Vadouvan
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Posts posted by Vadouvan
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You're free to not return but to suggest that your experience invalidates those of other visitors (namely Laban) is a bit logically inconsistent.I'll put it this way: if the bell system means anything, to equate the food at James with the food at Gayle is absurd, simply stated. And I mean "equate" in the sense that it's as well-conceived or well-executed.
Again, James is doing good things but it doesn't deserve three bells or the five-bell prose it got in its three-bell review.
um...
Am I missing something ?
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Interesting.
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Interesting.
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My wife and I had dinner there tonight and we were dazzled. $75 per person with wine, tax, and tip. 9 plates. Absolutely fabulous. I think the meal was above us, so good I am sure we missed a lot of what the chef was trying to do. I am especially proud because I do not think NYC has even one fancy Spanish restaurant.
Perhaps this might convince you
http://www.menupages.com/restaurants.asp?home=Y&cuisineid=60
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One thing that I find a bit disappointing about all the press Osteria's getting is that very little is mentioned of Jeff Michaud. While Marc is terrific and certianly is the front-man of the Vetri empire (for good and obvious reasons), Jeff is the chef at Osteria and deserves to be credited for his immense contributions to the restaurant's success. Not one mention of him from Bruni and only in passing by Laban.
True.
But the dining public is sophisticated enough to know that one person cannot be in two places at once.
Chef's inherently run this risk by working for other chefs whose profiles overshadows thiers.
It all filters out eventually.
I think Michauds contributions are duly noted.
In fact he was in a big spread of 10 chefs to watch in philly 3 months before the restaurant opened.
It's about teamwork, PR works itself out eventually.
Benno does for keller.
Alex Lee did for Boulud.
didnt hurt thier careers........
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am almost loathe to mention this, but are we certain it wasn't Chef Garces new baby in the restaurant? He and his wife had a son not too long ago, so it's possible the baby was "staff", so to speak.
Katie, that would actually be worse, it's one thing if a restaurant allows a couple with a baby thats loud. If the owners consciously allow their own baby to be screaming among diners coughing up high $$$$$$, they should be comping your meals. I seriously doubt Garces would do that.
Here is more on the story......
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Should a restaurant allow a couple to slide out a chair, clip a boster seat to the wooden table, and plop a squealing 9-month-old down to join them -- and the rest of a small, crowded dining room -- for dinner? Let's say, for this exercise, that the restaurant is Tinto. Discuss.
Sorry I am being harsh Michael.
But responding specifically to your query, there is no discussion on the finer points of taking babies to tiny intimate or finer-dining restaurants.
The answer is simply no.
Get a freaking babysitter.
Not to generalise but parents with new babies tend to have this absurd sense of entitlement to infringe on the dining experiences of other patrons just because they had a baby.
We did not choose to have a baby, they did and thus there is no reason for us to be subjected to thier shrieking kid.
If you can afford Tinto's prices, you can get a baby sitter.
I would ask the manager to move them, or move me or I leave.
I would put up with it if I chose to eat at chuck e cheese's.
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1.Gas
2.Electric Coil
3.Radiant Heat
4.Induction.
Induction happens to be the most efficient but it requires steel (magnetic) pots and doesnt work with copper or aluminium.
You can bring the same volume of water to a rolling boil 3 minutes faster on induction than any other heat system.
Partially correct bruce.....
Mauviel pots have excellent thermal transfer without any claddding. In conventional methods, the differences in heat transfer as so marginal as to be irrelevant so cooking surface becomes the issue for me.
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Several years ago Cooks Illustrated did a taste test in which the top saffron was from PA.
It was sold at some point at the RTM pennsylvania general store.
The full article can be read here but you will have to sign up for the website.
At least it is free for 14 days.
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/login.asp?...asting&iseason=
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Matt you probably are correct re: location.
Parking is a problem but that assumes that most people are driving.
Remember what may be approachable to you or I isnt to the general population.
In fact they are approachable the issue is communication and controlling perception.
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Stainless steel the best cooking medium?
I've been led to believe otherwise -- that aluminum conducted heat faster and cooled down faster.
Yup....you were mislead.
Aluminium also reacts to acid foods unless you cover it with that grey crap that calphalon uses.
It's garbage.
Stainless heats evenly, has lower acid reactivity *AND* works on all 4 currently available cooking surfaces unlike aluminuim.
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Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all of the other places you mention -- except for Dean and DeLuca, which has 14 outlets in five markets, including my hometown -- in New York, and only in New York?
That is simultaneously irrelevant and exactly the point.
Dana Cowin is in New York and thus her frame of reference is in New York.
Basically everything revolves around New York.
Magazine articles, James Beard Foundation, Conde Nast and all the other magazine owners,Food Network, Food in America is about NEW YORK.
If you are not New York, you need a trump card (no pun intended)
Chicago has Grant Achatz, Rick Bayless, Tramonto and Gand, Trotter, Paul kahan, Homaru Cantu, Graham Eliot Bowles........I could go on and on.
Napa and California has better produce, Thomas keller, David Kinch, Michael Ciramusti, Michael Mina, Gary Danko, Alice Waters,Ludovic Lefebvre, Paul Bertolli, Nancy Silverton....and the list goes on.
Philadelphia Has Georges Perrier and Marc Vetri.......done.
There isnt any other chef nationaly known in the food community.
Basically every city in America has to prove to New York that it is worthy.
I dont like it any more than you do but that is the deal.
Philadelphia and Pa as a whole ARE underrated.
You just have to look under the surface.
The effing French Laundry was buying it's smoked salmon from a guy in Doylestown and actually had by specific name on the menu "BLUE MOON ACRES MEZZA ARUGULA" which i believe is buckingham in freaking Bucks County.
Reading terminal market is known worldwide and is on the list of famed markets that have pictures of each other, if you go to the Borough market in London, you will see a picture of RTM, aint no place in NYC on the leeeest....
Do you know anyone who has ever won a Beard award who did not cook the Beard trustees a free dinner ?
It's Quid-pro-quo, it's bullshit.
We dont need as a city to suck up to that, we just need to continue to quietly evolve.
Declaring Philadelphia the next great food city is actually the worst case scenario as opposed to a quiet revolution because what will happen is the real estate owners will price the independent creative restaurants that might actually open out of the market and you will continue to get BYO's and Starr restaurants.
Do we need another Perrier restaurant 4 blocks from Brasserie Perrier ?
Do we need another Starr restaurant 1 block from Barclay prime ?
Maybe, maybe not but we sure are getting both.
The only issue I take with Dana Cowin's article is the whole Maverick Chef thing.
I like her very much by the way and I certainly understand her point but the qualification of maverick chefs as those using lab equipment and Alginates seems a bit muted to me.
The fact is that the word "Maverick" refers to independent thought and uniqueness and not the evolution or repeckaging of the specific ideas of others.
While the case that cooking Sous-vide has become mainstream can be made and has been used for years, the specific use of Sodium Alginate and Calcium Chloride for encapsulation and spherefication is uniquely a Ferran Adria-El Bulli concoction and anyone in NY or Chicago who uses alginates to make anything is simply COPYING the Adria-ElBulli creations.
Nothing about that makes any chef in the United States a Maverick as specific instructions can be found in the El Bulli cookbook.
At the end of the day the real question is does it taste better ?
In most cases it doesnt even taste as good.
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I agree with V that the use of language on the menu at Gayle is a little weird, though a diner wouldn't necessarily have a chance to notice if he/she never walks in the door
Website, you dont have to walk by the restaurant.
http://www.gaylephiladelphia.com/
Even the case can be made that the omission of cooking method is a problem for me.
I would order crisp sweetbreads but not stewed or poached.
Having to ask servers twenty questions just makes meals far too much work and time for me.
Just an opinion.
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our time has just not yet come. instead of feeling disappointed, we should be glad that we got a nod. anyone who writes travel pieces can't possibly hit ALL the spots in a three page spread. i am stoked that she put some effort into it at all.
it would have been great if she had talked to more chefs, though. get the low-down. who's doing what, etc.
what we really need is more of what april white wrote about a few months back in philly mag about the process of diners stuck in a rut and therefore holding back the chefs who are bleeding to cook differently but can't because everyone wants another burger or bowl of pasta or filet with mash....
This is a great point. Ultimately the article was positive and we should just be happy that it was not a slam. She did concede that there are more places she wants to try in Philly as opposed to NYC which probably isnt true but still illustrates an attempt at being contrite regarding her previous opinion.
Regarding how Dibruno's is "all we have" or how "it has to be everything to everyone", in fact those two statements are partially true. In most other cities there are several options for those kinds of stores, we have dibruno's and whole foods, other cities may have Dean and Deluca competing with Fairway, Citarella,Agata and Valentina,Zabars, Balducci's and so on.
Philadelphia cannot however support all those places. The cost of opening Dibruno brothers also forces it to sell a lot of overpriced and borderline adequate prepared foods thus those shopping for specialty ingredients have to avoid it between 11.30am and 2 pm since the lunch crowds are crazy.
Sure we do have farmers markets but most of them are completely overpriced and even the amish deceptively sell products that are procured through standard distribution channels as opposed to farms but we automatically make the connection becuase our brains mentally translate thier outfits into intergrity of authenticity which is a complete fabrication half the time.
Organic or not, there suimply is no reason but greed for any apple to cost $1.50.
I disagree with the population density argument. Stephen star fills all of his restaurants everyday, that is a lot of covers. Sometimes I have heard of 45 minutes to an hour wait for melogranos, i am sure the food is good but 45 minutes standing on the corner good?. Yet I also here that Ansil and Gayle have trouble sometimes filling the dining room. That my friends is a shame and poor showing of support for two widely regarded chefs.Matt
Starr restaurants arent full all the time, Washington square for one has as much mental stimulation as watching a ball of tumbleweed roll by in the New Mexico desert.
Regarding Ansil and Gayle, part of the reason both arent as full as they would like to be is that both chose the wrong way to control public perception of who they are and what they do.
In Gayle's case the menu structure is silly. It uses cryptic language that makes no sense such that even well versed food knowledgable people could read the menu but have no clue what the dish actually means. Translation they keep walking.
Literal creativity may be "fun" to some but using the term risotto and serving anything deep fried is simply asking for abuse. What does chicken "purple and green" mean ?
Ansill also is percieved as a place that specializes in "organ meats" and such. In this case it isnt completely true but in fact the menu is peppered with enough offal type stuff that public perception focuses on the lowest common denominator.
At the end of the day, it was a good article and there is much work to be done.
Cheese steaks and pork sandwiches have been discussed ad-nauseum when it comes to Philly articles. I dont see the omission as a problem.
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i'm just thinking current prices will make the used cookware just as pricey as new stuff. and definetly more expensive than when he originally purchased it.
Bill you are correct.
The weight of a heavy old copper pot multiplied by the current price of copper makes the old pan more expensive than a brand new copper pot of the same size.
Additionally the new copper pot (in all likelyhood) will be one that is lined with stainless steel (which is permanent), and not tin (which erodes quickly).
If you further add the cost of re-tinning (which is outrageously expensive assuming you can find anyone who still does it) to the old pot, the price by the pund becomes completely absurd if you are buying the pots for anything but nostalgia.
Copper is really just romantic, stainless steel is the best cooking medium.
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The answer lies in this book.
http://www.chipsbooks.com/prochar.htm
Yes you can add some cream and even eggs to foie and still have an intensely flavorful Foie "Mousse"
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OK, so I heard they make all their stuff with a machine. Anyone know if this is true and if so where can I get this machine
Jeff.
I believe capogiro uses Carpigiani machines.
Even a small one might be in 5 digits and probably wired for 220v AC.
http://www.carpigiani-usa.com/
If you are determined, the only consumer style of that machine that works well is the one by kitchenaid.
Still a little over a grand.
http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/(4i2heg45...&source=bizrate
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Marigold's brunch totally rocked. Everyone I took there said it was the best they'd either (a) ever had or (b) had in years. Clearly I miss it... but April is around the corner!
Diann
I had a second brunch at snackbar today as in two weeks in a row, went with Rae and DG last week.
We had the Turkey Scrapple with Custard Eggs, Egg Fry-up with sausage and mushrooms,Grits with cheddar, French toast of a brioche-ish nature, tater tots and some thick cut bacon.
Basically you get one dish, One side and one mimosa or bloody mary for $20, a complete steal and lovely outdoor seating.
Absolutely agree with you regarding Marigold's Brunch.
To those who arent aware, the Snackbarons orchestrated the original Marigold brunch and have replicated it flawlessly.
Easily the best in the city food-wise and value-wise.
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I'm not going to name names in a public forum.
I understand if you don't take my word for it.
i have a solution, PM Doc the names......?
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I'm not shocked. My guess is that the "many people who sing the local organic fresh-real food song and dance" aren't bellying up to the bar at Applebees or TGIFridays very often. Why should they care? It's not like there are in-depth threads here discussing the inadequacy of training the "chefs" at Applebees receive. Or how the beverage service at McDonald's has really gone downhill since it went self serve.
If I don't go get drinks at these places, why should I care?
You dont have to care.
The acceptance of mediocrity doesnt exist in a vaccum.
Walk the talk.
Nuff said.
I'm out.
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Lisa is correct, the subject of cooking schools is for another thread but suffice to say Cordon Bleu Paris and Ecole Ritz is for enthusiasts is laughable......
What's shocking about this thread is how many people who sing the local-organic fresh-real food song and dance and agree with this absurdity of making mixed drinks with colored water.....
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years ago the american notion of culinary school was seen by many european chefs as an affront to the apprentice system they went through.
That is simply not true.
How many years ago ?
There have been cooking schools in France since the start of this century.
Cordon Bleu
Ritz escoffier at Place Vendome
Yves Thuries
Fauchon
Pierre Herme
La_Duree
The notion of cooking school was not solely American.
Youngs cooks in Europe trained and apprenticed.
Some may have apprenticed alone but European chefs NEVER saw cooking school as an affront to the system.
Name one chef who did ?
Snack Bar!
in Pennsylvania: Dining
Posted
They stopped serving brunch sundays, not enough attendance.