slkinsey

I think Mauviel is just making a much more traditional shape. I'm also not sure one can say that Bourgeat's shapes are "so much better." Let's have a look. . . Here is a Bourgeat saucepan and here is the equivalent saucepan from Mauviel. What are the differences? Well, Bourgeat has a flared lip and the anchor point for the handle seems to be lower. Here is the equivalent pan from Falk Culinair, which splits the difference having a flared lip like Bourgeat but the higher anchor point like Mauviel. I'm not sure I could definitively say that one design is better than the other. Here we have eleven inch saute pans from Falk, Mauviel and Bourgeat. All seem to have a roughly equivalent placement and angle of the handle. Falk and Bourgeat have a rolled lip. Other than that, the main difference is in the geometry of the pan. Falk has sides that are 25% as tall as the diameter of the pan, Mauviel has sides that are 27% as tall as the diameter of the pan, and Bourgeat has sides that are 29% as tall as the diameter of the pan. Which one is best? How much of an advantage is a rolled lip on a saute pan? Is it an advantage? How about the height of the sides? Personally I prefer 25%, which doesn't help the case for Bourgeat. None of the differences observed above seem particularly significant to me. There do seem to be significant differences when we look at an eleven inch frypan from Bourgeat, Falk and Mauviel. The overall pan shapes seems the same, with the exeption of the usual flared lip differences, as do the anchor points of the handles. The handle designs, however, are markedly different. Mauviel's handle has only a slight elevation (perhaps easier to see in this lower quality picture from Bridge Kitchenware). Falk's handle has a double angle -- it goes up at a steep angle and then flattens out. Bourgeat's handle goes up at a fairly steep angle and keeps on going up. Which one is better? Depends on what you want. Personally, I have a Mauviel frypan. It fits under the broiler better than the other two, and that's important to me in picking a frypan. For our purposes, it is also worthy of note that the Falk frypan is $185, the Mauviel frypan is $200 and the Bourgeat pan is $227. I might like the Mauviel handle to the tune of fifteen bucks more than Falk, but I sure don't like the Bourgeat handle to the tune of 42 bucks more than Falk. The only place I can see Bourgeat coming out as "so much better" is in the looks department for those who are inclined towards a mirror finish. This strikes me as a pretty definitive answer, given the source: In the US, I'd guess you're probably correct (although it isn't always obvious when a piece is Mauviel -- my frypan doesn't say "Mauviel" on it anywhere). Bourgeat is the most promoted copper line in the US, and they have been very aggressive in the market. I think if you went into European kitchens, though, you'd see a lot more Mauviel.

What an odd thing for him to be writing about. I mean, it is even reasonable to assume that a food writer will be so well versed in every facet of the international culinary arts as to write a well informed review about a $350/person French restaurant on the Michelin Three Star model (which is presumably his main job) and also a $25/person Indian restaurant?

Actually, it is 2.0mm, but is very substantial nevertheless. And, of course it is stainless lined--we only make stainless lined cookware. I wondered whether it would be technically even possible to make that shape in 2.5 mm.

I don't want to put words in Michael's mouth here, but I am almost 100% certain it will be 2.5 mm thick and stainless lined.

Very interesting pan! I can't say that I personally would have great use for it, due to my style of cooking. But it would certainly be my #1 recommendation as a high end wok for those who don't have a dedicated specialty wok burner. As it so happens, this very issue is something we've been discussing over in the Q&A thread to my eGCI cookware class (go to the last page).

I can see how someone might want this who cooked a lot of super-delicate fish or something like that, and wanted the ultimate in thermal charcteristics. But, man... I'd have to have a lot of money burning a hole in my pocket before I spent 170 bucks on a nonstick frypan which, because it is nonstick, has a finite useful lifespan.

I've had some of these. I have a #10 can of Nina brand pomodori pelati that are labeled "San Marzano." Unfortunately, it's not hard for a company to slap a "San Marzano" on the side of a can. There is a difference between tomatoes that are labeled "San Marzano" and actual designated San Marzano DOP tomatoes. Some companies, like La Valle have both "San Marzano" tomatoes and "San Marzano DOP" tomatoes. Their DOP tomatoes are definitely better. The Costco tomatoes are, unfortunately, not DOP. For those who don't know, DOP stands for Denominazione d'Origine Protetta (Protected Designation of Origin). It signifies that the product is grown in a specific geographical area and, where appropriate, is produced and processed using specific recognized methods.

Yes, lapsang souchong is a really cool tea. The cheaper versions can be a little harsh, but the good stuff can really be something special.

Isn't there someplace in town that makes hot chocolate with a touch of chili pepper?

Mauviel actually makes two copper/stainless lines with a cast iron handle. There is a 2.5 mm copper/stainless line with a cast iron handle, and there is also a 2.0 mm copper/stainless line with a cast iron handle. In addition, there is a 2.0 mm line with a solid stainless steel handle. It's also never been entirely clear to me that Mauviel only sells the Table Service line (which is 1.6 mm thick and not designed for cooking) with a brass handle. Bridge Kitchenware, for example, has the same price for a 11.75 inch frypan with a brass handle and with a cast iron handle. If the brass handle version were from the Table Service line, I would expect it to cost much less. On the other hand, it could be that there is some mistake in the way Bridge is listing these items.

Steven, language parsing and legal standards of interpretation aside, it seems fairly clear that the commonsense reading is that the items mentioned were examples of a larger problem -- if for no other reason than the fact that most everyone but you seems to share that understanding. Could it have been more clear in an absolute sense? Sure. Your point is well made in that respect. But I don't think it is possible to construct a sound criticism of the review founded on the premise that Bruni said he only found 5 problems with the food at ADNY. It's a shaky premise at best. This is not to say, of course, that there aren't plenty of other premises available upon which to criticize the review.

A simple statement that there were more would be a step in the right direction. The straightforward reading of the list is that it is the complete list. It doesn't say "for example." It doesn't say "among others." He says this: The first sentence indicates to me that there are other "lackluster dishes" beyond those he enumerates, and the that some dishes were "letdowns" on a repeat basis. Not sure I agree here. One part of reviewer's question would seem to be, "is this dish acceptably good for a four star restaurant at this price point?" On that basis, it strikes me that a reviewer can say either yes or no. To quantify it precisely as a precentage is, of course, mostly a theoretical strawman. But, at some point, if the reviewer finds himself thinking that one out of every five dishes or one out of every ten dishes did not perform up to his expectations at the $350/**** level, it may begin to make sense to take away one of those stars whereas it may not make sense if it's only one out of every twenty dishes.

Just to make another point: As Steven and others have pointed out in this thread and in the "Can Masa be worth it?" thread, places like ADNY aren't designed for people for whom 400 bucks on dinner represents a "save up for it" splurge. They're designed for people for whom 400 bucks on dinner is no big deal, and who probably wouldn't care if it were 200 bucks... or 600 bucks.

We should give them a call and see if they'll still do the offal tasting menu. If a bunch of people were to go there, I bet they could be convinced to trot it out.

Could be due to a lot of things, not least an insufficient understanding of how heat works on the part of these cooks. But, of course, there are many things for which one may use a wok other than stir frying, and it may be that there are certain Chinese cooking techniques one can only do with a round bottomed wok. If one were to use a thin, round bottomed wok on a weak home burner, I can only see it working well if used for extremely small batches. I'm no expert in Chinese cookery, but my observations in Chinese restaurant kitchens leads me to believe that the "center hotspot and cooler zones radiating out" idea isn't being practiced in restaurants, unless it is on a 1000:1 scale compared to home kitchens. So I suppose it might work just fine if you stir fry one piece of beef together with one piece of broccoli at a time. The problem is that most of us want to stir fry the same amount of food at home over our "bic lighter" burners as the restaurants do over their "nuclear fission" burners.

I think a reasonable interpretation of what Bruni wrote is that he offered those five examples from among a larger number of inconsistencies or letdowns at ADNY. Surely, if there had been fifteen such problems, or thirty, we wouldn't expect him to enumerate them all. So, looking at your premise, one has to ask: what percentage of "failure to live up to reasonable expectations" is acceptable. There is no reason to conclude that Bruni perceived or is claiming a 5% failure rate, but you appear to suggest that a 5% failure rate is acceptable. How about 10%? 15%? 20%? I would argue that the acceptable failure rate goes down as a function of price. While a 15% failure rate might be acceptable at the four star level to the tune of, e.g., 150 bucks at Jean-Georges, it might be unacceptable at the four star level to the tune of 350 bucks at ADNY. (I should point out that I am making no assertions, nor do I have any basis to make any assertions as to the failure rate at ADNY.) This is overplayed by haute types. Yes, alcohol does have a temporary anaesthetic effect when it acts directly on the nerves in the mouth. But this effect also doesn't last very long... certainly not as long as the effect of, e.g., drinking a rich, chewy, tannin-filled glass of red wine.

Unfortunately, that's not a question where I can give you a definitive answer. Do I think the Falk piece is better? Yes. Is it worth an extra hundred bucks to me? Yes. Why? Because, taking the long view, the difference over five years is only twenty dollars a year to "drive a Ferrari instead of a Mustang." Of course All-Clad MC2 is very good stuff too, even though it appears that they may have reduced the thickness of the aluminum layer (see above). From a purely design sandpoint, there are salient differences. The All-Clad pan has a smaller diameter (10.5 inches versus Falk's 11 inches) and taller sides (4 inches versus Falk's 3.6 inches). Both curved sauteuses evasee strike a middle ground between saucepan and saute pan. However, because of the difference in geometry (A-C's sides are 38% as tall as the diameter whereas Falk's are 32%) means that the All-Clad pan trends more towards a saucepan-like feel than the Falk pan. It's hard to say for sure without doing some pretty tricky math, because the geometry of the two pans is not the same. There are some other complicating factors as well: 1. As Tim indicates upthread, it sounds like All-Clad may be using only 3.05 mm of aluminum in MC2 pans now; and 2. The specific heat figures I give in my class are for pure aluminum, which has better thermal characteristics than the aluminum alloys typically used in cookware (this is one of the many reasons that class is due for a "revised second edition"). So my gut feeling, subject to being corrected by someone willing to figure out the math, is that the All-Clad pan probably does not have a higher heat capacity. That is my feeling, yes. Not only that, but because the flat surface of the pan is so small, I don't think the conduction of heat from the flame to the pan would be very efficient sompared to the curved sauteuse evasee design unless a specialty burner is used. This may be a minor misunderstanding of responsiveness. Responsiveness, in its most simple description, describes a pan's ability to respond to changes in the heat setting. This means it heats up rapidly when you turn up the burner, and it cools down rapidly when you turn down the burner. In stir-frying, the main thing you want is constant, high heat. The biggest problem with stir frying on a less than ideal stove is that the burner can't pour enough heat into the wok to keep it at peak heat while you're cooking. As a result, when you toss a bunch of food into the wok, the food sucks the heat out of the pan and the cooking temperature goes way down. Before you know it, you're stewing the food instead of stir frying it. There are four things you can do to address this problem: 1. Stir-fry in very small batches, removing the food items from the wok as they are cooked and before you drop in any new food items. A smaller the amount of food in the wok at one time means that less heat will be sucked out of the pan. This allows the cooking temperature to stay nice and high. 2. Massively preheat the wok. The hotter the wok is before you start cooking, the more heat it is holding. When you drop food items into the pan and they suck out some of that heat, the resultant lower temperature may still be acceptably high for stir frying if the temperature was screaming hot before you started. 3. Use a wok with a very high heat capacity. As I explained in the class, two pans at 700 degrees F are not equal. The pan with the higher heat capacity will be able to cook more ingredients at one time without losing temperature because it has more stored heat to work with. Here is an illustration: The tank on the top represents the heat that is stored in the pan. The bucket on the bottom represents the heat that the food will take out of the pan. As you can see, once the heat pours out of the pan and fills up the bucket, the pan with the larger heat capacity will still have a lot of heat left. This is not so much of an issue in a professional setting. Chinese restaurants use a fairly thin wok together with an incredibly hot wok burner that pours heat into the pan from all sides, so the wok's heat is replenished as fast as the food can absorb it. Home stoves to not have this capability, so one solution is to store it up in the pan. I'm not sure why there aren't any extra-thick cast iron woks for home use, because this would seem ideal with respect to stored heat. 4. Don't use a wok. The curved shape us very inefficient in terms of heat conduction from a stove's burner. This makes it more difficult to heat the pan to temperature, and it also makes it more difficult to replenish the pan's heat when food is added. A broad flat bottom is the most efficient surface on a Western stove. I use a curved sauteuse evasee for stir frying, and I note from an article on Chinese cooking that appeared in the NY Times a while back, that the pictures of the Chinese chef preparing one of his dishes at home showed him using a heavy frypan, not a wok (he uses a wok for the same dish at his restaurant). To directly answer your question: I think a heavy copper sauteuse evasee has a lot to offer for stir frying. It has a high heat capacity. It heats up to a high temperature quickly due to its excellent thermal conductivity. Once you add the food, it comes back to temperature quickly due to its excellent thermal conductivity. It has a broad flat bottom for efficient heat conduction from the stove's burner. It has curved sides which assist with the whole "stirring" part of "stir frying." Does aluminum also offer some of these same benefits? Certainly. Not to the same degree, but they're there. If you are able to find a 7 mm thick aluminum wok, you should buy it. But my suspicion is that there is nothing on the market that competes with a heavy copper sauteuse evasee. So it more or less comes down to a personal choice about how much money you're willing to spend.

With the cold weather upon the City of late, my thoughts naturally turn to warming winter drinks, hot chocolate among them. Who makes the best in the City? NY Magazine lists their six favorites, Otto Enoteca Pizzeria, Vosges Haut-Chocolat, @SQC, Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven, The City Bakery and Lunettes et Chocolat. Of these, I've had @SQC's and City Bakery's examples. Thus far, @SQC's is my favorite. It's made with Valrhona chocolate -- thick, strong and slightly bitter. Especially good in their "fire & ice" which includes a scoop of bitter caramel ice cream.

As mentioned over in "THE BEST: Chinese Dumplings" thread, Florence Fabricant in today's NY Times says Rickshaw Dumpling Bar is about to open.

Nice feature article about Danny Meyer by R.W. Apple, Jr. in today's NY Times that touches on his move uptown with the Modern: In the article, Meyer says he picked Kreuther "because he was established as a major talent but had his best work ahead of him."

From Florence Fabricant in today's NY Times we learn that there may be a new serious player in the NYC dumpling scene: Peking duck dumplings?! I'll certainly be trying them.

According to Florence Fabricant in today's NY Times, rm has closed its doors and Rick Moonen is set to open two seafood restaurants at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

A small quote from the review is customary for posterity: The menu is apparently only in Chinese, and English speaking skills are not good. As Eastern Noodles specializes in hand pulled noodles, the following advice is offered.

For me it's not just limited to the third section, either. The abovementioned "siciliana" is actually in the "second generation" section, while the slightly more restrained "melanzane" with tomato, eggplant, ricotta, mozzarella, parmigiano and basil is in the third "Fornino specialties" section. IMO the Siciliana is the more "out there" of the two. That said, I think it's not so bad that they offer some more restrained and less copiously topped pizza choices for people like us while also offering opposite for those with different priorities. That makes it the kind of place where I could go with someone who had pizza priorities opposite to mine, and by choosing appropriately we would both be able to walk away happy. Next time, I might try asking for a little lighter on the toppings. I'd like to talk more with Ayoub about his philosophies for making pizza.

As pizza is much on my mind these days (more on this anon), bergerka and I ventured out to Fornino last PM for a look-see and had a delightful meal. Compared to the other Brooklyn pizza outposts, it is ridiculously easy to reach from Manhattan. Just one stop into Brooklyn on the L train, and Fornino is litterally ten steps around the corner from the subway entrance. I think it may also represent a happy medium between the minimalism of the Neapolitan traditionalist crustophiles and those with more American minded topping-centric approach. It's also a lot closer to Patsy's, et al. in terms of price. One thing no one seems to have mentioned is the oven. After our meal, I went over to have a peek at the oven and watch Michael Ayoub at work. I saw a strange empty space underneath the level where the pizze are baked, and was just about to ask Ayoub what that was all about when a blue gas jet the size of my torso kicked. It turns out that Fornino's oven is actually heated by gas, regulated by some kind of computerized system. I'll have to ask Ayoub more about this the next time I'm there for more details. According to him, they can fire that baby up to 1100 F on gas alone! The wood is only there for flavoring purposes, kind of like putting wood chips in an electric smoker. He also said that the oven took around three months to "break in" and "season up" (which is typical for a pizza oven), and that it's only just now that it's starting to consistently produce the kind of pizza he's truly happy with. I wonder what temperature he's shooting for. This accorded well with our impressions. He's turning out a great product and we didn't fine any of the defects, such as an overloaded, soggy or insufficiently charred crust, that others have mentioned upthread. Most likely this is due to making some production tweaks as well as the evolution of the oven. The pizza... we had three of the smaller "Neapolitan size" individual pizze (they also come in a larger "American size"): A standard margherita with tomato, mozzarella, basil and evoo; a "rustica" with guanciale, shitake mushrooms, parmigiano, tomato and mozzarella; and a "patate e salsiccia" with fennel sausage, fingerling potatoes, fontina and cherry tomatoes. The high quality, flavorful toppings are applied with a more generous hand than they are at Franny's and Una Pizza Napoletana. While this will surely please toppings fans, it does effect the crust somewhat. While Fornino's crust doesn't quite reach the heights of Franny's and UPN, it is thin, crisp and nicely charred, with a raised cornicione. Only the last slice we ate began to suffer noticably from the influence of the wet toppings, but by that time it had been on the table for quite some time. The margherita was excellent, with a slightly sweet sauce and creamy fresh mozzarella. Against this canvas, it was easy to taste the wheaty crust and appreciate all its variations from fully baked to caramelized to slightly charred. The rustica we ordered based on our waiter's recommendation, not that it's rocket science to know I'd pick something with guanciale anyway. This pizza was also excellent, although in a slightly different way. While the margherita allowed the focus to be primarily on the crust, the volume and intensity of the toppings on the rustica shifted the crust into a supporting role. Shitake mushrooms and guanciale are a match made in heaven, with earthy funkiness and funky earthiness reacting to create a synergistic magnified impression of earth and funk. Is it funktastically earthological? Or earthriffically funkaceous? I leave that to the philosophers to decide. It's good, that's the point. Alongside the rustica, the patate e salsiccia, while very close, didn't quite measure up. Due to the less intense flavors, the crust was more of a presence. The fennel sausage was very good (although not as good as Grimaldi's -- where do they get that sausage?), and the cherry tomatoes roasted in the oven made an interestingly rewarding alternative to the usual tomato base. The potatoes... the potatoes were sliced paper thin, and to be honest I'm not sure the pizza would have tasted any different had they been deleted. I'd like to try this pizza with more potato (perhaps thicker slices) and less cheese. Fornino will definitely be added to my pizzeria rotation. In terms of my own personal preferences, I'd rather have them a little more austere with the toppings and a little less busy as well. Some of their offerings -- like the siciliana with tomato, oregano, fresh tomato, anchovy, onion, eggplant, capers and olives -- just have too much going on for my taste. Even the rustica, which I enjoyed very much, I wouldn't mind trying with about half the volume of toppings. But, on the other hand, this is something that could be very attractive to those who find the Neapolitan crustophile approach too austere. I'd call Fornino something like the "Di Fara of the artisinal pizzerie" and would encourage fans of that approach to give it a try. For those who are counting, we had two beers, three individual pizze and a generous dish of pistachio gelato for $45 before tax and tip. That's right around what I spend when I go to Patsy's, and I left Fornino no less full than I do Patsy's.