Bux

I have a hard time getting a reservation at Lupa. It's ridiculously popular, but I'd say Hearth is a more grown up restaurant in terms of service and ambience. It's certainly quieter. It's hard to compare the food. Hearth seems to have more complex dishes, but some of the simple things at Lupa are really quite sophisticated. Bianca is a nice little place, but there's no comparison in my book.

I'd be curious to know which places you like in Murray Hill and particularly which you think compare to Hearth. I was impressed by Hearth, but probably see it as short of a destination restaurant, which is not to say I don't go out of my way to go there. I do.

I'm still a fan of the dumplings at Dim Sum GoGo. They're very delicate. We had some on Sunday and since they don't bring them around on carts, you can order them at any time and get them fresh from the steamer. Their turnip cake is terrific as well, but so are the ones at Sweet-n-Tart. Although I generally don't like braised bean curd nearly as much as steamed, I love the braised bean curd with spinach and ground pork in Joe's Ginger and the orginal Joe's Shanghai.

I was thrown by the idea of "scrambled eggs," which I think of as quite different than an omelet, especially as they are both made in France. However, in America, we tend to make our scrambled eggs rather quickly over high heat much as the French make an omelet, and I could see an American describe the making of an omelet as scrabled eggs.

I posted: Is that not the one?

Turron is usually translated as "nougat," and some is very much like what I've come to know as nougat, or at least the hard nougat, but I've seen "turron" that appears to be more like nut brittle and "turron" that's more of a soft paste, although moister than halva to my thinking. I have also seen a whole range of other candies sold as turron that are variations of the ones I've described and some that seem unrelated. Butterfly mentions experimentation in his reply to the Christmas bounty thread, but it seems "turron" has long been a loosely used term. Are there any strict definitions and what is the range of products that carry this label?

I suspect you're very wrong in that aspect. We would give both restaurants very high marks for food. I'm very much a Blue Hill partisan, as I understand Ya-Roo is as well. There are some distinct differences in the food and in the seasonings, but if they don't share the same gentle quality, they share an attention to balance and subtlety that's far more the feature of each cuisine. There are some subjective differences and I don't want to debate which is actually the more accomplished cuisine, suffice it to say that my opinion is that I can't understand an educated diner not appreciating and respecting either cuisine as representing excellence. Taste in decor may be even more personal than in food, but there the differences are striking and Blue Hill comes up a personal favorite, even though, or possibly because it was obviously designed on a lower budget. One of the reasons I'm not eager to focus on the issue of the view at Cafe Gray is that I would enjoy Kunz's food more in Blue Hill's setting than in the Cafe Gray setting and Blue Hill is in an English basement in Greenwich Village with two small windows up front offering a mole's eye view of calves and ankles. Service is a dead horse issue I won't beat again here to any degree.

Daniel will generally offer separate menus for men and women at the table, although it's not quite as sexist as it sounds as they will also send out separate courses if there are two men or two women dining together. If you're lucky, if it's special occasion or if you know someone in the kichen on the right day, they have been known to send out separate dishes for all four people at a table for four. This was true even in their old location. Daniel's tasting menu is not listed and it's usually prepared after the waiter enquires about the diner's allergies, likes and dislikes. At the French Laundry several years ago, Mrs. B and I had an extensive tasting menu. Never did the same course come out for both of us. At Oceana, we've twice had the good fortune of having the chef prepare separate menus for us. Most recently, it was for a table of three. It's not particularly that novel or unusual, but it may be a practice seen only at restaurants with exceptionally talented kichen supporting a strong chef and even then, it's more likely to be offered to a regualr customer rather than to a one time diner. This would be the kind of performance a chef could put on for a recognized critic, but as much is it might display a virtuosity, it also exposes a wider range of dishes and might show some faults or repetition of sauces and garnishes. Thus it's a double edged sword.As noted earlier, some diners have strong particular tastes and some are envious when their companion gets a dish they would have preferred. In fact, many diners eschew tasting menus, particularly surprise menus, particularly because they have favorite foods. My recommendation is to go to places that do your favorite foods well when you want them. When I dine at a restaurant where the chef is a significant talent, I'm not going to eat lobster, steak, duck, etc., but to eat the products of the chef's talents and I will gladly put myself in his hands eating his choices for the night. The ability to relinquish all control over my meal is the ultimate freedom a chef can offer me. I'll gladly do it, but only it I have very good reason to respect the chef's talent. Admin: the thread for 2005 discussion of Per Se may be found here.

OpenTable is an excellent service, but never assume it will offer the full range of options you will get by calling a restaurant directly. My understanding is that not every restaurant listed gives OpenTable full access to all tables at all times.

It's worth noting that most of the shrimp you buy in Chinatown has been frozen -- I think that's probably true in other places as well, certainly it's true in the supermarkets -- and thawed. Much of it is almost tasteless, but you can get live shrimp of different kinds at different prices. Much of that is seasonal. Some of the dead shrimp is not frozen and also seasonal in availability and quality. If you are buying frozen shrimp, you're probably better off buying it still frozen. No matter what, the quality of shrimp available varies widely. As Fat Guy says, you're likely to find the extremes in Chinatown.

Perhaps that's the perfect example of how our national tastes have gone. Here's a substance that should have zero sugar content, but is decsribed as not sweet at all although it has added sugar. Hellman's is sweet for something that calls itself mayonnaise. It's sweetness just registers as neutral because there's plenty of salt and lemon juice and possibly also because of the other products consumed in proximity to the mayonnaise. If one makes a sandwich on commercial sliced bread using commerical deli ham and washes it down with a Coke, that "mayo" is not going to register as sweet on one's palate. By the way, I was going to say "sliced white bread," but it's the whole wheat and "health" breads in the packaged sliced bread market that are really sweet much of the time.

There is a an omelette soufflee. Both savory and sweet versions exist, but I think Norwegian omelet refers to the French term for baked Alaska. From The Food timeline site (my emphasis): "For all its French pretentions, baked Alaska has always seemed like an American dish. The French name omelette a al [sic] Norvegienne refers to the fact that the cake base is traditionally cut into an omelette shape. Presumably Norvegienne alludes to its chilly interior . . . That idea was also a popular one in the 1950s. Ice cream pies were very chic then, and baked Alaska ice cream pie was too soigne for words." ---Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads, Sylvia Lovegren [MacMillan:New York] 1995 (p. 200-1)" Several lines further down the page there's Escoffier's recipe for "Omelette Norvegienne," which is a baked Alaska -- ice cream on a layer of Genoise covered with a layer of either ordinary meringue or stiff Italian meringue and placed in a very hot oven to color the meringue. The scrambled eggs with sugar sounds like a preparation that owes a debt to the omelette soufflee. I'd be curious to know if there was sugar beaten into the eggs before they went into the pan and if whites were beaten separately.

Kirsch is the traditional additive to fondue and it is as Suzanne says a cherry brandy, but not to be confused with the cheery liquers sometimes referred to as cherry brandy or the cherry flavored brandies. Kirsch is a proper white eau-de-vie. Hirsch is a label I recall seeing on an Austrian Gruner Veltliner. Hirsch is a proprietor and not a type of wine. It wouldn't have been what the woman said, in my opinion, but no harm done. My recollection was that it was decent enough for an inexpensive wine. It would probably do for the fondue or it's accompaniment, albeit a less traditional wine. We're talking Swiss/French dish, not Austrian. I suppose it all depends on what you're used to drinking as to how good it might be.

Pinxo, as much as I've been a fan of Dutournier at Carré des Feuillants, was a bit of a disappointment for us. I think it's exactly the right sort of place, but we found the dishes very uneven and short of the spark I expected and might find all over San Sebastian, for instance. L'Atelier de JR, on the other hand offered dish after dish that was right on the mark, albeit it at a higher price. Perhaps it was because I regarded Dutournier so highly that I was disappointed to get dishes that seemed lackluster and without care or inspiration. Paris is not yet a great city for grazing. Two places have been recommended to me, but I haven't tried either. Both are on the left bank. Bellota Bellota in the 7th and Da Rosa in the 6th. Here are my notes on the suggestions made to me. Da Rosa 01 40 51 00 09 62 rue de Seine 75006 Paris A shop on rue de Seine, which has a wine and small plates menu. Bellotta-Bellotta 01 53 59 96 96 18 rue Jean Nicot 75007 Paris A wonderful place where everything you eat comes out of boxes, jars and tins except the fabulous Spanish hams. Between Saint Dominique and Univeristé, 2 blocks west of Esplanade des Invalides. A simple bistro might also do the trick very well, although after a fabulous lunch, I rarely have the appetite for a full meal no matter how simple.

I met him over two years ago in passing at the Union Square Greenmarket. He was talking to Mike Anthony and Mike and Dan Barber had just done an eGullet Q&A. The subject came up and he said he didn't use or have a computer. I realize that was a long time ago now, but at the time it didn't seem as if it was possible to pursue the subject.

I've showed up on time for a reservation, but before one of my dining companions and I've always been seated. I've been to many restaurants that won't seat you until your table has arrived. So, on that score they've been very hospitable. I've been there and had to wait for a table once. We had a reservation and had to wait beyond our time, but we were a party of six plus a baby. There were few places for six and we all wanted to be out of the way and near the door so we could walk the baby if he made a fuss. We were more eager to wait for a certain table than the staff was to make us wait.

Let me expand on Sam's comments above. Bianca is not a restaurant for one of two nights in NYC. It is not a restaurant that lies in proximity to the orbits of Gramercy Tavern and Babbo. In fact, although I was thrilled to have such a decent inexpensive restaurant within walking distance, we rather tired of it qulckly. It's price point was always a large factor in it's appeal. With just two nights in NY, I'd look for better somewhere between it and Babbo in terms of price, if price is a factor. It may be late to make a reservation at Babbo for January.

← Indeed, babiemindy said "My reservation was at 7PM but we arrived 25 minutes early and they were not very accommodating. So we waited for 5 minutes and then my friend got anxious and asked them what the hold up was since there were apparently plenty of empty tables available. To that the host replied, "Right now we're seating on-time." Meaning that they would not seat us before the time we reserved our table." I find it hard to believe precisely because I don't understand the reasoning that might lie behind such a policy. I understand that reservations are timed to spread the kitchen work load, but surely seating a party early can be handled if there are empty tables. It's a simple matter to say, you're early, please come to your table and we'll be with you in a few moments. Don't get me wrong. That it's unbelievable is no proof that it didn't happen. I just posted about service that was so bad, I wouldn't believe it if someone else wrote about it.

For me, l'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris succeded in being about the food by removing many aspects of fine dining while paring down the necessary ones of calm and focus on the food. There is little to remind you of the traditional haute cuisine dining experience at Robuchon's counter, but everything you need to enjoy the food is there and without distraction. The design of the space is quiet and subdued and the service is pared down to it's minimal elements. The food come across the counter. At Cafe Gray on the evening we were there early in November, there was barely a move made by a front of the house employee that was not distracting from the moment we arrived. I could overcome the glitz of the decor and although it seems a shame to deny the view, I've never chosen a restaurant for the view and Central Park is a black hole at night, but we could not have less enjoyed the evening for the service. A litany of all the errors would be one I would not believe if I read it from someone else's pen. Kunz was in attendance and the quality, if not the quantity, of the food was superb. It's a credit to the chef that I thought of the meal in terms of l'Atelier de Joël Robuchon perhaps, but it failed where l'Atelier de JR succeeded except perhaps for the food and the open kitchen. Robuchon was less expensive and Paris is generally not a bargain, especially at the current rate of exchange.

Mona Lisa? That was an unusual and special pie. It was among the thinnest I've ever had.

It's a beautiful place with beautiful grounds. I haven't the slightest idea of what you can do up in the area. Let us know if you get any suggestions. Four or five hours can be a long time to spend in the dark. I think the bar opens at five, but I can't imagine sitting around for four hours. If you decide to go up when it's still daylight, you should call ahead and see if someone can take you on a tour of the facilites. It may not be possible on a last minute basis, but it's worth having a guide and having access to the greenhouse. It may be more practical to save your tour for the late spring and just go and enjoy dinner tomorrow.

I haven't make fondue in well . . . , let's just say some of you weren't born yet the last time we made fondue. From what I remember, the recipe we used to use called for equal amounts of Swiss gruyere or French compté and emmenthaler cheeses melted into white wine. A Swiss or Jura wine would probably be most traditional, but I seem to recall that we used Alsatian wines and most often a blend, or a traminer, which interesting as no one in Alsace seems to bottle traminer, it's all labled gewurtztraminer now and it's more expensive. In those days it didn't command the price of a riesling. Go light on the kirsch. I assume hirsch is a typo. We never used a binder although it was tricky to get the fondue not to separate, or to come together in the first place.

The back and forth with Yasuda is easy in English and there's a lot of back and forth with Yasuda asking what you like and what you've had before. It's an interactive experience and he's not got a set menu or order in his mind of the one size fits all diners.

I don't quite follow this, nor do I understand the on-time reference. Since there was only a five minute delay, I wonder if the reference was to seating those who had an earlier reservation before they sat you. Were there other people waiting to be seated? If so, and if they had an earlier reservation, I would understand asking you to wait until they were seated. If on the other hand, no one was waiting and they asked you to wait until all the 7:00 and 7:15 reservations had arrived and were seated, that's another story. Again, since there was only a five minute wait and you arrive 25 minutes early, I don't really see the problem.

I don't have a lot of experience preparing Asian foods, but I've seen sugar called for in a large number of both Chinese and Japanese recipes. Those two cuisines don't have a whole lot in common unless you're looking at them from a European perspective. I'd also say that neither of those cuisines are very big on sweets or dessert as we know them in western cooking, but they seem to add sugar far more often than do traditional French, Italian or Spanish recipes. The Chinese food I've prepared, tastes more authentic when I've added the amount of sugar called for in the recipe, than when I omit most of the sugar. As John pointed out a ways back in the thread, there seems to be a growing trend towards using sugar and caramel in avant garde restaurants in the UK, France and Spain. I'm not a fan of the move towards sweet in savory food, although I find much to admire in the same chefs who are moving in this direction. Some great chefs can use sugar even in savory main courses. There have been some agri-douce preparations that have been outstanding. There must be enough acid to create a tension and it takes some effort to ensure the balance. There is no sugar in vinaigrette. I trust we all agree on that. Years ago in another forum, the best I was ever able to do was come to a stalemate on that with my opponent insisting there was sugar in an American vinaigrette, if not in a French one. He cited some standard text. It may have been Fanny Farmer, but I just checked two editions of the Joy of Cooking, and neither call for sugar in a standard vinaigrette. There was a recipe in one volume that called for sugar in a "Thai Vinagrette" recipe. I don't know how authentic that was, but it reinforces my feeling that there's more sugar in Asian food and Fusion food. On commercial food, all I have to say is that it's the sweetness in Hellman's mayonnaise more than anything else that keeps me from using it. Anyone who drinks a cola with its something like 13 teaspoons of sugar, with his meal, is hardly going to notice an extra spoonful of sugar in the food however. I suspect that even sweetened lemonade or iced tea is going to skew someone's tastebuds far away from those of someone who normally drinks water, wine, beer or unsweetened tea with meals.