slkinsey

Sounds like a house cocktail to me. Never heard of it.

Apparently the point is that Kittichai serves super high-end Thai food, such as would be served in the top restaurants over there, rather than "everyday people" Thai food like we mostly get here. According to all their PR material, this style "doesn't exist here."

Franny's made New York Metro's list of the best cheap eats:

Cool. Thanks for the review. Other information on Kittichai: Kittichai web site (not updated at this time) Blurb from "The Corner Table" on Epicurious Mention on the Hip Guide Page on New York Metro and New York Metro blurb on opening (scroll down) Blurb on Daily Candy Review by Andrea Strong

Very nice, Darren. Next time, don't be afraid to go thinner and darker with the crust. I think you probably could haver kept the burners under the pizza on high the whole time. Great first results.

In terms of the actual sandwiches, I don't think that's an outlandish number of ingredients. Let me compare it just off the top of my head to the deli where I get my sandwiches during the work week: Breads: white, wheat, 7 grain, rye, roll, hero, wrap, "panini," bagel (9 breads -- 11 if you cound rolls and heros with seeds and without). Meats: way more than 16 -- I've had at least 4 different kinds of turkey, 3 different kinds of ham, prosciutto, corned beef, pastrami, brisket, 4 different kinds of salami, liverwurst, chicken cutlets, meatballs, bacon, usually 4 different kinds of chicken salad (22, but I think there are at least another 10 meat offerings, so let's call it 30). Most decent-sized delis will have at least 20 different meat offerings just using the Boars' Head offerings. Seafood: Usually 4 different kinds of tuna salad, shrimp salad, "crab" salad, salmon salad, lox (8 seafood) Cheeses: American, Swiss, Alpine Lace, provolone, mozzarella, muenster, cheddar, etc. They have a lot of cheeses, but I don't usually order cheese so I am less familiar. Let's call it 15, conservatively. Well over 20 if the different kinds of cream cheese were included. (15 cheeses) Vegetables: lettuce, white and red onion, tomato, avocado, alfalpha sprouts, cucumber, pickle, roasted red pepper, maybe a few others (10 vegetables) Dressings: around 4 different kinds of mustard, mayonnaise, vinaigrette, catsup, "Russian" dressing, maybe a few others (10 dressings) Fruits/nuts/other: uh... no. That's 82 ingredients to choose from, and if my memory were better I'm quite certain I could get this list up to 100. So we're talking the same ballpark in terms of numbers of ingredients. What makes Starwich different is that their meats aren't "turkey, honey roasted turkey, peppered turkey, etc." It's "Pomegranate Chicken, Citrus Duck, Filet Mignon, Genoa Salami, Virginia Ham, Kobe Beef, Pork Loin, etc." Likewise, their toppings include things like "Fig Reduction, Garlic Horseradish Aioli, Garlic Mayo, Hoisin-Chinese Mustard, Orange-Cherry Vinaigrette, Port Wine Reduction, Pumpkin Seed Oil, Raisin-Cranberry Puree, etc." It's the same exact model as a decent midtown deli in terms of combinations and numbers of ingredients (most delis also have several preconfigured sandwiches for those who don't want to build their own). The difference is that they've gone way upscale in terms of the ingredients and the technology. The other difference, of course, is that a copiously stuffed hero at a regular midtown deli will run you around 5 bucks, and Starwich is charging 9. So, Starwich isn't likely to appeal to the guys at the loading docks, but a significant percentage of the people I see in my local deli around 1:00 on weekdays are technology-savvy businesspeople who will appreciate the ability to have a citrus duck sandwich with fig redution, endive, pears and caramelized onions on a ciabatta -- and won't mind spending 9 bucks for it.

Really? I would. What's so celebratory about pounding down an ounce and a half of booze? That just seems indicative of a philosophy that says, "celebration = getting drunk." For me, that's something I got bored with around Sophomore year of college. This is not to say, of course, that intoxication isn't sometimes the result of my celebration -- just that it's never the point or the goal of my celebration. I must admit, however, that most "shooters" are entirely lost on me. The idea generally seems to be: "get that booze into my bloodstream as quickly and painlessly as possible." I can't think of any liquor I'd want to drink that had to be consumed by gulping it down all in one go.

The reason owners care, is that there are diners who care. Which is the perfect reason to get rid of the damn star system - as I have been advocating for the past 20 years or so. It's unreliable, it's totally subjective and it's compiled by different reviewers for the same publication. THE TIME HAS COME - Your fate should no longer be controlled by the stars. We've debated the star system to death in recent weeks, and I'll now ask that we no longer have discussion as to the utility or legitimacy of the NY Times star system in restaurant discussion threads. The star system is here to stay, and any discussion involving the star system in restaurant threads should address only whether the restaurant received the correct star rating -- not what one may think about the star system in general. There is already a thread in FM&N where we can discuss the star system as a system as much as we like.

As an aside... my parents live in Houston now, and some of my father's colleagues at Rice U are Italians. They decided they wanted to make Nocino, but walnut trees don't grow in Houston. Pecans are, however. So they decided to make pecan Nocino instead. It turned out great. Make sure you gather the green nuts on San Giovanni day, though!

Check with the guys at Fairway. They usually have all these things in season. With the grenadine, is the color sort of rosy? How about a "Calabrian Sunset?" Or, perhaps, "Tramonto Calabrese?" Especially if you layered in the grenadine.

This sounds really cook, Audrey. I'm going to make some this weekend. So, what would you say should be the ratio of lime zest to 1:1 simple syrup? Also, what is the right length of the infusion? I know I'm already meddling with something I haven't even made yet, but I can't help wondering if the infusion wouldn't be better if the zest were first infused into some minimal amount of grain alcohol for a while and then the whole works added to the simple syrup for a subsequent infusion. The alcohol wouldn't be enough to make the simple syrup substantially alcoholic, and it does strike me that many oily flavor compounds infuse most strongly and thoroughly into alcohol.

Oh, I don't disagree that the cheese may be most often used under the sauce. I just don't think there would be nearly as much of it, and to my mind that is a substantial difference as it affects everything else. If I were going to choose something in NYC I thought was most representative of a sfincione, it would be the "pizza" made by Sullivan Street Bakery, like these (this one in particular).

Posted belatedly, because I thought I had posted my thoughts earlier. Oh well... better late than never, right? So... L&B Spumoni Gardens Just the exterior of this place is enough to tell that it's going to be different from all the other places we've visited thus far. Indeed, L&B isn't directly comparable to anything we've had up to this point, except perhaps Di Fara's square pizza (more on this later). L&B specializes in a very specific, perhaps unique kind of pizza. It has a thick, dense, almost doughy crust and is topped with copious amounts of wet toppings that are not "gourmet" by anyone's definition. In addition, the cheese is entirely covered with a generous layer of sauce. L&B is also primarily a slice shop, although they do such huge business that the slices do aren't reheated but rather are cut from pies fresh from the oven. The ovens are nothing special -- simply a row of relatively new gas fired stainless steel ovens. In many ways, it is the exact opposite of the style of pizza we have explored up to this point. But, in many ways it also works. We had two "full trays," as they are called at L&B -- one sausage and one mushroom. This is the sausage pie. As Jason previously mentioned, we were sitting outside under a translucent red "tent" -- so this is fairly heavily color corrected. The sausage was clearly the better of the two, and this is the one we were actually able to finish. Rather than putting on raw pieces of sausage to cook in the heat of the oven, like they do at Grimaldi's, or putting on thick rounds of sausage, like they do at Totonno and many other places, L&B fully cooks/cools their sausage and slices it the long way into thin strips on a commercial slicer. Rather than cooking in the oven, the sausage strips are placed on the pizza after it is baked and cut, with a little portion of sausage places in the center of each square. How did it taste? The sausage was nicely spicy and gave a lot of flavor to what was otherwise a fairly pedestrian pizza. As I said before, using the best ingredients is not part of the L&B aesthetic. Still, though, it wasn't bad. Here's a closeup side view of a slice. As one may note, many of the descriptors we have used thus far do not apply to this slice. There is no lightness, no "oven spring," no little pockets of air, no elusive combination of crispness and pliability. This is one monolithic chunk of pizza. This view also affords a fairly accurate idea of just how much stuff was heaped onto the top of the crust -- that's around a quarter-inch of sauce there. Thankfully, it's not a gooey overabundance of cheese, but that's got to be a quarter inch thick layer of sauce. Indeed, the pizza at L&B is more about the sauce than it is anything else. As you can see, so much wet topping has had its effect on the crust. Right around 2/3 of the crust is soaked down with moisture from the crust. Another, less charitable way of putting it might be "not fully cooked." Others have likened the L&B style to sfincione, the thick "pizza" from Sicily (they do not consider it a form of pizza). While I agree that the American "Sicilian pizza" concept evolved from sfincione, I think the relationship is a fairly tenuous one at this point and mostly indicates a thick, square pizza. A sfincione is more like what we might consider a focaccia with a bit more topping. This is to say that the toppings are often pressed into the dough, they are more often topped with things like anchovies and onions rather than tomato sauce and mozzarella, and they don't tend to be soupy. Here is a picture of the crust. No "char," of course, but nicely crisp and a bit of a surprise. It's good that the bottom is so well-cooked, because the crispness provides a needed contrast to the otherwise uniformly soft texture of the pizza. A good contrast to L&B's pizza is the "square pie" at Di Fara: Di Fara's square pie shares the thicker crust and copious toppings with L&B, but there all similarities end. The ingredients at Di Fara are far and away better in quality, there is more cheese, the cheese is on top, and the toppings are all cooked together in the oven. Significantly, Di Fara's pizza is much more thoroughly cooked. There is nothing doughy or soft about Di Fara's square pizza. Here is a picture of the mushroom pizza. As you can see, my meager post-production skills were much less successful in correcting the overall red cast imparted by the light filtering through the tent (edit: Phaelon56 was able to fix it as much as it can be fixed -- definitely better than mine). What's important to see here is that the mushrooms, clearly from a can, are placed in neat little piles in the center of each piece after the pizza is removed from the oven and sliced. We all laughed about that. All in all, we had a good time and I'm glad I went there. In the end, one had to throw away old conceptions about what makes good pizza and experience it on its own terms. Is it worthy of its quasi-legendary status as one of NYC's go-to pizzerie? Probably not, in my opinion. We might have been there on a bad day, but I just don't feel that the quality is there. It's a unique style and worthwhile considering on that basis alone, but I was still left with the feeling that they could be executing their style at a much higher level.

Oh, I do too. But I also like gimlet-like drinks made with fresh lime juice (such as the abovementioned drink with a touch of Ricard). Since I have a friend who doesn't really like any cocktail other than vodka gimlets (although she's a spectacularly good sport with respect to trying new cocktails), I always make a point of having plenty of Rose's around. Yea, I'd say. They've pretty much cornered the market on the stuff for almost 140 years, and were likely the product used in the original gimlet if the British nautical origin is believed (and, given that Rose's was originally developed for nautical use, I have a good feeling about that story), so I'd say they're the go-to guys.

I would assert that the high price is precisely what makes super-premium vodkas sell. People think, "it costs more so it has to be better." The same is true for many things. Isn't the old saw in the antiques business, "if it isn't selling, raise the price"? Ironically, it works. I'm pretty sure that your observation and mine complement, rather than contradict, each other. The power of marketing and the drive for status are a potent combination. Oh, absolutely. Although it works equally well on people who don't have a lot of disposable money.

I would assert that the high price is precisely what makes super-premium vodkas sell. People think, "it costs more so it has to be better." The same is true for many things. Isn't the old saw in the antiques business, "if it isn't selling, raise the price"? Ironically, it works.

I'm very happy to see Landmarc's wine program getting the recognition it deserves. Also happy to see that we were ahead of the curve in this respect. I was interested to read in the article that Marc and Pamela own the building. That certainly has to make some things a lot easier in terms of reasonable pricing.

A 12 dollar Belvedere martini of that size would indeed be a bargain. But your example perfectly illustrates the example I was making earlier with respect to the size of the cocktails. Your four ounce martini, given today's ultra-dry "martini" formulation, contains four ounces of gin or vodka. Back in the day, a standard martini pour would be more like 2 ounces of gin or vodka. Let's consider an 8:1 martini on this formula: $1.15 : 1 oz Belvedere $1.15 : 1 oz Belvedere $0.07 : 1/4 oz Noilly Prat $2.37 At 25% liquor cost = $9.50 At your liquor cost (~38%) = $6.30 This, of course, is at today's liquor prices as well (and plenty of liquors are priced high precisely because that is what makes them sell). Roll the clock back to 1990, and we're talking about a 4 - 5 dollar drink.

Interesting article. I wonder how much the rise in price also has to do with the fact that cocktails are, on average, quite a bit larger than they used to be. I found this passage interesting as well:

Interesting. I'm a little surprised at Sapphire being described as a "more assertive spirit for cocktails" -- especially alongside Junìpero, which really is quite assertive. I have it on good authority that Sapphire was created specifically to be the "vodka drinker's gin" with a less assertive flavor profile than most gins around at the time. Trillium, the comparative gin tasting sounds very interesting. I'd be especially interested to do a tasting first at room temperature and then later at a cold temperature to see what the difference would be.

One main difference, to my taste, between Rose's and anything with fresh lime juice is that the fresh citruc juice is much more acidic. Like most people here, I use fresh in any cocktail other than a gin gimlet. I'm inclined to use fresh lime juice in gimlet-like cocktails, but they don't strike me as gimlets then so much as gimlet-inspired drinks. So, I guess that means that I usually drink gimlet knockoffs (I like gin, simple syrup, fresh lime juice and a whisper of Ricard).

I think it would be a mistake to assume that the various non-alcoholic agents in alcoholic beverages could not possibly affect the body and/or nervous system so as to produce a modulated intoxication experience. That said, I think it would be a much, much larger mistake to underestimate the power of psychological suggestion in creating such effects (I think many of us are familiar with the phenomenon whereby someone gets "high" smoking something they think is marijuana). If one were able to create an alcoholic beverage of equivalent proof that looked/smelled/tasted exactly like tequila, champagne, rum, whatever, but which was made entirely of substances (other than alcohol of course) that are known to have no psychoactive properties, I think it is highly likely that people who were inclined to experience special intoxication effects associated with those beverages would, in fact, experience the same effects with the facsimile. This is not to suggest ay that such experiences are not legitimate. An experienced pheomenon is an experienced phenomenon, and if tequilla imparts a characteristic intoxication for that person then so be it. One should not automatically assume that it is due to a chemical effect, is all. For example, inexpensive tequila is often made with only around 51% agave. Would one experience the same special intoxication effect drinking 51% agave tequila as when drinking 100% agave tequilla? Or would the 100% agave tequila be twice as potent with respect to the special effect?

Thanks for the write up. Yours is the first description that really puts me in mind of a "Vongerichten-ified Luger." Oh... one thing: whatever you do, don't drink a coke while you're eating the crackling cherry tart.

Re the history of the gimlet: If we suppose it is true that the Gimlet came from the Royal Navy, then it is almost certainly the case that it was made with lime cordial rather than fresh limes. From the Mott's web site, we have: I'm not sure when the gimlet was formulated -- and, indeed, it is likely impossible to know -- but given its long association with Rose's it strikes me as highly probable that it was among the original ingredients. Despite his preference for Rose's, by the way, the recipe on Drinkboy's own web site calls for Rose's.

Er... yes, it was a typo. Fixed above. 20 hours... mmmm, "Cup O' Tannin"