Mhirby

One of our favorite places to dine on that route is the Restaurant de la Gare in Guewenheim, south of Colmar maybe 30 mins by car. Great country restaurant in a tiny town with a fantastic wine list. Prices were very reasonable and service has been excellent. I have to admit though that my last meal there was in 2007.

HELP! Need some quick help from my fellow forumites! The background: I am in the middle of sous-vide Turkey Leg confit. I am at 11 hours with the legs having been browned first, then put in a food-saver bag with 8 tbl duck fat per leg at 180F. The problem is, the legs are still tough! The question is: do I wait for tenderness, or have I missed the point of tenderness and just give up now? Thanks! Mike

are there any other new contenders in this genre? I was thinking of maybe Perbacco - but I haven't eaten there since just after it opened. Any others?

Do we really have to choose? I love them both!

It might be the very things that you don't like are the things that attract talented chefs (and talented people of all kinds) to San Francisco. It is the wild west. There are unattractive pale people here. There's an incredible history in this town that failed as a mission and yet thrived during the gold rush. We have an incredible history that is acknowledged and then ignored. I would argue it can be anything you need it to be and you can come here and reinvent yourself better than almost anywhere else. And you can eat like almost nowhere else. ←

Sound delicious. I think that an Italian salsa verde - a sort of puree of blanched parsley with garlic, lemon rind, olive oil, capers and chopped hard-boiled egg would add brighness and intensity to your dish, and balance the richness.

OK, so this thing is a leg of pork right now, and will probably not become a ham. I think what I'm going to do is rub the meat down the night before with spices, then just roast the leg outright at around 300F until it reaches maybe 150F, then hit it with heat to crisp up the skin, and let it rest before serving. Thanks for all of your help, and I'll let you know how it goes! Cheers, Mike

Hi guys, thanks for helping me out. The ham is totally fresh, uncured, unsmoked, and apparently butchered to order (as I had to order 2 weeks before it could be shipped from Paradise Locker meats in Kansas). The reason I've always wanted to roast a fresh ham is because when I was a kid, a friend's father had one he brought home from work that was deep, dark red, unsmoked, and had a meaty texture unlike any ham I've had before or since. I remember it tasting so rich and fantastic that I've been thinking about it for almost 20 years! Time to get the show on the road and try to make one myself. So, thanks Nathan for your experience in curing the wild boar ham. I was hoping, however, to just prepare it as an uncured roast, in a effort to replicate this choldhood memory. I was thinking of brining it the way you would a roast chicken or turkey, not to cure, but just to seal in juiciness. In case you guys haven't ordered pork from Heritagefoods.com before - the Slow Food commerce site - it was a very cool experience to be able to choose a fresh ham from so many different heritage breeds, and then be able to track it to a specific farm as well! Cheers, Mike

I just saw a recipe in a French cook book that suggests boiling for 30 minutes per pound in broth, and then scoring the skin and roasting for one hour at 350F. Anyone have any experience with this method?

Thanks for the feedback.

Hi everyone, I have dreaming about buying a whole raw bone-in ham for a few years now, and I finally ordered one from the Heritage foods website. It is a Red Wattle heritage breed ham,a nd it's showing up at my in-laws place in time for holiday festivities. Now, I have to try to not mess it up! I was thinking of brining it overnight, then scoring the skin and roasting it very slowly (say at 240F or so) for a long time. Anyone have any caveats or suggestions? Thanks- Mike

Hi - I just returned from St Barth yesterday, and thought I'd share our experiences. Overall things were outrageously expensive, but we had a great time. To give you context, we live in Napa Valley and love great food, and eat out often. We travel to France about once a year and eat everything from street food to Michelin 3 stars. Here were our favorite places: La Plage: great casual food in one of the most idyllic beach settings. Very friendly and very fresh, with wahoo tartare with ginger stealing the show. Desserts were also great. Lounge atmosphere, but no pretense. Francois Plantation: absolutely off the charts! We were told that a very famous Parisian michelin 3 star chef is now basically consulting. I can't name any names. Classic french high-end gastronomy, with an emphasis on purity, with each dish having a rare exotic take, usually presented in a dish on the side. Poulet de Bresse stood out, with the classic breast meat in brown sauce, but with the thigh confited, chopped with foie gras, and tossed with potatoes and brown sauce! Absolutely delicious! Wine choices are phenomenally good, but very expensive (no surprise). The Hideaway: (Andy's) Really casual and friendly. Good but not great pizza, but very enjoyable nonetheless. We also had the Salade Perigourdine, with Gesiers Confit, Magret fume, and foie gras, which was nostalgic and very good. Wine choices were dismal. Eddy's: We had heard mixed reviews, so we stuck to the Creole specialties, and we loved it. Shrimp curry and the green Papaya salad were totally decadent, rich, and delicious. Very good value. Nice wines by the glass. The let-downs: SandBar at the Eden Roc: Ambitious food that was just not very good. It looked good, sounded good on the menu, but just failed to deliver. We had the Wagyu beef salad, wherein the beef was surpisingly tough and chewy, plus flavorless, and another unremarkable salad. I'd choose La Plage over this place any day. Great view of the beach and very friendly service, but huge prices, too. Wine list is good: we had a 2005 Chablis from Fevre 1er cru for 70 euros that was great. Wall House: I'm sure the 5 course was a good deal, but we just weren't that hungry, so we ordered a la carte. It was decent, but somewhat dissapointing. The plus side: the leek salad with beet juice dressing! This is really nice and simple french country cooking. Then we had a Daurade that was mediocre, and a (whole!) Squab with brown sauce from the rotiserrie. The pigeon was good and small, and cooked well, but not exciting. The real disappointment was the dessert cart, which looked enticing, but the choices were simply scooped off the cart and slapped onto our plates instead of being warmed and plated in back with accompaniments. It felt like eating leftovers. Overall a solid B, but we expected more. Alas, we never made it Le Sapotillier! We were much too full from Francois Plantation!!! Cheers, Mike

Thanks for the great report! My stomach is now screaming - it's time for a trip to Dean and Deluca to find some French goodies to ward off the jealousy...

I also have had mixed experiences with Fish on two occasions, but the saving grace has always been the wine list: full of great choices at compelling prices.

La Table was fantastic for New Year's Eve a few months ago. That's the only time I've been.

Thanks for all of the suggestions everybody. Tayst looks great - a little simpler and straight-forward than some of the other menus, which is exactly what we like: great ingredients prepared simply. One more question: anyone eaten at the Mad Platter recently? Thanks -

That has to be the funniest post I have read in a long, long time! Guess we won't be going there for lunch on the last day...

I just came accross an article in the Nashville Post.com that staes that the Wild boar went into Chapter 11 in March. Somehow I'm not surprised that they're not open... Thanks - I'll check out Tayste! M

Has anyone eaten at the Wild Boar?

Thanks Melissa. Separately, we're having a reception at the Hermitage for a wedding that we're in town for, so we may get to eat at The Capitol Grille anyway. Thanks for the advice.

Hi Everyone. I haven't posted here before but would appreciate any help. I mostly hang out on the France forum but need some Southeast knowledge. I'm looking for a great restaurant in Nashville at which to celebrate my wife's Birthday with a group of 6-8. We live in Napa Valley, CA and love great food, and admittedly have gotten a little spoiled. We'd like something very high-quality, great wine list, but not too quiet or stuffy. We've heard good things about Watermark and The Mad Platter. Any insights? Thanks in advance - Mike

We also had a quite banal experience at Dom Bouchet, and couldn't really recommend it to anyone. Although I haven't experienced a large number of higher-end Paris bistros, Josephine-Chez Dumonet was truly excellent and had a great wine list if you like Bordeaux. Basically, the deals begin from the year 1989 and before.

Thanks Rachel! Well, considering that either my wife or myself used the descriptor "awesome" at least once when typing up these notes, we'll let it slide. Glad you liked the notes. We are still blissfully remembering, and trying desperately to relive through trips to Bouchon in Yountville and other bistros on this side o' the pond.

Thanks Bu Pun Su. I had also heard that the food was really similar at L'atelier, and that the style of food could be said to be in the same genre as, say, Senderens, as another 3 star chef now doing "cuisine bourgeois." - Definitely down-scale from the acrobatics of Jamin (at which I never ate). But we weren't expecting 3 star food, so maybe that's why we were so pleased. Also, maybe what we enjoyed, because it was New Year's eve, was in fact closer to 3 star food than is usually served. The wine list was good. There were many other bottles of wine I would have loved to try, like 03 Janasse CNDP "Chaupin", and 02 Girardin Puligny-Montrachet "Combettes" off the top of my head. Mike

The truffle menu was the only menu available for New Year's eve. The price was 250 euro/person. Very steep, but we were willing considering it was New Year's eve. It was absolutely worth it to us. A great way to spend NYE. I just cannot really find a fault in the dinner, aside from possibly pushy wine service. Now that Robuchon is a global enterprise, I'm sure there is considerable variation among his restaurants. What are some of the negative comments you've heard regarding La Table Paris?