chopjwu12

dodge you are a better man the i. I would have knocked that bitch the fuck out!!!!

I agree braising is the best technique for sweet breads. To throw something at wilfrid i have to completely disagree with this soaking technique you were talking about. The most tradtitional way and in my mind the best way to soak them is in a three day process. First day soaked in milk, second day soaked in half milk and half water, third day soaked in just water for a little while. This cleans the sweet breads of the blood. It leaves them very white and clean. Im sure there are other ways to do sweetbread soaking. But i just find this one to be the best especially when poaching or braising.

how does one go about keeping sweet breads rare? They have to be first pouched then cooled and then seared again. Ive never had rare sweet breads. Medium yes never rare. Very interestign though. Im sorry to hear about the food. I was planning on going there one day but to see i cant afford the wine list and if the food isn't really that good. I think im crossign it off my list.

That guy is a champ of the free meals. But I picture myself as the photographer guy who is the when the other guy isn't.

Sorry should have posted that in a few sentences. I meant to helenas daughter who works with me and mellisa is nicholas's wife.

Very nice wolf. I think mellisa may have given some information on it to your daughter helena. But im not sure.

but it's true! And as the editor of GQ put it, by and large, a woman doesn't want a man who is thinner than she is... I was never skinny you cant be when you stepped on the scale and it sais 190 and your only 5'4" LOL But i was just alot more built back then. SOmething like your husband(which i commented to your daughter) who was a very big guy built wise. She told me he was quite an athlete. Its funny you say that about the cheesecake because to my knowledge the only cake part of it is the bottom crust and thats it. You may have thought it was cakeier(sp) because im preety sure its a ricotta cheesecake but i have to check on that for you today. Sagu is a type of tapioca. I like its size grain. I love that predessert i always take soem when im in the pastry area. And the icecreams are great. I love the mango sorbet my favorite. The bread i have to say and its no secret is delivered from eli's(sp) of NY. Very good bread but i still wish we made our own. But we dont have the manpower or the right ovens and other equipment to tackle that task. Its really hard to make your own bread. Its a one man job but its an all day job. Maybe one day after the expantion but who knows. If it does happen it wouldn't be for a while.

I have had soem experience with white port since i am portuguese i kind of always had it around the house. I agree with most people when said its best served chilled with cheese. But thats how i like it. We did sweet breads with it at the restaurant however. Very good.

Rosie my dear you can come into my kicthen anytime!!!!! Cute huh LOL maybe when i was 30 pounds lighter then i was HOT!!!! I wish So helena tell us a little about your experience. I cant remember what everyone had to eat as appetizers. Please let the people know. My question did you order the snapper because of me or is that what you really wanted? How was your cheese? How was dessert? Did you like the predessert of sagu(sp) topica and passion fruit? Did you like the amuse of raw fluke? We get that sent back all the time. Not because its not good because i like it alot but i think some people have some crazy fear of eating raw fluke. Please share your experience with me. I like to know how we are doign back in the kicthen. By the way i can set up a chair at that cheese board and eat almost every single one on there.

LOL it was thursday and we weren't busy ROSIE!!!!! I promise the next time you come in i will stop everything and run out so i can finally meet you. I am sorry about the last time though i really did want to go out.

Harold I dont want to say i was truly dissapointed in the restaurant because for the most part the food was good. A couple small misses in some dishes but the dishes themselves weren't nasty or anything. Trust me i know all about the preasure of working in a restaurant so i dont hold that as an excuse. If you cant take the preasure theres the doork!!!!!!! But really i enjoyed mt meal i just didn't think it was worth the price.

I would just like to say i met the lovely helena sarin today and it was as i expected a pleasure to finally do so. She dines at my restaurant with her husband and family. I got to sneak out and say hello and have a short but sweet conversation. It was a pleasure and i hope to see you soon.

Who wears glove sto make a salad? Have you seen how many violations all the famed restaurants get nailed for. A place like Nobu has like 14 violations every year or something.

i know isn't that annoying your not sure if you should wait or eat. I thought maybe we weren't getting a wine with our dessert but sure enough it finally came. Where might i ask did you see chef eric?

im not sure if anyone has said this allready but strawberries in woodbridge makes a great thin crust. It usede to be the absolute best but now it still really good and it still hold high rank around me.

Actually one of the biggest reasons farmed fish taste like shit isn't only from what they are fed. The whole fishes life cycle comes into play of why it tastes so dam good. Why is farmed fish flesh so freakin soft people ask. Its because a farmed fish has no real room to swim and develop muscle and flavor. That my friend is one of the biggest reasons farmed fish taste like shit not because of what they feed it. Dont get me wrong either im sure that plays into one of teh factors i wont argue with you there. But its not even close to the biggest factor. That is why some farms are changing the way the farm raise salmon. They are starting to build mock rivers and such to develop this flavor and texture. But with all that comes a preety penny on the fish.

My friend nick i would agree that at 130 dollars and wine was included i wouldn't have a problem. However the 130 dollars was for the food alone. They had a cheese cart and everything just never offered.

Nick where was this place?

Maybe i can finally meet the mother of our new found hostess because i myself will be working the wine dinner that evening. Rosie what kind of story?

You know what they say fresh is best! People try to get to crazy with things like calamari instead of letting the ingredient be itself sometimes. Dont get me wrong of love both craziness and simplicity. But sometimes its good to let an ingredient be itself. As far as the monkfish is concerned it seemed to me that the monkfish was seared in pan but i could be wrong. Nothing was mentioned about it and i have never experieneced a fish being seared on slate to be able to tell the difference. A little more detail on the slate thing would be apreciated. Suzanne, macrosan thanks for the compliments it sound slike i came across the way i wanted to in this post.

Ok here we go. Veronica and i were joined by a third party at a dinner at le bernardin last night and here is how our experience was. We had early reservations at 5:45 because veronica had to get up early for work. the three of us walked in and were greeted very nicely. I was impressed by the room. I thought the tables were well spaced and in our opinion the room was business like but very comfortable. We were a bit intimidated at first but i think the room helped us relax a bit. So we recieved our menu along with the wine list and after a caonversation between the three of us we all decided taht we wanted to go big and get the chefs tasting menu. We are all a fan of tasting menus for our first visits at restaurants. It all statrted kind of wierdbecause i think they jumped the gun a bit or maybe thats how they do it there but we were presented with an amuse while still looking at our menus. They didn't know what we were gettign yet but our food was allready on the table. i thought that was kind of strange. But any way we ordered and dug into a very nicely presented curry crab napolian. Im not sure what the tuille part of the dish was made of but it was very crispy and a great texture to go along with the well made crab sallad. A early but very good start to our meal. On a side note note we got wine pairing with each course but i dont remember them all that well. I forgot my notebook. Our second amuse was fried calamari with a remoulade sauce. I thought it kind of strange taht we were at le bernardin and eating fried calamari. But i have no complaints because it was cooked perfectly and the remoulade was one of the better ones that i have ever tasted. A very good amuse Our next course was the tuna and hamachi with a miso and yuzu vinaigrette. This was probably my favorite course of the evening. The yellow fin and yellow tail were great served in a patchwork presentation. the miso vinaigrette was excellent. And it had chives sprinkled all over it. it was also served with white toast. Everyone thought this dish was great. Our next course was the croque monsieur. This was veronicas favorite course and my second. Basically its a mini sandwich made from brioche toast, iranian sevruga i beleive, Scotish smaoked salmon, and gruyere cheese. I am not a salmon fan and i dont particulary like smoked salmom but i loved this dish. It was presented very simply and at the top of the plate were one small square of each cucumber, tomato, and apple. With a little baby watercress. Like i said the dish was very very good and everyone liked it. Our next course was shrimp ravioli. I had some dissapointments with this dish. The dish was argentinean shrimp with black trumpets and a foie and truffle sauce. Veronica felt the shrimp were a little over and tough. I didnt really disagree but i didnt mind it all that much. We both agreed that the sauce that was served needed help and alot of it. basically there shooting for a rossini(sp) sauce which is a demi based sauce thats mounted with foie butter and truffles. Well i dont expect fresh truffles to be used in this sauce because for the amount of truffles that were on my plate the bill would have been even higher. I do expect to taste the foie and truffle in my sauce none of which we did. The truffles were canned wich again i expect but do to the fact that most canned truffles taste like shit i would expect truffle oile to be mounted in there for that flavor boost. The foie flavor was totally nonexistent. A simple foie butter can be made and used to finish the sauce with the truffle oil and the dish would have been taken up a whole other level. I used to make this same sauce in washington for a salmon dish and it was alot better. So i was fairly dissapointed by this dish. It wasn't a huge bomb but it was ok. It was my least favorite course. Our next course was a steamed halibut in an orange ginger dashi broth. It had maitake and oyster mushrooms on top. It was all drizzled with a soy sherry vinaigrette. The broth had a smokey quality to it and i later found out it was also made with smoked tuna. The dashi broth was very very good and very well made. I did feel however that the halibut was a little overcooked and dry. I guess they try to make up for it with the dashi broth but a dry fish is a dry fish no mater what. So the fish was ok but the dashi broth was excellent. Our next course was the surf and turf. Seared monkfish and braised oxtail stuffed in cabbage and served with a silky mashed potato. This dish was great. The monkfish was cooked perfectly and the cabbage was tender enough and the oxtail was flavorfull. the mashed were very good and the redwine sauce was great. I did get a bone in my oxtail though. But i understand how easy taht can happen so easily forgiven. There was no predessert which i thought was kind of wierd. Most places give one and i was dissapointed i didn't get one. MAybe they dont do it or maybe they forgot. Anybody know? The dessert was a yuzu lemon tart and ginger parfait topped with thin caramel tuile. I thought it was wierd to see yuzu on the menu again this time as a main ingredient not as a side peice. I wouldn't expect an ingredient to repeat but its ok if it does i just thought it wouldn't. This dessert had alot of potential to me but fell short when i tasted it. If yuzu is the main ingredient as advertised then that waht i want to taste and the other flavors should be supporting actors. the ginger smacked you in the face with its pungentness and spicyness. I wouldn't say it was to much for a dessert advertised for its ginger but as a yuzu dessert it fell short. The sauce tasted like yuzu and that helped but i wanted to taste it more in the dessert. so although good a bit dissapointing on that aspect. We also recieved a very good chocolate tart. Very well made rich but not heavy. It was great. On a couple of side notes: Service was very good in the beggining and kind of slacked of towards the end. I think they may have been a little busier then they expected so our service kind of suffered. Take for instance our last two wine courses were kind of delayed. Our last one especially we didn't get our wine untill have our dessert was eaten. The glasses should have been put down before we even got the desserts. The other thing was we werent offered cheese and we had the chefs tastign menu. I was shocked and i would have gotten cheese. But i wasn't about to ask for it. If you dont want my money so be it. I dont want to put the service down to much though. Besides for that it was excellent some of the best service ive ever had. So please dont get the wrong idea. Another thing was chef eric game into the dining room from the kicthen. We were the only table in house and i was sure he would come say hi since we were the only table and we were all cooks. I would have expected that but he didn't. I was a little surprised but whatever you cant expect everythign. But if i were a chef and i saw a only table in the dining room i would hae taken two minutes to say hi. My last thing i will say is about the price. Your paying 130 bucks for the chefs tasting menu. I inderstand its le bernarden and your payign for that. I did think it was a bit over priced. The items on the menu aren't expensive. Shrimp, tuna. halibut, monk fish, oxtail aren't breakign anyones bank thats for sure. So for the food you get i dont think the chefs tasting is worth it. I understand your paying for service and labor and all that but i still dont think its a 130 dollar menu. But maybe thats just me. All and all i would liek to finish up on a posative note. My overall experience was very good. It had some flaws and maybe i dwell on them to much. But hey thats me. I really did enjoy me experience there and wouldn't hesitate to go back as soon as my wallet comes back to life. I wouldn't do the tasting menu again i think it would eb more of an a la carte place for my ext experince. I wouldn't give it 4 stars as a reviewer i would have given it 3 but then again i am just a simple cook.

Hello all just wanted to let everyone know that there is another nicholas wine tatsing. I am posting a link to the info for everyone. Its a little different this time. The cost is 95 dollars and its a walk around hourdourve(sp) party. 50 dollars of the 95 goes to wine purchases. But like i said its all on the web page. http://www.wineaccess.com/store/nicholas/n...er.html?m=14201

thanks everybody i really apreciate all the info.

Hello My sister just started school up in montclair. Id like to visit her every so often ofcourse and maybe make a food trip while im up there. Where do i go to eat? Any food is game im preety easy. Ive seen a couple montclair restaurants posted but i didn ruffle through them all. So if i can get a list from the people who have eaten up there it would be greatly apreciated Thanks everybody

It all boils down to this everyone here watches the foodnetwprk for the most part. Everyone knows the show follow that food. Well they did an episode with cod. By the time the cod got to the market where the lady bought it it was like 6 or 7 days old!!!!! That fish had been dead for 6 or 7 days. Thats no good. Now can you imagine if a qulity restaurant was getting that fish. They can sit on it for up to 4 days or so depending on how sales go. So a quality restaurant cant afford to get that 6 or 7 day old piece of cod. They need to get the 2 day old cod or even better.