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hungry prof

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Everything posted by hungry prof

  1. hungry prof
    Interesting. I made the chicken with arak and clementines a few weeks ago and had a similiar experience. The chicken just didn't brown like you'd want it to or like it appears in the photo in the book. I wonder if the chicken should be treated more like you would in a braising recipe. That is, brown the chicken on the stovetop first before putting it in the oven. At least in the arak and clementine recipe, I think there's too much liquid in the roasting pan for it really to brown effectively.
  2. hungry prof
    I made the veal, prunes, and leak dish last night along with the mejadra (rice, lentil, fried onions). Both excellent, but the veal dish is really a special occasion dish. I doubled the recipe for a dinner party, meaning there was about $80 worth of veal in the dish.
  3. hungry prof
    Thanks for the kind words about the dinner party menu (which is now in another thread, but I'm replying here since people's posts about the menu are still here). I couldn't have done it without my wife, but she has also basically forbidden me from cooking anything "a la minute" for dinner parties. Too much stress, she says, and she's right. So: I smoked the salmon last weekend. It's fine to sit in the fridge for a week. On Friday night, we knocked out the chicken liver mousse, the bread dough (by necessity), the ice cream, and the soup. For Saturday, that left the veal dish (which I prepped in the morning and then just reheated before dinner), the bread (the no-knead variety, which is pretty simple), the tarte (also relatively simple), the brussels sprouts (stick 'em in the oven simple) and the rice and lentil dish, which was the only thing that needed some real attention to get done at the right time. So, truth be told, it was about as low stress as a pretty ambitious dinner party could be. We even did all of the above with our four-year old "helping" us in the kitchen.
  4. hungry prof
    Dinner party tonight: Hors D'oeuvre Homemade Cold-Smoked Salmon, Creme Fraiche, Home-baked Pumpernickel Julia Child's Chicken Liver Mousse [an outrageous recipe--heavy cream, a whole stick of butter, chicken livers], Parmesan Cream Crackers Champagne Duval-Leroy, 1996 Boulevardier Cocktail (Very Old Barton Bourbon, Campari, Vermouth) "Amuse-bouche" (or what I'm giving everybody when they sit down) Warm Dates with Marscapone a la Komi Donnhoff Oberhauser Brucke Riesling Auslese, 2005 First Course Squash, Saffron, and Orange Soup with Spicy Pumpkin Seed Brittle Chablis Grand Gru Les Clos, Domaine Billaud-Simon, 2007 Main Course Slow Cooked Veal, Prunes, and Leeks (from Jerusalem) Mejadra--Lentils, Basmati Rice, Fried Onions (also from Jerusalem) Roasted Brussels Sprouts Home-baked Whole Wheat Bread Clos Saint Denis Grand Cru, Domaine des Chezeaux, 2001 Dessert Apple Tarte Tatin with Norman Farm Apples, Homemade Cinnamon Ice Cream Lillypilly Noble Blend, 2000
  5. hungry prof
    Google translate tells me that fumet is French for aroma, which seems right for what's being discussed.
  6. hungry prof
    I went to graduate school in Chicago in the mid-late 1990's, when Charlie Trotter's was hitting on all cylinders. Unfortunately, it was a holy grail for me, unattainable by my own limited resources at the time and the lack of interest from those around me (i.e., U of C PhD students who subsisted on pasta and Harold's Chicken Shack fried chicken). I never got there. Very sad news today. Anybody else remember his tv show? I think it was called, "The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter," or something like that. I recall one episode in which he cooked a perfect piece of salmon. Great ingredient, great technique.
  7. hungry prof
    And, as an aside, kudos to Vitamix for their handling of the recall that monavano linked to above. Our Vitamix was one of the ones recalled. They shipped us a perfectly sized box to put our container in. We shipped it back, and they immediately sent us a new container (plus a free blender drink recipe book for our trouble). Whole thing was done in a week without any hassle.
  8. hungry prof
    Leaving aside knowledge of local specialties, some of them still seem to show up without a dessert that they can consistently make. That suggests that perhaps it's less about not knowing the location and more about not spending the time to prepare (which might be understandable given that they all have demanding day jobs).
  9. hungry prof
    Yelpers suing Yelp.
  10. hungry prof
    So excited for THANKSGIVUKKAH!! For those who don't know, Hanukkah is the earliest it can ever be this year, and Thanksgiving--on 11/28--is the latest it can be. So, the first night of Hanukkah is the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. This apparently won't happen again until the year 79811 (yes, you read that correctly). Turkey and latkes for everybody!!!!
  11. hungry prof
    This would explain why Don Pollo had Fish Taco menus prominently displayed when I went this past Friday to pick up some chicken. . .
  12. hungry prof
    Closing this Friday. To be replaced by a new market/restaurant concept, Menu. My wife and I ate here once over the summer and thought it was good, but not particularly memorable (and thus the lack of a post from me). I also remember commenting on how remarkably empty it was on a Saturday night only a couple of weeks after a favorable review from Sietsema. We chalked it up to it being summer in DC, but apparently, those issues persisted.
  13. hungry prof
    Adding one more name into the mix, I've recently acquired a Primo XL. It's a ceramic grill like a Big Green Egg, only it's oval-shaped. If you wander onto any of the major BBQ message boards, there are lengthy debates between advocates of the BGE and supporters of the Primo XL. So far, I've smoked a whole chicken on it, cold-smoked salmon (twice), grilled pizza, and grilled some swordfish from BlackSalt. With no modesty at all, I would say that the food has been exceptionally good. The whole chicken I made this past weekend convinced me that I will be smoking my Thanksgiving turkey on the Primo this year. One advantage of ceramics (at least according to the gazillion websites and message boards that I consulted before making this purchase) is the wide temperature range you can get. So, I was able to cold-smoke the salmon, maintaining 70 degrees for two hours one time and six hours another (I used an accessory called A-Maze-N to generate the smoke). Kind of cool to be able to make homemade lox. Later that same day, I was easily (and remarkably quickly) able to get the grill up to 700 degrees for making pizza (and it could have gone higher if I hadn't closed off some of the air flow). Not cheap (especially with the very nice and functional teak table that we got to house it), but we anticipate using this for a long, long time.
  14. hungry prof
    Zoinks. No, I swear it wasn't us.
  15. hungry prof
    Very good dinner at Red Hen last night. Unfortunately--and here's the take away--I'm not sure we'll be returning anytime soon, especially not with anybody with whom we actually want to converse. The place is just too darn loud. Half the time I couldn't hear our (very good) server, let alone my wife across the table from me. That off my chest, on to the food: We were greeted with bread served with a tapenade-like substance. I'd say this was actually rather perfunctory. Nothing particularly notable about either the bread or the spread. Appetizers We split the grilled octopus with (I think) greens and fried capers (it's not on their menu online, so I can't get the exact dish). This might have been my favorite dish of the night. I love grilled octopus except when it occasionally seems a bit mushy. No mushiness here. Quite good. As a second appetizer, we had the chicken liver crostinis with parmesan. Picture a triangle of bread with a thin schmeeer of chicken liver mousse with a couple of slices of parmesan on top. Again, very good, but I'd note again that I don't think the underlying bread was all that great. We had bread twice--when we were seated and in these crostini--and the bread was underwhelming both times. Main course We had the rigatoni with fennel sausage in a tomato ragu. I described it to my wife as a very good sausage pizza without the crust. I'd stick by that. As Pat describes above, this was a good solid plate of food. Very comforting, and I would eat this again on a chilly winter evening in a heartbeat. We also had a pan roasted grouper with cannelini beans and mussels in a romesco sauce. Barely noticed any mussels, but this dish was also very good. In particular, I noted how expertly the grouper was pan roasted. It had this delicious brown crust on the exterior yet was perfectly cooked throughout. I wish I could cook fish like this. Dessert We split the chocolate cake with cherries and sweet ricotta gelato. Perfectly fine, but not a dessert I'm likely to remember beyond today. To drink, I had a "Hell is Empty"--bourbon, ginger beer, and anise. Again, perfectly fine, but not something I'm going to hurry to recreate or order again. My wife had a glass of the house prosecco, which she seemed quite happy with. Service was affable and very efficient. As noted above, water glasses were eagerly refilled, and the food come at a quick pace (which wasn't necessarily a bad thing--we were on the clock with a sitter). All in all, the food really was very good, and I'd love to try more of the menu. But the tragedy is we, frankly, would never bring friends here. At least not friends with whom we want to have a conversation.
  16. hungry prof
    Where's Joe H. to let us know how this place compares to the best Uzbek restaurant in the world?
  17. hungry prof
    And the coffee! You go to B&W for the cupcakes, but you stay for the coffee. Best in Georgetown by a mile.
  18. hungry prof
    This is very interesting and makes me think through the meal again. I can definitely think of counterpoints throughout the meal. Aside from the fact that we weren't thinking of the meal in these terms, I think part of the issue might have been that the counterveiling dishes weren't necessarily served together or clearly defined. So, I think at one point, we might have had three relatively spicy dishes on the table while the previous mild dish had been cleared and the next one had not yet arrived. I don't mean to suggest that this needed to be a rigorously defined process, just suggesting an explanation for how we experienced the meal. Learn something new everyday. . .
  19. hungry prof
    On the first point, this would need to be tested, but I got the same sense at Waitman: that they were simply bringing food out as it was ready whether or not we were ready for it. Here's a hypothesis: it actually struck me as a slow night there (perhaps not all that surprising for late July in DC). There were open tables and seats at the communal bar/table when we left. I wonder if the kitchen simply isn't used to that, and they didn't adjust their pacing to reflect the dining room. FWIW and not that it would necessarily have made any difference, I didn't see Johnny Monis in the kitchen at all. On the second point, sorry, I was unclear. We could easily have been seated at 5:30, but we *wanted* to be in the second seating. We preferred to eat at 7:00ish (and it worked better with our babysitter). What I meant to communicate is that if you *want* to eat later, you can put your name down for the second seating. Even if you are first in line, you are not obligated to be seated at 5:30 (and, in fact, the first people in line were a couple who put their name down to come back for the second seating).
  20. hungry prof
    Had an excellent dinner on Saturday after braving that afternoon's rain showers to get on the list.* As with the first time we were there, everything was delicious. The consensus favorite dish of the evening was the pig ears, which I can only describe as intensely fried, chewy, and porky. And the ribs that everybody loves were a great final course before dessert. Our server was a great help in guiding us through the evening, including suggesting the right beers for the right moments during the evening--hoppier beers at the beginning for the spiciest courses of the evening and a really interesting sour cherry, lambic-like beer to go with the ribs. If I have one critique of the evening, it was the pacing of the meal. It all felt a bit rushed. There was no breather anywhere in the meal, which would have been useful when so many intense flavors are coming at you. And as the dishes started to pile up on each other so did the flavors, leaving something of a sour, sweet, spicy mess at points. (At $45, this remains a good deal, and maybe they need to keep flipping the tables to make that price work. But I don't remember it feeling rushed the first time we ate at LS.) That gripe aside, this remains, for my money, the most interesting restaurant that I've been to in DC. *For those who are curious about the wait on a late July Saturday evening, I got in line at about 4:30, and I'd say I was maybe the sixth party in line. By the time they opened at 5:30, there were maybe twenty-five parties in line. Potentially useful for others to know: you can request a table in the second seating rather than being seated at 5:30. They will text you when the dining room is full with an estimated time for your table and then text you again when your table is ready. We were the second party of four on the list for the second seating, and we got a text at 6:43 saying our table was ready (after getting an initial estimate of 7:00-7:30). I have no idea how you could be seated at 5:30 and be out by 6:45, but maybe that's consistent with my observation above that the whole meal felt a bit rushed.
  21. hungry prof
    We have one and love it. If you have young kids and wind up heating (and reheating) lots of things like we do, it's particularly great since it heats up *very* quickly. Edited to add: Just make sure you have sufficient counter space for it. We have the large one, and it is, indeed, large. Plus, as it's an oven, they recommend a certain amount of clearance on all sides.
  22. hungry prof
    It pains me to suggest this because I'm not personally a fan, but Le Pain Quotidien? I'm not actually sure it's any cheaper than Leopold, but they definitely serve breakfast. Edited to add: Depending on how formal you want, a better option might be Baked and Wired. Terrific coffee and good pastries. No cooked stuff, though, if you want that. And you need to get a bit lucky to get seating.
  23. hungry prof
    Yeah, BlackSalt is no cheaper than Et Voila. You could head five minutes the other way up MacArthur and go to Praline, which I think is marginally less expensive than BS or EV. I don't think it's as good as the other two, but I usually leave happy. And if it's a nice night, you can sit outside on the patio.
  24. hungry prof
    As a Bethesda resident, I agree with Don's driving and neighborhood recommendation. In the same vicinity, the dining room at Blacksalt would likely be quieter than Et Voila!
  25. hungry prof
    I'll just pile on to add to how great this place is. Based on the rave reviews here, we stopped by for dinner last night and could not have been happier. My wife and I split the eggplant appetizer (Kashk-e-Bademjan), a chicken and rice dish (Shirin Polo), and the special stew of the day, which was a celery (!) stew with beef. With all of it, we devoured many pieces of the homemade bread. Everything was terrific and tasted like I imagine a great Persian home-cooked meal would taste. And to top it off, I could not imagine better and more welcoming service. I think one of the best things DR.com does is bring attention to gems like this. About halfway through the meal, we started calculating whether we could reasonably get takeout from here given that we live in Bethesda. We can't wait to try more.
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