tommy

the green was certainly like swiss chard. and the ribs are red. cecil told me that whatever process they use to cook it brings out the red, and leaves the greens in a pool of red liquid. very pretty. kinda spinach like. i wasn't blown away, but we were full.

and steak-for-steak, outback is doing a better job than Arthur's, who happens to get a higher rating in the "food" category. zagat is a silly little phone book for sure, but it does carry quite the marketing punch. and when restaurants are being left out year after year, you gotta ask why. and more important than us asking why is the owners who are being shut out of that marketing opportunity. eff zagats.

robyn, those points, and the fact that you don't live in NY, which you seem to make clear every other post, would probably make for an excellent thread. athough i'm pretty sure it's been covered. try the search function on the "general" board.

it's pretty clear that i'm making pizza tonight. this thread was *killing* me all day long.

Because vinegar is sterilized before being offered for sale, the appearance of a mother is a rare and chance event, most likely due to chance "contamination" of an open bottle of vinegar with a helpful acetic acid bacterium that was floating around in your kitchen at an opportune moment. even worse.

it's all a bit creepy, ain't it.

no one should. but people do. this one just happened to be working at Cosi. the cosi bread always seemed stale to me. i stopped going after the initial novelty wore off.

everyone knows that smoking kills.

stopped in tonight with a friend to have dinner. noticed two dudes checking out our dishes as they were seated. Smart dudes. heard a cork pop from what was clearly a sparkling wine, and then saw what i thought might be an ice wine being pulled from a bag. first thing that came to my mind?: “egullet freaks.” (in a good way) two dudes, and they were ordering up a storm. we had some excellent discussion around the bullet-proof glass type booths about the dishes we were eating…and having people talk around bullet-proof glass about what their neighbors are chowing on is strange indeed in these parts (that was another indication that these particular dudes probably heard about egullet). i listened closely, without being obtrusive or obnoxious, at their order. i heard "Dungeness crab". Now, this dish is huge, so i knew we had some serious eaters in the house. it was then made clear by the server (Qing, I believe…I should ask him again, but he’s the TOPS), that we had ordered the last of the red greens (don't ask me), although they wanted them, as the server pointed at our dish. I felt bad, as we hadn’t finished the whole dish (although they were excellent). Passionate discussion ensued about the pork that we were eating and the ruby pork and another "new" pork dish that C46 was offering. i said "yeah, we got the new one". i was assured by the one dude that we hadn't, as the “new” dish is in fact a pork shoulder, and we didn’t have a shoulder. this dude asked about my favorite dishes blah blah blah, and i threw out a few, all expert-like and all. this dude and his bud had had most of them, if not all, and claimed that they’d only been going to C46 for a month or two. Color me impressed for sure! this dude said he heard about C46 from a website called “egullet”. "have you heard of egullet?" he asked. and hey, if you're me, you either say "no", or "yes" and duck immediately. My friend didn’t know what to do as the question was asked, and believe me, I didn’t either. “hell, this could be menton1 for all I know” I thought to myself. I timidly said “yeah, who are you? I’m ‘tommy’”. He said “mark”. I said “oh yeah, you were here the other night”. He looked at me like I was some stalkerish freak. But I followed up with “I read your post and posted right after it.” Mark said “I’ll have to find your posts on egullet.” My friend said “well dude, you won’t have to look too hard.” Bottom line: I got out of there without getting punched. More importantly, I had a preserved pork dish that was out of this world. Now, I’ve had a “preserved pork” dish at Grand Sichuan in NYC (the one on 2nd ave, not the “temple” on 9th), and it was a big flabby fatty mess. C46’s version is the exact opposite. Clean, but deep flavors, pork belly that melts in your mouth, vegetables underneath that I dubbed “bacon vegetables”. This, is, my, new, favorite dish. I brought along a 2 dollar bottle of “Lost Vineyards” rose, and all was good in the world. I can only hope my neighbors enjoyed their meal as much.

how was the pasta "nasty"?

i'm in for tomorrow.

this is sad news for fans of your restaurant. but i'm glad to hear you'll still be serving up those pig parts in some respect. best of luck. we'll miss you.

indeed. the prices range from 1 dollar to thousands. perhaps i need some more specifics on this particular samovar.

excellent. thanks folks. i don't care much about them but a friend of mine is selling hers and wants to know what the going rate might be, so spelling it was the first step. or maybe i should buy it if it's cool? hmmm.

while i sometimes like the cornmeal flavor and texture, i have been going for a more neapolitan style of pizza, which, to me, would not have cornmeal. as far as the cheese, i haven't found the need to grate the low-moisture muzz. although i sometimes do half-and-half sliced and grated. i don't mind the extra time it might take to melt as it gives the crust time to get nice and done.

which category? they're probably serving a better steak than a large percentage of NJ restaurants.

what pains me to this day is that when they were open in montclair, before the expansion, about 10 people knew about it. service was top-notch. food incredible. after that expansion, it lost just about all appeal for me. it's really a shame, as, to me, this is a great restaurant that simply lost its way: horrible service, slow, spotty food, a freakin train wreck overall at times. good pork chops, though. You have seemingly contradicted yourself here; were you in-between some adult beverages when you wrote this? just finishing up most likely. what part didn't you understand? i'll type more slowly for you next time.

i hope bucktown takes the opportunity to visit and makes up his/her own mind. feel free to debate the merits of Corrado's on that other thread.

well you're still wrong about the produce.

i did a bit until i started putting the stone on a rack (so the angle of attack was less), and being a bit more careful. your solution, if it works, seems reasonable as well.

what's that big thing called? i'm told it sounds like "semivar", but this isn't the correct spelling. thanks.

Great description. a play off of a comment from chris rock. his was much funnier.

tuna tartare or cold cucumber soup actually, i have no idea if the cucumber soup has carbs, but i'd think not many.

i grilled it until rare. the mrs. doesn't like completely raw tuna, as she appreciates the texture dynamic of seared tuna. i think the texture worked well here. but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to japanese-ify this dish, which i'll probably try soon. what that means yet, i have no idea, but it will have an elemet of completely raw tuna.

every now and again i'll make something from one of those magazines. usually with good results. this month's Food & Wine has a cucumber and tuna tartare soup that i'd recommend. i was *very* pleased and equally surprised. it's dramatic looking and a perfect summer soup. recipe