jogoode

My dad would do neither, but he reads the Times.

I'm sorry to harp on this point, but almost everyone interested in food in New York reads the Times. I don't read it in order to find out about the boroughs -- Robert Sietsema, of the Village Voice, is the master of that domain. But if the Times reports on New York's street vendors (as it did a few weeks ago), on Astoria, Queens (its front pager this week), or on cakes in swing states (R.W. Apple's "low-brow" article last week) then I read with relish. These are great writers, most of whom have good credibility as eaters, writing about things high-end and low. Many people on this thread have admitted that they don't have the money to eat at the big restaurants; so why do you assume that these are the only restaurants that interest Times readers? The review of, I don't know, 'inoteca is no more valid than this most recent review. 'Inoteca serves Ligurian food. It's not cutting edge, but because of its higher price point, people think it's appropriate to review. I went to Las Vegas and ate in one restaurant. It was the only restaurant in Vegas I cared anything about. It was Lotus of Siam, reportedly the best northern Thai restaurant in the US. (And I read the Times religiously.) This is exactly why Bruni's doing this review is appropriate. You can't get this food in Jacksonville. You can't get this anywhere else in New York. No one would be talking about a rave about Sripraphai if it had been the 25 and Under. Now we are talking about it. Now Sri has recognizability outside of a rareified foodie circle. Bruni is saying that if you are in New York, this is worth your time to seek out. Because you would not does not mean others woul not.

Great Holly! I'm always excited when I hear you'll be eating nearby me. I love reading your site, but it kills me that most of the restaurants are so far from me. I think you'd like Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop, 174 Fifth Ave, near 22nd St., 212-675-5096. It's old school New York and is supposed to have the city's finest egg salad sandwich. But call, as I'm not sure if it's still open. There are also many great Indian restaurants within a five-ten minute walk. If you're interested, let me know and I'll post about a few.

I bought some high-quality macha in Osaka, after falling in love with it during my trip to Japan this summer. I tasted low and high quality and the former is very bitter while the latter is amazing: round texture and sweet, vegetal flavor. Macha-making implements. Made frothy by using that delicate bamboo brush.

But you never have picked up and went to Sripraphai. Now you might. If it were reviewed in $25 and Under, you might have, as I might have had I not been, not considered it important to go. You're right. Sorry about this. I was being snotty. What I meant to emphasize was that Sri is not, for Manhattanites, a place you run to after work, just because it is far away, and therefore something of a destination.

Not to be picky, but very few people decide to head off to Queens after work to eat. And judging by your dismissal of this excellent Thai restaurant in a city full of crappy Thai food ("A waste of a week") and your hypothetical dismissal of excellent fried chicken, you may not be one who'd happily take the potentially two-hour round trip. Your dismissal belies your willingness to expend effort to seek out this destination at all, let alone after a long day at work. Which is, of course, fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with not being particularly interested in a review. But Sripraphai is an important restaurant, more important than the newest incantation of ambitious Italian, which often sees two stars. If you admit that the pleasure you take in the review is vicarious, then why is reading about Thai a waste of a week, when reading about Per Se is not? The reviewer is telling you whether or not you should spend good money (or precious time) on a restaurant. And if it's an important restaurant, why shouldn't the Times sic its main reviewer on it. This is not something Bruni does often -- we'll get about seven to ten Babbo/Per Se reviews for every Sripraphai review. I do understand, however, that Bruni's choices of restaurants to review represent a break from tradition. But I don't think that Bruni is adjusting what stars mean for traditionally star-worthy restaurants. If that doesn't suffer, why do Bruni's actions represent an all-out assault on the star system? I agree that the stars don't mean much when used for Sripraphai, because we have little, if no, basis for comparison. (How many stars would Grand Sichuan deserve?) But again, the context fills you in. You know immediately that these are two stars on a different scale -- a scale, possibly, from zero to two.

but they sat that many in the summer, between the back yard and that weird downstairs area. i don't think it's gonna change anything. they know why people come there. ← Thanks, bpearis. Keep reassuring me...

So that's why I didn't find you: I was searching for "Mister Cutlets."

And the above-ground ride through Queens on the 7 is so pretty. I'd guess that more than a few people would rather sit in their cars than ride on the subway. Some people on eG have been known to take their cars everywhere. I had a car when I lived in Carroll Gardens last year, and it was great to have access to areas of Brooklyn that would have been hard to reach from my place by subway -- Midwood, Sunset Park, etc. Now that I think about it, the expansion to 70 seats might also affect the food. Who knows if the kitchen will be able to handle the increase.

Because in each review, the reviewer provides some context for each restaurant. Bruni: By the end of the review, and before you look at the star rating, you understand that Bruni loves this Thai place in Queens that has charmless decor. When you see the two stars, you shouldn't automatically say: "This bastard Bruni thinks that some Thai place in Queens is as good as DavidBurke or as good as Blue Hill!" They are clearly different restaurants. Bruni cares so little about aspects other than food at Sripraphai; he says explicitly that he doesn't care about the decor and he doesn't even mention service, as he usually does. Blue Hill would never get two if it looked like Sri. It has different ambitions and should be rated according to those ambitions, as people have argued many times before. Bruni is simply saying that it succeeded greatly in its goal to be a good, modest Thai restaurant. I agree, the Thai restaurant is not comparable to these restaurants with higher aspirations. It doesn't purport to be. Instead of the Thai restaurant getting a couple of pieces of silverware, it gets stars with context. As soon as you are informed by the reviewer that this is not an ambitious French or new-American or molecular-gastronomic place, you can in your mind transfer these stars to forks. I live in Manhattan, and I go to Queens to eat very often. I've been to this particular Thai place over 30 times, sometimes twice a week. But I'm not, of course, representative of most Manhattanites who read the Times Dining Section obsessively. I'm very young and don't mind the subway trip (which btw only takes 45 minutes on a good day, as much time as it takes me to get to the East Village from the Upper Upper West Side). This review is not for everyone, just as a review of ADNY is not for everyone. I couldn't give a damn whether ADNY gets three stars, four stars or zero stars. I'm never going to go there -- unless I give up on a job in editorial and become a money launderer. Now Bruni's working for me and for you!

The star system is more flexible when the critic can assume that his audience can tell the difference between a 2-star review for David Burke and a 2-star review for Sripraphai. If the system isn't flexible in this way, there will be problems with reliability, even of reviews of restaurants on a similar price plane. A 3-star review of Cru is praising different criteria than a 3-star review of Sushi Yasuda.

I followed these two pieces of advice: I let the battered fish sit in the fridge for a while and used a non-stick pan. And it worked like a charm! The fish had a crispy, tasty crust. I ate it, oddly, with leftovers: sausage, mashed potatoes and caramelized onions. Thanks!

I wish they didn't feel that they had to renovate; I like the doctor's office decor. It's hard to reconcile my wishing Sri does good business -- because it deserves it -- and my wanting it to stay the same, my wanting it all for myself. I know Stone is a big fan of Sri. What did you think of the review?

I'm surprised, to say the least, to see this review! Happy, I think. Sri was on everyone's radar by now, so the review won't pack the place any more than it's already packed. If you weren't willing to go to Woodside before the review, you probably won't be willing to go more than once now. (Judging by my friends' reluctance to return, even after having loved the food.) Having said that, I'm glad to see it recognized in this way by the mainstream press. But will the food be affected somehow by the move and the review? Will the restaurant brace for the arrival of a different breed of Manhattanites by toning things down? I hope its long history of popularity means that if this were to happen, it already would have. Bruni wasn't impressed with the seafood. I've been very impressed. I love the salad of shrimp, squid and crispy watercress. The in this is consistently squid tender and the shrimp good and never over cooked. Do you think that the picture in the Times is of Sri's new interior? I've never seen that wood latticework.

Thanks, everybody! I brought with me my brand new Olympus digital with 3.2 megapixels. Every night I emptied my pictures on to my laptop, which I brought with me for that purpose. (I refused to buy an $80 memory card.) I went through them and erased the terrible pictures and touched up the good ones using iPhoto. I took about 15 bad pictures for every good one! Buying a digital for this trip -- and for my subsequent trip to Japan -- was a great decision.

This summer I took a long road trip around the US. (Thank you to eGullet for all your help in planning!) My girlfriend and I were on the road for seven weeks, and in that time put about 12,000 miles on her old Camry. Our route was often determined by commitments to sights and friends. If it had been up to me, I’m not sure we would have seen any of either – except, perhaps, the sights in Lockhart, Texas, and my friend Peach at San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza farmers market. But in retrospect, I’m glad the entire trip wasn’t spent eating – the Badlands, for instance, was worth the awful meals I endured in its vicinity. The first stop was Chicago, where we planned to stay the next and the next day. We ended up spending three days there. There was no Trotter, no Trio, no Topolobambo – I’m 23 with a light wallet. Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois: All three states looked the same from the road. Sadly, we didn’t stop for chili in Cincinnati. First stop was Lem’s Bar B Q in Chicago’s South Side, a recommendation from R.W Apple’s New York Times article. These are center cut ribs… …and chopped hot links, eaten on the Camry’s trunk, since Lem’s has no tables or counter. Both were served with white bread and fries drowned in excellent hot sauce. I’m a sucker for a bird’s eye view. What they put on a Chicago dog at Portillo’s. The dog. After a soggy Italian beef at Portillo’s, I went to Mr. Beef. Then later to Weiner’s Circle. Onward… We spent five days in Madison, WI, which would have been far too many if we hadn’t been visiting a good friend there. My first day there was spent at the fine farmers market, which wraps around the capitol building. (R.W. on the market.) Damn right I bought some curds. Yes, they were squeaky. We bought the raw materials for dinner, and I cooked in the kitchen of my friend’s vegetarian, Kosher co-op. Mars, I mean, Badlands National Park, South Dakota. This state was the sleeper hit of our trip. After two days of hiking and climbing these otherwordly rock formations, we drove several hours to the Black Hills, a lush area of national forest, the very opposite of the Badlands. We hit Devil’s Tower on our way to Yellowstone. Since we left Wisconsin, we noticed a dearth of good food; actually, a dearth of edible food. I had ordered a burrito in SD, for instance, in an attempt to play it safe after I’d seen the restaurant’s salad bar. In the burrito I found cubes of cold-cut ham. A slice of excellent strawberry-rhubarb broke the monotony. One of many examples of America’s open space, Wisconsin. Before we reached Yellowstone, we stopped in Story, WY, a tiny town of 650 people. We had read on Roadfood about Waldorf A’Story, a quirky restaurant with a reportedly great breakfast sandwich. The “Moose Samich,” as it was called, was a marvel: scrambled eggs, bacon, cheese, onion and tomato on thick, expertly buttered bread. The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We had planned to camp in Yellowstone for two nights, though we soon revised this plan after realizing that during summer nights in Yellowstone the temperature can dip below freezing. With our Kmart tent and sleep-over-party sleeping bags, we were not properly equipped and had a miserable night. The next day we saw more of the park, but then left and spent an extra day exploring the Tetons, based in a hostel in Jackson Hole. Reaching Portand was exciting for many reasons. Most thrilling among them was that we would finally get to stay somewhere other than a motel or a hostel. (I don’t count the five nights spent in the claustrophobic, dirty room at the vegetarian, Kosher co-op.) Our good friends from college were putting us up. One of these friends is a native of Portland (and is eGulleteer Jim Dixon’s stepson) so we got a good sense of the city. We had excellent two excellent dinners out: one at Mi Cahn, a Vietnamese restaurant in northwest Portland, and another at clarklewis, which serves greenmarket Italian of the highest order and where my friend, the native Portlander, works. We also ate at the house of Jim Dixon, who showered us with hospitality. But what really captured my heart was the Portland farmers market, and more specifically, this box of 25 dozen oysters I purchased for $35. In New York City, where I live, I rarely eat oysters because they are expensive. In restaurants they cost over $2 each, in good seafood shops at least $.50 each. Here I had more oysters than I knew what to do with – always a dream of mine – and it had cost me less than $.15 per oyster. At Jim’s we shucked, steamed and grilled oysters until, over two afternoons, we had finished them all. From Portland, we drove west until we found a beach and braved cold ocean gusts to dip our feet in the Pacific. No champagne around, so to celebrate our reaching the West Coast we stopped at this roadside tuna truck. I got great fish and chips. We drove through Sonoma and Napa, stopping several times to taste wine. I stocked up for my five-day stay in San Francisco at Frog Hollow at the Ferry Plaza Market. After days of eating in the Mission, I had first-rate brisket at Memphis Minnie’s. Then I splurged at Oliveto, in Berkeley, on Paul Bertolli’s salumi, about which Jeffrey Steingarten raves. After San Fran, we took Rt. 1 towards LA. In Santa Barbara, I had my first Animal Burger at In-N-Out. And ate twice at the famous La Super Rica. To my girlfriend’s mortification, I went through almost everything on the menu, trying hard to love it. But I was ultimately disappointed. I have no pictures of the food in LA. I lost my will to take pictures and my will to explore. I ate almost every meal at the restaurant around the corner from where I stayed; we were, though, staying with friends who lived in Thai Town, so this restaurant happened to be an excellent little Thai restaurant called Sapp Coffee Shop. Whenever I was hungry I walked a minute to a restaurant with better Thai food than the restaurant I take a train 45 minutes to reach in New York. Gold on Sapp. The Chinos’s farm stand exceeded my expectations. It pains me now to see all this beautiful summer produce. I wanted to buy a small box of mara de bois strawberries; a small box of peas; a few tomatoes; and an ear or two of sweet corn. I tried to do this, but made the mistake of passing along a "Hello" from a friend who knows Tom Chino well. This was the result: a lot of free food. We nibbled raw sweet corn in the car, and I stuffed my face when we reached our Las Vegas hotel. We stayed in Vegas for a night, and I ate the next day at Lotus of Siam, said by many to be the best Thai restaurant in the US. It’s a gorgeous restaurant, as you can see. I had done only cursory research about the food at Lotus of Siam; I remembered reading that “almost everyone came for the $5.99 buffet,” and I mistakenly took that as an endorsement. Luckily, I took a look at the buffet before ordering, and decided against trying the generic Thai food. (Though the waiter brought me a free cup of a Chinese-style hot and sour soup from the buffet, and it was very good.) The real menu focuses on the food of northern Thailand. I wish I could have tried more than just these two dishes, but I was eating alone. My girlfriend was at an art exhibition. Nam kao tod: cubes of Thai sausage, puffed rice, red onion, roasted peanuts, dried chiles, cilantro and mint. (Can anyone help me identify these green leaves to the right of the salad?) Here’s a great nam prik of green chiles. I was very impressed with both dishes, though I should say that I haven’t eaten much northern Thai food. The Grand Canyon. We spent a night in Albequerque, and I spotted a smoked turkey truck as we headed toward a reportedly good barbecue place. I chose to try the turkey truck. Excellent smoked legs. Our trip, after California, sped up considerably, as we were trying to make it home to search for a new apartment in New York. We stayed in Austin, and had a couple of brisket-and-hot-link breakfasts in Lockhart. Black’s. I ordered fatty brisket at Smitty’s; thank God for white bread. I didn’t go to Kreuz Market, which I’ve heard was a mistake. But two out of three is fine with me. I finally understand why people go wild over Texas brisket. (Austin, by the way, was beautiful. We spent a hot day walking around the city and then the rest of the afternoon at Barton Springs, an enormous public pool (3 acres) that is a sectioned-off portion of a natural spring.) On to Louisiana. Black’s oyster bar, in Abbeville. Crawfish etouffee. Boudin at Poche’s. On to New Orleans, which was hot enough to debilitate us. We retreated at one point to a Casino to cool off. Ultimately, we persevered. Muffaletta at Central Grocery. Café du Monde. Beignet and café au lait. Shrimp boil at Galley Seafood. Soft shell crab po’ boy. Oyster stew at Wintzell’s Oyster House, Mobile, Alabama. A few years ago, I drove through the Carolinas, the eastern part, and loved the barbecue I had. So I wanted to be sure that I ate well this time as I drove through western North Carolina. (Because of the route we took, I-85, we were in South Carolina for less than an hour.) I called my buddy Varmint for some advice. He recommended three spots, each representing a different type of North Carolina barbecue. We didn’t plan to stay in NC and were, in fact, rushing home. So I needed to pack in my three meals into a few hours. Look at these beautiful hunks of pork served at Backcountry Barbeque. I ordered the coarse chopped tray, as Varmint recommended. Backcountry’s sauce was my least favorite sauce – a little too sweet. But the meat was the most impressive – tender, mildly smoky, very porky. I thought of Fat Guy’s criticism of finely chopped pork barbecue – let me know if I’ve botched this, Steven -- why take the time and effort to smoke pork to such impressive effect is you’re just going to chop it up and obscure its flavor with sauce. It would have been a shame to destroy the texture of this pork. Here’s a tray at the famous Lexington Barbecue, which Varmint said I should try to get a sense of a different type of barbecue that, I think, he appreciates but doesn't love. I thought it tasted great, but thought it would’ve been better if it hadn’t been chopped so finely. I wonder if Allen & Son Barbeque pulls their pork, as opposed to chopping it. Either way, it was delicious, notably spicier than the other two. Can’t say no to fried okra. Coming home was strange; standing still was strange. It was exciting to think that we could spend another seven weeks, or even another seven months, driving around the country, and never retrace our steps.

Thank you all. I wasn't patient enough! I checked to see whether the fish was browning by peaking under one piece. The crust came off, and I just assumed I had done something wrong, so I turned them all over. So much that I failed to consider! My fish was not floating in the vegetable oil, but I had put enough in to come half way up the side of the thin fish (tilapia). The oil started spitting, so I turned the heat down. I also let the battered fish sit for only ten minutes. Why is this? Does too much heat affect the flavor of the oil? I'll probably try again within the next few days. Maybe I'll photograph the process...

Tonight I battered fish -- with a mixture of tumeric, red chili, gram flour, water and lemon juice, a la Monica Bhide and Sudhir Seth's eGCI course -- but when I pan fried, the batter stuck to the bottom of the pan and was thus stripped from the fish. I made enough batter to cover the fish only lightly -- should I have used more batter? I used enough oil to come half way up the sides of my battered fish -- did I use too much, too little? More generally, are there any tips on pan frying that you experienced folks have come up with? (I'm a novice.) And what do you like to pan fry?

Is the latter you're referring to ADNY? And is this due to its being a hotel restaurant? I was under the impression that Per Se was operating at a loss or that it cost so much to open that it would see no profit for 20 years (if it can last that long). I wonder how potential beneficiaries of these projects -- those who profit from the success of the Time Warner Building and Essex House -- quantify the value added by the restaurants. It's not, I assume, a matter of an increase in property value as it would relate to a sale of that property, because the real estate market in these types of properties doesn't have high turnover. And in both cases I don't see either of the two restaurant bringing more business to either the hotel or the mall. ("Let's get to Per Se early, so we can browse the shops before our anniversary dinner.") Or does this prestige filter slowly into our minds as consumers, logic being: If Essex House houses a restaurant like ADNY, it must be a pretty fine hotel itself?

It's interesting to me that in speaking of the success of restaurants at this high level -- the ADNY-Per Se level you've been speaking of -- there is little talk about profit. I've read on eG in the past that both Per Se and ADNY are serious money losers; there's no way Boulud is going to blow money or time on a new, higher level restaurant, or even turn Daniel into such a restaurant, when his flagship is a great money maker. This seems to me the most significant impediment to opening a restaurant that will compete at the highest level. But then again it still amazes me that there is enough money floating around to support the restaurants out there now. I might be naive about how much investors would throw behind DB, JV, or Adria, even if the resulting restaurant was a money loser.

Had some cinnamon sticks in my cupboard, too.

I've spent some time in Philly and have heard friends complain about the regulations on liquor. But I'm not quite sure what they are and how they affect the availability of wine and its price. Could someone explain? And if there are laws that make it hard to get wine at a fair price, what do you do about it? Do you drive to Moore Brothers and stock up? Thanks!

Thanks again, everyone. I bought black mustard seed, black malabar peppercorns, hot chili powder ("reshampati aka lal mirch"), whole clove, green cardamom pods, ground tumeric, and garam masala -- 24 oz of spices in total for, yikes, $24. I guess that's not so bad. And I keep telling myself whenever I'm reluctant to buy some ingredient or pan that you can't cook without spending some money. What should I make first? (Might be a topic for a new thread.) I already had ground cumin, cumin seed, dried whole chilis, ground coriander, and, strangely, asafoetida before today's shopping. (How do you pronounce asafoetida, by the way?)

I think I just needed to hear someone say this! And it's good to hear that it's common to tend to be over cautious about stove stuff.

I had no idea! I just looked briefly on Newsday's Web site but couldn't find any reviews. Thanks for letting us know, Josh. Now I can seek them out.