I admit to being a little distracted by the tenth guest (the three year old in my lap) during the meal, but not so much that I didn't appreciate the great selection of items Melanie ordered for us.

This meal was my first encounter with Chinese roasted goose. What took me so long?

Boon fei so char siu, being particularly unctuous, was as good as others have noted.

Would that all versions of pork-n-beans aspired to be as good as the jowl/shoulder/neck with green beans is. Dry, crispy, slightly charred, and fantastic.

The tofu had a lovely, soft texture and was well-fried, and the black bean sauce was tasty. The broccoli was sadly cooked to oblivion, but otherwise the dish was great.

Tea-leaf prawns were only slightly disappointing in that they could have been cooked a little less and would have been better for it. That didn't stop me from enjoying what I got (which wasn't much: my kid has a thing for shrimp and shared only reluctantly.)

I have the Momofuku corn cookie recipe but have not yet made it. That will be remedied quickly, now that I know what I'm missing.

I also took home a pound of roast pork (my wife's favorite) and found it to be among the best I've had.

I'm not often offered coffee as the default beverage to drink with lunch. (It is better than expected for being served straight from the Mr Coffee carafe.) And rarely (ever?) do chefs come out of the kitchen to personally tie plastic lobster bibs on diners ordering dishes requiring shell-crackers. These are the charms of the Monte Carlo. The accidental substitution of buttermilk for cream (for aforementioned coffee) and the tendency to tie the plastic bibs a bit too tight? Laugh and take them in stride--that's what the staff do.

Derek, Melanie and myself seem to all agree about the food at the Monte Carlo. Yes to the cornmeal-crusted catfish, beans & rice, and lamb rack. The gumbo sadly didn't match its ambitions but tried admirably. The mashed potatoes and gravy gave the lamb the edge over other items.

I didn't explicitly ask but I'd be shocked if he didn't make the tkemali. The point of the Satellite Republic venture seems to be about obsessing over the details: the custom-fabricated moped, the ceramic tandoor thrown by his pottery teacher, baking bread to order, etc. And Portnoy is, after all, former pastry chef from Meadowood, so no slouch.

Mopeds, Georgia, cooking, pottery: Boris Portnoy's favorite things, as he says on the Facebook page for Satellite Republic, his new venture that combines them all. Boris and his moped-mounted tandoor grill came to South Park to serve Georgian lunch the other day and I was compelled to go investigate.

The menu for the day was two bread-based items: khachapuri (cheese bread with chili sauce) and lamb tandir sandwich. The bread is the star. He has a couple of boxes of little flour-dusted doughballs that he bakes to order in the tandoor, coming out with mixed tender and crispy bits.

The feta and mozzarella in the khachapuri are great with the dried-chili-and-herb sauce. I could eat them all day.

For the sandwich, Boris uses lamb raised in marshes around San Pablo, which he says has a similar effect to the pré-salé lamb of Brittany (I'm not sure I could tell). He's using shoulder, cooked sous-vide then heated in the tandoor. Lovely flavor, moist and tender. Super-tart plum sauce, mild white onion and parsley on top--great, if perhaps a bit too tart on the balance.

I got a bag, too, and have prepared it a couple of times now. It has a deeper flavor, firmer tooth and rougher surface texture than the domestic and imported pastas I typically buy. Good stuff.

It's Ramadan and we miss the atayaf (aka atayif, katayif, and many other variations) that our Syrian landlords used to make in Brooklyn for the holidays.

Atayaf are half-moon shaped pastries (for lack of a better word) consisting of a pancake-like wrapper that is filled with either a honey-walnut mixture or ishta (a 'cheese' of sweetened and thickened milk and/or cream), fried, and then, sometimes, doused in syrup.

Does anyone know where they're made around here? SF would be ideal, but anywhere in the bay area would be useful to know.

It was a four-hour drive for me up to Fresno from LA, and another three hours afterwards on to San Francisco, but chef Liu definitely won for most effort last saturday. When we arrived, we heard that he'd been cooking for days in preparation, and had been up until six that morning working on the feast. His work paid off, and the food we had showed his talent and skill.

There were some familiar combos and dishes--jellyfish salad with sesame, crispy duck stuffed with sticky rice--and some very original ones that, had I been served them under different circumstances, I would never guess had emerged from a Chinese kitchen--raw, lightly-cured salmon salad, deep-fried shrimp with strawberries. These, together with the remaining dishes, covered a remarkable range of flavors, textures, and influences, and all of them were ordered and paced so as to maintain interest and not wear us out even with twelve dishes over three hours.

Though not necessarily exciting, the pairing of napa cabbage and chestnut was unexpectedly good, a lighter dish that gave a break to the meal just when it was needed. The duck was beautifully browned and crispy, the whole fish sweet and moist.

The meal included two firsts for me: both jellyfish and abalone were new experiences. Both were hard to judge but easy to like. The salad was delicate but also well-balanced. The abalone was dense but not tough, with an flavor earthy and a little smoky as well as scallop-like. I can only hope that other versions are this good.

A few dishes suffered from a heavy hand in one way or another: the daikon roll and the shrimp with strawberries were both overly sweet, making them easy to like but not necessarily balanced or nuanced. And the sichuan peppercorn sauce on the sliced chicken appetizer was so intense as to render the chicken valuable only for texture.
It was a great chowdown. Thanks to Mr Bear and Melanie for organizing!

Cavolo nero, lacinato, dino kale, all the same thing. I got some at Ferry Plaza yesterday, and I've seen it recently at Whole Foods. I use the ribollita recipe from Rogers & Gray (the first River Cafe book)--what do you use?

Reebob tells me that a sign in the window of Firecracker says the Mission District spot will become Udupi Palace, the vegetarian Indian restaurant with locations in Sunnyvale and Berkeley.

-----
Firecracker
1007 1 2 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA

Udupi Palace
1007 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110

Didn't notice the fra'mani products, but I'll look out for them next time.

I saw the Alexander Valley pickles and was wondering about them. I'll have to give them a try now that they've been recommended.

FYI, Rainbow also has 'farina tipo 00 tenero' in bulk.

Good to know! I love the Helmand (both locations--SF and Cambridge) and was thinking of going soon, but I would have gone to the Bway location without even thinking. Glad to hear it's still around.

I went back today during normal business hours and took a look around. People walking down Church St were stopping dead in their tracks in incomprehension under the super-bright entrance. They paused, then entered, looking vaguely dazed, and wandered the aisles slowly. It's bright, it's large, it's preternaturally clean. The eerie silence is the welcome absence of muzak.

The store has some big empty spaces here and there where late-breaking product has yet to arrive. Stock skews towards organic, natural, and gourmet items, but though the freezer case was stocked with Amy's & Boca products and organic frozen fruit & veggies, they also carry Ben and Jerry's. Their stock includes much that will look familiar to people who know Golden already from the location down the street. They've
expanded the selection of many items (lots of oil and vinegar, a much larger freezer case, lots of chocolate, a selection of coffee and tea, etc) and added meat and seafood counters, a wine & beer, section, something that I think will be an olive bar, and a
cheese island (what do you call those standalone, two-tiered coolers?). There is no bulk (save a single barrel of rolled oats), no bread (I may have missed it), and none of the
interesting curiosities (dried galanga, pucks of palm sugar) available at Golden Produce.

The meat and seafood looked good from a quick look; it was not labeled hormone-free, grass-fed, sustainably harvested, or anything else with regard to its provenance or quality.

Prices are about the same as Golden Produce, which is to say a little higher than the Safeway across the street. As examples, some prices I can remember:

B&J Cherry Garcia: $5.49
Straus organic butter: $8.59
Muir Glen tomatoes (28 oz): $3.09
Rice Dream (32 oz): $2.89
Clif bars: $1.69
Whole, cooked Dungeness Crab: $10.49
Pork loin: $6.99/lb
Casa Sanchez hot salsa: $4.09
Large bottle of Chimay Blue: $9.49

I'm glad to have it as an addition to the neighborhood, and I hope that they hold their own against Safeway. That said, what I'm *really* hoping is that they will move the groceries to new store and expand the produce selection at GP.

Golden Natural Foods, the new market from the owners of Golden Produce, opened today. Or at least I assume they did--the owner said that they were planning to open, and when I walked by tonight (after business hours--I couldn't make it by earlier) they plywood was down. The market is considerably larger than Golden Produce, and will have a meat counter and a seafood counter, the owners said.

9:00am-8:00pm, seven days.

Golden Natural Foods. 130 Church St, San Francisco, CA 94114

Third rec for Dopo.

yes! well, I'm here half the time. the rest of the time in LA.

indeed, that's the real stuff. good deal.

For $85 the vinegar would, I'd hope, be the consorzio-approved stuff, which doesn't have producer information obviously displayed on it. $85 is not bad price for the extra-vecchio (25-year old) version. Do you know if it was consorzio vinegar? Was it the in the standardized 100-ml globe bottles?

I went the other night and I was pretty impressed with Kanpai. The table got omakase, which the server organized as a combination of traditional nigiri (toro, sawara, and ono were particularly good) some of the chef's sashimi inventions (scallop with truffle salt, for example), and a couple of small cooked dishes (wagyu filet with mushrooms, miso black cod).

Not cheap, but excellent food.

I've also recently moved from NYC to LA, and have found that the quality of Thai food here is generally far higher than what I got on the east coast. The lunch I had at Ruen Pair (5257 Hollywood) today was on par with dishes from Sripraphai.

Oriental Pastry and Grocery on Atlantic in Brooklyn has two buckets of them near the olives. The brine in both buckets contains a variety of spices, but one is red with chili.

The produce is reasonably good, but not worth the exorbitant cost. Other departments have frequent problems with freshness--I've seen lots of expired items, moldy baked goods, plastic-wrapped cheese sitting out for a couple of weeks, stale bread, etc. Be vigilant and check everything. I avoid the Brooklyn Heights GoE entirely now.

With the one-year anniversary of Katrina just past, much has been made this week of the trauma and hardship. But if you spend three weeks in New Orleans, like I did this summer, there's a lot of good food to be had, especiall with the help of friends, locals, and Pableaux Johnson's restaurant guide. Here's a few mini-reviews from my first trip.

Corner tourist spot somewhere in the French Quarter.

Just after arriving from the airport, we wandered out into the
quarter for a late lunch/early dinner, and when the inevitable
afternoon downpour began we ducked into some mildly charming place serving insipid beans, plain rice, average sausage, and mediocre fish. Beware!

Eat

Though, Eat, a new restaurant in the French
Quarter, is only a block off Bourbon Street, the surroundings are
quiet and residential. The dining room is split across two
levels, with a semi-open partition walls dividing up the space
into smaller areas, so the restaurant feels small and inviting.
The design and fixtures are light and modern, a style almost
nonexistent elsewhere in the Quarter, and rare anywhere in New
Orleans.

The food is a mix of updated cajun/creole classics and more
modern cooking. Examples of the former include etouffee and
gumbo; examples of the latter are fig-blue cheese tart and pork
chop with caramelized onions. Quality varies. Fried fish tasted
fresh but had an armor-like breadcrumb coating. The pork chop is
v good but not as moist as I'd have liked. The house caesar that
accompanies all dinners is well-dressed and made with fresh
romaine, but the cheese is merely perfunctory and the single
tough crouton perched atop each salad is best discarded. Service
is v good.

Zydeque Cajun Barbecue

After balking at the half-hour wait at Acme Oyster Bar, a group
of us ended up at this Cajun-style barbecue place on the next
block. Like many places in New Orleans, it felt a little
underpopulated, but the effect was more exaggerated here,
like it was meant to be crowded.

Almost everyone in our group got the "Cajun Two-Step" combination
plate: two meats and two sides, served on large plastic tray that
serves as a plate. The pulled pork was described on the menu as
cochon au lait, but it seemed like it spent more time being
smoked than being braised in milk: all charred edges and smoky
flavor, to its benefit, but rather dry, to its detriment. It came
with a thick, uber-sweet Texas-style sauce that's decent if you
go for that kind of thing (personally I prefer vinegary,
Carolinas-style sauce).

Everyone ordered the same sides--cornbread and greens-- and
enjoyed them. In addition to the sides, you get two soft, white
supermarket-style dinner rolls.

Praline Connection

The deep fryer was broken on the night four of us discovered
Praline Connection. This equipment failure eliminated roughly
half the menu, and somehow it feels wrong to evaluate this
restaurant under these circumstances. I don't think what I ate
was bad, but almost everyone had to pass on their first choice.
However, the bread pudding was excellent.

Bennachin

This west african restaurant was recommended by a French Quarter
shop owner. Start with the akara (black-eyed pea fritters served
with a dipping sauce). Try a dish with their coconut rice. Have
the ginger drink, but also consider buying a bottle of wine
across the street at Verti Mart (its BYOB). Fish dishes use
strong-flavored, bony fish, which generally works well with the
spices, but some in our party did not enjoy. The yogurt and fried
plantain dessert, as simple as it is, is incredible.

Italian Pie

The salad special sounded good, but was made from old, pre-mixed
greens that had come straight from the bag: the sturdier greens
were unwashed and occasionally yellowed; the more delicate ones
had collapsed into black slime. I had to pick those out myself.
After that, I really wasn't paying much attention to the pizza,
but I do recall the crust was hard and greasy.

Petunia's

Petunia's serves only breakfast and lunch, Southern style.
Biscuits, grits, bacon, and eggs are consistently well-executed.
Portions are large; omelets are huge. Bananas Foster was
fantastic, and enough to feed four. Service is friendly. I
probably ate here more times than anywhere else in my three weeks
in New Orleans, and it's one of the only places I miss now that
I'm back in New York.

Liuzza's By the Tracks

Liuzza's has New Orleans food as cooked by Italians, which means
that the fried oyster po-boy comes with garlic butter instead of
mayonnaise (v tasty) and the gumbo resembles minestrone.

Most gumbo I encountered in New Orleans seems like a parody of
itself, gloppily thick and overly spicy. Liuzza's version, though
not traditional, is far better than those. It is not thickened
(or only barely so) and the soup base tastes like good broth.
Rather than having a mound of rice on the side, the gumbo
includes a little cooked rice in the soup, which gives it some
body. There's enough meat to give it flavor without being stew-like.

Cafe Reconcile

Eight dollars flat rate gets you a main course and two sides,
plus salad, jalapeno cornbread, dessert, and a drink. Main
courses offerings are a rotation of standard fare like fried
catfish, fried chicken, or shrimp etouffee. Get the catfish,
which is fried to order, and has a thin, super-crispy coating.
Sides include mashed potatoes, greens, beans and rice, etc.
Everything had the mark of being hand-made.

This Central City restaurant is half lunch joint, half job
training program for formerly incarcerated people, and thankfully
it appears the kitchen staff are actually being trained to
cook, not just to reheat Sysco products.

Sound Cafe

Sound Cafe was the only coffee place to consistently apply good
preparation practices: the baristas grind the beans to order for
espresso. One barista pulled the shot for my macchiato three
times to get a shot he was happy with. They use beans from a
roaster literally around the corner.

Johnny's Po-Boys

The gumbo is spicy and so thick it will stand your flimsy plastic
spoon on end. V tasty in an un-subtle kind of way.

Domilise's Po' Boys

A 'dressed' po' boy here does not mean the usual lettuce, tomato
and mayo. Instead, you get pickles and hot sauce (and no tomato)
and the result is a stunningly good sandwich.

Whole Foods

If you start craving salad and fresh fruit, or if you are feeling
depressed that so much of New Orleans still feels empty, take a
trip to Whole Foods. It's huge, bright, pleasant, and the
lot's always full (be prepared to hunt for parking down the
block). Expensive, but where else can you go for produce?

Kitchen Witch

A 'collection' of books (to use owner Felipe's own description)
that at first glance might appear to be leftovers from a garage
sale, but on closer inspection is a remarkable selection of
culinary titles. You won't find any Food Network chef titles, but
you can browse multiple translations of Brillat-Savarin (and get
opinions on their relative merits from Felipe), or peruse an
entire shelf filled with different editions of the Joy of
Cooking, dating back to the 30s. Of course, Southern, Creole, and
Cajun books are specialties.

Certainly there are many curiosities whose anthropological value
outweighs their epicurean value, but there's lots of practical
stuff for cooks, too. I found a slim but techincal baking book
from 1906 that contains more useful info than I've found in many
modern books, and a great regional Italian book from the 60s.

well, if 'around' queens includes riding the G down to Greenpoint, I'd say Cafe Grumpy.

re: coffee--That Costa Rican must have been the one that I tried about a month ago. After that, I was ready to write D'Amico off, but I'll go back and try this Viennese. As soon as I'm through the bag of George Howell beans I just got. I've also been wanting to try Grumpy--thanks for making the trip and reporting back.

OK, thanks, it must have just been a fluke. glad it was just a coincidence.

as with anything that salty (salted capers, bacalao, some olives, chinese preserved vegetables, etc) you can rinse/soak it until to reduce the saltiness to a more desirable level, with the caveat that doing so also dimishes flavor somewhat. I usually use my lemons straight, but I like food salty.

I registered for the new chowhound yesterday, and this morning the email address I used had a fair amount more spam than usual. I don't see anywhere on the site that my email address is listed publicly, but it seems like an amazing coincidence. Has anyone else had this experience? Is there some way to get a user's email address that I'm not seeing (but that spammers are)?

thanks

Derek

cafegrumpy.com

As long as we're discussing mail order toffee, also try Vern's from Fort Collins, Colorado. (The low humidity makes Colorado an excellent place for making toffee--can you say 'hygroscopic', anyone?). And it's cheaper, too.

Blue Bottle, hands down. Either from the Hayes Valley kiosk or the cart at Ferry Plaza and Berkeley farmers' markets.