Just had some Sichuan stuff tonight at New Shanghai. They really knocked it out of the park. Dry cooked sichuan fish, sichuan dumplings, dan dan noodles, and twice cooked pork belly. They really went heavy with the mala but it was so good I could hardly complain. Not a place to hit if you're trying to stay on track with a diet, though.

Just saw the door open a couple of days ago, seemed to be some construction manager types milling about. Looks like they've done pretty extensive framing inside but no finish work.

No, in any worthwhile place, it's not gauche to ask how much something costs. The only places where it would be considered gauche are expensive places where people go, not for the quality of the food or drink, but to appear rich. Brand new Manhattan pan-asian fusion place with mediocre reviews and a 4 million dollar dining room? Probably gauche. Pretty much any place not like that? Probably not.

It's also not gauche to tell your server that they messed up the order, and they should realize that their doing so shouldn't cost you money. If they, somehow, don't realize that, a quick conversation with a manager should smooth things out. If not, asking for the owner's contact info isn't out of the question.

Oh, come on. :-) They don't put the prices on the menu because statistically, people feel better about spending money on something when the price tag isn't staring them in the face... it's one of the first things you learn about menu design in restaurant management school, but the restaurant manager isn't sitting in back, twisting his moustache, conspiring ways to emotionally manipulate you into not asking how much things cost.

I live in the building across the street. Looks like there are some people in and out of there periodically. They took the marble slabs down off of the columns only about 24 hours after one of the middle ones fell and shattered on the sidewalk. The work definitely isn't going anywhere close to as quickly as it was, but I don't think it has totally stopped.

Fish there was overpriced, and they didn't do enough volume to keep it fresh. Glad it's gone!

Did you refrigerate it? I imagine there may be some some complications to using a fat that's not liquid at cold temperatures.

I'll have to check it out. Given the name alone, I'd have certainly avoided the place... thanks!

I've got to say, the carnitas in the burrito I just had at Olecito was super intensely porky tasting, and the habañero salsa had a pretty good amount of kick to it. I was pleased.

Yeah, if I was in charge of one of those kitchens, that's how I would roll. Thanks.

Thanks. As a benchmark, have you tried Cinco De Mayo tortillas? (you can often get them warm at the Somerville Market Basket). What do you think of those?

Thanks.

Thanks for the insight.

I can definitely see the holding in liquid issue, I generally opt for something like carnitas, al pastor, or something like that. Most of the places I've been to seem to get a decent amount of heat on the grilled meats but it doesn't really matter if you're holding them in warm water. Do places that you would consdier better seem to grill to order, for every order? With a place like Felipes or Annas, with the kind of volume they do, it sucks that they wouldn't opt to have a grill cook providing a steady supply of grilled items to replace what's on the stations, and not holding them in water. The only possible reason I'd think this would be the case is if their grills couldn't put out the volume and they had to pre-cook most of it during prep (So... get a new grill). Obviously, cut chicken can't be held hot and not dry out, so they use water.

But I'm willing to bet that they're just speeding up service and keeping costs down... If they did it the right way, they're losing $10/hr for a grill cook and possibly losing a couple 6 pans of meat if they get suddenly slow, but considering that they seem to do around $20/minute during peak hours, it seems worth it.

As for the beans, when you say seasoning are you talking about spicing or salt level? I've generally encountered pretty reasonable amounts of salt in the beans I've had.

I hear a lot of smack talk, usually from people from California, about the burritos here. I'm assuming that it's at least partially justified, given how prevalent it is, but whenever I've tried to pin someone down for specifics about what makes them better, I rarely get anything more articulate than a "you guys just don't know how to make mexican food" type of response.

Though I haven't extensively researched this, I've done more than a few cursory searches, and have been unable to find a substantive comparison. Anything that I stumbled upon written by people who claim more knowledge on the subject rarely offered more than passing comments about the seasoning of this or the texture of that.

Could someone who's familiar with the burritos here, who is also familiar with the burritos in one of the areas that's well known for making good burritos, provide some insight?

Is it mostly an ingredient quality thing? Are the fillings and sauces actually different? Is it the tortillas? Is there any place in the area that's particularly close to another specific regional style?

Thanks for the perspective. Well stated.

I agree, that's definitely BBQ.

Not to be pedantic about it... but

The one line definition of BBQ that I got in culinary school, which I think is the most accurate, is meat cooked with indirect heat provided by hot smoke... there are too many other variables and differences in regional technique to get it more specific than that. According to this definition it really doesn't matter if it's a grill or a bathtub covered in foil. As long as it's being cooked with hot smoke, it's technically BBQ... I might add to the end of that, "and it adheres to one or more elements of one of the basic regional styles of BBQ", because the hot smoked teriyaki salmon that they have at the fish counter at whole foods is not BBQ IMHO... but I've seen legit BBQ catfish. I guess the difference would be in the spicing but not all BBQ is spiced. Cold smoked fish, like smoked salmon that you'd put on a bagel, also doesn't qualify....

This is different from what is referred to as 'grilling', which is any food cooked over direct heat on a grill. Like upside down broiling, rather than, essentially smoke braising.

Consistently awesome ribs at blackstrap... they're a dry rubbed rib with a lot of rub. Good smoke rings, lots of flavor. Their sauces are great if you're into em.
I've had 2 straight disappointing brisket experiences there though. The only place that I've consistently got fantastic brisket is Lester's in Billerica. They carve it to order, huge fat cap that they trim off when they carve your slice, and you can see the juice running down each slice. I'm trying sweet cheeks tonight, though that doesn't seem quite as traditional.

Sorry to revive a dead thread, but if anybody is interested, this oddly enough, is the 7-11 in inman sq. on prospect and hampshire.

I'd certainly be interested in seeing what he's going to try to use, from Boston, to gross people out. There's not a ton in the north end that could be all that weird, right? Maybe eat a monkfish face?

Hate the show though. He's obviously a smart guy that's genuinely interested in other cultures, but that's not what the show is 'really' about. It's primarily exploiting the more 'weird' and 'exotic' aspects of the perfectly respectable yet more unique eating habits of other cultures to get a cheap gross-out reaction from unfamiliar people under the extraordinarily thin veil of cross-cultural education. Most (though not all) of the people that I've encountered that are fans of the show will vehemently defend his show as educational. I might agree if I hear more comments like "Hey! Did you see the latest Bizarre Foods? Andrew Zimmern totally exposed me to some FASCINATING cultural nuances of the XYZ tribe by comparing some of the most heavily contrasting parts of our eating habits," rather than "Hey! Did you see the latest Bizarre Foods? Andrew Zimmern totally ate a ground fermented beetle egg omelete! Gross!"

Even if there are a handful of people out there that are getting something out of it, for most people, it just reenforces their believe that the rest of the world is gross and weird.

Edit: Grammar

Sounds great, I'll have to check that out.

Considering how good the ribs often are at Black Strap, it blows my mind that the brisket is so consistently 'meh' at best. I still haven't had brisket in the area that is as good as Lester's. (Though I had some at East Coast Grill once not too long ago that was pretty close).

The pizza at the Harvard Square Otto is delicious, but I just wish there was a garlic component to the cheese pizza. AFAIC it's otherwise a perfect pie.

Word. I don't necessarily think that a particular menu item at a random New England-y place is going to be as traditional as it would be at Durgin Park (who takes great care in preserving the original recipes that they initially recorded) but it just might be as good or better, given the context of the meal... that being said, I really don't care for most clam chowders sold around here. All in all, it's the overall experience that grabs you.

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Durgin Park
1 Faneuil Hall Sq, Boston, MA 02109

How disappointing. The Sangria at the Beacon St. location alone is worth the trip. Unlike most of the local Spanish places whose Sangria people rave about (and considering that it's a Spanish drink, you'd think they'd be killing it), Sol Azteca actually lets the fruit (and a cinnamon stick) macerate in the wine for a significant amount of time, which gives it much more depth and smoothness than any of the others.

The food might not be ridiculously authentic, but the braised shredded beef and potatoes (forget what it goes with) is comfort food at its best, the pickled cabbage is a nice foil for the often heavier-than-it-should-be fare.

Although sweet, the carnitas that I've always had there was well balanced with a nose running amount of spice and saltiness. I'm not sure if it's authentic to anywhere in Mexico, but it seems like this is a saucy braised version of carnitas rather than the confit style version that's much more common. The two Portuguese dishes called torresmos come to mind as an analog. Although they're both called torresmos, one is bits of pork butt (or a similar cut) braised in wine and spices. The other is pork belly that's slow cooked in fat (basically confited) in a similar way to the carnitas we're used to (they often have a big tray of this variety, freshly cooked sitting out at Fernandes Fish Market on Cambridge St. and it's totally worth picking some up as a cheap/heavy snack.) I wouldn't doubt that there was a similar breadth of interpretations for carnitas in Mexico, though I could be completely full of $h!t on this one.

If I can give the Beacon St. location anything, it's been extremely consistent over the dozen or so visits that I've made in 25 years (first time when I was about 6)... But I can certainly see why someone who was into the bright, fresh, and vibrant flavors of many Mexican dishes would be disappointed. It sounds like the experience you had was definitely significantly worse than any of my experiences on Beacon though.

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Sol Azteca
914A Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02215

Fernandes Fish Market
1097 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

It certainly can get cloudy (I'm sure the Japanese govt thinks their whale meat is just fine), but there are some organizations out there that are doing some great filtering! For example, the non-profit Blue Ocean Institute uses their own sustainability criteria, research scientists and fisheries experts rather than relying on the potentially market swayed government reports. They're also committed to freely distributing this information in easily usable ways. You can access this information at: http://www.blueocean.org/seafood on a computer browser or http://www.fishphone.org/ on a mobile device.

It's important to note that to call a fish sustainable, the method that's used to catch the fish is just as important as the size of the population. A line caught fish with a decent population might be considered sustainable while the very same fish caught with bottom trawl would not be... because line catching the fish is pretty unlikely to cause a detrimental dent in the population. Since the very thing that makes it a sustainable method is being able to catch less of it, if the demand goes up significantly, the market price is going to go up as well, reducing the demand for that fish. If for some reason, they did enough damage to the population by line catching the fish, or another unsustainable fishing method made even line catching the fish too risky, it would no longer be considered sustainable and therefore be unavailable to purchase by companies that have made a commitment not to do so. With all of the big boys not buying it, the market would get significantly drier and it just wouldn't make sense to fish the hell out of that population anymore. Is it a silver bullet? No... but as long as enough vendors sign on to it to make it the norm rather than the exception, it would make an astounding difference in our fish populations.

Using these methods to catch fish is more labor intensive and it yields less product to sell, so it's also going to make the fish more expensive... But since it's a product that's almost always sold at market rates anyway, it's very easy for stores to adjust the prices without incurring much cost themselves.

There are already many factors when considering where to source seafood on a large scale like one or more large stores, or even a small scale such as a restaurant. Having a consistent source of information and strict guidelines on what level of sustainability you're not able to dip under would probably make it one of the easier considerations when sourcing seafood. Doing things like managing the logistics of reducing transit and storage time, finding vendors with solid certified HACCP plans who actually stick to them, and keeping abreast of vendor food safety incidents are significantly more difficult.

1 tsp? Unless you're making 1/2 cup of chicken curry, you're not even goin to notice.

I had one of the most horrible service experiences of my life at the Franklin South End. In there on a Saturday night, it was fairly busy with 2 tables open. A friend tried to grab one of the open tables for us, and a manger came over and informed our delegate that they were only for people who were eating. No problem! We all were planning on ordering food. It was then (rudely and condescendingly) questioned weather we'd be ordering enough food, and most certainly! We'd all be ordering. She was then told that they were saving the tables for service industry kids. No problem! We were all managers bartenders doormen and cooks at venerable independent Harvard Square joints!

Then we were just told 'no' with no further explanation.

We then proceeded to tell every other Harvard Square industry kid that we encountered to not bother going in there. Bad move Franklin. We all drink a *lot* while being extremely well behaved, and ALWAYS tip over 35%.

If you're going to reserve a couple of tables... hey, go ahead. It's your restaurant. If you're going to put people who would probably be your best tables of the night through a gauntlet of questions to see if we're cool enough to inhabit your tables, you can keep your food and overpriced cocktails. We'll gladly go to one of the better places in the neighborhood.

Power to the people! Subversive cooking man! The *recipe*, is just a tool of the *man* to keep us down man! Question authority!

;-)

It's true though... and there are some people that cook exclusively from recipes that make some damn fine food... it's just that I don't think they're getting as much *pleasure* out of it as they could be. Too bad.

It's really too bad that people seem to be so resistant to the idea of learning techniques as the basis for their entry level cooking education. I'll keep preaching the gospel, though I've made very few converts. My mom (who posts here as "bear", and even posted earlier in this thread!) taught me how to cook as a skill separate from recipes. Although I certainly cooked from recipes, I also remember creating recipes as early as 11 (leeks braised in tomato sauce with lemon zest, olives and "lots of garlic"... I even drew pictures of leeks on the paper!). I really do wish I could figure out a more effective way to expose people to this way of thinking.

Ruhlman's the man, his blog rules, his books are killer, his wife seems amazing and her pictures are awesome. That's all I have to say about that! :-)

(definitely a fan of Ho Toy Noodles BTW, and not just because of the awesome name)

I often drink Pernod with rocks and a splash of soda. Yum... though I've noticed a few of the absinthe brands having a slightly more complex herbal flavor AND the anise kick, so I've been occasionally grabbing an absinthe pres as my post-work drink... though I've got a big crush on Fernet Branca and Fernet Menta at the moment. Yum.

re:tarragon... It could be an oversensitivity to something in tarragon on my part too. I could shoot right through the roof after biting into a piece of fresh ginger or lemon grass unexpectedly, and even the aldehydes in the open air walking by a particularly fresh cilantro display in the grocery store will create physical discomfort in my olfactory bulb... and that's *after* force feeding myself cilantro for 6 months to at least be able to taste dishes that contain it for seasoning purposes. I'm confident that I make food that the general public enjoys, but there are certainly some idiosyncrasies in my senses. Fortunately it errs on the side over oversensitivity rather than undersensitivity.