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another part of ratings is personal bias, i love Italy and Italian wine, last night we ate at Lupa for the first time in about a year!! (party of 4 completely blown away, they sent out these lightly batter fried squid covered in a hot pepper sause that was "to live" for, the Bavette, a new dish of Farro Spagetinni(sp?) with tuscan chick peas (cecci's) and Bottarga (tuna roe), sardines with citrus peel, a pasta special with duck and blood orange etc ragu, the date dessert!!!--WOW!!!!--brilliant food, fab flavors, very nice wine list, awesome prices......
The 2002 edition of the SF Chronicle's annual survery of the top 100 local restaurants is now on the web. Only seven are south of SF. The other 93 are in SF, Berkeley, Oakland, and points northward. Yet another disadvantage of living in the "South Bay".
how would i rate a restaurant??
innovative brilliant food, and unique texture and flavor are top, presentation is somewhat an issue but surrondings are not, wine either BYOB'd or off the list is important part unless beer goes better with the food, price value ratio is a final point....
thats why below Willi's beats out Veritas, the food is way better at Veritas but the 3 bottles of wine I drank at Willi's costing $190 inc tax and tip would cost $800 at Veritas, hence Willi's is better IMHO, and thats why GSIMidtown could be so high up, the food is brilliant and I can bring whatever level of wine I want, no charge....
I've been having a series of lunches for slackers. Whoever cooks typically does a multi-course meal from scratch. Dishes range from souffle to fried turkey.
My Mardi Gras week lunch featured pane'ed shrimp, tilapia and okra (with light coating of Cajun spiced breading) over roasted corn/lime salsa and brown rice with a splash of fish stock, and a dab of remoulade on the side. But the star was the dessert.
Dark Chocolate Bread Pudding
serves 15
- one loaf sweet french bread, stale, crust removed, cut into 3/4" cubes
- eight eggs
- one pint skim milk, one pint heavy cream
- 1 lb Scharffen Berger semi-sweet, chopped into chips
- 1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1/2 cup Gran Marnier
- 1/2 cup Irish whiskey
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp cocoa
- unsalted butter
- melt 1/3 of chocolate chips
- let milk, cream and eggs reach room temperature, let chocolate cool
- whisk melted chocolate into eggs until smooth
- whisk liquor, sugar, nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon into mixture until smooth
- whisk milk and cream into egg mixture until smooth
- fold bread cubes into mixture, let stand for 30 minutes
- pour mixture into large deep pan, or several smaller deep tins (large pan yields custardy center with more cake-like exterior, smaller pans yield more consistent texture)
- while pouring mixture, add layers of the remaining chocolate chips
- sprinkle cocoa on top
- bake at 350 until set in the center, 50-60 minutes
- finish under broiler for 5 minutes, about 4" from hot broiler
- let cool for 5 minutes
- serve with vanilla ice cream, raspberry sorbet, whiskey, or whipped cream
- make note to self about increasing aerobics for a couple of days
back from the Loire and Paris and and one of the most fun and yum meals ever in France was at L'Astrance , some other places get high points some the wine lists are so good the ok food could be overlooked and a fab time was had....
but over all it was
#1 L'Astrance (Paris)
#2 Les Tonnelles (Behuard-Loire)
#3 Willi's Wine Bar (Paris)
*"WINE PROTECTS AGAINST DEMENTIA!" - NY TIMES
"Raising a Toast to the Brain's Health", Tuesday, Jan 5th. - By John O'Neil
According to a 6 year Dutch study,
"People who had consumed one to three drinks a day were half as likely to have developed dementia"
"The gap was even bigger when the researchers focused on vascular dementia, the deterioration of brain function linked to damage of the arteries that supply the brain with oxygen. Whatever it is about alcohol that reduces risk of stroke and heart disease is also helping the brain by improving the functioning of the circulatory system, the researchers speculated."
first of all, my advice is don't even bother to _try_ getting vegetarian food in Madrid; I swear I am telling the truth when I say that at La Gallette, the cute, chic, "best vegetarian" place in town, they have _bacon_ in the so-called macrobiotic special...having said which, man, they have some good bacon in spain...in Madrid we did much better with incredible tapas at La Trutta: octopus, artichokes, squid, etc providing great vehicles for mass quantities of garlic ...Spanish roses -- both Garanacha and Cabernet -- _rule_, even better than the bandols and c.d. provences in southern france... best meal of the whole trip: a perfect, fresh charcoal-grilled whole daurade at a tourist trap opposite the casino in Cannes... in Barcelona, try the Boterofumero, which is a kind of seafood peter luger, with amazing stuffed crab, grilled langostinos, endless raw bar, etc etc...the big barcelona dish is a kind of paella with noodles (i forget the name), which I do NOT recommend, it's a little smelly and boring...i didn't have a single anchovy in spain that wasn't fantastic, and not from lack of experimentation...great white bean soup and fried artichokes at Nino's on the Via Bourguinoni near the spanish steps in Rome, next to which there is a building under construction which is a perfect place for enjoying a preprandial Smoke...oh, and some other important advice: after you've had a shitload of red wine? DO NOT drink a half-bottle or more of grappa. believe me. please. oh yeah, and that debate about where's the best food? italy. in case anyone still has doubts.
roe vs. wade (not to mention gill-netting)
bottom-feeding in the upper crust
Drinking moderately (one to three drinks a day) halves your chances of getting alzheimer's. Cheers.
anybody eaten here?
heres a couple of wines featuring grapes from the vineyard my father has a small stake in. comments?
1999 stagecoach vineyard merlot
erich russell stagecoach merlot
Had lunch at Jean Georges and it was delish, really delish (the Cod w/ 5 Flavors, Pencil Leeks and Raspberry Vinegar worked with the old Sancerre so well it was one of the greatest food wine combos anyone at the table has had and the table had some heavy's!!)
i have been searching Singapore restaurant sites....The Imperial Herbal Restaurant had been recommended as one of Singapore’s finest examples of Chinese cuisine and a good place to go to overcome jet-lag. It’s a place frequented by health-conscious Epicureans who have out-yanged their yin [or vice versa] and by the clients of the proprietor, herbalist Li Lian Xing, who prefer to take their medicine in a sweet and sour sauce rather than the usual tonic of bitter tea.
At the back of the restaurant is a grand old-fashioned teak pharmaceutical counter with banks of drawers and shelves full of bottles. Mr Li presides over it like a lean-shaven Confucius, grinding up powders and weighing remedies on a delicate pair of scales before dispatching them to the kitchen.
His specimen bottles are not for the faint-hearted. Macbeth’s witches would have had a field day with the contents: dried geckos and caterpillars, antler velvet, pickled snakes and seahorses, ox tendons and duck’s webs, and an array of deer penises or ‘pizzles’ that would makes Santa Claus’s eyes water.
Then there are roots, fungi, bulbs and herbs that look as weird and unappetizing as their animal counterparts but are also prescribed for a catalogue of complaints: American ginseng, for example, for ‘spontaneous perspiration and shortness of breath’; polygorum multiflorum for premature aging; fritillary bulbs for smoker’s cough; and birds’ nest for the complexion.
None of these look the stuff f the local take-away and under Sybil Fawlty’s direction there was no chance of avoiding them for a simple spring roll.
“First you will have famous appetizer - quick fried egg white with scallops and ladybell root in fried noodle basket. Good for ‘qi’ - more energy. Also,” she added, with a pointed look at my companion, “good for over-weight.”
She tugged at my hair. “Now need something for this,” she said. “Going grey already. I give you bowl of crispy black ants. Special imported from Northern China. Also good for Hepatitis B and arthritis.”
I tried to look grateful.
She continued prodding her finger at my menu. “Next you like black chicken for PMT or special Whip Soup for aphrodisiac?” By the time we had fought our humiliating way to the end of the list she had prescribed an additional course of deep-fried scorpions on prawn toast, “for the brain,” two portions of a bizarre potluck panacea called Buddha Jumps Over The Wall, and a dish of menthol jelly for desert. We managed to steer clear of her final recommendation for double boiled snow frog’s glands with rock sugar to, “improve functions of liver and kidney.”
As soon as her back was turned we ordered a couple of Tiger beers to settle our stomachs.
It is not only the medicinal aspect of food that is dished out with headmistressy insistence at the Imperial Herbal. The Chinese believe that whatever you eat has a direct effect on the body. To be in perfect health the internal ‘yin’ - the cool, contemplative forces - should be kept in equilibrium with the ‘yang’ - the more active, hot energies.
Every food has its own energy, so eating ‘cold’ foods like mussels, cucumber, snake and bean sprouts, has a calming effect on your macho hothead, while ‘hot’ foods like chocolate, beef, butter, onion and chillies can invigorate the wimp.
And some foods have a direct effect on different organs in the body. Egg yolk, for example, affects the heart, peppermint the lungs, wine the liver, salt the kidneys, and sugar the spleen. The small intestines are affected by spinach, the large intestines by pepper, the gall bladder by chicory, the bladder by watermelon, and the stomach by rice.
Every dish at the restaurant is a balanced combination of ingredients and each one should be chosen to complement the next. It’s a hypochondriac’s heaven and might have proved pleasantly diverting were any of it edible. For sheer disgustingness I rate only Fernet Branca and school cabbage higher.
Some of it was virtually impossible to put into your mouth without stomach-churning panic. The scorpion, for instance, flipped its tail up as I bit it and hit me on the nose.
Our waitress returned with gusto to see how we were doing. She was clearly disappointed to see our unfinished plates.
“Eat your soup,” she commanded, fishing about in my bowl with a spoon. “See, here is nice lotus seed - make ginseng taste better. And sliced sea cucumber, and abalone - good for sex life.”
“Will it do anything for jet lag?” I asked queasily. “For jet-lag,” she said helpfully, “you need plenty sleep,” and bustled off to persecute the next table."
Happy New Year to All
In 2001 some of the best meals I have eaten were in Brooklyn at Al Di La and Locanda Vini e Olii, one of my favorite 2001 meals was a tasting menu at 71 Clinton FF with a table of 3 tasting 17 different dishes in all, Grand Sichuan International, Lupa & Felidia, also eating in Italy at the homes of winemakers, small village trattoria's and the wild meal at the two star Da Vittorio in Bergamo were all highlights....
I feel lucky that my work includes tons of meals all over the world but in general I feel let down by the dining experience, having had so many just ok meals this year. Yes one great dish here and one there but the expence invovled is ridicuolous if its not a bizz write-off.
My tastes are for more simple dishes and Italian food. Luckly I can finally cook ok for myself but this makes paying alot for just ok food a bummer . I tried this year to eat more raw foods (one of my phobia's), and eat more meats to add variety in 2001.
The search goes on and Q1 2002 will bring me to Loire, Paris, Italy, maybe Barcelona, lots of NYC restaurants in search of a great meal. Maybe a summer trip to SouthEast Asia as Asian food to me rocks.
All the best to you and lets eat together soon!!
The big question is where??
Typical year-end list from the Post, but I was struck by this item:
GOOFIEST ITEM IN A DISH: Popcorn - actual popcorn - in $14.50 corn-and-lobster soup at the Carlyle Hotel restaurant. It's even less successful than it sounds.AKA used popcorn (successfully, I thought) in a corn soup earlier this year. I thought it was novel, but I guess it was a trend. Or was it a ripoff? Or is there any difference in the food world? Inquiring minds want gossip, not gastronomy.