...more recent posts
ran across this item in the wash post about a restaurant happening in our little burg.
6/24/00 very fine dinner and lots of future promise for Blue Hill--1) nice wine list with modest markup 2) fresh seafood with tasty presentation and the prices are fair!! 3) there is an outdoor garden (we forgot to look at it)
4) desserts were super--they are new and will grow like adding a cheese plate which would have been nice when we ate--maybe there was too much butter but this is something i need to figure out is it that essential to fine dining...
alex are you aware of the NYC Rooftop Honey?? Linden, Locust, clover and flowers provide the pollen!! Ther are upper west side cuvee's.
6/18/00 We had dinner at Surya a high-end Indian and Indian influenced cuisine. I think the group of seven all found it very tasty and some dishes were super yummy (a sprouted lentil salad!!). They are at 302 Bleeker St. near 7th Ave South. But for me the best Indian food (in NYC) is the vegetarian Vatan 409 3rd Ave near 29th, set like a small South Indian village. Great food but terrible wine list and will not allow you to bring w/ corkage fee:<( I would love to eat there one day with a bunch of German and Alsacian wines...
strawberries are all over the Green Market!! w/o even tasting just look at the difference between the organic ones and the inorganic--the organic look like the rarer French fraise!!--do you know that strawberry is a great absorber(sp?) and it hold all those pesticides etc very very well--so buy organic strawberries or dont care!! also according to Andrew Weil next to strawberry is bell pepper and cantalope w/ major pesticide levels--most cantalopes come from the big mexican farms mass produced and very untasty (to me) and full of....eat less / eat better!!
found this listing of vineyards while searching for stagecoach vineyards. my father has some stake in it. i dont think they are bottling wines,just harvesting. he mentioned that they grow for cabernet and one of the buyers was kendall jackson. thats about all i know.
6/10/00 Chez Polaner--learned a simple Sardenia dish--will cook it soon--tuna steak that you wash than dry in a towel and do as the French Laundry chef does run a knife over the it and scrape any water off the surface (it help's sear better)--grill or pan cook than slice up add salt pepper herbs olive oil, cover with arugala and chill--later serve by scooping the tuna holding the arugala and flip on plate--great w/ french red burgundy or cab franc from the loire valley both slighty chilled too!!
reports are that Blue Hill is awesome--lots of buzz in the food / wine bizz--chef came from???...El Bulli!!!
6/8/00 dinner at 71 Clinton Fresh Foods--fab again--i didnt taste but he did a Foie Gras(sp?) soup that freaked the table--new desserts were twisted and expanded presentations of the dishes rocked--we all brought the best wines we could get and mine were the top two (not only to me)--1978 Bartelo Moscarello Barolo & 1995 Weinbach Tokay Quintessence de Grains Noble "Cuvee 100th Year" (best dessert wine i ever tasted) other yummy's were 90 Echezeaux DRC, 92 Weil Spatlese Trocken, 92 Grivolet Meursault Clos de Perriere...SPOKE TO WYLIE ABOUT THE "GREAT CHEFS AND SHAMANS" DINNER BY AMAZON CONSERVATION TEAM AND SUSAN SARANDON....
coincidence?? i was on my way to 71 Clinton St for dinner and in the cab was a book full of #'s and personal photos and Huichol photos--there was a card for Chicama (see below) and it turns out he did the glass wear for them--just tracked him down through Chicama's manager at a friends house and he is on the way over to pick it up (p.s he hadnt even realized he lost this--maybe that means he didnt)
6/7/00 Rhone Restaurant new spot with 99% Rhone list (champagne)--we liked the food, chef ex Gramercy Tavern, wine list is of course interesting and will be even better when the more 98's roll in this year. and if they start to rock hopefully lots of older and rarer juice will show up...they got 16 bottle's of Raymond Trollat Saint Joseph 1996 (now 15 and list saz 97) @ $44--it is really worth a trip to the bar or a cheese plate!! VERY RARE JUICE
the owners of Babbo, Lupa etc have opened a fish restaurant called Ekra?? 43 and 9th--i am going week of June 18th anyone want to come w/ me and the lovely Linda (hope shes coming)--Suyra also that week too so lets pick some dates--i'm on liver detox next week all 7 days!!
6/6/00 first nyc mojito (very expensive) excellente but we will try to do better on the roof of 135R one night??:>) than to Meigas was very taste E--my favs was salmon served in a cream gaspacho(sp?), the seafood risotto with seared scallop's on top, pepper's stuffed w/tuna, everything was good to excellent one dish was weak due to overcooking, all reports on the suckling pig were top notch--dessert super super fun, bread very very weak (but the same in spain / its very rare to find good bread)--wine list lacked something but we had some tasty older wines for fair prices--expensive night over all--MB has put Suyra as next stop on the World Pro Sustenance Tour
6/5/00 lots of food at Chez Beavers but best of all was the Mag of 1960 Vega Unico (thanks Peter Wasserman)
Ask the Wheel
I'm passing this question on for a friend (oh O.K., it's for my Mom.) Any words of wisdom for her?
"I leave Friday the 16th in the AM for two weeks in Burgundy at a house we have rented in Vezelay (near Auxerre).... Please ask Michael if he has any wine or winery suggestions. We will have two cars and lots of time. We are about 1 hour drive west of Dijon or Beaune. We have cut out many articles and understand the vagaries of the grape in that area. We are just south of Chablis, yet the four of us are generally red wine enthusiasts, but not stupid or intransigent. It may just be that this area is not as lush as the prior rental in Provence just up the lane from Gigondas. Now that was a place to drink wine!"
For breakfast Pillsbury cinnamon rolls hot from the oven, coffee (Community brand New Orleans blend with chickory mixed with the last few ground up Columbians), and the sweet solitude of la casa blanca on Dumaine.
Dave suggested sustenance as a name for this section. I like it. Any objections? Other suggestions?
6/4/00--La Bouillabaisse on Atlantic ave in Brooklyn--was good but too rich on the sauces for me--i enjoyed the two dishes with the spicy marinara(sp?) sauce most--but lots of fresh seafood (and other stuff) not a fun list but only $4 corkage--we ended the meal w/ poached pear & blue cheese served with 90 Quinterelli Amarone(thanks Jim)
green market report: a new very tiny red potato, the organic dudes are on fire as usual, start of the awesome sugar snap peas and asparagus...
well i checked with a couple people on Meigas, both glowing reviews. they are both in the wine biz and one travels to spain to eat, the other is of cuban blood. it is a fancy place and higher end but also of interest is that the chef was sous-chef at??....El Bulli
our fear full leader before the mojito's---http://www.eatonweb.com/photos/newyork500/
i want to go eat at Meigas(sp?) on hudson near king?? spanish food--its grilled sardines season i believe...on the mojito trail heres some ideas Isla 39 downing st bedford/varick 212-352-cuba after 10 the table's are moved and a dance floor is made!!!...and Chicama douglas rodriquez's new spot he was at Patria and hes doing Unico soon (wants to have a 4* spanish!!) any way Chicama is in the old ABC/ Colina space--they make fresh to order ceviche and grilled octopus in a black olive sauce plus good music and lots of tasty drinks inc mojito's....
el bulli is the most talked about restaurant these days--most i talk to dislike or feel indifferent but some say fun and even if not great think its genius and will stop by at some point again--one looser dish recently reported was beet broth with olive oil sorbet sprinkled with powdered yogurt, another interesting to me was a ravioli made from squid that had coconut and ginger inside with something that when you bite it it bites back (something exploded) i think that has lots of possibilitys....
my tickets for Fiji arrived today from Qantas's tour arm called Jet About so if anyone has any restaurant suggestions for Nadi or Suva--please advise!!
went to Cuba recently and had some mojito's and it was the finest drink i have ever had,(rum is my favorite alcohol). i had them at La Bodeguita del Medio a Hemingway hangout, they were so light airy refreshing and strong--yummy. food was poor for me but pig eaters would prob find some yummies or seach out the private restaurants, 12 seats or less in someones home. they are called paladares. i mostly lived on rum.
5/28/00 how can you tell what is a great restaurant?? well i heard of one
supossed here in merida, only open for lunch when they feel like it. so as
this is my final day in merida i was happy to see the doors open. it was a
small clean but sparce place with photos on the wall of the owner with the
pope, bull fighters and the local music stars so i knew it was going to be
fun and as its name is "el cangrejito" (the crab) i was sure that seafood
was the speciality. and as a recent veghead turned fish eater i was
excited. all the foods were served by the owner himself from behind this
small glass stand and all of the tapas like foods were served as tacos with
superb admixtures. i orderded one of each as there were only 5 (shrimp,
lobster, fish, crab, conch) sucked them down quickly with a beer and the
"fish nazi" watch my every move to see if i liked. and then he came over to
see what i thought to the dislike of other patrons whom had to wait while
i commented as no one else could get back behind the maestro's glass
arena. out of respect i said another round and el capitain smiled like a
cheshire cat and made me up another round. i stuffed them down with
another beer and was about to burst and i was about to get the check
when another beer arrived from the waitress whom said was from the
chef whom had misteriously disapeared to the kitchen. when he returned
he told me to wait and at this point some guests had walked out do to no
service and the whole time i was there the phone was ringing and
maestro picked it up "yes were open" and hang up the phone without
another word. boom another plate of tacos is placed in front of me and as
i feared it was no fish but what appeared to be an animal from the inside
out, which reminded me of when i was in north thailand one chinese new
year hanging with the chief of an opium hamlet and i had to sit by his side
as guest and get the prime parts of a rarely eaten bird again from the
inside out. the grandson started with the brains and i was next and i
started with the womb and its egg--scary shit!! at this point i had the
whole restaurant watching me as i was now eating more tacos than two
huge mexicans and must be important to get all these "specials". i ate
them as fast and as respecfully as i could and was hoping to bolt back to
the hotel to hang with my good friend Anna Rexia when another beer
appeared and the place was put on hold again as el freako ran off
laughing to the kitchen to come back with one final taco. not recognizing it
at all i sluged it with beer down with the chef towering over me awaiting
my responce. "excellente senor, que es??" at which point he takes his hat
off and said "brains me amigo brains" something i thought i didnt have for
steping in here.....