KatieLoeb

Philadining and I stopped into Raw this evening on a whim, just to try the dumplings everyone was raving about. We were both completely gobsmacked at how delicous everything was and how friendly and helpful the service was. I'll wait until the inevitable food porn is posted to comment more, but I'll certainly agree with the prior statement that this is the best sushi in the city right now. WOW!

Thanks Dave! I'll take you up on that kind offer next time I'm around for any extended time...

This seems to be universally true. ← I forgot to post this. In lancaster there is a new bakery run by an Italian family who moved from Long Island. The daughters own and run it. Their father bakes bread for them. At Christmas I too them a bottle of Limoncello from the famous Loeb receipe. You'd have thought I gave them a million dollars. Dad, in particular, was thrilled. Everytime I go in and he sees me he comes out and talks to me and tells me how wonderful it was. It does make a great gift ← The "Famous Loeb Recipe" gets it's own tweak from everyone that tries it, but thanks for the compliment! It remains universally true that there's never too much to give away. ← i gave a bottle to my parents last year when i made it (i don't know if you remember, but the batch was too sweet and not lemony enough for me, because i had fewer lemons in my drawer than i had thought). anyway, they don't drink all that much, so they had some left and recently had a tasting with a commercial limoncello that friends had brought over, and they said mine was definitely the clearcut winner. i said, is that because we like sweet stuff here in america? and my dad said actually that mine was less sweet and more lemony than the other. this recipe is a real winner. i'm actually thinking of making some kumquatcello... ← Too sweet or too tart is in the eye of the beholder, or perhaps in their taste buds. I like my limoncello somewhat sweet and fairly strong, but that's me. One of the joys of making it oneself is balancing it just the way we like it. This recipe definitely makes a better end result than the commercial products I've tried. I just use regular refined white sugar. I think Demerara would give the end product too much color and too much of a "molasses-ey" flavor. Limoncello should be bright yellow and taste like a vodka-tinged lemon lollipop, IMO. Welcome Eilen!

I don't think it's fading away, it's just that by definition you have a smaller customer base. More people can afford the mid-priced casual place and the fancy expensive fine dining venue becomes a "special occasion" place or a place where only the tiniest top fraction of a percent of folks can go with any frequency. McDonald's isn't as successful as it is because the food is that good, y'know?

Tannins do not necessarily mean bitter -- think over-brewed tea; THAT is tannin (it makes your mouth feel dry). While I do not drink POM straight, I have it in the house almost all the time now as a GREAT mixer for cocktails (working well with both Gin and Vodka) as well as weekend mimosas and just sparkling water. ← A splash of POM instead of cranberry in a cosmo is quite lovely....

Are you sure you have your dates correct? Saturday was the 4th and the Rodizio Meat Fest. Sunday was the 5th and the day after the meat fest. I've seen you eat, but I can't imagine that you came to Rodizio straight from brunch at LaCroix. Did you???

As a couple of alternatives to Brad's excellent suggestions to go with your really lovely menu, I'll suggest: Celeriac Veloute butter poached lobster, tarragon creme fraiche Savennieres - Clos de Coulee de Serrant if you can find it. It'll be delicious and pick up the earthiness of the celeriac and the herbal qualities of the tarragon in addition to having enough acidity to stand up to the richness of the butter and creme fraiche. Seared Hudson Valley Foie Gras toasted brioche, walnut-mache salad, riesling gelee, blackberry gastrique Riesling Auslese -- I'd want to stick with riesling just because of the gelee. I'd hate to overwhelm that flavor with a different wine, but that's just me. I guess it depends on how large a component of the dish that gelee really is. Scottish Salmon wrapped in Apple Smoked Bacon creamy leeks, tomato concasee, cassis vinegar jus Oregon Pinot Noir - I prefer a lighter red wine with my salmon, and in this progression, it's time to move to red after two very sumptuous whites. If you can find a nice Burgundian-style Pinot Noir from Willamette Valley it should match well with this course. I think the more fruit forward style of the New World wine should compliment the cassis in the sauce. Brad's suggestion of a Northern Burgundy is an excellent one as well. I don't even want to touch the other two courses. I think Brad's suggestions are perfect.

Not only was there parking next door, but they had access to the bank parking lot on the block behind the restaurant. There was an attendant that would give you a ticket to get stamped by the restaurant if you used the bank lot.

Ohmigosh! I'm still tired. Digesting that much meat is exhausting! But yeah - it was great! The staff was very nice and helpful, despite the somewhat random path of the meat skewers and that buffet could be enough just on it's own. There were marinated mussels and calamari salad, little Pao de qeuijo aka Brazilian Cheezy Poofs that were served warm (soooooo yummy!), all kinds of fresh cold salads and cold vegetables, three kinds of beans, two kinds of rice, and all manner of other stuff in addition to standard salad bar fare. Yeesh! It was hard not to fill up before the meat skewers started to come out. I thought Brasilia was even better than our last Rodizio Run to Seabra's in Perth Amboy (which was pretty good too!). Quality of the meats seems higher and the atmosphere was a bit more convivial. They even had a band to sing to me! Maybe it was all those pitchers of sangria and it being my birthday, but I had the very best time. It was a pleasure to see some JerseGulleteers again and to meet a few more I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting previously. Great to meet ejebud and his lovely wife and I owe him a visit to AHD as soon as they're up and running again. The $34 all-you-could-eat-and-drink was a banquet package negotiated for our group by our fabulous host South Jersey Epicurian. I think their normal prices don't include drinks but I'm certain the sangria is available by the pitcher on the regular menu. We had red, white and BLUE sangria in abundance! Thanks to Gary for organizing and to everyone for coming out for my unofficial party! It was great!

Rick: The ones I've gotten - Orgeat, Falernum, Orange Flower, Passionfruit and American Beauty Grenadine have all been top notch. Granted if I could find a bottle of real Falernum I'd be happier, but the cordial syrup works pretty well. The orgeat is great too. The grenadine is stronger and less sweet than the commercial brands like Rose's. I haven't fooled with the Passionfruit much yet, but I did taste it and it's quite flavorful. Orange Flower is subtle and very nice. Not nearly as overwhelming as those Middle Eastern ones that are used to scent desserts or couscous.

dRock: I meant no insult to you. I was sincere in wanting to help you and give you good sound advice based on years of experience in the business. I suspect when you have a few more years in the business, it will make my advice seem a little clearer. Like when the eye doctor clicks over to the better lens and you can suddenly read the eye chart again. By the way - I did think of one notable exception to my theory upthread. There may be no good "fine dining town" or no good city for dentists, but Beverly Hills and plastic surgeons go together like peanut butter and jelly. And Lou - I'm right there with you on the burnout thang...

El Rey de Las Fritas on Calle Ocho (near El Credito cigar factory, but on the other side of the street) where I got the best Batido de Mamey EVER. It was so good I'm still dreaming about it all this long time later.

How can I jump in and say that our fair Katie doesn't drink when you follow with this?!? Oh Jeez! I don't think I could get away with saying that, even with my fingers crossed behind my back. A bolt of lightning might strike me dead! My thanks to both of you for watching my back. You guys are true friends. As for what others are thinking, I can not say. But you and Tommy have made your thoughts fairly easy to read.

Don't forget to make a reservation. The place is tiny.

Welcome Carrington! Nice first post, friend! I hope you occasionally have a chance to join us PhilleGullet Wine Geeks for an event. We'll look forward to meeting you.

I'm perfectly calm. This just happens to be an area I know something about after working as Controller of a restaurant through a bankruptcy. I thought you were fishing for advice on a town to open a restaurant in based on a flawed premise. Just wanted to point that out. You are free to ignore me. Lots of folks do. I am off to fix a cocktail, however, simply because it's Friday evening and because I can.

This seems to be universally true. ← I forgot to post this. In lancaster there is a new bakery run by an Italian family who moved from Long Island. The daughters own and run it. Their father bakes bread for them. At Christmas I too them a bottle of Limoncello from the famous Loeb receipe. You'd have thought I gave them a million dollars. Dad, in particular, was thrilled. Everytime I go in and he sees me he comes out and talks to me and tells me how wonderful it was. It does make a great gift ← The "Famous Loeb Recipe" gets it's own tweak from everyone that tries it, but thanks for the compliment! It remains universally true that there's never too much to give away.

I've been here once and it was pretty good. Service was quite nice and the food was far more interesting than I would have imagined. Cute little BYO. If you're leaning toward French then just walk the six blocks to Pif if you haven't been. For Italian I agree that you'll have to go a bit further south on Broad. L'Angolo, Scannichio's or Criniti's would all fit the bill. The place you're thinking of on Broad Street is called Pesto. Io e Tu is owned by the sister of one of Pesto's owners, I think. Never been but I've heard it's cute and homey, if not mind blowing. Near Tasker-Morris subway stop.

Um - yeah. Seems self-evident to me. I think the entire premise of the original question is absurd. There is no such thing as a "fine-dining town" any more than there's a city that's ideal for dentists. That there is a higher income demographic is utterly meaningless unless you know for certain that those people live in homes without kitchens and have to eat out every night. And my guess is that those higher income demographic households also have expensive designer kitchens with Sub-Zero freezers and Wolf stoves in them too. For every upper middle class and upper class McMansion in any given town of NorthJerseyBurbia you probably have at least an equal number of solidly middle class and lower middle class households that might never come to your restaurant at all or maybe only for a special occasion. So there goes half your client base out the window already. For the rest of them, how many eat out and how often? How much do they spend? Just because they have the money, doesn't mean it's going into your cash register. If it were as easy as shooting fish in a barrel the failure rate for restaurants (at ALL price points and levels of sophistication) wouldn't be as high as it is. I really don't mean to piss in your Wheaties, but if you're even remotely considering expending the capital to open a fine dining establishment, I think your perspective needs some tweaking before you spend one thin dime. The capital outlay is tremendous, the risks are huge, and I can guarantee you that I can rattle off a dozen items that haven't even hit your radar screen in terms of fixed and variable monthly costs yet without even breaking a sweat. All you can do is find good real estate, with good foot traffic in a reasonably NOT undesireable area and put out excellent product, have excellent service, promote it properly and do some good Public Relations. After that you see if you've found your "fine dining town". If you build it, they will come.

This seems to be universally true.

Welcome Jonathan! I do what you do in Philadelphia and Southern NJ so I totally understand how you work. I'd be interested to hear how you get contracted to particular spirit brands. Do you work through a local sales rep who runs you up the ladder to the marketing folks, or what? Sounds like an interesting proposition. I'm working on a 10 Cane infusion right now in fact. I'll report back in the new recipes thread when I get it just right. I always tell folks my job is my alibi for my hobby. Otherwise I'd just be a lush! Let me know if your work ever brings you down this way. We can exchange war stories. Oh - and have a drink!

Only in a more general sense. If you think a fine dining restaurant that could rely only on locals and the "local demographic" to support it can exist, I suggest not opening a restuaurant, particularly a fine dining establishment that requires considerably more capital outlay than a smaller BYO or bistro would. A fine dining restaurant with high check averages by definition needs to be a "destination" dining spot. The location doesn't matter as long as it isn't in an undesirable location. The locals better not be your only target customers or the over-under is about 3 months by my calculations.

Does NJ stop somewhere north of New Brunswick?? There's plenty of good to great restaurants in Collingswood, Cape May and Princeton environs.

Yes and No... they've got the space, the manager's cool, I'll bet we could set something up. BUT! As Katie's and the Flavor Flav's (and my) experiences demonstrate, it puts the D back in DDC. They could tone it down, which sort of negates the reason for going there, but much of the food is freaking seriously spicy. I actually like it like that, as have others here, but it's just too much for some folks. Of course, we could probably design a banquet-ish thing with a range of heat. Any other opinions? ← But maybe that would be the point: we really haven't done a fire-breathing dinner yet; this could qualify. I remember several years ago a Book and The Cook event at the North Star Bar called "Eat The Heat" with guest chef Jennifer Trainer Thompson, which was all about eating some seriously hot dishes, along with a "buffet" of hot sauces displayed during a cocktail hour. It was a pretty cool event, maybe my favorite TBATC event ever, because it really pushed the envelope of flavor and pain. Not everyone can attend every DDC thing, but it should appeal to the majority of folks, I would think. ← Rich - I was at that "Eat the Heat" dinner too and it was great. I agree that it was one of the most fun B&tC events ever. I'd be happy to go back for a DDC at Tifco's, but I'd want to be damned certain they have their very best staff on that day and make it clear to the manager what our expectations were in terms of range of dishes/heat, minimal acceptable service standards, etc. Hopefully, in spite of my and FF's experiences there more recently, someone there knows something about service and treating customers with some respect. I surely do not want some inattentive surly waiter screaming at me about a soda refill because no one has told him that's inappropriate. That's most certainly not worth the long drive out there and I might go ballistic on management if that were the case.

Heck - for that price it's worth checking out. At worst, you can have a lot of flambeed food in your future. You do enjoy Steak Diane and Cherries Jubilee dontcha? ← Thanks Katie. I was thinking along those lines but was a little leery as it seemed TOO cheap. I'll give it a go and report back. Can I flame Comstock cherry pie filling for an ersatz Jubilee Kevin ← I believe that's called Trailer Park Jubilee. Steak Diane is pretty damned tasty. And you can sprinkle some cognac on the salmon if you're making gravlax. There's got to be dozens of ways to use it up if it isn't to your taste for drinking straight.