Vadouvan
-
Posts
1,143 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Vadouvan
-
-
Granted, PR and hype shenanigans are expected for super-sceney places but I gotta think they're doing something right to fill a mega space like this…
Because it's new and hard to get into.
Remember NYC is a big place and the fact that any restaurant is mobbed is no indication of mind blowing food. Its the whole experience.
Same thing happened at spice market.
The simpletons flock there in the early months, things cool down eventually.
The harder you make it to get into, the more people want to come.
-
I bought some king salmon (fresh, wild, but I doubt it's Copper River)
Diann, Pacific King salmon is just as good as Copper River King Salmon.
Both are excellent fish and in a blind tasting cooked the same way, nobody can consistently guess which is which.
-
Your slow roast sounds like an absolutely delicious way to enjoy the salmon, but I'd hesitate to flat out state it's the "best" way. Grilling works, too
Bob, I think its the best way for the KING salmon because it allows you to enjoy what you are paying for, the fat content and unctous texture. Nothing wrong with grilling salmon, its quite good but its a completely different texture from slowroasting.
Grilling subjects the surface to high heat which gives that crispy exterior and you get a grade in texture to medium rare, although that crispy crunch is tasty, for me its dry and you are going to have to eat it pretty damn quickly because the heat that it takes to do it right continues to cook it after its off the heat. Grilling is in the range of 400 to 600 degrees depending on grilling medium.
Pre-cured slow roasting however is done at 225 degrees, no more
The initial curing draws out excess moisture and firms up the fish.
Slow roasting then texturises it just to barely flake and then you can really taste the flavor and texture you are paying for........"In my opinion"
I have no idea if it was king or sockeye.Sockeye will be a really deep red color, has a lower fat content than KING which makes it not nearly as tasty, think of it as Angus VS Wagyu Beef.
King is lighter, bigger fish cross section and fattier.
What kind of curing do you recommend?Evan
Again in my opinion, lengthy cures and dry spicing ruin the fish for slow roasting.
Mix together.
1/4 cup of Kosher or Maldon salt
1/4 cup Superfine Sugar not powdered 10x......superfine.
The zest of 2 large lemons, removed with a microplane, no other tool.
Rub your boneless salmon filets with this mixture.
About 1 tablespoon for every 8 oz of fish.
Top with one fresh bay leaf and wrap tight in plastic.
Refrigerate for 2hrs max.
Rinse of fish, dry well with lint free cotton or food grade paper towel.
Rub lightly with high quality EVOO.
Bake in a 225 degree oven till it just flakes and no white liquid (coagulated proteins) are oozing out of it yet.
Works great with Char,Ocean Trout, Mackrel, hamachi.
Cheers.
-
Unfortunately, Devon Seafood is unbelievably mediocre and a waste of money.
The best way to enjoy copper River Salmon is to order it online and cook it yourself.
Virtually every restaurant overcooks it.
Best way to enjoy it is slow roast, 225 degrees F after a brief Cure.
And that is Copper river KING not Sockeye.
-
It isn't even a question of 'the rumor mill'. Susur Lee and Angelo Sosa were advertised as consulting chefs. It was in the pre-opening promotional material. I'm sure they were each well compensated for their efforts. They had to know what they were getting into with Starr and I'm sure he wasn't paying them for their anonymity.
ultimately at the end, Susur lee has nothing to do with the food, he just had "discusssions" with them. I guess Starr learned his lesson after the Marcus Samuelsson disaster.
-
I don't know if I'm alowed to reveal who the menu consultant was, but he is legit.
Nothing secret about who the consultants were, it isnt exactly GPS coordinates of US troops in Bahgdad.
At various times, they used Angelo Sosa and Susur Lee was also involved since we saw him in Philadelphia. That being said execution is more important long after consulting chefs are gone. Apparently ,they did not like Susur's food according to the grapevine.
I think Bruni generally detests huge Asian restaurants so i am going to have to agree with the 1 star prediction.
The food is mostly fun, but surprisingly complicated.The food isnt complicated, it just has complicated presentations, The pekin duck for example was overpriced and not nearly as good as what you would get in chinatown for a third of the price.
Megan is correct, it just seems there are better places to eat in Ny
Good Food
Pan Asian Food
Chinese Food
Whatever.......
I did not regret going there, I just would not go back for food, the drinks are great.
-
Anyone have a mail order source for this, or better yet a retail source in NYC?Why is this stuff so much better than regular pure Vermont or Canadian maple syrup? What does the barrel aging do for it exactly?
People used to ask why is the miles davis a much better horn player, the answer was you had to go see him live.
Get the syrup and taste it, It pretty much speaks for itself.
Johnder, I have been using the stuff for a long time, contact Tyler Gray at Mikuni mushrooms.
www.mikuniwildharvest.com
Even better than the maple syrup are the cured roes.
Try the Maple or sake cured steelhead roe.
cheers
I also had it here :
-
I'm sorry to say that in many ways, this all comes back to Charlie Trotter. He lent a lot of credibility to the "anti" crowd's ridiculous arguments about foie gras and I believe that if it were not for him, we wouldn't be facing this news today.
Trotter Boycott anyone ?
-
Then it goes to describe a pasta dish served with truffles, oxcombs and duck testicles. Batali charges $30 for it.
"Cockscombs"....That wierd thing on the rooster's head...yuck.
-
Do you think it was dreadful because he wasn't there? Or is the Vegas DB just not a very good restaurant?
The answer is B, it isnt a very good restaurant.
I had a totally mediocre meal there and at Bouchon vegas.
Fact is most vegas "cheffy restaurants" are just soulless hotel licensing deals to capitalise on the name and fame of famous chefs, I have no problem with that, that is capitalist America but more often than not, it results in Mediocre food.
You can get a better Idea of Boulud's food philosophy in New York.
Chefs dont have to be in thier restaurants for the food to be good, that's the whole point of delegation, hire good people who understand your standards and expectations and the rest is academic.
-
This is a great thread but the fact is at the end of the day, plates of food in restaurants are never going to be patented besides in a certain hypocritical way, arent all the supposedly "molecular gastronomists" in the US copying Ferran Adria/El Bulli ?
I mean really isnt that the pot calling the kettle black ?
So what if someone else served a lobster piece and bisque in a pipette, isnt it all copied from el Bulli anyway ?
I could very well be wrong, if I am someone please explain to me.....?
-
Not that I agree with it but the bread knife cuts both ways.....
A lot of "prominent" american chefs are ripping off foreign dishes too.
Rather than waste already exhausted legal infrastructure on copyrighting plates of food, I just think the obvious shame generated by such blatant copying is enough punishment.
-
Ultimately my point was supposed to be in a general sense.
Perhaps I did not explain it as well. Lots of people on the internet are predisposed to take philosophical disagreements as anger. Most times I am on e gullet, I am sipping my mojito somewhere in an outdoor restaurant on wireless internet.
First of all, I have a deep respect for TK/FL/PerSe but there is also a lot of romance and hypocricy about the restaurant business. I wasnt focusing so much specifically on Keller but It just happened to be the subject this time.
My point was...........
Food writers, professional and amateur sort of want to convince the public that "that's just how restaurants are written about", I dont always expect the main protagonist chef owner to be actually cooking my food, thats not the point, the point as Philadining said is that doing play by play details of a dining experience by referring to a particular individual who is actually on another continent at the time is a cop out to justify creative writing and quite frankly BS.
Its clearly not universal because I just ate at a bunch of Gordon Ramsay restaurants.
Ramsay in the UK is as big as Keller in the US.
They seem to credit the chefs running the restaurants.....
Jason Atherton at Maze
Angela Hartnett at Connaught
Marcus Wearing at Petrus.....
so i guess its a new york thing, the world ends at the Holland tunnel.
I know the food will still be just as good if the chef owner is not there, clearly this logic doesnt extend to Japanese restaurants......I mean really.....
Why cant I write on my blog that I ate at Sushi Yasuda's bar and Yasuda San did this and did that but Yasuda San wasnt actually there ??????
The sushi wont be any worse but anyone who has eaten there clearly understands the added value and humor of Naomichi Yasuda actually making your food.
If anything the sausage incident at Per Se is counter productive for the Kell-o-philes to credit to Keller.
I bet you he never touched the sausages and clearly from the blog, it wasnt up to a "Keller" standard. Obviously someone in the restaurant effed up the sausages but that doesnt reflect anything about Keller except that despite the best intentions, things arent always made to his standard. He should not be blamed for that.
I think FL and PS are among the best dining experiences in the world, my issue in the end is the selling of romance and BS to the public. Sure they have a video screen, its a brilliant communication tool, people are selling it for more than it is, far as I am aware, you cant check to see if food is over or under seasoned through a cctv network, absent of steam, you cant even check how hot it is or feel the durometer of sausages.
Yeah Yeah...I know, I am getting too technical but in today's world, details dont matter, we just shovel the BS and hope the public buys it.
-
Agreed, Overtures is the pick.
Meze's food while good is too one dimensional for wine tastings of a broad spectrum.
-
I have to say that the food in the pictures seems and looks rather boring and unimaginative for a 3 star restaurant.
Balsamic reduction, cmon......seriously ?
I hope he Re-arranges his ducks before he tries to serve that food in NYC, he might be in for a rude awakening.
-
NowI know why I never understood british humor.
-
I saw a screen in the kitchen of the French Laundry that I was told allowed Keller to see exactly what was going on in Per Se's kitchen, real time. This implies that somebody wants to control, as best as possible, the activities in both places as minutely as possible.
Is there any time when he is in neither kitchen ?
If so what's the point, apparently restaurant reviews are to be equated with creative fiction, If its ok to write about the chef being there when he actually isnt, why even bother going, we can just read the menu and write the review, what difference does it make ?
actually eating the food after all is a minor detail........
-
Overtures.
-
Well let s agree to disagree, time to move on...
-
This wasn't some mistake Ulterior Epicure made that he needed to be hounded for. He was following the standard procedure for talking about restaurants. You may want to change that procedure -- you seem to feel very strongly about it -- but currently this is how people talk about restaurants.
No one is "hounding" anyone, it's just a spirited discussion, last time I checked, that is what the whole forum is for.
I guess we just read in different styles.
I understand the fact that people may talk about chefs in a general context and trust me, this is the least of my worries.
To write a detailed review about how a chef ORCHESTRATED a specific preparation in a tasting menu when you can factually prove he wasnt even in the country is absurd.
Nothing wrong with saying "kitchen" or "named" sous chefs/CDP's/CDC.
Some people just dont feel like dropping $800 on dinner for two based on the romantic journalism of who is in the kitchen.
-
as if the meal cannot possibly be as good
Its not that the meal cant be as good,it can be as good, its just that many times it isnt.
I dont think the people are simply making the assumption as much as they are reacting to several lackluster meals in celeb chef restaurants.
The fact is this issue is a problem in many restaurants and all you have to do is scan egullet to see multiple postings. I think it's absurd to say this issue of absentee chefs isnt a problem, certainly if people want to worship FL and PS as temples of perfection impervious to mistakes, then fine but clearly this isnt true from at least this thread. I have no problem with mistakes every now and then, that's life...............but cant have your genoise and eat it too.
The minute you step out of your restaurant and one thing is wrong, all a diner cares about is that the food be perfect.
The very least I would hope for a $400 dinner.
Finding the correct casing for sausages isnt rocket science, you would have at least cook one and cut it with the same knife customers use to see it was a problem.
Restaurants should not run like "legal Teams", they should run like "ballistic subs"
Capns always on board...or we arent going anywhere.
-
I suppose this explains why the operative word in food writer is "writer".
I understand that chef owners are in charge but I dont buy the excuse that"thats just how people talk about restaurants".
When Cafe Boulud was awesome, nobody wrote about it in the context of DB's cooking, it was always about Andrew Carmelini. I think people just set a different standard for FL and Perse. Zakarian isnt taking credit for the food at Country, JG isnt taking credit for the food at spice market, Morimoto doesnt even come up with any of the non sushi/non Omakase dishes at his eponymously named restaurant.
And as regards serious major litigation, there are no figurehead "lead attorneys" which is why law firms have practicing partners and senior litigators.
When Merck or Astrazeneca are being sued for several millions, I am dead certain the lead attorney directs every detail of strategy and isnt a figurehead so that may be a not so good analogy.
-
but I'd hope he'd at least seen a version of it coming out of that kitchen.
just a general comment....
Everytime I hear the word "version", the said item always seems to fall short of par.
I would hate to go out on a limb here as I can't speak for ulterior epicure but I tend to think his reference to Keller was likely just a figure of speech.Like Keller's restaurants in a whole and not Keller physically being there. Or at least that's the impression I got
That could very well be a plausible contextual use of but I would disagree since you could substitute the word "Keller" for "Benno"
and then it would not be a figure of speech but a highly likely fact.
-
2. I was not proporting to ascribe anything from my meal personally to Keller. In fact, I knew well before the meal started that Keller would not be in.
ulterior epicure.
Not to be nitpicky...
but you sir said in your blog and I quote..
"If our voyage on the Titanic of restaurants had a near-miss, it was with the “Cervelas de Lyon" - a house-made pork sausage. Keller steered way off course with this little torpedo"
and further....
"Thankfully, Keller managed to mitigate the damage of the wiener disaster with the “melted” Savoy cabbage. The bed of finely shredded cabbage sat in an exquisitely pungent and earthy Perigourdine sauce "
and the coup de gras.......
"Plates cleared, thankfully, Keller found his way back on course and steamed full-throttle ahead with a very redeeming Elysian Fields Farm lamb rib chop."
I have no problem with talented chefs at per se making menu items but the prose and tone of your review makes direct references multiple times to "keller".
Not the cooks, restaurant, kitchen.......Keller.
My point was just that TK probably never even saw them sausages and clearly by your conclusion, his standards are higher than the quote leathery sausages you were served.
Of course per se i s a great place and TK works hard
Copper River King Salmon
in Pennsylvania: Dining
Posted
Legends develop a life of thier own.
It simply is an issue of supply and demand.
While the fish are no doubt excellent, the allure is the fact that the copper river season is short but in actuality, Copper River king salmon isnt any better than the Pacific king salmon that you can get 75% of the year.
A bit of it has to do with PR and marketing too.
Same thing with PEI.
Tons of restaurants say they serve PEI mussels, big effing deal, there are lots of mussels growing all over the place and the Ones from Prince edward island are that particularly special to have a "AOC" if you will.....on restaurant menus.
Pacific Pink Ocean Trout, the wild stuff is actually much better than copper river sockeye salmon.
So it has a lot to do with how the seafood industry markets products.