woofy

I've had good luck at Artisanal too, always top notch. It is so strange how even some small boutique type suppliers at places like union square farmers market get it so wrong so often. It makes me wonder whether people realise what cheese should taste like. Also, the practise of wrapping cheese in cellophane seems rediculous to me and it's so often done.

Why do I do it? I have to admit, lazyness, I was going to go to murrays cheese shop but i was feeling lazy so I got my cheese from Citarella instead. I spoke to the woman at the cheese counter and asked her why it was that brie often smelled of amonia in America. She looked at me with suprise as though she'd never even heard of that before, such an obvious fault and she assured me the brie they had was of a very high quality so I thought I'd try it, I got it home and can you guess? Amonia, genius eh? The week before I bought some celophane wrapped jarlsberg from the same place and guess, what? Tasted like cellophane. I dont know why I keep going back, well I do, they have good fish and if I'm in a hurry I do try and buy other things there from time to time. They consistantly let me down, I got a chicken there recently, organic, and it tasted like it had been frozen it had that hard to put your finger on kind of taste, very strange. Recently I tried Essex street market as I had heard good things about the meat there, I've never seen such a pile of industrial meat. No idea where it came from, what it had been fed on and no-one was in the mood to tell me. Almost made me want to turn vegetarian, thats saying something. On the upside I have been going to Ottamenellis which has been very good indeed though why oh why do they take the skin off pork over here? The crispy skin on pork really elevates it. I can't help but be dissapointed with NY's food supply.

I've struggled for a while too with the places you mentioned and then went to ottomanellis and was very impressed, I got a killer piece of berkshire pork. With the skin on too, so good. There beef looked great too. Very reasonably priced.

Oh thats too bad, I guess thats why the quality sucks, without a person at the top who really cares. I'm sure I saw Joel Dean in there a couple of years ago telling one of the deli people how to slice meat corectly.

Eye, that's too bad. No I don't think NY is just rancid duck and bad beef, in fact I'm just about to go to 2 of my ny favorites, union square farmers market for some of that great produce and then to union square wines.

It's actually the 9th street and 6th ave. one I go to. With regards to your england comment, how much time have you spent at the good london markets?

There must be something up, I think mr dean and mr deluca live very close to the soho store and I can't believe that they think the store is acceptable, the fish counter is a joke, it's very prettily laid out but when you look at it a little closer the quality is terrible and the fish guy who's usually there in the afternoons knows very little (putting it kindly). The store's always full though, they must have cottoned on, you can let the standards slip, save a load of money and 99 percent of people don't even notice. I'm going to check Fiorelli's out on Saturday.

Yea it's all a bit weird isn't it?

To bring it back on topic, today I opened up the parmesan which I bought from Citarella and it had some mold on it. Nice. With regard to the chickens, battery/commercial farmed chickens taste of nothing and there is quite a difference to a chicken being in a barn together and being in a cage where they can't even turn around.

Hate to say it but the duck wasn't pre wrapped. The fish is pretty good at the downtown citarella I should say, though i've never bought fish that was still stiff in New York. Also I got super amonia smelling cheese from a really expensive cheese place in Union Square market a couple of weeks back. I think Whole foods has a lot to answer for, they are a celebration of sheer mediocrity. Also I find there marketing almost fraudulant, lot's of big signs about local seasonal organic food next to pile's of mango's and pineaplles (in NY). If you shop really hard in NY you can find good stuff I find but if you want that extra level up, the really special stuff your usually out of look.

I think your right there, funny things can happen when defrosting. Tricky little technique you have there.

I hate to say it but frozen beef tastes and smells like... frozen beef, theres nothing really I can compare it to. It's a bit of a funny one. The closest thing to it is it smells a bit like when meat oxidises a little.

I remember that lamb too, also strange little shrink wrapping, I bought some once, can't remember what cut but it was one that was supposedly good for grilling, it was litterally about a pound of fat and half a pound of meat, with it being in shrink wrap the amount of fat wasn't visible.

That flying pig pork isn't bad but it has been frozen which isn't great and it's sold in wierd kinds of shrink wrapped pieces.

Yea, it drives me mad, they think your an idiot if you ask where any of it comes from too. How's the chinatown poultry, free range and organic by any chance?