Ling

Wow. Impressive. Perhaps Yasuda for this trip, and Masa in several years when (hopefully) my palate is more sensitive and I can more fully appreciate the experience. Two others to consider--Blue Hill and WD-50. I think Henry is more a fan of the WD-50 style, but I've skimmed the EG thread and their website and I'm willing to give it a go. Is it possible to order a tasting menu and perhaps two courses from the a la carte menu, and share?

YES! How could I forget Kee's and Pierre Marcolini?!!! And Fauchon? And Amy's for bread? The list we compiled was done in, like, a minute. So obviously we left out a lot of places that didn't come to mind right away. We don't have good BBQ in Vancouver, but I'm willing to drop Blue Smoke since the consensus seems to be that it's OK/good, but probably not worth it given the time we have. Of course we're going to Room 4 Dessert. That is high on my list. Megan--I hope we can eat that mille crepes cake thing at Lady M together! Danube--I think Henry's opinion is a bit biased considering he was totally hooked up the last time he ate there. But I am still very excited if we get to have dinner there...we don't have anything like it in Vancouver/Seattle. I've heard lots of excellent things about Masa. I'm not sure how Japanese in Vancouver compares to what you have in NY, but I can get o-toro, kanpachi, hamachi, chutoro, etc. quite easily here. And $350 for one person is certainly quite pricey. Is Yasuda or Sugiyama a big step down from Masa? What can we expect to pay, per person, at these two restaurants? Thanks for the tips on Annisa and Fleur de Sel. I'll take a look at their menus.

^We have decent Japanese on the west coast, and there are other Nobu locations that we might go to in the future, so I am hoping to visit restaurants that I won't be able to find anywhere else. I have also heard mixed things about Nobu. I apolgize for not stating this earlier--I am probably not going to have time to eat Asian food in NY, as we're on a tight timeline and I have great Chinese food here in Vancouver (well, Richmond) already.

Hi everyone, I realize it's a bit early to be planning our itinerary for our holiday trip, but I'm just so excited to be eating through NY that I couldn't resist asking for suggestions now. Here is a list of the places we're thinking of visiting. We would love to hear your ideas about what we should skip, or what we should add. Also, we would love to meet some of you for lunch or dinner, if possible. Perhaps we can start a member-organized event thread at a later date. The list: -Jacques Torres -Room for Dessert -La Maison du Chocolat -Lady M Confections -possibly Payard and Eli's -Danube (tasting menu) -Upstairs at Bouley -lunch at Jean Georges (should we go to Nougatine or Jean Georges?) -Casa Mono -Momofuku -Babbo (pasta tasting menu) -Katz -Blue Smoke -possibly RUB, though I've read some mixed reviews We are planning on staying for 3-4 days. We're passing on L'Atelier because we're going to Vegas at a later date and we'll probably eat there then. Also passing on Per Se as we've been to FL. Thanks for your help.

I use a lot of heavy cream in my scones. Butter and heavy cream...that'll give you some damn good scones!

Ones made with lard?

Instead of sprinkling on fresh cilantro, I would chop it finely and incorporate it into the cookie dough. Great effort--I think the lingonberry shortbread with wild kiwi would've been my favourite! And the duck biscuit sounds very interesting as well.

^That cake is beautiful, meredith! One of my students gave me this Godiva Gold collection 2 lb. box of chocolates as a going-away present (I am moving to Seattle). Eeek...I didn't know it was so expensive until I was online trying to check some of the missing pieces that were not described in the pamphlet!

Is this Le Pic Nic? I stopped in a few weeks ago and all they had were fruit tarts and some savoury quiches.

^ I HATE angel food cake! What a poor excuse for a dessert! What delicious treats on this page! I especially love the apple cake. Yesterday I had 1/3 a lotus seed moon cake (with salted egg yolk), a dozen gingersnaps, and a few chocolate chip cookies. (Oh, and it's almost Hallowe'en...which means I had my annual handful of candy corn. ) Today I'm getting an old-fashioned glazed donut from Top Pots and maybe we'll get the new stick toffee pudding ice-cream from Haagen Daaz. (I'm going to make my own sticky toffee pudding ice-cream soon as well!)

I read up on it because I get congested and really bloated the day after I've had too many drinks. If you're like me, it's not an allergy (as the immune system is not involved) but a food intolerance. Tough cookie: Do you mean the menu is better quality at the original location, or the location LordBalthazar posted about?

No Shanghainese? *sigh* I am eating at Top Shanghai up here in Richmond as many times as possible in the next week before I move.

^Thanks for all the recs. I'm sure I'll make it through all of these brands over the next few months. (btw--dandelion also schooled me on Caffe Umbria history when we had it at Caffe Senso! )

I guess I'll answer Shalmanese's PM in this thread, so everyone who's following along with the thought process can see it. Duck fat pastry: I'm only tried using it in a basic pie crust recipe. That includes approximately: 1 cup frozen duck fat 2.5 cups AP flour 1 tsp vinegar beaten with 1 egg yolk and a few tablespoons of ice water 1/2 tsp salt 1 tbsp sugar And if you want to incorporate some star anise into the pie crust, you can. Be sure to chill/rest the dough and use bench flour to roll it out. Alternatively, you could use possibly use the frozen duck fat in pate sucree, although I've never tried it. (I'm actually not a huge fan of pate sucree.) Is your cilantro/mint jam going to be sweetened? I'm assuming so, as it's dessert. *** For the sable: You could try this recipe, which I've used in the past. It contains liquid (vanilla and egg) so you could try replacing some of that with the berry liquid, but I don't see how the berry taste would be very pronounced by the same addition (several tsps.) in relation to cookie batter. *** I've used this recipe for tuiles.

^Sorry! I skimmed your original post and I didn't know people put chicken soup back in the clay pot after you finish your bo jai fan. BTW, they have it in the food court that's in the same complex as Hon's on No. 3 Road. The "clay pots" are the cheap ones they get at Daiso, and you can keep the clay pot afterwards too. I tried it a few times about a year ago, and it was pretty good. Nothing fancy. They used to be very busy (~30 minute wait on weekends), don't know if that's still the case. However, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't live up to your memories of what you've had in HK.

I make pretty simple things during the week. A cake, like the Guiness stout cake or the chocolate stout cake I made this week only takes like 10 minutes to do. 15 if the recipe calls for 5 minutes of beating the eggs or something. And then clean-up and doing the dishes takes another 10 minutes or so. It doesn't take that much time. I made the Olivia chocolate chip cookies again today. This time with less sugar, and I used half semi-sweet, half white chocolate chips.

I like the liver sausage too. You can get it at Dollar Meats. They also sell the same stuff at Hon's in the area where you can buy frozen dimsum and fresh noodles. Daddy-A: You can find the rice dish Lee is taking about at most Szechuan restaurants...though I'm not sure whether it's a Szechuan dish or not. It's pronounced "woah ba". (BTW--I hate this dish. )

Quite possibly one of the most delightful threads ever! I am in love with the pictures of the pastries and the stuffed prunes. Sounds like a very relaxing and romantic vacation...*sigh*

Dungenous crab meat tastes sweeter to me. The texture is also different from Alaskan King crab. I love kabocha. I haven't cooked sugar pie pumpkins so I don't know how they compare, though. You could also make a standard chocolate mousse and foam the beer with a bit of lechitin to spoon over the top. "Crumbly" cookies are sables (or sand). I missed something here. Do you mean should you add yuzu juice instead of water for the caramel? Or are you thinking of using ponzu. (I wouldn't add too much if this is the case...would be quite salty!) Yes, I would add some acid (or some grated citrus rind) to the jam. I've made duck fat pastry--just freeze the block of duck fat and coarsely grate it into the flour. Same proportion as for a regular butter or lard crust pastry.

My friend is getting hers from Cakes by Meg.

My boyfriend ate there soon after it opened (not that it's been long) and he also enjoyed the pizza very much. I think they shared three kinds, with the mushroom one you mentioned being the favourite of the table.

Any places to recommend for Shanghainese food?

I'll keep that in mind for when the time comes.

What a fantastic effort, and what fortunate guests! How did you make the sugared grapes?

Totally agree. Don't leave me in suspense, though...how were the pastries? (The white truffle macaroon from PH sounds intriguing...was it tasty? And what was the filling?) ...btw, congrats on the nuptials!