slkinsey

I think all the offal at Babbo and Lupa is outstanding. That guy has a way with the fifth quarter. I have enjoyed his brain ravioli, sauteed sweetbread with fennel pollen, fried lamb sweetbreads at Lupa... and the tripa alla parmigiana is an absolute must-have. Is there anyplace in the city to buy one of those Sicilian sandwiches filled with spleen and lung cooked in lard?

Totally. Unless it's someone else's money. Word.

Whoa! Buy this, and buy it now before they run out. Buy two and give one to a friend. I have a Matfer mandoline -- which I prefer to Bron's -- and, while I don't use it all the time, it is absolutely indispensable when I need it.

I have not been to Craft, so I'm a little confused. If, as you say, Craft has a certain "concept," doesn't it extend to everything on its menu? If so, why would there be right things and wrong things to order? I should have been more clear. What I meant is that certain items (their mushrooms, for example) are more likely to make a big impression than others (their carrots, for example). This is not to suggest that their carrots aren't outstanding -- I really have no idea -- but it is suggest that it's a lot easier to impress someone with some kickass morels or porcini than it is some kickass carrots.

Not better, necessarily... but distinctly dufferent. It's a certain concept and a certain focus. Some people are going to really be into it and others won't. Some of the ingredients they have there (the mushrooms, for example) are probably the best in town. It may have been that you just didn't order the right things... or maybe the concept doesn't float your boat.

It would be fun sometime to do a "fifth quarter" tour of NYC food. Figure out all the places with outstanding guts on the menu.

This is definitely worth mentioning in re to Esca. It's really David Pasternack's place as much, if not more than it is Batali's. Certainly Pasternack seems to have more of a free hand at Esca than the head guys do at, say, Lupa and Babbo. This is probably inevitable given the fact that Esca's menu necessarily changes with some frequency depending on what is coming out of the water. In fact, I went to Esca not long after it opened, and when one of my friends remarked to our waiter (who had been pulled over from Babbo to get the place going) that she always loved Mario's places, he made quite a point of the fact that, although Batali was the guiding influence, Pasternack was the guy in the kitchen.

You can usually just walk in and sit down. The most crowded I've ever seen it meant a 30 minute wait.

Did you have them? That's something I could never resist. Sounds awesome.

Very cool! You should figure out a way to have an ice maker hidden inside the flour sifter.

All this talk of Esca is making me think I need to get back there soon -- something I've been meaning to do for some time.

Glad to see that so many people like Esca. It's probably my favorite seafood place too. And good points all around about "perfect preparation of the freshest ingredients." This is, in a nutshell, the Italian seafood aesthetic. In a certain sense, it can feel a little strange to spend big bucks in a seafood place like this when one is used to paying those prices for much more elaborate food with complicated and difficult preparation. But, as Steven points out, you're really paying for one of the most expensive and most perishable ingredients there is: pristene, fresh fish. Among the things I have really enjoyed are: marinated fresh anchovies, sorrel ravioli, bucatini with baby octopus, bigoli with fresh sardines, maccheroni alla chittara with crabmeat and sea urchin, spaghetti with bottarga and bread crumbs, salt-baked branzino per due, rombo in cartoccio, and most any dish with scallops.

Just to be fair, I think most manufacturers (Calphalon included) offer a lifetime warranty for their serious cookware. You're right, and I think AC does, too. I was cautioning that the LC knock offs don't carry a guarantee even though they might be quite adequate for some time. I should have been clearer. I would like to point out, just for the record, that manufacturers like Staub and Chasseur are not knockoffs of Le Creuset.

I was joking, of course. But, more to your point: no matter how low the Times stoops, I don't see anyone else even remotely positioned to step up and take their place.

For me it's Shropshire Blue from Nottinghamshire. Similar to Stilton, but saltier with a more assertive edge. It's like super-Stilton!

If only there were a place where a wide variety of people who know about and appreciate food on all levels could write about their impressions and thoughts concerning various restaurants...

When something is butterflied, a piece of meat is cut in half almost all the way through and then spread out flat. It refers to taking a piece of meat, cutting into the meat and thereby spreading out that piece of meat over a larger area. Spatchcocking specifically refers to cutting through the backbone (or breastbone) of poultry and spreading the whole bird out flat. Since the meat itself is not opened up and spread out when a bird is spatchcocked, is is not butterflied.

We are so ahead of the curve! Scrolll down to the last question.

Do you suppose that there may be some kind of quasi-institutional pressure for US food writers to dislike Ducasse's NYC places? Like they might be seen as having the wrong kind of taste if they enjoyed it? After the ADNY review debacle, I can imagine most critics going in to Mix already knowing they wouldn't like it and were going to give it a bad review. And, indeed, they may feel consciously or subconsciously that their work may be viewed negatively if they go against the grain. The same may be true with a certain group of diners as well. Certainly this happens in my world, where many people go to an opera performance already knowing whether or not they will like a performance by Rene Fleming (it is both cool and uncool to be a fan of La Fleming, depending on one's peer group).

You will find that the chef at Moto is very much a fan of cooking sous-vide. Sounds like an interesting place. I'd love to check it out.

Seasoned raw cast iron is not, IMO, good for braising and low/slow cooking unless you like the taste of iron. Careful seasoning can mitigate the reactivity problem somewhat, but cannot eliminate it entirely. If you cook something for several hours -- especially something containing wine, tomato or other acids -- that metal taste will get in there.

Does enameled cast iron go in the dishwasher?

The hypothesis sounds good on the face of it, but I didn't think there were more than a handful of coal-fired ovens operating in NYC. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Can you be more specific about which places with coal-fired ovens are producing mediocre pizza? Several of the Patsy's have coal-fired ovens, AFAIK. And all are mediocre other than the one in East Harlem.

Jamie, my working hypothesis is that the quality of the pizza depends on three things, in this order: 1. the quality of the ingredients, 2. the expertise of the pizzaiolo and 3. the equipment used. Great pizza starts with great ingredients. No one can make great pizza with crappy cheese and an insipid sauce. Then, as Di Fara demonstrates, a great pizzaiolo can take the pizza to the next level on just about any equipment. Finally, I do agree that there are certain effects that are only possible with a coal- or wood-fired pizza oven. But the third consideration only comes into play if the other two are already met. I don't believe a coal-fired oven can overcome substandard ingredients, and I don't believe a coal-fired oven can compensate for an unskilled pizzaiolo or an operation which has priorities other than the quality of the pizza (e.g., volume -- one of the things that makes Di Fara so good is that Dom's slow pace keeps his crappy oven at the highest temperature it can manage). The proof of this hypothesis is, I think, found in the abundance of extremely mediocre pizza coming out of coal-fired ovens in the City. I'll take a skilled pizzaiolo with a gas-fired stainless oven over some schmo with a coal-fired masonry oven any day of the week.

Before Saturday, I would have said the same thing. But, if nothing else, the pizza at Di Fara puts the lie to this argument. Dom's pizza is miles better than what many coal-fired ovens are producing -- quite a bit of which is not all that good (e.g., non-Harlem Patsy's).