Kent Wang

I will be in Seattle in a few weeks soon so this thread will be very useful to me. Do you really allot four meals like Rachel Ray does? I usually skip breakfast. I might even skip lunch if it means that I can have a better dinner. I notice the thread topic does not require four meals, so perhaps it would be more interesting to see how you would spend $40. Would you skip meals, go for one big meal?

Pork charcuterie: kielbasa, sausage, salami, prosciutto, speck, pancetta, soppresatta, ham.

I believe milkfish is a common ingredient unique to Taiwan cuisine. There was a four-page article in Saveur about a year ago about Taiwan.

...if you have a mobile bar kit. I do.

Wow, I had no idea the vodka business was such a scam. I've even heard of 10-year aged vodkas. I guess that's a load of crap, too?

I had lunch on Friday at Mi Piaci. Caprese Classica. Imported Bufala mozzarella with vine ripened tomatoes, basil and extra virgin olive oil ($9). Torta di Granchio. Risotto crab cakes with a roasted red pepper sauce over mixed greens in a balsamic vinegar ($11). I've had risotto cakes and I've had crab cakes but never a risotto crab cake. They were very good. Zuppa di Mare. Adriatic style seafood and vegetable chowder ($7). Fonduta di Tortelloni con Granchino. Fontina cheese filled Tortelloni with king crab, shitake mushrooms, Roma tomatoes and asparagus in a white wine truffle butter sauce ($17). Salmone alla Griglia. Grilled Pacific salmon with king crab, soft polenta and grilled radicchio in a saffron lemon butter sauce ($14). Great cut of salmon, very fatty. The grilling job was a little light on the searing. White chocolate mousse. Macedonia di Frutta. Seasonal berries with homemade zabaglione ($10). Mi Piaci reminds a lot of Siena in Austin. Both are similarly priced except Siena is Tuscan while Mi Piaci feels pan-Italian. Everything was skillfully cooked to my expectations. There were a lot of excellent values for lunch, especially the seafood chowder and grilled salmon. I would certainly return.

There is a difference between ginger ale and ginger beer. I shall use the term ginger brew to refer to both of them. My favorite now is from Maine Root. Don't let the photo on the website fool you; it's very cloudy and green -- it looks radioactive actually! The flavor is less sweet and more herby, almost medicinal. Not everyone will like it. I like to mix it 2:1 with spiced rum.

It's interesting that most people's justification for not eating cats and dogs is that they are dear pets. Yet many small-scale farmers treat their pigs and cows as pets just as a cat or dog owner, but they have no problems slaughtering and eating them. Just a difference in perspective.

One usually sees salmon on sale in either filets or a "steak cut", which is a cross section of both sides of the fish. One can think of it as being perpendicular to the filet. What is the purpose of this cut? Is it really better for grilling? Why is it that I only see Atlantic salmon cut this way and never Pacific? I've also seen steak cuts for halibut and swordfish.

Haven't had lunch at La Traviata, but yeah, lunch at Siena is a steal. It's a few bucks more expensive than Mandola's but the quality difference is immense. But remember, this is only for lunch. Dinner gets to be about $50-60 per person. For reference, see Italian restaurant round-up.

I believe Hoover's Cooking is widely regarded to be the best. The prices are high but the portions are huge. Sometimes it gets really packed and I've heard rumblings that quality has been on the decline. Their margaritas are awful. Dot's Place is probably the second best well known establishment but I believe they're in limbo after their building burned down two years ago. I went to Tony's Southern Comfort on Monday. If you look at their menu you'll see that half the items are actually Tex-Mex, like nachos and enchiladas. When I arrived with my friend we learned that they were BYOB so we ran to the corner store and picked up a sixer of Ziegenbock. Fried chicken drummettes ($4.95). Wonderful, huge chunks of crisp batter. Some of the best fried chicken I've ever had. The spicy dipping sauce was nice, too. Chicken fried steak ($5.25). This can probably be considered a textbook chicken fried steak. I'll refrain from judgment as this is a sensitive topic and I need to eat more CFS before I can give a reliable opinion. In Spicewood, about 30 miles west of Austin, there is RO's Outpost. Their CFS is really fluffy, which I believe many consider to be untraditional. Frankly I like it the most. Their rib end appetizer is also superb and their desserts are recognized by the Austin Chronicle.

June 1, 2006 Austin Chronicle The Lazy Fork by Mick Vann Mikeskas open new barbecue restaurant in the Hill Country. "Lazy Fork fits its target niche very nicely, providing solid food in megaportions at very reasonable prices. It would have been very easy for them to cut corners, and they choose not to. If you want a great meal on the way back from the lake, or if you live in the rapidly expanding area, the Fork is an ideal restaurant for the family or the casual diner. Caveat: Come hungry!" Austin-American Statesman Jeffrey's by Dale Rice Long time special occasion restaurant introduces value bistro menu but desserts are shaky. "To be a five-star restaurant, five-star quality must endure across the board. With three-star desserts, Jeffrey's drops a notch this year. But with Alcocer-Thomas' cooking and the new bistro selections, there's every reason to go back frequently. Jeffrey's deserves to be more than a special-occasion fling." This thread is for food media DIGEST entries. If you want to discuss one of these news items, please start a separate discussion thread.

Does any one produce premium vodkas for flavor, or is the ideal always to taste like nothing? In that case, why not Everclear?

Webtender only turns up three hits, only one of which is alcoholic. I just made a gin and tonic with a bit of rosewater for a post-breakfast digestif. It's pretty good. Any other ideas? I think garnishing with an actual rose petal or two would be really cool.

From their website: Everybody in Austin knows about Tito's and it is well respected here. I've heard from a friend who visited Las Vegas that it is being sold as a premium vodka, in the same rank as Grey Goose, Belvedere, etc. I'm not really an expert on vodka so I'd like to hear what more knowledgeable people think about Tito's. At $23 for 1.75L it's priced at less than half the price of Grey Goose. Does this sound like a good value to you? Considering that Goose is $55 for 1.75L and the very bottom shelf vodka can be had for $10, how would you hypothetically price Tito's?

I got it at the Austin Farmers Market at Republic Square. There's only one pork vendor there, he sells a ton of different cuts, all Berkshire pork.

I found this thread while running a search. Way cool. Has anyone made any progress with this?

I just picked up some jowl bacon from the farmers market. To me, the meat tastes a bit sweeter, there's a lot more fat and the rendered fat is more gelatinous (higher collagen content?). What are you thoughts on jowl bacon? Are my impressions accurate? Do you prefer it to belly bacon?

I just found a vendor at the farmers market that sells never been frozen chicken. Are most supermarket chicken frozen at some time in the shipping process? Does freezing have much of an effect on the taste or texture? How long from the time it's slaughtered can a chicken stay good without freezing?

Is there really a universal definition of humanity, specifically whether it proscribes the eating of cats, or is it just the imposition of Western standards?

I had a Moutai-Sauternes infused foie gras brulee (upper right of photo) at CourtYard, in Beijing. Foie gras brulee sounded like one of those cases of combining two great things that ends in disaster, but I was glad to be proven wrong; the result rivalled even the classic seared preparation! How unusual is this dish? Have you see it anywhere else? Google turns up only 138 hits for "foie gras brulee".

Mr. Rogov, that is seriously impressive. I like party/meals that start early in the day, that way everyone stays energetic. I had a get together similar to godito's -- though not nearly as fancy -- that started at noon and when we finally looked at the clock at midnight we were like, "Hey, it's still pretty early -- wait a minute, we've been drinking and eating for twelve hours straight!"

I feel the same way. I am boycotting Whole Foods now. They have really gone too far. Not that I shopped there often to begin with. Central Market for life!

The Statesman has an interesting article on how Salt Lick does its cue. The article claims that they use live oak wood, no mention of gas.

Austin Chronicle Working-Class Heroes by Virginia B. Wood "The restaurants on the resurgent Airport Boulevard are solid, simple, and affordable." Austin-American Statesman Capitol Brasserie by Dale Rice New Warehouse District restaurant gets mixed reviews, but at least they're open late. "Sometimes a menu is a minefield. Navigate correctly, and it's a cakewalk. Pick the wrong thing and the going can get rough. That underscores the key to dining at Capitol Brasserie: Know what to order." Austin-American Statesman Crú by Moira Muldoon "A Dallas export brings wine, cheese and more to Second Street." This thread is for food media DIGEST entries. If you want to discuss one of these news items, please start a separate discussion thread.