mrbigjas
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Posts posted by mrbigjas
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My favorite is still "bouillaBAIZE," with the last syllable sounding like the f-word.
hm, i've never heard anyone pronounce it bouillabuck...
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cool. i've been thinking about that book for a while.
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Yeh.. I dont want to yuck anyone's good time.. But that pizza foldover maneuver sounds like the doings of someone higher then i have ever been..
you got that right. the lorenzos-jims challenge is not for the faint of heart, nor for the sober of brain.
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thanks, memesuze. at about.com i also found some more information, including this recipe:
http://italianfood.about.com/od/legumesand...a/r/blr0004.htm
which looks pretty similar to paula's recipe except with a different kind of beans, and kale, which is one of my favorite things in the world.
i'm getting the impression that it's soak, then cook.
edited to say that i'm also discovering that farro and spelt are actually different things, with different results when cooked. i'll have to research what i have here--i'm pretty sure it's spelt.
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first of all, just to clarify i don't mean making spelt pasta or bread or anything for gluten-sensitive folks. i'm just talking about cooking the grain itself, for eating.
i've done some web searches for it, but i'm coming up kinda short. i bought some spelt last week in my continuing efforts to make stuff i haven't made before, and i'm missing some essential step in cooking it.
for instance, take a look at the thread on brunch at lacroix, here:
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=40300
about halfway down the page in percyn's post, he has a couple pictures of the spelt dish that lacroix is serving with the fricasee of chicken and escargot.
a couple of years ago i had a great side dish or appetizer of farro at an italian restaurant--i later found out that farro and spelt are the same thing.
so anyway, on the websites i've found, i can't seem to get a definitive answer. some say to soak it overnight, but then don't mention how to cook it. is it like beans, where if you soak it overnight it's basically ready to use but can handle more cooking to give it flavor? is it like beans, where if you cook it for a couple of hours it'll tenderize itself?
i just don't have a lot of experience with whole grains like this, and any help would be appreciated. it's not that i can't experiment; it's just that having a concept of it to start with would be good.
thanks y'all.
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Les Halles in NY is good bistro...There's a couple we've been to in D.C. - but I do think Philly is lacking. Gosh, a really good frisee salad with lardon and an egg...yum!
le bar lyonnaise in le bec fin has one for $14, with the lardons and browned potato cubes all a perfectly uniform 3/8". i had this on saturday night and it was damn good.
brasserie perrier has one for slightly less on the bar menu--it has chopped egg instead of poached. but
loie also serves one, or did last time i was there about a year ago.
i realize none of these are bistros per se, but if it's just the dish you're looking for and not the atmosphere...
you know thinking about this, it's almost like we have to go to different restaurants to get the various dishes associated with bistros.
standard tap makes the best steak frites in town for my money. $18 i think.
i'm not sure who does a good roast chicken, and i haven't found a duck breast in green peppercorn sauce recently either.
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New best of came out last week, winner was Cosmi's Deli on S. 8th St.
yoinking this thread back to the top for a second--i was down in south philly before the game yesterday and feeling all kindsa local, what with the eagles in the super bowl and all, and i was driving down dickinson and there was cosmi's. so i said to the mrs, "let's get a cheesesteak, because even though i think philadelphia magazine's best of is kinda ridiculous and pointless, for some reason i know that this was best of philly for '04."
so we did (american, with), and a pretzel too. and i must say this was a damn good cheesesteak. more chopped up than geno's, but not as much as d'alessandros. and it had the singular advantage that i think a general deli might have over a steak-only place, and especially on a sunday afternoon: since it's not planning on serving hundreds of cheesesteaks at any given moment, the meat is actually on the griddle, frying in its own fat, rather than being pulled out of a pile of meat sitting over on side where it's been steaming for a while. excellent stuff.
so i got home and decided to take a look on their website and see what they'd said about it. and... there's no best of philly cheesesteak on there. googling the site with 'cosmi' or 'cosmi's' doesn't turn up anything. i mean, the list is here:
http://www.phillymag.com/bestof/
am i crazy?
anyway, yeah, so the verdict is: damn good stuff. give it a try and see if i'm wrong.
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thanks for the note, jennyuptown. i think that often we locals get too caught up in searching for the next little-known but great tiny BYOB, and in the 'stephen starr owns everything and we're tired of his corporate theme restaurants' mentality, and make it sound like they're bad places to go, when they aren't.
the first continental you went to was indeed down near penn's landing; it was the first one, and one of the places credited with starting the restaurant/nightclub boom in old city. the other is newer; it opened this past august (?). there are only those two of them... for now.
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i like the pepperpot soup vs. clam chowder bet. because after all, everyone likes clam chowder, but picturing gov. squeamish sitting down in front of a big bowl of spicy tripe soup is a mental image that is making me laugh.
i think we should start a campaign to bring back pepperpot soup as a delicacy that philadelphia is known for. i know we have all done our part to put the pork sandwich ahead of the cheesesteak--this could be our next challenge.
p.s. rockhopper: massivetwoshits? now that's some good trash talkin!
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the trickiest thing that i can think of eating with chopsticks is pieces of duck breast on the bone in hand-drawn noodle soup. between the slippery skin, the fat layer below it, trying to get it off the bone, with the fatty broth right below just waiting to splash and get grease stains on your shirt the very second anything drops off your chopstick, which is inevitable considering what you're eating.... that's trouble right there.
man is it good though. one of my favorite things.
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anyone know where i can take a look at barclay prime's wine list? i have a friend who's interested, and the restaurant isn't on the starr website yet.
alternately, anyone have a memory of basically what's on there? and i know it's probably incredibly marked-up, but this guy doesn't much care--he's more interested in the wines than the prices.
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i just checked, btw, and you don't actually need to know the code--just the name is generally enough. very very cool. i just put in a couple of weird liquors that they supposedly carry but that i haven't seen downtown, and found out where i can get them in the area.
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we went to farmicia tonight for a dinner before a show. everything that everyone has said is still true. very pleasant service; nice cooking without being especially exciting; great ingredients.
i started with a white bean and garlic soup with a fried leek garnish. it was pureed and there was little garlic flavor to it; and actually it tasted like... well, my wife said it tasted like sausage; i didn't think so. it was ok. her app was a crab/asian pear salad that was piled with huge chunks of really great lump crab for this time of year. my only complaint about it was that the pear tended to overwhelm the crab--oddly enough the bites that worked were the few that had cilantro leaves in them. somehow the cilantro brought the two flavors together--if only there had been more of that and less of the tasteless textureless mache or snow pea shoots or whatever those microgreens were, the dish would have worked pretty darn well.
actually come to think of it what both of those apps tasted like to me was white pepper, which i have to admit is one of the few relatively common ingredients i don't like all that much. that would make sense in the soup, at least.
my dinner was the striped bass with chanterelles, creamed leeks and some roasted potatoes. i'm always a sucker for fish with mushrooms; to me it's like surf and turf, but without having to eat that much. it was excellent.
hers was the bean tamales, which... well, she loved the roasted vegetables they came with, which were onions that had basically caramelized, and maybe some fennel (i didn't have them to know) and the pickled carrots which were similar to what you get at tequilas without the peppers. as far as the tamales themselves: the bean and queso filling was pretty good, but the masa wasn't flavorful and the proportions were off and... well, i wouldn't have ordered them to start with.
i washed everything down with a couple of glasses of the alain jaume cotes du rhone, which was served in a tumbler rather than a regular wine glass, and was too warm but otherwise nice and an OK price at $7.
i really recommend the striped bass though.
oh btw, they've dropped the light dose/full dose stuff, dividing the menu without naming things.
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whoa that's good stuff.
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ok truth be told, i haven't had it in a couple years. but i sure used to love it. now i make my own.
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in chinatown, pho xe lua (aka the train), at 9th & race has great vietnamese food. tai lake has great seafood. that's at.... ok i forget exactly where. also on 9th?
one place that people haven't mentioned, but where i've had several very good meals, is la boheme, on 11th street just south of walnut. basically french, but not real traditionally so.
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you don't like the tortilla soup at catrines? i love it.
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The topic might be a little different -- what bars have good food versus restaurants where it's fun to eat at the bar.
that second thing is what i thought this topic was about.
in almost any restaurant with a bar, if there are two of us or just me, i prefer the bar to a table. i don't know why.
friday saturday sunday has the tank bar, which is nice to eat at.
at philadelphia fish & co, i much prefer the bar to the tables.
white dog and la terrasse both have enjoyable bars to eat at--although they do have separate bar menus, you can order off the dinner menu as well.
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Saturday day, we are going to go to the Barnes Museum, and eat around Redding Terminal.
you do realize that these are about 15 miles away from each other, right?
i mean, not that that should stop you from doing both things. but the barnes is out in the suburbs (for now) and the terminal is right downtown. so you'll want to plan that into your schedule.
No i didnt... I appreciate it.. So i guess we will go breakfast, Barnes, Redding, drink, nap, dinner.
Any place for a good breakfast by the Barnes.charlie's right about murray's deli. good stuff.
another thing about the barnes is that they have timed tickets that you have to order in advance. so i would think that the timing of your visit and whether you have a car or not would define where you go for breakfast/lunch/etc. the terminal is also good for breakfast if you have to go out to the burbs at lunchtime.
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Saturday day, we are going to go to the Barnes Museum, and eat around Redding Terminal.
you do realize that these are about 15 miles away from each other, right?
i mean, not that that should stop you from doing both things. but the barnes is out in the suburbs (for now) and the terminal is right downtown. so you'll want to plan that into your schedule.
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Ahh thats right the super bowl. That might be a good idea.. So I am assuming that the Super Bowl isnt being played in Philly then..
no, it's in jacksonville. but the eagles are in it, which means that every green-blooded philadelphian is going to be home or at bars/parties watching it. so the restaurants should be wide open.
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When my Korean mother-in-law can't tell the difference between mine and her's I'll be happy.
wow, talk about setting yourself up for failure!
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Yes! You have been poisoned. Most toxic plants that we encounter are only dangerous in larger quantities or if ingested by an infant. I wouldn't worry, but I also wouldn't add toxic things to my diet unless it was really pleasurable. Mushy spinach substitutes don't seem worth it. Alcohol on the other hand.........
ha! totally. i'm a bit wary since a poison moment when i was about 5, when i ate a bunch of berries and had to be taken to a hospital to have my stomach pumped.
this was good though. and i haven't puked yet.
Food Pronunciation Guide for the Dim-witted
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
where is your friend from? that sort of thing is, to my knowledge, sort of associated with italian-americans, esp. in new york/new jersey/philadelphia.
e.g. ricotta in italian is ree-coat-ta, in south philadelphia it's ri-GOT.
i've heard that this is an evolution of a southern italian or sicilian accent-- the softening of the consonants and leaving off the final vowel--but i don't know enough about the various italian accents/dialects to know for sure.
pancetta has the CH sound, as if it was panchetta.