larrylee

Gawker report on Di Fara closing.

http://www.nypress.com/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=89783834 Coverage about the Di Fara shutdown.

Welcome back! Not _all_ American burgers are thin patties. :-) Surely you must be mixing up Won and Yen... that's got to be a 6,200 Yen breakfast, right? For 62,000 Yen you'd better be getting, well a lot more than that!

Le Bergamote. Check this thread for references and tips.

That's gotta be inspired by the Alton Brown's Kitchenaid. Strangely, hard to find pics of it on the web.

I've only sat at the bar of Pegu, never sat at the table. The bar staff are professional and seem knowledgeable about the drinks they're creating. If it's not jam-packed, giving you some time to settle in and get acquainted with your bartender, I'm sure he can recommend something for you given your parameters.

I think the beginnings of sushi were quite humble with zero refrigeration. Apparently it wasn't so bad that enough people died from it, so I guess chefs got along fine without plastic wrap back in the day. ;-) Pre-slicing the fish may have no effect on the taste. But, as you say, if you're eating at a sushi bar and the prep work is pulling out a few pre-cut slices, I think the experience is quite underwhelming. I don't know what the obsession with cedar is. I hope it's not fresh cedar. I'm really not a fan of taru sake, for example. I don't need to feel like I'm repelling moths. On a side note, I always groan a bit when sushi comes with a garnish of lemon. WTF? (Okay, maybe Yasuda and Masa don't do that, and maybe it's not done at Sasbune... just venting).

My wife and I ate there last fall and it was really enjoyable. Great room, great food. The ingredients are sourced from the chef's farm further upstate and other local farmers. It can get loud, it's casual, quite enjoyable. One dish I enjoyed was the "Pork and veal “country style” terrine and duck and foie gras mousse with cornichons and mostarda"

I was going to write about the food but I'm swamped, so for now... pictures. Question: how large are the portions in the ham selections? Would it be ridiculous for two people to order all three and expect to order several more dishes? I rather like the music selection. It was "90's grunge-ish" on my last visit, anyway. It's been a long time since I've listened to Soundgarden while eating dinner and it works in that setting.

Hmm, good point. Here's hoping they'll make the stuff locally.

And finally, speaking of cream of tartar... there's a great description of it in "What Einstein Told His Cook" but Wikipedia explains it as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cream_of_tartar Not that anyone asked... I just thought it was cool. But johnnyd, I'm mostly tempted to say "just slather on the grease and throw it in the oven." :-D

I decided to google rust removers and found this: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-rust-remover.htm Oxalic acid sounded familiar so I looked that up ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalic_acid And then there was this paragraph, which makes me think that I read about oxalic acid in one of Jeffrey Steingarten "It must have been something I ate"... probably a story talking about vegetarians or the raw food movement. Anyway, the first link I found talks about homemade rust removers: It couldn't hurt to try one or some of these.

*sighs* I guess Jan was pulling my leg. Now johnnyd... there's no way you can pull off asking a question like that. ;-) edit: I went to skim through some of Jan's posts and actually, the question could very well be legit. "Cast Iron, just do it!"

The first thing you should do is probably take some paper towels and soak up/throw out most of that grease to keep it from clogging up your drain. Once you do that, you should have very little fat left in the pan and it should brush out easily under hot water. Generally speaking, I think the "danger" of cast iron is that people think about it too much. Back in the day, I bet people just wiped out their skillets (at best) and didn't bother much with "cleaning." Leaving a little fat in the pan (and using it several times a day, every day) is what got the skillets as dark and smooth as an oil slick. This is supposed to be think-free cookware! :-)

I read BryanZ's review from Dec 24 and, frankly, I'm relieved that I'm not the only person in who thinks that the portion sizes of fish served at Yasuda are too small and apparently not the only eGulleter who likes the massively sized sashimi slices at Tomoe. I also agree that it's unfortunate that there are different levels of omakase service. But in a way I guess it's like the situation of going to a Thai restaurant and trying to convince them to make something full-bore spicy.

What's different about the lamb here is that it's actual chunks of lamb, compared to the ground meat spits spinning around on most carts. Now don't get me wrong, I'll still dig into the ground stuff any day of the week, but when you bite into those succulent little thyme-scented cubes you'll know where the extra money is going. The salad is sort of an afterthought. In fact, the salad and the white sauce (or maybe it's just yogurt) almost detracts from the lamb and rice. The salad and sauce are better when mixed in with some of the optional jalepeno-based (?) hot sauce and eaten separately. You can specify the level of hotness you want (little, medium, spicy). You can also ask for extra meat, though the pricing seems variable at best (and the option is not listed on the menu anywhere). The food is served in large plastic deli hot bar take-out boxes that I think are too large and unwieldy for the portions served. I think they'd be better off using the styrofoam containers used by the other vendors. That's the least of my concerns, of course, but after you walk around with that bag for a few blocks you'll see the food gets all sloshed around inside. Or I'm just clumsy.

Two clarifications. 1) The pita at Moishe's is what struck me as strange. 2) At Olympic Pita, if you're going to share then get the platter to go (and then go to Bryant Park, etc etc). They don't seem to like it when you try to share a platter when dining in. I haven't gotten the sandwiches yet, but the laffa sandwiches are only a dollar more than the pita. If you're going to spend $9-10 on a sandwich, I can't imagine skimping one dollar get the unremarkable pita over the laffa.

Trini-Pak: 43rd and 6th. southeast corner, about 50 feet from the corner. Next to a fruit cart, you'll find a plastic tarp around it during the winter. There's a whiteboard leaned up against the west side of the cart. There's no sign indicating that it's the Trini-Pack cart, but there's a man/woman team (husband/wife? I never asked) working it. Kwik-Meal: 45th and 6th, southwest corner. This cart looks like few others... lots of glass, the guys work inside, green sign with "KWIK MEAL" emblazoned on it, lots of media coverage adorning the front. Moishe's: 46th and 6th, currently the NE corner (there's a lot of scaffolding on the SE corner). Ah-ha. As luck would have it, Midtown Lunch covers here along with a link to his review of Moishe's. Speaking of Moishe's, I got a falafel pita the other day. The pita was enormous and pillowy. I have no idea how to judge it, but it seemed... strange. And to echo Midtown Lunch's observation, it was incredibly messy to eat. Kind of hard to run a meeting when eating one of those, let me tell you. The order of fries is LARGE, enough for two or more. Oh, this should probably be its own thread, but on your way from Rafiqi's to Trini-Pak, stop by Olympic Pita on 38th between 5th and 6th, south side, closer to 6th. The kebabs are grilled to order (they recommend the lamb medium-rare, I think). The platter is expensive, weighing in around $14, but it's enough for two. You get a main, two hot sides, a round of laffa bread (think "pita" but insanely better, grilled in an oven in the front of the restaurant), and a plastic container into which you can stuff all kinds of pickled vegetables and some really tasty roasted eggplant. Be sure to get a little container of their hot sauce, with which its red pepper taste is strangely reminiscent of Korean dae da gi. I feel like I've written this before, just can't remember where... The place gets packed like mad during the lunch rush, so take your food over to Bryant Park. But hoof it before the laffa gets cold!

According to the web site they've been around since 1984 but the move to West Houston and Bedford is recent. edit: There's a brief blurb on Chowhound but doesn't seem exemplary. I could be mistaken but I don't recall this place being mentioned in any of the NYT barbecue roundups in recent years (including last week's) NYT has one article that specifically references this restaurant (Times Select, requires paid subscription) under the topic of family-friendly restaurants. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...DA00894DC494D81

It's definitely informative to do a cart tasting along Sixth Ave. During lunch, hit up Trini-Pak (chicken and basmati), Kwik-Meal (lamb and rice), and Any Random Cart. And perhaps Moishe's Falafel. Then wait for the sun to go down and go to Best Halal. If you're more ambitious you can start at Rafiqi's near 1 Park Ave and work your way up/over. That should cover a majority of the most talked-about Halal carts in/around midtown (except Moishe's).

Admittedly I'm straying a bit, but going back to the review of Robert's and Adam Perry Lang... Daisy May's is now running ads on Time Warner Cable. Truly painful to watch.

I hear David Chang is going to start up Momofuku Ssam Cart. There will be waiters giving air kisses and there'll also be strippers who'll feed you. He's going to set up at the car wash across the street from Daisy May's. I can't wait!

Right, you have to show up around or after 7-8 PM. If you show up too early you'll get "whoever is there before the 'real' cart."

Momofuku Ssam Bar on a cart it is not. Just think of it as "really good cart food." The line notwithstanding, it's hard to find a better meal at that price, location, and time. If you decide to go, bring a book and perhaps a refreshing beverage of your own design. ;-) You could try timing your arrival to match the cart but there's usually already a line forming by the time they show up. It's reminiscent of the throngs around Shake Shack, which were enough to keep me from going all last year. But the cart guys are much faster. The line, incidentally, can stretch quite a ways past the western edge of the deli. That's just the point where I decided to start timing.

That's not the web site. That's a fan site. Some pics, not great: kufta platter Best Halal team at work during the Vendy awards back in 2005