
Steve Plotnicki
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Florence Meat Market & Newport Steak
Steve Plotnicki replied to a topic in New York: Cooking & Baking
I don't get. Are the steaks stuffed with anything or just folded? -
Foie gras. No question about it.
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I'm afraid that businesses often act opportunistic whenever they convert to something new. I'm sure there are businesses saying the reason for the uptick is the expense of the changeover. Making new signs, changing computer programs etc. But people usually accept it. That's because pricing is so arbitrary to begin with. If tomatoes go up in price by 5 euros a kilo, who is going to stop buying them? The more important question, and we need the economist among us to answer it, is the price increase better for the European economy or worse? I would think that if the increase doesn't cause a proportional drop in the amount of business, that it's good because businesses will be more profitable. This is the viscous cycle for consumers. They want cheap prices but, if the restaurant business is more proftable than more top quality chefs will open their own places and our choices will improve. So which one do you prefer, cheaper and fewer or expensive and plentiful?
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Nina - Well people choose which book to read and which movie to see but they aren't involved in deciding what's in those things. They choose and then they are stuck with that choice. When people order a steak they want to be involved in how the steak comes out. Why don't they just put themselves in the hand of the author, i.e. chef?
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Martin - You're not talking about fried steak, you're talking about pan sauteed. They do that all over France. What's the point of that? It still tastes lousy well done, although less so because the oil in the pan moistens the meat and the flavor of the onions in the oil imparts flavor. Adam - Trying to get this topic back on track, why is it that people are resisitant to have their steak cooked "the right way?" To me there are two models that come out of this topic. The entertainment/choice model which says that food is like the movies or a book. It's my money I and I will see/read/eat what I want. Then there is the "patron" model like a museum or opera where an elite chooses what you are going to view/listen to. I understand why food is like the former example. But why is it so difficult to get people to see it the other way, ala your bistecca fiorentina arsonist in Firenze?
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How about this one. I was with a food importer last week and he told me that the Japanese, although heavy smokers, have an extremely low rate of lung cancer which they believe has to do with their drinking lots of green tea.
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Robert - Get used to it. Euros are just the compact disks of currency. When the recording companies rereleased everything on CD, they raised the list price by more than 50% and their rationale was that the CD had 20 minutes more music on it. Yeah, 20 minutes of crappy songs that used to be left off the album. To me it sounds like the shops have used the conversion to euros the same way. They have floared it out and if it sticks....
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Certain things have transcended their point of origin. Like sauteed foie gras. Once upon a time you could only get it at French restaurants. Today there are 100 restaurants in Manhattan that serve it that have nothing to do with French food. But it does have to do with American cooking techniques that were influenced by the French. And places like Spago serve pizza but it isn't an Italian restaurant. I think caviar is sort of like that. It might have been Russian or Iranian but many of the restaurants that now serve caviar have transcended their point of origin. Many of them like Maison du Caviar or Caviateria really have little or nothing to do with being Russian. They serve caviar as a luxury item. Not as a Russian item. As for Petrossian, I haven't been to the restaurant in years so I can't comment on the current menu. But when it fisrt opened aside from the caviar they seemed to only be serving French food. They didn't have things like chicken kiev etc. on the menu.
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Rozrapp - Do you think "aren't really" equals never? And I'm sure someone serves Gigot en Croute as well. But once upon a time *every* French restaurant in this town served those types of things. Fat Guy - I never thought of Petrossian as being Russian for a minute. I always thought of it as French. If you want to go to a Russian caviar bar, go to Le Daru which is down the block from the Eglise Russe on rue Daru in Paris. But Petrossian? It's no more Russian than the Maison du Caviar on the Madelaine is.
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I can't possibly be the end of P-ism. Wilfrid tell me, when you say culinary expansion, do you mean that the French public started to practice some of those rituals? And what disparity might there be between how the culture spread amongst French society, and how it spread among British society? For example, where does the lowly bistro fit into this puzzle. Or the brasserie, something that I believe was founded in Paris in the 1870's? How about cafes? I think you did teriffic job of figuring out how the aristocracy ate, but the sexy part of the story is how the French populace ended up with oysters on their plates and the Brits with pie. Mind you, the North Sea off the coast of Britain is loaded with oysters. But as Paul Richardson points out, the British oyster industry died deacdes ago and every French port town is overflowing with restaurants that serve a Plateau de Fruits de Mer Royale. Can you get back to us with this bit?
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I think that you can't compare neighborhood ethnic restaurants like the Red Tulip with places like the Russian Tea Room and Luchow's. The difference being an international customer base versus local. If the RTR was a place the size of Russian Samover they might very well not be closing. But given the slot they used to fill in New York social life, which went well beyond the cuisine, although the style of celebratory food they served enhanced whatever special occassion one might be celebrating and "haute" Russian was as haughty as any other, it really isn't surprising they are closing. Most of those types of places closed or have lost their glitz. Doe anybody remember when The Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel was "the" place to have Sunday brunch? When I was around college age, that was a way to celebrate a birthday. But it lost it's luster when it became owned by one of the hotel chains, maybe it was Westin or maybe the gild fell off the leaf when Trump owned it and he went into financial difficulty. But it went from a place that people went to for a celebration to a place they didn't go at all. The goodwill it built up for the prior 75 years or so went into the crapper in something like 2 years. Fat Guy - Well I remember the day Petrossian opened because I went to have lunch there. Aside from the caviar, we ate foie gras and truffle soup. The menu looked pretty French to me. Did Contincini serve blini with the foie gras too? Jason - Thanks, I needed that today. Especially the slut part. . But if you want to eat something good, go to Petrossian and buy the "Tsar's Cut" loin of smoked salmon. It is the bomb! The loin cut at Caviarteria is good, but not as good as the Petrossian one which is ethereal. And at Caviar House in London (on St. James as well as at Heathrow,) the "Balick cut" (in honor of our own Adam Balic) is also up there in the category of ethereal smoked salmons.
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Jason - I didn't invalidate the genre. I just said it doesn't *need* to exist (in the current NYC restaurant environment.) If they closed every Russian restaurant in Manhattan I doubt anyone would notice. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be one, or that people wouldn't go to one if they do a good job. Petrossian is a French restaurant, not a Russian restaurant. The original Petrossian is on Avenue Latour Maubourg in Paris. I believe the owners are of Iranian descent. Aside from caviar (of which they sell some sublime specimens) their menu is all French food. In fact Philippe Contincini one of the most cutting edge pastry chefs in the world was the chef their last year. How about Caviateria? Is that Russian because they serve Caviar? Of course not. Outdated cuisine is outdated cuisine and it is subject to the vagueries of the market regardless of country of origination. Things like Duck l'Orange and Gigot en Croute aren't really served anymore, and it is not surprising (to me) that Chicken Kiev could fall by the same wayside. But of course that shouldn't stop someone from eating it if they like it.
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Well let's see. If you put in new decor when people like the old one then less people come. And if the new decor is garish instead of it being classy like the old one, then of the people who do come, the quality of the customers is diminished. And if you have added debt to pay for the worse decorations which attract less desirable customers, it makes it harder to pay your notes. And if you combine all of those things with an outdated cuisine that people aren't really interested in on a stand alone basis, as well as the quality being somewhat institutionalized as in, could be something you would get in a hotel restaurant, you are as they say in yiddish, upgerf*cked.
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"Ask the folks who eat at Rolf's, Silver Swan, Zum Stammtisch, Hallo Berlin, and ... Zum Schneider. Does that include anyone you know" Gee I was speaking about the old decor of Luchow's as opposed to the new sterile decor of the uptown restaurant. But Rolf's is sort of an antique, so is Zum Stammtisch a place I've been to too many times to count but it's not a "restaurant" the same way Luchow's was. Haven't been to the others except for takeout knowckwurst at Hallo Berlin (bland.) But Luchow's was really different than the other restaurants you raised. It was like the RTR, Peter Luger and Gage & Tollner and maybe a few others I'm forgetting. The original Delmonico's? 21 Club? People went for the environment as much as the food. Once they changed environments they went out of business. Same thing happened to the RTR no? As to your last question, I didn't say there couldn't be or shouldn't be a Russian restaurant in the city either did I? I said what is so interesting about classical Russian cuisine? The recipes haven't been updated in 100 years. And this is in the context of a formal setting like the RTR or Luchows and not Russian as an ethnic food like you would get in Brighton Beach.
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Adam - Well it's about preserving it AND keeping it moist. I wonder if brining makes meat last much longer. Fat Guy or anybody else, how long does a corned beef or pastrami last after they are brined/cured/smoked?
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a hard couple of days in the smoke
Steve Plotnicki replied to a topic in United Kingdom & Ireland: Dining
Signore Pumpkino - I'm a bit confused by your comment that the Locanda wasn't Italian. The meal Gary ate seemed quite Italian. What exactly do you mean by that comment and why do you think an Italian restaurant must have veal on the menu? Veal isn't typical in every region of Italy. -
You know maybe the problem is they put too many bubbles in the tea. Sometimes you get a mouthful with just one sip and then you have to do too much chewing. Next time I order one I will suggest less bubbles. But one thing nobody mentioned, how about those cool straws that you could drive an 18 wheeler through? Ice cream stands should consider using them for extra thick shakes so you don't have to suck so hard to get the shake to come through the straw.
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Caves Taillevent is a nice shop but is better for higher end wines. They are well organized though with a carte on a stand listing all the wines they are offering. One can flip through the pages in a few minutes and decide if there is anything they want. Not much wine on display though.
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Isn't the point of a confit to steep in it's own fat? Loins are lean. They should be brined, not confited.
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Fat Guy - Well of course context and cut is everything. Meats like briskets are better cooked through. You could serve a brisket grilled and rare and it would suck because you would be chewing until Tisha B'av. And it would probably be the same if you vacuum sealed it and poached it. Each piece of meat has a *proper* way to cook it. But once again, aren't chefs expert in how things should be cooked and shouldn't we rely on their expertise? Of course not every chef is competent but, in the types of higher end restaurants that this applies to, shouldn't that be the case? But theoretically, if a chef could figure out how to cook a steak well and make it juicy and flavorful, why not? Jaymes - First I get an "ism" and then I get a "tize." Soon I will have my own dialect . Macrosan - I've never seen a fried steak at a kosher restaurant. What are you talking about? Do you mean breaded and fried, deep fried or just sauteed in a pan? Or is it just another thing the Brits fry? JD - How about in places like Le Gavroche or Tante Clare etc. Those would seem like the types of chefs who would both have competent staff to chat with the guests about the food as well as doing it themselves?
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Peter - I second La Cagouille as a terrific place. But they are sort of located in the boonies, the area behind Gare Montparnasse in the 14th arr. It's an ugly restaurant as well being in a modern neighborhood where the buildings were constructed in the form of buildings from another era but of modern materials and clean lines. Cap Vernet is centrally located and just off the etoile on Ave. Marceau. But either of those places are going to be superior to a place like Cochon d'Or or a Flo restaurant which are more mass market. Bux - Balzar never had an oyster shucker out front. The place is too small. It's probably the smallest brasserie I've ever seen and qualified as one mainly because of their menu.
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Fat Guy - All good questions but isn't the key question at what temperature does a steak taste best? And I've already cited an example where medium rare is better than rare. So context has a lot to do with it. Look at veggies. I like them cooked somewhat al dente but when making a ratatouille, mushy and jamlike is the way to go. "How is it that all gourmets agree that well-done steak is bad? Is it just a rule we've all agreed to, or does it make actual sense?" Well I would argue it is similar to determining when a peach is ripe or when French Fries are cooked properly. Cooked through steak doesn't necessarily taste bad, it just taste dry and less good than a properly cooked steak.
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Actually I didn't use the word today, I said the following, "There is no need for a Russian restaurant to exist ANYMORE because after all, what is interesting about classical Russian food?" Anymore should suffice for the present tense don't you think? Well I think so even if you don't. My point is that the RTR was a museum quality restaurant like Luchows. Unique decor and all. The price they paid for the place almost guaranteed it was doomed from the getgo. Had Faith Stewert Gordon kept the place I doubt they would be closing. Keeping a place open in a building without a mortgage is a completely different thing than paying notes. And I didn't realize they had changed the decor until I read Bux's response. Why would anybody change the decor? That's stupid. Luchow's died when they moved from 14th Street to 7th Avenue in Midtown. Who would want to eat in a German restaurant that wasn't an antique? Same with RTR. But I have to say I hadn't been there since about 1975 and that was for a reason.
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Peter - If it's mainly oysters you are after, I would try Cap Vernet. I here it's a cut above.
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Peter - If it's mainly oysters you are after, I would try Cap Vernet. I here it's a cut above.