Kent Wang

There's Vespaio and next door is Vespaio Enoteca. Vespaio proper is probably not a fair comparison but the Enoteca is. Vespaio Enoteca does have a bigger menu than Dolce Vita, but it has about the same amount of seats so I think it's a pretty fair comparison. I do think that Dolce Vita's pizza selection is more adventurous, varied and their cheeses are bolder. That taleggio pizza was a real watershed experience for me, it changed the way I think about fruits on foods.

I think it's better to just broil or roast the skin on a rack. It's fatty enough without adding additional oil. The only skin that I dislike is swordfish. It tastes like nothing and has a sandpaper-like texture.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Marinated baby octopus, rapini, grapes. The octopus was a little mushy, but overall pretty good. Anchovies. Pretty tasty, good value. Pizza bread. I think it's unusual that this costs $2 since I doubt it costs them any more money to make it than the complimentary bread other restaurants serve. But it's not a big deal. Try putting the anchovies on the pizza bread. Taleggio pizza: taleggio cheese, rapini, pear slices, truffle oil. I don't like fruits on my food (I prefer it seperately) but I loved the way the sweet pear paired with the cheese. The rapini was a little awkward to eat -- it would've been better if it was sauteed a bit so that it would lay flat on the pizza. Dolce latte cake. Service was superb, attentive and knowledgeable. The food is well executed, but I didn't find anything remarkable except the pizza. In comparison with Vespaio in Austin, I think it is inferior. Dolce Vita may have a slightly better pizza selection but the rest of the menu at Vespaio is far more interesting and tasty. Houstonians, I invite you to come to up to Austin and see for yourself.

Jackpot! Secola Blue Label prosciutto ends for $9.99/lb. I bought $50 worth that would've otherwise cost $150. I ate most of it straight and pan-fried some with scrambled eggs. I trimmed off most of the fat and use it whenever I make eggs or risotto.

Prosciutto San Daniele (left): Saltier, butterier "aged" taste. La Quercia: Looks more marbled but this had negligible effect on taste. A bit sweeter. Overall, the differences were slight but I give the advantage to San Daniele. My guess is that the flavor difference is due to it being aged longer. Chorizo Wellshire Farms (left) hot chorizo: Drier, quite spicy, fattier. La Espanola: I had reviewed this before, but in comparison to the Wellshire I find it inferior. Moist with large chunks of meat, making it a bit too chewy. Biting off a piece is not as easy as it is with the Wellshire.

Cafe at The Four Seasons closed, to change into Trio. From Austin American-Statesman.

May 3, 2007 Austin Chronicle Digesting the Buffalo Gap Wine and Food Summit. By Wes Marshall. By Dallas chef Stephan Pyles. "Throughout the three days of the Buffalo Gap Wine and Food Summit, happy faces were all I saw. Several people commented that they thought it was a bargain at the price ($375 for an all-event pass)." Austin American-Statesman Stories at Hyatt Lost Pines. By Dale Rice. In Bastrop. "With that level of quality, Stories is far too good to cater just to Hyatt resort guests. Austin fans of top-notch fare should make the roadtrip there as well."

Speaking of which, an oyster shucker is something like a combination of the two. His work is more along the lines of a prep cook but often works behind the bar and interacts with customers.

I went with an unadventurous group and we ordered nothing quite as interesting as the dishes you had. Sounds like it can be interesting if one chooses carefully.

I was going just to mention the Sazerac as well. Both the bottle shape and the logo text evoke a wonderful 19th century aesthetic. Now, for a bit of a diversion, the wackiest 1.75L bottle: Grand Marnier. You really have to see one of these in person. It's the exact same shape as the smaller versions, except the size is gigantic! Now, most 1.75L bottles are pretty awkward but the Grand Marnier really takes the cake. Here it is dwarfing the 750mL Cointreau bottle. This is also one of the most expensive 1.75L bottlings out there, at about $70. None of the other liqueurs like Cointreau and Chartreuse offer bottles in this size. Really, it is quite an oddity.

I noticed the discrepancy too but that seems to be the only place that spells it as two separate words. The Austin Chronicle review, Yellow Pages listing all say 'Lola'.

I no longer buy chicken, I buy whole ducks from the Chinese supermarket ($7.99 frozen), remove the breasts and legs, confit those, make stock with the rest and skim the fat. This is enough fat to supply all my cooking, plus it leaves me with superb stock (better than chicken) and delicious duck confit. I am to duck what Native Americans are to the buffalo.

MT Supermarket has fertilized duck eggs, if you're into that. I just assumed they were the plain kind until I cracked one open to make scrambled eggs this morning. Imagine my surprise! I ate it anyway, but I'm still looking for the unfertilized kind.

After reading your reviews I very much want to try Fra'Mani, but the minimum order from their website is $60! I think I'll wait until I go to Berkeley or NY and buy a smaller package. I bought this Boar's Head ham. What is this iridescent stuff on it? Central Market says it's typical of Boar's Head products and is totally safe. I ate it and it didn't taste like anything, but I'm still curious what causes it. Piller's salami. Szegedi: A Hungarian salami usually produced during Christmas. Neil at Central Market says it tastes like bacon, which I can only agree with in that it's rather salty, and has a bit of smoke, but is not rich and fatty like bacon is. Paprika: Very little paprika flavor or color. I don't think I will ever buy Piller's again. They're all lean, too finely ground, too mild in flavor and all the varieties taste the same.

Re: Gene's see EVENT: Lunch at Gene's New Orleans Deli. Despite its name, Lola's is really a Southern cuisine restaurant with the only cajun items being the gumbo and etoufee. I put a little write-up about it in the Southern cuisine thread.

They're very similar to gizzard. Try my Pictorial: Salt-pressed duck gizzard.

My charcuterier, Central Market, sells ends of their products. These are the tips of a ham hock, shoulder, sausage, etc. and I find them to be a great value. Prosciutto and bresaola ends are priced at $9.99/lb (considering that they sell San Daniele at $19.99 and bresaola at $29.99). Prosciutto ends are great to cook with: slice into small pieces and fry with scrambled eggs or use it to flavor a stock. I usually buy them with that intention but always end up eating too much of it straight. All other meat ends are $3.99/lb. This is usually turkey, ham, pastrami, and occasionally sausage. $3.99 is just a great deal for any kind of fully cooked meat. They sell boneless skinless chicken breast for more than that. And I actually prefer the taste of ends. On hams and turkeys, for example, you get much more delicious skin; on pastrami, more black pepper rub. I suspect that the employees snag the choicest ends as I never see anything like secola blue label prosciutto. Bresaola was the most expensive end I've ever seen.

I think the best is when you extract the ink from the squid for the spaghetti with squid ink dish. I had no idea that was how it was done. It's good that this game exposes people to cooking exotic dishes like this. Buttering the pan is fun. I always privately consider this a mini-game in real-life cooking so it's funny to see it in a video game.

I doubt any bars will participate here in the cocktailian backwater of Austin, Texas but this is as good a reason as any to throw a cocktail party. Nicely spaced from Repeal of Prohibition Day (December 5).

There should be a standardized system to describe thickness. Some places have the Boar's Head guide to thickness but it does not offer enough options on the thin end of the scale. Millimeter is a good measurement but few charcuteriers (or simply deli workers, as few deserve that title) in America have a good grasp of how much a millimeter is.

I've been informed that those were not boas, but rather pythons. My mother also mentioned sweet potatoes. She also said they never had fresh squid, only dried. They did have fresh cuttlefish though.

This is why I usually buy the pieces whole and slice at home. I've gotten pretty good with getting thin slices with a knife but I've been contemplating getting a meat slicer.

I was born well after the Cultural Revolution but my parents often tell me stories of their travails during that period, usually to demonstrate how privileged my generation is and that I should not take things for granted. My mother lived in Shanghai with her father, mother, grandmother and four older siblings. Her father, my grandfather, was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution as he was the editor-in-chief of a university newspaper and was persecuted as an intellectual. Times were hard so at the tender age of thirteen, my mother started cooking for her whole family as her older siblings all had to work to make ends meet. Meat was very expensive; they would only eat it once a week and during the holidays, and it was usually just a small slice of cured ham. I suppose that was not quite a story, but here's a real story about my aunt: My aunt, my mother's older sister, was sent to an agricultural commune in Yunnan, which borders Vietnam and has a tropical climate. One day, she and a group of her friends were wandering around the countryside and found a hole on the side of a hill. One of them poked a long stick into and hit something inside. He sat down next to the hole and continued to idly poke the stick into it. A while later, to his surprise, a snake reared its head out of the hole. And this was no garden snake -- it was a boa! Remember that this in Yunnan where these jungle animals are quite common. The boa must have still been groggy after being awoken from its slumber, so they quickly smashed it on its head and killed it. When they pulled the boa out of its hole it was nine meters long! They were so excited that they would finally be able to eat meat that they didn't immediately notice that another boa popped its head out from the snake hole. This must have been the other snake's mate and they quickly killed it, too. Each snake required five men to carry. There was much rejoicing when they brought the snakes back to the commune. Please share your stories and experiences from the Cultural Revolution, whether you lived through it or have stories passed down from your parents.

April 19, 2007 Austin Chronicle Java Gardens. By Mick Vann. Indonesian in Riverside. "The Sunday buffet menu changes each week, and the menu is posted on their Web site by Saturday. We sampled the Sunday spread and found it delectable." Austin Chronicle Uncle Boudreaux's. By Virginia B. Wood. In Manor. "...seafood gumbo in a hearty chocolate-brown roux, elegant crawfish or shrimp-and-crab étouffée in a buttery blond roux, peppery jambalaya chock-full of tender chunks of pork butt, fat crawfish in an aromatic boil, a luxurious custardy bread pudding, and marvelous pecan spice cake soaked in Steen's Pure Cane Syrup, both worthy of the Sunday dinner table in any parish south of I-10."

The resulting pork can be too fatty to eat large amounts of, but try making rilettes.