Charles Smith

Cabrales- Not sure I saw this in time, but the tuna tartare app was excellent as was the eel salad- barbecued eel, with vinegar jelly. Hope that's helpful. Cheers, Charles

I'd try to do Indian and Middle Eastern as well as the top stuff(GR, etc.)- Indian- I've had great meals at Tamarind, Star of India and Bombay Brasserie (plenty of others) Middle Eastern- I loved Noura (thanks to Steve P)- no clue if that's authentic middle eastern but it wa fun and the food was great- I've also had a terrific Lebanese lunch in Notting Hill- also a Steve P recco- The name escapes me right now, but I'll come up with it- Cheers, Charles

Flowers is a relatively new Sonoma Coast producer of burgundy varietals- Quality has ranged from excellent to mediocre, recent vintages have been a bit oaky, at least to my taste.

Steve- Italian opera, and when I say this I mean Verdi, is full of themes that could not be further from frivolity. His operas are full of political themes that make significant comment on the times in Europe from 1850-1900 or so. Puccini and Rossini may be frivolous, but not Italian opera on the whole. Robert- well said.

Outside of a few examples, it is mediocre, and partially for the reasons Steve states above- I don't think it's a cuisine that you can replicate well without the freshest, most local (sic) ingredients. Lupa's a very authentic Roman tratorria and succeeds partly b/c they have their won salumeria downstairs. Other "Italian" restaurants are pan-Italian, or try to use technique/too many ingredients- I was taken to the "best" Italian place in Minneapolis and served an heirloom tomato salad with EVOO- very Italian, except they also added basil and arugula, and croutons, and mozzerella, and parmesan, and vinegar, and bits of proscuitto- it wasn't bad, but it wasn;t Italian either.

didn't say you said anyting negative- just that you ignored them. As for the rest of the discussion, Italians don't deify chefs as France, the US, etc. does- makes it tough for a cuisine to be driven by a chef/personality, which is invariably how it happens in the rest of the world of "great" cuisines. You think of Ducasse or Verge taking a food to a different level and that has to start in the country itself- and it doesn't happen in Italy. As an example, the most famous chef in Italy today is probably Heinz Beck at the Hilton in Rome- a German. Cheers, Charles

my favorite Italian dish? whateve's in season in the town I'm in.

OK, two significant disagreements here- one, it ignores the significant piece of Japanese cuisine geared towards noodles- Soba, Udon, ramen, etc. and twwo, the thought that real connoisseurs of Japanese food only eat sashimi is absurd. I'll weigh in on the other stuff in another posts. Cheers, Charles

Matthew- I hope you get the opportunity to get to Rome again and have a better eating experience- I think it's the best city for inexpensive dining in Europe- a perfect day for me eating in Rome revolves around the markets and wine bars- I've also had an amazingly great time at horrible restaurants in Rome- worth another shot IMHO. Cheers Charles

Suvir- Thank you. wonderful posts. I experienced Deepavali in Singapore and found it to be an especially joyous celebration.

Cabrales- What is this preparation? I assume Fleurie the wine- is this it?

Rich- right or wrong, no one agreed (certainly not me).

i have a vision of 20 or so diners at ADNY over a scrambled egg screaming at each other- very inspiring.

The Bulletin board (clickme) is free. For the rest of the site, it's $99.

I would add to the list of thing to list: new chefs at old places, (can't think of any) interesting stuff upcoming (Katy, the Batali/Bastiniach pizza joint, the food court at AOL TimeWarner (Keller, Ginza Sushi-Ko, JG, etc.) trends that died trends (panini)

To matthew's point, I spent about 5 months tooling around Europe a few years back and the non-Americans I met thought that was very strange for an american- Americans usually spend 1 month, Canadians, 3 months, Aussies, 6 months to a year. 32's my count, BTW.

I agree with the "aromatic" wine choices, It's also worth trying with unoaked nebbiolo wines (barbarescos work well) or Chateauneuf de Pape (Robert Parker's a big believer in these combos). As for Steve's assertion that soy sauce does not work well with red wines, I disagree- there are plenty of believers that pinot noir and and soy sauce are a perfect match in terms of umami, especially when paired with sushi. Go hereGoogle search for some interesting reading on the subject. anyway, it's worth trying in the pursuit of science.

There are a few options for shipping- one is to use a storage facility such as 55 Degrees to hold the wine and then use a shipper to get it there and ship to NYC. Their site is good. As for online wine stoes, I like mcarthurs and Wine Exchange as for Mike, i'm sure someone knows.

I think this practice has a much larger potential constituency among soft-core environmentalists as opposed to e-gullet types, especially when you consider that we don't think it's enough information. Plenty of diners make their decisions on these methods sounding more environmentally sound, as opposed to being the freshest, or best, way of obtaining fish. I haven't seen it (nor will I ;-)), but it wouldn't surprise me to see line caught as a descriptor on a Red Lobster menu at some point- certainly on chains with less doors.

Steve- Thanks for a great report! I was rooting for Taillevent (one of my favorites) when I saw the title and it looks as if they came through- Cheers, Charles

du rien

My wife and I returned to JB this past Saturday evening and had another exquisite meal. It’s a combination of devoted owners and a devoted chef that sets this restaurant apart-. Much of what we had has been described here previously (we had the upper tier omakase), so I’ll stick to a few highlights: Our amuse was "live" tile fish sashimi with enoki mushrooms- lovely. Parrotfish, which is one of 200 different "snappers" was new to me and the standout of the sashimi platter. We lhad Jack pair wines with our meal- They're serving an heirloom tomato salad with ebi- Jack poured a Graves alongside this- wonderful combo. We enjoyed a Leflaive Mercurey with sashimi and the other salads, and a '95 red burgundy with sushi that was a perfect match and with dessert, we had a homemade “sake-grappa” with plums soaking inside- just delicious. For us, there’s no place we’d rather go in NYC at the moment. One note- Yoshida-san did tell me that he’s been trying to get fugu for the last few weeks- worth a call to the restaurant to check it out if you’re interested.

Got a mixed bunch of heirloom "plum" tomatoes at the Greenmarket- some Amish paste and some sicilian variety, the name of which I forget. browned four chicken legs in evoo with s&p, sliced the tomatoes and blended them corasely, scraped the chicken pot, with white wine, added the tomatoes to the pot, added back the chicken, threw in a bunch of fresh herbs, simmered for 3.5 hrs, until all of the chicken had fallen off the bone- seasoned again with s&p plus a new batch of herbs. delicious on some farfalle.

mostly, if you think the wine might need this kind of decanting (right or wrong) to be any good- wait. drink something else.

Not sure that's true- you definitely swirl a wine to get maximum exposure, so vigorous decanting makes sense to me. as for the other bit, I would think that anything that makes a wine better is worth trying.