[Philly's best Mussels]

My wife and I tried Zot last night on the recommendation of friends from DC who frequented this chef's previous restaurant there. While the mussels were very good, they weren't good enough to keep me from Monk's, which is still the gold standard for me right now in Philadelphia. I had the "Bangkok"; my wife had the "Snob". As I said, both were fine but we both found ourselves wishing we had gone to Monk's instead. It didn't help that the service was uneven, either, but perhaps it was just a bad night. The Frisee salad we had to start was the highlight of the meal.

I'm looking forward to trying both Standard Tap and Grey Lodge based on the comments here.

[Rick's Steaks Leaving RTM?]

I was just heading over this way to post about this, too. I was approached in the market this morning by an employee of Rick's, asking to sign the petition. Uninformed as I was, I signed anyway because I like Rick's and I'd prefer to see them stay at RTM. The employee who approached me was conveniently uninformed and I suspected there was more to the story than was being shared in the verbiage of the petition. I hope Rick's and RTM find a way to solve this that is fair to both parties. It would be a shame to see them go.

[Trickling Springs Heavy Cream]

I think Whole Foods is carrying a large part of Trickling Springs' product line but marketing it as their own house brand. If you look at the cap, you should be able to see where the product is from. McCaffrey's, a small supermarket chain based in the Yardley and Princeton areas, is also carrying some of their products.

[Proposed (by me) ban on wraps]

Isn't this just a subset of the greater problem: almost nobody in the USA can manufacture a decent tortilla, and those who can aren't distributing them widely?

Complaints about fragility and flavor of the wrapper are about the tortilla.  Solve the tortilla problem, and the wrap problem goes away.

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I think I'm with cdh on this one. It's the damn bread -- it sucks! I've never had one that didn't have an awful metallic aftertaste. Why bother when there are other great flatbreads and tortillas out there that are better suited to the task at hand? I never heard anyone complain about a good gyro or a good soft taco.

Edited for punctuation.

[Korean Food]

My wife and I really enjoy Korean food and will be trying some of the places mentioned in this thread. For a long time, we were going to the Korean buffet Porky & Porkie on 11th and Washington. While we'd had better Korean food before, we really liked that we could cook the meat and seafood ourselves and we didn't have to commit to one or two entrees. But, alas, like all good things, Porky & Porkie is no more. And while the Vietnamese restaurant across the street has been a wonderful consolation prize, we'd love to find another good Korean buffet.

Does anyone here know of a good Korean Buffet in the greater Philly metro area? We are willing to drive about an hour from Lower Bucks or even further for a really special place.

[When is it a sauté; when is it a sear?]

You guys and gals rock my world. Here, I was thinking it was a temperature thing.

I think my confusion started when I read a Pam Anderson cookbook (no, not the Baywatch Pam Anderson!). In the book, she seems to imply that searing is simply a higher heat version of sautéeing. Perhaps for the purposes of the book, this was so (it's still a terrific book). But nothing she says about either technique is inconsistent with what you all said.

Conclusion: I'm going to relax about this. I will find a temp that seems to yield the results I want. And I will try finishing in the oven. My wife made some killer pork chops that way last week.

Thanks, all!

[When is it a sauté; when is it a sear?]

Hi Folks,

I'm new here. In fact, this is my very first post. So, I figured I'd dive right in with my latest cooking quandary.

Like a lot of people, I live in an apartment and am stuck with an ancient and terrible electric stove. There's no getting around it so I am trying to make peace with it.

While the oven works very well, especially with a big pizza stone in it, the stove top is something of an enigma to me. It seems that it is always too hot or not hot enough. Using that as a perfectly good excuse to go out and buy something, I went out and got one of those silly infrared thermometers. Now I can measure the exact temperature of my fine cookware on this abomination of a stove (note to self: measure the temp before putting the oil in the pan!).

The trouble is, I don't know what the target temperature ranges are for sauté and sear. I guess I missed that season of Good Eats. Is there such a thing as a temperature range for these techniques?

I bet someone here knows -- at least I'm hoping so.

Thanks, in advance, for your gentle advice.

Manley <alas, with no clever signature as of yet>