kurl

Before I ask my newbie food-safety question, I just want to say that I find this thread to be incredibly helpful - I've made a few things (most notably an unbelievable 72-hour short rib), and between this and Douglas Baldwin's site, I've felt extremely well equipped. So today is my first attempt at cooking sous vide not for immediate consumption (also the first time I'm using it purely for convenience, rather than effect). I've read Douglas Baldwin's guide, but still have some questions. Basically what I'm trying to do is cook some chicken to "well done" for shredding. I had some frozen boneless/skinless breasts, which I sealed and cooked (from a hard freeze) to 160F for about 3-4 hours total. Pulled them, check the internal temperature (they were 160), then removed them from the bags and dropped them in some ice water until they were cold. Put them in the fridge (with the ice water) for about 2-3 hours, then took them out of the water and refrigerated for another 24 hours or so. Now I want to shred it, but want to make sure I didn't do anything stupid vis-a-vis pathogens. My thought is that since I brought the chicken up so high and chilled it quickly to get out of the danger zone, I should be solid (also only holding it for a day), but just wanted to check and make sure I'm not killing myself. Thanks in advance! -Ben

Dropped in last night for a few drinks and some food. I think the new menu is crystzalizing (or fully set) -- there's a blurb about its Asianish provenance and such. Anyway, the food was extremely tasty; we had tuna crudo (nice quality fish, simple but tasty), duck crostini (three pieces, heavily sauced but very nice tasting), crab rolls (wrapped in cucumber, cold and excellent), and summer rolls (just veggies -- very yummy and fresh tasing). The food was excellent, though the portions are pretty uniformly tiny; you could go through a lot of time (and money) trying to make a meal out of them. Any recs for proximal post-Pegu snacking?

I think Radio Mexico has closed as well. It was quite a great option...

Alidoro - The best sandwich in the city. Better than... Katz's. GSIM - it's all over this thread for a reason. Kang Suh - I recently went to Landmarc for the first time, and it's the only restaurant challenging Kang Suh for "best late-night spot"

Sorry if this has been posted before (couldn't find anything), but -- prompted by a recent visit to Morimoto -- I'm looking for a wine store with a good selection of good sake. Obviously decent prices and a helpful staff would be a plus. Any tips? Thanks!

Bruni's review this week is of The Spotted Pig: http://events.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/dinin...ews/25rest.html

Since my office gets Starwich delivered at least twice a week, I feel qualified to respond. They do toast their bread (though lightly) for deliveries and I don't feel as if I've ever had any bread-texture issues -- they may, for all I know, be par-toasting it. What I have had issues with is their ludicrous delivery infrastructure, where you call the central office (1866wichtogo), then they submit the order to the store (electronically perhaps). This results in any special requests not in the computer (even mundane things like what type of potato chips they have) to (often) get miscommunicated and bars you from ordering any specials (like soups). That said, it's one of the best options on Wall Street -- exactly what I hoped it would be way earlier upthread.

I love the tone of your post I ate recently at Zaab and was impressed, though I'm not ready to write off Sri just yet, which (imho, of course) is just as good if not better. Also I was at least a little disappointed with the pizza at Spumoni Gardens, but the eponymous iced dessert was fantastic.

The El Bulli cookbok LOVES these...

It's already been mentioned, but as a tournament Scrabble player I have to wholeheartedly endorse their use as tile bags.

I'm bumping this again to endorse Alidoro, a Soho place (Sullivan between Prince & Spring) that makes brilliant sandwiches (and sometimes gelato) yet seems almost criminally underpatronized. I'd also like to send some love to Esposito's Pork Store (sp?) in Carroll Gardens, which features a fantastic "Italian Combo" hero. A bit more generic-feeling than Alidoro's creations but certainly no worse.

Are you sure he wasn't talking about Zomick's?

As far as I know, they're sauced to serve in St. Louis, and still quite crunchy.

Today I tried Ed Mitchell's -- the first time I'd ever tried that style of barbecue -- and found it quite good, though not at all what I expected. It was more like chicken salad than any pork barbecue I'd had. I'd love to go take a trip and sample lots more of that style, though. I also tried the Elgin's sausage and brisket, both of which I found superb -- I didn't have the opportunity to compare with Salt Lick, but I can recommmend Elgin wholeheartedly. Tomorrow I guess I'll go for some ribs and shoulder. The question is: whose shoulder and whose ribs are the superlative ones? I eagerly await a reply.

Great Post. If you don't mind my asking, how much does a meal like that go for?

I make mine in a food processor (sacriledge?) and it generally comes out at a thickness I'm comfortable with (and no wrist strain necessary).

On the way to New York from St. Louis we stopped at a Pennsylvania gas station named Sheetz which had pizza, burgers, heros, and other foods that you ordered with a weirdly-elaborate computerized touch-screen ordering system. My traveling partner ordered a pizza which was about as good as Pizza Hut (i.e. not all that great but on the good side of palatable).

I'm not really a big beer drinker , but I tried some Bell's Oberon summer ale yesterday and found it great and probably fitting your description. It's extremely light and refreshing.

Friday night shabbat dinners, an amalgamation of Syrian and American food: White Rice with Fasoliyyeh (beans in a tomato sauce) Fried Kibbe Roast Chicken Peas with "Kibbe Meatballs" Challah

I was looking for suggestions about hot-day picnic food and stumbled on this thread, which has some great ideas. Anyone come up with anything else interesting in that last year or so?

I'd second this. davidburke and donatella is amazing.

Just posting to note that I got that steamed egg dish on my last visit to Kang Suh too; it's brilliant. Does anyone know how it's possible to replicate that preparation at home?

I guess this was just a matter of time, but I find it pretty surprising -- he goes from an idiosyncratic one-location storefront in midtown to the emblem of a corporation planning on selling instant soups and opening up 1,000 locations within a year. I wonder if the original location can keep its high quality standards even a little. I'm interested to see how this pans out.

As someone who's actually in St. Louis a lot of the year, I can attest that that seems to be many of the locals' reaction to snoot as well. Smoki-O's offers a rib tips and snoot combo that comes with perhaps 6-8 pieces of snoot and no one ever even has a desire to finish that. The snoot pieces usually end up distributed one-or-two each to the rest of our party. Snoot is definitely extremely unique and 'interesting' but it seems definitely too rich and yet too unsatisfying to be anyone's favorite thing or regular order at Smoki-O's. Still, it's great that it even gets around to New York once a year.

Yay Smokie-O's. All of you who passed up on Snoot the first time around should try it this year. Smokie-O's is brilliant (though what they can do with pork steak and rib tips is even more virtuosic than what they can do with snoot).