FoodMan

Goode Company is excellent as well, very good brisket and surprisingly good turkey sausage!! I know many Houstonians are very partial to Goode Company but, if I had to choose one place it would be "Hickory hollow" who also makes superb brisket, ribs and a couple of non-bbq items such as Chicken Fried steak with gravy. The reason I said I love their ribs is because that is usually my favorite bbq item with brisket coming a close second Elie Elie

Welcome to Houston, here are some of my picks: Best bbq in town is at "Hickory Hollow" on Hights blvd. It's a family run business where everything is great. My faves are the pork ribs. Small Chef restaurants. Try "Aries" in Montrose, "Rouge", or the new Monica Pope place "T'afia" (I've never been here but her "Boulevard Bistrot" was very good). For Sandwiches , try Ragin Cajun where they have great po' boys and Muffelettas. Fadi's on Westheimer has good Falafel, Shawarma and Kafta (kabbab) sandwiches. I'll post more if something else comes to mind. Let me know if you need any more info about these places. Elie

I checked their website and they seem to offer typical Latin AMerican fair. Sort of like the stuff I would have at my Colombian in-laws house I think I will head over to Bread Winners Sunday morning. Elie

Not sure if it is legal or not but it does seem their right to do so if you cancelled after the deadline that they gave you and you agreed upon. So, how much did they charge you? FM

Droubi has several locations but I think the original one is still the best with the most variety of goods, so that's the one I go to. It is located on Hillcroft between Bellaire and Bissonnet. I forgot to mention that they also have a small cafeteria style section that served cooked foods. Their dips and Falafel sandwiches are very good. Another smaller location is on Hillcroft and Richmond. Elie

Droubi is the place I go to for all middle eastern goodies. I usually buy fresh Pita bread, nice mediterranean olive oils, olives (usually the ones labeled green Lebanese olives), Coffee, Cheeses, rose water, orange blossom water, and almost any other ingredient you need for Middle Eastern cooking. They have very good prices on dried fruits and nuts also. Pheonicia sounds pretty good, especially those Porcinis. It is out of my way though but I will try and stop by sometime. Another ethnic store that has been mentioned here before but is worth another mention is Hong Kong Market on Bellaire and Boone. This is THE place for any Asian product, produce or ingredient. They have fantastic pork and fish. Elie

Claudia Roden's "The Book of Middle Eastern Cooking" is one of the absolute best on the subject. Jacque Pepin's "Complete Technique" is a must I am also a big fan of Jamie Oliver's books, recipes are simple and taste good. For Bread Baking "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart. Elie

Chicken thighs marinated in homemade red adobo marinade overnight and cooked under the broiler while basted frequently with more of the delicious marinade. Served with mexican tomato rice. For dessert: Banana Foster Elie

The Tasting Room is booked for a private party that night (see my previuos posts). Unless they are willing to offer the Tasting menu at the main dining room both you and us are out of luck. Elie

I normally use my food processor to make bread dough and I use the regular blade. Process about 20 seconds per loaf, but then it depends on what kind of bread you are making. Elie

Scott- Your help is very much appreciated. I would never have known that about Lola's main dining room. The person on the phone was more like distracted than unfriendly (probably because I called at 4:30 and she might've been busy), it just seemed like she wanted to get me off the phone ASAP. So I will call again at an earlier time and check about getting the Tasting menu in the main dining room. In the mean time I'm keeping my options open. Elie

No Monica, it’s not you, it’s her. Her show is absolute crappola, garbage, and dangerous. Emeril might be annoying on TV but he actually can cook and is an accomplished chef who really turned a lot of people into preparing interesting new foods. Ms. Lee on the other hand is a faker who I truly believe is dangerous not just because her foods are VERY unhealthy but because she aims to destroy everything that is good about food. We need more people to encourage us to cook at home and have a nice healthy meal with the family at least on weekends. Instead we get this lady telling us screw that, your family is so dumb they cannot tell the difference “FEED THEM FAST CRAP”!!! She is also dangerous because she does not know what she is talking about. For example in that abominable Holiday episode (one of the only two I’ve seen) she tells us to dip fruits in raw egg whites and dip them in sugar and leave them at room temperature as a decoration/food without giving any raw egg warning. Can you say Salmonella??? Alton Brown would cringe if he sees that. And I used to think Rachel Ray was bad…. Elie

Scott- Thank you for your help. When I called yesterday, I did ask the person on the phone (who was not very friendly and sounded distracted) if I can have a tasting menu in the main dining room and she simply said no. A few minutes ago I called and made reservations for the main dining room anyways since their regular menu looks great and seems to have a very good value ($45 for a 4 course dinner is not bad at all). Unless I decide to cancel this one and try somewhere else, I might take your advice and plead a little; I am coming all the way from Houston to dine there , to see if they would let me have the tasting menu. Aurora and The Mansion seem a little over my budget. I will check Nana out. Thanks again Elie

Anyone been here lately? Elie

That’s just GREAT, after I got my heart set on having dinner at Lola’s Tasting Room and getting the 15 course menu, it turns out that the room is booked for a private party on the 24th (the evening of the Dallas get together). So I guess I am debating what I should do next. The main room at Lola’s, Abacus, York St.? Any other suggestions? Elie

Slow Mediterranean Kitchen, The South American Table and D'artagnan's book of Game. Elie

We're staying in Park Central (Westin I believe)

My wife an I will -unless something urgent comes up- be in Dallas on the 24th for the Dallas e-gullet get together. We plan to have a nice dinner that evening and a breakfast/Brunch Sunday. I pretty much have my dinner places scouted out thanks to an earlier thread about the Dallas restaurant scene. However, I would appreciate a good breakfast or brunch spot. So far a friend suggested a place called "Bread Winners". Thanks Elie EDIT: to fix the name of the place

Not this one, add a touch of neon to your holidays. Rachel's Rainbow Jello Mold <-- click for instructions Rachel that does look good and I would be more than happy to have a slice...but it is not a Jello salad (thank goodness for that) Elie

Fresh chestnuts when roasted are sweet , soft not mushy and certainly not musty or mealy. In other words I love them. Someone also mentioned bread pudding, what's not to like? I love making mine with chocolate chips, raisins and a rich custard. "treats" I do not like or care for: Any Jello salad---just plain yucky Egg Nog-- I do like the taste usually, but I cannot understand how can anyone drink more than a half cup of the stuff. It is way to thick and heavy for my taste to just sip. Green bean casserole made from the recipe on the back of Campbell's Cream of mushroom soup I HATE flavored coffees, all of them--especially the vanilla or the Almond crap. Elie

A few days ago I went to the Hong Kong market in Houston (amazing place), and to my surprise they had a whole freezer bin (the ones without top, like the ones they have trukeys in for thankgiving) full of the fruit. I grabbed one and smelled it...Nothing, no smell what so ever. Why would that be? Was it because it was frozen. I was tempted to buy one, $0.79/lb, but decided against it fearing that it will stink up my house once it reaches room temp. Elie

Mine is not nearly big enough. I need buy a sort of all purpose clay pot, or maybe I should buy a lead check kit and figure out if that one I have is safe to use. Elie

Thanks for the input Paula, I did use a Le Creuset pot to bake the Cassoulet in. It makes sense that baking in a earthenware dish would lead to more evaporation. Hopefully next time I make this dish I will have an appropriate clay pot. Is this why my bread crumbs did not form a thicker crust but rather got real soggy? Or do I need to use a coarser crumb? Elie

Hey there'snothing wrong with that. If it makes you that happy then enjoy it!! One of my favorites is the plain cheesecake at House of Pies in Houston. The other is the one I make at home . Elie

thanks everyone for the kind comments. Fifi- I am glad you enjoyed my post. Regarding your questions. I do believe there are variables but Wolfert says to add enough liquid to barely cover the beans, instead I think the liquid should just come up to the beans’ level but not totally cover them-- they were just a little runnier than I expected and I did not have to baste them at all. As for the bread crumbs, she does not specify if they should be coarse or fine, it was just my observation that a coarser crumb would produce a better texture. I did not use Paula Wolfert’s confit recipe that includes both duck and pork (which does sound fantastic and I will try it). I used Ariane Daguine’s recipe from the D’artagnan game cookbook. I mainly had three changes from Wolfert’s recipe, First I used pork shoulder meat instead of cut up spare ribs, second I used Daguine’s confit recipe, third I left the duck leg confit whole instead of removing the meat from the bone and wrapping it with the crisped skin. I did crisp the whole legs in a skillet before adding them to the pot during the last 30 minutes of cooking. There is just something about a whole duck leg confit that I could not bring myself to skinning and boning them.