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prob not understandable but this could be one of the finest tea shop in the world--wish we had this kind in nyc (they dont do mail order:>(
- Skinny 8-13-2000 6:53 pm [link] [add a comment]

one of the best middle eastern restaurants i have ever been to, as expensive also...
- Skinny 8-13-2000 6:48 pm [link] [add a comment]

we had the scarious meal in a long time in an old world (but cool) speak easy-ish super fancy restaurant**very good wines luckly**it was rough (for example brussel sproats au gratin was cold watery and cover in two slices of american style cheese...)we are in prague
- Skinny 8-13-2000 12:32 pm [link] [add a comment]

Wiley has really done it this time. The white gazpacho and clam appetizer, new to the menu at 71 Clinton St., is quite possibly the greatest thing of all time. I'll try to get a picture next time, and maybe weasel some info out of the chef himself. Best bet: go without a reservation at 6:00 sharp, grab a seat at the bar, and order this app. Get out before the Upper East Side fully takes over. I guarantee you'll be licking the plate (bowl?) clean.
- jim 8-12-2000 7:50 pm [link] [6 comments]

I admire from afar the world of fine dining and hate to muck up the page with my petty, pedestrian miseries but today coming off the roof to avoid torential rain I went to hide and dine at the neighborhood TacoBell and a notice on the door is giving me three days, Aug 13, to deal with the shutting down for renovation of my favorite eatery, I daresay, my shack of sustenance. Is there no end to the hardship? Speaking of hardship I contemplated the life of crime this morning at 6:20 walking the isles of a Save a Center grocery store, having already purchased my heat n' serve lunch (crawfish fettucine), I curiously wandered to the liquor isle to spy the single malt and this particular store had them all behind glass and key, and no wonder, with probably forty varieties, including beau coup Glenns, and a bottle of 18 year-old Macallan's, priced at $71. I became dizzy with desire and saw myself doing a bold smash and grab routine, but instead proceeded calmly to the checkout and paid for my banana, two glazed donuts, bag of peanuts, and the aforementioned fettucine.
- jimlouis 8-11-2000 2:11 am [link] [add a comment]

6 de 8 de 2000--Visrestaurant Lucius--very very visre!!-- best mussel's ever
- Skinny 8-06-2000 9:55 pm [link] [4 comments]

so far so good in amsterdam
great exotic fruit markets. fresh fish dinner (i say too much butter, lkb was pleased).
sipping 1996 chambolle musigny premier cru by vogue on the house boat deck, watching the gay pride celebration and water boat parade.
- Skinny 8-06-2000 10:57 am [link] [add a comment]

wallse @ 344 west 11th st--super yummy--we ate every fish starter, some we asked for another right after finishing--i heard that the chef was so impressed that he came out to who we were, i missed that cause i was out in the other room bonding with the owner--the fish main's were even better--dessert were just ok but we didnt try enough--the meat dishes smelled and look good too and overall the dishes were light on the butter and very well flavored--worth every penny!!
- Skinny 8-03-2000 2:15 pm [link] [4 comments]

Does this constitue a post? I sat next to Drew Barrymore last night (at El Teddy's.) She was drunk. Didn't look anything like her.</gossip>
- jim 8-02-2000 6:18 pm [link] [7 comments]

if in need of a good glass of wine in brooklyn heights go to Tinto @ 60 henry st. lots of good wine by the glass!! food needs to move a notch or two up!! they need a sherry list asap!!
- Skinny 8-01-2000 9:09 pm [link] [2 comments]

A big chemical company wants to sell you an "all natural" solution to clean the chemicals off of your produce. I think this is what they mean by "synergy".
- alex 7-31-2000 6:22 pm [link] [2 comments]

Ancient Wine Artifacts on Display at New York Museum Posted: Thursday, July 27, 2000 By Jacob Gaffney The Jewish Museum, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is offering a look at the role of wine in the ancient world. Opening July 30, "Drink and Be Merry: Wine and Beer in Ancient Times" gives visitors a chance to gain insight into winemaking and drinking in early civilizations. "We wanted to take us into the new millennium with a glass of wine," said Michal Dayagi-Mendels, the curator of the exhibit, which originally opened last summer at Jerusalem's Israel Museum, where she works. "When I first started the exhibition, I knew only white wine, red wine, rosé. But the Talmud talks of 60 different types of wine; Pliny, the Roman historian, mentions 80 types; another writer mentioned 130 types; and so I have learned." The collection of wine-related artifacts shows that wine served an integral and complicated role in the lives of ancient men and women. The exhibit traces wine from its first appearance, about 8,000 years ago in the mountains of what is now Iran, to iron viticultural tools made in the 6th century B.C.E. (before the Common Era), around the time of the prophet Isaiah, up to Israeli mosaics, from 600 C.E. A rare find on display is a three-foot-long leather wine flask from the first century, which was used by Jewish rebels fighting Roman occupants. The soldiers would pour the wine from the flask into their drinking water. The alcohol would kill any harmful bacteria in the possibly contaminated water -- making the wine a true lifesaver. Even one of the Dead Sea scrolls has been rolled out for display, as the ancient Hebrew text describes the proper way to use wine in religious ceremonies. One would expect to find artifacts such as wineskins used by Jewish rebels and Hebrew scriptures at the Jewish Museum. But what about the guilded silver containers used by the Roman aristocracy or the pottery beer jugs with built-in filters that were placed in the tombs of affluent Egyptians? "Normally we don't have a statue of Dionysus in the museum," said Susan Braunstein, curator of the Jewish Museum. "But we believe the ancient period is the formative period of Jewish history. This exhibit gives us an opportunity to expand. Obviously, the use of wine is part of that importance." "Drink and Be Merry" will be shown at the Jewish Museum until Sept. 30. Admission is $8 for adults and $5.50 for students and senior citizens; children under 12 are admitted for free. # # # The Jewish Museum 1109 Fifth Ave. (entrance on 92nd Street) Hours: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., closed Friday and Saturday. (212) 423-3200 www.thejewishmuseum.org
- Skinny 7-30-2000 4:23 pm [link] [3 refs] [add a comment]

dave heres the post review of ducasse--New Ducasse Has No Class NY Post Steve Cuozzo July 26, 2000 ALAIN DUCASSE 160 Central Park South (Essex House) (212) 247-0300 AFTER two meals at Alain Ducasse, sifting the fine points of a good tantrum, you start making a list. Exactly what is it about this $200-a-head, chutzpah-snorting restaurant that makes you boil? Is it that: * It's the most arrogantly launched eatery in the history of the world? * Its $34 pasta appetizer would embarrass the Olive Garden? * Its hilarious service rituals insult true French professionalism? None of the above, I decided. What stinks most about this place is that, like old Vegas high-roller "gourmet" rooms that substituted spectacle for substance, it denies money its meaning. Our money, that is, not theirs: They even tried padding our bill. "ADNY," as it's stamped with Trumpean pomposity on plates and silverware, is less about "the world's greatest French chef" than about franchise sprawl. Globe-girdling Alain Ducasse means to tap Manhattan's cash gusher while it lasts, and ADNY is the mediocre, often comical result. True, Ducasse has dropped his "I am in all my restaurants at once" act and begun showing his face with a vengeance on Central Park South. You might even get to meet him in the kitchen, as we did when we spotted him and conveyed our awe to the staff. But if you want a taste of the real thing, stroll down to the Waldorf's Peacock Alley, whose great chef, Laurent Gras, actually cooked at Ducasse's three-star places in Paris and Monte Carlo. Easily America's most expensive restaurant, ADNY has shocked foodies out of their summer somnelence. They're agog over its $160 prix fixe menu and $2 million re-do of the old Les Celebrites. One of its snotty shticks is to close on Saturday - a practice increasingly rare in Paris - and serve lunch only twice a week. It gloats over an alleged 2,700-name waiting list. All this baloney has had the predictable effect on easily led minds reduced to aspic by the whisper of Ducasse's name. One normally sane Web site proclaims ADNY "America's finest restaurant." Mr. Grimes warns us not to expect a Times review soon as no tables are available until November. He might try picking up the phone: The Post got two reservations last week (one for lunch and one for dinner) just by calling and asking. [See story next page.] ADNY is so full of goofy pageantry, you expect "wine goddesses" to slide down poles and give neck rubs. Take the Presentation of Knives. A waiter displays a case made of rich-smelling leather. It holds a dozen cutting implements of cruel appearance, in many sizes and shapes. The waiter: "It is the knives for the squab. You choose the one for the bones. " We choose our weapons. We nervously await a pigeon of prehistoric dimensions. The squab proves anticlimactically tiny and boneless. Or take the notorious "courtesy" stools for ladies' purses. These serve mainly to bring out one's inner klutz, and I tripped over the damn things twice. The gimmickry spills over, literally, into "baba au rhum," where you choose the rum and see it poured, and the wine list whose seal you must break. Disappointingly, they were out of the first bottle we selected. ADNY lays on the laughs early and often. How can you not cackle over menu language reminiscent of old Chinese restaurants' - pasta "with tasty bouillon," berries "with unctuous cake?" Giving you a choice of fancy pens for check-signing is a side-splitter, when the dough isn't coming out of your own pocket. I drew the line, though, when they tried to charge us $108 for foie gras served as the chef's-compliments course known as the amuse-bouche. The puzzling explanation went: "Usually, it is salmon, but one of you ordered salmon, so we had to do the foie gras, but we took it off." We also watched a table-ful of chefs de cuisine from the Four Seasons send back a bill much too high. The explanation that time? "Wrong table." Whoops. Despite replacing Les Celebrites' bad art with worse, and lightening the colors, ADNY still looks like its predecessor: a high, rectangular rug joint broken up by two ponderous columns, with rosewood walls, circular banquettes and miles of gold trim. It's one of the city's most luxurious spaces and swell to spend three or four hours in. The greeting is warm and no one is haughty. But inside, it's a blizzard of impersonal buzzing, well-meaning but unfocused. ADNY desperately needs a ringmaster like Le Cirque's Sirio Maccioni or Le Perigord's Georges Briquet to lay on the dazzle. ADNY's floor crew could do with a master of any kind. No one seemed in charge of the table. One fellow insisted, with Regis' "final answer" gravity, that I choose dessert at the exact moment a second man was pouring me wine to taste. At dinner, we had to ask three times for bread; the tough mini-baguettes and salty brioches were a letdown after a 40-minute wait. They're quick to whisk away your napkin when you leave the table, but need reminding to replace it on your return. Asked to explain the gynecologically suggestive (and useless) implement supplied with certain dishes, the best the crew could offer was "asparagus tongs" - although there was no asparagus on the table. "Is the Arizona beef a house specialty?" we wondered. "No." Our man did not elaborate. What the hell is Arizona beef, which Ducasse calls "astonishing?" In fact, his comments on what he's up to in New York sound patronizing. "What I discover on each of my visits to the United States gives rise to much more than simple curiosity," he has said. "In San Francisco, I tasted the best preserved apricots of my life." Thanks, dude. ADNY's chef of record is Didier Elena, Ducasse's "accomplice" of 12 years. (Boy, do these guys need a translator.) The place has been open a month, but they don't seem to have the hang of the fiber optically smart kitchen, anchored by a 3,000-pound Molteni stove and bristling with gizmos like built-in woks that can boil water in 7 seconds. Lunch (the $160 tasting menu), enjoyable enough, fell shy of brilliant. Dinner (a la carte) was bad enough to disappoint had it cost $300 for three, much less $600 - and some dishes were outright debacles. The menu is middle-of-the-road classic, with a nod to "Mediterranean" influences and lip service to the Great American Bounty. Don't expect a cavalcade of the "luxury" ingredients foie gras, truffles and caviar. In high summer, most everything had a wintery aspect; even "tomatoes: a cocktail of tastes" looked dour on the plate. Some sauces were acidically harsh, others lacked their alleged themes and oversalting was rampant. Two "signature" dishes, lifted from Ducasse's places in Paris and Monte Carlo, were remarkably dull. Indifferent breading was no help to spongy, $74 veal sweetbreads in their own juice. Worse, spaghettini "al dente" ($34) with olive oil and sauteed vegetables - a sticky lump in a small bowl - was as congealed as bad Chinese takeout, drenched in a puddle of "crushed black truffles" oddly without taste. Far better was "delicate velouté of sweet peas, their pods and radish greens," poured at the table, with two breaded crab fingers. But $28 for pea soup? Santa Barbara spotted prawns "in a chaud-froid, citrus fondue" ($42) were plump, sweet and nicely aspic-glazed - but near-inedible citric ooze stole over the dish like a plague. So did shrill "peppered vinegars reduction" encircling "wild" salmon ($62) that was both mealy and bland. The best a la carte dish was seaweed-steamed halibut filet ($68), a firm slab atop lovely green herb sauce and accessorized with "sea urchin cappuccino" and Asian-scented greens. The tasting menu at lunch, when there were empty tables, showed signs of life. That tomato "cocktail" came with marvelous tomato sorbet that reminds you it is, after all, a fruit. Promiscuous laying-on of butter bailed out a blurry swirl of farfalle with ham and vegetables. Filet of sole, in the shape of a tube, might have been a tube of butter, so drenched was the fish - but it afforded pleasure with cranberry beans and delectable crawfish. Best was the squab - a pristine sliver that was simplicity itself. It was topped with "thighs in pastilla," an earthy game-and-spice mix in a cigarette-shaped phyllo crust of Moroccan inspiration, and black truffle-foie gras red wine reduction that, for once, delivered the goods. Camembert was chilled enough to have been refrigerated. Pastry director Frederic Robert's desserts ($22), like a warm glazed feuillantine served with almond ice cream atop apricot compote, were winners. A trolley laid on fun goodies like lollipops and cookies that took forever to be served. Once during lunch, I remarked to my colleague on how late it was getting. "You can't rush mediocrity," he observed. Maybe not, but they sure could discount it 40 percent. Thanks to ADNY, everyone else can raise their entree prices $10 and boast, "See how much cheaper we are than Ducasse?"
- Skinny 7-27-2000 6:07 pm [link] [3 refs] [6 comments]

foodie dialogue
- dave 7-26-2000 4:28 am [link] [1 ref] [1 comment]

frogs -- cheese -- choice cuts
- dave 7-25-2000 4:39 pm [link] [add a comment]

anybody thirsty?
- dave 7-24-2000 11:38 pm [link] [2 refs] [add a comment]

i cant eat shrimp anymore each bite taste like turtle--remember that band ministry had a album "the mind is a terrible thing to taste"--i was thinking of heading back to my vegan ways when but this makes me want to get some folks together....
- Skinny 7-24-2000 12:57 am [link] [add a comment]

a review of a book called "the invention of the restaurant: paris and modern gastronomic culture".
- dave 7-23-2000 6:05 pm [link] [1 comment]

7/22 the green market is singing--peas three ways: snap, normale, and greens...first of the organic corn....multi-cherry jubilee....organic fava....organic fresh garlic (picked yesterday!!), same in onion and shallot, squash, tomatoe...bought all i could carry now i,m going back for more!!!
- Skinny 7-22-2000 3:15 pm [link] [4 comments]