gingersweetiepie

i think its great and really speaks to freaks like me, who want new information every second of the day as opposed to stuff lumped together once a week. i do fear, however, that it may go the way of eater, which i think tends to really reach for news sometimes. we'll see...

as a woman who likes to be wooed, ditto on annisa. love the room, the menu, the lighting, all of it. love love love 'ino but if money is no object, then i'd save it for another time. maybe brunch the morning after... if you're lucky.

edit! i just realized i shared too much information. but on the topic of dim sum, i'll skip CB for frozen gyoza at m2m any day. for now, CB is waaaaay too sceney. and anyway, my heart breaks for brunches past at time cafe.

spicy as in a blinding red bibim naengmyun or spicy as in the yellow-mustard-in-the-broth kind? any shards of ice in the dish? nothing better than when it comes with the granita-ish ice in the bowl. and have you had at it at dae dong, where it's a signature dish? the only place that serves naengmyun near me right now serves them undercooked and chewy. makes me want to cry.

The latter, for sure. Notice that David Chang had never claimed to be on a mission to convert people to Korean food (at least I don't think so). The dishes are his own - and Joaquin's, his partner - and they just happen to use Korean ingredients from time to time. Hell, momofuku isn't even a Korean word. My personal issues with MSG aside (see ssam thread), I think it's totally impressive that someone can open a tiny spot and make anything he fancies. To categorize the food is useless; it's not Korean and it's not American and to throw it into pan-Asian is also wrong. It just is what it is. Very few chefs can pull that off, especially in New York right now.

you're right, guys, i'm sorry. it's all lies because i'm that bored. i never said that people aren't allowed to enjoy what they enjoy. what's the problem here? why am i being challenged on personal experiences and opinions?

oy for god's sake it's in some of the other dishes too. and why does he use it? my guess is because he can? and because he, who is the chef, likes the taste? it certainly doesn't mean that we all have to agree. again, this natutrally ocurring argument is hooey: tomatoes aren't what give my friend massive stabbing headaches. what i find ironic is that most asians and asian chef i know these days like to stay away from msg while the american chefs i know embrace it for a kind of novelty factor. i hope the trend is one that dies, because momfuku certainly isnt the only hot restaurant that uses it. anyway, claudia, if you're going to eat at either momofuku, get anything BUT the ssam or noodles. it's the market or special meat dishes that are fabulous. sweetbread nuggets, jesus christ. the pork buns are okay if you ask them to go easy on the hoisin sauce. they're that signature dish that, if you miss them, people will nag you about forever. it's not THAT hard to get a table if you go when dinner starts. if they're slow in the afternoon, they'll even do takeout for you.

Admin: Discussion merged in from a thread on Momofuku Ssäm Bar. not to start a war here or anything, but if msg is not a big deal, i don't see why two people are challenging my claim that it's used at the restaurant. why would i make up something so stupid? anyway, i don't have the exact issue on hand, but it comes from the source himself (that would be chang) in an old food and wine article. msg is cheap, synthetic and unecessary in making food taste good. if you like it, more power to you; splash it on everything you eat. it gives others a wicked headache, though. as for it being naturally occuring, you have to admit that there's a difference between eating a tomato and adding synthetic powder to your food. i'm just saying.... and this is a random hypothetical example, but it's like raving about tia pol and then finding out that their secret is goya sazon. thanks in advance for respecting a dissenting voice.

yeah i take it for what it is... overhyped. casual food using quality product. tasty. fine. but the shameless worship i see for this place is just plain weird. i'm convinced that someone at ny mag has a crush on david chang. it's food i'd pay for if i was in the neighborhood; not a destination restaurant. also, i think it's a shame to pair high quality meat and locally sourced ingredients with MSG. (and with pride!) if ssam follows through on serving stinky cheeses and other kinds of good stuff during its late night hours, i look forward to it. but i'll pass on the burritos.

not italian, and more andy nusser's joint, but batali co-owned casa mono. organ meat city. the most delicious offal in nyc, in fact. the small space is bearable at lunch. in fact, you can probably get a seat in front of the line and watch your meal be prepared. if you're sharing, perfect, because everything is sort of small plate-ish. sweetbreads are decent, oxtail stuffed piquillo peppers are good, too. the croquetas are always perfectly fried. cocks combs are affordable enough to get just for kicks. love all of the seafood dishes. heard there are some new plates on the menu which i haven't has a chance to see or try. if you go, please report back.

thanks. i'm still very wary of such a practice but still unable to say why. i come from a place where its just drilled into you: freeze nothing. it's a guiding rule that many probably wouldn't disagree with, but it still makes me a blind sheep. it's important to understand why we do things; if i have no answer for the guy's question (see above), then i have no business training anyone in the future.

through the course of my brief pastry career, i was taught dinstinctly different things when it comes to ice cream. one chef made ice cream bases with half and half, claiming they could be melted down and rechurned indefinitely without affecting texture. a second chef taught me that heavy cream bases could be rechurned up to three times without a problem; i disagree. chef #3 says she had no opinion because ice creams bases were to be made, spun and served within the span of a couple of days. she used zero stabilizers but served ice creams that sat in the freezer for up to a week. the final chef froze whole pints of cream before even making bases (to which i laughed, and then quit) during a conversation, someone asked "if bases can be melted down and rechurned, why not make bases in bulk and then freeze them to be thawed and churned as necessary?" i was stumped. freezing heavy cream is a no-no but i had no answer for freezing cooked, unspun ice cream base (not that i'd do it anyway.) any ideas, opinions, answers?

eleven madison park is *clearly* all the rage right now, why not give it a go? le bernardin, adny, daniel, etc..., while obviously well-established and respected, feel 'old'. if i had the money to blow i'd go try some new talent. quick, before he goes the way of rocco...

warm wishes and many congratulations on the good news. =)

i believe it was gina depalma (pastry chef at babbo) who said that nj blueberries were superior to anything else, but i have to disagree. id sooner buy iqf wild blueberries from maine than the ones at the market. as daniel mentioned, the peaches can be iffy too. got a beautiful fragrant ripe one the other week but i spent some time picking it out. from past experience, buying them in bulk for service, i've had to ripen them in brown paper bags to awful results: mealy shriveled yucky things.

i might be wrong, but i believe tri-star is the type of berry. the farm that sells them is berried treasures. franca tantillo runs the whole operation and she's super friendly - towards the end of the season she takes the not-so-pretty berries and makes sorbet with them. they're the next best thing to fraises de bois, which you can't find in new york. smaller and plumper as opposed to slender. flesh is crimson right to the center. its the only item is flip for in new york greenmarkets. however, those purple peppers look awesome. photos of the final product, please.

very sorry to veer off topic but just my two cents... when i think of gramercy tavern, i don't think of colicchio as being involved at all. that's like praising/blaming bourdain because you loved/hated your steak at les halles.

There definitely was a time when this was the case, however many arrests and scandals later it doesn't seem to be. ← Mr. Shaw, with all due respect to your knowlegde of the industry, it'd be naive to say that corruption in minimal. In fact, corruption is what makes this industry work, from not reporting tip money to hiring illegals to yes, paying off the health inspectors. What I wonder is why people are so afraid to accept this and instead justify everything with ridiculous explanations. And just to bring this back to topic... I still don't care much to wait on line at SS next to the cracked out vagrants who hang around Mad Sq Park. Maybe the city should spend less time cracking down on restaurants and do something about the guys in the park who take craps in public.

agreed. the rules are ridiculous and the language of the violations is very vague. no, we are not allowed to have open beverages in a kitchen. yes, technically, we must unwrap, re-wrap and re-date every little thing we take from our fridges. and yes, someone like danny meyer will make sure that the next inspection is passed. however, i still stand by the original statement that 140 is a HORRENDOUS score. you simply can not score that high because the inspector is having an off day or because a few things are left uncovered. all this said, i've eaten far dirtier things - soup from bowls washed in dirty basins on the polluted sidewalks of vietnam comes to mind - and enjoyed them very much. but i'm never going to pay to wait on line all day for an overhyped piece of ground meat. half of the reason shake shack is so popular is because it's that paradox of haute-fast food: the burgers are somehow better because we associate them with ushg. take away the name and you're just paying for sloppy food cooked by sloppy people in a sloppy kitchen. i'll take corner bistro over that any day.

interesting tidbit of news from eater today: http://eater.curbed.com/archives/buzz/buzz_institution/ shake shack scores 140 on its health dept. inspection, a huge failure. having once worked in a horrifying, disgustingly filthy kitchen that PASSED its inspection (i'm talking cockroaches, brown liquid dripping from exposed pipes onto our work surface, unidentifiable crust everywhere, etc...) , i shudder to think of what the hell is going on at SS.

Hae Mool Soon Dubu. My greatest Korean comfort food next to dukkboki. Depending on your access to Korean ingredients, it's very easy to make if you miss it badly.

bar crudo (that would be barcrudo.com) might be a good option. as the name would suggest, it's raw seafood-heavy, but they have cheese plates and a couple of other plates that aren't fish-related. it's tiny - a la casa mono fer sure - and there's an open kitchen where you and your pals can monopolize the bar. a tip about desserts. the story is that they give you exquisite chocolate truffles at the end of your meal but you have to ask for them.

Seriously, someone must have been... Maybe a source for a menu? Their website isn't working, I was thinking about going but I'd like to have a little more of a specific idea of what I'm in store for... ← The website is up but is pretty low-budget for now. You can download the menu but you have to remove the pdf extension and open it was a word file. for some reason it was uploaded as ".doc.pdf".

i am currently lounging around in my pjs, on the couch, eating a box of max brenner chocolates which my boyfriend just surprised me with. i'm officially a stereotype. anyway, they're just lovely but vosges remains my favorite. not crazy about the mint chocolate because it's too reminiscent of chewing gum. the dark chocolate with orchid didn't strike me as flavorful at all. for those misses, there were a couple of real hits. dark chocolate cream with wildflower honey was very sensual. and dark chocolate praline with cornflakes was amazing- love the crunch! and if it means anything, i really dig the packaging and the entire aesthetic of the shop. the graphics are fun and do a good job at saying "buy me because i'm so f'ng cute" must brush my teeth and run a few laps now.

I say you leave them. I once developed heaps of recipes while working briefly for a restaurant. Not just tweaking but developing things completely from scratch. They wound up in a major cookbook and the food was developed and put on the shelves of major supermarkets. I didn't see a dime for any of it. Some might call me stupid but it didn't bother me as much as you might think it should. A better example: I once worked as the exec pastry chef of a hotel. From day one, I was handed a binder of recipes to use; I was given very little creative freedom or license to tweak. When I asked what made his recipes so special, he boasted that he took them with him from his last restaurant. He claims that because he had put more work into his last restaurant than anyone else, and because management didn't understand his vision as a high quality establishments, he snuck out with anything he could: recipes, purveryor files, equipment. I'd like to hear if anyone respectfully disagrees, but I became seriously sick to my stomach. I saw it as slimy and I handed in my resignation shortly thereafter. 80% of the staff went too. His actions generally reflected his overall character. It's very hard to trust or respect someone who boasts about and justifies theft. Again, I left any recipes and menus I had proposed to him without feeling protective about them. Besides the fact that he's barely literate, he just doesn't have the skill to execute. (In a beautiful act of karma, one of my former assistants later went into the staff computer and changed the proportions of the recipes to sabotage the chef. Talk about loyalty.) This is definitely your call. I know what it's like to leave a place with a bitter attitude (see above), but it did feel better to take the high road.