Steve Plotnicki

No my favorites are; Bone Mars Sham-Bowl-Moose-In-Knyee-a (as in apple)-more-roose both made by Cris-toff Room-e-ay of course.

I prefer SHAM-BOWL-MOOSE-IN-KNYEE to VHOHNE-ROMAN-I Marty L - I heard you were at the Balfoor blowout at L'Acajou on Monday. That's who I was at Craft with last night.

La Cigalle is one of the most beautiful brasseries in the world. And it isn't owned by the Flo Group either, Here's a link; La Cigale If you flip through the Images section the photo of the Plateau de Fruits de Mer is killer.

Fat Guy - I'm not buying your explanation. I think every language has its own word for everything. But in certain circumstances they adopt the foreign word. And in some instances they pronounce it the same and in some they localize the pronunciation. Look at the word "baguette" and how it is pronounced the same way in both French and English. But look at the word "crepe" and how it is krep in French but krayp in English. I think this just varies from case to case and if an Americanized pronunciation catches on, that becomes the standard. But if the French pronunciation takes hold then that becomes the standard. But some words like baguette eventually become words in English if they are used enough. It just so happens that the common usage of the word and the French pronunciation are the same. And I have a lot of experience with this. I'm the guy who put "aksed me" as in "aksed me to say some MC rhymes" on the map so I understand the culture of commonspeak . Jason - You are correct. Only proper pronunciation with perfect enunciation is allowed in the Hamptons. No cheap suits in shul.

I had some old wine chat room friends in from Holland last night and I arranged a dinner for five people at Craft. Marco did his usual terrific job of laying out the meal for us. But one dish really stood out as exceptional. Canadian scallops that were served raw in a salad with heirloom tomatoes. Really as good as it gets and it reminded me that scallop season will soon be upon us. I'm looking forward to months of eating Peconics and Taylor Bays. But you should check to see if Craft have these on hand because it's worth a special trip to check them out, even if you have to sit at the bar to eat them. They were that good, and were just marvelous with a bottle of 1982 Krug. But any well chilled, acidy bottle of white wine will do.

I thought you toast the rice in a dry saute pan for a few minutes to bring out the nutty flavor. That also cook sthe exterior shell a little to give it a smoky flavor. That way the rice stays firm as the liquid is absored. But I might be dreaming in that I remember that about the technique. Risotto in Milan is much more then adding saffron. The entire texture is different then what we are used to here. It's so firm that you can almost eat it grain by grain. It's much dryer then what you described and a lot less gloopy then the risotto you get in the U.S.

I actually mixed up the spellings and taillerins is French and tajarin is Italian Well here is the French version Food of the Savoie And here is the Italian version Tajarin And Robert, if you hang with me, I promise you that they will love us when we ask for our riso.

But that's different. Paris is the English word for the place (I made that up.) It just happens to be spelled the same way. But lets look at the French word for London, Londres. Nobody would ever pronounce it in an anglicized manner. You would have to pronounce the O like a U and roll the R. And we would never call the city Nice, nice, like have a nice day. So it can't just be that it's an anglicized spelling. It has to be that the word for risotto is the same in English as it is in Italian and that is what gives rise to an anglicized pronunciation. But then again, I just made that up too but it sounds right.

Are words pronounced correctly just because there is a widely used mispronunciation of the word? I mean that is the way your last response reads. If enough people pronounced "Champs-Elysees" exactly the way it was written, like the word champion, would that make it a correct pronunciation? And I think this is wholly different then a different pronunciation for a local accent or dialect like Milanese vs Venetian. The pronunciation of tra-tor-rea is wrong no matter who pronounces it that way. The correct pronunciation is tra-toe-rea. But the Heritage Dictionary seems to differ with my astute observation .

Nina - Read my post again. I didn't say you can't say risotto, I said if you just say riso they will treat you better. It has nothing to do with formalities and everything to do with being able to converse informally. If you say riso, everyone knows you are talking about risotto. It's like asking for a slice, no need to say "of pizza." But of course if I was at the grand ball and was seated between Gianni Agnelli and Catherine di Medici, then I wouldn't think of saying anything but risotto. But if I was in Milan and wanted two plates of risotto, I would say "due riso." I promise you that will get you the best results.

Unless you are dining at Gualtiero Marchesi and having risotto with gold leaf on top, or something akin to that, nobody says risotto, They say riso. Risotto is saved to describe a gastronomic approach to the dish. For example, the great restaurant Scaletta used to make a risotto with blueberries. One would never call that a plate of riso. But if you are ordering a standard preparation in a tratorria like Milanese, Funghi, or Fruiti di Mare, they will only say riso. That's working-man speak. It's like cappucino. If you ask for a cappuccino they look at you like you're an American. But if you ask for "capucci" you will get better treatment.

If you want to be treated well, never say risotto when you're in Italy. You just have to say riso, pronounced RHEE-ZO. I promise you if you say , "riso milanese" (pronouncing the last e as an a) or "riso con funghi" the service will improve by some large indistinguishable factor that is just one category below the locals and is offered to Americans when they seem to have taken the time to get it right and .

Not that I am so expert in this but I do have some experience. Risotto is farmed in Lombardy which is the region that Milan is in. The Piemonte, which is one region west of Lombardy is a big mushroom region. So the localized version of risotto is...... It's also the region that truffles come from so you see risotto with shaved truffles as well. But to be honest, if you are actually in the region, the restaurants don't really serve risotto first and fortemost. They serve a hand made pasta called taillerins which are thin, flat, egg noodles with a thickness somewhere between a fat linguine and a thin fettucine. What is interesting about the Piemonte is that many of the same dishes appear in the Savoie which is the region in France on the other side of the Alps. If you read Madelaine Kamen's terrific book on the Savoie, you will find that there is a pasta dish called tajerins that is the French version of the same thing. I think that all the regions in Italy have some kind of localized version of risotto. Many of them with the local specialty added. In Venice the typical risottos are squid in its ink (which makes your teeth black) and seafood. But I don't think that risotto is pervasive in any of the regions the way it is in Milan. They eat it with religious fervor there. And the flavor and texture are a different ball of wax, I should say, glop of starch, then it is anywhere else in Italy. Maybe Robert S. can add to this point as he is far more of an Italophile then I am.

Unless they have spent some time in Milan, people don't realize how simple a dish risotto is the way they eat it over there. I never see people eating it with anything in it. Just a plain plate of a not too large portion of saffron colored rice that people eat as a pasta course. The whole idea is to taste the nuttiness of the rice which is accented by a quality broth, cheese and saffron. Putting other ingredients in your risotto, while acceptable and even delicious, sort of defeats the purpose of the dish the way they have it situated in the meal. A typical meal in a Milanese tratorria consists of maybe some salumi, a plate of risotto that is very casual looking. And what I mean by that is it's just sort of piled on the plate and not formed into any nice shape. And it really isn't a huge portion but enough to act as the starch course. And then roasted, fried or stewed meats usually served with cloudlike polenta. Only in truffle season does it change and then they forego the saffron. In this country they treat pasta dishes as a main course. And there are countless things they add to your pasta to make them work as a main dish. That approach works less well with risotto because rice is not as good a foil for other ingredients as pasta is. That's why a seafood risotto works so well because the rice soaks up a good brodo (broth) and the flavor is intense. Even vegetable risottos that use a great vegetable broth work well. But you have to sort of like wet food to enjoy those dishes and I don't think that texture is very American. Pasta is different because it doesn' sop up the sauce. The sauce clings to the strands of pasta.

I think if Fresh was trying to be a cross between Gotham Bar & Grill and Mary's Fish Camp/Pearl Oyster Bar then it would be a fine place. The problem is that it has thrown Canteen into the mix by trying to appeal to the downtown model crowd. I suspect that if the place becomes really trendy, then you will see them abandon all pretense that they are trying to serve top quality food. But if the trendy crowd abandons the place you will see them try to improve the quality of the food to attract a more serious diner. And if it doesn't catch on with neither crowd it will fold.

You know the world is coming to an end when wines are considered a "good value" just because they are under $100. The fact of the matter is that the prices for many of the better Barolos in the U.S. are marked up considerably in the 3 tier process. But if you source your wines in Europe, top quality barolos from producers like Sandrone and Scavino cost about $60.

According to the texbook definition the answer is no. But as I pointed out earlier, it passes the real risotto taste test that many people apply.

Soba - No that isn't correct. "Real risotto" means that it is prepared in the old fashioned method of stirring the broth into the rice by hand with a wooden spoon. And as Robert so deftly points out in his initial post on the topic, it ain't just simple stirring. It is a motion and technique that one has to learn by practicing. Sort of like learning how to spread out pizza dough so the consistancy is even including throwing the sucker into the air so gravity can do its share in the dough spreading process. As for whether restaurant risotto is as good as the old fashioned method, I won't take sides in that argument other than to say that in my experience the risotto in the U.S. is kind of gloopy and in Milan it is nuttty, to the the tooth and nuanced in a way that makes it distinct.

Robert S. - Is your comment about restaurant risotto limited to U.S. restaurants, or would you say you never had a good restaurant risotto in Italy either?

Macrosan - I wasn't commenting on contrasting flavors. The flavor combinations were all fine. In fact, they were exceptionally well thought out. I was commenting more on the follow through like the halibut cheeks being sort of dryish while the foie was buttery and juicy. If you are going to pair the two, especially pile one on the other, you need to get the consistancy right. And the dish would have worked better if they cooked the halibut cheeks, or dressed them afterwards, with something that made the surface of the cheeks have the same fatty glaze that the foie had.

Jason - "Real risotto" is made by gently stirring 5 cups of chicken stock, etc. into the rice with a wooden spoon. What some people call "not real risotto" is made by some other method like making it in a pressure cooker etc.

The fall dining season officially started last night when a group of eGulleters descended on one of the seasons hot new entries. Fresh is a large attractive room and features a glassed in kitchen at the back of the restaurant where you can watch the chefs perform. Upon entering, my "serious restaurant anntenae" went up as the place seemed to be too large to be able to serve discriminating food. And the clientele looked far too trendy and attractive as well. Never a good sign for hardcore foodies. But I said what the hell, it's only fish, maybe they will pull it off. After a table switch (my specialty), we attacked a menu that was deep in choices for both appetizers and entrees. But it only took a quick glance to divide the menu into interesting selections and ordinary ones. Within moments I put together a tasting menu and summoned our waitress. After a little toing and froing, where the waitress put up some slight resistance to the concept of a tasting menu based on our choices, we finally coaxed her to have a pow wow with the chef and as I suspected, she returned to tell us no problem. We started with the Halibut Cheeks with Sauteed Foie Gras, a preparation I had interest in as one of my great fish experiences of all time is the Goujonettes of Sole with Foie Gras at Pont Alma in Paris. Not surprisingly this was reminiscent of that dish with the exception being the consistancy of the stringy, skate-like halibut cheeks. The flavor of the dish was pleasant, especially the quality of the foie which was teriific. But the flavors lacked harmony. There was some missing element that the morning after I am realizing is the fish not being dressed with the reduction from the foie. This just tasted like fish stacked on foie. Good idea, mediocre follow through. We continued on with Cod Tongues and Duck Breast. The cod tongues were much less controversial then I thought they were going to be. Had I not known, I wouldn't have known . But the dish suffered from the same problems the first dish suffered from. The various ingredients didn't seem to be bound together into one unifying fish. They were just piled atop each other. With these courses we drank a 1983 Trimbach Riesling Cuvee Frederich Emile which was a little long in the tooth. Other bottles I've had over the last 6 months were drinking at their peak. But this one had lost a significant amount of fruit and was drying out. We continued with what is becoming the restaurants signature dish, a block of Kobe Tuna served over Garlic Rice with grated Daikon (mixed with a little horseradish) on top. Now here was a dish you could make a name for yourself with in this town if you could pull it off. But unfortunately it suffered from the same lack of harmony that I found in the first two dishes. The gently flavored daikon was too watery and completed coated the small block of toro to the point where it couldn't be seen. And then the toro (which I thought was a bit overcooked) sat on a mound of glorious, satiny and buttery garlic rice. But there wasn't any consistancy from top to bottom. It just tasted like three different flavors piled atop each other. We finished with a simple Roasted Nova Scotia Lobster served with Chanterelles, Fingerlings and Corn. I thought this was the best dish of the evening, disappointingly so because it was so obvious. However the lobster was cooked perfectly and the flavors all blended together and it actually tasted like a complete dish, not just a great concept on paper that had less then perfect execution. With these dishes we drank 1989 Raveneau Chablis Montee de Tonnerre and it was a pleasure to drink. Surely at the peak of its powers. I had the Roasted Peaches with a Peach Cheescake for dessert which was perfectly fine but really just another dessert to add to my list of perectly fine but less then wowing desserts. So I found Fresh to be a big disappointment. From reading Adam Platt's review on the New York Today site, I thought they were going to offer serious food and make a run at being one of the cities best fish restaurants. In fact when you look at the menu, it has all the indicia that it could possibly be the case. But in my opinion the owners made a choice about who their customers were going to be and they decided to make the place hip and trendy instead of making it a serious food place for lovers of fine food. And that's fine for the hip and trendy because this is top quality food for that type of place. But truly serious eaters need not bother trying Fresh. Unless they happen to be dating a model.

Wilfrid - Well your typical Northen Italian restaurant in this town serves 10 "minestre." 8 pastas, 1 soup and 1 risotto. If there was more demand for risotto (or soup for that matter,) the ratios would change. So the fact that it can be ordered "instead of" already exists. People just don't order it as much as they order pasta. Is it marketing? Possibly. But it isn't like people haven't heard of risotto. Maybe if they can make risotto that tastes like white truffles at a cheap cost where you added a bit of veggies that were fresh, that would change the dynamic. But I can't think of why people would make the switch otherwise. I think the whole strategy to a good risotto is a but subtle for American palates.

If you promoted it an alternative to pasta, it will fail. That's like when they said that pork was the "other beef." It has to have merit on it's own and it has to add something to the meal. If it's just going to be a starch, then pasta has it beat by miles. In the vodka example, vodka became popular while the country was changing it's drinking habits from hard liquor (like Scotch) to softer alcoholic drinks and wine. I don't think you have the same dynamic for rice and chicken broth. In fact if anything, risotto is heavier and richer then pasta and eating trends in this country seem to be going towards being lighter.

But for vodka to catch on, there needed to be a ritual associated with eating and drinking for them to latch onto. And without there being drinks that used vodka that became popular like a bloody mary or a sea breeze, and a tradition of when people drank them like brunch or afternoon/pre dinner cocktails, then vodka could never have caught on as big as it did. Where is the space for risotto to creep into?