Andrew Fenton
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Posts posted by Andrew Fenton
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I've found that the right pan is essential. You want a pan that gets hot fast, not a heavy one. I don't have one of these (yet) but my guess is that those french black steel pans would be perfect. I use a 12 inch non-stick pan not for it's non-stick qualities but because it is aluminum and the walls have the same thickness throughout.
Seems like you could use a cast iron pan that you'd pre-heated in the oven. It'd require being vewy vewy carewful, though...
(I've had one Dutch baby in my life: a babysitter made it for my sister and me. It was great; I was especially impressed by how it puffed up in the oven. But I haven't had one in probably twenty-five years. I'll have to change that soon: thanks!)
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I think that all gelato is made by machine. Unfortunately, it's not a Willy Wonka-style machine, where you just press a button and cilantro-lime sorbetto pours out... sigh...
Oh, and James: cutest baby-gelato picture EVAR. That boy's growin' up to have some good tastes. Maybe too good...
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I don't think banh mi ever have dressing, do they? Anyway, these didn't. But there are enough vegetables and pickles that it stays pretty moist. The shredded chicken is a little dry-- it usually is at most places-- but the pate gives it a richness that makes up for it.
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Sunday- Thursday, I believe.
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ahhh, finally, I've been waiting for a Spelt tasting....
Yeah, it's kind of a goofy idea-- would you have a wheat tasting, or an oat tasting?-- but I was interested, for just that reason. If it showcases what can be done with spelt, then heck, why not?
Maybe you only get the amuse if you order Al a Carte?
A good point! When you make reservations, be sure to tell them that Al sent you.
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We went to Django last night, for the first time in almost two years, lured in by a March weeknight special: $30 for three courses. That's a great deal.
It seems like they've toned down the menu a little bit-- or rather, the menu has expanded to include more toned-down offerings, like a crab cake, filet and so on. I suppose, too, that six years ago, when they opened, Django was doing something that was really different and out of the box for Philadelphia; at this point, a lot of places have caught up or passed them. What was once really noteworthy has become a lot more straightforward. There's nothing wrong with that, and in fact, it brings the restaurant closer to its original mission as a good neighborhood place.
The food is still good: I was happy with the goat cheese and wild mushroom gnocchi, and liked their duck dish: sliced duck with a wee confit (or maybe rillette, I don't remember) sandwich. Cute! The missus was less happy with her filet, which I agree was a little weird. It looked as if they cooked (not much of a sear, alas) and sliced it, then cooked the individual slices again: the slices were browned on one side. Odd. More goat cheese for dessert: a sampler of three cheeses, and a goat cheese cake. Those were both fine; I wanted cheese and got it, and the cheese cake was about what you'd expect, not socks-knocking-off. (Though our friend absolutely loved her pistachio French toast; it looked pretty great.)
But there were all kinds of little things that went wrong with the meal. Individually, they're pretty minor, but as an aggregate, they really seem to mark a drop-off in quality:
- several typos on the menu, e.g. "mascerated grapes." The worst is the announcement, at around the second line of the menu, that you can order "Al A Carte."
- some issues with service. Our waitress didn't know what everything on the menu was. One of us asked about kohlrabi, and got a blank stare for a few seconds, until the waitress could check the menu. Is it petty that I was annoyed that there was a dish billed as a "spelt tasting", and one of the items was an "ancient recipe spelt bread", but the waitress has no idea what that meant? (Seriously, did they get it off a cuneiform tablet from the Penn Museum?) There were a couple of other issues like this; individually, not a huge deal, but at a restaurant that has as a hallmark a complex menu, they should also have a well-trained staff that can explain those complexities.
- the tables around us were served an amuse-bouche, but we weren't. I assume they just forgot us (and didn't ignore us deliberately), but it feels like something of a slight. Again, I don't know: is this petty? Should I have complained?
So there you go. Nothing was awful (if there was more sloppiness than there ought to be), though nothing was really amazing, either. And $30 is unquestionably a heck of a deal.
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Here are a couple of banh mi from Ba Le on Washington Ave.:
One of them is chicken and pate, the other is "honey roasted pork": a slightly sweet sausage.
It's shocking how good, and how cheap, these things are: like $3 apiece, and if you buy 5, they'll throw in a sixth for free. Really, you can't afford not to eat them, all the time.
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She did talk quite a bit about the food, actually: she described the haemul panjan and the gamjatang at some length, as well as the panchan.
That's two things that are on the menu, and one that comes with the meal (and a mention of bulgogi earlier.) While there were definitely limits to how much Ludwig could discuss in a sidebar, I think that a restaurant that serves a cuisine unfamiliar to many of her readers (including me), and, especially, one that doesn't have an English-language menu, would have been improved by a little more detail. That's not a diss of her review, which I thought was quite good; but it would have been significantly more useful if it had been longer.
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Is this effed up or what? They have wine but don't want to sell it before it's time!
You didn't notice Orson Welles at the store, did you? Because he, too, would "sell no wine before its time."
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One thing I noted is that, at least of the samples I ate, the sous-vide and grilled steaks were slightly more well-done than the pan-seared. The SV steak, for example, was medium-rare, and the pan-seared steaks were quite rare.
I have a suspicion that this helps explain the reaction that the pan-seared WF steak tasted like "nothing"-- not only did those other cooking methods concentrate flavor, but the amount of cooking intensifies flavor as well. (This may be one of those obvious findings, but still...)
Oh, and to answer Sandy's question:
So what hope do we with little more than countertop grills at our disposal have?Buy the best meat you can (the Flannery is quite good, and not much more than the WF) and pan-sear it. Make a nice pan sauce with lots of butter and serve it alongside. Enjoy it; it will be a very good steak.
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I think I've heard others mention this recently, but when trying to click over to food articles on the Citypaper website, I frequently am met with interminable page loading delays, that usually never complete. I sometimes get through after several tries. Is it just me?
It loaded lickety-split on my computer, running Firefox. Dare I ask what browser you're using?
I was curious to check out their take on Pojangmacha, which Foobooz linked to as "a new Korean restaurant in Upper Darby" despite the article mentioning their 15-year history. (Elisa Ludwig liked it, BTW)Not much detail about the food, though, which is a shame. Mrbigjas, is this the place you've recommended in the past?
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I'm not sure what I would eat, but I would certainly buy the food at Traitor Joe's.
Or have a nice dinner at the Et Tu Brewpub...
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I went into the tasting rooting hard for the pan-cooked Whole Foods steak. It's the underdog, and it's the only one I could go out and prepare TONIGHT, if I wanted. As others have said, neither the meat nor the method rose to the level of the others. Dagnabit.
I probably enjoyed the grilled steaks the most: that wee li'l Japanese grill packs a wicked punch, flavor-wise. The charcoal flavor didn't infuse past the outer half-inch or so, but it really made for an outstanding crust. And proof that the millions of American men out there grilling steaks on their Webers are onto something. Even if most of them wouldn't be caught dead cooking on a little box like that.
I actually didn't think that sous-vide did too much for the flavor of the meat, but it made a huge difference in terms of texture. Any stringy or tendony bits of the meat were dissolved and reabsorbed into the meat, giving it a smooth, rich texture. In a way, it's an ideal cooking method for somebody in a situation like mine. I like flavor; the wife likes tenderness. Normally you have to choose between (say) a ribeye and a filet, but the SV evens out a lot of the potential toughness of a more flavorful cut. But first you have to have the setup.
My other thought is that while it's true that the pan-cooked steak had the least wow to it, flavor-wise, it's also the only one that didn't have any flavors added to it. We all noticed the hazelnut oil in the sous-vide (sweet, nutty) and of course, charcoal has a pronounced taste. In the real world, if I cooked a steak in a pan, I'd finish it off with some sort of sauce: anchovy or herb butter, or some sort of pan sauce. A good sauce would erase a lot of the distinctions between that method and the others.
Big thanks, as always, to Vadouvan for his organization and mad ninja-chef skills; and thanks to David, too, for his contributions in getting the ball rolling. Good stuff.
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Oooh, what am I still doing up? I will write more tomorrow, but let's just say that the Pimp My Steak experiment showed that:
a) better-quality steak in fact tastes better, and
b) them fancy Japanese grills are pretty great. I don't think that's just the carbon monoxide talking, either.
Great pics, Phil. I especially like this one:
The Indiana Jones-style lighting really makes it look mysterious. and delicious. I'm pretty sure that the grill box contains the Ark of the Covenant. Seriously, don't look inside.
Also this last one:
"Meet the Meat."
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I think it is excessive and a poorly wrought publicity gimmick.
These things always are though, aren't they? I've never seen one of these luxury stunt-dishes that I'd actually want to eat...
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A delicious roast duck served up for Thanksgiving. My grandfather cannot resist telling my dad that this was his cute little pet Easter duck. My dad bursts into tears! But, the duck is so delicious, that he cannot stop eating it, tears rolling down his cheeks all the while...
Great story, Scottie!
Simpsons fans will recognize this as a case of art imitating life...
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(Though I wonder to what extent shipping gelato for thousands of miles overseas hurts the quality. Seems like the best stuff is usually made fresh daily.)
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Behold: an eGCI session on Mexican table salsas, and ten recipes on RecipeGullet! And for a basic, easy and satisfying recipe, you should also check out Rancho Gordo's pantry salsa recipe.
I don't know what the story is with the sweet salsa-- that doesn't fit with my experience. But I'm the farthest thing from an expert.
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If it's as good as the GROM in Florence, you're in for a treat. That's good stuff.
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Sorry to hear this about Zot, but they're pretty new, maybe they can get it together soon.
Indeed. I'd love to have a first-rate Belgian place three blocks from my house.
I didn't mention earlier that it's a really beautiful space. They've done a good job incorporating the brick, etc. The lighting is well-designed to create a dark atmosphere but allow you to still read your menu. There are a few weird things (they have butcher paper on the tables, but our waitress came by with a crumb comb) that I'll attribute to just opening; but it's really a romantic atmosphere. I just hope they get the food up to snuff.
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(And the graphic designers among us will be happy to see that guy Lorem Ipsum finally gainfully employed in the kitchen, holding down a responsible job for a change, rather than just standing around taking up space...)
Too funny! It's about time that guy got a job.
Anyway, a nice-looking menu. Literally; it's quite attractive. The food looks interesting, too. Somebody needs to give us a report!
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The last time I went to Eulogy, they had beers like Bass, Harp and Guiness on tap along with Yuengling, Yards Philly Pale and one other that really annoyed me. And the Belgian beer selection was pretty lame, all familiar stuff you could get at many non-Belgian places. If you're so DAMN BELGIAN, then serve the stuff, you know, like Monk's has been doing.
That seems to have changed:
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I was along with Phil on his most recent Eulogy trip, and I agree with his assessment. The fries were terrific: crispy outside, creamy and soft on the inside. But the mussels weren't so great. I was happy with the beer selection, too, and it seemed properly served to me.
Went to Zot this weekend and was disappointed. There's a sort of "Meats of Many Lands" theme, including several examples of what we might call stunt meats: kangaroo, ostrich, etc. I chose a relatively tame lamb chop; it was fine. The setup is a little strange: you pick a meat, a sauce and a starch. There are maybe 25 sauces listed, from the straightforward (spinach-garlic-cream, bordelaise) to the less so (what on earth is a "Gypsy" sauce? I don't know, and the menu doesn't say.)
The fries are skinny, much like McDonald's. (I prefer the thick kind, but that's just me.) They were okay; not especially crispy, but not limp, either.
The mussels were really dreadful, though. Lots of broken shells, not fully cleaned (with some leftover beards and rocks), and way too many empty shells. We wound up throwing a lot of them away. Not a good thing.
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Tortilla chips and salsa are the first things that come to mind.
HC
Easier? Not so sure. Tastes better? I'm certain. Cheaper? I woudl doubt it unless time and clean-up factor are not an issue.
The price of decent quality fresh tomatoes and fresh cilantro in my area makes large containers of ready-made salsa a real bargain (I've done the math).
To be fair, none of these-- even the luxury of home-made toast (I'd never heard of frozen toast, and it boggles the mind)-- is actually easier. Just easy: the calculus of ease to quality is an individual decision.
That said, I agree with HungryChris that homemade salsa is quite easy. It just all goes in the food processor. In winter, I use canned tomatoes, which aren't expensive. Fresh cilantro is indeed somewhat pricey, but it's the most expensive part, and a little goes a long way. And the result is light-years ahead of anything you can buy.
The Divine Miss "M"
in Pennsylvania: Dining
Posted
Funny, I actually say that to Katie too, in spite of having known her for years. She just has that effect... (Oh, and I believe her preferred term is "intoxicologist." Or was that "Buddha of Booze"?)
Anyway, welcome, SugarJ, and thanks for the writeup on M. I had drinks there a couple of weeks ago, and it was great. I definitely need to get there for dinner as well. It sounds terrific.