raji

Wow you'll have to let me know when and where. Everyone knows the food's better in Kansai anyway.... I imagine you can find something _close_ at the markets in Chinatown... and it's more about the texture as there aren't a lot of flavor in those...But it seems like the Japanese imogrowing coalition has them all wrapped up - the cheapest I've seen them is at Mitsawa which is just the other side of the hudson in Edgewater, and even then, not too cheap. I go through a lot of them making okonomiyakis during baseball season...

I think you're putting words in my mouth.... but still, 15% of $700 is a lot more than 15% of $70! That's also putting a lot of faith in restaurants to not charge you for their name (or celebrity chef's name), reputation, or otherwise, don't you think?

No doubting the man's abilities and the ingredients, but I'd be smiling a lot too I charge that much....

I'm right there with you. How dare you mix the wasabi and soy sauce! I've opined that for the price of Kuruma I'd just as well go to Japan.

OK based on years of eating chyashuu ramen all over Japan, I figured it involved some pork! Love those, how did it become a hawaiian thing?

What is it?? Now I want one too.

I was going to say Ustav as well. But only been there for lunch. Midtown east or west is mostly white cloth jobs...

How much can you pay? Because there's lots of great Indian places in Midtown east, but you're gonna pay for it, it also means there isn't a whole lot in the budget area too. I'd go to curry hill for South Indian.

That's what I said in the first place! Ban started with the whole mad cow scare, was lifted just recently, and then they tested some and some that came from the Meat Market right here in NYC had some spinal fragments in it and, BANNED again! To whit, I often have friends from Japan visiting me, and Yoshinoya, the beef-bowl fastfood from Japan, is nearly bellyup in Japan because their recipe depends on thinly sliced american beef, so they only have pork. So they beg me to take them to the Yoshinoya on 42nd @ 8th avenue so they can get the gyudon they can't get at home. So funny...

Then wouldn't the ban on US Beef imports in Japan due to BSE cause a windfall of prime? And on the subject of import/xport, is the cattle lobby so strong that we are unable to import beef from places like South American and Australia?

Based on my brother's obsession with Tapas (on par with my obsession with Japanese food), the wish to find somewhere low-key for the Mother's Day holiday (not reservation-madness and crowded), and the positive vibe I got from the place on here, we booked a table for 6 (plus baby) and headed over to Tintol Sunday afternoon at 6pm. Looked dead from the outside, but once you get past the front area it opens up into a very nicely lit, exposed brick room. I'm not a huge tapas fan myself and don't remember the names of any of the places I've been to except for El Cid, but based on our dinner there Sunday, this place is a real sleeper and the best tapas I've had in NYC. The Spanish/Portugese wine list is great with many falling in the $20-$40 range, and with 6 people we were able to try out 4 different bottles. This is one of the larger selection of tapas which is really great; I realized that so many times I've been to a tapas place and no I was not in the mood for paella or a sardine, so i was kind of out of luck. Here no matter what you are feeling, there is something for everyone, and nearly everything was a winner. Cheese Plate - good enough Fried deviled eggs - with hints of truffle oil and garlic, delicious! Lamb Meatballs - delicious smokey flavor (repeating the above) Lamb Loin - Cooked to perfection with cumin Pork belly - served with what seemed to be cauliflower purree, delicious! Shrimp Scampi - Juicey shrimp, tasty butter/herb/garlic sauce with plenty left to sop up with the bread Bacalhau Cassoulet - good code dish oxtail ragu - also delicious to be sopped up by the bread Flaming Chroizo - you'd think it was for show, being that it's in the theatre district, but the flambe toasted the sausage to perfection Quails with Mushroomand sherry - after the cheney jokes were done, I only managed to get into the mushrooms, which were superb Our waiter was a cheery guy and very helpful, although he had just started there, and it seemed like they definitely had their sh** together. Obviously they know what they're doing in the kitchen, because even on an off day (the place was only about 30% full) everything was cooked to perfection. I will definitely be back and I'm just hoping that because it's RIGHT off Times Square but seemingly off the tourist map, it will not become a tourist destination, rather a solid respite from an otherwise awful area to eat out.

I saw a line on Saturday afternoon when the torrential rains were pouring - I see the line often but I never seen it moving fast if at all Surely they could have 2 lines and make burgers fast Anyway, as usual I went to Eisenberg's

They featured one on NY1... any chronic NY1 watchers remember which one this way? It was one of their "NY Eats" vignettes or whatever it is called. It might have been this one....

I think I'm gonna paypal me some jerky too. Can jerky ever be all that good? Makes me want to eat yakiniku

Not sure if that can be had in the US... seafood and chicken based.... Why does ramen just hit the spot so much more when you've been drinking all night?

Really! I knew something was wrong. I'd never tried it. Looked off though. Cchen I've been to the Midtown East Katsuhama many times. Semantics I know but I said "best tonkatsu in NYC", so I meant the midtown east one, while thinking there was an outpost in NJ. Was being sarcastic when I said the best ramen in NYC was in NJ... Katsuhama's oil is great and they can taste better than some places in Japan, but the places in Japan can be so so much more delicious as well.

Yes - many places! Hell's Kitchen, Tehuitzingo, and Del Valles being my favorites

I like Kitchen Market too, but I actually meant in the kitchen, as in, hell's kitchen... it's a lot cheaper and in some cases better stuff...

Yeah, let me put it to you this way, i've lived in half a dozen or so neighborhoods in NYC and none more than hell's kitchen brought out the closet chef in me. You have everything in the neighborhood I've mentioned, easy subway access to Chinatown for Asian cooking, and easy access to the Mitsuwa across the hudson for all Japanese - I think this really helps with the strength of the neighborhood's restaurants, not to mention oh so many chefs living in the neighborhood...

1. You'd think Alphabet City and spanish harlem would have bette, but I've had great luck buying at the grouping of Mexican groceries aound 47-50th on 10th avenue, that double as takeout joints as well. I've spent at Kitchen Market in Chelsea, but gotten better stuff, super cheap in the Kitchen. Great dried stuff, salsas, and the most amazing carnitas 2. Chinatown. However, there IS a Thai place at 44th and 10th but I think it's wholesale only, which would be stupid because it's got everything you need for Thai cooking there.... 3. Italian Pork - Esposito's @ 37th and 9th, I'm partial to, they have amazing sausages there, and great pork cheap, and the butcher's are all good guys. There's several butcher's right there - Cuzin's, and of course Big Apple if you need a lot, cheap

I haven't been there in a couple of years, their diner food was good and peirogi good.

You speaketh too soon http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/04/...aking_shake.php

Veselka?

I get delivery dinner food from this place all the time and it is stunningly delicious (for delivery food) every single time. It must be very good to eat there. I was a fan of Khyber Pass in the past, is that place still good? Afghani bread rocks my world....and those dumplings covered in yogurt sauce...

I finally got to try Cookshop tonight - had 4 friends in from out of town (Japan), wanted to get a nice dinner for around $60 per person, they mentioned French or Italian but I figured why not see them off with an Americana seasonal menu that would be impossible to find over Japan. I've also biked by the space dozens of times and I really wanted to try it out. I echo the sentiments above; nothing blew me away or amazed me, everything was as advertised, cooked well, but nothing particularly memorable. GAF's commentary is spot on. Our waiter was very nice and prompt, but didn't couldn't tell me much more than what was written on the menu. I asked for a dry Riesling to start out with and the one he recommended was actually on the sweet side, a little embarassing for me because my friends from the far east assumed I knew my wine. For a red with the meal, I went with a Shiraz from a region I had visited, which my friends liked so much they ordered additional glasses of it. For appetizers we ordered the oyster mushroom pizza, which was very creamy with extremely tasty mushrooms, but succeeded in part due to prodgious amounts of olive oil... an apple, bacon, walnut salad, which was somewhat pedestrian, and chicken-fried duck livers, which were good but not great... For mains we all shared the trio of lamb, (loin, chop, meatballs), arctic char, a NY strip steak, and the duck breast. The steak and duck were the best of the bunch. The artic char, which the waiter described to me as tasting somewhere in between salmon and trout, was good, but made me want a proper salmon steak! The lamb was good but nothing to write home about. I love the space, and the sparse, almost zen-like decor and tableware. The staff is for the most part friendly, and the place was packed when I got there, although we managed to close it out. So, "good but didn't knock my socks off". However, I will be back, for several reasons. It's affordable enough to go back multiple times and find the apps and sides and desserts that I can call my own, and/or try out the seasonal rotation. Only great restaurants can succeed with everything on the menu. For a party of 5, we had 3 apps, 4 mains, 2 bottles of wine, dessert wines/desserts, all for $310 + tax and tip, thus fulfilling the original price requirement. It's got a great wine list with many great affordable options in the 30-45 range, as well as lots of options for pre/post drinking and dessert, which helps a lot if the mains are underwhelming. It's also a welcome addition to what is still a bit of a culinary black hole, West Chelsea. The 7th and 8th Avenue strips from 14-23 don't really have any destination restaurants that I can think of, and it gets worse moving west. With little to no desire to take part in the Meatpacking district economy, it's nice to have a "safe" restaurant to go to when you're surrounded by Stephen Starr superduperworld, the Maritime snootfest, and, when we reach the cobblestones, enough bluetooth-headsetted aholes (think the recent SNL sketch) to fill a stadium. So I'll be back a 2nd time, with camera, but if I don't see some more inspired cooking going on, I may have to give up on it...