lfabio2007

Perhaps you'd like to amend your answer after reading my post again. The 'overreliance on fat' was referred to Vetri, not Osteria. I do not, by any stretch of the imagination, impeach fat in anything. Quite the contrary: I am a strong proponent of the fact that fats not only taste good, but they are not the health demon that Americans make them out to be (I make an exception for cooked olive oil, but that's a very long story). I do, however, merely observe that in last couple of meals in particular at Vetri's there was too much of the stuff in more than one dish: the artichokes served with the Branzino were oversaturated badly and other dishes could have perhaps used a little less. Do I enjoy fats and understand the importance of these to convey liposoluble flavours? Absolutely. Do I however think that a *delicate balance* of everything is one of the things that makes dishes truly remarkable? Yes indeed. I do not mean to imply that I do not like Vetri, mind! As a matter of fact, I made a reservation to go there just an hour ago, because I'll be out of the country for a month or so and I always like to make sure that I go there before I leave. I only happen to believe that there is always room for improvement. For what it's worth, incidentally, the problem is not there at Osteria - the food there is also very, very good. If you caught me on a bad day I'd say that this is no coincidence, given where Marc Vetri actually spends his time these days.

That would be it, yes. I was told by friends that it's in an area of town which requires... some caution. Any advice?

To all who asked about the pizza dough: yes, if you can afford 24 hours of patience and feed it the way guzzirider suggested, the yeast can do very well without sugar or honey. And the difference, when you bite into the edge of the crust, is very much there. Add a wood fired clay oven and proper toppings (and the toppings at Osteria are *really* something to talk about) and I might even momentarily forgo the rest of the menu. As to sleep, that's overrated. There is food to be had!

Why would I not be? Among the retaurants in Milan and Turin that I've been to recently: Aimo e Nadia (still remarkable, perhaps a little tired), Cracco Peck (perhaps the best, still too impressed with itself), Il Cambio (Sadly a shadow of its former self, still a place to visit), Vintage 1997 (no comment), Filpot (..creative, very creative, but remarkable), Guido (still one of the best in the Langhe), Al Sole (Trebbo di Reno, near Bologna, only included because the approach to cooking is very much similar to Vetri's). I still want to find the time to go to Cesare's, but it's quite a bit out of the way. The one fault I find at Vetri is an overreliance on generous amounts of fat, plus perhaps the fact that as of late the enthusiasm that was there three years ago or so is lessened (which is probably why Osteria was opened, but that's a whole other topic). Otherwise, I do not see a good reason not to include him with the above. As to the pizza, that's what the edge of the crust is for and I'm on a personal crusade against sweet doughs. As I said, one of my many failings.

Uhm. I grew up in Italy and still live there most of the time, by coincindence my father is from Milan. By coincidence also, he happens to be in the trade and to have an interest in the history of cooking. As much as we can gather a reliable 'original/traditional recipe' for risotto, which is a difficult endeavour at best , it indeed calls for 'brodo', specifically 'brodo di cappone' (see Pellegrino Artusi et al., though I do realise the gentleman has closer ties with Bologna than Milan) - which is capon. I translated 'chicken stock' for lack of a better term. Now, we can discuss until we're blue about the fact that if we do go back and look at what was really done until recently, obviously the people cooking would've used any brodo they had at hand, as is usually the case with many recipes rooted in popular tradition. It is however fairly safe to say that in Lombardy, Milan and Pavia alike, since at least the turn of the century, when one wanted to make risotto 'properly', if one had the resources, one used 'brodo di cappone'. If you want to be even more precise about it, one should also skip the butter and use bone marrow, but that's not a good idea, these days (see, again, Artusi et al.).

If I may, things are a bit more complicated and a bit simpler than that: egg pasta - traditional in Emilia and Romagna primarily - is made with 00 flour. Yes, a lot of people like to cut it with durum wheat semolina to make the texture more predictable and make the cooking easier to handle, but traditionally this is not the way things should be done. This should be mixed by hand and rolled *with a wooden rolling pin on a wood surface* to give the surface the proper texture to grab to sauce. Extruded pasta, which is traditionally 'dry' and made with durum wheat (actually, in Italy, legislation requires it), no eggs, is part of a different tradition which, for historical reasons, started farther south in Italy (Abruzzi and Molise are still the primary sources for the best pasta of this style), and it needs a machine with *bronze* extrusion inserts to be made properly. These are available in home-kitchen sizes, though, even in the States. So .. it may be difficult, but I wouldn't call it impossible to replicate - we do both at home, though I wouldn't dare say that our results on the final dishes are as good as Marc Vetri's. As far as ready made pastas, we've had good luck with Montebello, available at Whole Foods, and with Molisana (which SHOULD be available here in the states, but I've been unable to find it). As to their pizzas - which by the way are thin-crust, therefore *roman* style, not the thicker kind that you'd find in Naples - they're possibly the best I've had stateside, but they're still not perfect: a touch too bready and with a hint of sweetness that tells me that someone's been helping the yeast along with honey or sugar. I know, I am being *extremely* difficult, heck, even in Italy I'd call these very good and difficult to surpass, but given that Mr. Vetri in most other ways can be favourably compared to his best competitors in Milan, Turin or Rome, the distinction has to be made. Besides, this is another of my pet peeves about most baked goods here. It's a shortcut, I understand why it's done, but please, the better places can surely do without (one of the places that doesn't is the bakery - headed by a vietnamese gentleman who has lived in France for a long time, apparently - that Mr. Ansill goes to for the bread at Pif). Incidentally, we've been to Osteria several times and we love it, but I will not call it a bargain. Full review to follow the next time we go back there. So many restaurants, so few spare calories.

Saturday we decided to pay a visit to restaurant M, after seeing the reviews here and encouraged by Katie Loeb’s presence at the bar. Another point of interest to me was to see what looked like one of the best outdoor settings in Philadelphia in person. We made it through the door and were recognized by Katie, who presides over the bar, strategically placed between the entrance and the dining room. After introductions, our SPIRITUAL ADVISOR provided us with drinks: these were remarkable both in preparation and in the fact that we only had to suggest the base for them, she took it from there. With the aid of a supersecret special ingredient to which we got an introduction, she was very successful. Thanks again! After chatting for a while – and getting introduced to another e-gulleteer that happened to be at the bar, we moved to the dining room. I have to state at this point that one of the notable features of the restaurant is the location: the outside garden, to which Philadining’s photos do a lot more justice than I can with words, is really a remarkable space and we got confirmation that it’s going to be open for brunch soon, which makes it doubly interesting. Equally important to me however, because it addresses one of my pet peeves and one of which not even Vetri is completely innocent, is the dining room itself, which is a comparatively small space that has mercifully NOT been overcrowded with tables. It sits twenty-eight people with proper spacing between the tables and manages therefore to insure a sound level which doesn’t require megaphones to conduct a conversation. It also successfully walks the fine line between elegant and casual without falling into pretentious, another thing that more famous restaurants (I’ll stop making names before I get a line of angry owners outside my driveway) can’t quite manage. Our server – a very professional individual in stark contrast to his colleague who graced our tableside elsewhere last week - suggested we go with the tasting menu to fully appreciate the chef’s vision for the food. This is generally sound advice when the person in charge of the kitchen has a good handle on things, so we consented. We also chose to go with the wine pairing to complement the tasting. On to what we ate: The amuse was a cherry tomato confit with basil gelee, on the now familiar ceramic spoon. Then came a salad with goat cheese, blood oranges and toasted almonds, with a white (new world, not overly blessed by oak, I unfortunately forget – it probably was a chardonnay grape). I wish I could FIND blood oranges like the ones that were used in the dish. It was followed by a cauliflower risotto with black winter truffle and parsley oil, accompanied by a pinot noir, notable for the proper execution of the risotto, properly creamy and not overcooked. If I were to nitpick, it needed a slightly stronger base (risotto traditionally calls for chicken stock, in this case perhaps a vegetable stock would have helped?). The idea of cauliflower florets, however, was novel and paired well with the truffle. We then moved on to a striped bass on top of an artichoke reduction, accompanied by a lovely viognier, the wine high point of the evening – it just needed to be a little colder, to my taste. The striped bass was good, though sadly Philadelphia never quite manages to have the best fish or seafood – admittedly a lifetime in Venice gives me standards which are somewhat difficult to live up to – but it was broiled to a tasty crunch on the top and still moist on the inside. The artichokes and the stock perhaps need a little rethinking – possibly a better rendition came from the Kittle House in Westchester, NY. The meat course was a Wagyu hanger steak with a Madeira and mushroom reduction, served on white polenta with blanched asparagus, which perhaps needed to be pulled together a little more as a plate. It was accompanied by a cabernet sauvignon which was a touch too new world for my taste. For dessert, finally, we were served a molten chocolate cake with raspberry sorbet and a late harvest zinfandel to go with it. The molten core cake is certainly not a novelty any more, but this one’s texture was particularly well balanced and the sorbet was very well made, with no hint of grain. Sadly we didn’t get to taste the squab or the pork belly, which the server had recommended for the evening, so that will have to wait until our next visit. In the words of a well-known wine critic quoted on Wine Spectator some time ago, ‘mighty tasty!’ And just as importantly, the rest of the restaurant experience helped the food along as it should: the location is really quite remarkable, the service was professional without the traces of affectation - or cluelessness – that plague many places and the drinks were one of the strong points of the evening. We’re looking forward to coming back.

Bok choi, at least when I was there. And the whole plate was... unremarkable, I'd say. I need to get into town to try the real deal, but I've been horrendously busy.

I'll sneak in the thread to express great gratitude towards those of you who mentioned DiNic's roast pork at the RTM. It finally got me to go there - I think that'll merit a post in the appropriate thread - and the roast pork with provolone and greens (they looked like spinach greens, not broccoli rabe, sadly) was truly outstanding.

A question here if I may: I was at the Sang Kee inside RTM and the food was, well, indifferent at best. I have to assume that the operation is different at the other addresses?

Thanks for correcting my oversight. From what I could tell, at least, not everyone there on friday seemed to have a reservation. But I didn't ask specifically.

I'll try to be more succint from here onwards. That is indubitably true, but this felt a little different than the usual 'day one' pains. At least to me. Mind, the food had some good - even very good - sides, but yes, there were some things that perplexed me. As to the raw ventresca, yes, there were cubes of raw tuna belly (three, to be precise) on a skewer on top of a small potato-soup bowl. The soup was made with chunks of (cooked) ventresca in it, so the combo might have been interesting.. but as I wrote, the ventresca was ... not similar in freshness, shall we say, to the typical japanese restaurant serving. Not inedible, but not ideal, either. I agree, but it is on the menu at Foobooz, I was just reporting that. I suppose the case could be made for the chef wanting to show a specific selection around a theme, but that kind of seems weak reasoning.

Thanks for the welcome! Actually Fabio is my last name Luigi is my first name. You're absolutely correct and I apologise: I was even intending to do so, then I didn't see the thread when I posted and opened another one. Thank you sir, glad it's appreciated. I was a little concerned about opening with a negative review, but that's that.

I've been reading egullet for quite a while and I decided I'd come out of lurking to contribute to the community. Here goes, then: unfortunately, my first contribution will not be glowing praise. First of all, a bit of backstory. My girlfriend and I have been to Amada in mid-2006, we loved the food but the service and the ambient noise were bad enough to make sure that we would not return. Therefore, I was somewhat concerned when we made reservations for Tinto for yesterday night, Friday (which to the best of my knowledge was opening night). We were lucky in that yesterday's weather helped to keep the crowd down: I was pleased, because I figured that this would temper the noise and service problems, if they were to surface. Unfortunately, that proved to be an optimistic estimate. In order to allay any suspcion about an 87000-word untempered bashing, I have to state from the start that the food, in and of itself, was good to very good. There was good variety in the menu, the ingredients were, generally, very good (with some unfortunate faux passes, such as the belly tuna which was not as fresh as it could have been and the forgettable 'kobe' beef) and there was some very good display of technique, with some points of excellence (the goat milk mousse dessert was really remarkable both in composition and in execution). The problem, unfortunately, is that a restaurant is not only about the food. And, again unfortunately, this new venture has precisely the same problems Amada does, with a twist. First and foremost, it's trying too hard to be hip. Much, much too hard. The bistro table and chairs, half hip and half space necessity, are small and probably derive from some recently-discovered writing of that master of ergonomics, Torquemada. The marble floor and mirrored walls (with cellar-wine-storage like wooden trellising in front) don't give the low, untreated ceiling any help in reducing the noise and the open kitchen at the back is not as successful as Osteria at keeping the kitchen smells out of the dining area. The result was a noise level that made it effectively impossible to hold a civilised conversation - with the dining room half empty. It must be positively stunning when it's completely full. But the piece de resistance, that is the service: I must admit to having low tolerance for modest service and extremely low tolerance for modest service performed by a staff that is trying their utmost not to pay attention to what the patrons are actually asking. It is one of my many failings. This place, however, didn't require my heightened sensitivity to the matter to cause an almost invincible desire to have a nice, friendly chat with the manager to take over the mind of any patron within the first five minutes of permanence. The server had clearly been instructed in how to approach customers: he was to make sure that wine was ordered (note that I say ordered, nothing more) and he was not to worry particularly about explaining the structure of the menu. The gentleman executed with a precision worthy of the best assault teams in the military: he presented us with menus, asked what variety of water we'd like, went and returned with the water and then proceeded to ask us no less than five (5) times in a span of about six minutes if we'd made up our mind about our drinks, while we were persistently trying to wheedle out of him some clarity as to the items that composed the menu. On the third or fourth try he went beyond 'make sure to ask any questions you have' and disappearing, so we were able to confirm which varieties of food pertained to which box on the folded menu. We proceeded to order a first flight of items (the place is a tapas or small plates establishment, so multiple items recommended), while telling him that we were still working on the menu, so drink orders would come in due time. A few minutes later we had decided on the rest, so we ordered a second series of items and two glasses of wine - white - which would serve, we thought, to stem the tide of requests from the waiter. Naturally, we'd selected the items in a specific order which would allow us to have 'neutral'-appetizer items first, then fish items and finally the meat items and vegetables. This would also have enabled us to order a second flight of wine, red, to go with the meats. Naturally, this was completely ignored by our attending personage, who after so much effort in making sure beverages was ordered, was clearly too taxed to produce them in a timely fashion, so the two wine glasses appeared with the third or fourth item that was served and ordering the red - despite my request that the wine list stay at the table, completely ignored - took a significant amount of time and effort, only surpassed by the time and effort that it actually took to receive the red forementioned. Thanks to such a display of timeliness, we got to enjoy the mixto of charcuterie (quite good, the duck breast, I think it is, is particularly recommended, so are the egg salad and the pickled guindillas), the boquerones (very good but overpowered by too much of the pickled hot pepper) and the higos con jamon (very good but again, the hamon/higos balance was off, with too much sweetness) completely devoid of wine. To follow, we had kobe beef montaditos - indifferent - and brochetas de cordero - lamb and eggplant skewers served in shot glasses filled with a bechamel base to replicate something not unlike a destructured moussaka, good even though the lamb was a touch on the chewy side - with a delightful muscat sec and a delightful sauvignon blanc and we finally received the two tempranillos - one corked, badly and neither of them remarkable - just in time to savor them over the marmitako de ventresca (which would have been excellent had the ventresca not been marginal, with the raw cubes of ventresca topping a potato-based clear soup with chunks of cooked ventresca in it) and the chipirones en su tinta (very good quality, here, making me believe that the ventresca may have been a fluke). In order to help the wine a bit, we followed with some montaditos de panceta - one of the finest dishes of the evening, with the now-omnipresent pork belly wonderfully counterpointed by green apple - and the habas au gratin (not gratinados as per the menu on foobooz, but the preparation is the same, another strong point of the evening, with the fava beans and the sweet onions playing very well with the cheese gratin). By this point my girlfriend recognised that the signs that lead to a march towards the owner or, failing that, the manager, were becoming difficult to contain. She suggested we wrap it up, so we ordered dessert, which I have to say helped my blood pressure considerably: the txokolami was a very good, innovative interpretation of the dish carried out with considerable technical skill (the chef elected to considerably reduce the bread 'white spots' in the dish to deliver a more concentrated chocolate punch, a choice helped by slicing the log thin and serving a small amount of it) but the standout, probably for the entire meal, was the goat cheese mouse [sic], excellently prepared with none of the gelatin bounciness that belies uncertainty in preparation and with an olive oil-caramel emulsion that managed to overcome my northern-italian-bred aversion for olive oil in anything but salads. There are few others who managed this, one of them in the local scene is Marc Vetri, again in a dessert (he, however, also gets redeeming points for using butter everyplace else, so I suspect I give him a head start. I also incidentally happen to think he's one of the finest chefs I have ever encountered, but that is a matter for another review). Coffee was ordered and consumed, at this point the waiter seemed considerably better disposed towards us except for the detail that I had to tackle a busboy to obtain the check (which is something else that makes me want to experiment on the service staff with gasoline and kerosene, but that's another story). So, where does this leave us? I think it leaves me in the same place as Amada did: the food is definitely interesting - although I cannot speak for its authenticity, since basque tradition is unfortunately out of my scope of knowledge - with some points of excellence that will defintely make me think about going back. The service, however, which was not the opening-night uncertainty but more deeply problematic - and the noise level, were such that it will take at the very least a long while before I darken Tinto's doorway again, which is probably a shame. I am fairly certain it will manage to be successful despite this, given other experiences in the city, because the food and the scene should be able to carry it through. Not for me, though. For reference, here is a link to the menu, courtesy of foobooz: http://foobooz.com/2007/03/tinto-menu-unveiled While not exact, it is substantially equivalent to that actually being served, down to the fold-in-half-then-in-three pattern. One notable difference is the lack of the chefs' tasting, substitued by a specialty which I unfortunately do not recall.