melkor

Another good option is a small Moka pot, they only cost a few bucks but they can turn out a much better espresso-like-drink than instant espresso can.

Z Pies in Placerville has damn good pot pies. Good flakey crust, simple ingredients, and friendly people - what's not to like? Womacks BBQ in south lake tahoe serves unbelievable sweet potato pie. The bbq is good too.

There's a mushroom shop at the ferry building. The truffles I saw there yesterday were domestic, but the other mushrooms looked good.

How about In and Out Burger? You can get a double-double animal style with fries done well for under $10.

I'd leave the skin on until your ready to shred it. I've got absolutely nothing to support that being a good idea, but for some reason it seems strange to skin the parts before you confit them.

That's a great recommendation - the Donna Hay books are extremely accessible and the pictures combined with easy to follow recipes are good enough to get non-cooks cooking.

It depends what was bad about the first visit, if the meal is hopeless - all the dishes are bad then I won't go back, otherwise I'll give it a second shot.

We're doing the same thing for MsMelkor's stepmom. We may have to get another copy of the book for ourselves. It really is a nice book.

Now there is a novel concept for the california thread... ← I'm all for that - so what's good about Top Dog and what's good about Pink's? Why would someone choose one over the other? Other than the obvious 400 mile distance between them. I haven't eaten at either place.

Bounty Hunter in Napa is around $10/person. Good wine list too.

If ya can't find um, just substitute a little gin.

We're planning to do the same thing - legs, thighs, and wings are going to be confit'd early in the week. I found a recipe here and since the recipe is from the turkey councel I assume it to be safe. We're using duck fat and we're going to do it the same way you'd do duck confit, just cooked longer since the meat is thicker.

With loud kids in tow you've got far fewer options. Shalimar, Ali Baba, and Taco Trucks are the only places I can think of that we've been in the past year or so that have good food and you can bring loud kids.

Oliveto comes up again and again, and there is never any shortage of people posting about problems with the service or problems with the food. Is the general consensus that Oliveto isn't all its cracked up to be? I can’t say any of the meals I’ve had there were particularly impressive. All of my visits have fallen somewhere between acceptable and poor both in terms of food and service. Has anyone had a spectacular meal there?

The practice of charging by weight is most common at restaurants which normally don't serve truffles. La Toque in rutherford is a good example of a restaurant that serves a truffle menu when they are in season, they don't offer the same dishes w/o truffles nor do they use the same quantity of truffles for each dish. It's at best a culinary hack to just dump some shaved truffles on a bunch of standard plates and call it a truffle menu.

Pilar's is in Napa. It's good, but not worth the drive from SF.

We're on the Turley list, they sent out two offer letters a year - you can pick what you want from each offer, write a check and your wine ships at some seemingly random point. I believe all their wine ships at the same time for everyone on the list. It's the only list we're on. If we didn't live here, we'd likely sign up for the Ridge ATP program. The wine clubs/lists for wineries that have large distribution don't make a lot of sense, since you can often buy the same wine for less $ elsewhere.

Squeat will disagree with me on this but - 1550 Hyde is a good choice, you can eat at the bar, the food and service are both good and they have a very nice wine list. Kiss is a great place to go by yourself, just call and reserve a seat at the bar - the place only holds 11 or 12 people so it's best to have a res. They serve some of the best sushi in SF and they are very much off the beaten path.

Melkor I completely agree with you! So what do you do, when the basic menu is not being delivered sucessfully? ← It depends how unsuccessful the restaurant is. Most of the time I return for another visit and just write off the first one if the 2nd is excellent that is assuming this is my first visit. If I've had other good meals at the same restaurant I just shrug and go on with my life. On the rare occasions that the service lapses into the realm of comically inept then if there is someone who seems to be willing to listen I'll bring talk to them about it, otherwise I just pay the bill, leave a 15% tip and try not to return. The bizarre meal that had some of the food arrive out of order, some not arrive at all and finished with a band-aid in my dessert would be at the top of the list when it comes to my bad service experience - in that instance we asked to talk to the maitre d' who somehow turned out to be our waiter (and former owner of said band-aid); we then asked to talk to the owner who was completely uninterested in hearing about any of it.

We're well on our way through the case of this we picked up a month or so ago for $88 including tax at North Berkeley Imports. I'd completely agree that this is a very nice wine for the price.

Poor service to me depends not just on the level the restaurant is trying to function at but also on what requests my table may include in the experience. If we are ordering in a non-standard way for the restaurant then I often expect lower quality service than the restaurant is capable of providing. This happens quite regularly at places we visit more than a handful of times - a table for four, we order several groupings of 2 or 3 dishes together from different sections of the menu to share. Obviously the server can't be expected to be in the same rhythm as they otherwise might be so mistakes happen. It's nice when they don't but I can't fault a restaurant for not flawlessly handling our non-standard requests. On the other hand, If it's just two of us at a suitably high-level restaurant ordering a basic tasting menu, no substitutions and wine to go with it then I have a problem with anything more than small service errors. I expect a restaurant to at least be able to deliver their most basic menu successfully. Everyone has off nights, but if the front of the house is properly staffed then basic service needs should still be met. If a restaurant has truly awful service on our first visit I won't likely return, small issues I'm happy to give it another shot. Obviously at places like a BBQ shack in a ski town I’m just happy to have my food show up at the right table. If I’ve got silverware to eat it with then that’s even better.

I agree completely.

Bauer like all other restaurant critics writes reviews that some people disagree with. I thought his review of Michael Mina was far more positive than I believe it should have been. Maybe his Tartare review was unduly harsh - it's hard for me to say since from reading his reviews its clear that my taste and his don't agree. His review is after all just his opinion.

Thanks much. We will likely give it a try, I'll report back after thanksgiving.

There are limited options when it comes to the humble thanksgiving turkey - one which never comes up is confit. Is it possible to safely confit a turkey? Obviously you would need an almost absurd quantity of poultry fat, but I suspect a few gallons of duck fat wouldn't do the old bird any harm. I'm less concerned with the stupidity of this concept from a culinary standpoint than I am with the potential food safety issues. It would take quite a long time for the bird to reach 140*F and I'm not all that excited about poisoning the people we are sharing our thanksgiving dinner with. Are we safe to attempt this? Is there anything specific we should be worried about with a bird this size?