What did you eat last night for dinner?

Sigh. Please use soy sauce.

A quick recap of my NYC travel dining experiences:

Wed - Macelleria - supposed to be a steak joint so I went with that. Had the bone in rib eye w/ bacon on the side and prosciutto w/mozzarella to start. The proccuit was a bit thick for my tastes, but tasty all the same. Would not order again. The steak was nice but absolutely nothing special and not worth the $50. Drinks were a disaster as they have no "menu". Overall - C

Thur - ate breakfast at The Diner in meatpacking, which is supposed to be an institution. Absolute disaster. Waitress was horrible and inattentive, they overcooked everyone's omelette's, the french toast had no flavor, and I actually had to get up on two separate occasions with the coffee mugs and refill them myself. No food item was tasty or interesting in any way. F

Thur night - went to Le Halle downtown with a group of 10. I really don't see what the fuss is about this place. The vaunted duck fat fries were absolutely nothing special. We started with 4 different appetizers - mushroom ravioli, escargot, baked brie, and a salad. The escargot were tasty but everything else was only fair. We ordered a shitload of entres. The mussels were very tasty, the beef boug was nice if a bit salty, the duck leg confit was hard, dry, and crunchy, the cassoulet was probably the best tasting but it was very dry and had almost no liquid to speak of. The drinks were ok. Prices of the dishes were probably the best thing going for the place but I have to imagine that there is better French food around. C-

Philly tomorrow

Went to SHO Shaun Hergatt tonight. I had a whole description typed up but decided nobody would care enough to read it. I'll shorten it by saying the celeriac espuma was the best part of the meal and tasted like pure truffles, but the service kind of sucked and they forced me to wait way too long for everything, particularly wine. The highlight of the night was an Asian man in his 30s walking in wearing a fedora with 5 women who had to be prostitutes, then seeing his well hidden hint of shame 10 minutes later when he removed the hat to reveal he was balding. Still, incredible value for one of the better restaurants in NYC.
I also went to Gotham today for lunch. That kind of sucked. Very 80s in food and decor.

What is this... Bizarro-world? Gotham Bar & Grill "kinda sucked" ? I was there 2 weeks ago and had a great meal - as good as it was 10 years ago. How many restaurants stay at the top like this for 20 years...

Rambo comes to NYC and picks the most random B&T/tourist restaurants when we've had eleventy threads about where to eat in NYC . If you're a group of 10, go for the suckling pig dinner at The Breslin, not for some sub-average "Frnech bistro" fare at Les Halles.

It was a bold statement but I stand by it. It wasn't that anything was particularly terrible, it was just kind of generic fancy restaurant food. And I get that they were trying to make the service as unintrusive as possible, but that doesn't excuse letting my water glass get empty multiple times when there were more employees than customers, not giving me a wine list ever, or giving me the regular menu as the dessert menu then getting taken aback when I asked for it to be corrected. Oh, and someone's leftover butter was on the inside of the little salt bowl they gave me. On that note, this is nitpicky but putting pepper on the table implies the chef doesn't know how to season food properly. Overall a very unmemorable meal. I'm biased, but Gramercy Tavern is the way better timeless NYC restaurant, and cheaper.

Does sound like you had a pretty bad experience with service... Sounds so different from the Gotham I know.



gdl203 said:

If you're a group of 10, go for the suckling pig dinner at The Breslin, not for some sub-average "Frnech bistro" fare at Les Halles.

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I too am not a big fan of Les Halles and don't see it as a destination restaurant, but I do appreciate their $15 corking fee.

also, would ravage the suckling pig at the Breslin. Their mussels are one of my favorite things.



mgm9128 said:

This is a spiced duck breast with a coffee infused chestnut puree, braised cabbage and duck jus. I didn't use soy, and that's as dark as I could get it.

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To me that looks overly reduced and sticky, but the color is better.



gdl203 said:

Rambo comes to NYC and picks the most random B&T/tourist restaurants when we've had eleventy threads about where to eat in NYC . If you're a group of 10, go for the suckling pig dinner at The Breslin, not for some sub-average "Frnech bistro" fare at Les Halles.

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I did not have any say in the dining destinations. They were prepicked. They were also FREE so I wasn't complaining.

Forgot to add one though - for lunch on Thursday we ate at Northern Spy Food Company - very cozy/quaint spot in Chelsea. ******* awesome food. Everything there is farm to table and they source it at some major local farmers market (can't remember the name). Most of the food comes from the Hudson Valley. Highly recommend the kale salad, the biscuits and gravy w/eggs, the lamb burger, the corned beef hash, and the side of bacon. The chicken and egg with chimmichuri was very tasty but their chimmi was a bit overpowering for it so stay away from that if you don't like chimmi. Definitely an A.



Rambo said:

They were also FREE so I wasn't complaining

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but you were complaining

Last night I did the salt roasted pork tenderloin and fingerling potatoes as described in foodguy's article

Had a few issues.

The meat was nicely done, and the potatoes were really tasty....but I didn't really get a salt "crust" which meant that instead of lifting off big pieces of salt, I had to fish everything out of a pan full of salt. There were a few larger chunks of crust, but nothing like what was described in the article.

I was able to brush off the potatoes pretty well but as the meat came out, it had juices that dissolved a lot of salt so it ended up tasting too salty.

Where did I go wrong here...too much water? Not packed tight enough? Was everything supposed to be spread out in the pan or should I have piled it all closer together or slightly stacked (the suggested 6 cups of salt wasn't quite enough to cover everything when it was spread out)?



otc said:

Last night I did the salt roasted pork tenderloin and fingerling potatoes as described in foodguy's article
Had a few issues.

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hmmm, kinda hard to say. from the description of the salt, i'd say you didn't add enough water, rather than too much. it should look like wet snow. just to be clear: there won't be a salt crust around the potatoes or the meat. the crust will be on the top of the pan. and yes, if there is still salt clinging to the potatoes, some of it should be brushed off. as for hte pork, i'm stumped. you're sure it was the tenderloin (the thin fillet) rather than a piece of loin? the only time i've had problem with meat is when there was a cut surface exposed, then it absorbs salt.



foodguy said:

hmmm, kinda hard to say. from the description of the salt, i'd say you didn't add enough water, rather than too much. it should look like wet snow. just to be clear: there won't be a salt crust around the potatoes or the meat. the crust will be on the top of the pan. and yes, if there is still salt clinging to the potatoes, some of it should be brushed off. as for hte pork, i'm stumped. you're sure it was the tenderloin (the thin fillet) rather than a piece of loin? the only time i've had problem with meat is when there was a cut surface exposed, then it absorbs salt.

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How much of a crust? In the article it sounds like the whole top of the pan will be hard and lift off--are there any pictures of this out there?

I did do a bit of trimming of silverskin/membrane so that might explain the salt absorption (especially since my trimming needs practice). I have another one and a few more potatoes so I will try again tonight with no trimming and more water.

Searing that tenderloin in a bunch of oil in a big hot pan really makes me wish I had a hood

don't think i've done any video on that technique. most of the time, what you get is like a big thick (half-inch to 3/4 inch?) sheet of salt that you can lift off like a lid, though it doesn't always stay completely intact. it should be dense enough that you have to chip it to free it at first. though not as dense as if you were using egg whites.

I found a few pages of people doing it (or similar)
http://oneperfectbite.blogspot.com/2010/04/pork-tenderloin-baked-in-salt-crust.html
On this one the whole pan is stuffed with salt...this seems like too much right?

Then (ignoring the way the unseared meat looks)
http://mylastbite.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/pork-loin-baked-in-salt/
this one only has enough salt to cover the meat but it definitely has a rigid "crust"

We'll see how round 2 goes...I'll do it in a smaller pan since I have less potatos and push everything closer together. The salt should be packed hard around everything right? Like a snowball vs freshly fallen wet snow?