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?

No, me neither but sometimes they get a bit funny about you smelling it and you certainly can't touch it. I'll try florence meat market but I don't know of any familly type fish stores in downtown new york and also I don't know of any familly butchers either for that matter. Do you?

4 weeks ago I went to Dean and Deluca's to buy a fillet of Mahi Mahi, it looked o.k., no more so I asked the guy working behind the counter when it was caught etc and he promised me it was fresh in , so I trusted him, got it home found out it was anything but fresh, it was inedibly old. I called, got the usuall, sure bring it back and we'll replace it, not much use when your guests are coming round in an hour. Not getting fish from there again I thought, still, the meat counter is good there, so I went again, bought 2 prime fillet mignons, 30 dollars or so, got them back, as soon as I opened them I knew they'd been frozen, they had that smell that beef gets when it's been frozen. Cooked them and guess what, they tasted like beef tastes after it's been frozen. Maybe I'll go back to my old stand by, Citarella I thought, bought a silvertip beef roast, not a great cut I know but I was feeling cheap, it had about as much flavour as a cheap battery farmed chicken. I'll not buy that again I thought, this week when I returned I figured on getting a long island duck to slow roast, one of my favorites, bought one ,16 dollars, just opened it and it's rotten, it's so awfull smelling, it stank my appartment out. It's disgusting so i called, I need to take it back to get a refund, at 6 o'clock on sunday night. I'm appalled generally with the quality of ingredients in New York, the Union square farmers market is great for vegetables but beyond that I'm so dissapointed, I used to think it was great untill I left for a year in London a year and a half ago and found the quality of meat, fish, poultry, cheese, everything there is of a far better quality to what I can get in New York, I fear new york is laghing behind in the culinary world.

I always poach my eggs wrapped in saran wrap nice and slow, add a little truffle oil and salt and man you've got a lovely egg. I've never tasted any off flavours in the eggs.I had one at arzak prepared a similar way (I'm almost sure) it was perfect.

I spend 10 minutes outside of New York and it makes me even more vehement about anything encroaching on New York that could make it any more like the rest of the country.

I quite agree, new york is like a small quaint village full of people you know and who know you if you go at it the right way. Thats one of the things that makes it great.

I find Trader Joes a shrine to absolute mediocrity, frozen proceseed garbage, terrible cheeses, frozen fish and meat? Isn't this supposed to be a website dedicated to the love of food. Trader joes is an insult to it and the fact that this isn't imdediatly obvious to all is more than slightly worrying. Especially when it's right accross the road from the wonderfull Union Square market.

After eating the perfect poached egg at arzak (poached in cling film with duck fat and truffle oil) I tried the technique of poaching in cling film myself. The resulting poached egg was great, definatally my preffered method by a long way, however, I was wondering about the safety of boiling cling film in contact with food. It doesnt melt or give any off flavours but i'm still a little concerned. Anyone know about the safety of this?

I ate at WD 50 last night, had the 10 course tasting menu with the wine pairing. It was amazing, every course was perfect, everything was seasoned perfectly, the fois gras course was the best fois gras I've ever tasted. The combinations were exciting, interesting and worked on both a cerebral and purely sensorial level. The progression of courses was, again perfect. The wine pairings whilst not being really standout wines on there own worked very well with the food and were very interesting, there was barely a grape variety I reckognised. I actually preffered this meal to a recent meal at mugaritz. Wylie is the real deal.