slkinsey

Al, did you sear the short ribs right out of the bag? If I'm going to be pan-searing (as opposed to using a blowtorch) I usually wait for the meat to cool down a while. Otherwise, the pan searing will probably take the temperature of the meat too high. You'll still have the pink interior because the LT/LT cooking "fixed" the color, but you might end up with a dryer texture that you don't want.

As you can see, I've been a Franny's supporter from the beginning, so I'm very happy to see that they are getting the recognition they deserve. Also very happy to see that they are bringing back pasta items to the menu. I think it says a lot about the kind of people they are that they took pasta off the menu for a number of years because they didn't think they had the equipment and staffing to do it right.

http://qtonic.com/availability.html

They say: Pour your wine into this decanter because it will "aerate" the wine. Okay, so far so good. It is generally accepted that aeration has certain beneficial effects on wine. Another word for "aerate" is "oxygenate." Then they say: You can use our special vacuum cork to suck all the air out of the decanter, thus preserving your wine. Okay. Well, it is also generally accepted that vacuuming out an opened bottle helps to minimize spoilage to the tune of a day or two. Here is what is ridiculous and stupid about this product: Once you pour the wine out of the wine bottle and into the decanter, it is already oxygenated to a certain extent. No amount of vacuuming out the airspace in the decanter is going to "un-oxygenate" the wine. And oxygenation is what makes the wine go stale after a few days. In effect, they are saying: "Oxygenate your wine by pouring it into our decanter. If you have any left over wine in the decanter, protect it from the effects of oxygenation by vacuuming out the remaining air in the decanter." Personally, I'm holding out for a V1 Vacuum Decanter with built-in Wine Clip. I'm totally going for the crystal pyramid wine cabinet to store it in, too.

I should add to this that some drinks you won't be able to get just anywhere. For example, looking at your examples, the Oaxaca Old Fashioned from D&C is made with very specific spirits, in particular, Los Amantes Joven Mescal. This spirit, or indeed any mescal whatsoever, is not exactly standard bar stock, and if you don't have it you can't make an Oaxaca Old Fashioned. This would be equally true of drinks made with custom infusions. etc. In general, most cocktails people I know are not so big on the "secret recipe" thing. They would rather have their drinks made with the correct recipe and attribution, and of course having some popular cocktails out there with your name attached to them is a pretty good way to grow your reputation and influence.

The main question is whether the new bar is going to know how to make the drink. I wouldn't order a French Pearl at a random bar in, say, Milwaukee. But one has a reasonable expectation that the bartenders at PDT are familiar with the drink. Consider this: all cocktail recipes were once "house drinks" at a bar somewhere.

Not to mention the Blinker: 2 oz : rye whiskey 1 oz : fresh grapefruit juioce 1 tsp : raspberry syrup Two important notes: First, I find that Old Overholt is by far the best rye for this cocktail. Second, depending on the tartness of your grapefruit and the sweetness of your raspberry syrup, you will need to adjust for balance.

The "measured drink"? What does this mean, exactly? Using a jigger instead of free pouring? This is something the best bars in NYC have been doing for years.

I don't think you'd have an easy time getting ice cubes into the top of an ISI Thermo Whip.

I am hoping to have someone either design for me or adapt from available equipment a special shaker. It would need to be insulated and capable of withstanding a fair amount of internal pressure, and will need some kind of pressure release valve to let off gas before the shaker is opened and the drink is poured. My idea is that one would build a cocktail as usual, including putting the usual amount of water ice into the shaker, but would then add an approximately marble-sized piece of dry ice into the shaker. Seal, shake (this is why the shaker would need to be pressure-tight), release the pressure valve, open the shaker, strain. I think this would result in a cocktail that is not only extremely cold, but also hopefully smoking and lightly carbonated.

Yea, I think it was the case that in the early days of the "heirloom tomato phenomenon" not that many people were growing them, and those that were growing them were doing so with care. So, in those days, pretty much any time you got your hands on an heirloom tomato variety, it was going to be delicious. Now that bigger businesses have figured out that there is money to be made selling these varieties, you find more and more heirloom tomatoes in places where you previously wouldn't expect them... places like Whole Foods and middlebrow restaurants not known for using slocal produce. The result is that an heirloom tomato is no longer the virtual guarantee of quality it used to be. I don't expect a Brandywine from Whole Foods to be particularly good. On the other hand, the heirloom tomatoes I get from my guys down in the Union Square Greenmarket, the same guys I bought from back when heirloom tomatoes were a relative rarity, are still just as good as they always were.

Honestly, I don't understand this at all. If Bruni had been writing an article about NYC pizza or a NYC pizzeria, or even about a style of pizza made elsewhere that is comparable to or within the frame of reference of classic NYC pizza, then I would agree with you. But not only was the article about a pizzeria on the other side of the country, but the correct frame of reference for that pizzeria is nationwide rather than local. Indeed, Bruni makes a point of this by writing "it reflects the spread of a certain kind of haute pizza culture across the country." Had Bruni devoted significant column space to comparisons between Mozza and NYC pizza or NYC pizzerie, that would have demonstrated a fundamental lack of knowledge -- not to mention that he would have had to shoehorn it into an article where it really doesn't belong. Instead, he mentions that the aesthetic at Mozza is part of a nationwide trend and names examples of pizzerie that share this aesthetic in three cities (NYC, Chicago and Phoenix). Other than passing mentions of the more robust pizza served in the Campo de' Fiori in Rome (an appropriate reference because it reflects an influence of Silverton's) and Spago (again, appropriate because Spago was a "gourmet pizza" pioneer in the US, and was also in Los Angeles) he doesn't talk about any other pizza or any other pizzerie. And why should he? It's not a comparison piece. I don't really see that it is incumbent upon him to relate the article closely to NYC and NYC pizza simply because he is writing for the New York Times where he has a gig as a food critic. If he were writing an article about a pizzeria in Napoli, would he have to give three paragraphs to Patsy's and Franny's?

Not to flog this too much, but my opinion of pizza has been considered highly enough to be featured in several newspaper articles... What Bruni wrote was: I don't have any quibble with that. If there are people who made the argument that he should have been more conversant with the likes of Di Fara, Patsy's and Grimaldi's, they're wrong. Those pizzerie are in an entirely different category and not relevant to an article on Mozza or the point he was making. I, personally, might have suggested Franny's or Fornino as better NYC places to put up for comparison, but Una Pizza Napoletana is reasonably-enouth relevant in the context in which it was used in the article. The people who emailed Bruni or posted in blogs things like "You obviously don't get around to all of Manhattan. You want real Napoletana pizza, go to Patsy's on First Avenue between 117th and 118th streets on the west side of the street" -- well, they simply do not understand what Neapolitan pizza is, and as a result are talking out their asses.

Sigh. If only Lillet would come out with an "antica formula" kind of deal.

Although this horse has already been flogged, NYC does have pizza roughly in the style category and aesthetic as Mozza. They have it at Franny's, Una Pizza Napoletana, Fornino, Otto, etc. But those places aren't serving "NYC pizza." They are, by and large, serving what one might call "nuova pizza Napoletana."

No reason not to call it "Carpano Antica." Some people just call it "Antica" and everyone around here seems to know what they're talking about.

Well, I don't disagree with that. But what we think the NY Times critic job is and what the NY Times thinks that job is are two different things.

However, it is of course possible that Oakapple isn't remembering the article correctly. Or... If Esnault did say that in the interview, it is possible that he misspoke, misremembered or deliberately misrepresented. There is some possibility that Bruni did get in there and it was not reported to Esnault. There is the possibility that someone said something like "I think that might be Bruni at table 42," but the kitchen was in the middle of some kind of clusterfuck and he didn't take notice. There is the possibility that several of Bruni's trusted friends and acquaintances dined at ADNY and gave him the impression that the things he didn't like hadn't changed all that much. I'm just saying that we're predicating an awful lot of argument on the premise that he was never there, based on a recollection of a comment from an interview that appeared some time ago, and comment that Esnault may have made in that interview without giving it a great deal of thought. On review: Steven, I'd be interested to see the quote if you have it, in context.

I should point out that we're basing this whole idea that "Bruni never ate there once after Esnault became chef" on this one line from Oakapple: "I recall reading an interview in which Esnault mentioned that Bruni had not yet even paid a visit, to the best of Esnault's knowledge." With all due respect to everyone, that hardly seems definitive.

Assuming he did a Diner's Journal look in 6 months (and he may have thought, or had reasons to believe that not enough had changed in 3-6 months for that -- or may have been turning his attentions in other directions), a year after that would have been exactly when people were hearing that ADNY would close. So, even under your schedule, there never would have been a full follow-up review.

We are, of course, taking the "no visits" thing on faith. It's entirely possible that he did eat at ADNY at some time during Esnault's tenure. Or, failing that, it's possible that he heard from his various sources that ADNY hadn't made such huge changes to be worth such an immediate re-review. I wonder what he would say if he were asked why he didn't re-review ADNY. I think we might be surprised at the response.

3-6 months? Wow, that's very fast. Is there any precedent for a re-review of a demoted restaurant on anything approaching this timetable? I'm not necessarily saying that you're wrong in suggesting that ADNY should have had a re-review, but it does seem a bit like you're saying they should completely change their established way of doing these things. I'm also curious as to what other restaurant things were going on in NYC during that timeframe that might have been Bruni's plate (so to speak).

It's Carpano Antica Formula, meaning "Carpano (the manufacturer) ancient formula." This is supposedly Carpano's old formula for vermouth. (Antonio Benedetto Carpano is the inventor of vermouth.) The other one is Punt e Mes -- Italian, not Spanish, meaning "point and a half" (actually, to be technical, it's Piemontese dialect... Italian would be punto e mezzo or punt'e mezzo). This is a stronger version of vermouth (more herbal, more bitter, more intensely flavored) also made by Carpano. For some reason, it's somewhat common for people over here to say "Y" instead of "E" in the middle, I guess because we're more used to Spanish.

It seems clear to me that ADNY would have been re-reviewed by now if it had not closed. But I still don't see any persuasive argument that it automatically had to be re-reviewed in less than 1.5 years (the period of time between Esnault's hiring and media reports of ADNY's imminent closing). From what Leonard has said, I gather re-reviewing even one of the City's most important restaurants after a demotion would be unprecedented during a timeframe this short. It's too bad that it didn't get an opportunity for a re-review before it closed, but it seems to me that a change of chef and reconfiguration of the restaurant shouldn't necessarily mandate an immediate re-review within a short period of time or the Times will run into exactly the same problem mentioned upthread: restaurants that are demoted or feel like they were reviewed under their goals will feel as though they "deserve" a short-time re-review if they fire the chef and make changes. If we go down that path: It's no secret Batali and Bastianich were going for four stars with Del Posto. And Batali is certainly in the same stratosphere as Ducasse, Jean-Georges, etc. in terms of name recognition and industry power. If they had fired Ladner following the three star review and reworked the restaurant, does that mean Del Posto should reasonably have expected a re-review within 12 months of the change? Steven, when do you think would have been a reasonable time to do this re-review? After six months? A year? I'm interested... if ADNY had been re-reviewed in January 2007, would we feel that the re-review had been unreasonbably delayed? What about a re-review in September 2006?

Between 100th and 110: Thai Market is good for Thai Awash has very good Ethipopan Carne is good burgers, steaks, etc. Henry's has plenty of good things. Rack & Soul has already been mentioned I like Flor de Mayo for delivery roast chicken and cilantro rice El Malecon is also no slouch in the roast chicken department A, up on columbus and 107th is interesting and eclectic Tokyo Pop is good for "fusion sushi" rolls. Taqueria y Fonda la Mexicana is one of the two best Mexican places on the UWS Between 90th and 100th: Regional is good Italian Noche Mexicana is the other best Mexican place on the UWS (Sundays they have posole!) Interestingly, it would appear that the West 90s comprise the most desolate stretch with respect to good restaurants on the UWS.