Prime Rib and the Beatles

Porthos and the Cardinal came over for some Rock Band: Beatles, so Porthos had the great idea of cooking up some Prime Rib. Got a phenomenal Rib Roast from Fairway and Porthos did the rest. Great times and tasty f'n roast - though the Beatles harmonies are damn tough to replicate.

We were rushing to play Beatles, so Porthos commented normally we would have roasted them at 350 instead of 400. Beatles came first today though, but next time we'll get some more time to do a proper roast.

Soup de Poisson

I clearly remember the first time I ever heard the word "Poisson".
6th Grade music class. It was when we were watching the Little Mermaid and the scene where they chef is singing Les Poissons...



For some reason, this song always brings a smile to my face.








Anywho... Many years past and I have stumbled upon Soup de Poisson numerous times but never had the chance to order it at restaurants. Perhaps it's a bit too fishy for the American palate, but I really wish it were a fixture in the menus here.
It's uterly delicious and would be perfect for this weather right now.
It's not too thick like a bisque or chowder, but not runny either.
When made correctly, it's packed with tons of flavor and when served with toast, rouille, and parmesan cheese, it's absolutely heavenly.

I've attached a recipe taken from Martha Stewart's website. She credits Anthony Bourdain with the recipe.

Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2 small onions, thinly sliced
• 2 leeks, whites only, washed and thinly sliced
• 1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
• 1 can (18 ounces) plum tomatoes, chopped
• 2 pounds tiny whole fish (such as porgies or whiting), gutted with heads intact, or 4 pounds fish bones and heads
• 1 Bouquet Garni
• zest of 1 orange
• 3 strands of saffron
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 ounce Pernod
• Rouille
• Grated Parmesan, for serving

Directions

1. In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic, onions, leeks, and fennel and let them sweat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.
2. Add tomatoes and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes, then add the small fish or bones. Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add water to cover, as well as the bouquet garni and orange zest. Stir well; add saffron, a dash of salt and pepper, and Pernod. Lower the heat and simmer for about an hour.
3. Remove pot from heat and let soup cool slightly. Taking care not to splatter or scald yourself, strain liquid into a large bowl. In the pot, crush the heads, bones, and vegetables as much as possible, then transfer that to the strainer. Push and squeeze every bit of liquid and solid goodness through with a mallet or heavy wooden spoon. Return to the pot.
4. Bring the soup back up to heat and serve with croutons, rouille, and some grated Parmesan on the side. The idea is to smear a little rouille on the croutons, float them in the soup as garnish, and allow guests to sprinkle cheese as they wish.

Gingerbread/White Houses

The White House in the past few years has put out some pretty fancy Gingerbread Houses.
Check 'em out.

Montenapo

Intro
Montenapo - Recommended
250 W 41st St, New York 10036
At 8th Ave
Phone: (212) 764-7663

I've been wanting to check out this joint for a while as the fellow dudes have given their thumbs up. Glad I did as the pasta courses truly brought me back to Italy - granted I asked the chef to make the pasta al dente. Montenapo as two different styles on the menu - traditional Italian dishes as well as a modern take on pasta dishes. I've sampled from both and I can say they're equally delicious - with the modern take having the Frenchified intensely flavored sauces. Either way - the wife and I had a great time and the food was excellent

Our Menu

Potato Chips **
Parmiggiano-Reggiano and Truffle Oil
These were like crack and you definitely can't have just one.

Crab and avocado amuse *
Fresh sweet crab with nice creamy avocado, cut with some great acidity and the crisp bitter endive. Perfectly balanced.

Spaghetti *
spaghetti pasta with sea urchin, cured mullet bottarga, garlic, spicy pepper & olive oil
Phenomenal WTF texture on the pasta going with the nice salty/meaty flavor. Super al dente and totally bringing me back to my memories of the pasta in Italy. Caveat here is we asked the chef to make it very al dente. Normally, most Americans consider al dente pasta undercooked, but this differs to the pastas in Italy.

Tagliatelle **
tagliatelle pasta with maine lobster morsels, chervil, dry vermouth, tomato, chiodini mushrooms, and light lobster bisque
Texture on the pasta was great and the bisque was insanely flavorful. Lobsters were perfectly cooked and nicely sweet

Agnoltti *
ravioli pasta filled with braised beef cheeks, served atop of celery root puree and veal stock reduction
Intensely flavored veal stock reduction that was pretty delicious. Texture of the pasta was good, but not as good as the spaghetti and tagliatelle.

Halibut *
Pan seared filet of west coast halibut served with squid stew, basil - lemon emulsion
Great flavor on the basil sauce - nice bright and good acid which complemented the flaky fish.

Polipo **
sauteed octopus with taggliasche olives, tomatoes, porcini mushrooms cannelloni, fava beans & chick pea served on top of roasted bell pepper emulsion
Insanely tender octopus and almost a spanish feel with the pepper sauce. Nice play of saltiness with the olives.

Tiramisu ***
lady finger cookies soaked in double espresso, and layered with marscapone cheese
All I have to say is wow and WTF! Maybe it's me, but I used to love Tiramisu as a kid - gimmicky I know, but it was a great childhood memory. For some reason, I never order tiramisu much anymore - not sure why, but I never do. The one here was light as a cloud and hugely flavored.

Ricotta *
Ricotta Italian cheese cake, marsala marinated raisins and wild black cherries

Rating System
--- What the F - in a bad way * Good ** Great *** What the F – in a good way

Overall Restaurant Experience

• Food – Everything was executed very nicely. No bad dishes with most being good to great. Again, the pastas here were so f'n on.
  
• Service – Food came out in an incredibly timely manner and the waitress was very nice.
  
• Atmosphere – Gorgeous place. Very high ceilings and a nice sense of openness as the tables are set a good distance apart. There's also an atrium in the NY Times building that let's you forget about NYC for a while. The place had a relaxed feel, but still classy. Crowd was a mix of young groups/couples and older lawyer / banker looking types.
  
• Price – Prices were reasonable as most pastas were around $20. Great deal is you can order three pastas to share for $25 per person. Price per happiness factor was pretty solid.
  

Closing Comments
Definitely have to go back and check out more of the pastas. Great stuff.

Salads and I

If you know me, I'm probably the last person you'd ever thought would rave about salads.
Vegetables and I aren't the best of friends.
Most of the time, we don't even speak.

But when in the land of culinary marvel, throw those rules out the door.
I have seen the light!

Again, Fouquet's and Cafe de la Paix came through big time for me.
They kind of etched the word "Vegetable" into my brain. And with pleasure, I let them feed me the offsprings of dirt.
I feel like a new man. It's as if I have come down from Mt. Sinai and am ready to preach the gospel to all who will listen. I just love those green crunchy things.
















The lettuce was always crisp, clean, and properly chilled.
The toppings were flavorful, well balanced, and tremendously visually appealing.
Plus salads are generally good for you, and you can have them everyday if you wanted.
What a concept...















The 2 salads above are :
1. Chicken Gizzard Confit and Foie Gras Terrine on Haricot Verts and Lettuce
2. Iceberg Lettuce on a Tarragon/Parsely Vinegrette base, topped with Russian Dressing, Shrimp, Grapefruit segments, and sliced Red Onions

Below is a Nicoise salad from a diner near the hotel I was staying at.
Not fancy at all, but if I had the option of getting this exact salad here in the States, it would be lunch everyday.

Steak FRITES

There was a night in Paris where my wife and I just wanted to keep it low key and walk around the neighborhood where we were staying.
I spotted a little diner-ish place where some people were sitting outside smoking their cigarettes and decided to try it out.
For about 14 euros, I ordered a Steak Frites dish and simply asked for it to be cooked medium rare.
It's great to never be asked if you want "steak sauce" with your steak, since I detest American steak sauces with all of my heart.
I will never understand why anyone would ever want to douse their beautiful beef in a sour/tangy, overly seasoned, shelf stable, brown sauce. That's just nuts.

So I waited probably no more than 10 minutes for my food to arrive.
It was cooked perfectly and to my surprised, served with a side of Bearnaise.
It wasn't even on the menu but I guess it's understood over there that a steak is to be had with Bearnaise. Hey, I was happy.

Now I kept telling myself that it's a $20 steak and that most likely it's gonna be average at best.
I was right. It was a good 20 bucks for the beef, but surprisingly the fries were the star, being absolutely delicious.

"Hold ON! How is this possible" I asked my wife.
... as we both kept eating the fries and laughing.

Diners are supposed to have dirty oil, frozen potatoes and cooks that couldn't care less.

That wasn't the case here, and thank goodness for that.

Delicious potatoes, perfectly fried.
And there it was again, Bernaise sauce.

I sure like France...

7 Do Nots

The 7 foods experts won't eat

on Tue Nov 24, 2009 11:15am PST

How healthy (or not) certain foods are—for us, for the environment—is a hotly debated topic among experts and consumers alike, and there are no easy answers. But when Prevention talked to the people at the forefront of food safety and asked them one simple question—“What foods do you avoid?”—we got some pretty interesting answers. Although these foods don’t necessarily make up a "banned” list, as you head into the holidays—and all the grocery shopping that comes with it—their answers are, well, food for thought:

1. Canned Tomatoes

The expert: Fredrick vom Saal, PhD, an endocrinologist at the University of Missouri who studies bisphenol-A

The problem: The resin linings of tin cans contain bisphenol-A, a synthetic estrogen that has been linked to ailments ranging from reproductive problems to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Unfortunately, acidity (a prominent characteristic of tomatoes) causes BPA to leach into your food. Studies show that the BPA in most people's body exceeds the amount that suppresses sperm production or causes chromosomal damage to the eggs of animals. "You can get 50 mcg of BPA per liter out of a tomato can, and that's a level that is going to impact people, particularly the young," says vom Saal. "I won't go near canned tomatoes."

The solution: Choose tomatoes in glass bottles (which do not need resin linings), such as the brands Bionaturae and Coluccio. You can also get several types in Tetra Pak boxes, like Trader Joe's and Pomi.

2. Corn-Fed Beef

The expert: Joel Salatin, co-owner of Polyface Farms and author of half a dozen books on sustainable farming

The problem: Cattle evolved to eat grass, not grains. But farmers today feed their animals corn and soybeans, which fatten up the animals faster for slaughter. More money for cattle farmers (and lower prices at the grocery store) means a lot less nutrition for us. A recent comprehensive study conducted by the USDA and researchers from Clemson University found that compared with corn-fed beef, grass-fed beef is higher in beta-carotene, vitamin E, omega-3s, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), calcium, magnesium, and potassium; lower in inflammatory omega-6s; and lower in saturated fats that have been linked to heart disease. "We need to respect the fact that cows are herbivores, and that does not mean feeding them corn and chicken manure," says Salatin.

The solution: Buy grass-fed beef, which can be found at specialty grocers, farmers' markets, and nationally at Whole Foods. It's usually labeled because it demands a premium, but if you don't see it, ask your butcher.

3. Microwave Popcorn

The expert: Olga Naidenko, PhD, a senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group,

The problem: Chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), in the lining of the bag, are part of a class of compounds that may be linked to infertility in humans, according to a recent study from UCLA. In animal testing, the chemicals cause liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancer. Studies show that microwaving causes the chemicals to vaporize—and migrate into your popcorn. "They stay in your body for years and accumulate there," says Naidenko, which is why researchers worry that levels in humans could approach the amounts causing cancers in laboratory animals. DuPont and other manufacturers have promised to phase out PFOA by 2015 under a voluntary EPA plan, but millions of bags of popcorn will be sold between now and then.

The solution: Pop natural kernels the old-fashioned way: in a skillet. For flavorings, you can add real butter or dried seasonings, such as dillweed, vegetable flakes, or soup mix.

4. Nonorganic Potatoes

The expert: Jeffrey Moyer, chair of the National Organic Standards Board

The problem: Root vegetables absorb herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides that wind up in soil. In the case of potatoes—the nation's most popular vegetable—they're treated with fungicides during the growing season, then sprayed with herbicides to kill off the fibrous vines before harvesting. After they're dug up, the potatoes are treated yet again to prevent them from sprouting. "Try this experiment: Buy a conventional potato in a store, and try to get it to sprout. It won't," says Moyer, who is also farm director of the Rodale Institute (also owned by Rodale Inc., the publisher of Prevention). "I've talked with potato growers who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals."

The solution: Buy organic potatoes. Washing isn't good enough if you're trying to remove chemicals that have been absorbed into the flesh.

5. Farmed Salmon

The expert: David Carpenter, MD, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany and publisher of a major study in the journal Science on contamination in fish.

The problem: Nature didn't intend for salmon to be crammed into pens and fed soy, poultry litter, and hydrolyzed chicken feathers. As a result, farmed salmon is lower in vitamin D and higher in contaminants, including carcinogens, PCBs, brominated flame retardants, and pesticides such as dioxin and DDT. According to Carpenter, the most contaminated fish come from Northern Europe, which can be found on American menus. "You can only safely eat one of these salmon dinners every 5 months without increasing your risk of cancer," says Carpenter, whose 2004 fish contamination study got broad media attention. "It's that bad." Preliminary science has also linked DDT to diabetes and obesity, but some nutritionists believe the benefits of omega-3s outweigh the risks. There is also concern about the high level of antibiotics and pesticides used to treat these fish. When you eat farmed salmon, you get dosed with the same drugs and chemicals.

The solution: Switch to wild-caught Alaska salmon. If the package says fresh Atlantic, it's farmed. There are no commercial fisheries left for wild Atlantic salmon.

6. Milk Produced with Artificial Hormones

The expert: Rick North, project director of the Campaign for Safe Food at the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility and former CEO of the Oregon division of the American Cancer Society

The problem: Milk producers treat their dairy cattle with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST, as it is also known) to boost milk production. But rBGH also increases udder infections and even pus in the milk. It also leads to higher levels of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor in milk. In people, high levels of IGF-1 may contribute to breast, prostate, and colon cancers. "When the government approved rBGH, it was thought that IGF-1 from milk would be broken down in the human digestive tract," says North. As it turns out, the casein in milk protects most of it, according to several independent studies. "There's not 100% proof that this is increasing cancer in humans," admits North. "However, it's banned in most industrialized countries."

The solution: Check labels for rBGH-free, rBST-free, produced without artificial hormones, or organic milk. These phrases indicate rBGH-free products.

7. Conventional Apples

The expert: Mark Kastel, former executive for agribusiness and codirector of the Cornucopia Institute, a farm-policy research group that supports organic foods

The problem: If fall fruits held a "most doused in pesticides contest," apples would win. Why? They are individually grafted (descended from a single tree) so that each variety maintains its distinctive flavor. As such, apples don't develop resistance to pests and are sprayed frequently. The industry maintains that these residues are not harmful. But Kastel counters that it's just common sense to minimize exposure by avoiding the most doused produce, like apples. "Farm workers have higher rates of many cancers," he says. And increasing numbers of studies are starting to link a higher body burden of pesticides (from all sources) with Parkinson's disease.

The solution: Buy organic apples. If you can't afford organic, be sure to wash and peel them first.

Galeries Lafayette

http://www.galerieslafayette.com/
Show map of 40 Boulevard Haussmann, 75009 Paris, France

Department stores are a dime a dozen all around the world.
But for me, what separates a good store from a great one is their food floor.
American department stores lack this tasty marvel.
And up until a week ago, I thought only the department stores in Asia really captured the gourmand's heart.
I should have known better, but the French too are absolutely crazy about their department store food floor as well.

The Galeries Lafayette in the Opera District of Paris is probably equivalent to the Harrod's of London, the Mitsukoshi of Tokyo, and the Bergdorf Goodman of NYC.
Highend retail stores make up the lion's share of the men's and women's clothing, shoes, and home living floors.
But when I stepped into their "Gourmand Floor", WOW, I was blown away.
First of all, the lighting was at least 5 shades brighter than all other floors. It was busy as hell and everything looked good enough for a magazine photo shoot.
People say you can spend days at the Louvre and not see everything. That's exactly the way I felt about this particular floor at the Galerie Lafayette. It was "Mecca", and I did not want to ever leave.

Below are snapshots I took while walking through the maze of gastro-delights.
Enjoy!!!

Deep Fried

When people ask me about the bugs I've eaten, I tell them it's really not that bad since they were deep fried. Then I joke and say anything deep fried is good, maybe even my shoes. Here is a link I found of things that are deep fried and served. Lots of these I heard of, like deep-fried Twinkies, but things like Coke, ravioli stuffed with snickers, and white pudding are new to me.

Deep-fried food

Shrimp at Momofuku Noodle Bar

New Dish Alert!!!

Freakin' awesome. So much flavor in these badboys.
Fried med sized shrimp from Maine, then tossed in a southeast asian sauce with fried garlic chips. Garnished with cilantro and sliced jalapenos.

This is totally worth the trip to the east village folks. Tres Delicious.

Jewel Bako

Jewel Bako - Highly Recommended
239 East 5th Street
New York, NY 10003
(212) 979-1012

What a treat it was to sit at the counter Friday night and have Chef Yoshi prepare his complete assault of nigiri sushi for R, M and myself.
We sat there for a good 3 hours and it felt like I ate and ate and ate. I was guessing 25+ nigiris but in reality, it was probably closer to 15 to 18.
I haven't been so happy at a (non Yasuda) sushi counter in a long long time.

If I had to classify Chef Yoshi's style of sushi as traditional or nouveaux, it would be tradional.
But it's really traditional with a twist. There is always a little twist to every nigiri he serves.

Now I've always heard this placed 'rocked', but never took it that seriously. Probably because someone in my office was pretty skeptical and I've actually had "Jewel Bako" sushi at the James Beard House before, and it was average at best.
But that just goes to show you the power of "just made" sushi and the special relationship you create when you are face to face with the chef.
Silly me for taking this long to visit. I'll be back for sure.

Although I don't remember every piece of nigiri that was served that night, M took random pictures that night and they are posted below.