tan319

But in this case it was not a chef responding to a review, but a chef bashing the behavior of her customers that started the whole thing. I have to admit that I don't care for customers requesting changes all the time. And the crutch is always "in these troubled economic times" we are supposed to kiss the customers ass, no matter how stupid the request. I handle the dessert menu and I don't get hassled about things much at all. But, in a restaurant I was pastry chef at a few years ago, I was running a shortcake type of thing and a waiter would come up and ask if I could plate it with a shortcake and the cream and sauce only on one plate and a shortcake and just the berries on the other.And I told them never to ask for that again.Cause it you let that go, then the sky is the limit. You'll never sell something the way it was intended to be tasted. Look at Craft. As was mentioned, the menu was designed to accomodate all this type of stuff and it was just too hard . I ate there. I thought it was great. Nice way to arrange a menu.'You decide'. Well done steaks, sauce on the side, that's a different thing. Rearranging dinners is another.

Thanks for your suggestion about el rey. I have worked witht them before and while I like the taste, I don't love the way they respond to manipulation. The main thing I was posting about here was the possibility of finding a new distributor in the new mexico area for ANY decent chocolate and related products as my main one I feel could be in trouble.

Thanks guys! Steve , I'll do that. Just one favor though, if you don't mind. How does one properly pronounce your last name? Thanks again!.

Can anyone tell me more about this brand, DGF? I have a dilemma here in New Mexico. My regular pastry supplier is in a bit of a bind I think , and this other distributor is trying to sell me on this chocolate. Also, does anyone know of any distributors in the southwest where I can get Valrhona, CB, Cocoa noel,etc.? Thanks!

Hannah. Don't give up! East coast humidity is some of the worst. Steves place must be a gem. I'm originally from D.C , lived in NYC for a long time too and the humidity is killer. It can't be helping and if you're in a shop I'll bet it's not the most climate controlled place in the building. It's funny , but I was getting all psyched up to start working with chocolate, experimenting w/ tempering,etc, here in New Mexico, one of the dryest climates you can find. And then, they turned on the swamp coolers... Evaporative Water Cooler style air conditioning. Everything is soggy. Tuiles, caramelized filo. It doesn't matter if it's locked up,sealed, silica gel bags everywhere, it's all going to hell. The chocolate work will have to wait. Dehumidifier on the way, can only hope it helps I'm sure that Steve,Michael, and all the other people here will get you going. Good Luck!

I have the same problem and I've had it with records too. I think it's almost impossible to taste (or hear) something and have the same experience as someone who hasn't gone thru the process. You occasionally will get a glimmer of it or every once in a great while the whole thing comes thru but on average I think you might taste 60% of the (hopefully) greatness that's there.

I think 'G' is just doing his thing. Influenced by some but he's running his own game. it seems that music and food have some close parallels. Nothing is going to stay on the forefront forever, grabbing headlines, all over the radio, all over the mags. That's just the way it is. I haven't read anything that seems arrogant by Achatz, just passionate about what him and some others are doing. Perhaps passion and arrogance are separated by a fine line. As far as getting lost goes, I've seen it happen so many times in music, it's not even funny. Height and frills indeed. And most of these people, chefs cooks, and musicians seem to succumb to the same stuff. Bad advice, drugs, booze,and 'fuckin around. Or just burning out. I'm sure you know how hard it is to stay on a roll. Grant strikes me as someone who probably has a great support network and is totally focused on his food. And hopefully he's tuning out all the static.

Everyone is of course financially motivated to some degree or another, but you may be interested to know, if you didn't already, that Adria has some interest in the NH Group of hotels. The website says that he has "joined them" and also that he is consultant to the group. I had heard that he actually has some financial stake in the company. Perhaps others could confirm one way of another. This is in no way intended as a criticism of Adria, but mentioned just to contextualise Spencers comment. I hadn't heard that he actually has any financial stake in the corporation, but that he was a consultant. I've commented on what he's doing with NH in a few threads a while back in the Spain board. Much of his consulting, at least as I understand it, hasn't been in terms of the food and menus but more a conceptual nature about how people use hotels and the integration of restaurants and hotels. We tried to check a couple of places that arose out of his relationship with NH when we were in Madrid, but crossed signals and a short stay there left us short of the mark. Who knows, it may well be that Adria makes his mark as a chef, but his money as an idea/think tank consultant. The world's a funny place and Adria's inventive food has established him as an idea man in Spain. A side effect of his relationship with the hotel chain is to bring them some publicity. Mrs. B's reaction was that it they're hip enough to hire Adria as a consultant, they're worth checking out. She wouldn't have told a client to stay in an NH hotel because Adria works for them, but it piqued her curiosity enough to plan on staying in several of their hotels in Andalucia last month. Although none of them showed any influence of Adria, they were all reasonable buys at their respective price points. Publicity is a strange thing. One of these days, we will also get to see what Adria is doing for them, although I did get a menu from one of the new restaurants that arose from his collaboration and the menu looked quite ordinary. Then again we were sent an English menu. It's amazing how much food loses in translation. In an attempt to make the dishes comprehensible to foreigners, they often take the local flavor out of the translation. I'm off on a tangent. Sorry I just picked up on this message. I will try and learn more about Adria's relationship with NH and report back somewhere on this site. Don't the Adria's consult and do R&D for companies in their lab during the off season? Nothing wrong with that.

CWS, Keep it coming. Contrary to some, I (mostly) enjoy your postings. For sake of discussion, let's assume that Grant is a good crip. From there . . . Let me try to make bourdain's "blood/crip" metaphorical dichotomy a bit less hard & fast. For example, the "pine" thing. Might we agree that smell is essential to taste? Then, might we also agree that smell is essential to (food) memories? If we taste via smell & if smell is crucial to our memories, why not highlight smell during a dining experience? In fact, smell is always already present during the enjoyment of food! (Note: I said enjoyment. I'll stick with the opinion that those who cannot smell cannot enjoy food, per se. But that's not the crux of what I'm attempting to say here.) To make my point a bit more bluntly, I don't think that Grant's cooking is that far off from the tradition. In fact, I would argue that his cooking is an extension of the tradition that we commonly associate with Escoffier. To be even more blunt, I don't think "postmodernism"--if one feels the need to use that term--is anything but another variation of "modernism"--albeit with a new name. It seems, IMHO, that the use of the term "avant garde" is always overblown, overblown by either its proponents or its opponents. So, perhaps the thing to do is this: experience Grant's food for what it is rather than the categories into which we try to force his food. Categories are great for marketers. Categories always fall short of honest experiences. awesome post!!!

when did she have a reduction? I never thought she was extremely endowed. Not flat but not top heavy either.

Some silly name like Sissy Biggers? yeah. she was sure perky. but she's sure no paige davis. spencer, who would want to be jacqui?!? her job was to be abused and ignored by booby flay. i couldn't watch the show as i felt so bad for her. Don't hate me, but I always... had a thing for Sissy. That overbite, sassy smile and those legs! Please forgive me. And I dug jacqie in the early,early days too. One thing that I always wondered about. Were Bobby and her an item for awhile? I remember her exclaiming on camera during the early days, when the show was outdoors, that her and bobby had just shared their "1st" onscreen kiss.

Adria, Achatz, they've cooked all the stuff you dig. Achatz was your man Kellers right hand man, what's he going to do, copy him? He's in the process of forging a new thing, it will fall flat or roll forward. With the Beard award, it looks like the latter to me. Good luck to him and to you too. Don't clench your buttocks so hard, dude!!! Winning a Beard Award is no indication to me that people can sustain a movement through Martian-like cooking. Just like winning an academy award is no indication that one can act. Keller cooks brilliant takes on classics, nods to tradition, albeit tweaked into modernistic terminology. And shit, Adria is the third pillar in my shrine. I love that guy: brilliant, humble, slightly mad, and not financially motivated. To be fair to chefg, he has worked long hours with Keller, probably knows more about the guy than anyone on eGullet and has done a short stint with Adria, so he can't be totally crocked full of the shit of youth. But some of these forward thinking moves will prove to be teflon in their holding power. You watch. But until then I will take what I deal out. And I do, in PM. yeah, you're right, awards don't really amount to much. I didn't really mean to imply that they did. They're a nice nod, that's about it. But any of us would be a bit stoked to get one. But, perhaps it illustrates a point that Achatz isn't serving up crap, that his cooking and ideas taste good, that he's solid.

As someone who not only has considerable experience in the music industry, but who is also cooking because the music industry IS so fucked up right now, I can assure you the food biz is in much better shape. This isn't the 1st time someone used pine as a flavor element. The chef from painters row restaurant in Chicago, I believe, , I wish i could remember this from a great chefs show, was roasting shitakes over pine needles 10 or more years ago. Douglas Rodrieguez roasts goats and pigs over Eucalyptus wood. I'm glad these guys are going for something different. And the best of them are going to be remembered, just like bands and artists. Adria, Achatz, they've cooked all the stuff you dig. Achatz was your man Kellers right hand man, what's he going to do, copy him? He's in the process of forging a new thing, it will fall flat or roll forward. With the Beard award, it looks like the latter to me. Good luck to him and to you too. Don't clench your buttocks so hard, dude!!!

BPG is the Wagner better? talk to me about the info? The Wagner certainly is cheaper.

BPG, my buddy at Ola has a CG (jet engine looking) spayer. I haven't had a chance to ask him yet about it. Pretty sure the compressor is on board though. http://www.jbprince.com/product.asp?0=289&1=292&3=1521

have heard that

For the record I felt like the piece portrayed me as an egotistical, shallow person, with little respect for Chef Trotter or Chef Keller. I respect both chefs immensely for their contributions to the culinary world and would never intentionally bad-mouth them in any way. Congratulations on your award, Chefg. I don't think the article portrayed you as egotistical or shallow. It impressed me more as painting a faint David and Goliath allegory with regard to you and Chef Trotter. I found that troublesome. It was unexpected. I grabbed a copy of New City for the purpose of reading about you. I can read about Charlie Trotter from an endless amount of sources. The need to thread the article with constant references to Chef Trotter and "Trotter is a meanie" jabs worked against the article as a whole and detracted from the subject -- you. Instead, the article was about you and the reporter's apparent need to indirectly grind an ax with Chef Trotter. In that regard, the piece read like two separate articles. Not to throw gas on the fire, but... I thought Trotter seemed like he had a stick up his butt I've known people who worked for him that said he was pretty psychotic, but alot of the good ones are.

kinda weird considering the review seemed pretty glowing,eh?

Think I;m going to have to try this. Ummmmm, Laphroig...

I like that comment, Ms. C

caramelized sugar, deglazed with heavy cream, to me.

Too true. I still remember the stale, awful, muffaletta I had from Central 18 (!) years ago.

I just voted for the best!. eGullet.com, of course

Well, of course they are, dahling. Chelsea, IS after all, a neighborhood with a highly visible gay presence, so it makes sense that the restaurants along one of the neighborhood's main drags would cater to that segment of the neighborhood's population. Some of the places I'm thinking of are more scene-y, than noteworthy, at least with respect to the food. (Bright Food Shop is actually pretty good, but that said, I'd probably go there once a year cuz I'm not a fan of Mexican fusion, or fusion cuisine in general.) Cheers, Soba Hi Soba. I made the comment about restaurants having a primarily gay clientele there because I was surprised that Dish was singled out as the main one on that strip.( that was in someones post,maybe it was your's, I'm not sure.) I've heard that Dish is a pretty awesomely designed place, maybe that's why it was singled out.I lived in NYC for around 9 years, but never hung out that much in Chelsea . I used to go to Ciel Rouge to have a drink frequently for a couple of years on 7th, but not much else. I DID used to shop for foodstuffs at the Kitchen Market in Chelsea, great for hard to find ingredients. I looked at Bright Food's menu a bunch, but never dined there. The Mexican place I dined at is called Rocking ??? something. I've been there acouple of times. Good drinks, good apps, didn't like the entree's too much.

I was in NYC for about 2 and 1/2 months last fall, working on a project, staying in an corporate apt. on 17th st, between 7th and 8th ave.. I got the impression that most of the restaurants on 8th ave., from 17th to 23rd st. were primarily "gay" oriented, not that there's anything wrong with that. I just never felt comfortable eating in any place by myself. I would either go with a male or female friend. That way I wouldn't get too cruised. Some excellent Thai, Mexican ( in a nuevo sense), and French places. I enjoyed 18th and 8th a lot, although service was kind of snotty and rushed.