docsconz

Based on our shared experiences and the restaurants you enjoy, I am not surprised that you enjoyed Coi. I would say that Chef Patterson's food is the closest thing stylistically to Andoni Aduriz' that I have seen in the US. What was the other restaurant?

¿Quién es mas macho? ← LOL How much more will it cost me to be more macho? Let me guess your answer. "It doesn't matter. It's worth it" ← We actually got a refurbished one direct from the company for a reasonable price. I couldn't tell the difference.

I have no suggestions, but will be very interested in what you find.

¿Quién es mas macho?

Hannaford's sold out of 1-1.5 lb lobsters quickly at $4.99/lb and 1.5+ pounders at $5.99/lb. The nearby Price Chopper still had plenty at $7.99/lb and up.

Yes, Vita-Prep. For Thanksgiving I made this roasted pumpkin and chipotle puree.

It was with Rick in Mexico that I first coveted a Vita-mix. My wife gave me one for my birthday. It is wonderful.

Did you order yourselves or did you, like us, ask the kitchen to send out some dishes? As for the cultural context, I really only applied that to the dim sum veggies and the overlaying crust. I can see how someone who is a traditionalist might take offense to some of the food if it doesn't quite meet one's expectations of what it is supposed to be. I sometimes feel that way about approaches to Italian food. This food has a base in Chinese food with other elements mixed in as opposed to most fusion restaurants in this country that mix Asian (or other) elements into a western base. Nevertheless it is the food of a creative chef as opposed to a pure rendition of a culture. I can also see how it might not appeal to everyone. It did not appeal to everyone equally at our table either, though nobody disliked the meal. Most of the issues stemmed from texture as opposed to flavor though, especially the softer textures. The dishes universally raved about included the singapore Slaw, the crispy taro puffs, the artichoke salad, the lamb chops and the panna cotta. Everything else had proponents and detractors to varying degrees.

My full report with photos. My conclusion:

All those prices look attractive but I'd stick to the smaller to mid-sized for the best flavor and texture. Tell the clerk to keep it under $10 each and go from there. ← to a certain extent it depends on one's purpose. The smaller lobsters are fine if one is going to boil or broil them and just eat the claws and the tail. If one is going to use lobster meat as an ingredient than I like larger ones as they provide more bang for the buck. One can get meat from the legs, the carapace and the tail fins as well as the claws and the tail, perhaps spending less overall.

It was the restaurant's, though I do not fault the approach per se considering that we asked them to choose plates for us. It was never really clarified on either end. I expected about three or four plated courses per person in a tasting menu format, although they do not specifically offer a tasting menu. What we received was about four rounds of food served family style. Some plates came with serving utensils, while others didn't, though they should have and some didn't for which serving utensils were less necessary like the chicken and the lamb. Overall I found the food to be good and the place a good value, albeit with flaws.

Based on the rest of your post, I think you mean that you prefer Momofuku Saam Bar to Shang. ← Sorry to be confusing, but despite some faults I definitely still prefer Shang to MSB. The price points are similar, I found the food at Shang more interesting and Shang is much more comfortable. What appeared to be service aberrations at Shang are a matter of course at MSB.

I was somewhat disappointed with Shang as well, but for different reasons. I thought the food was creative, tasty, pretty and well executed. We were served family style with a party of 8, which is not my favorite way of eating intricately plated dishes. Some of the dishes worked better than others this way, but I found an inconsistency in the provision of serving utensils. Another issue was not matching portions to the number of our party. For example, we were served 6 wonderful Mongolian lamb chops, but needed 7 for everyone in our party (we also had a small child that made 8) to have one. I had to ask for the additional chop. The place both in food style and pricing I would most compare it to is Momofuko Saam Bar, to which I prefer Shang. FWIW, Susur Lee was not in house Saturday night. I suspect that he returned to Toronto for the holiday weekend, but it could also be that he has returned there for longer with plans for occasional returns to Shang. I don't know. I will be posting a more detailed description of our meal along with photos on my blog.

No different than any other bubble. The question was not if, but when.

Wonderful, Percy. I wish I got to experience more of Mumbai when I was there. Essentially all I did was sleep one night in the Taj Mahal and have breakfast there before we left to travel south. India is truly fascinating. I loved your market shots.

I will definitely have to keep Mas in mind next time I am in C'Ville. Do you know anything about the chef(s) or owner(s)? ← just what's here: http://www.mastapas.com/ ← Cool, thanks, Nathan. If my son gets into UVA, we will be down this spring. Ifso, I will be sure to check it out. I see they have jamon Iberico de bellota.

I've heard very good things second hand, and hope to get there within the week... Anyone who goes sooner, please post impressions. ← I have a reservation for this Saturday, weather permitting. It will likely be my last major dining outing of 2008.

I will definitely have to keep Mas in mind next time I am in C'Ville. Do you know anything about the chef(s) or owner(s)?

I might disagree with you a bit there. We took a fresh wild goose last Thursday that my friend killed that morning, plucked, gutted and cleaned it, sopped it in the accumulated juices on the back well of a pig slowly cooking over applewood overnight for a Christmas party -- and then roasted it with the hog for a few hours. Very low temperatures (below 200 in the beginning while it sat atop the pig in the goodness, then up front by the embers at like 250 for the remainder, to brown and crisp), and it was rare in the middle. Everything on that bird -- including the skin and fat -- was nutty and delicious. Granted, geese here on the Eastern Shore eat a lot of farmers' corn left in the fields and soybeabs, but still it's wild game. I know this gets away from the deer discussion. I don't like the taste of venison fat. I tend to slowly braise and stew my venison (often with Guinness or another dark beer as liquid) in stews. ← I'm not sure that you really are disagreeing, Chappie. It sounds like your bird ate grains in addition to or even instead of mollusks. Then again, taste is a subjective element, anyway. Great topic and great job!

I usually see lobster prices listed as per pound and not per lobster. Unless those were small lobsters I would expect that that price was per pound and not per lobster, though if they were small it might be one and the same.

Mostly I am disappointed that nothing really seems to have changed. Vilsack may be fine, though I am concerned that he has too much of an allegiance to agribusiness. Time will tell.

From My blog, A Q&A with Eliot Wexler aka "molto e" and owner of Noca: 1. When did you first realize that you wanted to open a restaurant and what was it that made you want to? I have always been very passionate or obsessed (or just hungry) about food. Growing up in Chicago allowed me to have exposure to a bunch of different types of restaurants from little hole in the wall ethnic spots to fine dining restaurants. I also went to grade school and high school with a bunch of the Levy kids and their family owned a lot of great restaurants around town so going to the restaurant openings and tastings was always fun. Around ten years ago, one of my childhood friends told me that he thought I should open a restaurant and I told him that he was crazy but he thought I liked food and wine so much that I should do it. The spark of wanting to open a restaurant began at Binkley's Restaurant in Cave Creek, Arizona in 2005. I had read that Chef Kevin Binkley had worked at the Inn at Little Washington and the French Laundry so I knew that he had to have some serious chops so I ventured to Cave Creek to check it out. After the second course of a perfectly seared piece of foie gras, I asked if I could talk to the chef about giving me a cooking lesson so I could see how he seared the foie gras like that. So after the meal, Kevin came out and I asked him if I could pay him for a lesson and he said that I did not have to pay him and he told me to show up Friday at noon. I showed up at noon and he handed me a blue apron and 5 lbs. of shrimp and told me to de-vein them...I ended up staying for all of prep and thru service and I guess it hooked me so I started coming to help in the kitchen everyday. 2.What was your original concept and how did it change over time, if it changed at all? In the beginning of the journey, I wanted to open a fine dining restaurant with Kevin in Phoenix or Scottsdale but we could not find the right opportunity in town. A meal that I shared with you at Chez Panisse after a succession of great meals in San Francisco and Napa also sat in the back of mind. The simplicity of the preparations and clarity of the flavors at Chez Panisse was in such a stark contrast to the other meals that we enjoyed during that trip and that meal was outstanding. I started to feel that something along those lines may have a greater and longer lasting impression with the diners in Phoenix than a fine dining tasting menu style restaurant. 3. How long has it been in the making? ....probably since my first bite of food but I did not know it then 4. How did you go about finding investors (for the record, I am not one)? Have they changed over time? Have they evolved as the restaurant's concept evolved? My friends knew how passionate I was about this project so when I pitched it to them and conducted some tastings everything fell in order. 5. Can you describe some of the difficulties you had in opening the restaurant? There are so many moving parts in opening a restaurant from designers, contractors, permitting,...the important thing to do is stay flexible because getting everyone on the same page at the same time is a bit of an elusive contract. The reality is I had a great and honest contractor, Greg Rowles, and without him I would have been sunk. We had so many "a la minute" changes that he built it the restaurant without plans. 6.What is your vision of what Noca will ultimately be like and how do you expect to get there? My Chef Chris Curtiss and I share the same vision of hospitality and cuisine which is the most important component of trying to achieve success. We want to use great ingredients and present them when we can in a whimsical manner that will hopefully be fun and most importantly tasty to our diners and keep them coming back. 7. How did you find your chef, Chris Curtiss? I first met Chris while in Binkley's kitchen, he came in and "staged" for a day when he first moved to Arizona. Fast forward two years while I was putting my kitchen team together, I received a phone call from Kevin telling me to go try the food of this chef in a small restaurant in downtown Phoenix. The next day Geoff Reed, the Sous-Chef of Sea Saw, handed me the resume of a chef and it was the same chef that Kevin told me about. I looked at the resume and saw Fifth Floor, Charles Nob Hill and Masa's and I wondered what he was doing at a small restaurant in downtown Phoenix. At that point, I did not realize that he was the same chef that I had met in Binkley's kitchen a few years before. I called Chris up at 2:00 in the afternoon and told him that I was putting a restaurant together and wanted him to prepare me a tasting menu that night at 6:00, it was one of my best meals of 2007. Chris is so impeccably trained coming from San Fransisco... he was Sous-Chef at the Fifth Floor while he was working there. He badly wanted to work with Chef Ron Siegel so he would "stage" at Charles Nob Hill with him. Ron called him when the Sous-Chef position opened and Chris started working with him there and when Ron moved to Masa's, Chris moved with him there as his Sous-Chef. 8. For whom is Noca designed? We offer a few different looks so our hope is to get our diner to come in for different experiences...our standard a la carte menu can accommodate a full on no holds barred roll me out after a bunch of courses meal to a quick bowl of hand-made pasta and a glass of wine or a plate of crudo and some sake that can be had at the chef's counter with no fuss and you can watch all the cooking right in front of you...On Wednesday night's we offer a special in addition to the menu..noca Lobster Roll- Maine Lobster, Celery Root, Fines Herbs tossed with Roasted Garlic Aioli in a Herb Butter toasted Brioche Bun and served with Duck Fat Fried French Fries. On Thursday's our special is the noca Kobe Cheesesteak- American Kobe Ribeye, Caramelized Onion Jam, Roasted Pepperonata, Creamy White Cheddar Sauce, toasted Brioche Bun served with cooked to order Spicy Potato Chips. On Sundays, we offer the Simple Supper which is a 3 course set menu with choice of entree for $35 that the menu changes every week. With truffle season in full swing, we have been having fun with white and black truffles and I attached some dishes that we have been doing....I have been dying to shave some white truffles into our Roasted Chestnut Soup with Foie Gras Raviolini but I have not done it yet.(JMS: Perhaps you should have done it last week.) 9. Can you give a picture of your average day at Noca? I come in at 10 or 11 pick up the bread on the way in (hopefully I remember to grab it then)...scramble around for things we need for that night's service and bring in lunch for the kitchen crew...pay bills (I hate signing my name now)...meet my favorite wine guys from Quench or Synergy for a tasting depending on what they are bringing around...get the menus ready for service and change the wine menu so I can make Frank crazy with adding a new wine...staff meal 4:45...staff meeting at 5:00 and game-time at 5:30...and service ends when we are done serving and then Chris rips apart the kitchen every night and cleans it....then orders for the next day...end of the night meeting with the kitchen crew...shot of mezcal with Chris from Richard Betts's new stuff made from wild agave, it is awesome-smokey goodness as soon as McClendon's Blood Oranges come in we are going to do a Blood Orange Margarita with it and call it the Vision-have enough of them and you will start having them! 10. What would you change if anything? Wake up earlier so I could spend more waking hours with my dogs and girlfriend

I haven't eaten at this restaurant, but I have had Chef Brian' Lewis' food at Vu in Scottsdale. He is talented and should do a good job here.

Nicely done. While our own party turned out well, I wouldn't have minded what you did in the least! The goat carnitas look particularly fantastic!

Appropriate for the times - pretty decent line-up. I have to try to get myself up there.