larrylee

I can't believe that TastiD and Cold Stone "creamery" are even being mentioned in this thread. How awful. If you want to make the Cold Stone staff really confused, insist on getting just a plain vanilla ice cream with no toppings. I was really, almost violently, skeptical of Pinkberry at first, but I've really come to like it, fads and dietary claims aside. The clean/sour taste of the plain hits the spot. It's even better with the mochi topping. Pinkberry on 32nd strikes me as unique as it appears to be the only Korean-owned establishment on that street with not a single Korean person behind the counter. But the thing that really struck me is that a blend is available only in an undocumented "7 ounce" size (or something to that effect). Anyway, I think I've settled on just plain+mochi. I'm not enamored of the other toppings. The no-pictures policy makes no sense considering the front of the store is a sheet of plate glass and the decorations on the right wall seem to be all from Alessi.

As usual, pics. Friday night walk-in dinner in the Tavern room. The receptionists were courteous and downright friendly despite me looking like a complete scrub. The eats: Calamari and carrot salad: We really enjoyed this dish. The addition of crunchy textures (carrots, flying fish roe, toasted pine nuts) made this dish very enjoyable. The calamari was tender, not overcooked. Grilled sea scallops: Nicely seared and slightly raw inside. Really well-executed. The celery root puree (pleasantly sweet) and braised cabbage went well together. I saved the crispy prosciutto for last. Bacon wrapped trout: Maybe this is the same trout that FG referenced earlier. Wonderful taste and texture. The bacon really helps make this dish. I liked the accompanying lentils and kale. It feels a bit like a fall dish. Stuffed meatball What a coincidence, my wife made something like this just a few days earlier. The fontina is wrapped in some "dark green leaf." Maybe it's kale, maybe it's spinach... I couldn't tell at the time (I didn't dissect the dish) and I can't remember anymore. It tastes like a mix of several different meats. Quite enjoyable and flavorful, I didn't think it was difficult to finish. We skipped on dessert and went to Room4Dessert instead. Here's where things went wrong: Bread: Cold. Like "we just pulled it from the fridge" cold. Plates: Also cold. This was most noticeable on the stuffed meatball, when the puree came cold to the touch. Was this amateur night? Bacon wrapped trout: I wish there were more lentils. Lots more lentils. That's my personal preference, anyway. Foie gras: What the... not a lick of foie gras on the menu?! Service: Surprisingly sterile, though functional.

Blah. I finally figured it out. If faced with the prospect of ordering the crab again exactly as it was served last night, I would not get it. Having said that, there are still qualities of the dish that I like, and that I enjoyed despite the scarcity of crab meat and the difficulty I had extracting it.

Take this with a grain of salt, as I am not a crustacean person even on the best of days. I think it's worth getting the crabs at least once. It's almost more about the chili sauce than it is the crab. The crabs... I think there are about five of them, halved, are all very small. Most are female, and there was a lot of roe. More than once during this part of the meal I remarked that these should be considered a diet food, for surely the calories obtained from eating the skimpy amounts of crab meat we scraped out were outweighed by our efforts to extract them. But the net result, a spoonful of crab meat with a bit of chili sauce was, in my mind, really pleasing. Maybe that feeling is exaggerated by the amount of laboring required to work those tiny crabs. The meat itself was sweet and pleasant. This dish is best consumed at an outside table, where you have more room to spread out, and where flinging bits of shell are less likely to hit your neighbors. It's a finger-licking, lip-smacking kind of time. I think it's best ordered as a shared course, unless you bring a serious crab-picking game to the table. With an extra order of bread, this is actually quite filling for two. The chili sauce is also good with the coconut rice. It's got a mild heat to it and grows slowly. Nathan, you'll probably think the level of heat is non-existent. Other items on the menu are spicier. Edit: The more I think about these crabs, the more I think it's strange how little meat was inside them and how hard it was to extract from the shells. I chalked it up to my own crab-ineptitude, but my wife thought there was something strange about the whole endeavour. Maybe it's the cooking method? "These aren't like steamed Maryland blue crabs," she said, tired from the effort of picking the crabs apart. She also thought that the overall sweetness and flavor of the crab meat was lacking. This is becoming a bit of a Waldorf and Statler post. But there ya go. Maybe it's better to wait for the dungeness crabs.

RobinsonCuisine: I did go to Casa Mono's web site. If you went to it, you'd see why I posted this question. http://www.mariobatali.com/restaurants_casamono.html FG: Thanks for the tip about NY Mag. vivin: Thanks for the update. :-)

Jay: Wow, that's definitely outrageous pricing when converted to USD. I guess you're paying for the "swank" factor of the space. I hear there are folks who say Fatty Crab's food is not good for one reason or another... I'd be really curious to try some of the more authentic places around NY, if anyone can chime in... (heck, maybe I'll just IM Pan). I was thinking about the cost factor. If one were able to find this sort of food in the outer boroughs, I'm sure it'd probably be half the cost. I think it's easy to rattle off some of the factors that price this food at a premium: 1) location: stone's throw away from the Meatpacking district, I'm sure rent's not cheap. 2) staff: I'm sure Pelaccio is not hiring his family to work there, which will drive up labor costs. You also get to ask questions and expect a reasonably detailed answer. 3) "exotic" factor. However, I think the quality of provisions is quite good, and I really enjoyed the herbs/greens, which I thought were quite fresh (one thing that really struck me when I was there). Even if expensive, it is an indisputably tasty meal. "Good is good." I'd rather have that than an unmemorable expensive meal. Just thinking aloud...

Ned: I really enjoyed the sweetbreads here. I'm not sure I can add any more than what's already in the pic's caption. The presentation varies. On another night the strips were chopped up a bit. Either way, it always ends up looking a bit like grilled chicken, which I find amusing... but most importantly, I really like the texture and flavor. I like it, I think, more than the "popcorn sweetbreads" at the original Momofuku. I like the char, the salt, the spiciness... in stark contrast to the stuff I tried recently at Landmarc. I'll probably be there again this week and what with all this talk of sweetbreads, I'll most likely order them again. I'd be curious to hear your opinion should you try them.

... There were sweetbreads?? Side note: The menu on their web site is also slightly out of date. The mango salad, for example, does not show on the online menu. The pineapples appear to be... pickled or macerated or something. All I know is that they're good.

I'm not near Union Square, so in the hopes that someone's been recently... http://www.menupages.com/restaurantdetails...staurantid=5170 Anyone know off-hand if the menu posted on Menupages is still current?

Pics. We went tonight around 5:30. In contrast to oakapple's post #13, our meal was actually of epic length, somewhere around 2 1/2 hours. I think the second hour was taken up by tackling the order of chili crabs (blue). It was a little strange that we had more claws than there were crabs. My wife wondered aloud if they were frozen, saying "if the claws aren't attached to the crab, then there must be a reason, and it must not be good." (We should have asked, but we didn't, being so tired from scraping out the crab meat and roe. Regardless, the meat was sweet and enjoyable.) I suppose there's a reason why they came out last. As is the case with small crabs, they're a real chore to eat. Then again, most crabs don't come with this slammin' chili sauce. Ned's post #23 is correct - the bread hardens and is a bit tough to eat by the time you get to the bottom of the crabs. You can get another order of bread (2 thick slices, cut into 4 halves) for $4. The best approach here is to immediately dig a hole through to the bottom of the bowl and begin attacking with chunks of the bread that are served with the dish. What I like about this place, besides the generous use of fat (fatty duck, short rib rendang... both quite enjoyable), is that the food does not shy away from mixing sweet, salty, and sour flavors (green mango salad) like we experienced in Southeast Asia. I'm not trying to endorse this as authentic (I couldn't, I'm not familiar enough with the various cuisines of that region), but it excites my palate. The watermelon pickle and crispy pork is outstanding, as others have mentioned. The pickles are an interesting contrast to Momofuku's. I won't put one over the other, they're enjoable in their own ways. The Ikan Msak Lemak is apparently served with a daily fish. Ours was black fish. The laifun noodle is interesting. It's reminiscent of a thinner, round udon, but is not nearly as chewy and cuts quite easily. It almost snaps. We sat outside and avoided the darkness and din inside. At least on this visit, there was little attitude. The service was on point, our waitress was very helpful and friendly and we even struck up a little conversation about cameras. After sunset, one of the waitstaff came out to hook up a sole incandescent light bulb. It's stark illumination on our cheap plastic dishes, piled up with crab carcasses and cheap metal flatware reminded me a lot of being abroad... minus the humidity. They are serving cocktails, which I suppose means they got their liquor license. It's not cheap. Our meals generally average $50/person. Did I wish it was less expensive? Absolutely. Was it worth it? Yeah. They're still serving the little glutinous rice cakes. No dessert menu.

This is only partially related. Balthazar doesn't have boudin noir on their menu, but I figure it's brasserie-kinda food. I just wanted to cross-reference a post that shows it's very possible to have bad brasserie (or brasserie-inspired) food.

We went for dinner at Landmarc recently and had the following: (details can be found on the menu at http://www.landmarc-restaurant.com/dinner.html) Fried calamari with spicy tomato sauce - The spicy tomato sauce was a nice touch, as were the bits of fried parsley. The dish was acceptable but not did not stand out. Roasted marrow bones - Three marrow bones, served with more of the excellent, crunchy country bread. Hearty, and not something you can find just anywhere. A plus. Foie gras terrine - Reasonably executed, not very thick as mentioned upthread. "It's what you might expect and nothing more." Nothing to write home about. Blood sausage - Sneakeater once said in the Balthazar thread, "It's only brasserie food. Calm down. Try it. How bad can it be?" The interior was too watery. Exterior squished like a water balloon (a disturbing visual), and the casing was not crispy in the least. It really makes the boudin noir at Les Halles stand out in comparison. Major disappointment. Two thumbs down. Rock shrimp risotto - Texture was off, really puts the mushroom risotto at Union Square Cafe into perspective. Another disappointment. Crispy sweetbreads - Not crispy. Overcooked. Drowning in a sauce that was separating. Green beans were overcooked. Wine: David Bruce Petite Sirah, 2004 Central Coast. Tasty, and as to be expected, reasonably priced. We passed on dessert and went to Brandy Library instead to drown our woes (I think the Brandy Library makes a better sidecar than Landmarc, to boot). Landmarc's space is beautiful and the service was fairly good. However, the execution of the dishes was an incredible let-down.

More pics. Things have been busy, photo posting lags. Three terrine banh mi, grilled asparagus, chawan mushi, apple salad. Interesting note: they stopped serving the Maldon sea salt with the bread and butter. When asked, they said that people weren't using it at all. Our server gladly supplied us with a little bowl upon request. Damned diners...

One nit to pick - "comfortable" is relative.

They do have some good hot chocolate. Especially the spicy. I've got tins of it (and Marie Belle dark) at home. :-)

Spicy? It was spicy?

It's paced according to your own speed.

(hopefully we'll be able to power through the rest of the menu)

A couple thoughts, mostly about docsconz's experience. 1) I think the uni and whipped tofu dish has a little too much going on and that the uni is overwhelmed by the other flavors. However, I liked the combination of uni with one or two tapioca pearls and some of the syrupy liquid by itself. 2) I find doc's point about service very interesting. I've never had an issue with service and we've been there with up to four people. To offer a contrasting viewpoint, we've been much less formal about things like serving spoons. We just dig in with our own utensils, cooties be damned. This is second nature to me, but perhaps it's not what other folks expect. 3) Doc also brings up an interesting point about the relative value of individual dishes. I find that that going in with a party of four lets you sample a really large number of dishes and pay only $40 per person. The value proposition is best when spread out over a number of dishes. 4) Jackets and such are normally stuffed into the long window that's near the kitchen. That space will fill up in fairly short order, and we've never found it to be a problem to just sit on our coats or stuff our bags under our seats. Nor did we find the benches or stools cramped or uncomfortable. In no way am I trying to reflect negatively on doc's experience. In fact, I think his contrasting experience provides excellent data points for setting expectations for subsequent visitors. 5) sucio: "Well gee, the banh mi was great but certainly can't beat the 5,000 dong banh mi I had in downtown Saigon. So good in fact that I had three at it was still less than a buck." Sorry for the snarky comment, but can you get a similar array of dishes on MSB's menu down at the banh mi outlets downtown? Sure, you can get similar pork buns (but not berkshire) at a number of restaurants in Chinatown, too. This goes back to point 3, the value proposition. Lastly, I'll probably be down there tonight around 10 PM if anyone wants to meet up.

What? What is this about? I would love to hear what he was saying. ← A rerun of A Cook's Tour is highly unlikely given that he and the network split on basically very tumultuous terms, as outlined in the endnotes of The Nasty Bits. The reason why the Ferran Adria episode ran as a separate show (and not part of A Cook's Tour, and why my DVR missed it... sigh) is because it was supposed to be episode 1 of season 3, and Food Network wanted him to stop traveling to overseas destinations and cover things like tailgate barbecues.

Agreed, the oyster/kimchee consomme was the biggest disappointment on the menu for me. I'm glad to hear it's no longer on the menu.

Ssam is on the dinner menu but it's still that hybrid burrito-type thing. I just had bo ssam at Cho Dang Gol and for $30 it was quite tasty. Oh right, I have to post about that somewhere...

FG: I posted the Ollie's story upthread in post #10. :-P Megan: We crossed the picket line to eat at the uptown Saigon Grill. Actually, it was late and there was no picket line. The place was packed as it always is. Also: The delivery guys at the UWS branch seem to use scooters. There may be bikes, too, I can't recall.

Sorry...

"Driving that pipe down ducks' throats." Now that's just trolling. http://www.mensvogue.com/food/articles/200...currentPage=all http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/dining/1...agewanted=print