KatieLoeb

Katie, over time I am developing an interesting and complex view of our otherwise proper forum host. I grew up in the PacNW eating small, firm oysters. The first time I ordered oysters on the half shell in California I was disgusted by the large, slimy things that arrived--they were more like raw eggs than an oyster! Ew. That was about 20 years ago and I still remember those awful things. I couldn't eat them. I have since learned to differentiate by type and season. A little. Northwest Oysters When to eat oysters We'll be doing some herb-smoked oysters on the grill this Superbowl Sunday. Served in their cleaned shells, with a grilled pepper salsa, sage leaf, and slice of lemon. ← Proper?? Me???? Now that's funny... Really that's a pretty good description of my first horrible experience with Uni. I found it to be the singularly most disgusting foodstuff I'd ever had. It was like eating wet sand. Blech! It's amazing I ever even gave it another try after the wretch-inducing experience the first time around. Thankfully, I have persistent friends and know a very talented sushi chef. Your recipe for Herb-smoked oysters would be most appreciated. I'll be watching the Super Bowl with a reasonably proper bunch of folks - and thinking fondly of your oysters because they sound delicious. Go Eagles!!!!! Woo-hoo!!!!

Ohmigosh! That sounds amazing! Not sure if we have any sundried tomatoes in the house but I should be able to make this happen somehow. Now I absolutely have to try it. For the bar at my restaurant I'm looking for more of a "surgical strike" sort of thing we could do inhouse and have available for various oyster shots during happy hour. Know any shuckers that want a job a Philly?

The very last few paper thin slices of imported Mortadella I purchased at Bari Pork Store in Brooklyn on our Pizza Club jaunt last Saturday. Delicious!

Hi everyone: My local PLCB Wine Manager turned me on to the new and improved functionality of the PLCB website. The inventory is now in real time (within one day, updated overnight every night, I think), so you can actually find the stores that have the product you are seeking. This new functionality is brand spanking new out of the wrapper as of TODAY - 2/01/05. I will give you an example: I wish to find a bottle of Roth Cabernet Sauvignon 2001. I happen to know that the Specialty code is 11010. I go to the following page: PLCB Product Search I punch in the code at the bottom where it says "Search for Code:" and click "SEARCH". When the results page comes up I click on the underlined code in the far left column. I can then specify by city or county where I'd like my search area to be. When I click on "SUBMIT" I will then get a list of stores within my specified area that are carrying the product, and more importantly, HOW MANY UNITS ARE IN STOCK! Bloody brilliant!!! This improvement should make all of us far more self-sufficient consumers and save us a lot of time tying up the phone looking for wine that's already sold out at our first choice store, but might still be available down the road. It will also make the PLCB store employees more aware of the stock in their stores, and better equipped to provide better customer service. Even if you don't know the code, you can search by keyword and sort by price, by brand name or by code order if you'd like. It's a little more work, but everything is right there for you to use. Remember, even monkeys poke sticks into anthills to get the ants out. It's all about the tools, people! Gotta love it! Yet another step into the 21st century for the PLCB. All hail the Chairman!!!

I must point out that Friday, Saturday, Sunday OWNS the building in which they are housed, and has owned it for years. I'm sure the mortgage is already paid off too. Not having to pay rent makes a HUGE difference in a restaurant's monthly cash flow.

The logic is that the more metallic West Coast oysters are better complimented by the more acidic mignonette. It is, of course, available on request to any customer that would like to have it with their East Coast oysters.

I don't think anybody said this yet, but Tony Luke's is CLOSED on Sunday. (If you're going on Superbowl Sunday they /might/ be open with a very limited menu.) I'm not a big Jim's fan; I would recommend Pat's or Geno's (I prefer Geno's). You shouldn't miss Tony Luke's though. ← The new Tony Luke's Beer & Sports Bar (across Oregon from the original) I believe will be open; however, expect it to be overrun with Eagles fans after about 3 PM. ← As long as you're rooting for the Eagles, Super Bowl Sunday afternoon at either Tony Luke's or Chickie's and Pete's might not prove fatal. Might even be considered a sociological experiment.

Best. job. ever. I haven't had a raw oyster since leaving the east coast. Phooey. ← You can always come visit me.

We serve mignonette only with our West coast oysters. Wedges of lemon and cocktail sauce with East coast. I could probably get an exact explanation on why tomorrow at work. There's a BIG bowl of "oyster crackers" and a container of horseradish with a spoon at every place setting at my bar and on every table in the dining room. We go through a boatload of horseradish every week because the crackers are addictive with the horseradish all by themselves. Oyster Guy - do you have a recipe for jalapeno infused horseradish?? I'm working on some house infused vodka ideas for oyster shooters and could use some direction.

Nothing is more like a taste of the ocean on a beautiful summer day than a cold freshly shucked oyster. And the subtle differences in flavor between the species is something I am just really learning about at my new job. Recently tried Martha's Vineyard oysters and revisited Belons. Delicious and different. Belons more metallic and the Martha's Vineyards more "creamy". A visit to a well stocked and professionally run raw bar will make a huge difference for those of you that haven't really had a good fresh one before. I felt the same way the first time I tried uni at a sushi bar. I found it quite similar to waking up face down at the beach with high tide rolling in Then I tried good fresh uni that was well prepared by a master sushi chef. Now I love the stuff. Managing an oyster house as I do, I've found that there's really no gray area where oysters are concerned. Either people love them or they simply don't eat them. For what it's worth, one of the funniest things I ever heard about oysters was uttered by a clever friend of mine that said, "Why on earth would I want to eat that? It looks like it dropped out of a cow's nose!"

Aw shoot! We coulda had a white pie at Totonno's! The "rules" for Pizza Club (what few there are other than show up, eat and pay your share) are that we always get a plain pie and a plain white pie (if available) as the yardstick to measure against the other places we've visited. It's the only common denominator amongst the wide variety of places and Pizza styles we've visited. To answer Sam's interesting question, I'd have to say that the pizza in Philly tends to have a better tasting crust than most pizza I've had almost anywhere else. It could be the water (which is heinous on it's own) or the microclimate or who knows what else, but all the bread products in Philadelphia that are part of any great foodie legacy (Hoagie/Cheesesteak rolls, pizza crust, etc.) has a particular flavor to it. It's like a very diluted sourdough sort of taste that I've come to expect. It has "Fla-vah". What can I say. That's the best description I can come up with at the moment. Maybe just me, but I tend to like protein ingredients on a pizza (sausage or pepperoni) with only one other ingredient at most (sausage and mushroom is a personal favorite combo of mine), but vegetable toppings I don't mind piling on. Then again, peppers, onions and mushroom as a "group topping" go pretty well with sausage because they're like a sandwich.

Absolutely! I'm a big fan of antique barware myself. I have some very pretty etched brandy snifters with hunting scenes on them, as well as some cool old deco-ey Pilsner glasses with frosted polka dots, and some very retro highball glasses in various colors with gold trim around the middle. My prize possession in the barware collection is an old Deco/Edwardian collapseable cocktail shaker and shot glass set that folds up into it's own leather case. Definitely something no proper gentleman would be caught without in his Louis Vuitton steamer trunk on the Orient Express.

Trader Joe's Blueberry Muesli. Gives you a bowl of Blueberry milk when you're done. My cats yowl at full volume at my feet until they're allowed to lick the bowl. They can smell it from two floors away.

Percy: Why am I utterly not surprised that a gentleman of your impeccable taste would have the appropriate accoutrements at home? If you have a set of antique Absinthe spoons, I'm inviting myself over and bringing the Absinthe too!

I think Spumoni Gardens gets the short end on PIZZA surveys because (despite the 24 ovens) it's more of an Italian restaurant that happens to serve pizza. The Sicilian (or square) pie there was an excellent example of it's type, and again, I thought the sauce was really good. Interesting. Our overall reaction was that L&B didn't make a particularly good example of "Sicilian" (e.g., thicker, square pizza) -- especially compared to Di Fara's square pizza, which I think is the best of that style in the City. And we weren't all that fond of the sauce (which, like their canned mushrooms, comes out of big #10 cans of "pizza sauce"). But, of course, part of this is a matter of preference. I can understand that some people are fond of L&B's undercooked doughiness (they do huge business, after all), it's just far removed from the things I personally value in a pizza. Anyway... sounds like you guys had a great trip! ← Sam: I thought the DiFara's "square pie" was awesome, don't get me wrong. That thick sliced pepperoni was amazing! But to me, a "Sicilian Pizza" is not only square, but always thicker and doughier (if not undercooked) than a round pie. I thought DiFara's was merely "square", not "Sicilian", at least by the definitions I've come to understand. And perhaps it's that thick doughiness that makes it far less popular amongst true pizza-philes. Just my guess, though. If that was canned sauce on the Spumoni Gardens pizza it was pretty damned tasty for not-from-scratch. I liked the sweetness that had a bit of acidity to back it up, not unlike a fine riesling . I maintain my original premise that the food is better at Spumoni Gardens than the pizza is. And that's merely having seen and smelled it. Are there any reports in the NY forum about the sandwiches, pastas and entrees at Spumoni Gardens? I'd be curious to see what the concensus is on that part of the menu. We did indeed have a great trip! I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say there's some envy that those wonderful pizzas aren't as readily available to us as they are to you New Yorkers. But the invitation is still open to plan a road trip for the New York Pizza Survey to come down to Philly and we'll be happy to show you what we've got! I think if y'all got a taste of Tacconelli's or Mama Palma's there might be some jealously going that way too. And we could still meet in the "middle" in Trenton and show you folks around the Trenton pizza joints too. There was some talk of a Staten Island Pizza Club road trip in the future that the New Yorkers could meet us for as well. The more, the merrier!!

I always try to get the White Zin drinking ladies to "take off their training wheels" and branch out to a nice glass of Riesling or Chenin Blanc. This hardly comes as a revelation to me. The last several generations have been raised on Coca-Cola and sugary cereals. Now they aren't only all obese and suffering from diabetes, but their tastes in wine have been forever tainted for the worse. Add to this a culture in which wine is not a daily beverage, but a "special occasion" beverage or "forbidden fruit" (so to speak) and it's no surprise that oceans of sweet plonk are both consumed and presumed to be the standard for each variety of wine once consumers are old enough to purchase wine legally.

I'll second the rec for Pho Xe Lua (aka the Soup Train due to the giant neon train in the window) as a Chinatown favorite. Very inexpensive and the food is consistently excellent. The Pho is great but I'm also a fan of some of their other soups like Mixed Seafood Noodle or the Beef Satay with Rice noodle which is perfect for a chilly night - spicy and thick with wide rice noodles, chunks of beef and pineapple. Yummmmmm! Other specialties include the Spring rolls, the Papaya Salad and the thin sliced Raw beef salad that you douse with lemon and is sort of an Asian Carpaccio. The Specials board always has a couple of good choices on it of whatever is super fresh that day. There is Thai food on the menu too and Pho Xe Lua does a very serviceable Pad Thai if you're in the mood. Let us know where you ended up going and how you liked it!

I think Spumoni Gardens gets the short end on PIZZA surveys because (despite the 24 ovens) it's more of an Italian restaurant that happens to serve pizza. The Sicilian (or square) pie there was an excellent example of it's type, and again, I thought the sauce was really good. But Sicilian pies are usually not everyone's favorite and I think will always come in last place after all those other lovely round, thin pies. Much like Trenton Tomato pies, the Spumoni Gardens pizza needs to be measured with a slightly different yardstick. Not exactly apples and oranges, but maybe Granny Smiths vs Red Delicious if you get my drift. I'd happily go back to Spumoni Gardens another time for a big-assed Italian meal. All of the food I saw being served, from the sandwiches at the take out area to the family-sized platters of pasta that were each an individual serving looked and smelled amazing. Even our simple house salad was delicious, with a very tasty and lemony dressing.

For the NFC championship, we made cheesesteak strombolis, four different varieties, some with whiz, some with peppers, some with mushrooms, etc, made with half-frozen ribeyes cut paper thin with my freshly sharpened Global. We also made some some pan seared hot dogs from the local Polish butcher shop. For the big game, I'm thinking of making a rye bread stuffed with fried onion, sauerkraut, and kielbasi from the same shop, seasoned with caraway seeds, and maybe a chipotle macs-n-cheese caserole. We're not hosting this one, so it's got to be easily transportable food. FLY EAGLES FLY!!!! ← Welcome Tkrup! So where's your local Polish butcher shop? And what do they have there? C'mon - you gotta 'fess up now. You can't start a sentence like that in this crowd and not finish it...

Craig: Congrats on your move. I e-mailed Anne Amie months ago to inqure about their port that one of my waitstaff had tried and raved about. Never got a response at all. Obviously there wasn't anyone there "managing" and answering those e-mails, so it's a fine thing that you've been hired to take over! So maybe now that I know someone there, you can tell me if your product is available in PA or NJ??

Indeed a wonderful afternoon spent with wonderful people. Everything was delicious, but I have to agree with Lisa that DiFara's Artichoke/Porcini pie was a revelation. The quality of ingredients blew me away. Fresh artichokes!! Olive oil preserved Porcini mushrooms! YIKES!! The careful stretching of the dough. The gentle layering of the sauce. THREE kinds of cheese freshly grated, sliced or torn onto each and every pizza - to order!! Fresh herbs growing on the windowsill!!! Just watching Mr. DeMarco make the pies was like lying on your back on the floor of the Sistine Chapel and watching that crazy artist on the scaffolding paint. I've never seen anyone be so meticulous in putting together what is truly an artisinal food product. When Mr. DeMarco retires, there will be no more DiFara's - that is clear. The care, the patience, the touch and the love that goes into each pie can not be taught. Even to family. It's just a prodigal gift. The pies at DiFara's were glorious. Our bunch of Philly Pholk walked in there, stalked the tables and eventually comandeered the place. Which isn't saying much because it's a hole in the wall. But I'd go back to worship there anytime. Here's the one pic I took on my camera phone. This is the DiFara's Sausage, Mushroom, Peppers & Onion Magnum Opus. The Sicilian pie at L & B Spumoni Gardens was the best slice of Sicilian style pie I've ever had. The sauce was amazing. And that big honking salad was spot on at that moment. The Spumoni was a great "palate cleanser" for what was yet to come. The staff at Totonno's wins the hospitality award hands down. By the time we left we were part of the family. They couldn't have been kinder to us. And the pizzas were probably as similar to Taconelli's as anything we've had anywhere else in our travels. Wafer thin crust with just a bit of char and that lovely smokiness that only a coal or wood fired oven can give to a pizza pie. It's been a long time since I've had anchovies on a pizza. They were goooood! Last but not least, the opportunity to have a hot dog at the original Coney Island Nathan's was too great a draw to resist. Happily sated, I napped on the ride home. I suspect I'll sleep like a hero tonight as well, as long as I don't roll onto my stomach and wake up from the see-sawing! Thanks to Lisa for logistics, Rich for driving, Janet for cookies, Gary for gratuitous carbohydrates that were not to be missed and to all for the wonderful company and the laughs!

Since I am newly employed in an oyster & seafood house, I am still exploring the menu. I had a lovely broiled Tilapia this evening with a sweet and spicy chili glaze that reminded me how much I really love Tilapia (aka St. Peter's fish). Tuna is a favorite under almost any circumstances, as long as it isn't cooked past medium-rare at most. Love it as sashimi. Sea Bream sashimi has to be one of the most awe inspiring things I've ever had. Salmon is also good almost any way, again, as long as it isn't overcooked. Raw is even better. I do love me some smelts! I miss having smelts and it's been awhile. I need to go find some on someone's menu somewhere. A few years ago I worked at (and was a customer for years prior to that) a wonderful and sorely missed fish restaurant here in Philly called BLT's Cobblefish. One of my absolute favorite dishes on the menu were the "Buffalo fish", which were tiny little puffers, battered and fried and then served like Buffalo wings with Buffalo wing sauce, celery sticks and blue cheese dressing. I really miss that place as the fish preparations were endlessly creative, and incredibly reasonably priced. And the restaurant was BYOB which made it that much better. They made the most awesome smelts at Cobblefish. I really miss that place.

jpdchef: Welcome to eGullet and to our fair city soon! There's an awesome food scene here so you shouldn't ever be at a loss for what to do or eat. Feel free to PM if I can be of further assistance, or avail yourself of the pinned Philly dining companions thread at the top of our forum. If anyone is available I'm sure you could find eager dining companions. I'll only add that the truly not to be missed things that are spitting distance from where you're staying are Reading Terminal Market and Capogiro for gelato. You can not leave this city without visiting both of these. Chinatown is a good choice too and also quite close by. I thank rlibkind for the plug, and of course you're welcome to come eat some oysters or whatever at my restaurant if you feel like walking a short ways. Stop in for Happy Hour 5-7PM after a tough training day. Might I inquire about your training? Will you be working for an Aramark outpost or is it just a "see how the other guys do it" sort of thing? Just curious...

Actually one of the prettiest "mini cake" displays I've ever seen was a large tray of cupcakes, each individually decorated with a large flower on top. It looked like a glorious bouquet and has to be easier than all those little tiers. Making sheet cakes and cutting with different square molds and making tiny tiered square cakes might work with a "poured on" icing like ganache or poured fondant as someone else mentioned. It might not be as much torture as other molds and methods sound like they would be.

Tony: Very impressive! Your students are well prepared for the dog-eat-dog (or something like that) culinary world upon graduation. You should be very proud, both of your students and of yourself for imparting your wisdom in a way that has such tangible, aethetically beautiful and clearly delicious results! Brief OT digression: Is anyone else hearing Bugs and Daffy going back and forth: "It's DUCK season!", "RABBIT season", "No, DUCK season!", etc.?