Andrew Fenton

see, and I thought it was a nod to your well-known love of Thai kickboxing. Anyway, I really ought to try Siam Lotus-- or really, the whole Erawan real-Thai deal-- because the Thai options in Philly are indeed pretty dreadful.

Hey, I've never eaten at Rouge! I'll be expecting my check in the mail as well. Be sure to add lots of zeroes. (Preferably after the number, not before.)

Whoah. That's just... genius.

It works great. I'm sitting here drinking a cup of cafe au lait topped with a 2" high mound of froth. If there's any problem, it's that the froth is too stiff, almost like meringue. If I think of it, I'll take some pictures tomorrow and post them. But in the meantime, you should just try it: it's absurdly easy. I don't know how well it would work with half-and-half. I'd guess it would work okay (though skim milk is the easiest to foam, thanks to its added proteins). It'd be worth a try.

Indeed! McGee has a method that's basically free and works like a charm: 1) Pour some milk in a clean jar. Close the lid and shake for 20 seconds. 2) Remove the lid and microwave for about 30 seconds. You end up with a jar filled with lovely frothed milk, hot and stabilized and ready to go. Given the ease and efficacy of the technique, I'd say that $30 spent on a milk frother is $30 wasted.

My understanding is that brik is a Middle Eastern (or maybe even Turkish) import to North Africa. Obviously there's not much of a North African community in Philadelphia, but I wonder if you couldn't get the pastry or something like it at one of the Middle Eastern food stores, even Bitar's. And while it's probably heresy to say this, it's not that different from phyllo. You could get away with a substitution. I have some great memories of eating brik in Tunisia. It's amazing stuff: all golden and fried, and when you bite in, the egg yolk bursts open and you have to nibble around it to keep it from slopping on to your fingers. One of those ultimate street foods... edit: I agree with Matt O'Hara's (crossed) post mentioning Bitar's. Also, it wouldn't surprise me if brik has made inroads in France, so yeah, Assouline could be a good bet.

Do you want to read over 900 Amazon.com reviews of Tuscan Whole Milk? Well of course you do. THIS IS WHAT THE INTERNETS IS FOR, PEOPLE. Ahem. A couple of sample reviews: And a milk so good, it brought Yeats back for another round:

Do you want the best boiled beef sandwich you've ever eaten? Of course you do. So go to Nerbone. For dinner it doesn't have that certain io non so cosa, but heck, it is open for breakfast...

Okay, I did try it, and it was okay. Better than most versions of General Tso's, but I'm just not crazy about that sweet, sticky sauce. But I also ordered the Chinese water spinach, and managed to polish off almost an entire order on my own. Man, is that ever good stuff...

Yeah, I think the rest of us were thinking "House-made pasta", as opposed to "outside-supplier-purchased pasta". The "fresh" part just seems to me to follow naturaly from the fact that the restaurant makes its own. ← Fair enough: I was thinking in terms of the Italian distinction between pasta fresca and pasta secca...

Maybe we have a terminology issue here... I'm using "fresh pasta" to mean "soft pasta, usually made with egg" like tortellini. "Dry pasta" is pretty much just flour and water, like farfalle or bucatini. Obviously it's not dry when it's coming out of the machine, but it dries really quickly. Presumably Osteria could dry, package and sell their bucatini...

You might be surprised. There are plenty of good-quality dry pastas out there. If you pick one of those, and know a few basic techniques, you can cook great pasta at home. One thing to bear in mind is that, to Italians, the fresh/dried pasta divide isn't one that's based on quality, it's based on region. Fresh pasta, to them, isn't better, it's northern. Fresh, homemade pasta can be fantastic, but you only use it for certain kinds of recipes; for others, you want dry pasta. Which of course is reason in itself!

Well, my birthday is coming up... Vadouvan, do you have an idea how many restaurants in the US make their own paste secche? That's pretty hard-core!

Is the bucatini actually hand-made? Traditionally, it's not a fresh pasta, but a dried one. (I don't even know how you would make it by hand.) I could certainly be wrong, but it seems much more likely that it's a top-quality dried imported pasta.

All of that has zero to do with the issue at hand: what a restaurateur chooses to serve in her restaurant. Alice Waters isn't telling anybody how to do anything.

I imagine that the circle in which everybody is assumed to like bone marrow is an extremely narrow one. I mean, I like it fine, but even among eGullet members, I don't think there's any such assumption: and in the non-foodie world (at least in the US), marrow and the people who love it are looked on with some suspicion...

At one time, seltzer delivery was common not just in New York, but in Philadelphia and other large US cities (or at least US cities with lots of Jews.) As far as I know, it was always locally produced, and by independent producers: I suppose you could call it an artisanal product. Oddly, there don't seem to be many eGullet threads on seltzer delivery, but here's one. I remember a few years back listening to an NPR interview (transcript here) with one of the last remaining seltzermen.

Somehow I don't think that etymology is a big deal at the pork shack, and that's the name of the steak. try one and you might forget the latin roots of the word too. ← As Phil says, the meaning of bruschetta has migrated, from toasted bread, to toasted bread with stuff on it, to the stuff itself. Technically, I suppose it's an example of synecdoche. But it's also an example of the American delight in piling more stuff on top of other stuff: contrast the Italian pizza margherita with the all-American Meat Lover's Delite. The topping becomes more important than the thing itself. Jars of "bruschetta" make Bambino Gesu cry bitter tears, but what are you gonna do? Anyway, adding a layer of tomato/garlic/onion flavor to a cheesesteak would be a good thing, I bet. It reminds me a little bit of that antipasto hoagie from, um, whatever that place is that has it. (Too lazy to look it up right now...)

We got takeout from Tiffin last night. As others have mentioned (though not on this thread: hmm, where?) the takeout/delivery/eat-in menu is more or less standard Indian-restaurant fare, a little less exciting than the lunchboxes. Still, it's good stuff. I was in the mood for lentils, so ordered a nice buttery dal; also a totally respectable baigan bharta. A couple of vegetable samosas had a great savory filling (though the larger one was a teensy bit undercooked). It came with a side dish of yellow split peas, and the whole shebang, including a side of naan, was less than $20. Cheap! And with plenty of leftovers, which I intend to eat as soon as I get home from work this afternoon. I can hear them calling me now... The missus thought the food was better than that at the late Minar Palace: less greasy, for one thing. I can't speak to that, but I did like it a bunch, and I'm sure I'll get delivery from there again. One problem: they forgot the naan, which made me cry a little. So don't make the same mistake I did: check your order!

I think that a clafouti rises because of whipped egg whites and (I may be exposing my ignorance about baking here) baking powder. I don't think I've seen a clafouti recipe with whipped egg whites or baking powder, though I won't swear that there aren't any that call for those. Here's Julia Child's recipe. Not the same as a Dutch baby, but not too different either...

And secretly dine with one another, I have been reliably told. ← Ooh, kinky! I gotta go take a cold shower now...

A peach Dutch baby sounds really good. It occurs to me that the Dutch baby is really a cousin of the clafouti. You could probably make a great cherry Dutch baby. And cherry season is just around the corner...

Well, come on down for a visit! Spring is almost here...

eet ees so good, zee appetizer platter...

The thing is, the noodle soup at the RTM Sang Kee might actually be good, except that it's served in these horrible styrofoam bowls, which always slop my soup all over the place. It's a shame. The good news is that the real Sang Kee is only a few blocks away...