NYC Mike

Wow! Great spread Mrbigjas! The ravioli look amazing! How did you like the cannonau, $10 bucks, what a steal? Would you buy it again? Is it a very similar to spanish grenache? I am still looking for an under $20 to try. Pontormo, the chicken with fennel sounds like a keeper. I am new to fennel and love it and the smell it gives off when cut and have been using it in lots of things this month. I could use a few do ahead and just throw in the oven dishes, it has been getting a little heavy rolling up the sleeves to cook dinner everynight. Thanks! -Mike

Sounds like New Orleans quality service is being delivered somewhere already, so someone isn't willing to use the "staffing" reason. The sooner you and others demand a higher level of service the sooner other restaurants will be forced to deliver it. In turn, the sooner things can really get back to normal. -Mike

Sweet, glad you enjoyed!

I am so sorry, that sucks! Looks like a gnocci board is something I need, Kevin those look amazing!! Imperia used to make a cavetelli/gnocci attachment for the machine we have but I can't find it anywhere, oh well.

I definitely second the recommendation of El Malecon. But $5 for 7 blocks? Aren't there lots of livery cabs around there that wouldn't overcharge like that? ← Unfortunatly $5 is the new "minimum" for most of the liverys.

Fried green platains, better than your average french fry!! If you do go to Malecon try an order of tostones and one of maduros (the sweet plantains) mike

If you are going to the 168st location Coogan's is right around the corner, it is serviceable irish pub food. click Coogan's is on Broadway, right around the corner from the Hospital. For what might be the best roasted chicken in NYC go uptown just a few blocks to 175th and B'way to Malecon Restaurant. With rice, red beans and tostones its awesome. click Malecon is also on Broadway and 175th, if you don't feel like walking the 7 blocks, cabs are all over the place and would take you for 5 bucks. mike

Speaking of Cuban Chino, Sabrosura in Castle Hill might be the "best of". click mike

Nice pic Shaya, what a handy tool that is. We made our first Sardenian meal tonight. I had boss lady supervision but she acted as moral support, advisor and most importantly sr. vp. in charge of wine pouring. I should have looked harder last month for Ligurian wine, was in the villiage this week and stopped in at Astor Wine, they have Ligurian, Sardinian, you name it and their wide variety allows me to stay within my self imposed price limit for 06'. They ship too! link here This white was huge qpr. It was very aromatic and fruity the high acidity cut through the fried food we made very well. I love these off the "cool" radar places and wines, they consistently over impress based on their price. The next three were from the Bugialli book, Foods of Sicily and Sardinia. Oh how I wish Hazan's Essentials book was organized like this one with a regional heading on each dish!! I think I need menu consulting too , I don't know if I have served a balanced meal yet and I don't quite have the stamina for a full antipasti, primi, secondi, dolci affair yet. First was Frittelle di Zucchine, these were great right out of the pan, red hot with coarse salt and lemon. As they cooled they very quickly lost their luster. Main was Cotolette di Maiale alla Sarda with Fagiolini all'Aglio. The pork was outstanding, I will make them this way again for sure. The beans were dissapointing, the aroma of the parsley and anchovy sauce in the pan was such a tease, unfortunatly it didn't carry over to the plate. The taste was bland. edited to add: I have to think this was my error somewhere. The smell was so good and then flop. Could I or should I have left it cook more, covered to steep? Notice the untrimmed string bean ends, my wife pointed those out after the fact. Who would have thunk it, trim the beans! Dessert was from the De Blasi book, Sebadas Olienese. I don't know, I'm sure I am "ordering" wrong to date but I have yet to make an Italian dessert that blows me away. They are all very nice, go well to finish the meal either with coffee or fortified wine etc. but not spectacular. I'll keep looking! As my wife would say, Buen Provecho! -mike

Gorgeous Shaya! Mind taking a pic of that gnocci roller?? mike

Wow Nathan! Nice dish! Those malloreddus look very similar to one of my favorites, cavateli. Do you think they would be a fair substitute if I can't find malloreddus? Picked this up at Barnes and Noble yesterday, it is called "A Taste of Southern Italy" now. It is a very entertaining read so far, she is so very dramatic. -Mike

As I said, its a dump. Its bad Chinese food at its self-indulgent worst. Which is why I keep going back. ← Its great for that. There used to be a great one on 181st and Bway called La Perla but its long gone now. I don't think there are any cuban chinas left uptown anymore.

There should be a green with envy smiley face for me to mash on right now!

The texture was the first thing I found remarkable! You are so right, they were very light and airy and so very different from potato gnocci which I find very dense and heavy. That was a really nice surprise.

Had the pleasure of stealing a quick liquid lunch during work time a few weeks back at Lupa. The on tap beer Moretti was out of this world. I've spent two full weekend afternoons trying to track it down. The dish I had was the Ricotta Gnocci with Fennel Sausage. It was a perfect bowl of pasta if I've ever had one. So, my copy of Molto Italiano arrived and it had the recipe from Lupa! Sorry no pic and it wasn't really very photogenic. My version did not look at all like Lupa's , the gnocci were much bigger and my sausage was chunky. Next time i'll size down the gnocci and maybe give the sausage a spin in the food processor before finishing the sauce. But, looks aside the taste was just right, it was a near exact replica. As far as the kids go, my daughter is a challenge, she will not eat anything that remotely resembles tomatoes so she opted for butter and cheese with her gnocci. My two sons on the other hand will eat anything that remotely resembles sausage, including a stray digit if I am not careful. All I had to say to #1 son was sausage and I had my kitchen helper for the night. I am looking at Sardinia but still missing Rome. -Mike

Great info! I am really looking forward to this month. My grandfather on my mother's side was from Sardinia! But! I think I will pass on the special cheese! -Mike

Awesome for you man! Thanks for sharing!

I really like this one.

OK! I voted! And, I am hooked! Made from Liguria again for dinner tonight. I have foccaccia issues . I tried the sausage variation from the Plotkin book tonight. I got it to stay closed BUT this time the dough was so dry it was too brittle to cut and broke like glass. Anyone ever experience that? Did I work it too much or did it need more water? The final product didn't taste much better, it was as dry tasting as it looks below. Made the moscardini in umido all'aglio. I followed the recipe to the letter, 20 minutes, don't uncover etc. The end result was some very tough baby octopus, so I wonder what went wrong. The broth on the other hand was fantastic with crusty bread! edited note:those are baby squid, hell if I knew the difference. The star of the night was Burrida. I've wanted to try this since the begining of the month when Adam made his and it was well worth the wait and the attempt. Very very good on a cold day! -mike

My wife and I enjoyed it very much. This was 5 yrs ago so things might have changed but the food, wine parings, service and atmosphere were all outstanding then. It was a very romantic escape to overdose by Micky with young twins. -mike

Yes, I am doing a mock piano player thing on it. Instead of dimples I was getting mini volcanos or inside out dimples when I pulled my fingers out so came the dough. Maybe I should oil my fingers first? The baccala looks amazing, I have not enjoyed it so much in the past but its one of my wife's favorites. I think we will try again, this time fried! How long did you soak/change the water? Thanks for that!! I am feeling pretty good about what I paid for the better of the lot! I only know just as much as we have covered in the past two threads. I have a genuine love for eating Italian food, I think it has helped me cook what I have but as far as voting for next month etc. I am clueless. Someone vote a second time on my behalf. -Mike

Ha! It was a complete all day deal here too, I just got a very early start! I can see myself gaining minor efficiencies here and there but overall this is a big time commitment. Amazingly enough Plotkin's dough recipe worked like a charm right out of the gate. In your main, what are the long stemmed items in the upper right of the plate? Those calamari look amazing! -Mike

I think these two, Blue Hill and WD-50 are the exact extremes on both ends of the spectrum with the rest of NYC falling inbetween somewhere. mike

Looking at these pics after the fact I prolly should have posted in the gallery of regretable foods instead! It tasted better than it looks! Rosemary Foccaccia - I cooked it longer to get more color than last time but now it tasted drier than I like..I also had real trouble getting the dimples in this one, the dough remained too sticky to touch. Maybe I needed more flour, but that would have made it drier right? Oh well, back to the drawing board. Tried my hand at gnocci. What an easy dough. The shaping is another story altogether, I had to abandon my perfectly sized cookie cutters in favor of my big thumb and a fork. I am still not sure I did it right, but they tasted great. For the finish I made a variation (if it can be called that) of Tocco. I didn't have the heart to use veal for this, but after the fact I imagine the broken down veal would have been sublime as a sauce for the gnocci. I used some sweet italian sausage in its place. This is a entire afternoon deal, close to 4 hours total time but time very well spent. -Mike

Kudos to you guys who have hung in there. Sounds like Chef Humm is trying to do a little something. Big Fun. -mike