Kent Wang

Robin Goldstein argues on his blog that Richman is wrong about the Italian preference for buffalo milk mozzarella.

In Austin, I recommend Nubian Queen Lola's. You can check out the Fearless Critic Austin restaurant guide for other suggestions. I've written a number of reviews for it. Swinging through Fredericksburg you can pick up some peaches along the roadside. If you also go through Mason, you can try Cooper's BBQ.

I haven't been yet but have heard good things from everyone I know. I certainly will drop in on my next trip to Houston. Andy, I sure hope you're right that this will cause more good cocktail bars to open up around the state. Do you think the name Anvil has anything to with getting hammered?

I believe this puts you through San Antonio. You might want to check out Bayseas, a Southern cuisine place. They had a branch open in Austin a few years ago that I thought was quite good, but never had a chance to try it in San Antonio. I'm also making a roadtrip through Vegas soon and want to try Lotus of Siam. Do a search on the forum.

You're in Central Texas? Austin? I would like to buy some from you, and any other charcuterie you might be making. Send me a PM. I like the coarse chop. I'm not familiar with the style at all, but is it cured for very long?

I just read this Wall Street Journal article, The Art You Can Eat, which focuses on the kaiseki restaurants in the Kyoto-area, especially one called Kikunoi.

Much of the barrier to travel for many people is actually getting the time off from work. If, as Dave mentioned, you have a job that involves travel, that helps a lot. I run my own business and can do nearly everything remotely, so I often go on month long trips and get to try a lot more restaurants, see a lot more things for the cost of my flight.

You know, if you're a chef you can probably deduct your meals at restaurants as a business expense on your taxes, as you are educating yourself and learning to be a better chef. Not every meal, of course, just the ones where you're actually learning something. Caveat: I am not an accountant.

Sam, this is genius. There just needs to be a plug-in for the blog software to give the user an easy way to repost a blog entry to a forum. Upon a cursory search, I could not find anything like this in existence.

Does the Times already have his successor figured out, or should I be preparing my resume?

One of the co-authors is Robin Goldstein (see his Blind Taste blog) who also wrote the book The Wine Trials that blind tests wines in a similar vein.

I've had whole scallops in Hong Kong but my mother told me to not eat this one part that was akin to the part that you remove from shrimp when you devein them (the digestive tract?). Is there any part of the scallop one should throw away?

Judging from the thread on the 2007 show this is a terrific experience. Anyone going this year? I just happen to be in town around that time and have already registered.

Seems like Mayahuel is a good start at a bar that Sneakeater (and I) would like. No vodka. I don't know if they have beer and wine but I wouldn't mind cutting that out too. And in Phil's story about the girl that wanted the vodka tonic the standard bar policy for asking for rube drinks can be to just say "no, we don't go off menu", which would be a bit of a white lie if they wanted to go off menu for Serious Cocktails, but I think that's fine. Also, no gimmicks like secret phone numbers (M&H) or secret entrances (PDT). I'm not knocking those bars for having them but there's no question that those "gimmicks" attract quite a few rubes. I think a bar that implemented all the above policies would cut out a lot of the rubes. That D&C turns away a ton of business shows that it would not be entirely impractical for a bar like this to exist. Now, somebody just needs to make it happen...

Wow, I just had some of the boudin that my friend brought back. It has a good amount of liver (maybe chicken?) and is just incredible. Much better than any boudin that I've had.

What's Mansion on Turtle Creek known for? Any room for a Japanese place? Nobu?

That's a local one near my grandmother's house in Puxi. That's all I can remember. But it's nothing fancy and there should be a ton of those everywhere. You'll also need to speak Chinese to buy anything.

Looks nice and the price is great. Just curious, do you think nearly all their customers are going to be coming from outside Queens? I'm not too familiar with NYC demographics and such, but are there many cocktail aficionados in Queens?

[Moderator's Note - This topic has been split off from the (Re) Birth of Vodka - Is It Possible? topic, because most of these posts have nothing to do with the rebirth of vodka article that was the subject of that topic.] For a place as busy as D&Co, why don't they just remove their vodkas altogether and stop serving dumb drinks to people that ask? It seems like they can afford to turn away business.

This looks terrific. I would love to go to something like this.

I don't think of this as poor humans eating dog food but lucky dogs eating pate!

I think it's that if they have a full bar (liquor) you can't BYO.

This is a fantastic article and will definitely visit this place on my next trip to Shanghai. Hopefully they'll finish that Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev line soon. I wonder if there are other restaurants in China that are doing this kind of thing.

I went to some of the same places in my trip in 2006. Take a look at some of these threads: Miscellaneous China food photos [Hong Kong] The seafood of Lamma island And photos from my Flickr set which includes some commentary. If you have any questions about the photos, feel free to ask.

That makes sense, though I'm not a fan of straws -- though I did get some for this party that's gonna start in a few hours. What I've been doing is muddling the leaves (very gently) with the syrup in a shaker, then add bourbon, stir (or just swish it around), and then strain with a julep strainer onto a glass filled with ice. Otherwise, what's the julep strainer for? This works fine for me, not that it's any better than Chris's method.