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Browne Trading are selling "firm" shells from 1-1.5 lbs at $7.99/lb plus shipping. "Hard" shells are more expensive.

Was the carpaccio watermelon?

Thanks, Ron. I had to do my report differently, since yours was so good and comprehensive. I can't wait to go back either. One of the things I like about Noca, is that it is not static. While some of the items on the menu have remained the same, the menu is constantly evolving depending on the market and Chris' creativity..

I have known Eliot Wexler, the principle owner and driving force behind Noca, the Phoenix area's hot new restaurant since 2005 and have been good friends with him since very shortly thereafter. Our friendship grew out of similar interests in food as well as compatible senses of humor. Given Eliot's passion for food and our often similar tastes, it should come as no surprise that I love the restaurant. Given Eliot's attention to detail and his total devotion to the project, it should come as no surprise that others seem to love it as well. Based upon how busy it was this past Friday night when I was there and the reactions of the patrons to their meals, it appears that there are more than a few who have come to that same opinion and feeling. Since I have known him, Eliot has been a stickler for top quality ingredients, sourcing top grade restaurant quality products for his personal use even before he started the arduous project of opening his restaurant. Long an enthusiastic amateur cook, Wexler spent considerable time working in the kitchens of Kevin Binkley (Binkley's) and Nobuo Fukuda (See Saw) in order to learn as much as he could about product and cooking. Eliot also spent time traveling and dining through some of Europe's finest restaurants including elBulli, Pierre Gagnaire and Mugaritz amongst others, to get a better sense of what European fine dining is all about. He clearly was a fast study as he also learned how to run a restaurant, how to assess talent and how to put a team together. Located in a fairly non-descript strip mall north of Camelback (thus NOCA) in Scottsdale, Noca is a sharp looking contemporary space with a well-lit narrow strip of an open kitchen visible to the somewhat dark, but comfortable, adjacent dining room. The cooking is part of the decor and entirely on display. Watching Chef Cristopher Curtiss and his team dance balletically around the small kitchen is almost as much a pleasure as eating the food coming out of that kitchen. The food can be described as contemporary American, taking top notch ingredients from area farms as well as some of the finest seafood and meat purveyors in the country. The menu was loaded with all sorts of goodies the night I was there including peak season Nantucket Bay scallops served with white truffles, Peeky Toe crab, sea bass, chestnut soup with foie gras ravioli, heirloom beets, lobster risotto, beautiful and delicious house made fresh pastas, duck, Kona Kampachi, Kurobota pork and much more. The bar, not to be left behind, has followed the lead of the new American Mixology revolution and is using fresh juices and quality liquors to craft cocktails they can be proud of. I enjoyed a "French 75" based on Bombay gin, champagne, fresh lemon juice and simple syrup. This refreshing cocktail packed a nice wallop in addition to its great flavor. The wine list, both by the glass and by the bottle, is filled with reasonable value and variety, especially given the newness and small size of the restaurant. I enjoyed a crisp Spanish Godello with my meal, even as I had my eye on the chateuneuf-du-pape from Vieux Telegraphe. As I watched the kitchen and photographed the plates that were prepared for the restaurant's diners, I was tempted to order everything. Unfortunately, my stomach is not so well equipped and I had to limit my choices. The decisions were difficult, but the results rewarding. Particular highlights of my meal included the rich chestnut soup, the intoxicating spinach mezzalune, the succulent skate and the full-bodied pork. I was pleasantly surprised how addictive the blueberry cotton candy would be. The desserts were also excellent, particularly the "malted" milk. I expected Noca to be a top notch restaurant. I am not surprised that it is. Please see My Blog for photos.

Fine report, as always, David. Too bad about the polenta and the other poor sides. While it does not appear to have been the case for you with this meal, that is often enough to ruin a meal. Passitos are wonderful wines. Italian dessert wines don't get enough attention IMO. I noticed in one of your photos bottles of Gaja wines. Were they just decoration or did you get to drink any?

Lobster prices have finally come down in my local supermarkets. 1 - 1.5 lbs are $7.99/lb and 1.5-2lbs are $8.99/lb. I bought some to celebrate my son's birthday. These were hardshells, lively and delicious!

The question I would have is does it eliminate any other smells as well, including desirable aromas?

You may have already seen it, but you might find some possibilities in Kerala and Cochin here that may be of interest to you.

I am still working on a report on my visit to the wonderful restaurant that is Noca. In the meantime, my photos can be viewed here.

Bruni was mostly on about this review, though he remains his stodgy self, bemoaning Liebrandt's history, while praising his current conservatism.

I'm looking forward to this.

Be conservative and just do food that's good. Chances are they are fairly conservative diners. Stay away from offal unless you know that they like it. I hate to say it, but in my experience that is what the majority of doctor and their staffs (professional and office) prefer. Despite my preferences. my own group opted for a conservative country club buffet - yawn.

I have really been seeing Las Vegas at its best (I can't imagine it being better). An amzing dinner Monday at Bartolotta - Ristorante di Mare followed by a wonderful dinner on Tuesday at Raku and another simply outstanding meal last night at RM Seafood. This morning I was treated to a private tour of the Pastry and Bread operations at the Wynn (and soon Encore as well) with Frederic Robert and Boris Villate. Tonight, my last night in LV, I will be meeting some friends for dinner at Alex. Tomorrow, I am off to Phoenix for dinner at Noca, before heading back home on Saturday to recuperate. While I ma still not sure that Las Vegas as a whole has "soul," amongst all the schlock and sleeze, it clearly does have some amazing people and food and can certainly be a great destination for anyone with a serious interest in food.

My preference is to buy "retail" directly from farmers or Farmers' Markets, getting what I want and what I need. That being said, I have and do participate in some limited CSA's that provide stability and regularity for certain frequently used items.

There are hunters and there are hunters. I totally respect those hunters who eat what they kill. Those who do so simply for sport, however,...

The only one of these questions that I can definitively answer at the moment is the first. There is no construction going on to physically transform the restaurant nor do I think there will be. The space is already quite nice. As for the online menu, I believe that it is for the previous version of Tableau, although many of those items still remain for now. Forgione's menu is slowly taking shape.

From Hotels Magazine of 10/14/08: ← While Larry is at the helm, the transition to An American Place is not yet complete. he has introduced items to the menu - I hear his BBQ duck tamales are dynamite (I might try some today) - but the name as yet remains Tableau. I am not sure when the transition will be complete. he restaurant is and will be a workhorse at the Wynn with breakfast, lunch and dinner services.

Had a fine breakfast this morning at Sugar and Ice at the Wynn. The croissant with ham, eggs and cheese, recommended to me by Paul Bartolotta proved an amazing and rich example of the genre. The croissant and the rest of the ingredients were top quality. The price is very reasonable by L.V. standards.

A caring family cook, with experience perhaps handed down over generations, will produce a meal equal to, or exceed, that of any fancy chef any day. It may not be as interesting to the palate, but it will be blissfull. Part of the reason for that is that it was cooked with love for those who would eat the meal. One reason my Danish grandmother was the best cook I've ever known. Her cooking was done with love for those who would eat it, whether family or others - and she knew her ingredients and how to prepare them. It was simple cooking at it's best, and I've rarely tasted (in my limited experience) anything from a so-called chef that provided not just a blissful moment at one part of the meal, but was blissful throughout the entire meal. There is more to eating (and health) than sampling the latest razmataz from Adria and Keller and others. ← It strikes me that Hazan is being disingenuous in this article. While she pays lip service to the notion that the term "chef" should be reserved for, well, professional chefs (and that's what almost everyone here has focused on), her real point starts with this comment: The upshot of the rest of the article is that we should aspire to cook like she does, and not like Keller or Adria or, in fact, anyone professional; that her cooking is more "real" than theirs, and we shouldn't be fooled by the "chefs." We should, in fact, like her food better than Keller's, and if we don't, well, there's something lacking in our souls. I take exception to that. My mom was a good cook, and in that I was lucky. My best friend in college had a Mom who was a terrible cook -- she hated it and did as little as possible. Did that mean my mom loved me but her mom didn't love her? Or does it mean that her mother's cooking really was good? (Really? Chef Boy-R-Dee spaghetti in a box?) This topic, The Worst Cook in Your Family, is filled with example of loving but bad cooks. On the opposite side of the coin, I resent her assumption that no professional chefs cook with passion and love. I think of chefs like Chris Cosentino at Incanto in San Francisco, or Joe Truex of Repast in Atlanta (to name only two) and passion is the only word to describe how they cook. Maybe Marcella sees the world of cooks and chefs in black and white, but I disagree. ← I agree with your point. Hazan is simply wrong to state that , however, her main point about getting people and families back together by making and re-emphasizing the value of home cooking and being a cook is a good one, even if in the course of writing it, she took some ill advised liberties. I enjoy cooking and eating at home for and with my family, but I also enjoy eating out with them and with the right meal and the right place nothing is lacking. The most important element is not who is cooking or where, but spending the quality time together. If cooking at home allows that to happen more frequently, then so much the better.

I'm of the opinion that a good photograph or graphic never hurts. They help to develop a piece further, which is why they are referred to as "illustrations." Your theme is a great one, but why limit it to literature? There is plenty more available in the worlds of painting, sculpture and cinema. Is there a more representational scene of the connection between food and sex, for example, than the dining scene in the movie Tom Jones? The problem for a blog though would be how to incorporate it.

Larry Forgione is now the chef at Tableaux in the Wynn.

I had a wonderful dinner last night at Bartolotta at the Wynn dining with John Curtas with explanations and discussion with Paul Bartolotta himself. The product was of wonderful quality - amazing considering that most of it is imported from Italy and elsewhere in the Mediterranean - and it was simply and expertly handled. What he does may seem simple, but it most certainly isn't. I doubt that there is a restaurant in Italy as comprehensive as his in terms of the availability and quality of his Mediterranean Seafood and few if any in the US.

Did you only just receive this confirmation, or did you get it a while ago? I received my rejection email log ago, but my partner has yet to receive any response, so I'm hoping they just haven't got round to sending the confirmation to her! Lee ← Got it this morning at about 5:30am Central time ← Sweet!

If the word "cook" has taken on derogatory tones in American English (I don't think it has), that would be as much a travesty as the way the word "chef" has come to be used. I think the problem comes from people being lazy and wanting to inflate value as a chef is rightly perceived to have a higher role than a cook. That, however, in no way denigrates the concept of being a cook.

This is just another example of how people generally give little importance to using language correctly. "Chef" has become one of the most misused words in the English language. The way it has become used in common parlance, it means anyone who cooks. The meaning as Ms. Hazan points out is much more specific than that. The common usage denigrates those who have come to earn the term as it should be used. There is nothing wrong with simply being a "cook."