larrylee

John, Just to complete the thought, I'm holding both groups (Farm Sanctuary, Center for Consumer Freedom) at arm's length, giving neither any more benefit of the doubt than the other. As you say, I guess one has to read the extremes and draw one's own conclusions.

I went to the single showing of "We Feed the World" tonight at Cinema Village, which placed me near Saigon Grill's Union Square branch. Some pics below. The protestors handed out leaflets, banged on a small drum, and clashed some cymbals while chanting "Boycot Saigon Grill!" It was loud enough to hear while standing in front of Cinema Village.

Burger King Shifts Policy on Animals

From Eater: Ollie's Workers To Sue Restaurant Over $1.40/Hr Wages

Damn, I just choked on my water. Raji, your "U" key is stuck today or something? :-D

You've left your options really wide open, so... Rolando's Carribbean Food (213 W 35th st, back of the Blimpie's). They close a bit early but cheap and delicious. You can carry your food over to the park in front of Macy's and eat there. If that doesn't work, try the sushi at Norimaki across the street (224 W. 35th Street). Personally, I like going for the hand rolls. You could walk further west to Keen's steakhouse. Or for Cuban, Havana NY (27 W 38th St ), between 5th and 6th. There's also ... well, all of K-town, roughly bounded between 32-35th, between 5th and 6th aves. Burgers and Cupcakes is west of MSG, not far away (458 Ninth Ave). Gray's Papaya is at 539 Eighth Ave, at 37th St.

Raji, google has zero references to wafuuchuuka. Care to elaborate?

Regarding the reservations gauntlet - for the heck of it, I dropped in one day to see if I could get a dinner reservation a few days ahead. The receptionist called the reservation number using the house phone (I guess the bookings are made somewhere else... maybe a quiet office) and handed it over to me. I got my table (albeit early) and the whole experience was extremely pleasant and took all of 3 minutes. u.e.: And about bar dining - As sneakeater and Nathan mention, bar dining is great for dining solo... in addition to the times when you want a meal at a "fancy" place without having to plan ahead. OR if your planning ahead fails to secure the table you want.

Three Fish Walk Into a Bar... from today's NYT, with some recipes. It covers a cooking class that Robuchon taught at L'Atelier and describes the papillote de langoustine au basilic in detail. (edit, edit, edit...) As a refresher, here's a close-up of the papillote. (cough - though now that I've switched from the print-friendly view back to the full article view, the image included in-article is probably better. :-D) Here's a longer shot from ulterior epicure.

While we're on the topic of water, Cinema Village (here in New York) will be screening the following film on Wednesday, 3/28 at 7:30 PM. Here's the message I posted about it in the NY Calendar topic. Others may be interested in seeing if this film is playing around you.

Heh :-D

The gestation crate comment made me pause - so I dug a little deeper about the "Center for Consumer Freedom." There's little love lost between SourceWatch (part of the Center for Media & Democracy) and CCF. SourceWatch on CCF. CCF on the CM&D Wikipedia on the CCF. And finally, it's a little weird that the letter-to-the-editor that Farm Sanctuary investigator David Cantor wrote to the Kansas City Star can't be found in their archives, nor is a link to that story referenced within the activistcash web site. That said, it's clear on Farm Sanctuary's web site that they are very much against any form of foie gras (which is my primary gripe about this news item).

There's an op-ed in today's NYT about Puck's action. Aside from the amusing comments about letter writing and the ban of foie gras (including the following comment from a friend - "News flash: Wolfang Puck thinks he matters"), I was thinking that the other points about humane conditions for animals were well intentioned. Like the op-ed states, I believe that most people in the US are "appallingly ignorant of how their food is produced." Meat does not come from the farm in plastic wrapped white foam packages. However, note this curious passage: Funny, the banning of foie gras is the FIRST line item in the nine points outlined in post 1. Not only that, but there's no distinguishing artisanally produced foie gras versus industrially produced foie gras. Couple that with link JohnL provided at the bottom of post 11 and... man, that really gets my goat. Liver. Whatever. It just goes on and on and on. However, there is one passage that caught my attention. I can't help but think that sows have somehow figured out how to move without rolling over and crushing their piglets. Anyway, perhaps New York should ban Wolfgang Puck. Can we get that on the ballot?

Owen, John: Some thoughts based on your posts (not to be considered as a thorough response): 1) Where to draw the line? That's just one of the many decisions every business owner is entitled to make. Alice Waters doesn't run an empire of restaurants so I think the "underlying business motive" point is minimal. She just decided to make a stand for something she believes in. I don't think she expects a stampede of people running to Chez Panisse just so that they can have a meal without being offered the option of bottled water. Honestly, it's hard to imagine what sort of positive business effect that declaring foie gras has on any dining establishment. Will more animal rights activists begin dining at French bistros if they ban foie gras? Did Charlie Trotter see a rise is receipts? *ding* But of course. It's not a rise in receipts. It's the absence of negative press. It's stated directly in Post 1 of the Wolfgang thread. There's a difference between making a decision for something you believe in than being coerced into it. Note also that there are probably no small artisanal water producers or age-old culinary traditions being endangered by this action. 2) Donating profits from water bottle sales sends a message, but to me that's even more disingenuous, like those "Dine out for hunger" promotions. One would make an even bigger impact by donating directly to charities highlighted by these events. Anything else is tantamount to buying those colored rubber bands and thinking one has done something truly meaningful. 3) For the reasons listed above, I think the integrity behind her decision is more sound than that behind Puck's. And water's a bigger issue than most people think. A quick google for the percentage of drinkable water on earth shows that about only 1% of the Earth's water supply is potable. Couple that with a growing population and increasing pollution and we've got a huge problem on our hands. 4) About the red herring comment - What I meant is that despite the end goal of Pollan's book, I think the points are still valid for debate, but your comments seem (to me) dismissive of the idea that bottled water has its drawbacks. You don't have to believe in pulling water from your own backyard well to try and make wiser (for sake of argument) decisions about where you get your water from. Which takes me back to the Puck issue... but I guess I'll address that back in the Puck thread.

It's amusing to note how the ambient light decreases over the course of the photos.

JohnL, If you read any of the messages further upthread (such as message 26 you would see that the bottling and selling of bottled water has such extreme effects as diverting entire sources of water at the detriment of the local population. There is a further impact regarding the plastic bottles it comes in, which are recyclable but are more likely than not thrown away. One might argue that the bottle situation is no different than for any other drink found in the beverage case in the local deli. However, most people aren't making their own teas, sodas, and juices. Here's an article from Bloomberg last year that mention's Pepsi's revenue growth at the bottom: If you filter out purchases of imported water, there is a growing population of people who buy a bottled, marked up version of what's coming out of their tap. Now granted, there are people who live in areas with crappy water... but what about everyone else? The "go back to an agrarian society" argument is a red herring. This is more about making informed decisions and understanding and accepting their ramifications. Heck, I buy bottled water when I'm out on the street and forget to bring some with me. I'm not going to hang myself over it, but I at least try to minimize the times that's necessary.

Well here's the tapioca and uni dish at Momofuku Ssam. Reminiscent seems a bit of a stretch to me but...

Nathan, the URL you used above sends people to the Gama thread. I think you want this one instead.

I believe "rou" (or the sound that would be made by those letters) means pork, so that sounds a lot like New Yeah's "tong-po pork." The description is spot-on (as matched by this picture). I'm glad you mentioned it's on the menu because I came here once earlier and couldn't find it anywhere. I should have just asked for it. As for how they make money on it, it's probably not Berkshire pork!

By way of contrast, I tend to enjoy my food more when I know more about it.

Agreed on Cafe de Bruxelles. The service is a bit slow-paced so don't go if you're in a rush. The bar area offers more interesting seating than the rest of the space. It seems they have a fairly broad selection of Belgian beers, too.

A bit of a tangent but this comment on (px) this is awesome for comedic value.

I'm with doc on this one. Everything's laudable except the ban on foie.

For posterity, Varietal is the focus of this week's NYT restaurant review.

General thoughts: 1) If the hot cycle in the dishwasher doesn't kill enough bacteria, and the surface is non-porous, can you wipe the board down with a bleach solution? That should get it about as clean as one could hope for. 2) A bar towel works but if you really want the board to stick, use some shelf liner like this (link for some random shelf liner I found on Amazon).