slkinsey
-
Posts
11,151 -
Joined
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by slkinsey
-
-
PUG! Muddlers are what most, but not all, of the top 'tenders in NYC seem to use.
-
Erik, how do you mean "contacting the folks at The Northerner"? It looks like they're set up as a straight e-commerce site, and you should be able to order their Carlshamns Flaggpunsch Original online and have it shipped directly to you. When I did a dummy purchase they seemed to be charging around 14 bucks a bottle. So 35 bucks for a bottle of Swedish punsch isn't cheap, but it would be nice to have around.
-
Right. That's my thinking as well.
Considering the demographic of customers filling the downtown location after midnight, many of whom are actually much closer to the new location, I have no doubt that Landmarc TWC will become an after-hours hangout for area restaurant workers and Lincoln Center performers. So, they'll be doing real business until 2AM most nights.
Since they're serving lunch, you have to figure that there are going to be people working as early as 7AM anyway just to prep for lunch and do routine maintenance. So the cost of a few waitstaff and cooks for the breakfast shift has got to be marginal, and I'm sure their business plan does not assume 300 covers every day for breakfast. It also may turn out that they do good breakfast business on area deliveries. If there's one thing that seems clear, it's that the Landmarc team are good businesspeople, and I'm sure they've thought this out.
In that light, I'm not sure Marc's Café Gray comparison is a good one. First, Gray Kunz seems to be notoriously shaky as a businessperson, and the real stretch for Café Gray was opening for lunch, not breakfast. They weren't even able to sustain a lunch seating, and opening for breakfast was iffy at best. I'm also not sure Joe's Bouchon comparison is a good one. There's a big difference, to me at least, between paying 12 bucks for quiche and the privilege of sitting at a table in the hall versus 9 bucks to sit in Landmarc's space. Bouchon at the TWC has always seemed to me like an extremely expensive Au Bon Pain.
-
On another Landmarc question, is there a nice bar area where one might be inclined to have a couple of apps., (which seem to be the strong suit) and a split?
Absolutely. The bar seats around 20, I'd say. But, given the size of the space, I don't think there's any reason why you couldn't just grab a two-top for a half-bottle and a couple of apps.
-
So it is! My mistake.
What's the thinking behind stirring with ice and then straining onto rocks? I generally build an Old-Fashioned right in the glass and then add the ice.
-
I understand your point, Mitch. And, as I said, I'd prefer lots of cracked black pepper as well. But while the lack of cracked black pepper may have made the dish less authentic, it was nevertheless very good. Landmarc isn't presenting itself as an Italian restaurant or one that strives for slavish duplication of regional cuisines, so I'm less inclined to be a purist than I might be if I had the same dish at, e.g., Celeste.
As for cooking dry pasta correctly: My experience is that few restaurants of any kind do it well, regardless of whether they offer lots of pasta dishes... and this goes for many of the ostensibly Italian ones. Landmarc, on the other hand, is not an Italian restaurant, and their menu doesn't feature a lot of pasta dishes. At most restaurants, this would translate into even lower expectations of expertise in pasta cookery, and I wouldn't be likely to order pasta. To return to an earlier example I made in this thread, I wouldn't necessarily expect French Roast to give me properly al dente dry pasta. This is a moot point, however, since Landmarc seems to have a good handle on cooking dry pasta to a good texture.
-
Well, the choice between PJ Clarke's/Josefina/O'Neals/Fiorello and Landmarc is a no-brainer IMO.
When I spoke of French Roast, I was more speaking of places like French Roast than French Roast in particular. But, just to make an example, if I'm standing on 72nd and Broadway and I can either go uptown 13 blocks to French Roast or downtown 13 blocks to Landmarc, I'm going downtown. At least in my experience, 13 blocks is reasonably within what I would consider "neighborhood restaurant area" (which is to say that I'll walk 13 blocks for a quick bite without thinking too hard about it).
Edited to add: There's a Steve Cuozzo writeup in the Post.
-
Looks like he's doing this: http://www.delpedro.com
-
One of Phil Ward's cocktails was recently featured in "Shaken & Stirred" in the NY Times:
The Oaxaca Old-Fashioned
1.5 oz : El Tesoro Reposado tequila
0.5 oz : Los Amantes Joven mezcal
1 tsp : amber agave nectar
1 : dash Angostura bitters
Orange twist
Shake with ice and strain into an ice-filled rocks glass. Garnish with flamed orange twist.
“Tequila entered the mainstream in this country at a time, in the ’60s and ’70s, that cocktail culture was dead,” said Mr. Ward, whose revamped cocktail menu, which was to be unveiled this weekend, features an expanded roster of tequila-based cocktails. “It’s not like rye whiskey, which is the base for so many classic cocktails. It’s a really cool spirit to work with because there are still original things you can do with it.”As its name suggests, Mr. Ward’s Old-Fashioned doesn’t scream originality — until you taste it. This is tequila at its most nuanced, a baritone-voice cocktail with a rich, deep smokiness and dark, elusive sweetness, and it swiftly banishes questions of whether tequila is the new something else. Rather, it is the new tequila: still growing, but decidedly mature.
-
Compass has also gone through so many chefs and so many incarnations, and for a while seemed to be booked around 50% of the time for private parties, that I think they've lost a good bit of confidence from UWS locals. I should also point out that there's a significant difference in price point, which is very important to UWS customers. Check out their dinner menu. The least expensive entre is 24 bucks, the median seems to be around 29, and it goes up all the way to 45! Landmarc's dinner menu, on the other hand, has small pasta dishes and hamburgers in the 10 to 13 dollar range, and even the most expensive choice on the menu, the ribeye steak, is only 34 dollars. When you consider that Compass has wine by the glass at prices comparable to Landmarc's half-bottle prices, a dinner there will very likely be twice what you would pay at Landmarc.
When you think about it, Landmarc's UWS competition is going to be places like French Roast. This place is packed most of the time, and has a similar price point. Now, personally, I can't imagine someone who wouldn't rather go to Landmarc than French Roast.
-
Rich, where/how did you order the bottles? I googled "Norma Kalani" to see if I could find a picture of the bottles, and came up with a big goose egg.
-
As far as the price of copper cookware, this is something I'm puzzling over. The prices have almost doubled since I bought mine 6 or 7 years ago. I had no idea I was investing in precious metals at the time. The price increase does correspond to big rises in the price of copper, but copper isn't THAT expensive. No more than a few dollars worth in a copper pan (vs. a few cents worth of metal in an iron or aluminum pan). I thought maybe it was the price of the laminated copper/stainless material (all the companies seem to use the same stuff). But the simple, tin-lined pans have gone up at the same rate.
Any ideas?
I assume it must have to do with the price of copper. Consider what, say, All-Clad is charging for interior clad aluminum pans (their MasterChef line) and the fact that copper is more than twice as expensive.
My experience is that prices for heavy copper cookware have gone up, but they haven't doubled in the last 10 years. In 1999 I was citing list prices of $580 and deep discount prices of $410 for Bourgeat's eleven-inch "flared saute pan." Then what happened (in my opinion) is that Falk Culinair entered the market and rationalized the prices of stainless lined heavy copper in the US. At the same time in 1999, I noted list prices of $399 for Falk's eleven-inch "sauciere" (same type of pan) and normal sale prices of $338. Eventually, I believe the US distributors of Bouregeat and Mauviel had to reduce their prices in order to compete with Falk Culinair. Today, Falk's eleven-inch sauciere lists at $375 without the cover, and $485 with the cover. I should point out that buying a fancy copper/stainless bimetal cover is a complete waste of money when you can get a perfectly good stainless cover for 20 bucks, but I believe the 1999 prices all included the cover so that would be the appropriate apples-to-apples comparison.
Understanding that, we're looking at something like a 22% increase in the price of an eleven-inch stainless lined heavy copper sauteuse evasee with a fancy bimetal cover over 8 years. That's not nothing, of course, but I wonder how that tracks the rise in the price of copper over the same period.
-
So... just for kicks, I measured a few of my pans and compared them. I have a Falk Culinair "low casserole" that looks like this. It has a diameter of 9.5 inches. I also have an heavy antique Griswold cast iron skillet with a diameter of 10.25 inches. Both weigh 4 pounds, 15.25 ounces (2,247 grams) on my kitchen scale. That would give the cast iron pan a thermal capacity of 1,009 and the copper pan a thermal capacity of 865. 144 may seem like a significant difference, but really isn't when you consider that a cast aluminum pan of the same weight would have a thermal capacity of 2,164 (that would be a significant difference).
Without using calipers, the cast iron pan and the copper pan appear to have approximately the same thickness. If anything, the cast iron pan is a little thinner. The larger-diameter cast iron pan has lower sides, which explains why they weigh the same.
Here's the thing: I use these two pans all the time, and I can tell you with 100% certainty that the copper pan heats up and cools down significantly more rapidly than the cast iron pan. Since the thermal capacity is very similar, this difference is explained entirely by the large difference in thermal conductivity. I also have a smaller diameter cast iron pan, which has a smaller thermal capacity than the copper pan. It, also, is slower to heat up and cool down compared to the copper pan.
-
So... I was at Landmarc for a quick bite yesterday evening, where I was pleased to run into both Sneakeater and Daniel, who I hope will contribute their own reactions.
They appear to be firing on all cylinders in the kitchen. Their foie gras terrine is still a ridiculous bargain and warm snail salad is a new favorite (I have no idea why I waited so long to try it). We shared a big plate of the Tuesday pasta, spaghetti alla carbonara, which was properly sauced and nicely al dente (which is no mean feat for a restaurant that only features one pasta dish). Ideally, I would have liked some cracked black pepper with the pasta, which as an Italophile I consider an important part of spaghetti alla carbonara, but this is a fairly minor quibble. There is now "a little bit of Ditch Plains" on the menu in the form of raw clams and oysters, and the possibility of choosing littleneck clams with one of five sauces in addition to the mussels their menu has always featured. The wine list has some very nice new additions, and the value remains tremendous. We had half bottles of falanghina, aglianico and prosecco, all delicious and none costing more than 16 bucks.
We had 2 appetizers, one large pasta, three half-bottles of wine and a cheese plate. We left full and a little tipsy, completely satisfied and even feeling like we had splurged a bit. Yet in the end, the tab was a little less than 60 bucks a person (including tax, but not the tip).
The service is good but lags behind the kitchen maybe a little bit. I assume this will pull together quickly as they have a bit more practice. All the signs are there: they have experience, they want to do a good job, they're enthusiastic and they all clearly want to be there. The one thing that, in my mind, has distinguished Landmarc's FOH since my second visit was also there: We were recognized, greeted warmly and received as friends. Both owners, the wine director and a few other managers we knew from TriBeCa stopped by our table for a quick chat, and we've already made friends with the new FOH people at the TWC location. This, in my mind, is the keystone to their repeat-business success as a neighborhood restaurant. I don't know anyone doing it any better.
-
We should also consider the fact that cocktails 50+ years ago were very much smaller than they are today.
-
I have never gone from frozen into bath: even with the best circulator, your temp will drop significantly and it will take some time for it to equilibriate...
This should be largely dependant on the size of the water bath. I've been using a 5 gallon stock pot for mine, and I can't think that a couple of frozen strip steaks will drop the temperature all that much. And, of course, the temperature of the water bath isn't as important as the temperature of the food. Presumably the water bath will come up to temperature long before the steaks.
Joe: Why not "pre-freeze" the steaks a little, hit the exterior with a blowtorch, bag and freeze, go directly from the freezer into the water bath for cooking, and then do a finish sear (potentially also with a blowtorch)?
-
At the same time, several of the greatest barbecue pitmasters (Chris Lilly! Mike Mills! Ed Mitchell!) will be in New York City for two days only, serving their barbecue. If that's not worth a hundred bucks and a few hours to someone, that's certainly understandable. But it's worth it to a lot of folks -- thus the lines.
Exactly. I suppose I'm less enthusiastic about it (although, of course, I may go anyway) because a) I am in Texas and North Carolina multiple times a year, and b) I've already been to the last 4 BABBP events. If I were a first timer who didn't already have pretty regular access to excellent Q, I might feel differently.
But, realistically, let's figure one Bubba Fast Pass and two people waiting in different VIP lines coordinating by telephone. Let's further assume that these two people aren't interested in buying barbecue from any of the NYC establishments. That leaves about 8 pits they might like to try. We're talking, then, about paying a hundred bucks to wait in line for something like 3 hours per person (this does not include time spent actually eating the food). Or, of course, they could wait in line together for 45 minutes and spend their hundred bucks at Mitchell's -- which wouldn't be a bad plan.
-
The physics still seems to point to thermal mass and responsiveness being reciprocal.
That's a misunderstanding on your part, I'm afraid -- at least in the context of the materials use in cookware. Obviously, one can reach a point where thermal mass becomes so great that it overcomes the advantages of thermal conductivity and restricts responsiveness -- but these conditions aren't generally found in cookware.
Yes, it's true that responsiveness and thermal mass are always opposed when thermal conductivity is the same. For example, a 2.5 mm thick copper pan will be more responsive than a 5 mm copper pan, and this difference in responsiveness is largely explained by the difference in thermal mass. However, in comparing iron to copper, the thermal conductivity is not the same. Not only is the thermal conductivity not the same, it's radically different. Think of it this way: If you have two Toyota Corollas, and one weighs 2,500 pounds and the other weighs 3,200 pounds, the lighter Corolla will be quicker to speed up and slow down. If, on the other hand, you take a 3,200 pound Ferrari F430, I think we all understand that the Ferrari will be quicker to speed up and slow down than the same weight of Toyota. In this example, weight is like thermal mass and engine power is like thermal conductivity.
In terms of thermal capacity, it's simple math. Take a cast iron skillet and a copper pan of similar thermal capacity. Heck, take a copper pan with a larger thermal capacity -- use one that weighs a little more than the cast iron pan. Heat them up on the stove. See which one takes longer to heat up and which one takes longer to cool down. If you do this experiment (which I've done) you'll see that, despite having an equivalent-or-larger thermal capacity, the copper pan is still much more responsive. As a friend was just saying to me, it's possible to understand that you can empty out a barrel faster than a bottle of the hole in the barrel is big enough. This goes directly to the "heat faucet" examples in my eGCI class.
Anyway... I hope this makes more sense. If you've read "much more rigorous analyses" of cookware materials, please provide a link or a reference. I'd certainly be interested in reading them.
-
Am I the only person who's a little "over" the BABBP? I'd absolutely be up for going down there again if I had any sense that I'd be able to buy a Bubba Pass and not have to wait in interminable lines -- but even the VIP side was clogged up last year. And, as much as I love barbecue, waiting in line for 45 minutes to get a plate of pulled pork is losing some of its allure. Granted, I don't entirely understand the economics of the thing, but the best the express side ever worked was the day the retail machines broke and they simply handed out food to anyone on that side who asked. Unless they predict that this would ruin the financials, I don't see why they don't do this again. There's no reason people who spend a hundred bucks for special access to express lines should have to wait more than 5 minutes for a plate of barbecue.
-
Read eGCI Class on cookware and all will be explained.
In short: Yes, it is possible to be both responsive and to have a relatively high thermal capacity, so long as thermal conductivity is high enough. Yes, copper and iron have very similar thermal capacity by volume, and therefore copper and iron pans with similar thickness will have a similar thermal capacity. Yes, the reason iron pans take so much longer to heat up and cool down compared to copper pans of similar size and thickness is almost entirely explained by thermal conductivity. Yes, the main heat-related difference between iron and copper as they are deployed in cookware is conductivity. And, yes, this is a huge difference (4.01 W/cm/K for copper versus only 0.80 for iron).
-
Excellent! They really deserve a re-review. It's interesting to me that Pasternack doesn't seem to get the credit he deserves for more or less "inventing" crudo (aka, Italian-style sashimi).
fwiw, the Grimes review credits him with it.
You mean this review? Doesn't seem that way to me. If he gives anyone credit, it seems to be Bastianich and Batali, but other than implying that he doesn't fully believe their schtick that "their way with raw fish is a venerable Italian tradition, indulged by humble fishermen up north along the Adriatic coast and down south from Naples to Sicily" he doesn't say much about who came up with the idea.
And, to a certain extent, how could he have known when writing that review that crudo -- as executed and largely popularized by Pasternack at Esca -- would come to be such a popular culinary meme?
-
Excellent! They really deserve a re-review. It's interesting to me that Pasternack doesn't seem to get the credit he deserves for more or less "inventing" crudo (aka, Italian-style sashimi).
-
Often, yea. But it definitely has its drawbacks from a maintenance standpoint. In terms of performance, a nice extra-thick iron pan (either enamel clad or seasoned, depending on the application) would have an edge when it comes to cooking applications in which one would like to have constant, unchanging heat.
-
I don't think they have "officially opened" yet. I have the feeling this is the "soft opening" -- which, of course, is harder and harder to do in any meaningful way in today's era of eGullet, Chowhound, Eater, etc.
Landmarc at the Time-Warner Center
in New York: Dining
Posted · Edited by slkinsey (log)
The TriBeCa Landmarc, at its heart, is an unpretentious neighborhood restaurant trying to offer quality NYC-worthy food and wine at a great price along with friendly service. The TWC location is following the same aesthetic. So, yea, of course it's for UWS mommies and kids... it's also for 30somethings on date nights, pre- and post-theater dining, after-work hanging out for industry types and performing artists. Providing breakfast to mothers and kids before a trip to the park, museum, shopping, whatever is entirely in line with their raison d'être.