edwardsboi

I've heard the Gray Kunz spoon is great for making quenelles and for saucing, but what about functions in the kitchen? Is it too short to baste the top of food with butter when you're cooking it on the stovetop, a la Fatguy method for steaks?

I'm just being paranoid because I've been the past victim of getting my computer infected with viruses so can anybody confirm first confirm that the link is safe before I download it.

My bad for not being clearer but I was referring to all the stuff in the Telegraph article: how his life was in danger when they poured gasoline on him or when those cars tried to block him in to when they lined him against in a wall and threatened to shoot him. I saw the meeting at the end with the Chinese restaurant, but I wanted to know if they ended up showing all the other stuff in the Telegraph article in England. That footage would have been gripping, exciting stuff and I don't understand why they wouldn't show it here in America.

Did you get to see Gordon Ramsay's documentary, Shark Bait, over in England? Because I watched it here in America, and I didn't see any of these things in the documentary they aired here in America: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8237505/Gordon-Ramsay-threatened-at-gunpoint-during-illegal-fishing-investigation.html I'm wondering if any of it was shown originally in England but then edited out here because of timing or content like when English shows are given more leeway with nudity. Mabye, this stuff was too shocking to air in America?

So, Columela is the best sherry vinegar you'll find in a grocery store? You might also want to try to look for sherry vinegar at sites like these: http://www.tienda.com/food/vinegar.html They speciliaze in Spanish ingredients so I'm sure whatever sherry vinegar they carry is going to be good.

I believe the Cosmopolitan is the ' new' casino. Is that the best buffet, or have they already started to cut corners and food costs already?

I know Lotus of Siam eventually ended up expanding to NYC, and I'm curious if there was any difference between their Las Vegas and NYC locations? (I also know that the owners later disassociated themselves from their NYC branch, but they were still involved and owners when those reviews were written). I had a trip lined up to NYC so I was reading different restaurant reviews about their NYC location to find which dishes to order. But, now the trip to NYC has been postponed. Instead, I'll be going to Las Vegas first and I'm wondering if I can use the NYC reviews to guide me what dishes to pick in Las Vegas. Normally, I'd stick to the Las Vegas reviews but I can't seem to find most of them. Jonathan Gold and David Rosengarten both wrote reviews about Lotus of Siam but I can't find them. And, what the hell ever happened to David Rosengarten?

Impressive in the sense in how much its grown compared to where they were just a couple of years ago, or impressive in the sense that its just as delicious as what you will find in Chinese restaurants in San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles? I live around LA and I can get really delicious Chinese food here so I've always been indifferent to the Chinese food in Las Vegas in years past. It always seemed I was paying more in Vegas only to eat inferior versions of the food I could eat back in LA.

I know foodies look down upon buffets, but going to Las Vegas without eating at buffet would be like going to San Francisco and not getting sour dough bread or going to San Gabriel Valley and not eating at a Chinese restaurant. Right now, in 2011, what's considered the best buffet and the best value buffet in Vegas? I've read older posts about it but the quality of the buffets seem to shift with time- they start off with a big splash with good quality to draw in the locals but then decline. Years ago, the Paris buffet was a very good bargain but it seems their quality has dropped since then.

The pictures of the pastries look absolutely stunning and jewel-like, but to me, the more important question, is how do they taste? Too often, especially for pastries, the pretttier it looks, the duller it tastes. Are there any can't-miss, must-try items for this shop?

Other than the special blue handle, is that the same Victorinox knife as this? http://www.amazon.com/Victorinox-47513-6-Inch-Boning-Fibrox/dp/B000QCNJ3C

How sharp are their fish knives? I'm reading Bourdain's Medium Raw, and one of the essays was about Justo Thomas, the fish butcher at Le Bernedain. Thomas is so good and so efficeint that when he's on vacation, it takes 3 sous chefs to do the same amount of work. You might have also seen him on last week's Top Chef episdoe, where he broke down and filleted a fish, and then later judged how fast the contestants could break down 2 fishes in 10 minutes. And, in the essay, Thomas makes a point that he always uses a dull fish knife to break down fish. Does anybody do this?

In other words, get the pliers because they're more versatile. You need the pliers for heavy boned fish, and you can also use them for more delicate fish. Whereas, you can only use tweezers for delicate fish but can't use them for heavy boned fish.

What would you suggest for a coffee grinder for coffee that will exclusively be drip? I've heard that burr grinders are superior to blade grinders, but will they still make a difference for drip? For drip coffee, do I want to buy the most expensive grinder that I can afford like I would with espresso? Or, should I concentrate on other things like the coffee machine or coffee beans instead of the grinder? If there was a hierachy of importance for drip coffee, where would the grinder fall on that list?

Oh... That's what that thing is for: http://www.homevillage.us/trfisc.html I didn't know what that boxy thing was for, but I guess it prevents those scales from flying everywhere. I've never heard of Triangle before, but the design seems sufficient.

I've never heard of this Zwiesel before. In the Pantheon of wine glases, how do you rank against something like Riedel?

I'm curious what egulleters think of the Oxo food mill too. I've seen the same Amazon ratings, but I figure that the culinary knowledge of egullets gives them a better perspective to judge a food mill rather than the random assortment of reviewers on Amazon.

I've never thought about how you'd use tweezers vs pliers depending on the fish, although that makes a lot of sense when I think about it. Is there a list out there which states which fish are heavy boned and which fish have more delicate bones because I can use that info to see which fish I'd likely cook more and let that guide me in choosing a fish tweezer or a fish plier.

Don't fish pliers end up mangling the fish when you're extracting the fish bones? If that's the case, what's the best fish tweezers out there? Has anybody tried Rosel's fish tweezers? The quality and material of Rosle products are usually very good, but I'm wondering if that's the best design possible for fish tweezers because there are a lot of different choices for design for fish tweezers these days. Unfortunately, when you look up fish tweezers or fish pliers on Amazon, there's not a lot of feedback on these products.

What you probably tasted was bitter almonds in the almond tofu. According to FDA rules and regulations, they're not supposed to use it in a dish much less sell it in the grocery market because of the cynaide in those bitter almonds. But, you can find in Chinese supermarkets, although they may be mis-labeled to avoid FDA regulations.

Since Wikipedia seems to be the final arbiter in almost all internet discussions, I thought I'd look up California Cuisine on Wikipedia. Interestingly enough, while it credits Alice Waters with being the public face of California Cuisine and credits Jeremiah Tower, the former chef at Chez Panisse as the originator of California Cuisine, Chez Panisse really doesn't match the rubric set forth in wikipedia for what constitutes California Cuisine. It defined California Cuisine as "a style of cuisine marked by an interest in 'fusion' – integrating disparate cooking styles and ingredients – and in the use of freshly prepared local ingredients." Yet, I've never really thought of Chez Panisse as being influenced or interesed in 'fusion'. Instead, the cuisine is and has always been really, really francophillic with the exception when Bertolli was the chef, where you saw some more Italian influences. Its like a quaint, romaticized ideal of France with great Californian ingredients. Maybe, California is too large to encompass one regional cuisine where there's a difference between Northern and Southern Californian cuisine. When I think of other chefs famous for California Cuisine, I think of Wolfgang Puck and Susan Goin in LA with Judy Rogers up in SF. Rogers and Goin both worked in Chez Panisse, so you see some similarities but also some differences. Rogers is more like Chez Panisse, heavily francophillic influences with some Italian touches. Whereas, down in LA, with Puck and Goin, they embrace the diversity of LA and the cuisines of their diverse line cooks. Puck's restaurant in the 80s was called Chinois, and he heavily incorporated and borrowed Asian cuisines. And, Goin seems to use chile d'arbo, a Mexican ingredient, in almost all her dishes.

I was watching PBS, and they had Michael Cimarusti, chef of Providence. Along with Eric Ripert, they're the foremost chefs speciliazing in fish in America. Although, he wouldn't fall into the molecular gastronomy camp, its clear he understands all the science in cooking and utilizing that knowledge to make better dishes. And, he specifically said that, like meat, its important to rest fish as well.

In a ideal world, you should have several different oyster knives with different shapes and sizes. You'd want a large oyster blade for the larger oysters, and a smaller oyster blade for the smaller oysters. And, you'd want a sharper, pointer end for european oystes, and a end that curves up for other types of oysters. But, let's say you're shipwrecked on an island and can only have one oyster knife- which one do you choose and why? Would you choose a Dexter Russell Boston 4 incher or a Dexter Russell New Haven 2 and 3/4 incher?

Isn't it too small and not wide enought to be effective as a fish spatula? Maybe, they use it for the BBQ too?

Obviously, I'm new to this forum and I wasn't around when it all went down, but what exactly happened here on egullet where cofounders were exiled and lawsuits were threatened? Tony obliquely metioned it, but it was like he was afraid of getting sucked into the maelstorm of lawsuits to directly say what really happened. Tony's not the one who said all those embarassing things; the bloggers were the one who stuck their feet in their mouths. It wasn't just Tony who thought food bloggers were weird. After watching that show, most of the audience probably thought so too.