slkinsey

I think you can't go wrong with a DIY "interesting meats tasting menu." Babbo does some of the best in the City. Antipasti: Warm Tripe alla Parmigiana Pig Foot Milanese with Rice Beans and Arugula Warm Lamb's Tongue Vinaigrette with Hedgehogs, and a 3-Minute Egg Testa with Pickled Pearls and Thyme Vinaigrette Primi: Lamb's Brain "Francobolli" with Lemon and Sage Goose Liver Ravioli with Balsamic Vinegar and Brown Butter Beef Cheek Ravioli with Crushed Squab Liver and Black Truffles Mint Love Letters with Spicy Lamb Sausage Secondi: Barbecued Squab with Roasted Beet Farroto and Porcini Mustard Grilled Quail with “Scorzonero alla Romana” and Saba "Rabbit alla Triestina" with with Red Cabbage, Potatoes and Horseradish Fennel Dusted Sweetbreads with Quince Vinegar and Duck Bacon

I'm not quite sure everyone shares your definition of "over rated." I think the standard interpretation of "over rated" would be "significantly not as good as it is commonly held to be." In your Landmarc example, for example, it sounds like it would be over priced but perhaps not over rated. Similarly, if Tasting Room eliminated its wonderful wine list or if L'impero's food preparation slipped, these places would only be over rated if the generally accepted perception of their quality remained the same. This is the point that Steven makes upthread: Before you decide that a place is over rated, you have to have some understanding of where it is commonly understood to be "rated" in the first place. Further, ErinB makes a good point in that you should have an understanding of the population that is doing the "rating." Are we talking about places that are eGullet favorites or that are popular with tourists and businesspeople? Beyond that, I think you have to take personal preference into account, because there may be a restaurant that is not personally to your taste but which nevertheless achieves at a high level and deserves its good reputation.

I don't know of any fancy restaurant that pours anything near 5 ounces of vodka into a martini, there is very little vermouth. I think that would wipe out their customers, before they even start their meals. It would contain the alcohol equivalent of two thirds of a bottle of wine. The total volume of a martini, I don't know how large it is, contains some ice melt. I think that even 2.5 ounces of vodka plus vermouth would be generous. I'm sure that some of our bartenders could clarify this further. I do think that the economics will work out just fine. Marcus, who do you think I'm getting this information from? The average restaurant Martini glass runs to something like six or seven ounces. That means four to five ounces of spirit plus maybe an ounce and a half of water from melting ice at 25% dilution -- and believe me, plenty of places go bigger than that. This is actually a terrible way to serve a cocktail (it becomes warm long before it can be finished), but customers would feel "cheated" if they were handed a three ounce Martini so restaurants have to serve double-size drinks. At Bemelmans, Audrey Saunders served Martinis in a small glass with half of the drink decanted into a little glass carafe sitting in a bowl of ice on the side so at least the drink would stay cold. There is just no way a restaurant can get away with serving a 3 ounce Martini. You would be shocked, I think, at the size of the Martinis most restaurants are serving. Fat Guy and I had dinner at Ben Benson's steakhouse one night and were served what must have been ten ounce Martinis. Steven's glass had something like 5 olives in it, which wouldn't leave much room for booze in a reasonably sized cocktail glass -- yet they hardly made an impact in the birdbaths they were using as glasses. This is also why I think a lot of chefs tend to be somewhat anti-cocktail. Cocktails have become so large that you really do tend to get a little drunk before your meal. Back in the day, a cocktail was served in somethig like a three ounce glass. A Martini would have been an ounce of gin, an ounce of vermouth and a dash of orange bitters -- a bracingly cold aperitif that stimulated the appetite, not a palate-deadening, mind-fogging, lukewarm alcohol bomb. I love to have a cocktail before dinner, but rarely order them at restaurants for this very reason. To further illustrate the point. . . at home I use mostly the Libby 8454 "Citation" cocktail glass. It holds four and a half ounces. It would be considered ridiculously small for a Martini glass in most restaurants. I scale my recipes for three ounces of ingredients, and by the time I finish shaking/stirring the drink it fills the glass. So when I say that "2.5 ounces of vodka plus vermouth" doesn't even come close to describing the standard restaurant Martini, I know whereof I speak (most restaurant Martinis don't include enough vermouth to even consider figuring that amount into the formula). 2.5 ounces of liquor would equal about a 3.25 ounce cocktail pour. No way would a restaurant sell that. I wish the standard restaurant Martini had only 2.5 ounces of -- well, gin rather than vodka. I'm sorry if I was unclear. "Liquor cost" means the same thing as "food cost." It's the cost of the ingredients to the bar, aka the liquor. Just like with restaurants and food, however, when you buy a drink at a bar you're not just paying for the ingredients in the glass. You're paying for the guy who mixed the drink, the guy who hauled the bottles up from storage, the cost of the glassware, the cost of the napkins, the cost of the ice machine that makes the ice, etc., etc., etc. All these things necessarily figure in to the overall cost of the drink to the bar, and all these things have to be considered when the bar is figuring out what they will charge for the drink. I have a friend who is getting ready to open a bar, and is spending an incredible amount of time pouring over spreadsheets to figure all these things out. I am given to understand that it's fairly standard for bars that are making money to run at around 25% liquor cost (which is a genteel way of saying "400% markup") on average -- some drinks will be well below this, and some will be well above. But this doesn't mean that the bar is making a 400% profit on average. the ancillary costs are higher than the ingredient costs. Exactly, Bux. The ancillary costs are always going to be there. While I think it's likely true that many restaurants make more profit on alcohol than they do on food, it's not so simple. Especially with wines, there is the question of when/how/at what price certain wines were acquired, how they are maintained, what you're paying your wine staff, what kind of glassware you use, etc. -- just as you say. This is why I think, as I have remarked above, that it's easier for a restaurant in the middle range to adjust the cost model than it is for higher end restaurants to do the same. The percentage profit is likely much higher on the food for the middle range place, and they have no where near the same kinds of ancillary costs associated with the wine program.

Andrew Feinberg, pizzaiolo, chef and co-owner of Franny's, is featured in the latest series of The Chef in the NY Times' Food Section. This should be an good series, and I'll be interested to see if they discuss any of his pizza making thoughts and techniques. Francine Stephens, his wife and partner, is also a talented mixologist in her own right, and it would be a lot of fun if they ran a little something about her creations. We'll have to wait and see. . . Today's article is actually about one of the chef's other talents: pasta. Specifically, Meyer lemon-ricotta ravioli. Earlier in the article, Francine remarks that they had originally offered pasta on the menu at Franny's but ended up taking it off because they decided it was too much pressure for the kitchen to do pasta to their standards in addition to the pizza once they started getting busy. Although it's a shame we have to miss out on their excellent pasta offerings, I wish more restauranteurs made decisions like this.

Just to bring a little perspective. . . Most bars like to run at about 20% - 25% liquor cost on cocktails to maintain a reasonable profit margin. An expensive vodka like Cîroc runs a little over a dollar an ounce wholesale. So, if you buy a typical "fancy restaurant" vodka martini (around 5 ounces), the liquor cost is $5 to the house. That 5 dollars has to pay for the glass, the napkin, the bartender and barbacks, the glass washer, the ice machine, etc. If they sell this drink at the typical 15 bucks, they're running the drink at 33% liquor cost. My friends in the business tell me that this is ultimately a money loser for the house.

Here is the web site. I'll read through it and translate some good parts later today.

Sourdoughs International offers around 15 different cultures for something like 15 bucks a pop. Or you can get Carl's Starter.

Fundamentally sweating is a low temperature/low movement technique. You can start with a warm pan or a cold pan, never a hot pan. The vegetables are cooked in a limited amount of fat at low heat (often but not always covered with a parchment or wax paper "lid") until fully softened and cooked through but not colored. The vegetables are not moved around much. Sweating is a technique that applies to vegetables and fruits, not meats. Sautéing is a high temperature/high movement technique. You start with a very hot pan. Food items in "chunk" form are cooked in a limited amount of hot fat at high heat, and the pan is constantly agitated so the ingredients are "jumped around in the pan" (the French verb sauter means "to jump") and browned evenly on all sides. Sautéing is a technique that can be used for any "chunk" shaped food item. "Sauté" is commonly misused by people who mean to say "fry." You cannot really sauté a whole chicken breast, for example. If the ingredients are just sitting there and not bouncing around the pan you are frying, not sautéing.

Juanito, it's always interesting to talk with someone about all the things they have to figure in to the cost of a plate of food or a bottle of wine. Just to consider the costs that have to be covered for a plate of food: The price of the plate and the flatware, including replacement costs for breakage, theft, etc. The costs associated with the linens (napkins, tablecloth, etc.) The cost of the ingredients (the "food cost") Costs related to the premises (rent, electricity, heat, etc.) Labor (receptionist, wait staff, bus staff, cooks, dishwashers, cleaning staff, etc.) Costs related to the kitchen (purchase, maintenance and fueling of stoves, refrigeration, specialty equipment, etc. as well as cookware) All of these things, and more, have to be paid by that plate of food you order. I'm not in a position to say what kinds of profits these restaurants make. But, if they're charging a 500% markup on wine and still squeaking by with maybe an 8% profit margin, this strongly suggests to me that some places are not making any profit on the food side. This will no doubt vary according to the price point of the restaurant and whatever their associated costs may be. Of course, a lot of the really high end restaurants (typically associated with an expensive hotel) don't make any profit at all.

This is, I think, a big part of the problem. Much like with rent control, it's a system whereby some people pay more and cover costs associated with someone else. I'm not saying that it's a good system. I'd rather have a system like they have at Landmarc. But... there has to be a reason why the system is the way it is. Most likely it is because restaurants have found that it's easier to make the profits they need to make with this kind of price structure. This is to say that they have considered bumping up the price of the food and reducing the price of the wine, and have decided that it isn't the right choice. Think about it: don't you think it would hurt, e.g., Daniel's business if the five course prix fixe were $200 instead of $125? Most likely the answer is that people wouldn't be so willing to pay that kind of markup. Maybe it's because they're more used to paying high prices for wine, or maybe it's because people undervalue food because of the historical pricing practices. It's one thing for Landmarc to charge $18 for a plate of pasta instead of $15 so they can sell wine at low prices, but at the high end where you're talking about raising the food prices much higher in order to bring down the price of wine I think it wouldn't be so easy to do.

The point I was trying to make upthread, perhaps not very well and expanded upon by others more informed than I, is that a restaurant has to make a certain profit on average per diner to stay in business. So for example, it may be the case that the target price point is around $200 per person. Let's suppose that the food usually costs around $100 per person and the wine usually costs $100 per person. As we know, most of the profit from that $200 meal comes from the wine. The $100 of food, after various expenses (labor, linens, flatware, etc.) are added in, may cost close to $100. The wine may cost $25 at wholesale, with the real cost (including labor, storage, stemware, etc.) being closer to $45. So, the restaurant is theoretically making $55 bucks on the meal. People look at that and think, "they're making an obscene profit on the wine." The restaurant has to make its 55 bucks (a completely hypothetical number, of course -- it's probably lower). So, what to do? Well, one thing they can do is lower the price of the wine to 50 bucks (200% over wholesale) and increase the price of the food to 150 bucks. But this has its problems. One problem is that they might lose customers if they charge $150 for the food, because even though the cost of the meal would, on average, be the same, $150 "feels" like a lot more than $100. The second problem is that they lose flexibility in terms of the kinds of customers they can have. Most restaurants are fundamentally about the food, and they may be willing to serve some people who choose a 45 dollar bottle of wine with their $100 food at a loss, because they know they can make up the difference on the high rollers at the next table who are paying $300 for their wine.

Let's take your model of $100 for food and $150 for wine. Would it make you feel better about the experience if they charged $175 for the same food and $75 for the same wine? Or are you saying that you'd like to have the same experience for only $175 (same $100 price for the food and only $75 for the wine)?

Picked up a bottle of Belle de Brillet at Astor Wines and made a Pear Martini last night. We declared it delicious. Interesting about the lime... it doesn't really register as lime at all in the mix.

This is one of the great things about Landmarc. Their wines are priced so low that they occasionally beat retail prices. I wish more restaurants would do this. Of course, part of what that means is charging 18 dollars for that plate of pasta instead of 15 dollars. Because the restaurants still need to make their money. I don't believe any of these places are pulling in obscene profits due to their wine markups.

Here is a link to the review, and a short excerpt for posterity: Reviewer Bob Lape gave Devi two stars out of a possible four.

Right. So it seems like you're pretty set in terms of that kind of pan. If you don't use the sauté pan, then maybe get rid of it (I love sauté pans and find them very useful, but different people have different cooking habits). Ah. Well, if you're cooking for one, then the 8 quart pot is probably just fine for pasta. So, let's see what you have and what you want. You have: 3.5 quart vessel 5.5 quart vessel You say: "the 3 1/2 qt cast iron dutch oven is way too big for some of the quantities that I make" which means that you want something smaller You also say: "The rationale behind the saucepan or saucier in the 3 - 4 quart range, was to have an alternative size for making large quantities of say risotto, polenta etc." So... you want something smaller than 3.5 quarts for rice, porridge, reheating soup, etc. What are the considerations: 1. None of these things inherently requires a fancy expensive straight gauge construction; 2. Anything that is "too small" to be done in the 3.5 quart pan is likely in the area of 1 quart; 3. Depending on the size of your burners, a small standard disk bottom saucepan might catch some heat around the base and cause scorching. I'd suggest you buy the least expensive 1.5 quart pan you can find that either has straight gauge construction (i.e., All-Clad MC2 from Cookware and More or Calphalon Try-Ply or something like that) or that has an extended encapsulated base, like ScanPan Steel. Any one of these pans would be overkill for the kinds of things you want to do, so I would try to find something on super-sale (for example, I have a couple of 1 quart All-Clad stainless saucepans I bought for 15 bucks on sale from Amazon). So... after you buy this 1.5 quart pan, you will have: 1.5 quarts 3.5 quarts 5.5 quarts I just don't see that you need another pan. For things like "large quantities of say risotto, polenta etc." I don't think you're going to do substantially better than the pans you already have. I still don't understand your desire for a "saucepan or saucier in the 3 - 4 quart range" when you already have a 3.5 quart pan made by one of the best manufacturers in the business. For what it's worth, when I am making large quantities of risotto, polenta, etc. I use my 6.8 Liter Le Creuset.

Actually, it's not clear to me at all that today's Rose's isn't a reasonably close approximation of the old stuff (with better production techniques). At the least, I'd guess it's as close to the old Rose's as today's CocaCola is to the pre-corn syrup CocaCola -- and while there is definitely a difference, I don't think anyone would suggest that it is a radical one. In any event, while I am sure it makes some difference, I'm not sure that the simple use of high fructose corn syrup is enough to make a radical change in the flavor profile. By and large, it's the "funky" flavor to which Rose's detractors object (and which Rose's fans enjoy). From what I can tell, that's always been there. Think about it: this stuff was carried around belowdecks in a barrel for months on end. If anything, this would make it taste more funky, not less. Reading Dave's cool historical information again, I noticed that he offered one interesting observation that many of us seem to have missed: Again, this suggests to me that the funky taste is something that was always a part of the Rose's flavor profile. In terms of something that is reasonable true to the original, I think Rose's is it to the greatest extent possible. And remember, we have no reason to suppose that, e.g., the Plymouth Gin of today tastes all that much like 18th century Plymouth gin. What I think is quite clear is that the "lime zest infused simple syrup with a squeeze of fresh lime juice" is nothing like the original stuff.

I've done a little reordering of your list. What I see is that you have four pans that are around ten inches in diameter -- two straight sided pans (the All-Clad sauté and the cast iron pan) and two slope-sided frypans. I think you're pretty set in this regard. Then you have three pans for liquids. As I will explain below, I think you should keep them both. It depends. Melting butter doesn't really need a great pan. Are you really making delicate sauces and intense reductions? If so, this argues for the 1.4 quart "try me" curved sauteuse evasée from Falk if price is not a concern. But it would be a waste to buy an expensive pan if you'll be using it to melt butter. Why would you want a straight gauge pan for these things? Total waste of money. Also, if you're going to have a 1 - 1.5 quart saucepan, it's not clear to me what use it is to have a 2 quart saucepan as well. If you have a 1.5 quart saucepan, your next pan should be at least 3 quarts or larger. Here's my question: What's wrong with sticking with the 3.5 quart Le Creuset pan you already have? All the things you seem to want to do here, the 3.5 quart Le Creuset will do just fine. Why do you want a straight gauge saucepan at 4 - 4.5 quarts? What is it that you want to do with these pans that would make you want straight gauge construction? Huge portions of Hollandaise? Massive reductions of stock? At the 4+ quart size, I think you're talking about a tall saucepan, which argues for disk-bottom construction. But again, what is it that you want to do with a 4 quart saucepan that you can't do with the 3.5 quart Le Creuset pan you already have? Given the cookware you already have, this would be #1 on my list. What are you using to boil water for pasta? Get a good 14 quart stock pot with a past strainer insert. Again, why do you want one of these? What is it that you want to do that you can't do with the pans you already own? If you want to shallow fry, I think you'd do just fine with your cast iron skillet, your sauté pan or your larger Le Creuset French oven... much better off than you would be with the 2.25 quart Le Creuset buffet casserole (which, at 8 inches in diameter and 2.5 inches tall is more or less useless for shallow frying).Cala, here's the thing... The question you need to ask yourself is: What do I want to do that I can't do well with the pans I already have? Once you identify those things, you can then start thinking about the best pans to do those things in a way that fits with your style of cooking, strengths and limitations. The wrong way to go about it, and what you seem to have done, is to ask yourself: What kinds of pans are there that I don't have? When you do this, you end up with a bunch of pans you paid too much for and don't use. Having a straight gauge copper pan you use only rarely to boil water or make rice is like having a Ferrari in the garage you only use to drive to the mailbox every couple of months.

That's the stuff, Dave! Thanks for the history. I'm off to try a 4:1:1 Pegu Club right now. . .

Just a quick moderator's note: Let's keep this thread about "Philly-style Steak" places in NYC and not diverge into a discussion about the archetypal places in the city of origin.

In a companion piece to his newsday article on pizza, which kindly mentions the NY Pizza Survey and myself, Josh "Mr. Cutlets" Ozersky provides a list of "Where to get a great pizza" including the following pizzerie: Manhattan: Patsy's East Harlem Una Pizza Napoletana Gnocco Caffe DeMarco's Pizzeria Sal & Carmine's Pizza Queens: Sac's Place Rizzo's Pizza Nick's Pizza Gino's Singa's Famous Pizza Brooklyn: Di Fara Pizza Totonno's Coney Island Peperoncino Grimaldi's Lento's Long Island: Original Umberto's of New Hyde Park 34 New Street (Huntington Village) Massa's Coal Brick Oven Pizzeria (Huntington Station) Timothy's Pizza (Centerport) Eddie's Pizza (New Hyde Park) Thoughts? I have to say that I'm a bit taken aback that pizzerie like Franny's and Fornino -- places I consider among the very best in NYC -- aren't on the list. It also seems a bit odd that Arturo's isn't there either. It may not be as good as Patsy's East Harlem, but it's better than Sal & Carmine's for sure, and better than the two times I've been to DeMarco's as well. Then again, it's not a "best of" list but rather a "some good places" list. As such, it's reflective of Josh's likes and dislikes (which, as a major Di Fara partisan, includes a healthy enthisiasm for DeMarco's even though they admittedly have some kinks to iron out). Overall, though, I think it's a good list. I've been meaning to try Singa's.

That's the big downfall of Grimaldi's: they're maddeningly inconsistent. JosephB has been there many more times than I, and he says that it's important to arrive soon after they've fired the oven (they only substantially fire the oven twice a day: once for lunch and once for dinner). The time the NY Pizza survey went there, we were the first ones in the door after they opened for lunch and the pizza was etherial. Other times it has been quite pedestrian.

One thing I don't understand is why more bars don't simply maintain some kind of computerized recipe database (either customized by the establishment or with off-the-shelf recipes). If I were designing a bar where I expected to serve a wide variety of drinks, I'd put some kind of touch-screen searchable cocktail dabase screen under the bar (out of the customer's line of sight. Because it's not rocket science to make a basically good cocktail from a basically good recipe -- even if you've never heard of the drink and never mixed one before.

spiritchild posted an interesting Pegu Club-inspired variation over in another thread: Kind of like a Pegu/Pisco Sour thing going on there.

The beauty of the Calphalon Commercial Nonstick pans (and, one assumes the same will be true of the Calphalon One Nonstick pans when they go on super-sale) is that they cost the same as the kind of nonstick pans that last only a year, but they're triple (or quadruple, I forget which) coated with PTFE and the extremely durable coating lasts a long time. The trick for nonstick, I think is: 1. only fry pans (I don't think it's useful for any other kind of pan); 2. don't use it as a general-puropse pan -- use it only for cooking tasks (eggs, delicate fish, etc) that really need nonstick; 3. only moderate heat; and 4. no metal utensils.