Vadouvan

Menu 1st Two Courses Menu Last 3 Courses Thats the Easy part, now you have to make all that Crap. Hopefully your friends are worth it...... More to come.......

Part 1. Plan your timeline. T Minus 3 days. Part 2. Plan a menu that fits into your timeline. More to come..........

David how are you, sorry to hear about your horrible experience. This illustrates what we talk about in other threads regarding uncontrolled expansion. Patrice whom I know very well is a good friend. Unfortunately his talents were best exhibited when he was in St Tropez. Patou has never quite defined itself nor focused on a food concept and it really shows that intangible aspect that chefs find very difficult, the strong Sous Chef who actually knows how to cook and season food as well as the chef. Believe it or not .........thankfully, the Sofitel's restaurant is actually worse and may be the most horrifying food in Philadelphia, great place to stay though. Happy anniversary.

Jeff although the food was solid, I quite enjoyed the Grits. I wish them well. There are all these mini restaurant destination hoods popping up all over the city, they are close enough to the 7th and chestnut revival. I wish them well, at least it isnt another gaddamn Eyetalian BYO.

Excellent lunch today. Caldo Gallego, flank steak sandwich. Delicious. $13. catalan express is a steal.

In a wierd twist of fate, Uncle phil got struck by lightning in Chester County, though he survived, he looks like an empanada but we wish him a speedy recovery...... So off we go to Ferdinand with Diann, we meet Avram at the bar. The place looks great, very fun, very casual. The Food: In a general sense, I find that Philly tapas as a whole arent quite ready for prime time. The biggest problem is the translation of authenticity, clearly it would be absurd to expect food from Barcelona in Northern liberties or old city but seriously, why the hell not ? I can get pretty damn good renditions off of Gramercy square.....cheaper....much better in a restaurant 1/5th the size of Amada and Ferdinand......including the kitchen. Dont get me wrong, Amada for example has some good food but the intrinsically spanish dishes are weak and the best ones mostly push Cuban Flavors. I m not trying to push elitism here but ultimately, how well you like these restaurants will directly relate to whether you have actually been to Spain and experienced authentic spanish flavors. I dont buy the argument that things need to be translated, I see it as watered down. As of last night, Ferdinand isnt quite as good but then again, they have been open for 3 days. We had...... 1. patatas Bravas, needs more salt, pimenton, and cut too small. 2. Bouquerones, Bread was paper thin, too much lemon, bread needs to be toasted and the whole thing needs to be doused in Arbequina olive oil. 3.Watermelon and serrano Ham, great Idea but should not be cooked at all, serrano should be much thinner and watermelon schould be ice cold, near frozen and sweet. 4.Bacalao Croquettes, slightly worse than Amadas which arent as good as people who appreciate bacalao would hope. Salt cod dishes are about salt cod, it's really annoying when restaurants peddle mashed potatoes and fried Bechamel sauce as Brandade or bacalao. Zero salt cod flavor. 5.Skirt steak, Fried egg, truffle. Best thing we had all night, addition of truffle was disingenous as the dish had zero truffle flavor or aroma but was crowned with a prominent slice of preserved truffle. Still quite delicious, cant screw up steak and eggs. 6. Tuna confit empanada. I personally hate baked empanadas, they shoud be fried like samosa. Also needs more Jerez, pimenton, salt and toasted fennel. 7. Albondingas with almond sauce. Ice cold, sauce had no flavor. they deliberately serve this cold, i prefer hot meatballs. 8.Grilled octopus. decent flavor but overcooked, Octopus is cheap, I dont understand why restuarants buy tiny ones. No contrast between the charred exterior and interior and a gratuitous addition of a bouchee. Why ? Bill for all this and 4 drinks came to $65. Very cheap but despite that we felt the food lacked soul.............. Diann any further thoughts ?

They are probably still basking in the fumes of thier $100 cheesesteaks......

Which is why oregon Morels and truffles are far superior to the ones that come from France and Italy, why use that crap that comes all the way from europe. From now on, no more crappy Salsify, white asparagus and endive from Belgium, only local..... Actually most vegetables go by rail which means Diesel Fuel and most meat and fish goes by truck and refrigerated container transport. All this delusional social choices to "save the environment" just dont jive with reality but if it makes people feel better, so be it.

Translation : We are doing no business in the summer. An act of desperation disguised as a clever promotion. cant say I blame them, there are actually just enough dumb Philadelphians who eat up these "promotions" The only reason anyone would buy that $7500 package is because thier last name is Dumas. First of all, a viking stainless steel premium gas grill lists for $1100 which means it will actually sell for cheaper. With the rest of your $6400.. You can buy a round trip ticket from Philadelphia to Tokyo Via Los Angeles, take a boat to Matsuzaka and buy an entire bone in ribeye of the worlds best beef, ship it fedex overnight and still have $3000 to spare. Alternately, you can just buy the grill and just go to Gachot and Gachot in New York and buy the same steaks for $200 and spend the remaining $6300 on the side dishes. Do they really think people are that stupid ?

I think it's a good idea to avoid new places during friends and family and opening nights just to let the kitchen get comfortable. Someone has to go though but I just hate to be the first "lambs to the slaughter". My curiousity has gotten the best of me and will be trying Ferdinand this evening. Will report back with uncle Phil's pictures......

No affiliation with Radicchio. Radicchio is affiliated with La Cena. I am so over Italian BYOB's but I guess they fill a need. They all serve the same food and people are willing to pay for the food because they can bring wine even though they are being gouged. A whole Branzino cost 3 bucks but with lemon and oil, it becomes $21. I wonder how Vetri's new place will do as the first NON byo Italian in a long time.

Bryan, PM me when you get back home, I can get you sources for Flatiron steaks in the city, Angus or Wagyu. Great reports. cheers

Am I wrong to conclude that this recipe may be unsafe for consumption for certain people since the egg custard isnt coooked to sterilize and there are no instructions for rapid cooling before refrigeration. Warm uncooled IC custards should not simply be refrigerated but must be force cooled in Ice baths especially with 15 egg yolks involved.

Bryan, I can be darth vader and you luke skywalker. Welcome to the dark side of the force.

As a disclaimer, before i type my response, please understand this isnt a personal attack. Sometimes folks take statements too seriously on the internet. I dont want it to adopt the tone of one of those idiotic chowhound flame wars. 1. Virtually *all* baby greens are grown in greenhouses which means they are all available locally. By local I mean Pennsylvania. In fact 3 of the best 4 in the country are in PA with the 4th in Ohio. 2. The argument of reducing transportation costs doesnt quite match the reality of food transportation. 99.99% of all produce that you arent buying directly from where it was grown will pass through a truck, train, boat or airplane at some point no matter if its local, organic or whatever. I applaud your standing on reducing fossil fuel dependency but besides the fact that it isnt true regarding food, virtually everything else you own was shipped by commercial transport at some point, even your car if you have one probably comes on a boat and truck at some point. A lot of meaningless buzzwords and phrases are also being used like "sustainable agriculture" and "fair food", really what is unfair food ? When Mrs Rodriguez and all her other migrant farm worker buddies pick all you potatoes and butternut squashes all winter and then all of a sudden come spring, only "local" produce is good, how is she supposed to feed her goddamn kids ? Is there any such thing as unsustainable agriculture ? If anything, the huge agro business companies are completely sustainable and people just dont even have a clue where what the eat come from. I know this person who only swears by a particular brand of Japanese miso but the company in japan that makes the miso buys the soybeans from ADM who grows it in the Midwest of USA and Brazil.

http://foobooz.com/2006/07/bar-ferdinand-b...lair-to-nolibs/ Place looks good, if they put as much thought into the food as the decor, it ought to be the shizzy.

Best thing I ate at the show was the chicken stew and guacamole personally handed to me and everyone else in line by none other than Rick Bayless. Good stuff....

Next salvo in the Philadelphia tapas craze, Amada gets some serious competition..... Hey Uncle Phil, PM me.

First off, anyone complaining about the fat content of Pork is just a Dumas. That's french for a word you cant use on e gullet. Insert a B after the M and add an extra S at the end. Yeah Dude, Country Time rocks, i got a suckling pig from them through Vetri and it was freaking amazing.

I hate to be the one to rain on the parade but there are so many angles of hypocricy in the buy fresh buy local movement. First off while they proclaim the fact that the products they bring to market are so much better than "commercial mass market agriculture", they also gouge the marketplace and consumers by artificially making the products more expensive by attaching a value index to it because it is supposedly "better". It is the same deception that car manufacturers engage in by selling "hybrid" cars. They claim they are greener and better for the environment but they charge more money even though it doesnt really cost more, it's cynical, it's deceptive and it's disgusting. Local does not equal fresh or better, Local isnt even defined by the FDA or anyone else for that matter. What's important is properly cultivated, properly stored and transported produce. Blue Moon Acres, perhaps the best grower of salad greens is in bucks county PA. The products are defined by name on the menus of Per Se/French Laundry......"Blue Moon Acres Mezza Arugula". It's fantastic stuff but I cannot imagine what stretch of the imagination it takes to consider something grown in PA to be fresh-local in California or New York. Its frustrating and just getting annoying, even Iovines moves produce in and out of refrigeration daily which is actually the worst thing you can do to it. I also wonder why they sell all this exotic mushrooms which are all wet but not clean. The only reason mushrooms are wet and not clean is because the absorb water, weigh more and are therefore sold for nearly double the actual weight. Even trucks from various produce suppliers are seen at the white dog dropping off "not local" produce. Sorry about the rant but I am just tired of the BS.

I love this dish too but it's a matter of taste. What seems odd is pairing it with Justino's Rainwater Madeira. While Rainwater itself is medium dry and I can see how the pairing would work, I think the issue is the quality of "Rainwater". Justino's is totally cheap stuff that is mostly used for making sauces, it's like $11 for the whole 750ml bottle, it's seems like poor judgement and a bit chintzy to serve at a restaurant of that caliber....especially with such a special dish.

Yes locally, the only one that seems to deviate slightly is Melograno. On the National scale, there are lots of places that give the impression that they are "regional" Italian but maybe 2% actually focus on the food of less than 3 contigous regions of Italy. The most abused word for example in the New York (and yes you can say New York) dining scene is ..... "Tuscan". You would be hard pressed to see any of the food they serve in Tuscany.

No. In fact they all basically cook the same dishes to suit American tastes.

Tsk...tsk.....Diann You know me better than that...... The Salmon is put in a shallow bowl. Sudachi lime is grated on top, sesame seeds, sansho and hijiki. HOT dashi is poured over lightly. Bring the bowl to your face as the japanese do and eat it.