KatieLoeb

Hey, I asked for a Harvey Wallbanger on Saturday and you mocked me! Mercilessly! OK, maybe you knew I really wanted a Bourbon Crusta... And I did really want one of those. I mean two of those. ← Clairvoyance is part of my arsenal of tools as your Spiritual Advisor.

Harvey Wallbangers for everyone!! Yay!

That, of and by itself, is a beautiful thing, is it not? I daresay that's why we all spend so much of our precious little leisure time here on eGullet talking about just such an individual.

You're still wasting really good wine that's weeping like a martyr to have meat with it. There's no fish or other parve alternative that is going to stand up to any of those big phat tannic red wines. Really. Even by reverse engineering the meal, and choosing the wine before the food, the thing that matches is red blooded animal protein with a good dose of fat. It is what it is. The wine won't be bad, but you'll have completely missed showcasing it with a well matched menu. If you have cases of it lying about I guess it doesn't matter, but if that's your only single bottle of something you could surely do better. Is there any way in hell to convince your wife to have the parve portion of the meal be dessert???? Perhaps you could prevail upon her to lighten up about the dessert course, which would make the entire construction and flow of the meal a lot easier to handle.

Herbacidal and I had a spectacularly delicious lunch at Hardena today before I had to head to work shake it up for the masses. One order each of chicken and lamb satay, a plate of lamb rendang and what the owner called "yellow fish" and a big bowl of beef soup with vermicelli noodles, tomato and scallions. Everything was as awesome as ever. I also had two cups of strong and very sweet coffee and all this was a mere $24. I don't know how they stay in business, but I'll continue to visit for as long as they'll have me. Next time I want to try what the owner called "sour soup" which appeared to be a chicken based version of the soup we shared. I must restrain myself from eating those yummy fried veggie patties since I'm trying not to eat fried foods too often, but they looked so good as they got piled on to the shelf above the steam table.

Lychee Mojitos are quite delicious and easy to create. Buzz a can of lychees and syrup through the blender and strain. Add lychee syrup and less simple syrup to a standard muddled Mojito recipe. Voila! You'll have trouble keeping up with the demand. If you want to really get jiggy with it, you could substitute any number of flavored rums into the recipe. Knock yourselves out. Fresh housemade ginger beer goes a long way in a lot of different cocktails. I'm adding a ginger-peach cosmopolitan to my spring cocktail menu. Peach vodka in a standard cosmo recipe with a splash of fresh ginger beer added. Couldn't be easier.

Tim: Whilst I'm appreciative of you taking one for the team in checking out those most touristy and truly sucky of the cheesesteak venues in town, I'm still surprised you wasted a perfectly good meal opportunity on such low caliber fare. Tony Lukes or Shank's & Evelyn's weren't far away and I'm fairly certain you could've done better. Maybe not at 2:30AM, but you didn't mention what time of day your outing took place. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume none of the better alternatives were open then. Because I know for a stone cold fact you have better taste than that. Yes I do.

Actually, it was when I was trying to come up with Poison Dart #1 that I bought my first bottle of Green Chartreuse. I really have to try this one again - Poison Dart is too good a name to pass up having a worthy cocktail attached to it. The green spirits in my cabinet are Chartreuse, Absinthe, and Verveine Velay Extra. Time to get to work! ← There's something about a drink that's the color of antifreeze that just evokes "Poison", no matter how good the end result tastes. If it's high proof and deadly, then the name is so much more so apropos, n'est ce pas?

Sometimes the name just works. A recent riff on the Moscow Mule that mimics Indian flavors (pomegranate, lime, ginger) provided the (I think) aptly named Mumbai Mule. Sometimes your thinking has to be a bit more outside of the box. Named after a person, place or thing that it evokes. My particular bent seems to be a slight twist on the classics. My Rhuby Daiquiri is a twist on a Hemingway Daiquiri featuring a house made Rhubarb syrup and Ruby Red Grapefruit juice. So the name follows rather logically. I love the idea of a Poison Dart. Some Green Chartreuse in the mix perhaps?

Definitely less bittersweet than before. More "brownie-flavored" than I remember it, and with much less of that dark bittersweet chocolate edge I always loved about it. Still good, but I prefer my sweets less sweet than savory, I guess.

The food looks too soy lacquered to be South Africa, but that would have been my guess based on the lushness of the vines and the long plane ride clue.

Wow. Color me stunned. I confess I never thought birds were that smart, but perhaps that's because my only experience with them was my friend's former Cockatoo named Stardust. Stardust was not the brightest critter. And he only loved my friend. Loathed his fiancee to the point where he'd shreik at her and flap his wings and make his head feathers stand up. He was quite jealous. He also ate the windowsill right off the wall. Mean, destructive and not too smart isn't what I usually seek in a pet. Ernie is sweet and smart. Now I want a bird, but I want a guarantee that it'll be just like Ernie. I'll see what I can find out and report back on the Shank's sandwich.

Sorry to be getting back so late on this. Working late the last couple of nights... I suspect that was a vegetarian sandwich or maybe an eggplant parmesan sandwich? Maybe you couldn't see the sauce? The eggplant and sauteed greens (they usually have spinach, broccoli rabe or both) at Shank's are really good. It also might have been something off-menu that customer had them put together for him. It's a shame they're closed today. Now I want one and would have gladly taken one for the team in the name of research and gone and solved this mystery definitively. Ernie is far too cute and well behaved. Would that I could get my cats to climb into the tub for a bath once in a while. My dear departed dachshund Elvis used to jump right in for his bath, as he just loved it. Not so easy with the kitties. Ernie seems to have a lot of personality. Does he talk or make noise? Or is it only when he's hungry? I'm loving your varied eatings throughout the week. Looking forward to the rest of the blog.

Matt: Le Demon Vert is usually made with Absinthe (which I'm working on getting, I swear!), fresh lime, gin and falernum. I substituted the Herbsaint because it's what's on hand and still makes a tasty cocktail. Karen had a gin-gin mule made with the fresh batch of ginger beer I'd just brought in. Love the dates. I tell everyone to get them and everyone loves them. Like meat candy on little skewers.... Glad you enjoyed everything! I'm sure I'll see you again soon....

Vanilla-Lavender sours were always pretty spring-like to me. 2 oz. Stoli Vanilla 1 oz. fresh lemon juice 1 oz. Lavender simple syrup* egg white Shake the hell out of it and strain into a cocktail glass. Twist a freshly made lemon peel over the drink and drop in. * Boil 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup water until dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup of food grade lavender blossoms that have been bruised with a rolling pin. Allow it to cool at room temperature. Strain and refrigerate.

I've tried muddled ginger and applejack with some good results and then got a crazed idea to do some muddled basil to bring out more of the herbaceousness of the Averna. Again, some success but nothing I'm pleased enough with to send in yet. Back to the laboratory... I think I might go with rum next. The bonded applejack is nice but I'm not sure I'm completely sold on it in combination with the Averna. :shrug: I really do wish to send in something that's easily replicatable. Regardless of whether it's stated in the rules, I suspect drinks that require too many wacky ingredients/steps/homemade things in them already have a strike against them.

Yes Percy, please share the chutney recipe! I will second Andrew's endorsement of Percy's patra ni machi. It's absolutely delicious. I suspect that chutney would work well on other things like chicken or pork too.

I'm neither assuming that nor saying it's true. But the implication of "correcting" the chef stands on its own. Think how insulted you'd be if someone came into your place of business and "corrected" whatever it is you do. What I was saying, but far more eloquently. If you don't like the way the chef seasons the food, then you don't like the restaurant. Don't go back. Problem solved. And I would also state that if one complains about the seasonings, one should do so politely, not just for the sake of the chef's fragile ego, but because it isn't the server's fault and misdirecting your displeasure at them accomplishes nothing except pegging yourself as a high maintenance customer.

Would sliced blanched almonds work just as well as whole ones? Anyone ever tried this? It just happens to be what I have available to me at work without having to request a special purchase or running around to buy my own almonds. I'd love to try my hand at this and have some homemade orgeat at my bar. I'm very into making my own mixers/condiments and am interested to attempt this.

If you carry your to-go cup into another restaurant, continue to drink the coffee you paid for in another establishment and don't order coffee from the place you're in, they deserve to ask you to leave. And they don't even have to be polite, because at that point you're not merely uncouth, you're simply being rude. There's nothing murky about that at all. I sincerely hope you were joking when you proposed that scenario. If not, I'd respectfully ask that you don't visit anywhere that I'm working. The seasoning issue is another matter. If I were a chef I'd probably be insulted, but then again, a lot of restaurants don't offer the courtesy of fresh ground pepper, or might not have red pepper flakes in their pantry because they don't use them in their cooking. I've worked with enough chefs to know that sometimes being under the hood in a commercial kitchen can lead to some level of oxygen deprivation and resultant mild brain damage. I'd be careful of cleaver wielding chefs that saw you seasoning your food with outside condiments/spices and implying that they weren't doing their jobs properly. Do you ask for ketchup for your well done steak, perchance? edited for harsh language and bad speling

Linda: Damn! I wish I'd started reading your blog earlier. I'd have happliy met you over at the Market to show you around and most certainly for a bite at Shank's & Evelyn's. That's one of my favorite places and I generally get sandwiches there about once per week. The Chicken Parmesan is excellent, as is the roast beef, although I wish it were sliced a bit thinner. They make a very serviceable roast pork as well. But the real show is the ladies behind the counter bickering and gossiping with the customers. Now that's something to write home about. No place else like it. Claudio's is a great cheese shop, as is DiBruno's a half block down. Did you try any of the fresh mozzarella from Claudio Casieficio next door?? It's as good as it gets, still warm coming out of the cheese machine. Yum. You simply have to try that next time you're here if you missed it. The spice shop in the photo is also a favorite spot of mine. Nice selection of teas and coffee too. No mention of horrific traffic tie-ups either on your way in or out of our fair city?? The three mile stretch of I-95 that's closed for repairs due to a cracked bridge support made it onto CNN earlier today. It's been a mess and probably won't be fixed until late Wednesday. Hope it wasn't too much of an inconvenience.

Thanks, Maggie. It all seems pretty straightforward to me. I don't expect the restaurant to cater to the minutiae of my preferences beyond the menu that they are offering to everyone. Presumably, that's why I went there in the first place. To have their menu. It's just bad form to bring your own stuff into a restaurant, with the exception of the dietary restrictions like the gluten allergy, or if you are taking some sort of prescribed substance. I wouldn't dream of bringing my own tea, any more than I would bring my own baby salad greens from the farmer's market, just because I like them better than what the chef is offering that evening. I would simply not order the salad.

Hello-You raise very interesting point. My response: If this is"blackmail" (and I am not sure that it is), isn't the blackmailing mutual? I will continue to go to a restaurant that serves wonderful food and lets me bring my own tea instead of going to an equally wonderful, or better, place that won't let me do this. As I mentioned earlier, I am deeply into good tea. ← When I wish to go out for good tea, I go to a teahouse. When I wish to drink the tea of my preference, I go to the tea shop, bring it home and drink it at home. If I'm fortunate enough to find a restaurant that has tea I'm fond of, I'll order it after dinner instead of coffee. But I'm at the restaurant for the food. I'm at the teahouse for the tea. I can't tell you how many bad cups of coffee I've been served after a perfectly decent meal. But I didn't go down the street to any of the many fine coffee houses here in Philadelphia, get the coffee I liked better and bring it back to the restaurant. Just because the tea bag is portable, doesn't make bringing it in any less offensive. The McDonald's fries example is a good one. And what of the other patrons that catch a whiff of your lovely tea, but can't have any?? Didn't we all get in trouble as kids for "not bringing enough for everyone" when we were sneaking gum in class? The restaurant is providing the same menu to everyone. The patron bringing their own should have to wear their chewed gum on the end of their nose until the end of class. And where does it end? A different patron sees someone bringing in their own tea and thinks it's OK to bring in their own bottled water, or their own soda because they prefer a certain brand. It causes more problems than it is worth for the restaurant. It's bad policy to show preference to regulars this way, just as it is to seat them ahead of new customers with reservations if they just walk right in. Anyone can be as stubborn as they want to be about this, but I stand by my original argument. If there's a compelling reason to have to have your own damned tea, then bring it. It's a lot like bringing your own wine to a restaurant and paying the corkage fee. If that bottle of Bordeaux is the one you bought on your honeymoon in France and wish to uncork for your 10th anniversary dinner at the local upscale French restaurant that's going to recreate the meal you ate ten years ago, then have at it. I'd probably waive a corkage fee in that instance, because it's sentimental and a somewhat compelling reason. Otherwise, if the place has a liquor license, I'd tend to buy something off their list and not insult the time and energy they may have put into having and housing the wines available. If the restaurant hasn't put the time or energy into their non-alcoholic beverages that they have the wine list, then perhaps they don't care to. And maybe that isn't the place to have tea.

Love it on a perfectly medium-rare burger with a little bit of Dijon mustard as well.

Tipping well and being polite about the request goes a long way toward currying favor with the staff. And more often than not it's more trouble/has bad blowback to say no to someone even if the restaurant wants to. The point about losing more than you'd gain by saying no is true. But that's a subtle form of economic blackmail, isn't it? You're still bringing your own food/beverages into a restaurant. And I'm just not sure that's ever really appropriate, unless there's a truly compelling reason to do so, for instance having special dietary needs or taking some sort of homeopathic prescriptive. One's preference for a certain brand isn't compelling. Drink it at home or try and convince the restaurant to carry it for you and all the other customers.