Cooter

Haven't the french been cooking in pig's bladders for quite a while now? I think that sous vide in a temperature controlled water with a vacuum sealed bag is just the evolution of pig bladder cooking.

Are you keeping the door cracked on your oven? Supposedly this helps keep the humidity down to let the moisture in the meat espcape.

I've only tried the oven pilot light technique once. I liked the results, but since it took so long I went ahead and bought a cheap dehydrator.

I will share my family BBQ sauce recipe when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

I guess that wouldn't really be sharing, then.

Congrats, Jill. By new ways to enjoy cheese, I can only assume that you mean an expanded yak section.

Alicia and I look forward to checking out your new digs.

There are several people who seem to have a vendetta against Roberto. Fine. But a lot of this trashing and piling on is excessive and points out an agenda.

This is absolutely ridiculous. If you think that consistent comments that are ubiquitously present throughout foodie websites is evidence of an agenda, then I don't know how you can possibly have a rational discussion about this place. I don't know if you include my comments in your sweeping accusation, but I can assure you that I have no agenda other than a desire to enjoy my increasingly rare nights out. Judging from the comments here and elsewhere, I'd get better odds of getting a good meal elsewhere.

I quote for truth:

"I think Bebbo is being savaged for being a lazy restaurant!"

Going only on this thread, it seems that one either must speak to Mr. Donna or have some sort of psychic menu reading powers in order to be assured of a decent meal.

As an aside, I had a pretty good dinner the one time I went, about a week after it opened. However, the news here and elsewhere does not encourage my desire to go back.

You will find the greatest greasiest burgers in the known universe in Highland Park at the White Rose System. If it's still there, you will also find awesome ice cream in an old fashioned setting, complete with real soda fountain, at the Corner Confectionary, also in Highland Park.

[As much as it kills me to say, the Corner Confectionary in Highland Park is Closed.]

Incidentally, my second real job was as a soda jerk at the latter. Yay, ice cream!

Did anyone happen to catch where Joey hails from? I'm guessing maybe somewhere on the East Coast, but I'm just not sure.

What the hell is a black chicken?

Actually, I think it's funny. Jack in the Box have always been "edgier" with their advertising. I remember one ad from about six years ago when Jack is "giving back" to the community by doing a "guidance counselling"session at a local public school. He answers many question from various tykes but is left nonplussed when asked "How do you know if you're a lesbian?".

Another good one was when Jack was working late in the office and his wife calls him to find out what he's doing. He's trying to come up with a name for their new burger but the best he can think of is "double double bacon cheeseburger". There's a pause and he says "You're wearing WHAT?!?". The ad abruptly ends with name of the burger staying as "double double bacon cheeseburger". Kids everywhere were asking their parents why they were laughing so hard.

I love the one with Lawrence Taylor and Brian Boitano. As described by JITB's own press release:

In the 30-second ad titled "Duck Hunting," Taylor is geared up in a camouflage football jersey and wearing eye black and a nasal strip, while Boitano, seated, is wearing a camouflage skating costume, with his legs draped over the side of the boat showing ice skates on his feet.

"What can you get for a buck?" Taylor wonders aloud as a dollar bill floats by. "A phone call?"

"Your autograph," Boitano bristles back to the miffed, 6'3", 240-pound former linebacker.

Just as a brouhaha between the two is about to begin, Jack steps in and touts the value of his new, 99-cent Big Cheeseburger, which features a jumbo beef patty and two kinds of melting cheese. The Big Cheeseburger joins a variety of items priced under a dollar on the chain's Value Menu, including the Jumbo Jack® hamburger, Jack's Western Cheeseburger, Chicken Sandwich, two tacos and Breakfast Jack® sandwich, to name a few.

The commercial ends with Taylor non-sensically yelling the non-sequitor "sal-cow."

I just want to throw this out to the peanut gallery since I'm terribly conflicted:

If you had to choose between these two activities, which would you choose?

1) Dinner at L'Atleier de Joel Robuchon; or

2) Seeing Wayne Newton in concert with seats in the first few rows?

Hadn't been to Rustico in a few months so decided to stop by on Friday night. The new mosaic menu looked pretty interesting and I'm sure that we'll be back to try more. As it were, I went in craving a burger, so that's what I got. The wife decided to get the pork mosaic.

It took a while for our meals to arrive, but were in no hurry and both our waitress and a manager stopped by to apologize, so we didn't really care.

My burger was pretty good. Perfectly cooked medium rare and well-seasoned. The bun got a little too much char on the grill but no big deal. The fries, on the other hand, were close to a disaster. The smaller fellas were nice and crisp, but the longer ones were soggy, limp and merely warm. I didn't even come close to finishing them, which is an absolute rarity for my fat ass.

The pork mosaic was great. It came with a ham and cheese sandwich, pork belly over creamy grits and a sort of crab-cake-like trotter thing. The only non-winner of the bunch was the trotter thing. While not bad, it tasted mostly of parsely. The sandwich was pretty good, but the pork belly was absolutely fantastic. Perfectly cooked and plated over a creamy peppery load of grits. All in all, a fantastic deal at $15.

We look forward to trying the other small plate offerings which looked pretty interesting. I think that the air-dried beef selection, mentioned above, will be our next sample.

Anyone been to Hog Island Oysters? Tom's postcard from SF touted it, but its gone unmentioned here. I'm making my maiden voyage to N.Cali at the end of May and welcome any tips. FL is already booked (and price prohibitive even for the occassion this will be), so I think Cyrus will be the big splurge meal (also hitting Sonoma). Also if anyone has tips on decent cheap spots to stay in SF, Sonoma or in between, please PM. Thanks!

My wife and I have made a tradition of spending a night or two in Sonoma when visiting my parents in the East Bay over the holidays. Each time, we've stayed at The Sonoma Valley Inn. Yes, it's a Best Western, but we've paid around $100 each time and rooms have been large and feature a fireplace. Plus, it's only a block or two from the town square and Mission. For dinner, I can't reccomend the Girl and the Fig enough. It's sort of upscale comfort food with a fantastic selection of rhone and rhone inspired wines. Plus, the bar is great.

The better half and I will be celebrating my sisters' birthdays during the week of July 4th in Vegas. We'll have a couple of nights to ourselves and are planning to hit L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in the MGM and Okada in the Wynn, both for dinner.

Any one have any thoughts on these two establishments or other suggestions?

Thanks!

The San Francisco Chronicle has published its yearly list of the top 100 restaurants:

http://sfgate.com/food/top100/2007/

I haven 't lived in the Bay Area for seven years and was in school when I was there, so I don't have too much to say. I love both the Chows for informal, cheap and good food. Also, I went to high school in New Jersey with the Chef/Owner of Dopo in Oakland. Haven't tried it yet, but my parents and sisters claim that it's excellent, and reasonably priced, Italian.

For what it's worth, the wife and I had a great time at Gary Danko. The food was great, but it was the absolutely flawless service that really put it over the top.

If only the nats were good enough to be considered mediocre.

While the Dairy Godmother (That Custard Place? Del Ray Dreamery? I have no idea what it's called anymore.) in Del Ray is mostly known for it's Custard, their sorbets are top notch. They had a grapefruit and bitters combination a week ago that was awesome.

So, since I had a gift certificate to Sur La Table, I bought a nice 7" Global Santoku. I test drived it a friend's house and know it comes highly reccomended by a chef friend of a friend, so I'm confident that I will love it. However, while I was looking, I took a gander at the Kyocera ceramic chef's knife that SLT had available. It was light and sat pretty well in my hand. It was even a couple bucks cheaper than the Global. However, since I fear new technology I didn't even think of buying it.

When I got home, however, I did some googling and it seems that people like their ceramics and the old problems, like shatterage and breakage, are not really a problem any more. The only drawback, it seems, is that you can't use ceramics on bone or other hardish things. Since I have a Heckels 8" chef's knife, this shouldn't be a problem and I would use the ceramic pretty much exclusively on vegetables and fish.

So, does anyone care to share their experience with these new-fangled ceramic knives?

Does anyone know if they still allow cigar smoking at Tallula since EatBar has opened?

Thanks!

I would have bet money that you were working up to use the phrase "detrimental reliance." Maybe if you had more time.....

Perhaps, under a theory of promissory estoppel, a court could compel you to show up for your reservation!

I would take it up with my credit card company if I could not work it out with a restautant, base on the fact that I did not receive any services. I would never sign a contract to eat!

I don't think that this is correct. You did, in fact, receive a service. That service was the taking and maintaining of a reservation.

The wife received a box of bacon wrapped filets and six burgers from her boss for Christmas a few years back. The filets were solidly mediocre. The burgers were just short of inedible, with a bizarre mouthfeel of chewed cardboard.

Notwithstanding the quality of the product, I just don't want to do business with a company where everything is always on special, all year round. If a box of sirloins is always on special from $89, marked down to $49, then it's not really a special at all.

Yikes! If this place really smells that bad how can people actually go in here and actually order and eat?

That's a good question, considering that the food is some of the worst in the city.

The Oval room is also extending RW for a extra week.

Dino's is all month

Any others?

Oya is all month, but I can't say that I'd recommend it.

We were there on 12/2/2006 and it was goat night for me (Pappardelle w/goat ragu and the 72 hour Capretto) - both were fantastic. My wife enjoyed the Guinea Hen, but was not as enamored with the Boulettas (not bad, but not nearly as good as my pappardelle). The "chocolate and olive" dessert described earlier by ol_ironstomach was unusual, but very enjoyable. Also, pray that one of the Mezze courses that you get served is the gyro. When in doubt, ask your server for suggestions.

We went on the first and it was also goat night for me. I agree with Pete that both were fantastic. The wife had the black truffle risotto, which was very good, but not great, and the duck and foie gras ravioli (?) which was awesome. Our favorite mezze was the oxtail on puffed pita. The roasted dates stuffed with mascarpone and something else were delicious, too. I highly reccomend the doughnuts for dessert. These are delicious and warm puffy yeast bastards and come with a chocolate mascarpone thing. The wife had the chocolate and olive oil ice creams which were also good.

I enjoyed the wine pairings and found the sommelier (Andy?) to be very engaging and informative. I wish that, during the mezze, he had let me know how many plates an individual poor was paired with. Actually, I wish that they had explained the mezze a little better before we ordered. We were expecting a plate of different stuff and were surprised when single plates just kept coming and coming. Nothing wrong with this presentation, but we just weren't expecting it.