pastrychef

I would recommend against buying the FFM dregs at 7:00am. What is sold to the occasional consumer who sneaks past security is not the best. Those quantities also are still very large by normal consumer standards. Also too labor intensive. The FFM is still quite corrupt. The Obermayer cleanup did something to push out the most visible mob elements but there is still deep corruption and dishonesty at many levels. If you look at the purchasing patterns of the best restaurants you will find they get much of their fish from non FFM sources. Sushi places in particular get a lot of fish FedEx direct from dock. If I ran purchasing for a small restaurant I'd work directly with all suppliers and cut the FFM out altogether. Visiting the FFM is not that interesting. It's mostly truckloads of frozen fish. Retail fish counters such as at Citarella sell very good fish. Not usually as good as what the better restaurants get but better than what the average restaurant gets. But the people working these counters know very little about fish. There is a knowledgeable purchaser in the back somewhere who might make an appearance from time to time but the average counter person cannot help you with much other than repeating whatever is on the signage. It is not practical to shop only where there are expert counterpeople. That is not the New York reality or the reality in any big city.

To be clear Alonso you are talking about a commercial source. Consumers cannot buy from the Fulton Fish Market. They are not even allowed in without special arrangements. The questions you suggest asking will be answered by blank stares at most retail fish outlets don't you agree? The Fulton Fish Market is a good source of bulk wholesale fish but many restuarants that want the best have established supply lines outside the fish market. It is also completely corrupt you must know.

They're a big wholesale meat company with no retail outlet I know of though I wouldn't be surprised if they sell to many retail buthers as one of many suppliers that most local retailers use. SteveW I want to make a point clear because you seem not to make this differenteiation. Restaurants and consumers pursue two almost totally different lines of supply. The minor overlap of an operation like D'Artagnan, and it is questionable whether D'Artagnan gives consumers the same products as restaurants, does not change that usually the distributors that work with restaurants do not deal with consumers and that retail groceries and butchers and fish stores rarely get any restaurants business. I am curious you said you were in Montreal why this fascination with the most minor intricacies of the New York wholesale meat scene?

Restaurants don't get their meat from butchers. Better restaurants do their own butchering of subprimals anyway. They get it from distributors in the meatpacking neighborhood or out of the Bronx terminal market usually. There are a few ethnically focused meat suppliers I've heard of here and there but most restaurants whether they speak English, Spanish or Swahili get their beef from guys with Italian names.

Was there this past weeek. Excellent. Suggest white not red soup though. It is the signature. Sitting at the bar is the way to go. The bar bar to the right of the entrance not the horseshoe shaped counter in the middle.

I've been trying to think how to comment on this thread without sounding like an ####### so here goes. By way of background I'm a pastry chef and baker but have trained and staged as a "regular" cook as well. The romantic notions expressed by some here about cooking are complete and utter bullshit. It is all technique and no heart. This is even more true in pastry than in savory cooking. When I train young apprentices it is mostly a question of getting them to work unemotionally and according to specific instructions. In the daily production of desserts I need engineers. In creating new desserts there is room for heart but always it must be second fiddle to technique. Without exception when I have had an apprentice fail to make a dessert properly it has been on account of a simple failure to follow directions or my failure to give clear enough instructions. If my instructions are clear and they are followed the dessert will by definition be as good as if I made it myself. No matter who makes it, even those with no belief that they can pull it off. To return to the key point that was raised and to expand upon it the real question here is the ability to taste. I do not want to lump all amateurs together because some experienced amateur cooks have better tasting ability than some professional cooks. The point however is that most amateurs are not even capable of making the claim with any authority that they have reproduced a restaurant dish because they do not possess the tools to know whether a flavor is missing or out of balance. In savory cooking even more than in pastry the variables of seasoning and moisture and others mean that constant adjustment and reaction are necessary. If however you know how to taste and you can truly judge then creating restaurant dishes at home is so easy that there is little argumetn I can see about the possibility of accomplishing it. I say easy not to mean quick however. This can take a lot of time money and effort. But it is easy in the sense of doable by anybody with the will. Why you would want to I am not sure.