Gabe Q

Hi. I'm in a bit of a dilema. I'm in Spain right now so I have direct access to both of Paco's books. They are both 140 euros I think. I have looked over the 2nd one only. But I hear people talking a lot about the first one as being more complete. I have money to buy one of them, so if I have to choose, which one if better and more well rounded in terms of content and recipes??????

Thanks for all your imput. I've decided to give one of the more basic Nesco dehydrators a shot. It is purely for amateur purposes and so I think it's better to not get too complicated starting out. But I do want a stand alone unit.

I personally haven't seen the moment when the "raisins" are breaded and fried so I'm sot sure as to the exact composition of the tempura batter. But I've made the raisins a lot though. Because they used to have the same raisins, along with 2 other type of "raisins" for an anchovy dish that is no longer on the menu. Now they are using just this ones for the oyster dish. That is one thing I've discovered here, is that they usually use their garnishes in different ways for more than one dish as they take them off the menu.

That's right Doc. Right after posting the reply I realized you had already said it was Pedro Ximenez!

The pineapple fries are just 10.5cm long sticks of pineapple that are freeze dried. They are room temperature. The consistency is hard to imagine if you haven't had it. It has a somewhat dry rubbery feel. And for the Meringue course that Doc says he doesn't remember very much. It is a quenelle of carrot sorbet made a la minute with liquid nitrogen. And then tossed around little bots of carrot meringue that have been dehidrated.

The oyster yogurt course is an oyster cream that is measured to 25ml and put into the glass with a syringe, then the yogurt foam is put over it with a siphon, and finally some lemon zest on top with a microplane. That course goes out with what they call "raisins" in tempura. The raisins are small spherifications of a type of wine I can't recall at the moment. Then we cover them in sugar for about an hour, then take them out and clean off the excess sugar and then the tempura is applied.

Doc is right though. I have never read anywhere that Ferran or Albert Adria use the termn "molecular gastronomy". The only chef that I think I've directly heard refering to his cooking as that is Wylie Dufresne in an interview and Sam Mason mentions it in his website. Although Wylie also refers to his cooking as "new american". It's funny how these labels work. It is just how it is with music. Someone comes up with something new and there is a cult following of it. Then it becomes bigger and the whole lot of imitators come along and then the originators want to distance themselves from it as much as possible and deny ever being a part of it. In the end I don't think anyone will ever come up with a universally used term so "molecular gastronomy" will probably stay. Still I support Magnus on his arguments as I have been at The Fat Duck and think Heston is one of the true pioneers.

Hello. I'm starting to get very interested in doing some experiments at home and among my many appliances I want is a food dehydrator. I searched over amazon and found mainly 2 brands. One called Nesco which had a lot of models and Ronco. The Ronco one had bad reviews plus it looked pretty cheap. The Nesco ones had great reviews and they had a wide range of prices, from units as low as $40 to over $150. Does anyone know if those Nesco ones are good, or is there any other brand/models you would recommend for home use under $50???? Thanks.

I do agree Doc, Alinea is definitely up to par wih many of the top 10 places. I'm sure next year there will be a big jump for them.

Hello. Well I've been doing searches on the consumer forums and haven't found anything specific on this. I have read the food saver topics which is part of my interest. But now what I want to know is where can I get as good affordable water bath for my home kitchen? I did some reasearch on google and got some websites, mostly from Europe and they never quote prices, so I have no idea what they run for. I would want either just a individual water bath or a bath/circulator that you can attach to the top of a stock pot. Preferably though the stand alone water bath, just a small one. So does anyone know of a good source here in the USA and any actual prices?????

Congrats to ALINEA for making their debut at the World's Top 50 for 2007 at #36. For such a new restaurant and considering the other places on the list that is a big honor.

This seems to be THE year for Noma. Just recently like they mentio0ned before, they got the 2nd Michellin star. And now the new World's Top 50 list was released and they were the highest climbers going from #33 in 2006, to #15 in the new 2007 list. Congrats!

All your suggestions look very good indeed. Thanks and keep them coming. I will start my planning now.

Hello everyone Right now I am here working in Spain in Roses near the south French border and in about a month we will get 5 days off work. So I am planning to do a little trip to France since I've never been there. Now my idea is just to take a train somewhere from Barcelona a stay a couple of days there and have one good meal at a michellin starred restaurant. So I was seeking advice as to what area is really worth visiting in southern France that has a very good restaurant to go to? I'm basically staging (working for free) here in Spain so I don't have a lot of money to blow away, so something not too pricey would be what I look for. Thanks.

I am curious about something. I've heard a few diferent people say that 2007 is going to be elBulli's final season. Now I don;t know what basis they have to say this or if this is a rujmor that has been going around for years. But does anyone know anything about this or has heard about this for 2007???????

I am planning to go eat at Celler de Can Roca in a few weeks. But their website has hardly any information. So I have some questions for people who have eaten there. I read the whole topic and some have ben answered but they are sort of old answers, so if you have any current info I would greatly appreciate it. 1- I saw they close sunday and monday, so do they do lunch on tuesdays????? Because of my work schedule here in Roses I can only go tuesday for lunch. 2- What menu options do they have and what are the prices??? 3- Do they sell their cookbooks right there at the restaurant???? Thanks for any imput and look foward to posting my eating experience there in the future.

Hello Just wanted to let everyone know that Sam's personal website has been completly updated, here is the link: http://www.sammasonnyc.com/ It includes a whole picture section on the test kitchen for Tailor and plating of a lot of dishes and things to do with the restaurant design., Very interesting stuff. Also the Tailor website has been launched, although it is basically just a homepage with no content added yet, that link is: http://www.tailornyc.com/

Yeez, how long does it take to put up a website?!

Thanks for the replies so far. Yeah unfortunately I don;t think I could make it somewhere too out of the way from orlando. But I have realised I won't find exactly a type of place like what I am asking for in terms of molecular gastronomy or big tasting menus. But are there any other more casual places that stiill make innovative good food??? I just want to find a nice place to go like on a date and that it is not just typical hotel tourist food like so many places here in orlando. Thanks.

Hello everyone I's curious to know if anyone knows how Aquavit is doing these days??? I remember some time ago it was regarded as such a good place and everything and now it has luike comp-letly fallen off the map. I heard some chhefs left, I am not even sure if Sammuelsson is still there???? I recently went to stage at some places in Denmark and it seems that they have a pretty bad rep in Scandinavia. Where I was they laughed when I mentioned it and told me that Aquavit has nothing trully scandinavian except the cured salmon. Their website also is terrible. I don't think it has been updated in like 2 years. Anyways if someone has any updates on them I'd be interrested to hear about them. Thanks.

I think the meals times do vary somewhat. They have several options on the menu. Like they have lunch menus with 2 or 3 courses. Those are rather quick. I am pretty sure they also do just one seating per lunch/dinner service. But some people do take longer depending on their menu option or how much they want to sit around drinking their wines and stuff. Like at night I noticed they started seating at 6:30pm until about 9pm. So some people were leaving like they said in the post above at almost 1am.

Hi, glad you enjoyed the review. I am not sure if they were recently in Gourment, I missed that. But I hear that they may soon be featured in a big article in Food and Wine magazine. Maybe the February issue. I am keeping an eye out for that.

Hello New update on Grub Street's The Launch website. Topics include some information on new dishes, how they are receiving feedback from chefs and friends, annd some details on the restaurants building. Link here

Hello everyone. Just a quick note to say that there is a new article on the New York Grub Street coverage about the launch of Tailor. The link is here. He makes reference to the financial aspect among other interesting things. Check it out!

Hello Well I am going to be working for the next 2 months in Orlando and I want to get familiar with the restaurant scene there. I am a lot into the new wave of molecular gastronomy, howhever I am not positive that any such place even exists in Orlando. So I also wanted to know, apart from that tyope of cooking, are there are other high end places offering tsating menus?????? Thanks for the help. Gabe