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I recently had the pleasure of having Hog Island Oysters at The Ferry Plaza both outside at the Saturday market and inside at the very cool restaurant. The Monday evening oyster happy hour is a great bargain for downing excellent quality oysters in a nice environment. Some photos:

You can easily do the Cafe for that, especially if you limit wine, although that isn't absolutely necessary. I heartily recommend this option.

You go, ChefGEB!

I love Boar's Head products and am quite pleased to see them becoming more available in my area. I am particularly fond of their boiled ham sliced very thin and bologna Both are exceptional on good fresh Italian bread without any additional adornment. The ham is also great on rye while the bologna shines on regular white bread or its relatives. Their olive loaf is pretty good too. I am not as overawed with their other products, although they too are of high quality.

In reading through a number of topics that involve dim sum therre is one dim sum restaurant that keeps on popping up with raves and a general sense that it is certainly amongst the best if not the best dim sum restaurant in California - Koi Palace. It was surprising to me, as such, to find that this restaurant does not have a topic of its own. With this post I aim to remedy that. On my recent visit to Northern California shared for a good part of the time with fellow eGulletarian, Molto e, we wanted to visit as strong a cross-section of top culinary destinations as we could in the limited amount of time that we had. Koi Palace seemed to fit that bill. We were able to fit it in for lunch as we traveled from Yountville and The French Laundry to Los Gatos and Manresa. It was quite convenient that it was on the way. The place was hopping even though it was a Wednesday afternoon. We had to wait about twenty minutes to get a table and this is no small restaurant! The entry area is rather interesting as it is filled with tanks of a number of varieties of interesting fresh sea creatures destined for various culinary creations. We were led to a nice table that we had to ourselves that had a good view of the vast restaurant. This restaurant proved to be an excellent example of subjectivity when it comes to the enjoyment of food. It is also an excellent example of the important role texture plays in one's perception of food. Everything was unifomly well prepared. I enjoyed both the flavors and the textures. Molto, on the other hand was not particularly fond of the gelatinous textures found in many of the dishes we had and rather common amongst dim sum dishes. He can comment more about this if he is so inclined, but this restaurant was the one on which our opinions of the food diverged most widely, although it was not based on the apparent quality of the cooking or the ingredients. The selection was as large as I have ever encountered at a dim sum restaurant, especially in the middle of the week. Everything we sampled was hot and fresh. We started with Clams in Black Bean sauce These compared quite favorably in terms of flavor and overall enjoyment to the clams we had earlier in the week at The Slanted Door. Duck Shreds Burritoswere good, but they wound up getting lost amongst our other dishes. Salty Pepper Squid was perhaps the first dish where Molto and differed in opinion here. The squid were perfectly fried and absolutely greaseless, however, they were somewhat chewy, a textural component he found less than compelling. I enjoyed everything about this dish and almost but not quite polished it off. Har Gaw - Shrimp Dumplings I could eat these all day and all night. Suckling Pig We both agreed that this was the dish of the afternoon. The skin was perfectly crisp. The flavors were clean and delicious. Crisp Bean Curd Skin Roll This was clearly one of the more texturally challenging dishes. Rice Noodle Roll Stuffed with Shrimp Another texturally challenging dish. I happen to like the texture and the flavors were fine as well, though not quite as "shrimpy" as I would have hoped. Pan Fried Pork Dumplings These have been exceeded in my experience at The No.1 Dumpling House in NYC's Chinatown, but they were quite good nevertheless. A view of the room around us. I was getting full and Molto had had enough - besides we were going to have dinner at Manresa that night so we brought the meal to a close with these: Crisp Egg Custard Tarts I love thes soft gelatinous desserts. These were good, although I have had better. I enjoyed what we had, but I would love to return there with someone who really knows the strengths of this restaurant. I am sure that there were truly amazing dishes that we missed. I would have loved to try more. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to do so in the future.

What were the white stalk-like vegetables on the tuna plate? The restaurant sounds marvellous. My six year old keeps asking when will we be returning to Paris. He still has great memories particularly of his meals at Aux Lyonaisse and L'Astrance. Certainly reading descriptions like this whet my appetite for a return, although I am sad to say that it remains on the back burner for the time being.

Thanks for sharing your impressions. What was the table centerpiece?

Pictures are worth a thousand words. The food looks magnificent. I particularly love the presentation of the lamb. Nice job, U.E.!

Nice start. I am looking forward to this. Aveues remains high on my list of places to try. With quite a bit of luck I hope to get there in June for the foie gras menu.

A brandy snifter would be my choice. No on the ice.

I always taste the wine after I open it with a small pour straight from the bottle. I will let the wine breathe or not depending on that taste. If it is bright and I am not quite ready to drink it, I will just leave it in the bottle. If it seems a little closed I will either decant it or simply pour it out into glasses to hold. Last night I did just that with a 1996 Corton. On first pour the wine was very closed. After about 30 minutes in the glass it was marvellous.

I am happy to see that Bottura was a participant and his work has been acknowledged with a second Michelin star. I very much enjoyed my meal at his restaurant back in 2003. His cuisine, while modern, was certainly reflective of tradition.

While not Copper River King Salmon my wife followed Vadouvan's instructions while slow roasting arctic char for my birthday dinner tonight. It was extraordinary. The char had been in our freezer after purchase from Browne's Trading Co.

Same true for agribusiness poultry and pork production. Can one really see the Chicago government for example taking on Armour? This is one reason why I find the whole situation so hypocritical.

One thing that might keep veal safe from encroachment is that it is a necessary offshoot of the dairy industry, which probably has a bit more political clout than the foie gras industry.

Today is Alinea's first birthday. Happy birthday to Alinea! Congratulations to ChefG, Nick and the staff! I wish I could be there to participate in the birthday celebrations.

I would not object if reasonable guidelines were promulgated for the production of foie gras as they should be for other forms of animal husbandry. I prefer to buy from farms that treat their livestock well. While there may be some producers of foie gras who abuse their birds, that does not mean that all do or that the product cannot be produced in a reasonable fashion. What is abhorrent to me is that all producers are linked together for expediency. Should all pig farmers or chicken farmers be linked together too? I think not.

Do you have a link?

It might, if the ambiance were part of the dining decision. For instance, if I were looking for a romantic room to celebrate an anniversary, the video might tell me a lot more than any written description ever could. ← If a picture is worth a thousand words, I wonder how much a good video is worth? I was impressed with the sample on Craft.

Perhaps you meant your question for Chef Achatz or chefs in particular, but as a fan of the Chicago dining scene, I think disaster is way too strong a word. It is disappointing, shortsighted, hypocritical and frustrating, but Chef Achatz and others are simply too good and have too great an arsenal at their disposal to be anything even remotely resembling a disaster. As much as I love foie gras, I will not avoid Chicago and penalize either myself or the restaurants I wish to patronize because of this folly.

What would the potential penalty be for testing the waters on this? Would anyone be willing to take on the potential costs of fighting this by "giving it away" as an amuse? Even if legally gray area, the potential costs of dealing with this are high.

I think it is great the video on Craft renewed my interest in visiting that restaurant. It conveys some information that is not otherwise readily available.

This is very cool. The addition of the photo is a particularly nice touch that I have never seen anyplace else do before. Nice souvenier indeed!

Moderator's note: The Buddakan NY, Is it Wortha Dinner thread was merged into this one for consistency's sake.

Had dim sum at Asian Pearl today and quite enjoyed it. So far it ranks highest on my list for the East Bay. Have not been to Saigon yet, that is next on the list places to try. ← Anything in particular stand out?