions placed on the contestants for each challenge, perhaps even more so than Chef Collichio.

This is the style I use and is generally accepted in most news publications. Arbitrary capitalization seems unprofessional to me.

I'd love to hear if Chef Goldfarb's powders have suggested ratios on the package. If not, I'd love to hear what proportions you're using and also the effects of changing pH using sodium citrate. Great find on the Bourdain clip, btw. He looked genuniely giddy.

I would say that kaiseki is a definite influence. The progression of courses is evocative of modern tasting menus.