Vadouvan

Dude Did you leave your camera home ???????.... I have never seen you without that thing....

As a disclaimer being involved with owners of the operation.... but the "construction" in the area is irrelevant to the restaurant, there is a new townhouse next door undergoing some facade work and the scaffolding was in fact removed this weekend. The interior or exterior of the restaurant isnt in any way hampered by any construction.

No offense, i wasnt soliciting your approval.....

I love Philly but not only does it make the city look foolish, it makes it look like a foolish second rate city that copies everything new york and other cities do.......even the stupid stuff. pathetic.

This is as absurd as the councilman's argument that uses smoking as an example of government intrusion. Eating foie gras or any animal part of alleged questionable production isnt against the law in America. Smoking Marijuana which is an Illegal substance is. Breaking the law isnt "protected " by the constitution... You dont need to be Alan Dershowitz to figure that out. It continues to confound me why these patently ridiculous analogies continue to pop up.

They tried that at Barclay Prime, it ended up being an "emperors new clothes disaster of Foie gras, tallegio cheese, "KOBE" which was actually Wagyu beef and a silly tiny bottle of "Champagne" that wasnt from Epernay......ha ha. all for $100. Edited to add ..canned truffles

1. CONSTITUTIONALITY Yes in fact Christopher Lee is correct because at the end of the day, this will eventually end up as a constitutional issue in front of the supreme court. NOT about foie gras per se but about the general right to consume food that isnt produced illegally and meets all the stringent requirements of the US Agriculture department......despite the fact that a few radical crackpots disagree. It will be sublimated to the same basic arguments indicative of all polarizing social issues in America such as abortion et..al. At the end of the day, this is AMERICA, fairly simple concept, live and let live, do what you want without harming others. You want the govenrment to tell you what to eat ? Great...dont bitch about it in America, just move to China or Cuba and live happilly ever after. 2.HYPOCRISY In a city hailed uniformly as the fattest city in America where people are gorging thier arteries with cheesesteaks and roast pork sandwiches (which I personally eat constantly)....thanks to Holly Moore...... and the high school kids are slowly dying because they are practically injecting themselves hypodermically with high fructose corn syrup...... *ANY* arguments about the health effects of Foie are absurd. Forget about the meat and oil in a steak sandwich, just the 4 oz of cheeze whiz is far worse than 4 oz of foie gras. 3. PRIORITIES of Philadelphia government ....(In order of importance....emphasised redundancy) Duck Liver Consumption High Scool reform Cop Killers/Murder Rate Second Hand Smoke Homelessness Prison Overcrowding Crumbling city road infrastructure. Alleged municipal corruption.... Corporate flight out of the city... More to come.....

Hilarious, I love the logic at city hall....

Please tell me this isnt true ?

I call the duck... Let me get this right ? They claim that the health department gave them a fictitious report A "detailed fictitious report" which somebody went to great lenghts to make up. Why ? makes no sense ? Such detailed reports require someone who deliberately doesnt want to do thier job by making up fake reports, thats pretty scary in the health department. If you believe that excuse you posted, then I have to tell you about a bullet that passed through a tree, made a left turn, passed through Governor John Connelly, made a 180 degree turn and ended up in JFK's head and subsequently disappeared. Also logic dictates that the source discovery of inacccuracy would be the "alleged" offending restaurant so phone calls were obviously made by someone.

How are you going to market sous-vide to home cooks when the health department doesnt even allow restaurants to do it anymore ?????? Isnt this the very worst case scenario ? At least, most of the pros are more aware of the dangers ? The health authorities seem to disagree with you since conventional cooking rarely generates anaerobic pathogens ? Isnt botulism quite serious ?

Of course the report is gone...... Did I nail it or what ? I figure a lot of pissed off advertisers oof Philly mag including Starr wouldnt be too happy about seeing their restaurants trashed... How funny....

um...... Hot water or at least warmer than cold water tends to dislodge soils much better than cold water especially since a lot of hand contamination in restaurants may involve viscous components such as residual oil and oily substances. Certainly the soap and vigorousness of hand washing is important but heat, (while not up to sanitizing temperature which would clearly burn your hands) at lower than boiling temp also dislodges dirt better.

Bincho -Tan is the rectangular shaped japanese smokeless charcoal used for Authentic Yakitori. It's a pain in the ass to find in the USA but you can buy it in New York. Searing heat and beautiful flavor. I smoke salmon now and then. My preferred method is "Scotch smoking". Cure salt and/or sugar rinse. Dry under refrigeration till pellicle forms on surface. Cold smoke. Control smoke box temperature to bring salmon natural oil to the surface. Submerge in vegetable oil for 24 hrs. Remove, dry and slice. I modified a hot smoker I bought online to cold smoke, its pretty easy, just have to build a remote smoke generator so no heat is transferred. I also let the smoke pass through a grate filled with ice cubes. Perfect and ends up costing 2.95 a lb as opposed to 19.95/lb

Quite welcome Jeff...... I have always believed cooking salmon any other way kills not only the flavor but also the texture. The *only* other better way I have ever had salmon is significantly more complicated, however if you are looking for a good challenge....... It involves giving it the "Matsuhisa" treatment ......AKA......"Saikyo-yaki" Charcoal grilling after that...ROCKS. slow roasting is also awesome. Marinate 3 days in "Saikyo-Miso" and then finishing on a japanese grill with "Bincho-Tan" charcoal. It's much easier to accomplish if you are in New york as none of this stuff is availble in philly.

The "CRITICAL VIOLATIONS" are the particularly egregious violations which may "directly and imminently" make customers succeptible to FBI's that is why they are given highest priority. In fact, it is absolutely possible that most restaurants were not inspected due to simple mathematical analysis. Lets say philadelphia has 10 food inspectors (for a fact I know philadelphia has less) If each inspector visits 5 restaurants per day which is completely implausible since you could not do a thorough inspection in under 3 hrs (assuming they work an 8 hr day). Also keep in mind that the phrase "municipal/city employee" and the word "expediency" are rarely used in the same sentence. The most any inspector can do is 2 restaurants per day that means 20 inspections per day. 5 day week equals 100 inspections per week. 51 week year equals 5100 inspections per year. 5100 hypothetical inspections per year. compare the number of establishments that serve food in philadelphia to 5100 and you will quickly conclude that clearly not every food serving establishment in any city is inspected every year.

You see mike, I would agree with you except after reading between the lines, one can establish the difference between an isolated incident and systematic lack of training or proper food storage. Its one thing to say ther are mice droppings in the basement but in the case of a place like Washington Square with mice droppings in the actual dry stored food (according to the report)...then No I would absolutely not eat there again. I dont buy that "all restaurants have mice" theory therefore it's ok. I realise it's difficult but for the amount of money these restaurants make, there really is no excuse for not having an exterminator come over once a week for about $50. That is 4.5 drinks in the average Starr Restaurant which would happen if the Continental was open for 45 seconds. I cant blame restaurants for being nonchalant if diners dont care. If we can put human beings on the moon and bring them back, we can keep mice out of restaurants ...that is IF we want to.

Yo Bryan.... So far the most creative use of Activa I have seen besides WylieD is Alex Tabot. Check out the Fish with "Crispy Chicken Skin" at "Ideasinfood" Gives a new meaning to the term Chicken of the sea. Also Shelfish Spaetzle.

I just spent about 2 hrs reading the report in detail. It's quite devastating for some of the Starr restaurants. People have always theorized that the Starr restaurants had a cozy relationship with Philly mag, clearly that isnt the case after you read the report. I wonder if this will affect the magazine's restaurant advertising revenue. The Continental, Washington Square and Striped Bass reports make me never want to eat there again

I now realise how stupid the initial silly challenges were. I am almost convinced the wine guy eliminated last week would have cooked something more imaginative with actual top notch ingredients. As to the wine, its one of those low availability California cultish wines. I have had it,Its good but it isnt up there with top burgundy. Most of the price is based on demand/availability

As previously mentioned, wings and feet will add enough gelatin to your stock. Gelatinous mouthfeel in your stock isnt absolutely critical unless you are making consomme. By the way, cooking chicken stock for longer than 2 hrs is a waste of time in my opinion After 2 hrs, it doesnt get better, it only gets worse. It gets murky flavour and it no longer is the clean broth it should be. Bring to a boil, simmer, skim, 2 hrs done. Chicken bones are fairly porous and cook out in less than 3 hrs. IN fact a 2 hr chicken stock that is drained and subsequently reduced by half withouth the bones and vegetables tastes much better than the same exact stock cooked for 4 hrs.

I feel so strongly about this I would absolutely stop shopping at whole foods or patronise the movies of any hollywood celebrity who tries to tell us what to eat. Its a shame I dont have the time or technical knowledge......... I wish some foodie computer whiz would start a website /blog of people, organizations and celebrities against foie gras so I can know who to boycott. and the Pope ?????? Oh it's ok to sweep the cases of thousands of sexually molested children by priests under the rug BUT...... We gotta save those ducks...!

I dont know that it makes ordinary salmon taste "better" however slow roasting properly executed allows you to taste unnoticed Nuaces of salmon cooked by traditional methods....in my opinion. You can find KING at the markets, strangely I was at Reading terminal, Citarella and Chelsea market yesterday and found KING salmon all 3 places. 1lb of Salmon = 16 0z. That's one big ass piece of fish. Please note that if you intend to portion this piece of fish, you should do it before you cook it and quite frankly before you cure it. If you try to cut it after it flakes, its a mess as opposed to a clean raw slice. ALSO..... Huge pieces dont distribute cures evenly. I would do it in maximum 8oz pieces. 1.If your oven is preheated and the fish is from the refrigerator, estimate 20-25 minutes. 2.If your oven is preheated and you bring the fish close to room temp for about 15 minutes before cooking 15 to 20 minutes....based on your appreciation of sashimi. (best method). 3.If your oven is not preheated..........preheat your oven and refer to #2. 4.If your oven does *not* have convection, add 5 minutes to cooking time. The Acid Test of slow roasting.... If the white milky proteins are leaching out of the fish. its getting overcooked. Cheers

an 8 oz filetActually that plate of food is spread out visually to make it huge. Its an 8oz filet cut into several pieces. A huge pile of shoestring potatoes which cost like 5 cents and some spinach, it's reflective of the fact that many of the dishes at buddakan philly have useless fillers to increase portion size. You should see the chocolate pagoda.

If the "Tasmanian Ocean Trout" is actually caught of the coast of NZ/Australia/Tasmania and it is genetically the correct fish and isnt raised in fish farms in massachusets/rhode island........then no that isnt a case of hype. That actually is a very special and delicious fish which isnt really replicated elsewhere. We are talking about the fish in the TETSUYA cookbook correct ? Um....that fish rocks. Same with BARRAMUNDI and ONAGA, they dont really need to be qualified with geographic location because they are really only found in the relatively same area. My point was that the King salmon in copper river and the pacific are basically the same fish so there is a degree of hype in the copper river season. We all know the fishery world is full of inaccuracies bodering on BS. Most Florida Snapper at the markets arent even snapper at all.... and Chilean sea bass ? lets not even go there. By the way UE, you got some of the best damn pics on the net. I was just pouring through your Flicker stuff. Good stuff RLIBKIND's point I agree with 100%. Transportation and merchandising of fish is key. Sadly consumers want to see fish prettily displayed on top of Ice at 52 degrees instead of covered with it below 40 degrees. Remember DOCSconz's signature line about the sardine and lobster ?