mrbigjas

for vietnamese: xe lua, 9th & race. good pho. good drinks. quick service. cheap.

after having returned there for the first time in a couple of years on tuesday, i can second this suggestion. nice place, good food, reasonable prices. it's pretty big, too, so a crowd of nine wouldn't be too much trouble i bet. one warning: if they have the liver mousse on the menu, get it to share. for only $8 you get two inch-thick slabs. it's damn good, but that's a ton of liver mousse...

it's still $50. plus $11 cocktails and wines it always adds up to more, and if you order the duck/foie gras it's $65, but the regular brunch with the hot buffet is $50. (i got a menu copy when i was there)

JAZ, i had the same teapot habit for years. and then one day i came to the same realization that you did. except instead of putting the teakettle in a cupboard, i threw it out. it was a cheap old thing, anyway. now i just boil water in a pot with a lid... ... which is always out on the stove.

Shola is good friends with Alex Talbot and his wife Aki Kamozawa, he said some of the inspiration for this dinner was provided by thier "working relationship". For more info on who Alex and Aki are .... Click...http://ideasinfood.typepad.com/ These two Rock. ← i've spent a lot of time reading that site these last couple years, and i've decided that those two are insane--in a very very good way.

i think you did bring me some, yes. and hey, good thinking--i didn't even consider looking at fado or fox & hound or one of those other themey bars. thanks kretch!

thanks for the report, bob. what is it now, a takeout storefront? a truck?

You are going to drink some Irn Bru with that? ← you know it, if i can find it. i just love the ingredient lists on those crisps, things like: Ingredients: potatoes, vegetable oil, flame-grilled steak flavouring besides the fact that i love the crisps themselves. so good. snyders of hanover used to make several meat-based flavored chips, but a) they weren't as good, and b) as far as i can tell the only ones they make anymore are buffalo wing flavor.

project, you're a genius, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

stopped by mama's vegetarian for a late lunch yesterday, and i have to admit: their falafel beats philly falafel's. it's lighter, crisper, moister and generally tasty as hell. interesting salad bar along with it, which includes the sourest pickled celery i've ever had and fried jalapenos, along with the usual carrot, radish, olive, pepper selection. mango nectar in the fridge; a falafel sandwich and salads with mango nectar is about all i need for lunch on a day off of work... SOLID.

bumping this thread up -- have any of you seen places around town that sell english crisps? you know, walkers, mccoys, hula hoops, etc. in flavors like oxtail, ham and mustard, baked beans on toast, smoky bacon, etc... i have a friend who goes to england and brings me back the meat flavored crisps i request, but he doesn't go often enough for my tastes.

we went to brunch at lacroix last sunday (not yesterday; the one before). it is as it was, damn good. unsurprisingly, the menu has many similarities and plenty of differences from last year at this time, when we went. the interesting thing about lacroix is that. because of the simplicity? austerity? purity? i'm not sure what the word i'm looking for here is, but basically, if you read the descriptions of the foods on the menu, you can get a mental picture of exactly what the dish is. there's not a lot of trickery or cuteness here, just great cooking. accordingly, i'll just mention some things that stood out this time. raw bar is the same as ever. the soup was cabbage and potato, but wasn't 'rustic' at all but rather pureed into a rich cream. notable hors d'oeuvres: --asparagus tempura with chestnut mousseline --cured tasmanian sea trout with truffle hats. the truffle hats were actually black truffle meringues. i hadn't had savory meringues before; it was an interesting contrast. --blood orange and uni royale with peekytoe crab. this was good if you like uni. to me it was like eating a blood orange dessert while licking the underside of a dock. i keep trying to like the stuff, so i keep eating it, but it hasn't worked yet. notable salads: --brussels sprouts and salsify with oregano and lemon --cranberry beans with two celeries and chanterelles. this was a great dish. the two celeries were celeriac and stalk celery, obviously, and the combination of creamy beans, slightly crunchy celeriac, notably crunchier celery, all scented by chanterelles... woo. and once again i'm more distracted by a side dish than by the more impressive accomplishments. --rutabagas and shiitakes with vanilla. i'm not sure how i feel about the profusion of vanilla in savory dishes in the last couple of years, but it works here. as always, the hot buffet suffers a little from the hotel breakfast buffet syndrome--everything's a little overcooked from sitting under heat lamps and simmering on induction burners and whatnot. the rack of lamb chops here the three times i've been are always super-lamb-y and a little tough. i'm not sure what's up with that; i'm sure it's not quality of ingredients. the wild boar roast had a great ginger sauce, but was dry. a couple of other things stood out though: --sous vide cod with white bean parmigiano broth --spinach spaetzle with chanterelles and crosnes --veal stew provencale. this was great, laden with saffron--almost too saffrony really, but not quite. and kudos to the chef for sneaking tripe into people's brunch. --green asparagus pot de creme with lobster. since both lobster and asparagus take to hollandaise so well, why have i so rarely seen them put together with each other? --smoked soft eggs with tuna basquaise --veal shortribs glazed with apricot and sesame. i suspect these were cooked sous vide as well; they had that soft texture from long cooking, but weren't falling apart as braises usually due. damn good. desserts were good but by that time, having had a bowl of soup, a bite or two or three of 10 raw bar options, a dozen hors d'oeuvres, six salads, a couple lamb chops, a short rib, cod, a slice of wild boar, and about 16 different other hot buffet items, i was in such a caloric coma that the continued sugar consumption all happened in kind of a daze. desserts were certainly not a letdown, though. oh one sour note: as evan complained over a year ago, wine prices are still pretty damn high, with an $11.50-a-bottle cotes-du-rhone running $11.50/48, and a glass of $10.50-a-bottle riesling going for $11/46. that is indeed about a 400% markup; the kind of thing laban complained so loudly about at barclay prime. but they have a deal where you can order a glass of any two of the paired wines for $18, so that brought the per-glass price into the realm of the not-pissing-me-off-too-much. anyway, it's good. everyone go again.

I second that notion, and will indulge wed. morning. ← i don't. doughey white bread twisted up is a thing of beauty. and i'm not talking about the crappy 'superpretzel' things they sell at the ballpark, or the pretzel braids people are selling around. i mean a good heavy old school philadelphia street pretzel. the kind you get down at italiano's as a prelude to your mango water ice, or that a food truck gives you free with anything you order. i mean, it's kind of like the hamburger debate--little bitty greasy thing or big ol' charred steaky thing? in the same way: soft buttery amish pretzel or chewy philly street pretzel? they're both good.

basically, yeah. unlike say, lacroix, or studiokitchen, or somewhere real fancy, both southwark and ansill are the kind of places i like to go back to again and again. the occasional dish really hits home and sends me into rhapsodic ramblings about this and that, but most of the things are very good and just plain enjoyable. i'll be back.

I tried 'em once, but don't get it. The difference between Meyers and conventional, to me, is that Meyers don't have nearly the acidity. So, if it's just lemon flavor you want but not the acidity, then I guess Meyers are what you want; perhaps it might be best eaten out of hand or in a drink. According to some web research I undertook prompted by your question, it appears to be a cross between lemon and either tangerine or orange -- not unlike the clementine, which I understand is also a lemon cross. ← agreed wtih rlibkind, except that i do enjoy them. they're more floral and less acidic than regular lemons, so as far as i'm concerned cooking with them is pretty much out--a lot of the attraction of the meyer lemon is lost when you try to cook it. nice in drinks or as a last minute accent to something.

we had a fantastic time. i'm not exaggerating when i say between ansill and southwark i could dine quite happily for many months. wine list is not huge, but has a lot of choices by the glass. they have an australian shiraz as a house wine for only $5 a glass or $8 for 8 oz. i drank the cotes du rhone they're serving by the glass, domain jaume la friande for $7. they're also serving a rioja, a chianti, etc--five or six options by the glass for each of red or white. we had the grilled scallions with romesco--i suspect that this is a takeoff on the catalonian calcots that they havethe festival for in barcelona in the spring. agree with philadining above; they were fine, and i do like eating onions as a vegetable. boquerones crostini were very good, with a roasted red pepper puree under them. kind of hard to screw this one up. pheasant rillettes were very nicely flavored, but be warned that you'd better like schmaltz if you're ordering this, because it's got a whole bunch on top. while the rillettes itself was great, it only comes with a dollop of whole grain mustard, one little bitty sliced/fanned cornichon, and three thin pieces of bread. you're getting probably a full cup or so of the meat (for only like $5!) so they should be serving more of the condiments with it--we had to ask for more bread. it's interesting to compare the bacalao fritters at ansill with the ones we had last month at la principe. these were really more like croquettes, served with a lemon herb aioli. the fish flavor is very mild, as could be expected with cod, but well-seasoned. delicious. pork belly was beguiling, as philadining mentioned, but just generally fabulous. the mystery spice is star anise (or possibly a five-spice; i usually taste mostly star anise in five-spice)--pork belly with star anise always reminds me of my first couple of times at studiokitchen, so it brought back some nice memories. but those memories shouldn't distract from the quality of this dish. it's braised long enough that much of the fat is rendered, and served with a mustard spaetzle and spinach, which are sharp and bitter enough to provide a counterpoint and backbone to the dish. my god was it good. we finished off the meal with two cheeses--a bleu d'auvergne which was served with some golden raisins which had been rehydrated in a light syrup. i've had that cheese a bunch of times, so i knew what was coming. that wasn't the case with the banon feuille, which was served with an olive tapenade. the combination of cheese and olives has a potential to be overly salty, and olives can overwhelm many cheeses, but this was not the case here--they went together like gangbusters. and this, i think, is where david ansill outshines so many chefs in town: many of his dishes have the potential to careen toward one flavor or texture--fattiness in the rillettes or pork belly, saltiness in the croquettes or cheese pairings--but they never do. everything is always held carefully in check and balanced perfectly. i also had a glass of whatever coteaux de layon they're serving, which is very nice--those floral, honeyed flavors of a dessert wine without being syrupy or cloying. not a dessert wine you see on very many menus, so it was an interesting choice. all told, for those the meal cost about $70 with tax before tip, for five dishes, two cheeses, two glasses of wine and one dessert wine. i'll be back, and soon. there's a hell of a lot more on that menu that i want to try. (edited for clarity)

thanks sheila--i appreciate it. if my experience last week was any indication, i think it's interesting that fresh cranberry beans end up whitish when cooked, while dried cranberries end up kind of reddish brown when cooked.

i bought some today too, and was wondering the same thing. i peeled them and ate one of the raw beans, and it wasn't too hard--i bet 1/2 hour or 45 minutes of cooking would make them soft. one dish i had them in at lacroix this past weekend was 'two celeries with cranberry beans and chanterelles' -- diced cooked celery root, sliced, lightly blanched stalk celery. sauteed chanterelles and cooked cranberry beans, all tossed in some sort of dressing. as with most dishes at lacroix, it was excellently executed, and its flavors were not forward, and in such balance that it was really difficult to tell what exactly the dressing was. anyway, it was fantastic. god i love side dishes.

a soft pretzel isn't like toast, it's really more like a bagel--just a dense piece of dough. so it's kinda salty and works well with mustard; what's the difference? an old coworker of mine used to put cream cheese on his soft pretzels. is that so different from a salt bagel? anyhow, yeah, so anyway, pretzel/mustard/coffee = BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS.

← While that's true, it doesn't surprise me to see that mrbigjas said it. ← well, i bought them kind of on a whim about a month ago from fair foods, and i'd never seen them for sale before. and i just finally made them this week, and had them last night for dinner. and then i click on that article today, and there it is. they're really really good btw. like tongue, but like lamb. i guess like you'd expect, but seriously it caught me off guard how good. either way, i'm heading down in a few minutes here, and will report back.

i should know better than to try new places on thursdays, when either michael klein or rick nichols is bound to write about them. but what can i say, plans are plans, and i'm going to try to go down tonight anyway. oddly enough, i had lamb tongues for dinner last night. i'd never made them before, so now i'll have something to compare them to, if i can get in...

a while ago i created a topic that was something like 'random other PALCB questions that aren't about the chairman's selections'--we could move this over there...

Is it as popular with the masses? ← yep. ain't a bar in town that doesn't have it on tap (ok rich, i know that's an exaggeration). keg or cases of it at every party. i've spent a decent amount of time in texas, and i ended up liking shiner in the same way i like yuengling--perfectly acceptable anytime, and constantly available.

see, i knew i'd feel stupid

SRO? what's that? i know i'm gonna feel like an idiot for not knowing as soon as you say it... kretch, i think you should go to mummer's favorite food truck when you're in town. check out the sandwich thread.