slkinsey
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There's now a coated, non-stick version available.
Okay, now that just doesn't make any sense. Isn't the whole point of their "infused anodized aluminum" deal supposed to be that it's already nonstick?
Calphalon says that "Calphalon One Infused Anodized Nonstick is engineered with four interlocking nonstick layers for superior durability." Sounds an awful lot like the old Calphalon Commercial Nonstick for a whole lot more money to me. Or does it have one more layer of (presumably) PTFE than Calphalon Commercial Nonstick? Here is the product page for Calphalon One Infused Anodized Nonstick.
I still wish they'd do something about the warping. -
Okay, so I've made my own lime syrup. Really easy. Nothing to it. Very tasty. I'm probably never going back to Rose's. When mixed with fresh lime juice, it's actually surprising how much it tastes like a much better version of Rose's -- just without that funky "extra" flavor. Made some (gin, of course) gimlets last might to try it out. Worked beautifully. Now I have to think of other uses. Any ideas?
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Caffè macchiato : It. "Stained coffee" (macchiare : "to stain"). Single serving of espresso with a few drops of steamed milk to "stain" the coffee. In America, usually includes substantially more milk.
Latte macchiato : It. "Stained milk" (macchiare : "to stain"). Steamed milk with a few drops of espresso to "stain" the milk. In America, usually includes substantially more coffee.
Macchiato : Am. from It. Largely known/understood as a Starbucks menu item, as in "caramel macchiato." Contrary to the Starbucks menu, macchiato does not mean "marked." Unclear as to how Starbucks differentiates between a "latte" and a "macchiato."
Latte : Am. from It. (literally translated as "milk") American version of latte macchiato, containing substantially more coffee than its Italian counterpart, or perhaps derrived from caffè latte. Largely known/understood as a Starbucks menu item.
Caffè latte/caffè-latte It. "coffee milk." a. In Italy, often made in the home with strong coffee (moka) and warmed milk in an approximately 1:2 or 1:3 ratio of coffee to milk. b. In America, another name for the American-defined "latte."
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My pizza method (from an old Usenet post):
7. A low-gluten flour will give an authentic crust that is more
tender and pliable. Use around 25% cake or pastry flour and
75% all purpose flour to mimic Italian "OO" flour. If you can
get your hands on some genuine "OO" -- all the better.
I too have recently settled on a mixture of high gluten and pastry flours, with optional semolina and a longish ferment. Wondering, though, about 00 flour, which I never use. Are the 00 flours available in the US labelled as to protein content or suitability for bread making? I wonder because Jeffrey Steingartens's bit on Italian bread in It Must Have Been Something I Ate made me realize that I shared in what may be a widespread confusion: that 00 is both soft and low protein. It really just refers to how finely the flour is milled and not the protein content, which can vary widely within each grade.
Semolina and high gluten flour will definitely not give you an Italianate crust. This is not to say that it will be bad, but it won't be like they are in Italy.
00 flour doesn't necessarily refer to the protein content so much as it does the level of refinement (more refined than American unbleached AP). One can buy "tipo 00 per pizza" in Italy, and I have used it here. The resultant dough strikes me as somewhat weaker than an American AP dough, and definitely much weaker than a high gluten or semolina (aka strong duram flour) dough. In my experience, a pliable dough made with "00 for pizza" is too weak to be twirled or stretched in the air. Almost all the stretching of the dough happens on the bench. This accords with what I have observed in Italian pizzerie. As a result, I came up with the idea of using around 25% (highly refined and low in gluten) cake or pastry flour to mimic the "00 for pizza" dough and have been happy with the results.
With high gluten and semolina, you have to use fat to cut the dough and make it tender. With "00 for pizza" or the mixture I have described above, you get a tender crust without using fat in the dough. 100% AP with no fat is probably a good compromise for those who want a chewier dough.
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A few nights ago I got together with bergerka, JosephB and a few other friends to make several Thai currys from scratch using a mortar and pestle, etc. There was much pounding of fresh galangal and the like, and all in all it was quite a labor-intensive undertaking. The reward was great, however, as the flavors couldn't have been fresher of more vibrant.
This got us to wondering about how restaurants do it, though. Our feeling was that the wonderful fresh flavors (especially in the green curry) probably wouldn't last all that long, and certainly wouldn't be as good a day later. And yet, it seems impossible that restaurants are pounding (or even food processor-ing) curry pastes to order. Do they perhaps make up gigantic batches of every curry paste they have and use it all up on a daily basis?
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If it's true that they're serving food that's like food served in really high-end Thai restaurants in Thailand, not stuff that's watered down for Americans, that would be really interesting. I wonder about ewindels' comments about the pepperiness level, however.
Hmmm... that could have been a function of the dishes they ordered (chocolate spare ribs, fish cakes, fried jasmine rice cakes, sea bass, short rib green curry, pineapple fried rice). Needless to say, not every Thai dish is mouth-burningly hot, and the only one of those listed that I would expect to be particularly spicy-hot would be the green curry. Interestingly, ewindels tells us that the green curry "had just the right amount of heat." It is possible his concluding remark that he "would have preferred a little more heat" is more reflective of the dishes they chose than the restaurant's aproach to spice overall. Or, perhaps it's the case that this high-end hotel restaurant style of Thai cooking isn't as firey as the more peasant/street-food inspired dishes with which most of us are more familiar. That said, I am sure they do make some necessary concessions to Western tolerances for spicy heat, just as restaurants in Thailand no doubt make similar adjustments when serving Westerners.
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Sounds like a house cocktail to me. Never heard of it.
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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."
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Franny's made New York Metro's list of the best cheap eats:
To the fussy diners who make a production over Franny's unsliced pizza pies, we say: Get over it. Use a fork and knife if you must. Better yet, tear a piece off with your hands, you big sissies. Just don't let manners stand between you and what might be New York's best pizza since the coal-oven era. -
Cool. Thanks for the review.
Other information on Kittichai:
Kittichai web site (not updated at this time)
Blurb from "The Corner Table" on Epicurious
When Ian put the first dish—Thai eggplant with rock shrimp in fish sauce—in front of me, the aroma took me right back to Bangkok. This is real Thai food, with deep earthy flavors and just enough chili heat to make your lips tingle.In the 130 seat space designed by The Rockwell Group, expect a complete glimpse into Chalermkittichai's homeland through dishes such as Pandanus Red Snapper, Florida Pompano with curry custard, white cabbage and horapa sweet basil, Wok- seared Manila Clams and Roasted Bangkok duck.Page on New York Metro and New York Metro blurb on opening (scroll down)
Chef Ian Chalermkittichai was recruited from the Four Seasons Bangkok to introduce New Yorkers to authentic, refined Thai cooking—a combination, he brashly asserts, that doesn’t exist here. Among the menu items he’ll use to prove his point: pomelo salad with grilled prawns and coconut, penang curry with braised short ribs and kaffir lime leaves, and crispy catfish salad with scallops.Chef Ian Chalermkittichai left stardom in Bangkok to open the restaurant named in his honor. His menu favorites include monkfish in pandan (similar to vanilla) leaves, banana-blossom salad, baked Chilean sea bass, crispy wholefish, and short ribs in green curry.Everything is served family style. So bring the crew.
I loved the crispy rock shrimp—fat, golden shrimp wrapped in greaseless batter, still juicy inside, served on top of thick circles of Thai eggplant in a vibrant pool of chile-lime juice ($11). The Thai-marinated beef salad with Chinese long beans ($12) was also delicious—bright and perky, with a gentle but insistent heat. The salad of banana blossoms with artichokes in a roasted chile pepper vinaigrette ($11) was also wonderful, though, truth be told, it resembled a can of cat food, poured out onto stunning flatware. -
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.
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On the Starwich punch card I have here, the breakdown is:
Breads: 7
Meats: 16
Seafood: 7
Cheeses: 14
Vegetables: 27
Dressings/Sauces: 25
Fruits: 11
Nuts/Other: 8
That's a total of 115.
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.
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We're not gonna celebrate a joyous occasion before tearing up the dance floor by ordering Manhattans.
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.
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Except for the owner, does anyone really care how many stars a specific restaurant gets? What does it matter? It's one person's opinion. Go, enjoy the food. Be happy!
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.
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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!
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I have not seen the fruit here in New York. It appears that over the years, West Coast kids always got the good stuff first---meyer lemons, blood oranges, kalamansi, etc....no fair!
Check with the guys at Fairway. They usually have all these things in season.
Now, could you please get to work on that other drink (hee hee)? I flirted with the idea of naming it something that referenced Calabria. . .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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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slkinsey, you're pretty much my hero.
But..
I gotta say, I *always* use Rose's lime in a gimlet.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.
The question was whether or not Rose's Lime was the best brand or if there were others out there.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.
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This double digit stuff is for people with more money than sense.
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.
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This double digit stuff is for people with more money than sense.
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.
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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.
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Our martinis here at Rouge have a four oz. pour of Gin/Vodka. That's 1/6 of a bottle! Belvedere costs 27.99 in PA + 7% tax per bottle. That comes to a unit price of 28.89 per bottle. Call it $29 even and divide by 25.4 ounces in a 750 ml bottle. That's $1.15 per oz. Multiply times 4 and the drink costs us $4.60 to serve. If liquor cost of goods were even at 25% then we'd have to price that cocktail at $18.40 to keep our costs in line. We currently charge $12. That's a freakin bargain.
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.
Wild Noodles
in New Jersey: Dining
Posted
Do the noodles taste "gamey" compared to regular domesticated noodles?