bmdaniel

Did anyone get tickets today? It was a bit of a fiasco, but I eventually snagged a table for late June.

Curious why you went to Luling City Market twice? Also, very impressive that you liked Franklin's the best when it was your 8th visit (high risk of being BBQ'd out, if such a thing is possible). Really need to get down there.

They posted on facebook that it would be sunday at the earliest.

This

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have not been to Lucia (although I have eaten David Uygur's food at Lola and at other events); in addition to it being hard to get into, my wife and I had a baby right when it opened. I think Smoke is a good choice; Tim Byres has been getting a lot of recognition lately (Food and Wine best new chef Southwest, had one of food and wine's top 10 dishes of 2010 I think) and they do good food. Really nice brunch as well saturday and sunday.

This exact issue is a troublesome one for Dallas (and the subject of a lot of snarky debate among dallas food bloggers). Basically, the problem is, Dallas doesn't do any "Texas" stuff well; for the most part (and maybe changing) the Barbecue and Tex-Mex just aren't that great. Maybe the one exception is Babe's for fried chicken and CFS. A lot of the best restaurants (Lucia, Nonna, formerly York Street) are basically using local ingredients but not in a Texas representative style. It's always hard to know what to suggest for people because it's either great adapted regional Italian or mediocre something else. Based on your description, probably Smoke, Stephan Pyle, or Fearings are the best bet (with Smoke being a good deal more casual than the other two).

That "Clearance Sale" is at JB Prince's standard prices. I don't think that's true for everything; I picked up the 7.5 qt Rondeau, which looks like its $126 on the JB prince cite, for $90 buck. Am I missing something?

Thanks for posting, picked up a couple of things.

Hijacking this thread a bit - Headed out to SF in early May - looking for ideas of good restaurants in the city or east bay where you'd be comfortable bringing a 6.5 month old. He usually just sleeps/not disruptive, but obviously louder/more casual ambience is better. We've eaten quite a bit in the bay area over the last couple of years but all pre-baby so don't have a good feel for what places would work.

Yes, I've been to one. Sure, you can get large egg dishes at diners, but note they call themselves "waffle house" and not "egg house." On the other hand, there are shops dedicated to such calorically-dense foods as ice cream, chocolate, pastry, and cheese. Is the Ben & Jerry's Vermonster sundae a manly dish? I certainly think so! Ask and ye shall receive: http://www.theeggandirestaurants.com/ http://www.anotherbrokenegg.com/ I wouldn't describe either as manly though.

I think there are much more interesting places you could go than Hibiscus, which is fine but essentially a steak place. Depending on what you like- Lucia, Nonna, Tei An, Stephen Pyles, Samar, Charlie Palmer, or Smoke would all be better choices, for me at least.

paulraphael - Any additional report on the filters bags you got? Reading through Modernist Cuisine this weekend and realizing I won't be purchasing a centrifuge any time soon made me think about this discussion. I see that McMaster Carr has foodsafe Bags from 500 microns to 1 micron (with a lot of options in between) - any new thoughts from anyone? http://www.mcmaster.com/#filter-bags/=bmpets Pages 380-383

Brought to mind this piece from the Times Magazine recently http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/magazine/mag-20Subversion-t.html?_r=1

I would highly echo the recommendations for the Fresh Meals Sous Vide Magic + FMM combination; rock solid temperature control, great flexibility as to bath (I am using a 20L bath), low price (300 for the entire solution, vs. $450 for 10L, uncirculated SVS with no bath flexibility) and amazing service (I just had an issue with mine and got the whole thing resolved on a sunday night). The only advantage I could see to other systems is kitchen aesthetics if you prefer a more polished look.

Chris - Would be interested to hear your impressions on the size of the unit - is it big enough to do most anything you would want?

We've had good luck with Mexican - enchiladas reheat/stay hot well, and you can also do make your own fajita/tacos stations (plus chips, dips, etc.)

JBailey - it looks like he is cooking in a bath hotter than his target temp in that example

A lot of people think coconut oil is particularly healthy because of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-chain_triglycerides

Do you know what cut of meat they used for the Pastrami?

Could you just use a good quality coconut oil to fry the paste?

I'm still confused about the terminology here - When I buy coconut milk, the inside of the can is separated into a very thick top part (almost solid) and a watery bottom part. Is this what you are referring to, or a further separation of the top part?

I thought Rocket was just another name for Arugula? In Dallas my biggest problem is finding nice green mixes without Arugula, since my wife won't eat it.

I don't like places that are always refilling iced tea; I like my iced tea a certain way (right amount of lemon, right amount of sweetener) and then you turn your head for a second and your half-empty glass is refilled and you are back at square one. It also illustrates why some of these are hard - I wouldn't be surprised if some people have a pet peeve that their tea isn't refilled all the time. The best solution I've seen is always bring a new glass for iced tea drinkers (with new ice and a new lemon, another related ice tea peeve) when the tea starts getting low (but don't take the old glass until it's done!). Another major MAJOR peeve is waiters that comment on how much you've eaten (e.g. "you must've hated that" said sarcastically; desired response "not until now").

I completely disagree with that - if a place has a no-questions-asked return policy, that is part of what you are paying for. They are free to set whatever return policy they want, and you have to abide by that. If you have to lie to return it, that is a different story but I don't think that is being discussed here.

This looks like a great deal - thank you for posting, just picked one up.