Bux

There's a big place, I believe it's called Oriental Pearl, on the west side of Mott above Canal. We've been going there for years. On the whole it's been very good, with the exception of fried dishes which are often neither criisp nor hot. It's just not the kind of thing that can be served well on carts in a large restaurant. For a while we favored Madarin Court below Canal, but two visits in a row were very disappointing. One caveat, I like Dim Sum a GoGo very much--or at least I've liked the dumplings. I don't like ordering off a menu, nor am I fond of the decor. Oriental Pearl is huge and noisey with many families and large parties. You will share a large table.

I know of no reason why lamb shouldn't be as safe to eat as raw as beef in carpaccio and tartar. I've had beef sashimi in Japan. It may be possible for some avant-garde chef to decide to offer a raw lamb dish. I've been told by French chefs that I prefer my steaks and lamb chops too rare and that the flavor develops when the meat is cooked just a little bit more. Beef tartar is a favorite of one of these chefs. Raw and rare are two separate things. Were these lamb riblets meant to be raw or rare? The problem with "Escoffieresque correctness" is that much of it has gone out the window. A millefeuille need no longer contain puff pastry and any layered dish will claim the name. Three leaves will suffice. The idea of safe temperatures for restaurants and those serving the public is interesting and rather abstract. In parts of the US, it's illegal to serve rare or medium rare hamburgers and soft boiled or sunnyside up eggs. It's a capitulation to the acceptance that the food supply is contaminated. The current Gourmet magazine, criticized in other threads, has a recipes for poached foie gras. Laurent Manrique, the chef, stops his cooking at an internal temperature of 125° allowing the foe gras to reach 140° in the poaching liquid. Gourmet notes that the USDA guidelines call for a higher temperature.

I thought that's what Fat Guy was saying, but ever so much more discreetly. ;)

Coffee drinkers and tea drinkers are not different breeds. They are more like cats and dogs. When we took a step forward with Starbucks and the likes, we raised the middle considerably, but often when that happens the top and bottom both tend to move towards the middle. I wonder if we'll see a more serious interest at the top as a result of Starbucks. America now thinks of coffee in Seattle terms not Italian ones. I drink coffee once or twice a day. Usually for breakfast and often after dinner. At both times I'd like an espresso. I'd not like to go out to a bar. Almost any machine could be amortized in a couple of years. There is no method one could devise to make worse coffee than a percolator. I've gone through a lot of ideal home coffee makers from the early machinettas that were heated on the stove top and turned over to drip. These were the favorites of Greenwich Village coffee houses and Italian restaurants of the 60's. For a while the Chemex reigned. It seemed scientific and is no different from the Melita and automatic drip. I think we abandonned it when I discovered I liked stronger coffee more than good coffee and was losing too much to the filter. Our current dissatisfaction is with a non-pump driven "espresso" maker that makes a good cup of coffee, but not really espresso. One really has to envy tea lovers, unless of course you like to play with toys.

You may be happy to know that new a book of Pierre Herme's chocolate desert recipes lists weights for ingredients. They are in parentheses and noted after the dry or liquid measurements, but they are there.

Well in my pocket rather than my suitcase, tickets to France. ;)

Coffee is another very interesting subject. Rosie's only touched the surface and already asked more questions than a simple reply will answer. Coffee drinkers may be more shabbily treated by American restaurants than cheese eaters, if I can make reference to problems noted in the cheese thread. Traveling in Italy, I remember using a restaurant guide that rated not only food, service and wine cellar, but the coffee. Be that as it may, Americans traveling in Italy constantly complain they can't get a "decent" cup of coffee. I suggest they have the wroing standard. I'm not of the opinion that the "French press," if I understand it correctlly, is in any way as good as a properly prepared espresso, which is what I expect from a restaurant. The quality of espresso, both here and in Italy, varies considerably, but even in France, espresso has become the standard. Yet, at an expensive wine tasting dinner at one of NYC's finest restaurants, plain old American roast coffee was served by the potful. I'm not sure if it was a cost factor or if it was assumed that's what everyone wanted. I'm also sorry to see fine French restaurants in NYC asking for the coffee order with or before dessert. It's a pet peeve of mine and I realize, it's not a popular view. In fact, it this thread is not about dark roast coffee, my comments may be irrelevant. I have a problem with the price of Illy. It always seems as if it's too great a jump from the next brand. We had been buying a blend of dark roasts that varied, but was predominantly Kenyan beans. Lately we've been buying Danesi gold. I may come to accept Illy's premium yet. In Philadelphia, we had coffee at La Colombe and enjoyed it very much. I was told they served La Colombe at Daniel in NY and thus it should be available here. With a little resaearch I discovered it is a local Philadelphia roasting company with two retail shops in Philly. It also provides coffee for Daniel, the Waldorf Astoria and some other restaurants in NYC, but there seems to be no retail outlet in NY.

We've been buying olive oils at DiPalo's on Grand Street in NYC. We use a 100% Pure Olive Oil from DiCarli brothers as our cooking oil and when we don't want a lot of olive taste. For ease and freshness, we buy it in the one liter bottle. Colavita is a more widely distributed brand and it's okay as well. We also keep a bottle of Extra Virgin open at all times. I'd like to keep several, but even in summer whan we're having more salads it seems reasonable to ensure freshness by having only one bottle of EV open at a time. DiPalo usually has a few recommneded oils in an open bottle and will offer tastes. The current bottle on our shelves is from Sicily. It'a a Novello from the Fontanansalsa Farm in Trapani, Sicily.

We went to Philadelphia to eat at Le Bec Fin. I won't be coy, Frederic Cote, the new chef, is an acquaintance and it would have been difficult for me to report anything less than major success. Fortunately we had a superb meal that would rank among the best we've had in New York. I don't think there was a dish that would have been disappointing had we had it at Daniel or Jean Georges for example. I'd never been to Le Bec Fin before, but understood it to offer traditional food. With the exception of perfectly rare beef with foie gras and truffle in pastry crust, I don't think there was a dish we had that wasn't either a very personal or highly original preparation. An olive soup with cherry tomatoes, micro croutons and an oval of brandade was stunning and without precedent in my experience. Although we never got to see a menu, this dish is apparently one of the current offerings. About to come on the menu is a dish of large langoustines (one would have been enough, but apparently small portions don't cut it in Philly, even on tasting menus) in a piquant sauce with an incredibly fine julienne of vegetables cut so fine that I suspect the difference between raw and limp would have been seconds. Nevertheless, the vegetables and the langoustines were perfectly cooked. Everything was really excellent, but I can't overlook the perfectly balanced sauce of rhubarb with cumin and cilantro that accompanied the swordfish, nor can I mention the fish without noting the wonderful contrast between the caramelized surface and the moist interior. We were given too much food and thus I can only note that the cheese cart looked wonderful. If the savories were all 21st century, dessert was a throw back to the 1980s or earlier, but it was a golden oldies moment. There are no plated desserts and one can't help noticing the chariot des desserts--a multi-tiered trolley piled high with French classic cakes and desserts, as you arrive in the dining room. Multiple selections are not only encouraged, but almost required. When I stopped at three, you could sense the server's disappointment. Negatives? Certainly not the dessert trolly. Five years ago it might have seemed old fashioned. Now it's a respite. I thought the service was often too evident and unnecessary. We had hardly a chance to sit before the waiter was attempting to place our napkins on our laps. There were always too many knives, forks and spoons on the table. In France, and in NY, I've become accustomed to having only those utensils I may need for the course at hand. All of this I can chalk up to local preference and custom, although it's probably all Le Bec Fin as I suspect it may be the only local restaurant of it's sort. We found the amuses surprisingly heavy, lacking in the finesse of the courses to follow and generally too large and filling. We arrived in Philadelphia at lunch time. I had done some cheesesteak research on Holly's site and we found Sonny's to be convenient for us. Although it did not get Holly's top rating, it was a "Best of Philly" award winner. Charitably, I can say I don't get cheesesteaks. The bread was okay, but no better. It might have been better used for toasted pannini. My problem is really with the meat which is cooked to the degree at which it has the least taste and the most uninteresting texture. I found my sandwich improved with the addition of salt, mustard, ketchup and hot sauce. It was a cultural experience, but we all wondered about the Cuban sandwiches at the Latino restaurant around the corner. Carman's, on the other hand, was all it's cracked up to be (I supose there's a pun in there) and a genuine American treat. With four of us, we managed to order just about one of everything. As I suspected the French toast and pancakes were, in my opinion, heads and shoulders above the omelette, which I also would choose over the fried chicken. The buttermilk pancakes with almonds and white figs, both in the batter and on top were really a treat as was my challah French toast with fresh peaches and blackberries. Plates are big, tables are small, the wait for a table may be long, the service is slow, but the staff is wonderful.

Soft shell crabs tonight in a citrus sauce that turned out to be candy orange at Aquagrill. My initial dinner at this restaurant was less than scintillating, but word of mouth led me back and we've become fond of the place for oysters. Maybe I let my guard down and slipped by ordering something that wasn't simple and plain, but this dish was unpleasant. Come to think of it, the octopus salad I ordered as an appetizer really needed some zing to counter the sweet onion marmelade on the plate.

Sorry to disappoint you, but this page has what I think are the first photographs on the site not taken by us. Both the food and hotel scans are from printed material.

Good point. The corollary is that I will also lose interest in eating if the main course is unrewarding and not order dessert even if I'm still hungry. I recall three of us cutting short a forgetable dinner and walking east quite unsatisfied. Fate would have us pass GramercyTavern. My wife, who was working on the only diet of her life, turned and said "I need dessert." We all did and Claudia Fleming saved the night for us. As fate would also have it and presumably as punishment for choosing a questionable restaurant in the first place, Tom Colecchio was at the front desk asking me if we wanted drinks or dinner and I had to say, "dessert only."

In St. Jean-de-Luz along the Basque coast, you can eat a pleasant enough meal with regional specialties up and down down "restaurant row" for about ten bucks. The menus all look similar and the desserts, for the most part, are delivered prepared, probably from a limited number of suppliers. Thus Olatua a few blocks away has a hard time attracting clients with it's ฟ, or so, menus. The native French chef, apprenticed in NYC, under François Payard while he was at Daniel and found his NYC experience eyeopening. Although his food is far more interesting that that on "the strip," his desserts could easily justify his prices. What I found most telling, was that he said his customers, generally ask where they can get the pastry or dessert they just ate. They assume he has a local source and that the desserts are not made on the premises.

Interesting thought. As I've looked at the menus posted in front of new restaurants that have often opened without fanfare, I might say the same thing about appetizers and main courses. That's yet another thread. Perhaps more interesting and maybe, but only maybe, more on topic is that when I read and write to forums such as this one, I'm inclined to speak about better restaurants and not ordinary ones. It's not a matter of elitism or the pretense that I don't grab a bite locally because we don't feel like cooking tonight, or with friends for social rather than gastronomic reasons, but because it's the best meals that are the most interesting to talk about. I thought it was almost universally agreed in other threads that the cost of provisions is a minor part of a restaurant's costs and in a really fine restaurant I find the desserts to often be far more labor intensive than the savory dishes. This may be because I general don't get involved with pastry. Obviously this hardly applies to many of those restaurants that outsource desserts to commercial suppliers, unless of course they also serve boil in bag food. Ooops, come to think of it, some really fine chefs use precisely that technique for catering with excellent results, I hear, but they do their own bagging.

Dessert is probably the first thing to go for either dietary or economic concerns. At the lower points on the gastronomic and price scales, it's probably the course least missed. At the higher points, I think it adds immeasureably to the enjoyment of a meal. At the very highest points, dessert becomes essential and it's silly to think of either diet or economy, that's for another night. I'm fond of restaurants where I'm not stuffed by the main course and I'm fond of restaurants that have at least one light but rewarding dessert on the menu. I think a little treat is far more culturally built into the European, or at least the French, ordinary meal, although often a piece of cheese will do. In Italy, it seems an inexpensive meal usually ended with cheese or fresh fruit. I think it's the kind of thing that makes eating into a meal.

Let me be the third to agree "Room for Dessert" deserves its own thread. I've started a thread in General Issues. Go here to read and participate. (Edited by Bux at 11:45 pm on Sep. 9, 2001) (Edited by Bux at 2:04 pm on Sep. 10, 2001)

Steve Klc posted the message quoted above in response to a specific post in the New York restaurant board. Three people agreed with him that it's worth a thread of its own. So this is that thread.

We just uploaded to the WorldTable food/wine/travel site, a report on our short visit to Paris in July There's a very positive review of L'Astance, a restaurant which impressed us greatly, as well as notes on other interesting places in which to eat, sleep or sightsee.

This is so subjective. Without much more knowledge of your tastes than indicated by the three you've already selected, I suspect you're just asking for our favorites. The three stars all over France are obvious mentions, although I would make special notice of Veyrat. It may be too far out of the way. Then again, it's not that far from Lyon and Lyon may well be on your route from Paris to Bras. Veyrat is just incredible and to my great surprise, there was nothing about his restaurant or food that smacked of the pretense I expected from what I had read in the press. Veyrat has a wonderful inn, but it's also just minutes from Annecy. In Paris, I would absolutely recommend L'Astrance. It seems to be the hottest ticket around at the moment. I've just finished a short report of our July visit to Paris at the WorldTable site. My mention of L'Astrance includes: Although not in Bras' league, I'd love to mention the Fagegaltier sisters' Vieux Pont in Belcastel, southwest of Lagioule. The food and the rooms are simple, but all in good taste and the accomodations are tastefully modern and airy. I mentioned them earlier in another thread and I hope you're reading the old threads, so we don't repeat the same suggestions in each thread. (Edited by Bux at 12:07 am on Sep. 10, 2001)

Wasn't there an article in the NY Times a while back about XO sauce? If I recall correctly, it said that some (most, many?) chefs make their own version.

My barrier would be at 100 proof, which is 50% alcohol. Most Scotch whiskies run about 43% and French eaux-de-vie are commonly 40%, but I have an empty bottle of Framboise that was 48% and exceptionally smooth. Bourbon needs to be 100 proof (50%) to be "bottled in bond," or so I beleive. I do tend to splash a bit of water in my whiskies from time to time, but never in my fruit eaux-de-vie. Brandies and whiskies are eaux-de-vie, as I assume is any potable alcoholic distillate. The word, or words, whisky and whiskey are derived from the Gaelic for water of life, which is literally what eau-de-vie means.

Magnolia, do you see a small icon labeled "edit" on the line above your post? If you click on that icon, it should enable you to edit your message. When you resubmit, there will be a comment at the bottom of your post, letting people know it was edited. On the whole I wouldn't worry too much about typos, they seem to be part of the medium. Nevertheless, I support all efforts made by posters to leave clear and articulate messages. I find clicking the "yes" button to preview before posting, often helps me to edit my own posts. This may leave you wondering how verbose they were before editing. ;) By the way, I see that La Compostelle, is not listed in either the Michelin or the GaultMillau, the two sources I most use. It is a member of the Châteaux & Hôtels de France group. I find their hotels to be charming and reliable, but the restaurants are often noted for charm rather than food. Oddly enough this group is under the direction of Alain Ducasse, whose own resturant in Paris was represented the last time I looked.

We've had Pavlovoa several times recently in New York. Once was in an Australian restaurant. The restaurant was pretty good, but didn't really make regular customesr out of us. The other Pavlova was at Balthazar, the Paris Brasserie wannabe. Don't ask why they serve Pavlova, but as served there, doused with fresh berries rather than passion fruit, it seems like a traditional French dessert, or at least one a reasonable Frenchman would care to claim as his own.

My favorite Japanese dish? That's hard to decide, but whatever it is, it would as served in Japan not here. Maybe I've not been to the right restaurants or maybe the surroundings are important to my appreciation. I might say cold buckwheat noodles, especially if I can have them outdoors in a little restaurant or stand in a park. I've ordered them here in NYC, but they were not the same. The dipping sauce did not have the same taste. It was missing herbs and there was no raw quail egg. It's a summer dish. When it gets colder, I will not miss it as much. One thing I really loved in Japan was a breakfast of raw egg, nori seaweed and hot rice with a piece of preserved fish. I had okonomiyaki only once in a very new restaurant with not much atmosphere very near our hotel in Tokyo. I remember thinking that it was not so special and not so great, but that if this restaurant was as close to my home as it was to my hotel, I'd return about once a week. I love all the noodle soups in Japan, but I can get very good noodle soups in NYC in Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Malaysian restaurants.

We've never completely recovered from Prohibition, or from the Puritans who founded New England. I've always thought all places that serve food should be required to served either beer or wine.