VivreManger

Quick report on the Market. Was in a particularly carnivorous mood so I tried Las Pampas. Very good meat and veggies. I was particularly impressed with the plaintains which unlike some other churrascerias I have been too had not gotten dried out in the steam-bath. I had the sirloin and the lamb both of which were tasty. The feijoada was not that exciting, but as a side dish it was acceptable. One complaint I have is that since it is paper plates and plastic knives it would be better if they sliced their meat really thin. Carving a thick piece of lamb or beef with a plastic knife is no fun. If you can't get them to slice it thinner, better bring your Swiss army knife. Unfortunately I was too full to try Loteria and DuPars. Las Pampas is much better, though a bit more expensive, than the Mid-West Grill in Cambridge, MA which I sometimes try. On the other hand the general side dish buffet at both places is inferior to the Brazilian ghetto establishment, Cabana Carioca, in the mid West 40s in Manhattan.

Is this the Brazilian place? If so, I agree. I love the Farmer's Martket! The contrast with the Grove is so interesting--you can identify the Market regulars that have wandered out into the Grove my mistake by their totally confused expressions! I think the Brazilian place is Pampas Grill. Sorry to confess my lack of LA lore, but what's the Grove?

I pulled out an old map of the Farmer's Markey from about 25 years ago and was struck at how much turn-over there has been. The old fruit stands Kludjian and Meshulam's are gone. The ubiquitous DuPars is still hanging around as is Marconda's Meat. Any recommendations? Are DuPars pies still worth getting as a take-back East treat?

Great recommendations. Many thanks for your efforts. Much appreciated and valued. Have no fear about Bizou. It was never on my radar screen, though I am considering 2117 for French-Japan cuisine. 2117 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles 90025 • 310-477-1617. Between Mississippi Ave. & W. Olympic Blvd. Just West and South of 405. About ten blocks before Santa Monica Freeway, I-10 The problem is that sometimes such places are little more than bad versions of each repsective cuisine. The much ballyhooed French Cambodian in Boston, Elephant Walk, has always struck me as guilty of that sin. The Gehry ideas sound great. One other suggestion close to Pasadena is Tung Lai Shun, 140 W Valley Blvd San Gabriel, CA (626) 288-6588. It is decribed as a Muslim Chinese restaurant. While surely better than a Kosher Chinese restaurant, based on what I have learned so far, it seems simply Beijing style Chinese without the Pork. I wonder if they have any Uighur influence in their cooking, the Uighurs being the largest Muslim minority in China. They are of Turkic origin. I have seen lots of Julia Cameron Mitchel over the years and while interesting Victorian photography, I have not seen it worth a special exhibition.

When I take my hosts out, $40- $50 per person is the range I am looking at. For myself less than that. As for formality or informality, I don't care as much. I am more interested in the food than in the ambience. I am willing to put up with ambience, only if the food is worth it. As for what I want, basically what I can't find easily in the Boston area or in Chicago where I am going in two weeks. Thus - Guelaguetza might make sense, but I have no idea where it is in relation to where I will be. Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles might be good for breakfast, but an authentic Mexican or Asian place that does the meal and is located near the Pasadena to Getty route would also make sense. How ubiquitous is In & Out and are the competition, le Pan, Jay's Jay Burger, Pie n Burger, Cassell's worth a special trip to their locations, wherever they may be? Another chain is El Pollo Inka/Pollo ala Brasa, that might be fun for a quick snack. I have very fond memories of Du Pars, Campanile, and Matuhisa, but given my schedule, the first two are more likely to get revisited. Is Du Pars and the Farmer's Market on 3rd & Fairfax open on Sunday? I might want to take one of the pies home with me. Any special recommendations there? Tung Lai Shun for Northern Chinese might be worth it, but where is it located? Unfortunately two much food, too few days, so I will have to triage this list. That is why I am trying to establish some kind of geo-gastronomy, carto-culinary guide to put all of this intoi a mental map and see where it leads me. The last time I depended on the recommendations of these hosts, the results were mixed, an excellent simple Mexican restaurant where I ate a sweet & sour rib-warming soup for breakfast, someplace in Pasadena, and a non-descript semi-high end Italian with a name like Al Forno, but it wasn't. With reluctance I had eaten at their branch in Palo Alto a day or two earlier, but felt it impolite to mention that repetition. This time I am taking them out so I will be more assertive. Sorry for the confusion about shows, I meant exhibitions, museum shows. I don't have enough free evenings to book tickets for anything. Hope that helps gave some guidelines.

In mid-December I am off to LA for a quick three-day long-weekend trip. One day is completely taken with a bat-mitzvah celebration. Sunday and Friday have some free time. I will be driving over a good chunk of real estate from LAX to Pasadena to the Getty area (is that in Brentwood?) and environs more or less. I am looking for a number of specific recommendations. On the drive from LAX to Pasadena are there any places worth stopping for a bite around 9 in the evening? I will need some supper after fasting on the flight, with little more than the fresh fruit plate. Specifically, any interesting Mexican/Korean and other Asian spots to hop off the freeway to explore on the surface roads? On Friday I plan to visit the Getty on Friday morning. Between Pasadena and the Getty are there any similarly interesting spots for a breakfast bite and food market shopping? I realize that there are a number of alternative routes and if some have better food paths than others that might determine my precise itinerary. Food at the Getty by most reports appears to be okay, but a bit overpriced. It might be worth picking up some tid-bits on the way there for eating later that day in the picnic area. Unfortunately I saw the Houdon exhibit in DC this past summer and the ancient themes in medieval renderings which I would have liked to see will be closing before I get there. Obviously the permanent exhibits, museum grounds and site are more than worth the price of getting there, but I may not spend as much time once I have scoped the place out. Any other interesting shows in LA in mid-December? Your responses in part will determine my next destination. I will probably then wend my way back towards Pasadena. That evening I plan to take my hosts out to dinner. Is there any place worth trying in or near Pasadena? I have eaten around there in the past and don't remember anything exciting. She is Mexican. He is from SF. She knows Mexican food better than I can imagine and is very active in the community so I can't see finding some "authentic" Latino place for dinner, but interesting Korean or Thai might be fun. A number of places have been mentioned, notably Jitlada, but I have no idea how convenient it might be. I have not had really good Korean in a long time so that might be fun. Her office is in the 91104 area code and he works around Claremont so I don't know if there would be some central node that would be convenient for all of us to meet at for dinner. For this dinner I would be comfortable spending up to $40-$50 per person, but I imagien that the kind of food I have in mind would be much less. While I can't see Mexican with them, I may have a chance earlier in the day or perhaps on Sunday, when I gradually wend my way back to LAX to catch the red-eye back to the East Coast. One thought that I had was to check out enough Mexican to get a sense of the regional differences of origin and destination between Chicago and LA Mexican cooking, since I will be in Chicago in the intervening weeks. However I doubt I will have the time to do anything systematic in either place. Thanks for your suggestions

There have been several threads on canned salmon. Advantages: Canned salmon is usually wild. Convenience in a pinch. In Quebec canned salmon is offered in many more varieties than in the States. Some of the fish are quite good. I prefer to chill it in the fridge and eat the whole thing straight out of the can with only lemon juice, and perhaps capers, on lightly buttered rye or pumpernickel bread. The skin, the bones are all delicious. I hate it mashed or with mayo.

Though I have been in the neighborhood many times, I have not tried the Italian pastry shop down Wooster St. on the same side as Sally's. I should note that it was crowded on Saturday, but not as packed as Mike's in Boston's North End can get. I must have tried Pepe's in the past, but that was at least thirty or so years ago and my recollections are not clear enough to render an informed comparison. On the other hand, Pepe's offshoot, The Spot, I have tried recently enough to conclude that it is inferior to Sally's.

Up-date on Sally's Apizza: By Saturday night our party of 8 for 8:30 PM had grown to 10. Compulsively I had followed up my phone reservation with a letter -- mailed not faxed. On the Saturday in question when I realized that we had grown to 10, I drove by the place shortly before it opened and double-checked that we would have no problem. My advice is forget the phone, show up and make the reservation in person. We showed up shortly before the time. We were seated at around 8:40, jumping the line of about 15 or so that had formed in the cold night outside. The ten of us were mostly out-of-towners, but three were from New Haven and had not been to Sally's in more than a decade or so. They had given up since they thought reservations were impossible and they could not bear the line. All felt the hype was justified, though the more curmudgeonly didn't think the pizza was good enough to have waited for 30 minutes plus outside in the cold. A fifteen minute wait would have been justified. The real wait took place inside. Although we ordered very quickly after sitting down, it took about 30 to 40 minutes for the pizza to arrive. The drinks arrived more quickly, beer and soft-drinks, no wine available. I can't imagine they would notice if one BYOBed the wine. The ten of us could not manage Fat-Guy's recommended ration of half a pie per person, but we did manage three large pizzas and two medium size, about the equivalent of 4 large ones. We were about three small slices short of finishing the whole thing. The pizza is superb. The quality is evident in that first pite of the toppings on top of the delicate thin crust. Of course the whole thing is so hot that you can barely taste it at first, but gradually the experience overwhelms. It is better than the Spot which I tried a few years ago. We had one tomato-garlic (no mozzarella), my favorite. Potato, no mozzarella, with rosemary, a bit disappointing. It should have had some onions and a bit more olive oil. I had a similar pizza at Berkshire Baking Company in the Housatonic section of Great Barrington over the summer and their version had a more assertive flavor. The others were: 1) sausage, cheese, red sauce -- quite good, though it appears that the pepperoni pizza gets a more generous dusting of meat than the sausage, 2) tomatoes and onions with mozzarella no sauce, quite good, though I would have liked the onions cooked to the point of a slight browning, and 3) black olives with red sweet peppers, mozzarella, and red sauce. The least was my last favorite largely because I dislike California canned balck olives. Had it been made with kalamata or another Mediterranean variety, Alfonso perhaps, it would have been much tastier, but unfortunately in the States everyon seems to use the black California, a adull variety. Our waiter, Lorenzo, announced that we looked like a bunch of physicists -- not a bad guess since the number-crunching economic historian in our midst did have the eccentric white-hair and open shirt under winter coat of a refugee from Albert Einstein-land. The rest of us just looked like run of the mill academics. As for the other staff of the restaurant, they had the flare and panache of the crew of a pirate ship, the over-rouged and bandy-legged manageress, the pizza oven worker with a wild mustache and a delight in playing with the firing oven, the pizza maker with a slightly wild look in his eye. They took pride in what they were doing and managed to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing. Well worth the visit. We left stuffed. My local informant explained that New Haven pizza is actually Amalfitano in origin -- apizza or apizz being the way the thing is pronounced in Amalfi. The thin crust style is also distinctive to that region.

After several days of phoning at different times of the day and night, I finally got through this afternoon at about 3:15. They took a reservation for a party of 8 at 8:30, the earliest available on Saturday night. Now we will see what happens when we get there.

I never understood Whole Foods to be a "health food" store. Products containing sugar were available at our local Bread & Circus. It was labeled as "evaporated cane juice" or Florida crystals. Whole Foods has more oragnic options, and we can get crackers there that don't contain partially hydrogenated oils. When it first opened B&C avoided Florida crystals as well.

Foie gras is usually on the menu and guinea hen was offered the night I went. You might find out what else will be there on the day of your choice. Or by meat, do you mean the 4-legged variety. They offer that from time to time as well, I believe.

The wild-fresh salmon debate has appeared regularly on this forum. The NYTimes article that sparked one of the discussions is at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/30/dining/3...print&position= But I don't know if it is still available for free. You might troll through the search engine if you want to review the history of this discussion. One point that I think was established earlier is that almost all canned salmon is in fact wild. Two other issues: Availability of wild salmon Whole Foods policies. Since that NYtimes article appeared, the Whole Food stores and the local fishmonger in Massachusetts have much more frequently stocked wild salmon, though they continue to offer the cheaper farm-raised as well. On the other hand the biggest supermarket chain, Stop & Shop, has wild salmon infrequently. I am curious if Adam can establish whether or not the Scottish farms avoid the problems of the industry. Austin-based Whole Foods bought out the local equivalent, Bread & Circus, a few years ago. There was a noticable lowering of standards. In general while Whole Foods is heavy on the wallet, it is light on its health food standards, at least by comparison to its local predecessor. For instance, previously no products with sugar were sold. Now they are available.

Steve, Many thanks for a most useful reply. I will let you know what I learn.

I think it opens at 5:00 and the conference won't end until 5:30 at the earliest so that solution won't work. However I did hear that it is possible to make reservations. We will be at least 6. I have been trying their number 203-624-5271 off and on for the past hour or so and it is constantly busy so I am unable to confirm that can anyone esle?

One year we let our house to a lovely lady from Sardinia who dutifully did feed the mice accumulating in our absence. In the pantry there happened to be a plastic gallon of corn oil which the mice had started to gnaw through. She noticed the leaking corn oil, but not the gnawing mice and their turds. Her ingenious solution to the holy jug was to put a plate under it so the oil would not harm the pantry shelf. The plate of oil quickly overflowed. By the time we finally returned, I had to spend days removing mouse turds soaking in corn oil crud. The season changed. The mice moved on. But they and the lady from Sardinia left a lovely gift behind.

No ketchup. No mustard. Maybe I should smuggle in some contraband cucumber relish and have my chauffer hold the grey poupon at the ready in the running Rolls for a quick get away before I am caught in an illegal act by the owners? Do they allow salt and pepper? Has anyone every smuggled such contraband into the luncheonette. I assume that Lunch means no breakfast and no supper. What about weekends? Any off times they are less likely to be packed? On that Tuesday when did you go there? Any idea how late they are open?

Just spoke to Will on the phone and got their hours: Sunday through Thursday, 11:00 to 10:00. Friday and Saturday, 11 to 11. He explained they need two hours to let the dough rise. It must be an incredibly thick and chewy base, quite different from the New Haven thin crusted pizzas. Next Sunday, I will be driving north I-91 after a few days in New Haven. I plan to hit Sally's on Saturday night and perhaps on Sunday I will order the White Sicilian. Forgive my ignorance, but what does AFJ mean -- American Federation of Journalists??? Didn't Bill Daley use to write for the Hartford Courant? He probably would know the answer to the Sally's question I posted elsewhere on this forum.

After a conference I will attend next weekend in New Haven, I am organizing a group to hit this legendary pizzaria. At the moment we are six and growing. Any advice as to how to psych out the wait on a Saturday night. Any times that will be absolutely disaster? I assume that they take no reservations, even for a large party. Anybody know different? Another alternative would be to order take-out and bring it back to the hotel in downtown New Haven, a few minutes drive away, but then we would miss the ambience!!! Anything fresh and seasonal on the menu in November? Here's an idea: pumpkin pizza. Or what to do with left-over Halloween candy. And at the end of the month, what to do with left-over Turkey Pizza Turkey Tettrazzini, somehow that Italianness of it all makes sense. Thanks in advance for the advice. For those who don't remember it here is a link to the last major discussion of Sally's Apizza http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...33&t=14028&st=0 complete with eyebrow singeing photos by Ellen Shapiro. That one focussed more on pizza ovens than pizza getting protocol. I need practical advice on how to jump the queue.

Congratulations to Stelio and Patrice.

I did for the tasting menu at lunch. Too busy to write up my report, but it should follow. In brief, I thought it was uneven. Some of the dishes were oversalted. I thought that Pied a terre showed more imagination than did GR RHR.

This is not a report about the food at Sketch, but rather a report on how Sketch appears. Last week in London I walked through what I could of the place, planning for a return visit that never took place, so what I offer here reflects the observation of seeing, not the experience of eating. Late one afternoon I wandered up into the gents and observed the pissoir waterfalls, all amusing and provocative, but cramped and dimly lit as well. I imagined the experience of peeing into a waterfalls has the merits of bring one with nature, but I didn't try it. The steps leading up to the toilet are covered with rubberized crud that reminded me of preserved vomit, after a particularly raunchy evening of drunked debacle at Animal House, the visual equivalent of a whoopie cushion. Perhaps there are those who relish such a sight. I then tried the patisserie cafe. It was the smokiest den in London. Much cloudier with smoke than any pub I visited recently. The tables were packed together. The setting certainly did not justify the prices of the pastry. Informed by lxt's memorable notes, I surveyed what was on offer. First, the photos looked better than the original. To be sure this was toward the end of the day, around 4:30-5:00, but everything looked fly-bitten and left-over, rather dry around the edges and distinctly unappetizing. Each pastry was about 3/4 the normal size and about 50p to a quid greater than the normal price. Furthermore the best things from what I remember were missing and what was left had undergone a recipe change for the worst. Pierre Herme looks much better. Still I thought I might return the next day when the choices were greater and fresher, but somehow it did not seem worth the effort and Patisserie Valerie and Maison Blanc got my custom instead. Somehow I doubt the place will be there next time I visit.

Just got back from London: To begin with the basics. One of the best bakers in the world is in your neighborhood, Paine Poilâne, 46 Elizabeth St., SW1 9PA, 020 7808 4910 midway between Sloan Sq. & Victoria mainline station, close to Victoria Coach Station. Somewhat further away are the two branches of St. John's, the original in Smithfield near the Farringdon Station and the new branch (St. J. Bread & Wine) in Spitalfield. reservations@stjohnrestaurant.com St. John Restaurant, 26 St John Street, London, EC1M 4AY, Smithfield Reservations 020 7251 0848 Fax 020 7251 4090 Office 020 72514080 St. John Bread and Wine, 94 - 96 Commercial Street, E1 6LZ, telephone 020 7247 8724, fax 020 7247 8924, http://www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk, Spitalfields egullet discussion: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...=9&t=23358&st=0 The bread is excellent and most everything else is worth trying. Some feel the newer branch is better. Ethnic food: Turkish, Angel Mangal in Islington, a Turkish grilled meat restaurant. Indo-Pakistan, New Tayyab, in Whitechapel 83 Fieldgate St. 020 7247 9543 Pied a Terre, Charlotte St. near Goodge St. Station on the Northern Line, Michelin Two Star, innovative French cooking. That should cover a number of options.

Sage's is a very good small innovative chef-driven restaurant in the North End, definitely worth a visit. Chowhound has had a number of reviews of it over the last year or so.

Just got back from my London trip. Last Sunday, the 12th, I dined with three others at Putney Bridge. The starter of red mullet and potato waffle was superb. The main of wild duck with savoy cabbage and poire william was a disappointment, to be polite. The desert of intense chocolate was well-done. Service was haphazard. More to follow, but based on this one meal I one not one-star this restaurant.