Suzi Edwards

i think he meant mesclun. i hope he meant mesclun.

hey terrence, thanks for the links. am trying to work out how might factor a trip to the green market in...not sure i'll get there with my schedule. i'm glad to see that it's not just me that wants to reject the supermarket hegemony. i tried looking for some books about the american supermarket system in borders the other day but didn't get anywhere. can you recommend anything? there's a great book just come out in the uk called "shopped" chat about shopped and a link to buy it and make money for egullet i'd *love* ot know if there is a similar us version and would be keen to hear your thoughts. btw i will be in wicker park over the weekend as i've been told it's a good place to explore my other passion - shoe shopping. i look forward to blending in!

So last night I went to Marche as it’s round the corner from where I am working and Blackbird was heaving. I was craving something quite simple and when I saw whipped Yukon mashed potato on the menu I stampeded for the door. Yesterday was such a miserable day I went totally for comfort food (chicken soup from Leona’s for lunch) to cheer me up. If I want rain I would have stayed in the UK…:-) My guide book described Marche as “One of the highlights of the West Randolph restaurant row, this French bistro packs them in every night with its bally-hooed cuisine- including wonderful bacon-wrapped sea scallops and some amazing desserts- and nightclub style atmosphere. Expensive” I was quite surprised by the interior of the restaurant. From the outside it looked a bit like a supermarket or maybe like a downmarket French bistro, but inside it really was quite vaudervillian and very much like a nightclub with the accompanying music. For the first time this trip I thought “thank god I am eating alone” as trying to hold a conversation here would not be easy. Still, the food was pretty good, a half a spit roasted chicken served with excellent mashed potato and a thin, slightly too salty gravy. I quite like salty food but I think other people might have found this a bit too much. I drank a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and ate with what appeared to be a dagger and a garden fork. I had to ask the waitress for smaller cutlery, as I felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland. While I'm talking about French restaurants, I'll play catch up and tell you about my meal at Ambria last Friday. At least, I think it was a meal. I was in and out in 35 minutes so longevity wise it feels more like a snack. This is the first place I’d been to in Chicago that made me feel like a leper for eating alone. I was stuck in a small corner of the room, next to a table so noisy and nauseating I assumed my complimentary glass of wine was to make up for them. One female will remain in my mind forever, her voice the aural equivalent of licking a battery. Foodwise it was fine and the “mescaline salad” I was offered as a special very tempting, but the 3 minute wait between my appetizer and main meant that I never really got to appreciate what I was eating. The softshell crab with jamon vinaigrette that I had to start was pretty good; the ham in the dressing complimenting the sweetness of the crab really well. I followed with sweetbreads with judion beans and chorizo. This is a real “Year of the Sweetbread” for me and I’m having them wherever I can. These rate just above Sketch review of sketch but below Casa Mono in New York and The Fat Duck in Bray. They were served with a sauce that was just too reduced, the sweetness over-powered the rest of the dish and rendered the seasoning on the sweetbreads redundant. Luckily the flavour didn’t linger as they quickly cleared my plate as soon as my knife had hit the porcelain and served me a complimentary amuse to go with my green tea(bag). Is this a new record? 35 minutes for 2 courses, an amuse, a predesert and a cup of green tea? BTW, if you want to talk abotu Ambria, there's a thread here Ambria

welcome to egullet charlie! promise you'll tell us what you thought?

Why hello! My diary has started and I haven't had time to post anything.... First- a bit about me...I'm over in Chicago for about a month (probably slightly longer) as my company's headquarters are here. I figure I can't eat at Trio every night while I'm here...so this is my real chance to get to know your city. I've not had a bad first few days, apart from being trapped in the Hard Rock Hotel for a conference when I first arrived (and we'll gloss over that) I've started getting out and about (aka lost) and managed to take 1.5 hours to get from Marshall Fields on State Street to where I live on North Michigan on Saturday. I figure the easiest way to do this is to start from today (natch) and try and catch up the past week in a couple of longer posts. I'll try and post links to threads about places you're all talking about too so you all remember to keep checking in on me! I am also here to answer all your queries about London, Barry Manilow (who I will be seeing on July 4th (along with a couple of thousand other people, I hasten to add)) and why supermarkets are a force for evil. I'd also be happy to accept suggestions for where I should eat....so far I've been to (deep breath) Trio, Spring, Naha, Ambria, Salpicon, Avec, Giordanos and Chipotle. When I am not eating I am usually found on a treadmill. If you see anyone with bright red and blonde hair wandering around looking lost or eating by herself reading at the table next to you, please come and say hello. It's likely it's me. And if it's not you've only frightened a complete stranger :-) So more from me later.

i would love to come, but i never know where i am going to be at the moment, so may i be first reserve in case someone drops out at the last minute and i am in the country? things may change with work, so i'll let you know if i can come...

now i'm really wishing i had clicked on the link to all the farmer's markets before and realised that sunday is not a good day to try and do your grocery shopping. i am deeply jealous of all your veggies.

you make a strong arguement. god, i'd could just eat a bacon sarnie now.

i'm not sure that st john serves traditional british cuisine. i've never seen angel delight, crumpets, findus crispy pancakes or spam, egg and chips on the menu :-) the dishes listed above are, to me, my culinary history. now, i agree that my culinary history is not helped by my mother's hatred of cooking and her inability to fry the aforementioned crispy pancake without burning them on the outside and leaving them frozen in the middle. but it goes a long way. when people start to talk about british cuisine they tend to start with steak and kidney pie, move on through fish and chips and linger over spotted dick and a jam roly poly. and it stops there. there doesn't, to me, seem to be any rich tradition that you speak of. but i'm more than happy to be wrong, someone point me in the direction of the right books to read!!!! my kitchen shelf if *filled* with regional cookery books from all around the world. tuscan from italy, southern indian vegetarian, at least 4 books about the street food of south east asia. i can't imagine a publisher ever countenancing a book of welsh cooking or scottish. what we do have are great ingredients here. but i don't believe that norfolk can anymore take credit for oysters on the half shell than 300 dozen seaside villages in france. now, if your tirade is really about programmes like "ready steady cook" and the fact that people don't treat ingredients with the respect they deserve...well i'm right there with you!

and likewise i know that should any people have less than positive experiences reports on here about them will remain aberrations as this isn't a supportive environment to post them. i'm going to bow out of this discussion now.

I was 23 in 1998 and was scraping living in London. I'd never heard of molecular gastronomy and wouldn't have known Heston Blumental from a hole in the road. But most importantly I'd never realised that an encyclopedic knowledge of culinary history was a prerequiste for posting opinion on this site.

no way mobes... it's the reservation that just keeps on giving...(i was supposed to be there this weekend...am now away and moby took the table) still, i'm sure if you cancel they'll be able to fill it.

i've encapsulated this idea better. they're stepford chefs.

ok, i'm just trying to convert the acetate they gave me with the menu on into a file so i can post it and then i'll go through the entire menu telling you which bits are derivative. steve, i really wish i could just launch in with some comment on what the food tasted like. but i can't. even with the menu and my photos there's no distinctive flavour trail. and before i'm accused of not having a good palate or memory ;-) i want to make it clear this is one of the main reasons why i didn't rate my experience. i can remember ONE SINGLE flavour from the meal. it was the foie gras cotton candy. and i remember it well because it really did taste like foie gras and because the concept was lifted entirely from el bulli's curry flavoured cotton candy with tamarind. which i ate 18 months ago and can still taste. i also just remembered another thing that really made me smile. one of the chefs was telling me that jamie oliver had been there recently and had been hanging out in the kitchen with them....i'm just saying....

Metromix on al fresco i just found this

is there anything al fresco "downtown"? this is the phrase people keep using and i am guessing that this is where i live (n michigan) and work (w.washington) i really must have a look at a map this weekend.

i'll get my menu faxed over from london and will report back. it was the food that found terribly derivative though. but then, i'm a londoner in the us at the moment and i think i'm expressing my britishness more when i am writing...so perhaps i can recant and say "very derivative"? i thought your point about blumental being slated for being too like adria interesting. didn't see it myself at all. i also don't recall reading too much saying this. perhaps you can point me in the direction of the thread/article? i'd be really keen to find out more. cheers

There are things you can do with small bites of food that you can't do with larger portions. That's one of the key components of this kind of meal; nothing is large. Bruce i think one of things that grant does very well is tranistion the meal from the single bites to the more traditional (yet still very innovative) larger plates.

i just know that i'll never go back again at those prices... i spent the same amount at trio in chicago on sunday except there was a dollar sign not a pound one and have to say it would have been worth double. i can't think of a single fine dining place in london that i can say that about.

someone new's just joined my team, she's egyptian and seems to have a fantastic knowledge of the food. she said this place isn't that great but recommended a place on Beauchamp Place the name of which escapes me but I will find out for tomorrow.

count me in. should be back in blighty by then.

*sprays water through nose* that's the funniest thing i've read all week. i have a very similar photo of varmint at the pig pickin. i don't he was practising "safe cleaving" though as he wasn't wearing hand prophylactics.

i think all bets might be off in the tarte tatin conversation. i'd (very cheekily) asked grant achatz of trio if he'd indulge me and make me tarte tatin as part of my meal last night. and he did. and the waitress was "seething with jealousy" and i was punching the air as if we'd just beated france 1-0. this was no oridinary tarte tatin. this was an etherial puff of pastry coated in caramel and filled with the sweetest apple filling. it rested on a small shooter of vanilla milkshake. "tarte tatin a la mode" i loved that grant had taken the constituent parts of a tarte tatin (apples, pastry, caramel, caramelisation, melting, crisp) and the ice cream that it's often served with and, in a single bite, elevated it from desert to sensory overload. i didn't cry when i ate it last night (i was eating with a friend/colleague who thinks i'm insane enough as it is) but thinking about it now....god, i'm such a wuss. so, thank you grant and i am more than happy to pm each of you individually with a description of how incredible this was. because the best food, and this was, stays with you and grows with the retelling. i'll post a photo when i've calmed down/unpacked wnough to find the lead to my camera.

i think i might have missed the cambridge thing. where are you suggesting people eat in cambridge, other than midsummer house? i've just been sent to chicago for a month and already i am so hugely impressed with the eating options here i think i might be in gavin's boat when i get back!

maybe i'm just one of those people who loves to learn and grow from other people's expereinces. i love to talk and debate with people who know about things that i am interested in. you'd think that the chefs at the minibar might be interested in speaking with someone who so obviously loves the type of stuff they do. and btw, i don't know about you, but i'm not really the type of person who would tip up to a restaurant and boast about where they've eaten. molecular gastronomy is a particulary intellectual approch to food (IMHO) and one that i've found most practicioners more than happy to chat about. but then, i'm also not the type of person who insults another community member online :-)