Vadouvan
-
Posts
1,143 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Vadouvan
-
-
Laban gave it 1 bell, hit or miss-ish.
The daily news reviews laughable and second worst to the south philly review since Sono Motoyama left.
That being said, AParis is a good chef but that location is indeed challenging.
-
Hey didnt Laban throw it under the bus a few months ago ?
Not that I am a Laban follower but prior to that review, the food seemed a mish man of asian fusion, has the menu changed ?
Sandwich sounds good......
They should name that street sandwich alley....
-
Awesome.
I Imagine if it was anything like Marigold's brunch, it should be the best brunch in the city.....
-
Interestingly the price is hovering between $35 and $155.
http://www.wine-searcher.com/find/pichon+l...erring_site=WJO
I would probably buy it at Morrell's since they store wine properly...
-
-
-
Mind, the food had some good - even very good - sides, but yes, there were some things that perplexed me.
As to the raw ventresca, yes, there were cubes of raw tuna belly (three, to be precise) on a skewer on top of a small potato-soup bowl. The soup was made with chunks of (cooked) ventresca in it, so the combo might have been interesting.. but as I wrote, the ventresca was ... not similar in freshness, shall we say, to the typical japanese restaurant serving. Not inedible, but not ideal, either.
The dish sounds interesting but Toro is very perishable, that being said there still is no excuse for sketchy fish.
"Tapas" restaurants basically get a "get out of jail free card" and the evolution of the public's perception of Tinto will be interesting.
For example say a place like Tria or Tinto serves completely commercial cured meats while Osteria cures it's own which by the way is a thousand times better. I wonder if people realise that quality/flavor/price relationship........
-
I've been reading egullet for quite a while and I decided I'd come out of lurking to contribute to the community. Here goes, then: unfortunately, my first contribution will not be glowing praise.
First of all, a bit of backstory. My girlfriend and I have been to Amada in mid-2006, we loved the food but the service and the ambient noise were bad enough to make sure that we would not return. Therefore, I was somewhat concerned when we made reservations for Tinto for yesterday night, Friday (which to the best of my knowledge was opening night).
We were lucky in that yesterday's weather helped to keep the crowd down: I was pleased, because I figured that this would temper the noise and service problems, if they were to surface. Unfortunately, that proved to be an optimistic estimate.
In order to allay any suspcion about an 87000-word untempered bashing, I have to state from the start that the food, in and of itself, was good to very good. There was good variety in the menu, the ingredients were, generally, very good (with some unfortunate faux passes, such as the belly tuna which was not as fresh as it could have been and the forgettable 'kobe' beef) and there was some very good display of technique, with some points of excellence (the goat milk mousse dessert was really remarkable both in composition and in execution).
The problem, unfortunately, is that a restaurant is not only about the food. And, again unfortunately, this new venture has precisely the same problems Amada does, with a twist.
First and foremost, it's trying too hard to be hip. Much, much too hard. The bistro table and chairs, half hip and half space necessity, are small and probably derive from some recently-discovered writing of that master of ergonomics, Torquemada.
The marble floor and mirrored walls (with cellar-wine-storage like wooden trellising in front) don't give the low, untreated ceiling any help in reducing the noise and the open kitchen at the back is not as successful as Osteria at keeping the kitchen smells out of the dining area. The result was a noise level that made it effectively impossible to hold a civilised conversation - with the dining room half empty. It must be positively stunning when it's completely full.
But the piece de resistance, that is the service: I must admit to having low tolerance for modest service and extremely low tolerance for modest service performed by a staff that is trying their utmost not to pay attention to what the patrons are actually asking. It is one of my many failings. This place, however, didn't require my heightened sensitivity to the matter to cause an almost invincible desire to have a nice, friendly chat with the manager to take over the mind of any patron within the first five minutes of permanence.
The server had clearly been instructed in how to approach customers: he was to make sure that wine was ordered (note that I say ordered, nothing more) and he was not to worry particularly about explaining the structure of the menu.
The gentleman executed with a precision worthy of the best assault teams in the military: he presented us with menus, asked what variety of water we'd like, went and returned with the water and then proceeded to ask us no less than five (5) times in a span of about six minutes if we'd made up our mind about our drinks, while we were persistently trying to wheedle out of him some clarity as to the items that composed the menu. On the third or fourth try he went beyond 'make sure to ask any questions you have' and disappearing, so we were able to confirm which varieties of food pertained to which box on the folded menu.
We proceeded to order a first flight of items (the place is a tapas or small plates establishment, so multiple items recommended), while telling him that we were still working on the menu, so drink orders would come in due time. A few minutes later we had decided on the rest, so we ordered a second series of items and two glasses of wine - white - which would serve, we thought, to stem the tide of requests from the waiter.
Naturally, we'd selected the items in a specific order which would allow us to have 'neutral'-appetizer items first, then fish items and finally the meat items and vegetables. This would also have enabled us to order a second flight of wine, red, to go with the meats. Naturally, this was completely ignored by our attending personage, who after so much effort in making sure beverages was ordered, was clearly too taxed to produce them in a timely fashion, so the two wine glasses appeared with the third or fourth item that was served and ordering the red - despite my request that the wine list stay at the table, completely ignored - took a significant amount of time and effort, only surpassed by the time and effort that it actually took to receive the red forementioned.
Thanks to such a display of timeliness, we got to enjoy the mixto of charcuterie (quite good, the duck breast, I think it is, is particularly recommended, so are the egg salad and the pickled guindillas), the boquerones (very good but overpowered by too much of the pickled hot pepper) and the higos con jamon (very good but again, the hamon/higos balance was off, with too much sweetness) completely devoid of wine. To follow, we had kobe beef montaditos - indifferent - and brochetas de cordero - lamb and eggplant skewers served in shot glasses filled with a bechamel base to replicate something not unlike a destructured moussaka, good even though the lamb was a touch on the chewy side - with a delightful muscat sec and a delightful sauvignon blanc and we finally received the two tempranillos - one corked, badly and neither of them remarkable - just in time to savor them over the marmitako de ventresca (which would have been excellent had the ventresca not been marginal, with the raw cubes of ventresca topping a potato-based clear soup with chunks of cooked ventresca in it) and the chipirones en su tinta (very good quality, here, making me believe that the ventresca may have been a fluke).
In order to help the wine a bit, we followed with some montaditos de panceta - one of the finest dishes of the evening, with the now-omnipresent pork belly wonderfully counterpointed by green apple - and the habas au gratin (not gratinados as per the menu on foobooz, but the preparation is the same, another strong point of the evening, with the fava beans and the sweet onions playing very well with the cheese gratin).
By this point my girlfriend recognised that the signs that lead to a march towards the owner or, failing that, the manager, were becoming difficult to contain. She suggested we wrap it up, so we ordered dessert, which I have to say helped my blood pressure considerably: the txokolami was a very good, innovative interpretation of the dish carried out with considerable technical skill (the chef elected to considerably reduce the bread 'white spots' in the dish to deliver a more concentrated chocolate punch, a choice helped by slicing the log thin and serving a small amount of it) but the standout, probably for the entire meal, was the goat cheese mouse [sic], excellently prepared with none of the gelatin bounciness that belies uncertainty in preparation and with an olive oil-caramel emulsion that managed to overcome my northern-italian-bred aversion for olive oil in anything but salads. There are few others who managed this, one of them in the local scene is Marc Vetri, again in a dessert (he, however, also gets redeeming points for using butter everyplace else, so I suspect I give him a head start. I also incidentally happen to think he's one of the finest chefs I have ever encountered, but that is a matter for another review).
Coffee was ordered and consumed, at this point the waiter seemed considerably better disposed towards us except for the detail that I had to tackle a busboy to obtain the check (which is something else that makes me want to experiment on the service staff with gasoline and kerosene, but that's another story).
So, where does this leave us? I think it leaves me in the same place as Amada did: the food is definitely interesting - although I cannot speak for its authenticity, since basque tradition is unfortunately out of my scope of knowledge - with some points of excellence that will defintely make me think about going back. The service, however, which was not the opening-night uncertainty but more deeply problematic - and the noise level, were such that it will take at the very least a long while before I darken Tinto's doorway again, which is probably a shame. I am fairly certain it will manage to be successful despite this, given other experiences in the city, because the food and the scene should be able to carry it through. Not for me, though.
For reference, here is a link to the menu, courtesy of foobooz: http://foobooz.com/2007/03/tinto-menu-unveiled
While not exact, it is substantially equivalent to that actually being served, down to the fold-in-half-then-in-three pattern. One notable difference is the lack of the chefs' tasting, substitued by a specialty which I unfortunately do not recall.
Jeez fabio, that must be the longest post ever....
A few points service wise, going on day one usually results in these kinds of experiences, the servers probably have no clue yet.
Foodwise, Indeed your ealy report isnt encouraging, It disappoints me that the phrase "Kobe Beef" would be on the menu of a restaurant that is billed as a tapas bar, seems completely trendy.There is almost nothing Basque on that Foobooz menu. By Raw vetresca, do you mean that they have a raw tuna belly dish and is it similar in freshness to typical O-toro/Chu-toro experiences in japanese restaurants ?
Regarding tasting menus, there is no reason for a chefs tasting menu at a tapas restaurant, that is the point of tapas.
-
Fabio Welcome to e-gullet.
Rule number 1.
Use the thread that was started already to discuss a restaurant, I am not chastising you but it gets confusing when there is more than one thread about the same restaurant.
A quick topic search can find the old tinto thread which was just started a week ago.
Hopefully Katie can consolidate both threads...
again.....welcome.
great post.
-
Um...isnt 2001 Pichon a little too young to drink ?
Has anyone had it ?
-
Ok It's been open long enough.
After extensive mathematics and 15 meals.....
Time for the Laban Prediction Index.
0 Bells 1 Million To 1
1 Bell 50,000 To 1
2 Bells 75 To 1
3 Bells Most Likely Ding ,ding,ding,ding (lights flashing)
4 Bells 5 to 1
-
Andrew, what days of the week is that $30 special valid ?
-
David
It sounds like a "Sushi of Gari" type place which is quite good.
Does the menu cover any reditions of Japanese hot fod / classics
Shabu-shabu, Hamachi kama, Nikku Jaga, tempura ect ?
-
Hmmmm
What do you think Watson ?
-
Oh my God....That has to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life. I almost shit myself watching those videos. The uncomfortable feeling was palpable......sounded like Paul hated it......gotta pay those bills though, dont you......And did he say that he was going to serve them pasta that had rat shit in it? HAHAHA!!!! I will NEVER forget this one..
You know I was just thinking about that, I dont know I would say he hated it, I have met Paul a few times and he seems a rather restrained individual, some people are Mary poppins, he's not.
I think the Mouse poop tangent was done for humor, I seriously doubt that a respected food writer and critic in cunjunction with a widely acclaimed talented chef would get on the internet and say that they had a pasta made with flour from which they sieved out mouse Poo at the same time when rodent consciousness is on the front burner in NYC restaurants and NY diners.
I simply have to believe that these caliber of people are much more sophisticated than that....
I think it's Paul's british humor.
Interestingly though, I loved the Idea that the said pasta had corn and some type of cured meat.
Chef's always harp about how you should never cook corn in the winter but I have always thought it was perfectly OK to use corn from Florida in March.
Just my two cents.
-
Couple of other questions about how the vacuum marinating was done:
- That's a really deep-colored oil: is it grapeseed? I'm curious what brand, and how much you're using: I usually only use a tablespoon or so of oil, but you seem to have more in each bag: did you have to prefreeze it to get the bag sealed?
- do you plan to remove the thyme and laurel from the bag prior to CSV? I find that when I leave whole herbs on the meat during cooking, they get embedded into the surface in a way that's a nuisance to remove, and isn't very attractive (although I have been wondering if there are ways to use this embedding creatively, for an interesting visual presentation). Or will the searing obscure all this?
Thanks,
-al
I dont prefreeze oil, first I use a Berkel Machine with ridiculous pressure and unless you are "Confit"-ing the stuff in the bag, you dont need that much oil.
http://www.berkel.com/spec_sheets/350.pdf
I also use a slant tray in the machine so that liquids will stay in the bag.
Prefreezing the oil or duck fat is probably neccessary for a non comercial quality vaccum machine.
I remove the garlic but I leave the thyme and Laurel.
The embedding issue is irrelevant, searing at the end eliminates any surface issues.
-
Yes that is Sumi, actually I am using B-T I got from Japan.
Burns slightly cleaner and hotter.....
Thanks for the correction, now I wont have to edit it....
Have you grilled anything with the stuff you got Bill ?
-
So here is the meat in natural and artificial light, it's a lovely 70 degrees on the east coast today.
Whole Foods Incandescent.
Flannery Incandescent.
Whole Foods Natural.
Flannery Natural.
Vaccum Marinated:
Grill/Konro :
http://www.korin.com/product.php?pid=419&df=korin
Bincho-Tan:
I would reccomend you do this outside your house on a nice day, the weather is just perfect today, what good timing.
Charcoal creates carbon monoxide when it burns.
-
I thought it was a casual place, but the vibe was very "see and be seen"
maybe I will try it again....................
Here lies the perils of dining out on saturday night.
-
This is an offense to my honor. The salt you got from me is the exclusive Oshima Island Blue label salt, not the measly Red label.
Posted the wrong website...
http://www.cortibros.biz/tek9.asp?pg=produ...ecific=jopseol8
I'm curious what the marinade's going to be? It seems like a better comparison to keep the flavors relatively similar across the three methods...Also, do you usually do steaks CSV for that many hours? Unless these are seriously thick steaks, it seems it wouldn't take nearly that long for the core temp to reach 53C: even a 2" steak will only take about 2.5 hours. I understand the advantage to longer cooking times for cuts with a lot of cartilage that needs to be broken down, but that wouldn't seem to be the case for a NY Strip.
Al, Vaccum marination doesn't always involve a "marinade" in the classical sense like some mess of soy, mustard, wasabi ect ect.
The word "marinate" is used as an adjective, the only added flavors are oil, salt, pepper, fresh laurel leaf and thyme.
The vaccum is to help the flavor and salt absorbtion.
That being said, yes from a comparative aspect it makes sense to keep the flavors relatively similar but the point in this case as opposed to the last tasting is to see if the steaks can be improved by the cooking method, slight adjustments are being made according to the method to compensate. In the real world sense, each cooking method is being performed as one would do it alone without comparing it to the other two.
I have found that the "marination" actually improves CSV because the meat has a deeper profile than simple "Surface Seasoning" of a traditional pan sear which is quite tasty done properly.
The question here is how much more tasty.
Also the french bistro style traditional sear is finished (basted) in the pan with brown butter emulsified with whatever cooking juices and I usually throw in a sprig of thyme and laurel during the spoon basting process. It also becomes the resting medium.
As to Timing, the bath is programmed to go to 54C, hold for 2.5hrs and go back to 53C holding temp. It also starts from refrigerated core temperature and the steaks are almost 3 inches thick with a fatcap on one side.
No we are not looking for tenderisation of cartilage but the extra 30 mins wont ruin the texture.
-
Part 3. Steaks Revisisted
After several intellectual discusions and some research on meat, DAgordon and a few others decided it would be interesting to see if the cooking method affected one's perception and enjoyment of a particular steak. The initial steak tasting used trditional cooking methods uniformly, basic pan sear to rare/med rare and 5 minute resting.
The next tasting not only tests the cooking methods but also the variation in quality between a "boutique" steak and a publicly acessible steak.
DAgordon procured some fancy steaks which he will expand on........David ?
The publicly acessible steaks were procured from whole foods at 10th and South.
Both Dry Aged New York Strips Bone Out.
Each type of steak will be cooked 3 different ways.
1. Traditional pan sear, salt, pepper, rest.
2. Vaccum Marinate overnight, CSV 53C 4Hrs, QuickSear for maillard reaction, rest.
3. Grill, Oshima Sea salt, sake, Bincho-Tan Charcoal.
Supplemental Info.
https://www.surfasonline.com/products/23005.cfm
-
WOW! for someone with a "i heart ny" call sign, you are quick to trash one of the most exciting eateriers in the city. i am no experted, but i don't think it is very fair to compare the pork belly at fatty crab to the lamb breast at degustation. what is being done at fatty crab is easy and boring! give me someone who is going to take risks and go out on a limb to create something special. i had the lamb at degustation and it was wonderful. to belly ache at the price of langostines, which until about 4 years of ago, getting fresh langostines in the states was unheard off, thank you fedex, and with fresh langostine comes more coin, that is how it works. if you want something wonderful sometimes you pay more, or you get shrimp from the gulf. i had a most memorable meal there, i went by myself, i was supposed to meet someone, but they couldn't get out of work (weak) on time. i had most everything on the menu. that restaurant is unique in a city of pomp and posh and money, to have someone just busting it out night after night, sometimes you just have to say thank you and pat them on the back, and even if it didn't meet your expectations, which i would love to hear what those were, and you did not enjoy the meal, don't complain about the prices and make it seem like there making millions by making up fresh langostines. just walk on by to the ssam bar and we'll enjoy those two seats in the corner. thank you degustation crew and keep up the great work, you have exceed my expectations!
Mugsy can we love Ny without loving every restaurant in NY ?
Truly I appreciate what Degustation is trying to do but I dont think diners should simply say thank you because someone is busting it out night after night, the food still has to meet thier expectations.
In many ways, I can understand the fascination with the concept and it is a cool place to eat but outside of the novelty of the space, served the same exact food in a traditional restaurant setting, I suspect there would be less enthusiasm. many chef's these days strive for attention by creating dishes with names of classics that they do not in any way texturally resemble or taste like. A properly made spanish tortilla is transcedental, that quail egg potato ravioli thing was just perplexing. I can understand that people are into "deconstruction" but the achilles heel of most culinary deconstructions is that they dont reconstruct the flavor.
Fatty Crab is boring ?
Anything "on the plancha" is the epitomy of boring, that being said, some of the best vegetables I have had in Ny were simply plancha cooked with olive oil.
The quail needed help and heat reduced vinegars taste like cough syrup.
-
A restaurant is only as good as its worst dish.
Degustations desserts were just Ok, some of the food was good, most of the rest was OK.
The Lamb belly i have to agree is bad.
If restaurants were only as good as thier worst dishes, all restaurants would be bad.
Fact is you can find one dish in every restaurant in New York city that is either flavorless or communicates something completely different from the customers expectations.
Good or bad after all is in the eye of the beholder....
It's a good idealistic statement but meaningless in the real world.
-
Wait, the report is meaningless because it's second hand, but Vadouvan can successfully judge that the lesbians in question were nitpicky, lazy prima-donnas in regards to direction when faced with an employee who claimed to not know how far the restaurant is from City Hall? Huh.
I suppose all visitors to the city have our street grid memorized as well, no-one should visit an establishment without mapping it first. Egads, it would kill the guy to say, "it's several blocks north of City Hall, look for a big condo building?"
Serpentine, to add to WKL's comment...
Not only wasnt the "account" first hand, it was vague and absurd beyond any boundary of fairness.
If you read upthread...
I believe Sandy Smiths original quote was......
Got a dissenting opinion from a friend this evening who dined there last weekend.He noticed a lesbian couple seated next to him at the bar, one of whom had asked the bartender for Bombay Sapphire and was served Bombay instead. According to him, when the woman noticed the difference and commented on it, the bartender dismissed her concern, saying "They're the same thing." (At least the bartender did not charge her for Sapphire.)
So basically someone told me they talked to two lesbians who werent happy at Osteria.
Doesnt quite rise to the level of a reliable report.
It also wasnt established that either Sandy's friend or the aforementioned lesbians were visitors to the city.
Laziness isnt a character flaw to me, it's just a misuse of time and that's why i use it freely.
I dont mean to insult anyone.....
fact is there is a lot of things you can complain about in a restaurant but complaining about the location after you have been given the address isnt on the top ten list.
Certainly employees should be as helpful as possible but anyone who has ever dined out know's hostesses are overwhelmed with people waiting for tables, checking coats and answering phones in the first few days of a brand new popular restaurant.
Asking a hostess to go find out where the restaurant is in relation to another landmark seems pushing it to me. Poeple who are ususally that precise about where they are going seems to me can google the place and find out, it isnt like the map of the entire street grid is on the internet.
Even though I replied, the finer points of who said what to who when and what gender they were adds nothing substantive to this thread.
Zento
in Pennsylvania: Dining
Posted
If a sushi bar was using real wasabi you would know.
Real wasabi is grated to order on a papanese grater similar to the one used for ginger.
There is no reason to pregrate fresh wasabi.