weinoo

Recently, I had a dish at Mintwood in DC - wild Scottish pigeon breast, surrounded by a mince of the legs, thighs and innards, wrapped in savoy cabbage and then wrapped with a slice of uncrisped bacon. It was awesome!

Those look great - I did see that recipe in Les Halles - a bit more complicated than what I'm looking for right now!

I might've responded to this before, but I have a fair amount of books. So many, in fact, that a bunch are in storage - which I think is silly. Anyway, yesterday, a close family member who is in the "food biz" gifted me with a few of the books she happened to receive this year: I'm very excited about at least 3 of them: Thai Street Food (which is huge) Vietnamese Home Cooking My Pizza

Anyone have any great recipes for the cooking of any of the above birdies? Of course, what I can get here in NY is generally farm-raised, and probably tastes more like chicken than game. But while in Paris recently, I dined on some delicious birds; in particular, my pigeon at Spring was great. The breast cooked sous-vide was perfect. So how do I go about this?

The Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Boca is pretty good, and has enough of a menu to make most everybody happy. As a matter of fact, I even started a thread about it a few years ago.

This is awesome, David. I'm very interested in how the different dinners go with vicodin.

I know - this is what I found strange. Stouffer's is kinda from that same era as Swanson's. But the newer generation of stuff has actually gotten better.

Now, now - I know what you're thinking. Weinoo eats frozen dinners?! Well, not really - but my wife, who spends part of every week in Washington, D.C., has them occasionally for dinner. Let's face it - they're easy and ready in minutes (I sound like an ad). Of course, I do most of the shopping in D.C., which means I'm usually the one who buys these various frozen dinners. And by various, I mean the choices are endless. From Healthy Choice to Amy's, from Lean Cuisine to Organic Bistro to Saffron Road, a walk down the frozen dinner aisle in Harris-Teeter or Whole Foods makes my head spin. And yesterday, in the interest of science, I decided to give one a try for lunch. I picked Saffron Road's Chicken Biryani, described as "tender chunks of chicken baked in basmati rice, topped with caramelized onions in the classic Hyderabadi style." For those who don't know (e.g. me), Hyderabadi cuisine is cuisine that: .Okay...whatever. It (the frozen entree) was actually pretty decent. I mean sure, it has a lot of sodium in it (590 mg), but it was tasty and the rice and chicken had some flavor and weren't egregiously overcooked. So, my question is this: Do you ever have frozen dinners for, ummm, dinner? And - what are your favorites?

I agree with this philosophy, and try to follow it 100% of the time. Look, there's incompetence, there's inexperience and there's surliness. Recently, friends and I had a meal at a restaurant none of us had been to before. Our waitress explained to us as soon as she came over, that it was her first night and she was just learning the ropes. She tried hard and did an okay job. Some of the others at the table thought she didn't deserve a 20%+ tip - until I rather angrily convinced them she did. Actually, I told them they could keep their money and that I'd leave the whole tip if they really felt that way. Sometimes the most annoying thing about a restaurant just happens to be the people you're dining with.

David Sax wrote a nice piece for the Jewish Daily Forward... .

Once again on the cutting edge of jouranlism, the Wall St. Journal notices that cocktails are getting smaller. Well, knock me over with a feather. Or, preferably, a properly sized Manhattan...

Cafe Katja recently reopened after a summer of renovations, which involved their doubling in size. They did a great job on the newly expanded space, and the kitchen, which is now fired by gas as opposed to being all-electric, has allowed for an expanded menu as well. Food remains excellent, wine list is unique and they know how to pull beer properly - every beer even has its own glass. Here's the blog I recently wrote about my local gem.

I trust Pete Wells implicitly...also, I never go north of 14th Street. Heck, to see your review of it, I'll happily stand you a couple of drinks (or a fifth of Jack?) first, to get you suitably primed for the experience! I'd prefer to have a few watermelon martinis. I'll bet they have a couple of high-priced bourbons at least. We have a motion and a second. I call the question even though that's not really proper procedure. See - that's the problem; I need proper procedure. I'll take the kickstarter for a visit to my cardiologist and gastroenterologist after it's all over. Also, my shrink.

As Woody Allen once said..."and such small portions..." Which I'm sure is not the case here. Let's face it, Fieri got what he deserved, in my opinion.

Interestingly enough, here's what I wrote in July, 2008 - when he was on TNFNS... To be the biggest d-bag possible? And even if he cooked for the show, he doesn't now, does he? I can watch that diners show for about 1 minute. Funny thing, the other day there was an early episode of Molto Mario on, and it was so great.

You should have: A bagel and lox at Russ & Daughters. A pastrami sandwich at Katz's. And a few blocks away, the Essex St. Market. Doughnut Plant on Grand St. A slice or two of pizza at Joe's on Carmine Street You can head to 'ino Cafe - and see where the whole panini craze in the United States got its start. Some cold-skin noodles at Xi'an Famous Foods. And/or some 4 for $1 dumplings - I like Prosperity Dumplings on Eldridge Street, and it's right around the corner from one of the Xi'an locations. And there's some decent street meat right at the Beijing street carts right under the Manhattan Bridge near Xi'an as well. Others like Vanessa's for the dumplings, but if I'm headed to Vanessa's, it's the Peking duck sandwich that I go for. Maybe just a hot dog or two at Gray's Papaya (72nd & Broadway). Or Papaya King - 86th and 3rd. A visit to Eataly - just because. Have an assortment of salumi - it's good! The Union Square green market is wonderful to wander around - Friday and Saturday all day. Sunday you can check out the New Amsterdam Market- down in the Old Fulton Fish market area - from 11 AM. Good eats to be had. And a great view of the bridges. The bar thing at WD-50 is a very good deal, but you'll likely spend $75 or more when all is said and done. There are plenty of lunch specials all around town - Gramercy Tavern at the bar is one of the nicer ones. It's announced daily on their Twitter feed... https://twitter.com/gramercytavern Shake Shack...well, why not? That's a start...

A respected friend of mine tells me that he first boils the egg in the shell for 10 seconds, then poaches it. Seems to work great. It was on an old Julia show, iirc. I now see that David has touched on this above.

Sounds good! There's another brand new ramen place (ramen becoming the new burger maybe) on Columbia Road in Adams Morgan that we tried last night - which looks like it may turn into a zoo at some point, since upstairs is a lounge area. It's called Taan, and it was all high tops and uncomfortable stools downstairs. The ramen was okay, but I prefer Sakuramen on 18th. And the night before we were at Mintwood, where I had one of the best game dishes I've had on this side of the Atlantic - wild Scottish wood pigeon breast, wrapped in a force of its own liver, heart and dark meat, then wrapped in Savoy and bacon, cooked perfectly rare and a real slam-dunk. Place was packed, as was Cashion's.

Vanilla. Philadelphia style.

Nice collection. Are Campari and Aperol both considered amaros?

But he will, he will :laugh: . Cafe Kaja, after a summer long renovation, is now double the size and looks great inside and out. The menu has grown too, only slightly at first, but expect it to continue expanding. As a matter of fact, I had a new trout dish on my first visit back, but what I'm really waiting for is the schnitzel!

What is the conventional wisdom regarding shelf life of various amaros? Should they be refrigerated? What are everyone's favorites?

Two classics: Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art - Shozuo Tsuji The Japanese Kitchen - Hiroko Shimbo

Dave - are you using fresh herbs in the herbs de Provence, or are they a dried mix, as is typically sold? You make reference to garlic granules - same question - fresh or dried garlic?

Yes...I'm trying to remember where I first had it in a cocktail, after which I picked up a bottle for home use. Went through it fairly quickly, mostly as an apertif, with a squeeze of lime or lemon and topped with club soda. It's fairly sweet.