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Yesterday's times had an article extolling the virtues of visiting NY's burgeoning eiswein region in the winter. Anyone done it? What are your favorite eisweineries and NYS eisweins? Do you have any good stories about visiting the weineries and trying the weins?

Congratulations, Michael, on finally making it to Amma. I'm glad you weren't disappointed. I didn't think you would be The shrimp was one of the best I've had anywhere. I have to admit that I was so enthralled with Bikky's wine pairing that I didn't think to drink anything else (but water). The pot de creme and panna cotta sound good. I'll have to try those next time.

I love his wines. I first got turned on to Pesquera with the 90 and 91 vintages by a small shop in North Carolina. They were and still are a great deal and value, although the prices in the US have increased a bit. The '94 Janus is special. He has another wine, very expensive, the name of which eludesme at the moment...

Avant garde cooking like Adria's, Acchatz etc. and Slow Food are not at all mutually exclusive. Slow Food is primarily about diversity and process. Adria's food, while "processed" is certainly not fast food. It is very sophisticated cooking using many ingredients from the Slow Food canon. He prizes quality ingredients and then manipulates them in novel fashions. That, as Steven pointed ou, is one of the major differences between cooking like Adria and industrial production. Another point is that in his creations Adria while making novel dishes actually respects tradition and often uses that as inspiration. I have yet to dine there (although I hope to next fall) but I have read and own the book. It is beautiful.

I love pretty much all bleus including those mentioned above, but I recently discovered is Buffalo Blue from Shepherd's Purse in England. It is wonderfully creamy with a delicious piquant flavor. I purchased it from iGourmet which has the most incredible selection of bleu and other cheeses that I have ever seen.

Once again a fabulous meal in a very warm environment. I was initially slightly disappointed when we were seated next to the door, however, the table proved to be excellent as it was situated directly under the mainlamp and the feared draft failed to materialize. The service was excellent and once again Bikky demonstrated his mastery of pairing wine with Indian cuisine. I understand the menu will be changing in February. Yet another reason to return. I wonder what delights Suvir and Hemant have in store for us?

By the way, the photo of the cheese pizza is reminiscent of a true Neapolitan Pizza margherita.

I am embarrassed to see that even though I grew up in Brooklyn, I never heard of DiFara's pizza until this thread. Man, do I feel deprived! I wish I could be there for these outings. Those pizze and calzones sounded and looked soooo good. I would add a note about the cheese. caserta is one of the two major mozzarella di bufala producing regions in Campania and Italy. The other is a bit to the south between Battipaglia and Paestum. One big difference between the two areas is that the milk from Caserta is pasteurized before production of the mozzarella, while that of Battipaglia is more requently made with raw milk. Because of this the mozzarelle imported into this country tends to come from the larger producers of Caserta since it follows our import rules and it lasts longer. That being said, I also believe having tried a number of fresh samples of both, that the Battipaglia/Paestum mozzarella is better. The significance of this to this topic is that even though Dom comes from around Caserta (as does my maternal grandfather - my maternal grandmother came from a town near Battipaglia), just the way the pizza is made makes it unlikely that it would be mozzarella (di bufala), since mozzarella has too much moisture and if slow cooked at a lower temperature as his appears to be would make the crust too soggy. The best pizze with mozzarella di bufala is baked quickly in a very hot oven.

I just had the Total Greek yochurt and I must concur. it is outstanding. Plain doesn't need any embellishment, however, I added some Chai syrup to it for the hell of it.

My wife and I had lunch at LaTour yesterday. It was an excellent bargain. She had french onion soup and the frisee salad, which was outstanding. I had escargots (good) and a veal citron with grapefruit sauce (outstanding). The bill with tax and tip came to $36.

The certification process requires tasting of batches by an official panel. If the vinegar doesn't cut the mustard as tradizionale, it cannot be sold as such. It is still pretty good stuff that winds up getting used with labels other than tradizionale.

Pumpernickel, Thank you for your well-written posts on this subject. I had the great fortune to visit Acetaia del Cristo in Modena this fall and taste some truly heavenly juice aged greater than 100 years. It is a remarkable and complex process. The Pamela Sheldon Johns book, Balsamico is an excellent resource for background and uses of this elixir. I look forward to reading more of your posts and welcome to eGullet!

More images from The world of Flavor Conference are available here.

Yet another great reason to get to Chicago. Good luck and best wishes! It looks like an incredible menu.

I'll add another twist to this discussion, something that actually happened to me. What about a restaurant that doesn't honor a reservation? What recourse does the customer have? This past November I had made a reservation for the restaurant Da Fiore in Venice and "confirmed" it before I left for my trip. I also asked American express Concierge to reconfirm it for me along with several other reservations.This dinner was to be the culmination of my trip with my son. We arrived at the restaurant promptly for our reservation to find it closed. Ironically, it seems the proprieters were in NYC. American Express did try to reconfirm a day or so before and tried to reach me via e-mail to no avail. Fortunately the rest of my trip was too good to have been spoiled by that unfortunate event.

My first thought was that you misplaced this on the wrong board, but then I read on. was I wrong. This must have been a very cool evening.

Frank is certainly there, but instead of Leo it would be Lenny, a more common New York Italian derivative of Leonardo and as it turns out a very common name of good pizzerie.

Michael, I do agree with it being sartorially advantageous to eat a true Neapolitan pizza with utensils and at a table:laugh: Another difference is that neapolitan pizzas tend to be for one person.

Actually, the "Quattro Stagione" is a fairly popular Neapolitan pizza nowadays and is divided into 4 sections with different toppings. Michael, you must have eaten in different pizzerie than I did, My crusts weren't flimsy nor were they overly sauced. Steve, Where in the oven is the coal fire. In Naples the wood fire is in the same oven iopening as the pizza itself. The smoke rises above the pizza and vents up a flue so the pizza is not smokey. I think we can debate the merits of various pizzerie and methods of production, but the overwhelming attribute of NYC style pizza to me at least is the Neapolitan (i.e. roundthin crust) style pizza by the slice. Yes, this is different than the pizza in Naples, Italy, which I do think is the best in the world. I used to love to get a slice from "The Original Ray's" on 6th Ave. and 11th St. back in the late 70's and early 80's. It hasn't been the same for quite a while.

Actually the request was for authentic, not necessarily best. New York pizza owes its heritage to both neapolitan and Sicilian pizzaioli (pizza makers). The one you should clearly owes a lot to its origens, but I don't think it is typical or even classic for what most people think of when they think of New York style pizza. That is not to say that it isn't one of the better examples of pizza in New York. I personally prefer the neapolitan pizza.

There is no question in my mind that wine is an acquired taste. I didn't like any wine when I was a kid. As a teenager in the days of 18yo drinking age I could drink Boone's Farm andsuch then Mateus and Lancer's then white zins before graduating to kendall-Jackson chardonnay (I feel like this is true confessions!), merlot and ultimatley a wide range of wines. With each graduation, the wines I had graduated from became less and less palatable.

Sicilian is thick crust and yes the sauce is often, but not always on top of the cheese. The pizza pictured above from Sam's link certainly looks like a delicious pizza, but really looks more like a classic neapolitan pizza then what one would typically find in NYC. As far as fresh mozzarella vs. processed, my understanding is that it really depends on the oven temperature. The hotter the oven the easier it is to get away with a fresher, higher moisture content cheese. If the moisture doesn't evaporate quickly it will effect the crust making it soggy rather than crispy.

One of the things that sets a Neapoltan pizza apart from others is how hot the oven is. It is always wood fired with a temperature greater than 700 degrees F. This causes the pizza (generally smaller than a New York style) to cook very quickly. Because of this very high heat the moisture from true mozzarella di bufala evaporates very quickly, allowing its use on a true Naples pizza. The New York pizza ovens are hot, but not as hot as those in Naples.

I don't think it has to be baked in a coal-fired oven to be NY style. It is based on a Neapolitan Pizza, but the NY crust is not as thin or crisp. The classic NY style pizza IMO is the cheese and tomato sauce on a round thin crust that has some crispness to it, but not so much that it cannot be folded up. My archetype is Lenny's Pizza on 16th St. and 5th Ave. in Brooklyn.

I'm a gadget freak and probably own at least one of most of the things mentioned here (except for the egg-stractor). I like a shrimp deveiner, but don't use my garlic press much anymore. I find that it cleans much more easily if done immediately. The apple corers are good too, especially the oxo. I agree with the oxo sponge on a stick. It stinks, although I didn't like the brush thing either. Both use way too much detergent. My most useless piece of junk though has to be the herb mincer mentioned above. I'm not sure which make mine was, but it was absolutely useless. It t would bruise parsley fine, but cut it - nah. It was a small plastic roller with about 4 metal blades and a plastic "catch" bin.