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Steve Klc

eGullet Society staff emeritus
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Everything posted by Steve Klc

  1. What Scott said, it all comes down to awareness--awareness on the part of the pastry/buyer knowing what to ask and awareness on the part of the distributor--of his product, its makeup, etc. Regardless of what is on the label, there's nothing preventing any user from asking to see the cocoa butter% breakdown--if there isn't at least the "couverture" tipoff printed on the box or wrapping. It'll also be obvious once they melted a small sample of chocolate whether it is fluid or thick at appropriate temperature levels. Increasingly less tempered chocolate work is going on in restaurants these days anyway--it's being exposed as irrelevant or artifice, hotels are buying all that crap already made by the Chocolates a la cartes of the world, and the talent/skill level in Pastry departments are dropping with younger/less experienced/less-trained folks assuming the pastry/baking roles, especially in restaurants. Of course, it's naive to expect that typical pastry ingredient salespeople care about the quality of the chocolate they sell--and that they're selling particular chocolates because they are excellent chocolates. They don't care what you buy for what reason just that you buy something from them and they get their markup. Most distributors would rather you focus in on a percentage or the presumed cachet of a brand, because then you're not focusing in on what you should be: comparative taste, performance, value. The last thing a distributor wants is you to be an empowered, critical, aware buyer. It's easier to talk and sell percentage or brand recognition than it is for them to meaningfully discuss taste or process or performance with you. "I can give you this 58% for xyz a pound versus the 58% you're currently buying from my arch rival." "You mean I can save 35 cents a pound?" That's the language of distributors. The reality is most people working in the trenches are forced to buy the cheapest most-widely-distributed most industrialized bulk-produced chocolates. Those of us who aren't, are very lucky.
  2. There still can be a shortage of affordable and/or good chocolates to be found, Sebastian, since not every pastry chef can buy from every supplier--distribution is still the biggest roadblock and it'll depend on what market you're in. Buying chocolate can be like broadband cable sometimes--there's one vendor in a market and they have a monopoly--or they're pressuring you to buy ALL of your product from them. And there is certainly less, not more, competitive pricing between brands these days. Across six restaurants I buy chocolates, nibs and cocoa powder from two different (competing) distributors. That's because I like to be different and to get my way. What I use for large scale dessert production hasn't really changed since we started eGullet--E. Guittard--but I have added Valrhona for milk and the 63% from Uster. Once Anil Rohira gave it to me last year I knew it was a special chocolate and knew I'd have to find reasons to use it. I don't think I've actually used a 58% or less chocolate for anything in a few years. That's paying a pretty penny for all that sugar. I buy by taste first and am not concerned with the listed percentage, and at least to me there's too noticeable a difference between the 50-58% group, which all tastes like sugar dreck to me, and the 63 or so formulations, which actually taste like chocolate should taste, with sugar in the background. There are a few good 61%-63% I'm using at home and in the restaurants as general/all-purpose chocolates, right now alternating between the Albert Uster 63% Garnet and the E. Guittard 61%. We use these for our artistic/decorative stuff, too, since they both temper well and are fluid, some molding, shells, etc. I'm only doing one milk chocolate-based dessert in a restaurant and for that I use Valrhona Jivara. Otherwise, for most restaurant-based stuff like flans, cakes, creams, beverages, I'm using higher percentages, and my go-to higher % chocolate for the past few years has been the E. Guittard 72%--when Zaytinya opened in DC I arranged to have it brought into our market just so I could use it in our lead dessert, the Turkish Coffee, and it's stayed our number one seller ever since. (I should also tell you I add cocoa powder to a lot of "chocolate" preparations and have a few solely cocoa powder-based components as well.) It can be a little tricky using a couverture (high cocoa butter content) in baking, but most of the stuff I do is gentle and baked either at low heat or baked quickly at very high heat. You just have to balance your overall fat percentage. And it may not be the best idea to orient your request around percentage first--since a given percentage will vary from brand to brand--one brand will have more cocoa butter in their 58% and another will have significantly less cocoa butter in their 58%, and as a result one might be used for shells or enrobing and another might be better for ganache. Hope that helps.
  3. Just goes to show you restaurants are fragile constructs Don--you didn't say when you were there--was this in prime time on a busy weekend night or on an off night? Since Tom's review I've tried only to eat there when I know it's going to be a little slow, mostly early weekday evenings. So far, I've only had two of the dishes you chose--agree on both actually--always love the papaya and did order the odd Yum Pla Duk Fu once--I, too, didn't get the crunchy fried fish aspect of that salad--I figured it was something culturally I just didn't understand and chalked up the 5.95 as an ignorant-on-my-part experiment I wouldn't repeat. It was flawlessly fried, though. I've had a decade's old rule against ordering "Five spice anything" anywhere, and I thank you for reaffirming my doubt. As far as the percentage of Asians amongst the diners, the same curious thing happened with Minh's in Arlington, Tom gave them a very good review and yet it took about a year for more Viet diners to show up in the mix--and yet the intriguing cooking didn't change in that time. (It's as if the ethinc clientele stayed away until Chi proved she wasn't going to Americanize their stuff and was in it for the long haul.) Did you tell them how dissatisfied you were with everything?
  4. Let's keep this about books, learning from books, the question of whether it's advantageous to learn hands-on first, etc. Let's talk shop, where to buy equipment, etc. on other threads.
  5. I think one of the reasons why eGullet has achieved the mindshare it has so quickly, Victor, is the fact that as an international community we've been trying to discuss these very same issues for years. With that as a background, it's hard for me not to view the conception and execution of this article as full of intellectual holes--so too is the attempt to discuss it in one thread here as if this is newsworthy, somehow original thinking, or pretend it hasn't already been discussed in great length on eG, especially the French rested on their laurels too long, French cooking remained too rigid and conservative, the French have been overtaken by Spanish inventiveness, the freedom European chefs admire when they come to the US, the lack of one supposed "American" cuisine, etc. To me, this article comes across as nothing more than a cheap, convenient, anti-American drive-by shooting fed willingly to a British media outlet by a perhaps disingenuous "American" writer who should probably stick to writing about wine rather than food (and his wine writing is very good.) Yet again the usual suspects of the anti-modern US dining scene are trotted out, like Ed Behr and Alice Waters, who give quotes they've given a million times and which serve their interests culinarily-speaking since they don't feel as ingrained in the mindshare of the modern American dining scene rising around them as they'd perhaps like to be. I'm surprised Steinberger didn't find room for Luddite allies like Corby Kummer to relate some cautionary slow food tale or Colman Andrews to champion something "simple-authentic-honest-pure-though not Rick Bayless" found in Saveur (Steinberger also writes for Saveur, by the way.) Easy target chefs who have stretched their own boundaries are pinned up, like Jean-Georges, Charlie Palmer and Rocco, to score a cheap rather than reflective point. It's mentioned that too small a percentage of our population appreciates good food and cooking--be it high end or artisinal--that we don't have one "national" cuisine--but what isn't pointed out is why we should consider that important? I think what's always lost trying to fit convenient generalizations about the US into small articles is our huge size, both in terms of population and geographical sweep, and our diverse disconnected regional nature which sometimes comes in conflict with our "national" appreciation and acceptance of food or cooking. Victor, you made a comment about not disagreeing with Steinberger/Simon--in the main--by recalling some of your most recent experiences at top-notch places in the US being on autopilot--I'm curious--just how many days have you spent here and how often have you eaten in "top" US places in the past 1-2 years? Who helped you define "top?" How often have you eaten at the just below top level places when you have visited--the younger chefs not quite yet in the media glare? Now whatever that number of total meals is--10? 20? more? it doesn't really matter--magnified by however many cities you visited--and that number here is not really that important either--do you think that qualifies you to have made some kind of similar sweeping implication as put forth by a Steinberger or a Simon, and would you have allowed yourself to be quoted in a similar article like this, if you were asked? I suspect you would have correctly reined your statement in but that your very critical nature and intellectual honesty may have held you back from even being quoted. You, as most foreign visitors to the US like Simon, have little idea what it's like to dine out on a regular basis in any one major American city, let alone enough cities, to begin to form an opinion about our chefs and restaurants that could be broadly applied. Most actively engaged culinarily-aware Americans don't travel enough and dine out as often in other cities. The most we ourselves do, like most foreign visitors, is return with snapshots, static impressions of a few meals which are dated the minute they're edited and bound into an album, and which may have been out of focus when we took them anyway because we don't know how to use our camera, or have a poor understanding of composition.
  6. Josette, I don't know Lindsay but from the picture in the book Lindsay is a "he," and I was referring to "The Ultimate Book or Royal Icing." I like that book because his work is very "clean," which isn't something a beginner can usually understand or process if they're just starting out, and it focuses in on work that isn't usually emphasized as often as it should be. He's done some more overtly technical stuff which isn't as accessible as he is here. When you're coming up as a pastry student or decorator it's a natural inclination to want to rush into a job, start doing work, and what I've seen happen in myself and others to a certain extent is you don't spend the time learning, preparing, widening your skill set, practising the boring repetitive stuff like piping filagree, say, you go right to the flowers, right to the showpieces, right to pulling sugar. We've all seen the attitude--the right out of pastry school wants to do the showpiece work before they've proven they can even create and execute a decent restaurant dessert. There are many successful professionals who get to a certain point with flawed skillsets and can't go back. It used to be a given that a pastry chef could pipe happy birthday elegantly and well on a cake. They were forced to practice over and over again in a professional setting for any hope of advancement. Even if their inner calling was making that modelling chocolate rose just so, damn if their hands on mentor didn't make them pipe and pipe and pipe. That doesn't tend to happen anymore when you learn at home or from a book, when the hands on turns into something self-selected and self-guided. We're often terrible guides for ourselves when it comes to ourselves. If you're a beginnner you don't have the judgment and awareness to know you're going astray, and there's no substitute for someone else trusted being critical, in an interactive way, so you learn how to be critical of yourself--and that doesn't happen from book learning. Practice doesn't make perfect--practice just enhances your ability, through repetitive motion, to more quickly produce at whatever skill and finesse level you're at. Practice only makes perfect, if there even is such a thing as "perfect," let's say "practice only helps you work at a higher level" when you have either have the training first or you're one of the very lucky naturals at this, one of the unique individuals, the 1-2%, who with no hands on training just intuit how thin is thin, how thin is too thin, how thick is thick, how soft is soft, how sticky is sticky, etc. Is it possible to teach yourself how to temper chocolate from a book--sure--would it be 100x better for you to spend a day watching Jacques Torres "stir the bowl?" Of course, is it possible to teach yourself how to passably do something with it, like molding, assembling shapes, sure--maybe 1% of novices can do this if they have a good instructional material in front of them but the rest of the 99% will not--they won't be able to intuit the right temps, the feel, the nuances in handling and manipulating, they'll make a mistake and won't know where they made a mistake and worse, develop bad work habits, rituals, that will be hard to break later. How to work is very important to embrace early--how to sit, stand, stir, move, organize, touch, clean, that's very difficult to convey in print. That's something a beginner needs and can only come with hands on observation. Of course, being in a hands-on situation is no guarantee either, some folks have the will, their eyes are open, their hands nimble, but just can't observe and process eye to hand no matter how many ways you try to get through as a teacher. Some teachers are lousy teachers, parroting what has been done better in a book by others, and in that case maybe a book is your best bet. But there's no feedback from a book. So sure--it's possible, theoretically, to learn and practice on your own but books are not a passable substitute, it's better if you can afford it and live near someone who already is working at a high level--to go hands on with a top person as soon as you can, as soon as you decide hey, I'd like to be good at this. It's all an aspiration and self-awareness issue--my larger point is this: it helps tremendously to be shown elite level work (and work habits and work processes) early on which then better enables you to keep building on that later, whereas it is all too common to pick up a gum paste book and NOT get that base, instead starting to do mediocre work when you haven't had anything hands on. And that's why we see a lot of mediocre work called "artistic" in this country and never rise above mediocrity. Happens in pastry, happens in cake decorating. Doesn't have to happen.
  7. Why not stabilizers? They are every bit as "natural" as many other ingredients--you think all these different sugars fall off trees? No, they are processed chemically and manipulated, altered, yet still 100% "edible." So, too, are all these ice cream and sorbet stabilizers like pectin, the seaweeds, alginates, etc. If done well you can't "taste" their presence but you can reap the mouthfeel benefits. Just for others reading along, you get the powder/snow effect with a PacoJet nathan was talking about when the mixture is frozen to the right temp for a Paco--which is -5--AND when it has a relative high water/high dry matter/low sugar/low fat content. So it is cold and hard. Adjust any of those and you won't get snow--don't freeze it so low, bump up the sugar/fat percentage, etc. Adria is intentionally creating this powder--parmesan was the first I recall seeing a recipe for--which likely arose during some trial and error session--and he turned it to his advantage--but he has plenty of recipes which are smooth. If you ever get "powder" unintentionally just let your beaker warm up a bit before spinning and it should cream up fine. I do an olive oil-based ice cream in the Paco with very little sugar, so likely anything you do with fat, vegetable and herb would not require much sugar. The fat gets emulsified as the Paco whizzes away, helping give you body--same thing happens with anything nut based in the Paco due to the oil. Do anything with, say, pistachio or walnut and you'll have to pull alot of sugar out just to get it to a decent texture, i.e. not too soft. Balancing with acidity is inherent in just about all savory cooking, so there isn't inherently anything wrong with it. You may just find you need it with some combinations, just like more or less sugar or salt is needed with others. If you boost the fat% in a Paco mixture I think you'll find you need some lemon or lime juice even with a very intense savory flavor. I know I need it with the olive oil, but it makes the olive oil taste more like olive oil, if you know what I mean. Greek yogurt, with most of the water strained off, works well in the Paco and might be another way to help you get creaminess, and not reduce the immediacy of flavor the way cream, butterfat and yolks do. Cheeses might help, too. This is what Adria has been after--how can I get a flavor so pure so direct, say asparagus, that tastes more "asparagusy" than asparagus itself--but in a foam or essence or sorbet? And that series of books is still being written. Ted and chiantiglace have given you the best general advice though--still use sugar but use the less sweet/less concentrated sugars, the things that have, say, a 75% sweetness coefficient rather than 100% or 135% like invert. Alcohol will of course affect the freezing point and if you're spinning a la minute will also help soften your mixture, but then you're introducing something which will affect your taste much more than a stabilizer ever would of. I haven't used much alcohol in the Paco so I can't speak too much to that. There's another reality to this nathan--some things are better done in the batch freezer, some in the Paco. I do most sorbets with stabilizers in the batch freezer, most ice creams in the Paco, except for caramel which comes out better in the batch freezer. I don't think "most" sorbets lend themselves well to the Paco process without a lot of modifcation to adjust texture, like by adding a touch of pectin. Most stuff in the Paco in general has to be less sweet than what you'd normally do in the batch freezer, which would seem to help your cause, and which you likely already know. Depending on how you set your service/storage freezers you may benefit from stabilizers in your Paco recipes, especially if you spin a lot of beakers in advance and then hold them for hours. Not too many people I know spin their Paco a la minute for each serving, as it was originally designed. Last I checked the recipes on the Pacojet site were not good, there weren't any from an elite chef or pastry chef, someone who got into the science of the whole thing. No Adria, Balaguer, Conticini, all of whom embraced the PacoJet early on. Which is too bad, with the dollar the way it is now, I don't think as many Americans are going to be buying PacoJets for a while. To date, the people who have spent the time to develop systematic approaches to good ice cream and sorbet programs with the Paco have that approach deployed in their restaurants, setting their program apart. They know how much work it took, they know there's no class at the French Pastry School teaching about the Paco. Right now, it's just a fact of life. Rick Tramonto has a Paco or two at Tru with the mind and skill to use it. Three pastry chefs who know what the Paco can do and what it can't are Sebastien Rouxel (of Per Se), Michael Laiskonis and Chris Broberg. If you're in NY you might ask to do a "Paco" stage with them, I wouldn't be surprised if they've each had to develop savory paco things for their chefs as well. There are a few books, a few other pastry chefs in the US who've really embraced the Paco and are doing some creative things with it, but it's not reached critical mass yet.
  8. The Bradshaw book would be the kind of book you'd turn to to help you apply or transfer some of your clearly special non-edible artistic talents--in traditional artistic mediums--to edible mediums: it covers the painting, piping, brush strokes, embroidery, stencils, air brushing etc. A lot of creative people turn to sugar or food like this--they're graphic designers, glass artists, painters and then they start designing, painting, blowing just with food. Instead of acrylic on canvas you paint with edible color on sugar. Where you'll benefit and grow is by learning how to transfer your skill set and dexterity, how to overcome the challenges a different medium presents. Going to sugar would be no more or less challenging that say going from oil to watercolor to mixed media to textile for a given artist--it's just a different medium. (When you get really advanced and have outgrown the books in your medium you'll then turn back to the books in other mediums on wood, glass, art, flower arranging, as your guides for what you do in sugar or chocolate. There's no more lifelike flower than..a..real..one. But everyone has to get their feet wet first making sugar flowers that end up looking like Play dough sugar flowers.) The thing with the Bradshaw Royal book is it is not floral--as in gum paste flowers. The value of the Bradshaw book, and the value of all those non-floral techniques--is that it usually takes more than a good 3-D flower to make a good cake artist--it's good to have the skills in your bag to do something flat or paint a surface to layer designs when you want to. It isn't necessary to master all that really old stuff--I mean, who does that linework, overpiping and stringwork anymore for a real client?--but one can respect what's involved in that and acquiring that skill, that discipline, helps you achieve and grow in other ways. There's no reason why fine piping couldn't be applied in an avant-garde way. I don't think the modern aesthetic has any room for the Victorian nature of these things as presented in many of these books--but the skill itself is valid, the exercises even in a style which offends us is valid and as an artist it's up to us to then apply them more personally. There are a lot of books about how to make flowers--there are some that do a better job incorporating flowers into a grander scheme and mesh well with other techniques--some that don't and the end result seems like it was designed as an exercise to sell equipment--and some that just focus on the flowers. You have little perspective on this as a beginner. What's best for you, I think, is just to approach this as a sponge and what'll help you long term will really depend on how you progress--are you trying to embrace gum paste flowers as an artistic end in and of itself--or are you embracing it as way to get more into cake decorating and to express yourself as a cake artist? (We'll leave what's really important about decorated cakes--taste--aside for the moment--which many hobbyist and professional cake decorators do as well.) Are you thinking you might eventually make and sell your flowers on cakes that you design? If you go the full cake route rather than the hobby flower route I think you'll find your non-3D flower work will be what helps distinguish you--your ability to paint that damn fine flat or slightly raised scene or motif in sugar as a border, say, with some beautiful linked floral work as expressed in paint. Very rarely do cake artists do different things really well and master different forms of expression--flower people do predominantly flowers a few ribbons, that's it; butter cream-buttercream; piping/painting people pipe and paint and can't do flowers because they never bothered to learn. What they know how to do becomes their style and they remain self-limited. Same thing happens with chocolate--many cake types start doing sugar and never learn chocolate so their style, their medium, becomes sugar--and often one narrow subset of sugar, i.e. gum paste/royal but not pastillage or pulled or blown sugar. There might be a bit of a disconnect here--just because Alan Dunn's flowers are the most lifelike and realistic in pictures--doesn't mean working from his book at this stage in your development as a crossover artistic person is ultimately the best way to get there. Skills are skills, tools are tools. You have to walk before you run--but all the while keep those Dunn images in your mind as you work through other books and lessons and as you develop critically you'll start to see where many of these artists and authors are cutting corners, are dumbing down, are not going to next level, are doing something differently just to say they've developed a technique when in reality you know there are better or different ways to execute something. You may just be able to skip ahead very quickly but that's gonna be very personal. I (personally) think you can't get started in gum paste from a book--that you need to learn hands on then use books as an adjunct. The more you get into it, the more books you'll leave in your wake but you'll learn from ALL of them--even from the ones with flowers that don't look like Alan's. Also don't think that just because a flower was made with minimal tools or no tools but your hands means that you can't make a life-like flower--the proof is in the end result. If you don't want to buy Nick Lodge's special xyz cutter how else can you make that flower? Another disconnect, potentially, is that you'll turn to some books for ideas about style or how to express creativity--but be underwhelmed by the actual nuts and bolts techniques contained therein. And that's fine, too--there are very creative people with relatively poor technique that don't stand up upon close inspection if you know what to look for--too thick, inelegant up close but from afar, wow. You can learn alot from their books as well, then morph all that into your own style. This gets much more complicated when you try to make a living selling cakes. For purposes of this thread it's best just to focus on books, which ones people like, what you might get out of them based on your desire going in, etc.
  9. Lots of terms being thrown around here--woodburner--are you taking your mixture and "freezing" in an ice cream machine like you would an ice cream or are you freezing solid in a "freezer," i.e. the freezer of a refrigerator/freezer--like chiantiglace described? In generally-accepted pastry chef and restaurant parlance--one is usually a sorbet and the other is usually a "granite," and as has been described, that solidly frozen block can be scraped, shaved down in various ways and the little shavings held, then served. You can even "whiz" up these ice chunks to get a cool kind of intermediate hybrid--not quite granite, not quite slush, not quite sorbet. Each frozen texture will affect how readily you taste the flavor. And granite is every bit on the cutting edge contemporary food scene--in restaurant use we put gelatin in it so the scraped crystals hold up that much longer to arrive at the table still solid. Granites also have renewed relevance for restaurants and pastry chefs who don't have an ice cream freezer or work in locales with very restrictive food sanitation laws--they can still incorporate some creative frozen elements into their desserts and not have to outsource. Most sorbet proportions will not work as a granite--they'll be too soft. Granites--and mixtures designed to be frozen like granites--meaning not spun in an ice cream freezer--need to be less sweet than a "sorbet." There's whizzing in a Cuisinart blender to break up your icy crystals then there might be whizzing in a Cuisinart ice cream machine to kind of texturize and soften/warm up a mixture which doesn't have the right sugar percentage to merely be frozen once--and then set up but stay soft when held in the freezer. With lemon I doubt you'd be able to discern the difference between which white sugar you used in the syrup, and depending on which brand you are using and which part of the country you are in pure cane is regular granulated sugar . With granite you often don't need to use syrup so don't sweat it--the sugar amount is so small to given amount of liquid it'll just dissolve without needing the heating step to get it to dissolve. Woodburner--you could do 100 new frozen/semi-frozen tastes, applications and concepts in the coming year alone.
  10. The best books for you will all depend on your level--meaning what you can already do, how dexterous you are, whether you've already taken classes and with whom. Very generally, without knowing more about you, I'd choose Colette's book as a very basic/never done anything before/have relatively few tools/but I'm ready to learn how to think about being creative with sugar--if you are past that point but not too far past, then any Nick Lodge book over the Woolley book. Nick is the better teacher for a beginner/intermediate and Woolley's work as photographed and presented in the book is lifeless. Any of the older Merehurst books, which can usually be had cheap or used if you look around, a Tombi Peck or Pat Ashby or Alison Proctor or Lesley Herbert are good intermediate books and will take you to the next level. (Herbert less so on flowers per se.) Even though some of these seem old and clunky you still learn from the skills then as you get better and more self-critical you'll see if you can do better. (There's a very good section on doing reasonably lifelike piped flowers in the very good book on royal by Lindsay John Bradshaw--see p. 81--but that's a really old book, perhaps OOP and not really what you're after anyway. This book should be on every decorator's shelf, though, for what it covers it's never been surpassed.) You have to already be relatively advanced and skilled to appreciate Alan Dunn--and how he pushed the scene. But you have to already be good to get him. If you come across a little paperback series of books by Rosemary Merrills themed around the seasons, buy them, these are quite charming and not the run of the mill stuff you see in most old timer flower books. They'll get you thinking about organic sugarwork as much as Dunn. This series is circa 1995, as is the little paperback by Dunn called "Wild Flowers," which is another Merehurst title you should pick up if you find it and are interested in lifelike flowers--and then what to do with them in terms of composing a cake. The one book right now that I'd probably say to get regardless of your ability is the Kerry Vincent book. Probably the best blend of old-fashioned skills and techniques with some new thought toward a dying genre.
  11. Tom's Post review was deservedly a rave. (When was the last time Tom got it wrong? He got out in the burbs to tout Minh's, Singh Thai and now this. I know, subject for another thread) Great atmosphere plus a kitchen turning out very flavorful dishes--I'd add to Greg's assessment: I wouldn't order both the pork belly and the crispy duck in one sitting--it's essentially the same treatment--order one or the other but I think of the two the pork belly is the more vital dish, gloriously fatty yet crisp. I've had the duck come out too crisp (overdone, dry) too often but the pork belly comes out perfect 9 times out of ten. I've said on other threads that this place is offering the most engaging cooking, top to bottom, right now in any ethnic genre in all of northern Virginia. (I know that upsets Thai Square loyalists like Don! My apologies Don. But then I've also thought Minh's has outperformed Four Sisters since the day it opened, so call me crazy.) What I do hope is Bangkok 54 can keep it up and not devolve. They do a very diligent job with takeout, at least 50% of the line is open and visibly clean and there's a nice little parking lot in the back. The servers are stressed sometimes like Greg said, on busy nights or in prime time there are too few servers to ferry plates and Singha to the tables, so we don't go here when it is busy--but they do at least care, and when the cute owner is there she runs around the dining room pitching in, pouring water, asking how everything was, etc. For me the minor errors here are mere blips that don't even register on my radar given the gentle pricing and the extremely interesting dishes, at least so far they haven't dumbed stuff down. Not knowing your level of expertise or appreciation or your familiarity with the food I'd be hard pressed to recommend dishes--beyond the pork belly. This is a "don't miss restaurant" rather than a collection of a few "don't miss dishes" which stand out from a lot of mediocre ones. I've had all the dishes Greg recommended (we eat here once a week) and loved them, but from one person to the next "unique" is not necessarily going to come across as "good." Most dishes here will probably seem a little bit better, a little bit more interesting, than the comparable dish from other very good Thai places you've been--so your mileage is gonna vary.
  12. When I lived in Glover Park, Heritage India used be the best Indian for upscale pricing, poor service, inattentive management and staff, and an over-priced and poorly matched wine list. The only reason we continued to go there was for the chef, Sudhir Seth, and in happier times he was doing some inspired cooking there worth driving over Key Bridge for. As has been mentioned in other threads, Sudhir is now in Bethesda--and in most restaurant things it's usually better to follow the chef--so why not try his place sometime, which has been re-named Passage to India. Eve Zibart recently profiled him here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?n...070915&typeId=2 Though that doesn't help you in NoVA. I don't have a lot of current experience with Arlington-NoVA Indian restaurants, but nothing I had tried was as good as what Sudhir was doing (nor was any higher end Indian cooking in our area as interesting or as good as what could be had in NYC--though that imbalance may be changing.) I'm sure there are current praiseworthy Virginia places, I just haven't been to any yet. Monica Bhide not too long ago did an overview piece for the Washingtonian, which can be found here: http://www.washingtonian.com/dining/bestof/indian.html It's a nice introduction from an informed palate and covers a few of the places already recommended on this thread. Might give you some leads closer to home as well. Be sure to report back.
  13. Dear Fellow eGullet Society Members, When you came online this morning you probably noticed that our Google and Amazon ads are gone. Some of you, especially those who have expressed disapproval of the ads, will no doubt rejoice. As the eGullet Society's chief fundraiser and head of forum development, I'd like to take a few moments to explain what has happened and what it means. Advertising income has for the past year or so been the way we have kept the eG Forums afloat as a “for profit” corporation (in reality a “slightly money losing corporation”). But new times require new approaches, and our change to a not-for-profit form of organization has put several issues on the front burner. Our outside counsel at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher (one of the world's top law firms, representing us pro bono in the matter of our not-for-profit reorganization) have told us that in order to protect our 501c3 application and not-for-profit status, we need to pull the ads. Don't read too much into this -- there will be more changes over the coming months and yes, some of those changes will likely involve sponsorship messages, like you see on PBS or hear on NPR. The legal distinction between ads and a message from a sponsor is that a sponsor makes a donation and an advertiser doesn't. While it may seem an intellectually suspect distinction, it is apparently critical from a legal standpoint: If you get a donation from a corporate sponsor and in exchange for it you say "This program/forum/whatever has been made possible by a generous grant from Bosch" then that donation falls within what a 501©(3) organization is allowed to accept as a tax-exempt donation. Likewise, PBS is not considered to be running ads for Archer Daniels Midland; there really is a somewhat different tone and style to a sponsorship message on PBS versus an ad on commercial television -- most ads are about selling something, whereas sponsorship messages are more about image. In terms of not-for-profit accounting, if you simply put up Google ads and take payments based on click-throughs, you have to account for that as "unrelated business income" even if you're a music charity and those ads are about music. Also, not all of our Google ads were about food, and more importantly we had little actual control over them, which could lead to trouble down the road. For that reason we also removed the general Amazon ad that sits at the bottom of the forums page, though we will be keeping contextual product links which generate a commission, for instance in posts that mention a cullinary book or other product. Eventually we hope you will view everything from our removal of the Google ads to our presentation of very special events like the recently concluded Ferran Adria eGullet Q&A as small steps in the grander scheme of things eGullet Society. Regardless of ads or sponsorships, to get to the point where we are able to realize our ambitious and exciting goals, and in order to keep our basic services free, we also need each of you to support the eGullet Society so we can keep moving forward. Your financial contributions, in whatever amount, are essential to our momentum, our survival and our continued success. Everyone from our board of directors to our executive committee to our managers is dedicated to doing the most we can with the funds we raise. We will make every dollar count. So accept these changes, and this pitch, with our warmest holiday wishes. Be proud of what you have helped the Society accomplish already and realize there will be many more changes over the coming months as we set out to make the world a better place for food, none of which will occur without your support. With relish, Steve Klc Fundraising and forum development eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters
  14. Danny--strong first posts--and welcome. Where I diverge slightly from you is when you write that "reviewers have a self-interest in associating themselves with, and promoting popular restaurants and chefs." I think traditional mainstream newspaper reviewers who wish to retain their national credibility and viability have a self-interest in getting it right first--being fair and reasonable--and if that means praising a "popular" restaurant or chef--so be it. There are usually broad reasons why a chef wins a Beard award--and many chefs you have mentioned have won or at least been nominated for a national Beard award, broad reasons why a restaurant is nominated for a national Beard award, why popular places are, well, popular and stay in business rather than close/reopen under a new guise/ close again or lapse into bankruptcy. Would you prefer Tom not recognize this and intentionally go the other way--failing to view the local talent as other trusted critically aware voices outside our area view them? That wouldn't be fair to the two Anns--Amernick's been nominated multiple times as Beard best pastry chef and Cashion won our region's best chef last year, nor to the other restaurants on your usual suspect list because if you read around eGullet--you'll find that many of the savviest palates here also enjoy those suspects. If we were in Tom's shoes we'd likely mention some of those as often as he does as well. "Popular" chefs have usually demonstrated a wide range of talent and skill in and out of the kitchen for several years before they start getting known. Zaytinya, which I helped open by the way, was one of 5 places nationally nominated for the Beard best new restaurant award--none of Jose's other restaurants ever got that nod--that meant a lot of out-of-town voters (chefs, food writers, the powers that be) came here, tried it and were suitably impressed. Tom knows everyone from Marion Burros to Michael Batterberry to Russ Parsons to Rich Melman to Paula Wolfert to Rick Tramonto to William Rice and on and on will eat there and that the writers, at least, will write about it, too. Where I think the pressure may come into play is when such a critic, if he is to be truly honest, has to take on a city's culinary sacred cow--and many I suspect take the graceful way out--they just don't talk that much about a revered local chef, they stop mentioning that chef's restaurant and if they don't have anything good to say, they just talk about someone else instead. Good luck trying to pin that on Tom--because of his chats an astute reader can usually figure out who Tom is down on at the time, and who he feels needs "to pick it up a notch." My sense is there's been too much mention on eG lately about the "role" of the Post, and Tom in particular, not promoting "DC" enough as if that is their job--promotion. It isn't. Being a critic is not being part publicist--it's not a positive-advocacy-only position and if it is an advocacy position--it's to advocate how you alone see things as the critic--fairly, reasonably, rightly or wrongly. A critic who cares about how he is viewed in the larger "food community" knows that people in the know, chefs, writers, editors from other cities will come here--will read his reviews--and then go to the places with a little buzz, to the new places of the hot chefs and too some older less buzzworthy restaurants of the chefs they maybe haven't heard too much from lately. Tom better get it right because these people know food--and he's going to be interacting with them for decades to come. And with media now at our fingertips--with communities like eG chronicling things quickly and clearly and debating at a higher level than ever before--Tom is under more pressure, not less, to get it right. He is being discussed in real time--and in many cases his opinion is following the opinions of other very savvy observers. If Tom is recommending the same places over and over again (and I'm not saying I agree with that perception--I think he goes out of his way to mention under-performing or somewhat flawed places that mean well all the time) it just may have nothing to do with Tom himself: it could be because we as a food town aren't as competitive and don't have the depth as other major food towns like NY/Chicago/SF etc. We do have several elite chefs and restaurants which can hold their own in any city-to-city matchup--but what we don't have yet is enough depth and growth and synergy which true competition tends to drive chefs forward. I got into that issue a little bit on the other thread--the is DC a world class food town thread--here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=57689 To make your case, you'd have to come to the table with chefs and restaurants who are out-performing the likes of Jose/Michel/Fabio/Cashion et al, out-performing the likes of Zaytinya/Palena/Nectar/Eve/Maestro/Citronelle/Two Amy's/Jaleo/Ray's the Steak/Colorado Kitchen et al and realize that whatever list you put together someone else is going to have a different "usual suspects" list of who they feel get mentioned more or less than they should. Favorites can be fickle and fleeting--and I guarantee you everyone reading this thinks Tom over- or under-appreciates some restaurants with which they have familiarity. I think you are on stronger ground questioning whether Tom doing that Wednesday Food Section piece is somehow in conflict editorially with his mission as critic--and I come down on a different side than you, albeit respectfully. Sometimes this Dish is promotional in that it seems like info culled from a press kit--but sometimes he uses this space to break a story for his readers, like Nectar closing. What's happening recently is we're finding out about these things on eG first, but then 799,000 of the 800,000 Post readers aren't here, yet, so perhaps some of this info seems old to us but is brand new to most readers and Tom is doing a vital culinary public service by sharing this info in this space. Let's also not forget that there is precedent for a smaller Weekly Dish type column--the NYTimes has done something similar where the critic can choose to weigh in on a significant new place--with a kind of mini-review or introductory menu commentary--long before such a place would be eligible for a full formal review. I haven't heard of anyone presenting this as a conflict of interest for the Times critic to do. Where you may be on stronger ground is saying hey, I wish Tom would cover all this "press release" chef changing jobs, places closing, new places opening in his chats--and be more critical in the Weekly Dish--give us more opinion and more early reportage on how new places are doing. THAT opinion I think might be shared by many here on eG. But where even that might be a hard sell for some of us is we take Tom as a total package--we lump the formal reviews, his post cards, his chats, his Weekly Dish, his "Favorites" guide--all together. It's his body of work. Someone has to share the press kit stuff with us--and if the Food section editor is not going to prioritize that--and set aside space for that--it's a good thing Tom does. But the fact that the Food section may not devote enough editorial and feature space to, say, the opening of a restaurant, is not on Tom. That's not within his control.
  15. I think you've tapped into something valid Danny--there's a disconnect here in DC which stems from how generously or narrowly one defines our region--which can lead to under-valuing or over-valuing our culinary scene. Some define it very broadly, though not me--and as I perceive, not you either. I prefer to do it practically and narrowly. That means Baltimore is out--for all intents and purposes--for most of us Baltimore is off our culinary map, off of our radar. So, too, is Richmond, the eastern shore, Annapolis, Fredericksburg. We're unwilling to drive around the Beltway from Arlington to Bethesda let alone to B'mor. It's a different city, a different market, a different sensibility and it'll either stand on its own and ascend as a distinct food town like Philadelphia or Portland or insert name here--with its own charms and values or it won't. For me, a place like Mannequin Pis in Olney is just about as far as I'm confortable including in our market. But our "market" and our "region" are not necessarily the same thing--should the Inn at Little Washington be considered a DC metropolitan area restaurant? Not really--unless you're the type to consider the French Laundry a San Francisco restaurant. And I don't. There's also a disconnect media-wise, which influences our perceptions, though I understand why--in times of declining circulation the Post wants to sell papers and serve the "region"--the bigger their reach, the bigger their circulation, and potentially the bigger their influence. And that's fine with me when Tom covers some distant Inn in hicksville Maryland or when Eve Zibart stretches a bit, as she did when she "discovered" Jay Comfort cooking at Bistro 309, though through my eyes we're still a smaller town when it comes to serious food--I've worked and dined in Chicago/NYC/SF as many others here have and I inescapably come back to this: that we lack the competition and depth of those cities in the to mid to high end and as a result we don't have as much interesting cooking on and we don't have as many chefs with interesting ideas. We've got the plethora of ethnic options, though most are just average, and we certainly have a lot of American comfort food and New American comfort food, but we sustain very few higher end, chef-owned or interesting restaurants--certainly very few out in the burbs--many of those that have not closed or moved into town have made it so far by dumbing down and becoming more conservative, though recently this is changing--we'll see how well places like Eve and Oyamel and others do trying to do interesting work out in the burbs, how well the newer Silver Spring-area restaurants do, as EllenH points out. For our "town" to grow in stature these restaurants have to succeed and propogate others. Hopefully it will be a harbinger of more things to come and more growth. However, I think Joe is also right on one of his larger points--no matter how narrowly one defines our market--that our elite chefs and restaurants do largely hold their own head-to-head against the best competition in those other cities--from Michel to Fabio to Jose at minibar to what Roberto is trying to do at his Lab to newbies like Nectar, Eve and CityZen--it's just that we don't have the depth of those cities. Say a few months ago you put together a subjective Chicago best four list of Tru, Trio, Trotter, and Ambria or Everest--I think DC could match up very well with that list; the difference would be Chicagoans could legitimately bring a second four and a third four and maybe even a fourth group of four nipping at their heels--depending on how you shaped the criteria--whereas we really couldn't come close. That's why Tom may seem to mention the same places over and over again--at whatever price point: there are fewer legitimate challengers to those he mentions here than in the bigger/arguably better food towns. That's the reason and it has nothing to do with Tom being a critic, an advocate or a promoter. Though this is starting to change here--it's become less easy to coast and/or rest on your laurels here as it was, say, from '95 to '02--and I think Tom has done a very good job chronicling this change for the better and not devolving into a homer or worse, into someone who over-values his scene, who pre-judges or who wields power unfairly whether by design or not. (Can you imagine anyone trying to write a hit piece on Tom like Maile Carpenter did in San Francisco Magazine with "Eating in Michael Bauer's Town"--and then adding insult to injury by having it stick by winning a Beard Jounalism Award for it? I think that was 2002, the year Steve Shaw also won a journalism Beard for his "A Week in the Gramercy Tavern Kitchen.") Being a critic should mean getting it right first--and Tom does that very well--but he can only "get it right" with what he has before him--and then largely leaving the talk of whether DC is a world-class dining town to others to debate. He's not actually in a good position to know how DC stacks up world-wide, like all "local" critics (and most chefs) he doesn't eat often enough in other cities and has to eat too often in his own!
  16. As it happens, I just talked with Mark--who as we all know was the chef and driving force behind the wonderful SBC Cafe in Herndon--and he's planning to "pre-open" 21P, very informally, for his SBC regulars and eGulleteers who want to stop by next week--he's thinking he'll be ready for Tuesday. He's planning 50% off food, it'll likely not be a full menu, with wines regularly priced, but I'm sure his markups will be gentle. I'd call ahead to confirm--but my guess is Mark will appreciate some savvy early feedback and the opportunity to work out some kinks before an official opening. Some things are still tied up in customs, so I wouldn't go in expecting the decor to be settled either. As a diner, it's a good chance to see something early, when all the BOH/FOH pieces aren't yet in place, and then see it develop over time. I know what I'll be ordering first: his shellfish tamale, and the veal cheeks with that garlic flan. FYI--if you're new to eG, have not been to SBC nor heard of Mark, here's a link to Tom Sietsema's review of SBC: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?n...=2&type=keyword
  17. Just remember that what's usually sold as acetate in art stores is not the same plastic that is used for commercial transfer sheets--it's rigid, like what you'd use for an overhead transparency versus soft. Depending on what you're trying to do, the softer stuff can give you cleaner work.
  18. Best not to trade in anonymous Chowhound rumors here. Someone will drop by 21P and ask Mark--I'm glad his place has opened and some of my old favorites are on the menu--thanks for that link morela!
  19. The whole first date thing adds a layer of complication, then a first first date in 15 years, well, that's even tougher. I'd heed the bilrus comments--if she's admittedly a low fat seeker then she knows apart from steaming most asian food sans-sushi is very high in fat and probably avoids it--so, too is she aware most traditionally-trained chefs use a ton of fat even in their vegetables and starches. Their food tastes better with a lot of fat--their mentors used fat--so do they. Odds are this person has been to their nearby restaurants like Lebanese Taverna, so that would be off my list. I (personally) don't understand the sustained attraction to Mark's Duck House and Crystal Thai (sorry Sthitch--you've had better experiences) both have poor aesthetics, with cooking that's been surpassed by other restaurants in their genres--neither are what they once were even by slightly-behind-the-curve Chowhound-type standards. If you want to stay nearby and within the Asian spectrum, try the new Thai place Tom just reviewed, Bangkok 54 over on Columbia Pike--it's in the block with Matuba and that beer/movie place--we've eaten there a bunch of times, though the pork belly dish obviously isn't low fat--rather it is pure fat but it is delicious, they do a reasonably-priced steamed fish, the place is affordable given its quality level, overall exceptionally good food with a gorgeous interior (gorgeous compared to Mark's Duck House and Crystal Thai anyway.) They're new, still trying very hard to please so service is very attentive, date-wise strategy, go by ahead, scout out the table you'd feel the most secure in (booths are nice) and ask them for it. For a date I'd like the tables tucked near the corner near the lighted red wall installation which the Post magazine ran a picture of in their review--though we never seem to get seated there--as a married couple who just wanders in we always seem to get the tables near the front door. You'll see what I mean if you drop by. Parking in the lot in back, enter through the back as well. Otherwise, it can seem like a shitty--(for the politically correct substitute "emerging") neighborhood if you park on certain streets, if it is late and/or dark. Just like Minh's surpassed everything in Eden center, including 4 Sisters, with vital fresh cooking when it opened, and Singh Thai surpassed the usual suspect roundup of just-pretty-good-but-all-the-same NoVA places like Crystal Thai, I expect Bangkok 54 to rule on this roost for a while--with its more stylish interior to boot--and at least at this point they haven't started dumbing stuff down for the Americano Range Rover set. Certain dishes will always please at the usual suspects, but top to bottom, Bangkok 54 is the asian restaurant doing the best job right now in NoVA. It's so good we haven't been back to Singh Thai yet--and we loved Singh Thai. I haven't been on a date in a long time either, but when I was dating some bustling place like Zaytinya and the downtown Jaleo--and these two are still as packed as ever--would probably not have been my first date style despite their plethora of vegetarian options, such that my style was, anyway. Too noisy, too busy, with a very attractive clientele, much more attractive than me. Oyamel, which hasn't yet been reviewed by Tom, and Jaleo in Crystal City would be better date-wise for me--quieter, colorful, more charming and romantic, but then maybe you want the scene and energy of the busier place, so that's always gonna be a personal call. Atmosphere, like taste, is subjective. Oyamel hasn't exploded yet but it will--now might be the right time to go. Upscaling in my neck of the woods for a date, above the price point of Bangkok 54, Restaurant Eve would get my top Northern VA nod not Colvin Run; Eve would be a great first date place if you wanted to jump up your check average--quiet enough to talk, perfect service, perfect floor management, if not perfect everything else, call ahead about your low-fat concerns and I'm sure they'd steer you or devise something just for you. The chef is very comfortable with Fall flavors, cooking styles and ingredients. (Don has offered you a wealth of options, I'll just comment on one of his--downtown, I'd prefer the cooking and atmosphere of Firefly to Komi everytime, first date or any date--though I'm glad to see Komi getting more love on its own merits versus focusing on how good it was "for its neighborhood.")
  20. It also sounds to me like this could be an attempt to create another revenue stream--open a little cooking school on the side for classes, capitalize on the Herme brand name, etc, and why not? MOF's less famous and more traditional make the rounds teaching at traditional cooking schools all over Europe, it becomes the second career of many MOF's, some open their own schools, and students still pay top dollar for these classes--why wouldn't Herme, who is not a MOF himself and yet is more famous than all of them put together, want to attract some of this money? I'm surprised he hasn't done something like this sooner, surely all of his classes would fill up with Japanese housewives alone, not to mention American pastry seekers looking to get some Herme cachet on their resumes. Win-win for all concerned. However, it remains to be seen whether this program is vocational, avocational, professional, serious, an exercise in branding, etc.
  21. Steve Klc

    Gold cake

    Well, unless you have very good insurance I wouldn't use an excess of that "non-toxic" stuff and certainly not all over the cake or on any potentially edible surface. I'd like someone to show me the FDA language that equates "non-toxic" with "edible" or "food-safe." Wendy, I like your removeable card idea--I'd do it out of pastillage if you want something larger or stronger--even thick gum paste is fragile in larger sheets. The only edible gold is real gold--and I think depending on your budget Bri edible gold leaf gilded/draped on a fondant-covered rectangular Amex card-shaped cake on a black base could be kind of cool--there's a trick to applying it, you have to peel it off and use the static electricty to your advantage, and at least it would be eminently edible according to the FDA. I think ultimately how you approach this depends on your budget and the number of servings. Maybe you do a whole series of gold cards flying across the cake or each attached to a swirl of pastillage ribbon draped over and around a cake--and in those cases you could use the non-toxic stuff as paint. Amex has a kind of antique gold color to it anyway.
  22. Locally, Graig at Matchbox got it going, Tom Sietsema correctly called attention it. It'll take some more convincing for me to feel it has to do with miniburgers per se--that it's not more indicative of how people want to eat. I agree, if you're opening a new restaurant aiming for that somewhat-safe tweaked-yet-accessible American comfort food. I think our area will continue to show an unlimited capacity for this, especially in the burbs, Arlington, Clarendon, and a little further out. Home and luxury condo owners who don't want to go back into the city with their family to a Matchbox, Dish, Firefly, a Palena front room, a Cashion's, etc, after just driving or taking the metro home. If I'm the chef at, say, Boulevard Wood Grill, I'm sure putting mini burgers on my menu because I know my clientele would order them like crazy. How good my mini burgers are will have nothing to do with trendiness but what kind of chef I am--and I'd have to make sure my miniburgers represented me and were distinctive compared to my competition a la Harry's and any other local American comfort food place in and around Clarendon.
  23. I see your point--and don't necessarily disagree: mini-burgers are just the most current example of the ubiquitous chicken finger or peanut satay, both of which have been co-opted. But, on the other hand, I think we have to operate beyond sheer hipster trendiness--meaning we gain a little when even the marginal places execute the Sysco-produced versions of these things--and the better places with engaged chefs execute them more reliably and well--at a given price point with given care--and then perhaps put their own wrinkle or sauce alongside them. Elevated snack foods translate into more options, break down diner barriers and preconceived notions and yes are destined to be co-opted--but I'll tell you one thing: those mini-onion ring things when done well are what make those Matchbox mini burgers special--that and the little crunchy salt crystals stuck to the buns. And we'll always be able to appreciate that--and bemoan their loss when we get something inferior. Imagine our joy, though, when we do happen across a place with really committed chefs who do take care to do their miniburger or chicken finger or satay really really well. The difference is clear and we'll go back to those places. And a few average Joe's will order that in one of those places and just might say hey, this is really good, this isn't like it is at Costco or wherever. I wonder, do you feel the same way about donuts--and all the local pastry chefs rushing to put donuts dunked in something somehow on their dessert menus? What's more sheer hipster trendiness--miniburgers or donuts? (And, this isn't news, but the same Sysco trucks pull up to finest restaurants all around town.)
  24. just fyi, my wife and I are doing a little dessert/chocolate/dessert wine tasting tonight in our neighborhood from 6-8PM at Best Cellars, which is on 2855 Clarendon Boulevard in Arlington (703.741.0404) This is a free and free-form gig--we'll be serving the cafe de olla from Oyamel, bringing some of the chocolates I use in the restaurants, and I picked four dessert wines from the Best Cellars collection to compare and contrast, including a very nice affordable Ficklin port. Everyone is welcome, even if you just want to talk shop. (I did 150 portions of the cafe de olla, when it's gone, it's gone, but we'll have a ton of chocolate and dessert wine on hand.) Oh, and no ice cream substitution requests tonight please--I'm doing an anise milk froth instead of the ice cream because they don't have a freezer.
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