slkinsey

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"

So... what is the coolest, funkyest, potentially illegal-est cheese I can get at Fairway? Or perhaps to put it another way, if we came to Fairway and said, "show me a cheese that 's really going to blow me away" what would it be? And why?

I found Mario Batali's post here interesting with respect to using a cork to cook 'puss: The emphasis is mine. Now, obviously a guy like Mario isn't going to use a cork in his restaurant unless he feels like it is doing some good. Yet, for the life of me, I can't imagine how it could effect the texture of the octopus without water.

That must have been really strongly tea-flavored, no? Or was it fairly heavily diluted? I was amazed at how strongly the Earl Grey tea infused the Tanqueray in only 2 hours. Then again, the Earl Grey MarTEAni is not particularly diluted. You're right that there are a lot of possibilities. I'm trying to think of a way to use a lapsang souchong tea infusion in a drink. Lapsang souchong is a souchong tea which has been withered over pine or cedar fires, pan-fried, rolled and oxidised before being fully dried in bamboo baskets over burning pine. It's quite smokey in flavor. Edited to fix: 2 hour infusion, not 20 (d'oh!).

what's that? (sorry, stupid question) The tamale is the liver of the lobster. I used to eat this, and enjoyed it. Unfortunately, lobsters are like little concentration machines for heavy metals, PCBs, etc. -- and just about all of that is in the tomalley. So, sadly, I don't eat it any longer. Oh, just for general informational puposes: Tamale = filled masa dough steamed in a corn husk Tomalley = lobster liver

I'll probably be there on Friday. For us, it worked great. Very easy to do, although I might have infused the Earl Grey just a little longer than the specified 2 hours to get the same taste I had at Bemelman's. This, I'm sure, is just a factor of the brand of Earl Grey tea (I used a loose tea I got at Fairway). Still, it's a simple drink to make and it really works -- especially for summer.

Poeler means to sear in a pan. A sauté pan in French is called a poele. Actually, un poêle means "a stove" (aka "oven"). Un poêlon means "a casserole." Une poêle à frire means "frying pan." Une poêle à sauter means "a sauté pan." Etc. My understanging of poêler poêlé and poêlage is that they translate roughly as "to stove (something)," "stoved" and "stoveing" (or "to pan (something), "panned" and "panning"). I have commonly understood poêler and poêlage to mean cooking something very slowly in fat and a moderate amount of liquid in a tightly covered casserole in a stove. On the other hand poêlé seems to mean "pan-fried" in some uses. I suppose it depends on whether one is making a verb of stove or pan. I've never heard poêle used to mean "sauté pan" specifically, as opposed to just being a general-purpose word for "pan." AFAIK, a sauté pan is most commonly called a sauteuse.

Unfortunately, you've run out of ways to do that in this topic area. 1. Caffè espresso dates from the early 20th century. 2. By the early 20th century, espresso did not mean "pressed out." 3. By the early 20th century, espresso did mean "expressly for you" and it did have connotations of speed 1 + 2 + 3 = caffè espresso means "coffee made expressly for someone" and has connotations of being made quickly 1 + 2 + 3 != caffè espresso means pressed out coffee There's really nothing more to say about it.

I know. I broke our solemn vow. Our next time to Franny's is on me.

Okay, guys. I am going to step in here and moderate for the last time. If you want to argue about things which do not have fumdamentally to do with the restaurant Pure Food & Wine, you have two choices: 1) you can start a new thread, or 2) I can delete your post. I'm sure we'd all be much happier with the first choice. For the record, it is quite common and it has been quite common for quite a long time in the culinary word to use naming conventions for dishes which evoke the original but do not reproduce the original. This is how we get things called "sea urchin cappuccino" and "salmon chops" and "zucchini spaghetti" and "monkfish tournedo" and "duck bacon" and "tuna pastrami" and, yes, eggless soufflé and beet tartare. This is not news, it is not unique to the raw food movement, and it is not something we should be taking about in this thread. We have here a very interesting chef who "cooks" at Raw Food & Wine, who is part of the raw food movement, and who has been kindly disposed towards sharing some insight into this movement with us. Let us avail themselves of this resource rather than bickering about the definition of "soufflé" and "tartare."

Dude. That's what I'm telling you! Just make sure you let me know the next time you're coming to town.

Interesting that you can't find it there. I've always thought it was very commonly found. Bummer. Anyway, no reason to limit yourself to just Fernet Branca and Brancamenta. The Fratelli Branca Distillerie Milan makes some other stuff too... Stravecchio Branca sounds extremely interesting. There's also the whole Carpano family, also made by the Fratelli Branca: Punt e Mes, Classico, Bianco, and Antica Formula. They even make a Chianti Classico Villa Branca. A very interesting "Stinger" could be made with Stravecchio Branca and Brancamenta.

I like eggplant. I like fried eggplant. This picture alone makes me pretty sure I want to try this place at some point. Soon. You'd better go soon. Because there's no guarantee it's going to be on the menu in a few weeks.