eternal

Well sure, I'd love to go to Masa but that isn't in the budget. In regards to the others, my colleague always takes me and some clients to the latest hip and happening sushi restaurant that is incredibly expensive and i'm always unimpressed. Between Shiro's, Umi, Mashiko and Nishino, I highly doubt I'm missing anything in NYC and certainly not anything worth paying 5x on. I'll look into Brooklyn Fare. Sounds interesting. Thanks!

I would love a real steam injected oven for the kitchen that wasn't ridiculously priced.

I went to a JITB last week after a flight home. I was really craving the tacos because I just wanted something small and greasy but alas, they were gone! When did they disappear?

OK. I deleted Morini and booked Aldea. Maybe I will do the tasting menu there. Even got a good time (8pm on a friday!) I hope it is not bland as someone else suggested. On that note, do you know a good Portuguese place that is more classic? Think lots of fried bachalao (sp) and potatoes, etc? We did a couple weeks of traveling in northern portugal last year and had a great time. Would love to find a place to remind us. Thanks for the info

We add in red pepper flakes and roast at about 400-450 and almost to burnt. Delicious. Another favorite cauliflower recipe is to steam it until tender and then throw in the blender with some of the water, a little bit of butter and some olive oil (1/4 cup? somewhere around there) and s&p and blend until a thick, but pourable liquid. I serve it underneath a big, juicy pork chop. Simple and awesome

Thanks for the info. I find sushi in Seattle is on par with or better than anything in NY, though I've heard good things about Yasuda. I end up eating it there as my co-worker liked to do the big sushi work dinner that is ridiculously expensive...but that's another topic. I think your second suggestion is perfect though. I love SPicy & Tasty in Flushing and 39th and 5th is even close to the Ace. Thanks for the recommendation! Is this a busy place or can I walk in at any time?

Trying to put together a couple places to hit on our trip to NY. We used to live in the LES back in 2009 and hit a lot of the favorites at the time: Babbo, Del Posto, Lupa, Casa Mono (wait, these are all Batali? as well as noodle bar and ssam and we travel back regularly, but rarely over a weekend. It is the wife's birthday around the same time so I was looking for something special but it appears i'm a little late for Memorial Day Weekend. EMP, Gramercy are both booked up for decent times. Per Se is a little out of the price range. I'm going to try for Ko and I booked a dinner at Morini and early dinner at Gramercy on Sunday night before we leave. We are staying at the Ace so I'm sure we'll eat at the Breslin It seems like Degustation would be a good choice, but I don't think they take reservations. Can someone recommend another special dinner option? We like the contemporary style of service - not overly fussy. And I'm pretty much done with the 10 course tasting menus (yes I'm aware I just contradicted something I just wrote). I'm looking for a nice 3 or 4 course meal with a relaxing vibe - some place you just want to hang out and enjoy a slow meal. I'm sure we'll spend a day eating Chinese in either chinatown. Can someone recommend a good place for Hunan or Szechuan in chinatown Manhattan in case we don't make it to Flushing? Thanks

I haven't been in years but I found it pretty mediocre steak frites. I prefer "Le French Bistro" in LES but it is a totally different experience. Seating for about 10

It is good. Stayed at the Ace a couple of times and that helped a bit on the line as we were able to make reservations, even on Valentine's Day and the bar is a pretty chill place to hang out. I find the food is good - I had the lamb burger but it is just good comfort food, not necessarily anything that you are dying to try. I thought the terrine board was good but not amazing.

Hummus, bread and cheese.

Turns out this applies to all places, except for Chuckie Cheese and the back yard

I picked up a 5lb Boston butt on Sunday morning along with some apple wood and a drip tray. I loaded up the kamado with coals, then used the chiney to get a couple handfuls going. I dropped those into the kamado once they were gray and then put down the first rack. On top of the first rack, I put in a drip tray filled with rocks as a heat shield. It didn't leave a lot of space for air to get around, which worried me a bit. I then left the top crack about an inch and the bottom slat cracked about half an inch and dropped a probe thermometer down into the dome. Once the temp hit about 220, I threw the pork onto the grill and then dropped some wood chips down onto the coals. I couldn't really get the wood onto the coals very easily because I think I loaded it too full. I then watched the temps It continued to raise so I finally closed off the top and the bottom slat but I still couldn't get the temp to come down. After a couple hours it was sitting at 300. It was then I realized that my old kamado doesn't have a good seal between the bottom and top domes and so air was still getting in. After 5 hours the temp was like 320. I checked the meat with the probe and got around 205 so I decided to pull it off. I poured a bit of water on the coals and rocks to try and stop the fire and that seemed to work. The pork was delicious and had a smallish smoke ring. I made some bbq sauce and the lady made some corn-stuffed poblanos and we had a delicious dinner. I also learned a few more things about my kamado that will serve me well next time, namely to use less coal, put the wood chips on before the meat and then look into getting a new gasket. It's nice to learn these lessons AND still get a great meal out of it. I tend to learn these lessons while destroying a meal

The original assertion was whether or not WF was significantly more expensive than other markets. I think we can say that WF is not a cheap place to shop, but you tend to get what you pay for. A real butcher, high quality foods, lots of bulk items and with some shopping on sales, you can get some great deals. It fills a niche in the market that I find useful. I don't think it makes sense to compare it to Costco. Costco, also part of my routine, has certain things at great prices and generally also of high quality. Pine nuts, blocks of parm, heavy cream you can get at a vast discount for the quality/quantity. But, you aren't going to find a lot of things at costco that you need to make dinner during a normal week. In this case, costco is a great supplement to your shopping. Yes, they sell wine at Costco and I might pick up a few bottles but I also prefer to go to Esquin, my local wine shop to get their opinions and I think I learn a little bit more about it when I do. I also buy from garagiste, which I get totally stucked into The Asian market is the same. You're going to find a lot of stuff you won't find at Costco and for Asian staples, my guess is that it will be cheaper. You'll also find weird fish and meat selections that you might not find elsewhere and pork belly at ridiculously cheap prices. The cheap cuts are still cheap, even though they might now be gourmet elsewhere. The tradeoff is that you might trust less about where your stuff comes from and you're unlikely to find the best milk around, etc. All three of these have their place and I'm happy to make them all part of my routine.

I've used a chimney starter for the egg but I've also found that just putting in a couple sheets of rolled newspaper work just fine for starting the Kamado. The only thing I've noticed is that it tends to stay in the "flame" stage for an extended period of time whereas the chimney gets it gray pretty quickly.

For smoking, do you just put the chips directly on the coals?

Reminds me of an NYT article written back in 2008, here. They compared staples and found WF pretty much had the same price as other NYC stores. They argue you pay more for veg, fruit and meat because its much higher quality. I used to hate WF back in 2007. It was just before I moved to NYC and I thought it was expensive, yuppie food. I shopped at Larry's Market (before the divorce took it down), the pike place market and sometimes Fred Meyer. Then, I moved to NYC and I started to love WF because it was the only real market nearby in the Lower East Side. It was awesome. Tons of beer options, veg, etc. I also started to believe that while some things seemed pricey, it generally wasn't as bad as people said - I think this is especially true in NYC where everything seems expensive to a non-native. I'm back in Seattle now and I'll still stop by on occasion but I generally will go to AJ meats in Queen Anne for meat and Metro market (also not cheap) for most grocery items. And while I think that impulse buys def add up in price, they are also a good way to find good deals. They had 5 pound bags of lemons the other day for $3 and amazingly juicy oranges for 99 cents a pound. To the person who talks about the Asian markets as if they are the same... Look. I shop there too. We have a great chinatown. But you also have to realize that most likely your chicken is being trucked in from the south, your shrimp was probably being over farmed in long nets stretching across rivers in Thailand, etc. Asians (and I mean this with great respect) tend to care a lot more about cost than quality or sustainability. I'm not saying WF is the the more ethical option but you need to take this into account,. if you care about that sort of thing.

Grilled an 8lb leg of lamb last night on the egg. I had the same problem as torakris. Got the egg up hot to sear the lamb but then fought a bit to get it down to finish the lamb off for an hour. Was trying to get it down to 350 or so. I have a digital probe thermometer but still struggled. Ended up burning a bit of the lamb but in the end it still turned out awesome. I marinated the lamb using the Bittman recipe from last week of yogurt, orange zest, cardamon and mint. Reading the comments above, it makes perfect sense to start low and get the right temp and then sear at the end. Now I know! Have grilled three times in the last week. Loving it.

Thanks for the link. Turns out mine is a Kamado - the second one he turned into a bright red grill.

I go back and forth. The Alton Brown popularized method works well but I like a little more chew so I still tend to cook it on a griddle on top of a couple burners.

I picked up a bunch of Mangalitsa skirt steaks the other day at the market. I'm thinking of just throwing them on a hot egg grill and cooking them the same way I would cook a beef skirt steak. Im curious if anybody else has a better idea.

About 9 months ago my father-in-law found me an old egg at a garage sale. It's orange and kinda rusty and has chinese characters on it. I have no idea what brand it is but I've been anxiously awaiting the point when we moved into a house where I could actually use it. Today, I brought it over and lit it up. I was worried because I didn't have a chimney starter but I rolled a few pieces of paper underneath the charcoal and it lit up without any problems. I got it nice a warm and then threw a bunch of brats on. Nothing special but we've only been in this house for two days and really didn't have time to do a proper meal - I just wanted to grill! I cooked the hell out of the brats but they were still tasty and I was happy to have gotten in a little grilling. Looking forward to more use of the egg!

Awesome! Thanks for reminding me of that wonderful city while I'm stuck in the office. If you make it back to the market, stop by El Quiem de Boqueria for baby squid and runny eggs. Delicious! I'm going to have to write down pinotxo and universal for my next visit, whenever that might be. Have fun and keep posting!

How do we tell if it is new? Mine certainly looks new but that just means they changed the base plastic during refurbishing? I received both sizes of the jars and have been using the blender almost constantly since we purchased it. Been mostly making smoothies but also made a batch of puebla-style mole last weekend that came out quite well. The texture was very very smooth and had no problems getting large amounts of stuff into the blender as opposed to the several batches it would have taken me in the older KA we have.

My feeling is that neither dessert was a tie. Padma & co liked Mike's and Tom & co likes Richards. So it was a tie. Then Mike lost the first two course and won the third. Richard won the first two and the title. I also think Richard prepared something more interesting than just food done really really well.

THe pizza looks great. What's your dough recipe?