patrickamory

Another vote for the Four Seasons. The Grill Room might have more of the masculine ambience you're seeking than the Pool Room has. The restaurant is mentioned several times in Mad Men but has not yet been featured in it (surprisingly, since it is probably the most intact interior of the period still surviving).

Update: took an artist there for lunch today. Complete success. First off, the bread was superb - chewy and just salty enough. Really really good. For appetizers we split the black label Parma ham with salami and figs - superb meats and perfectly fresh figs, the grilled eggplant croquesttes, and the arugula, radicchio and parmigiano salad. All great. I had the lasagna bolognese, and other people had fiochetti with cheese and pear, the tagliolini with crab (not something I would have advocated ordering), and the trenette with clams and green olives. Everyone extremely happy. I will go again. Thanks for the recommendation - so good to find another decent lunch meeting place near us.

No photos yet, and I've only had a chance to use it once - on the three Thai bird chiles required for the second paste in a jungle curry. The Millser reduced them to mince in about 3 seconds using the smallest bowl. So far, so good.

It's the zest that's usually used, along with the leaves. An essential ingredient in a few Thai curry pastes. The actual lime itself is incredibly bitter and contains very little juice. I've only come across one recipe where the juice is used, for a royal salad, also containing clementine juice, in the first David Thompson.

I love sweet small cold-water shrimp. I hope the fishery isn't under threat - and hope that stocks are not in trouble.

Jitlada has an incredible, fiery dry curry of lamb and pumpkin. I've tried to emulate it in varying ways, most recently with this beef dish. Use pie pumpkins, not the big 'uns: http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2011/10/18/dry-red-curry-of-beef-and-pumpkin/

Ah, so you'll be in Harlem... not my area of expertise but there are definitely good cheap eats to be had up there.

I ended up letting it cook for almost 3 hours till the sauce was about 1/3 the original size. The meat was soft & meltingly tender.

Those of you who have made the red-braised pork - is there a conflict between braising it at an extremely low heat and having the sauce reduce? I'm over an hour in and still have a ton of sauce in the wok at a gentle simmer. It doesn't seem like it's going to mostly reduce. Safe to turn up the heat, or will I dry out the meat?

Easily removed with light and tweezers?

Last time I went there was in 1987, and I literally walk past it every day on the way to work. It's three blocks from my office and I sometimes flirt with the idea of having lunch there instead of the other local Italian. But it's smack in the middle of tourist central and I worry that they're just coasting on their location - it's very rare for a New York restaurant to last that long and still offer quality. And then I doublecheck the latest Yelp reviews - not that Yelp is reliable by any means - and get worried when I read about "reheated gummy pastas with a sprig of parsley" and lasagna that's "bland and mostly tasteless." That's what my gut tells me to expect based on the location, the slightly run-down appearance and the fact it's been around so long. But I want it to be good - I remember it being excellent on that one visit all those years ago - it's incredibly convenient to me, and in a lunch desert - so on the basis of your recommendation maybe I'll give it a try.

I haven't been there for about half a year, but Lusardi's at Second Ave. and 78th St. is really superb. Highly recommended for northern Italian. Good wine list too.

Are you still near Atlantic City? How about the White House? A classic.

It's one of those recipes that seems straightforward when you read it, but actually has devilish details. For example, after browning the onions, he requires you to remove every single speck of onion from the pan - "the slightest fragment of onion that remains in the pan at this point will inevitably burn while the meat is coloring and leave a bitter taste in the sauce." This sounds straightforward but in practice it's difficult to get the last few bits of onion out of the pan while leaving any oil in there. Then there's the whole skimming and skinning thing - two separate processes. I'm used to complicated Asian dishes. I don't do a ton of French cooking. The processes are subtle and unfamiliar to me, and the flavors are mild enough that the slightest variation has an impact on the dish.

This is what I'm wondering (I'm presuming paulraphael above should read patrickamory). ...and ScoopKW, I'd do that if I didn't live in a NYC apartment

Ah, I've made that Olney dish. It's deceptively difficult.

Not as great a dining area as around the Loft Hostel unfortunately. Downtown Brooklyn is a bit of a wasteland. There is good eating in adjoining neighborhoods such as Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, but none of it necessarily cheap eats. The good news is that you are near just about every subway line there is.

Reviving an old thread. I just got a 1930s Griswold pan. No rust, totally black and smooth, but unfortunately quite sticky. I've read the thread thoroughly but I'm confused about the next step. Should I: - scrub all the seasoning off with steel wool and detergent, and reseason? or - simply clean it as best I can with soap, water and perhaps salt? Please advise best next move to deal with stickiness.

Richard Olney says you can't brown onions satisfactorily on an enameled surface, so I always do the browning / deglazing process it separately in an All-Clad saute pan, and then decant into the enameled pot for the braising. I have gone both ways on this - there's a Ruth Rogers recipe where you brown sausage meat, then add red onions and garlic to the meat for a 30-minute period - it requires lots of extra care and attention to get the onions to cook through, but the result is wonderful.

There are TONS of places to eat in Brooklyn... it may be outdoing Manhattan these days as an eating destination. Is the Loft in Williamsburg?

My Mexican neighbors render lard and sometimes it is separated so the clear fat that cools into the finer white lard is saved to use in pastry and the rest is cooked longer so it has a sort of "roasted" flavor. This is the stuff that is used to cook carnitas and other meats, poultry, etc. Thanks Andie, that makes perfect sense! Mmmm, I love that roasted flavor - that's exactly what it is.

Do Mexicans leave much of the matrix in when making manteca? It's so much browner and more flavorful, with more bits floating in it, than regular white American lard.

Near the big tourist attractions there is not much in the way of great eating. But then nothing is very far from anywhere else in Manhattan. For cheap eats I'd suggest (going from least expensive to most expensive): Super Wang bakery in Chinatown for steamed pork buns Xi'an Famous Foods in Chinatown - seconded - liang pi cold noodles and lamb burgers Shake Shack - absolutely, I prefer the regular cheesebugers to the Shackburger Corner Bistro in the West Village for classic East Coast style burgers & fries & beers Totto Ramen in Hell's Kitchen - get the red miso Katz's for pastrami - absolutely, seconded, disregard any naysayers! Congee Village on Allen just south of Delancey for superb congees, also try their grilled lamb chops - this is slightly more upscale & sitdown than the previous recommendations - but still a magnificent bargain & really delicious Pizza: Arturo's is indeed quite good, though the live piano music can get trying; my partner loves the slices at Artichoke Basile on E. 14 St.; others swear by Co. in Chelsea or Motorino in Williamsburg, but the best in the city despite its many infuriating issues remains Di Fara's out in Midwood, Brooklyn - not "cheap" for pizza, but still cheap for some of the best food on earth Bar Pitti on Sixth Ave. near Bleecker for excellent affordable Northern Italian hope these help to some extent!

Interesting - I hadn't heard this. Julia Child always says to select a pan that will just accommodate the meat being grilled. I usually sear my pork chops or veal chops in an All-Clad saute pan that just fits them - perhaps 10% of the pan is not covered - and have no problem getting a fine sear over a medium-high gas burner.

Wow. I haven't had this since I was a kid growing up in Boston. We had it with franks and beans. I thought it was a really New England thing. Canned bread!