...more recent posts
three of the best dishes from Jean George were:
lobster scented with mace, fresh lychees and celery hearts in a ice wine verjus dressing
peekytoe crab and english pea fondue, rhubarb gelee, shiso puree
foie gras brulee, slow roasted strawberries and aged balsamic
the more one cooks the more one understands the cost of fine dining in people hours and product cost (never mine rent and hopefully profit).....i cant cook great but i have a small group of dishes that i can cook well, but just a few do i feel are my own, some are great adaptions.....last two weeks i have a new dish that rocks!! make a rich herb risotto (rice quality and stock quality are tres inportant) i use basil, chocolate mint and lots of parsley, and on top i shave 1 and 1/2 ears of corn (per plate) and ricotta salata (SP? hard riccota) thats it, its so yummy....another new easy dish for summer i made up and is only 8 items is a pasta sauce of oil, butter, salt, cook down a ton of sweet onion, add a ton of sweet cherry tomato, at the end add 6+ ears of shaven corn, last stir in some fresh basil = 7 items, cook some top end egg pappardelle (rustichella d'abruzzo is awesome brand) add to sauce el dente and yahoo to summer....
We finally made it to the food stall at Red Hook soccer fields, very cool, we wernt too hungry so we had a queso arepa(sp?) side of slaw-ish cabbage, jugo de pina and will come back starved soon.....
2003 Top Eats
Globe All
Passadis Del Pep (Barcelona) 4*
Varoulko (Athens) 4*
Slanted Door (SF) 3*
Carballeira (Lleida, Spain) 3*
Uglesich's (New Orleans) 3*
#9 Park (Boston) 3*
El Torreone (Torrisellas, Spain) 2*
Asados Nazareno (Roa, Spain) 2*
Frankie & Johnny's (New Orleans) 2*
O Loutros Fish Taverna (Thessaloniki, Greece) 2*
Botafumeiro (Barcelona) 2*
Loc All
wd50 4*
Kai 4*
Wallse 4*
Jean George 4*
Al Di La 3*
Locanda Vini Olii 3*
Fleur de Sel 3*
66 3*
Grand Sichuan Int Midtown 3*
Gramercy Tavern 3*
Bao Noodles 3*
Went to Jean George last night for what is probly my 5th or 6th meal since they opened, everyone has been 4* to me, we did both tasting menu's (we tried 12+ dishes) and tasted all 16 desserts, I was also happy as the wine list had many items to pick from in my price range, overall it was expensive of course but its like seeing the Stones play at the Garden every few years, and like Keith, Jean George still rocks!!
Lunch at WP, the list is growing and the food is good.....
Wallse thursday nite was awesome, now 4* IMO....
Tasting menu was 2 soup shots, f gras with cherry (gift from chef, best in recent memory, blows away same from cafe boulud), bluefish with heirloom tomato, bass with corn etc, wiener snitzel (awesome), a duck rolled in cabbage (awesome), chesse....
Eating By #'s 2003
Grand Sichuan Int Midtown 14Times
wd~50 12 Times
Wash Park 10 Times
66 5 Times
The Minnow 5 Times
Kai 3 Times
sadly last night at Cafe Boulud was less exciting in a big way (we heard that if the chef cooked special for us we would have rocked, he offered we were tired so passed) from the time before, the time before was awesome....2* now
p.s. the wine list is very difficult
I've often thought I would get healthier by eating more fruit if only the fruit would meet me halfway and be at least somewhat delicious. There's a pretty successful organic farm in these parts (Rappahannock/Culpepper counties Va.), Sunnyside Farms(?) , and they're producing some nice stuff. Pick of the week--Asian Pears.
i dont like kendall jackson wines but they have a huge garden and sponser a tomato festival the KJ chef is well know (Food and Wine Chef of the Year 2001, same issue Wylie) and he's in town for Beard House dinner 8/26 , i think even though its with KJ wine i may go, my goal is to have my mind think heirloom tomato whenever i see a KJ bottle to hear thier name....
nytimes has an article in yesterday's dining out section about the woman who for the past year has been cooking her way through julia child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. the ingredients and recipes are somewhat outdated by our standards and she estimates she's gone through 60 pounds of butter and cases of vermouth. and, of course, she's been blogging it all.
"I'm miserable so they can be happy," Ms. Powell said of her readers. "I'm like the Jesus of extreme cooking. I got fat and very unhappy for their sins."
Where to Go Next: The Year's 10 Best Openings
Rose Water in Broooklyn was DELISH again, it was only meal #4 but I love them, everything is hand selected fresh local, summer is a great time to eat there but fall is also, its a place we must go at least once a season.....
Nice! What test was MB using?
vacuum coffee brewer
Demerrara sugar :
Named after the Demerara area of Guyana, South America, from which it originally came. It is often described as natural, unrefined cane sugar. Today, Mauritius is a major supplier. It is a light brown sugar with large, slightly sticky crystals. Originally assumed to be a product of a sugar cane mill, but nowadays also produced in England and Canada in refineries. A popular product for tea and coffee in England, Australia and Canada, but not very well known in the U.S. An old Webster's Dictionary (1940s) describes it as a raw sugar having large superficially yellow crystals obtained by treating the sugar with sulfuric acid.
india tree
Chiapas coffee
Day 3 : Wine #1 is 2001 Francois Cotat Rose.
One of the greatest Rose producer’s?? I feel so every time I check in….This one is shining right outta the bottle, at 12 hours open still cruising upward, yumster deluxe.
Wine #2 2000 Truchot Charmes, sensual and tender, temporal wine. Truchot is for lovers.
Day 4: Greek Rose (yet another bottle of my fav Rose for 2003 Summer…..)
Day 2: 2001 Antoine Arena “Carco Carco” Vin de Pays de L’Ile de Beaute, a Kermit Lynch estate. 100% Vermentino, and very expensive ($35 retail). Kermit controls the fine wine trade in Corsica for America. His other estate’s (Dme. Leccia) red has a large cultish following in Euroland, one restaurant friends and I ate in had over 10 year’s in vertical, but we drank 95 Truchot Charmes (which went great with the fish, but sent the wine guy into a tizzy, “You cant have red with with fish” The Wine Guy “Cant we please have the wine, were paying for??” Some Ugly American. It all started with the refusal of The Wine Guy’s offer of a whistle wetter of some herbs and booze, sorry Wine Guy in America its OK to drink Raveneau as an aperitif).
This wine is rich in texture and fruit, should go great with the monfish I bought right from the fisherman for $4 (the tail) yup four bucks and he skin’d if for me, caught this last night…..yahoo
Skin-E