Drive-by Critic

Inspired by the extraordinary chutneys we tasted at Kapishya Hot Springs in Zambia (look for reviews of our meagre dining experiences in the travel forum), and by Zora, I am going directly from NO cooking to making home-made chutneys. And not just the ordinary mango chutneys you can buy anywhere. No sirree. As a lover of tamarind, I am going for a tamarind-based chutney, but I am having a tough time finding tamarind (pulp is called for, not concentrate, though I'd like to find the concentrate for other dishes). I tried Balducci's, as they sell a turkey burger with tamarind sauce, but they don't sell tamarind. I've tried the ethnic food aisles at Giant and Rodman's as well as Dean and DeLuca. Haven't tried the grocery store in White Flint North (a Food Lion, I think), which has quite a good selection of ethic foods. Part of the problem seems to be knowing where to look. The tamarind is native to Africa but tamarind is commonly used in both Asian and Latin cuisines. I've tried all three sections without luck. Any ideas? Ellen

What he said. Ellen

You don't have to go to Bawlmer to get Berger cookies. They are also sold at the Chevy Chase Supermarket. Go to the deli. There is a shelf in front of the deli cases where they sell baked goods, including Berger cookies. Directions from the Beltway: exit onto Connecticut Avenue, going southbound (towards the city). Go through the big intersection with Jones Bridge Road (no turns!) to the next light - Manor Road. There is a BP on the right-hand corner and a Smith&Hawkens on the left corner. Turn left onto Manor and the grocery store is on your immediate right. Ellen

Joe - I hate to disagree with someone who has infinitely better food experience/judgment than I (we actually make a point of trying places you recommend, and since you said that you'd schlepped all the way to Trenton for a pie at DeLorenzo's, I consider you a food deity), but this is an exception. We went to Waterman's in late March. We knew in advance that they didn't have hard shells, but we wanted to try it anyway. The crab soup was like crab-flavored dishwater. Barely any crab - a few wispy shreds in a thin, brownish broth with a few bits of what seemed like canned veggies, flavorless crabcakes made entirely of shreds and a noticeable amount of filler, and fries that they should have been embarrassed to serve. Clearly frozen fries from a bag, flavorless and limp and thoroughly unappetizing. Even though we were the only ones there, the service was abysmal. They acted as though we were inconveniencing them. We spent long intervals without seeing a single employee and when we wanted more iced tea or soda, we had to walk over to the kitchen to call out for someone. Ellen

Yup, that's the one! Not a lot of corn-on-the-cob vendors when we've been there (for me, sporadically over the past way-too-many decades). LOTS of sausage vendors - hot and sweet, on the grill, w/ onions and grilled peppers. It is definitely cheesy in the best sense of the word. Like those old-fashioned carnivals - they even have those goofy games like "high-striker" where you slam a sledgehammer onto a striker to make a ball go up a tower and ring a bell. And ring toss, and such. Tons of red, green, and white bunting all over the place. Except for the addition of some Latino food stalls around the edges, and the sad shrinkage of Little Italy, it hasn't changed much since I was a kid. You can eat cannoli until it is coming out of your ears, and gelato, and spumoni, and Just be sure to visit the "guess your weight" stands BEFORE you do all this eating! Of course it is crowded. It is NYC and it is FUN. Ellen

What time did you get there and how long did you have to wait? We arrived at 5:30 thinking the line wouldn't be too long - maybe 30-45 minutes. It was twenty minutes - to get into the effing parking lot!!!!! And a two-hour wait for dinner!!!! What are you supposed to do for two hours? The neighbors must hate this joint, with the cars backed up all along their road and those who give up making u-turns in their driveways and on their lawns. The kid directing traffic said that the line starts to form at about 1-2 p.m. So apparently, if you want to eat at six, you need to get there at 4 and bring a book and plan to hang around. It's ridiculous that a place like this, totally isolated and with minimal capacity, won't take reservations. I was really disappointed as this was my first trip to Cantler's and when we phoned to ask about the length of the lines at various times of day, no one said anything about two hour waits. We ended up driving over the Bay Bridge to the Narrows, which was a wonderful "consolation" prize - no wait at all and great food. It blows my mind that so many people are willing to put up with a 2-hour wait. For that kind of nonsense, I expect the world's best crabs....delivered by Don Rockwell himself. Ellen

Ellen here. First, thanks for the PM explaining the menu planning situation. I really appreciated the answer. We were actually thinking of trying Sonoma the other night, after a Hill event, but it was too bloody hot to walk over, and then have to schlep back out to Bethesda afterwards. Which brings me to second - great news that you will be coming to Bethesda. We are looking forward to it. It is hard enough for me to force myself to go out of the house and into traffic to go to Bethesda (in nice weather, we can walk) much less downtown.

Who can reply to this one the fastest, me or mktye? Now you are on MY turf - the birding listservs periodically break into silly discussions of TITillating bird names. There are lots of tits - Blue Tit, Great Tit, Penduline Tit....and then there's Oxpecker, woodpecker, Cock of the Rock, various boobies.... Now, how to tie this back to food and restaurants? Well, we eat food before and after birding...Um, OK, that's really lame, I know.

Understood. But that's on the customer side. What about on the house side? They surely know about this supply issue better than do customers. So why wouldn't they plan for it? They plan their menus to take account of what's available, fresh, and, in some cases, local. So wouldn't that planning include not having a menu that's heavy on fish/seafood (or other stuff) that you know you can't get/get fresh over the weekend? Isn't that part of the expertise that goes into owning a restaurant and planning a menu?

Sounds like its time for a new DR game - figure out the restaurants nailed in the Sietsema chat. This one should be great fun. Form a posse, and visit all the restaurants in Chinatown. At each one, order a buttery nipple and see how much you are charged. Last one standing is...well, I guess there won't be anyone standing at the end of this game. Puking, yes. Standing, no. Talk about taking one for the team. This drink sounds Serious nondrinker's drink. Nondrinking chick drink And to think that you would have to drink a dozen or more. Doubt it was Hooters. The waitress would only have to bend over the table a couple of times to get these guys to forget all about checking the tab. Ellen

I have a question pertaining to Ms. Paris' experience. Wouldn't a restaurant that knows it will be closed for two days, and probably not able to obtain key ingredients for a fair number of dishes on Saturday, want to devise a different menu for the following day or two? I admire the way Mr. Hengst answered Ms. Paris, but explaining why they couldn't get fresh fish doesn't explain why, knowing that this would likely be a problem, they didn't develop an alternative menu without fish or seafood dishes... Generally it sounds like a place worth trying. I really don't mean this to be critical. It is a sincere question. Ellen

Hmmm. Here's the only hint I culd find in the post: "popular Chinatown restaurant."

First time at Rock Creek (Bethesda) was a rewarding experience. VERY rewarding. We walked in at 8:30 without reservations. There were plenty of open tables, but the hostess asked us to wait a moment before seating us. I was worried that she was checking to see if the kitchen was about to close. In any case, she returned quickly and seated us. The room is lovely. Despite hard surfaces and open ceiling, it was quiet though that may not be the case when the room is full. The tables were nicely spaced and the banquettes so comfy I could have fallen asleep. The lighting is low and overall, the decor subtle. I would describe the place as soothing. Relaxing isn't my forte, and I relaxed quickly in this room. Aided, I might add, by a "Rocktini" composed of Ketel 1 Citroen, Cointreau, lime, and cranberry juice. My friend had a pomegranate martini. Equally wonderful. I almost never eat bread, but hunger won out and I thoroughly enjoyed the light whole wheat bread with the nice crust. The hummus was terrific, with bright lemony overtones, but not too lemony. I had the pan-seared diver scallops with quinoa and a citrus sauce, with peas and carrots. The three large scallops were flavorful and firm, nicely seared with a bit of brown, crusty char on the edges. A little column of toasted quinoa in the center of the scallops tasted great and added nice texture to the dish (and gave me an excuse to scoop up the delightful citrus sauce). The peas and carrots added color and a nice, fresh flavor. My friend had the ricotta and basil ravioli which were fantastic. The tomato sauce was assertive, but somehow didn't overwhelm the delicate flavors of the ravioli filling. This dish is a winner, too. For dessert, we shared the roasted pineapple with saffron sauce and vanilla yoghurt. Heavenly. Just perfect. I detected a tiny bit of heat in the sauce and the waitress checked with the kitchen. The sauce is simmered with some peppercorns and that gives it the barely detectable bit of zip that transforms this dish into something extraordinary. The service was spot on. All this for $70 - terrific value. I am not doing justice to this place and the great food. It was fantastic and I highly recommend it. I am sorry I never tried it before but I am sure I will be back. Ellen

Sorry - it's actually in Princeton, on Route 1, really too far to be practical. Though you will soon find that "Princeton" is a label applied to everything north of Cherry Hill and South of Metuchen, much in the way that Potomac covers the entire northern half of MoCo. Ellen

Sorry to chime in so late, as you've already gone...but since it sounds like you may do this again.... 1. Take the Chinatown bus. Cheap and it drops you off in Chinatown. 2. Plan your return visit during the Feast of San Gennaro. http://www.sangennaro.org/ We did this two years ago (albeit we didn't take the bus as my family lives up there). We met friends for dim sum, then wandered around Little Italy stuffing our faces, and THEN went over to the Lower East Side (what's left of it) paying homage to Russ and Daughters (best smoked fish in the world, halvah, bialys), the Pickle Man, and, of course Yonah Schimmel's Knishes. We even stopped by Katz's. The whitefish salad at Russ & Daughters is out of this world, and don't miss the sable and the peppered mackerel cured with orange, lemon, honey, and spices. And THEN we waddled home. We easily did a full week's worth of eating in one day. The trick is to share, and to eat small amounts of lots of stuff. And to be honest, we brought the fish home (Russ & Daughters isn't a restaurant, you can't sit down and eat). If you do this, go on a Sunday. Lots of stuff in the Lower East Side is closed on Saturday (Russ & Daughters and Yonah Schimmel are open). Including the few remaining clothing stores, should you find yourself wanting to haggle for a great bargain as a respite from stuffing your face. For the guys and the female gear-heads out there, the mothership of electronics stores is in the area, too. No, not B&H (that's midtown) but J&R - at Park Row, between Beekman and Ann Streets, one block south of City Hall and two blocks north of Fulton Street, in Downtown New York. It is an entire city block. And for L&O fans, you can stop by 1PP and 60 Centre Street. For a more sobering moment, you can visit the hole. In fact, if you take the tubes (PATH) from Jersey City, that's where the train takes you. Ellen

As a Jersey girl myself (yes, Central NJ) I am guessing that two of your priorities are Stage Left and The Frog and The Peach. Sadly, what NJ is missing most is a good board like this one. They say that Rafferty's has great burgers. Haven't been there myself. For great, traditional thin-crust pizza, go to the Chambersburg section of Trenton. De Lorenzo's [since 1938]. The one on Hudson [is closed, I'm sad to say - see one of numerous articles here.] Be prepared to stand in line. Outside. You know you are in the "real thing" when you see them tossing the crust, wearing ribbed muscle t-shirts, there are pictures of "Saint Son" all over the place, and there's an old Italian lady of indeterminate age, who's looked exactly the same for the past 30 years, overseeing everything. Here's an article about De Lorenzo's. Folks seem to like the Italian restaurants in the Burg [a local name for South Chambersburg], but I have never found them to be worthwhile. They seem to like John Henry's but I thought it was dreadful. A salad that was long past its prime (mushy, browned greens), veggies right out of the can, dried out seafood with gloppy saucese . People will tell you to go to Pete Lorenzo's cafe [also closed, I'm sorry to say] (across from the Trenton train station) for great steak. It is an institution. The State House pols and their buddies hang here as do most of the lawyers. Well, yeah, it is aged but it is old-style steak. Filet mignon or sirloin. In the days before RTC/RTS, I would have recommended it, but now...meh. It is an experience, though. There's a WFM in Highland Park and NJ has Wegman's. Tell Beth that there is (was?) a good women's clothing store, albeit NJ style, not DC lack-of-style, in Highland Park, too. Ellen As the man said, [Yes, I know, it should be Springsteen, but ...]

Questions: 1. As you are buying key ingredients, say at the Farmer's Market, that are more-or-less spontaneous (yes, you know what will be in season, but not if they will for sure be available on a given day, or if available, that the quality will be suitable), how do you then know if you've got everything else you'll need to fix whatever dish you have in mind? I always end up having to run out again to buy one or two things that I thought I had in the house (or didn't even know I needed - this being far more common, since I don't have the basic ingredients of most dishes in my head). 2. Is the timing just a matter of practice? That's always so baffling to me - how to get everything to come out at the same time. Some aspects are obvious - such as doing all the chopping, slicing, dicing, separating, bringing-to-room-temp kind of thing. Maybe the PA Dutch pie crust was so good because they used lard rather than butter? I think we need a ZoraCam! Ellen

Thanks for all the advice! Much appreciated. Especially the bit about the department stores...I wouldn't have thought to look there because I'm not a shopper, and particularly dislike department stores. Yes, Skype is a treasure. With family in South Africa and New Zealand, and with both of us traveling so much, and with friends and colleagues all over the world, it is one of those "how did we ever live without...." tools. We once had (with careful attention to time zones) me on from Oregon, Tim from Maryland, my in-laws from Cape Town, and my brother-in-law from New Zealand all at once. Anyway, while I adore room service while traveling in the U.S. on business(having someone deliver food to me and not having to spend another few hours making chit chat with people I've been with all day...makes up for what is almost always mediocre food), I sure don't want to hang out in my hotel room while in Tokyo! Ellen

Aha. Something I actually do really well - boil eggs. I do it Julia's way, which sounds similar to the way you do it. Eggs go into room temp water (with the water covering the eggs by about an inch). Then remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 17 minutes. Put eggs in bowl of ice for 2 minutes. Dip eggs back into boiling water for about 10 seconds. Makes perfect, creamy-yolked eggs without the dark lines or rubbery whites. Now, without casting aspersions on your vendor, the fact that you bought them all on the same day doesn't mean they were all produced the same day. When eggs age, they lose moisture and would cook differently from fresher eggs. Great. Masquerading as Julia Child and Harold McGee all at one time. Don't listen to a word I say, even though I am a first-born. And I do make great hard-boiled eggs. Ellen

Help! I am going to Tokyo for a week on business. In August. On a very, very tight budget. I need to eat cheap and healthy. And (if THIS doesn't get me kicked off DR.com, nothing will) I don't like sushi. I am planning to take my own shredded cardboard breakfast, as I always do when I travel. I'm told that there are very cheap soup stands all over the place, so that will be lunch, but don't know what to do about dinner. The conference will be held a the Hotel East 21, in case anyone knows Tokyo. So basically, think "cheap eats" and healthy (or at least "heathier") and if you've got any recommendations, please let me know. My guess is that no one else here would want to eat like this in Tokyo, so feel free to PM instead of posting. Thanks. Ellen

I know, I know, but you can't link to Times articles - it just takes you to a pay-per-view link...I'm guessing/hoping that newspapers don't bother going after this kind of thing because there's so darned much of it and just finding it, much less tracking everyone down, would cost more than it is worth to try to stop it. In fact, I usually just paste the headline into google and find that the article has already been posted on numerous websites and blogs by someone else...several to dozens or times, occasionally more than that. Ellen

Though our "common law," which means court-developed law rather than the statutes enacted by legislature, is derived from British common law, it differs on the issue of defamation. Which in the case of a printed restaurant review would actually be libel, not slander as (how the hell do I remember this garbage?) Slander is Spoken. But in any case, restaurateurs in the U.S. have sued critics, but not successfully. A critic for the Dallas Morning News gave Il Mulino 3.5 of 5 stars, saying that " the vodka sauce was 'finished with butter', and that the 'delicious' porcini ravioli 'whispered of gorgonzola'." (yeah, I would never go to an overpriced, mediocre restaurant because the delicious porcini ravioli had a hint of gorgonzola ... and butter in a sauce? HORRORS!). But there must be something awful here that I don't get, because the owner freaked, "'I don't have any gorgonzola in the whole kitchen,' fumed Romano, 'and there's no butter in that vodka sauce.' Generally, in the United States, expressions of opinion are fully protected by the First Amendment. A critic would not be liable for saying, "the decor is funereal, and well-suited to the food, which was thoroughly cremated before it reached the table." However, if the critic said, "Diners were dropping like flies, gagging and wretching as they gasped their final, tortured breaths" - well that could be a problem because the critic is purporting to state a fact, and if that fact is not true, and if it was the proximate cause of injury to the establishment.... The doctrine is known as "fair comment" and it basically means that so long as the opinion is honestly held and based on the facts (as opposed, for instance, to personal animosity on the part of the critic), the reviewer's comments are immune from a libel action. However, even statements of fact, in the context of reviews, are often considered by courts to be mere hyperbole or a description that is part of the opinion. So if you wrote "the curtains were a somber shade of pearl gray, lending a funereal air...." and in fact, they were dove grey...that is not actionable. The context is considered. The basis of this principle, besides the general gestalt of the First Amendment (all speech is unfettered and unlimited unless there is a damned good reason to the contrary), is that an opinion is subjective, and can't be proved or disproved. If it can't be proved or disproved, it can't be false, and if it can't be false, it can't be defamatory. You'll receive my bill in the morning, Don. Oh, did I forget to mention that law degree and 10 yrs of litigation experience (before I decided to use my powers for good rather than evil)? Ellen A recent NYT article sums it up nicely, and I do wish our U.S. critics would adopt some of the acerbic prose that is so common across the pond - see comments in article about a dish that could be mistaken for a WMD if found buried in the Iraqi desert - but I suppose it's that old dilemma - with that charming accent, they can say anything and get away with it. Though how that works in written pieces, I'll never know. March 7, 2007 Serving You Tonight Will Be Our Lawyer By ADAM LIPTAK (NOTE: the NYT articles are free for only a week or so - can't remember if it is 7 or 14 days. So I'm posting the link here, but be warned that this is pay-per-view: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.htm...AA0894DF404482) As requested by mktye, I've deleted the full text that I posted earlier this morning, and leave you with just a few pithy and tantalizing excerpts. If you want the rest, you'll have to shell out $4.95 OR google to see if you can find it posted elsewhere. THE review, published last month in The Philadelphia Inquirer, was three sentences long. It praised the crab cake at Chops restaurant in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., but said the meal there over all ''was expensive and disappointing, from the soggy and sour chopped salad to a miserably tough and fatty strip steak.'' The resulting libel lawsuit was 16 pages long.... The suit joins a long line of court encounters between sharp reviews and the restaurateurial ego, and, if the earlier cases are a reliable guide, it is doomed.... But American judges have apparently never punished even tough, mean and wrongheaded restaurant reviews. As the federal appeals court in Manhattan put it in 1985, ''reviews, although they may be unkind, are not normally a breeding ground for successful libel actions.''....... On his blog, Michael Bauer, the restaurant critic for The San Francisco Chronicle, also said he found the legal climate perilous. ''As a critic,'' he wrote, ''I figure I'm always one misplaced adjective away from getting slapped with legal action.'' Mr. Platt, the New York magazine critic, was more sanguine. ''I don't think about it,'' he said of the threat of a libel claim. ''Maybe I should.'' Or maybe he shouldn't. These rulings, from about a dozen over the past three decades, were all in favor of the reviewer. ''Trout à la green plague''? Ruling: ''An ordinarily informed person would not infer that these entrees were actually carriers of communicable diseases.'' ''The fish on the Key West platter tasted like old ski boots''? Ruling: ''Obviously, that was hyperbole used to indicate that the reviewer found the fish to be dry and tough.'' Peking duck pancakes ''the size of a saucer and the thickness of a finger''? Ruling: ''An attempt to inject style into the review rather than an attempt to convey with technical precision literal facts about the restaurant.'' ''Bring a can of Raid if you plan to eat here''? Ruling: ''The techniques of humor and ridicule were protected.'' ........... Ms. Workman's critique -- she said her cola was warm and flat, the restaurant smoky and the service poor -- was mild by the standards of English reviewing, where a lethal swagger seems to be prized. People in London still quote phrases from Matthew Norman's review of Shepherds, a London restaurant, in The Sunday Telegraph Magazine in 2004. He said it was ''among the very worst restaurants in Christendom,'' serving ''meals of crescendoing monstrosity.'' In particular, Mr. Norman did not care for the crab and brandy soup. ''Were it found today in a canister buried in the Iraqi desert,'' he wrote, ''it would save Tony Blair's skin.''

Zora has misled all of you, confirming my belief that great cooks have secrets, and deliberately omit ingredients from the recipes they share with others. However, I figured it out yesterday morning, while out hiking (OK, so we didn't get up at 4 a.m. to hike...we slept late...until 5 a.m.). She's omitted the liberal sprinkling of warmth, the special blend of humor, the joy of creating and of giving pleasure to others, and the indescribable delight of making new friends...but I'm sure I'm still missing something. Some elusive herb...the very richness and joy of a life well-lived infused every bite, scented the air, and enveloped us in a mist of gentle bliss. Those who say that Zora is a great cook are right, but that's only the start.... With humble and grateful admiration, Ellen

Do the name Jack Spratt ring a bell? Ellen

Well, all of a sudden my H2 is taking a great interest in DR.com and has quoted you to me! Zora - we may be a little bit late on Saturday! Ellen