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theisenm85

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Posts posted by theisenm85

  1. In passing I should credit also the Left Bank chain, which offers something along these lines, though has shown limitations.  Several meals of different sizes at each of following locations produced consistent high results at the San Mateo site in the young instant-village complex there (northern analog of SJ's Santana Row).  Good results at the older, Menlo Park location; spectacularly and relentlessly inconsistent results at the Santana Row (SJ) location which however has a beautiful setting with outdoor dining in good weather, arbor with outdoor chess area adjacent.  6-8 meals that location.  For a business dinner where we brought in wines, server brought glasses to the table and it fell to me to point out that they were covered with dust and greasy fingerprints.  Large meeting and dinner for a well-known international food-wine group, with European dignitaries, was a comedy of service errors.  But random visits for a glass of wine, onion soup, delicious apple tart have been fine.  Strange tension between the menu cards, pointedly in French, and the servers, who have sometimes not been able to pronounce much of it.  (Why not either train them, or translate the menus to the more practical, local, language, English???)  And then a highly respected Bay Area chef stopped there, ordered the offered sauce Béarnaise, received a Hollandaise, remarked at the difference, and had server argue to him that it was actually a Béarnaise.  (Malaise!)

    I've had only bad experiences with Left Bank, however, I've only been to the one in concord.

    Frozen onions in a Coq au vin, burnt goat cheese tart, mild food poisoning.... Mediocre food another time... I'm done with the place.

  2. So glad to hear it went well!

    A question from a serious home cook with no professional experience...

    How meticulously do you plan prep/cooking for the event/keeping things at temp (if applicable)?

    When I'm doing something that is 1) important in terms of guests I want to impress or 2)recipes that I want to test down to the minute, I write schedules that are crazy meticulous.

    Do you for professional gigs do the same sort of thing, or are you, as a professional, comfortable enough in your head with what you need to do to only have a loose outline of what needs to happen?

  3. I intensly dislike watermelon.  And all melon.  And especially fruit salad with those sherbert-colored melon balls for breakfast at restaurant in the Holiday Inn.

    Pretty much exactly the same for me. Beyond that I have some likes and dislikes, but no real issues with anything. I think I'm coming around on watermelon... I try to eat it when I can.

    I haven't gotten much into the world of fermented things/stinky cheese (other than wine/beer/liquor and things of that nature). My nose/gag reflex is a bit strong for stuff that smells strongly for the most part. I'll try anything... even if I'm 95% sure I'm not gonna like it. What if I get surprised?

    Edit: It was really eerie that someone had the exact same food issue that I do on the first page...

  4. Out of curiosity... do you know if you were doing an extract or all grain style brew?

    I'm curious as to the types of grain. If you didn't want an alcoholic ginger beer, you could use mostly specialties with not base malt or mash period (or extract), but if you did... you'd have base malt, (2-row or pale malt of some sort) or extract in the recipe.

    Just trying to discern the character of the recipe, it'd be fun to have ginger beer around for the people scared of good normal beer, or for whatever. It'd also be good to have a good recipe on hand.

    Also, when you added the ginger in the process could help

  5. The suspense is killing me!

    How did it go?

    To be 100% honest, I was worried about the cocoa as well. To me, themes are welcome, but anything larger than 2 dishes, or a trio in one dish seems dangerous... not that you aren't talented enough to pull it off... but unless you're around super openminded eaters, you never know what they'll think

  6. In 2008,

    I will eat better on an everyday basis but worse (better) on special occasions

    I will make 10 classic dishes from 3 largely different cuisines.

    I will find a fish guy and develop a relationship. (for the fish people)

    I will learn to make homemade stock and always have some on hand. (I know "how" and that it isn't particularly hard... just haven't had the time to take the plunge)

    I will teach someone to like something they've refused to try.

    I will read Elements of cooking, marco pierre white's book "The devil in the kitchen" and at least 3-5 books on brewing/fermenation science

  7. Hey theisenm-- welcome to the thread.  You work for a LHBS?  You've still got good hop inventory?

    Yep, I'm with the guys at morebeer.com. We did get some of the "sacred hops" (cascade/willamette) in. Don't know how much of it is gonna be available to purchase individually, but we should have a good stock of stuff for kits and whatnot.

  8. All this cost me about $50, is this roughly what you folks are paying in the US?

    Is that 1 or 2 batches?

    At the store I work at, the average for 5 gallons of extract/specialty grains/yeast/hops is about $30 US. Generally goes up for higher gravity beers, not as much with hoppier type beers.

  9. I had never really heard of Loiseau, only having just gotten interested in food/cooking/restaurants just about the year he died. I picked up a copy of Chelminski's "The Perfectionist", and really enjoyed his story (Save the end of course). Didn't 100% love the writing, but I can ignore that for topics I want to learn about.

    As a result, I've now become interested in getting a cookbook by Loiseau. It looks like they're all in French from my research so far, and out of print to boot. I have no problem with it being in French (unless someone knows of a good English translation), but I'm having trouble finding them, and for affordable prices if I can.

    Anyone know of a source or way to get these? Am I just crazy and some are still in print?

  10. I agree. While the act of publishing may mean that the authors won't mind if it is copied, they may very well mind if the idea is claimed as one's own. There is a term for that and it is plagiarism.

    I'd say that the only part that is copyrighted is the actual photo. The ideas conveyed in the photo are fair game.

  11. Not so in Vegas based on my experience. Salmon rilletes bland, fries an abomination, profiteroles icy and completely flavorless. I think Michelin nailed this one.

    Same here.

    I was only able to go once since it was a road trip, but my server at Bouchon: Vegas was an only slightly amusing asshole.

    I don't use that term lightly. I at one point considered pulling him aside and tell him to cut the ****.... and I wasn't even paying the bill.

    The food was ok.

    The beef tongue sous vide was almost 1 star, the roast chicken was maybe half a "star", and the espresso pot de creme probably between 1 and 2 stars.

    At an average, since both savory dishes were below 1 star to me, didn't merit a star.

    Especially when the service was just annoying.

  12. I'm taking my girl out for our 6th anniversary... money is tight however. We both like food/aren't afraid anything (myself anyway, but she's pretty good), wanted to know what some eGulleteers thought some of the best eateries were in SF for your dollar.

    I don't want anything that's gonna be significantly over 30$ a head... someone has to do quality food for less than that, right?

  13. Thanks for the wise words...

    However, I'm a new brewer, and kind of feel like I need to break a few rules before I follow them. And the cider has been fermenting a week already, sugar added. Down to 1.03 gravity, everything going well so far.

    I promise that if it turns out horribly I'll follow your advice forever =D

  14. I don't know that I'd really latch onto a certain dish for a cuisine per se....

    But if I really wanted to test a restaurant, I'd probably try to order the simplest, most classic seeming thing on the menu.

    In some places, that's the roast chicken, in others, it's other things.

    I guess the theory is that if they can still have the care/thought to pump out a good "boring" classic/simple dish, the rest of the food must be decent.

    I somewhat recently tested this theory at Vegas:Bouchon.

    I ordered roast chicken.... It was decent, but not great. Not quite the level of moistness I might have expected, and the flavor wasn't anything that wow'd me.

    And the server was a total douchebag.... I don't use that term lightly. I was expecting Keller-style service, and this guy couldn't stop talking or veil'd insulting.... I half considered pulling him aside and telling him to cut the ****ing act, and I wasn't even paying the bill.

    I suppose that could have colored my perception, but I'm pretty sure I left the restaurant with a correct impression of the food being great/decent on most fronts, ( a sous vide tongue salad was quite good) and my server a really freaking annoying anomaly.

  15. Thanks much!

    I do have a hydrometer, I guess I just brainfarted on the equation and didn't think to look it up.... >.<

    To clarify: I found a brand of cider, don't really know what apples they're from, have yet to test the gravity.

    Wish me luck... I'll probably go with closer to 8-8.5% optimally since this is mostly for the GF who loves cider... but isn't a huge hard liquor fan. I figure if I'm gonna be storing it though,I should get some control over how strong it is =D

  16. My apologies if I should have put this in the Wine Forum...

    I'm setting up to make my first batch of hard cider. I found a brand at the local supermarket that seems convenient, pasteurized, no preseratives,

    "organic" apples as the only ingredient. I bought one to test it out, tasted pretty good. Seemed a bit better after a couple of days, but that might have been a flawed perception.

    Anywho, I'm wondering if I need to add sugar to the cider/yeast going into the fermenter. I'm not really sure how to predict the final alcohol percentage, but I'm hoping for around 8-10%. Most of the things I've seen predict 6ish% with no use of sugar.

    Any advice?

  17. I like molten...

    As in how Ruhlman used it in his description of how to make his Fried Pork Belly Caesar.

    Once the interior is molten pork fat..... mmmmm (Also, in this case, I don't mind the phrase food porn... give it to me baby!)

    I'll second (or third?) authentic. It is or it isn't, but the fact that people need to categorize it that way makes me doubt the authenticity from the start.

    This isn't really a problem with a word per se, but the connotation/use of the word recipe has gotten pretty out of hand these days. It's become hugely over important. I suppose "Secret Recipe" is my real pet peeve. Cooking is cooking. What separates Eric Ripert and Joe Schmoe Me ain't secret recipes. It's veritable universes of cooking skill/knowledge. He could teach me every last one of his "recipes" and I wouldn't be anywhere near his league. Same with everyone else who is more or lesser abled at cooking.

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