Text 18177, 154 rader
Skriven 2011-11-23 09:35:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av DAVE SACERDOTE
Ärende: best/worst o times 243
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 DS> local specialty meat store.

Arnold's? What were these steaks doing there?

 I still remember the buttery, melting
 DS> tenderness and wonderful flavor. I know it probably wasn't the
 DS> best grade of Waygu, but it was still exceptional. And yes, I
 DS> was indeed paying for a lot of fat, but what glorious fat indeed!

Truly. A wonderful celebration of the calorie, for those
who love flavors and calories both.

 DS> (and what the hell - I've bought duck breasts on markdown not
 DS> for the meat, but to slowly render the skin so I could have a 
 DS> jar of duck fat in the fridge for cooking. But I digress.)

If you treat them sort of a la fish, you can have some
great results with not much work. This news not meant for
you but for those who might be somewhat daunted by the
idea of cooking some strange protein. Let's see: rub with
salt; sprinkle the flesh side with seasoning; score the
skin and put into a pan skin side down. Cook an arbitrarily
long time until most of the fat is rendered, pouring fat
off frequently. Pop under the broiler briefly for rare or
into a hot oven for a few minutes for medium or just give
a pass with a blowtorch for black'n'blue the way I like.
Deglaze the brown bits in the pan with wine or juice and
a little strong stock, and dinner fit for a mandarin.

==

 ML> Phillips Seafood in the Legacy Hotel. 
 DS> Is that a franchise location?  Just wondering; I'm not sure
 DS> what kind of online research would have led Jonathan to 
 DS> select them at all.

His stated criteria: someplace that "serves healthy food" and
that he'd not been to before. My criterion: not too costly.
One out of three isn't so good. I have no idea what his unstated
criteria were.

There may be more than meets the eye, though, now that I think
of it.

[This is how the morning interview transpired.]
- I'll be back around 5.
- Okay, we'll leave about 7. Pick a place, not too expensive.
- Someplace I haven't been.
- Okay, you pick it.
[fast forward to 2, when he shows up, surprisingly 3 hours
early rather than the norm of late late late]
- Jonathan, what did you decide?
- I thought you were going to choose.
- Someplace I haven't been.
- YOU PICK IT, I am not going to pick.
- You know what places are good.
- You should learn to do the research. You're here ten times
as much as I am.
- If you're not going to pick, we'll go to Clyde's.
[someplace he's been many times]
- You know I far prefer the Tower Oaks Lodge*
- Oh, okay.
[fast forward to 7]
- We're going to Phillips.
- [?!]

* [Clyde's sister restaurant out in Rockville, where the comparison is:
            Clyde's                            Tower Oaks
Atmosphere  noisy, bright, irritating          somewhat noisy, cute thematic
Waitstaff   pretentious at times               generally nice to very nice
Food        okay, gets it wrong sometimes      always good
Prices      medium to high                     the same, sometimes $1 less
Menu        standard menus are the same        but here also an oyster menu
Portions    usually fair                       always better than fair
Open Table  yes                                no

Tower Oaks winning on every single count.]

Maybe he set himself up to fail so he wouldn't have to choose
a restaurant again. Who knows.

 Google Reviews give it an average of
 DS> two stars (out of five) and I think that might have been
 DS> generously influenced by the single 5-star and single 4-star
 DS> reviews - most people in the list gave them one- or two-star
 DS> ratings.  (My favorite review was: "If you measure the quality
 DS> of your food by how much it weighs, then this is the place
 DS> for you." Ha!)

Considering the heft of the breading on the shrimp and the
batter on the french fries, raw caloric intake might be the
reason for eating here.

 ML> It should be a red flag when a
 ML> restaurant is sparsely populated on Saturday night.
 DS> We learned that the hard way one night at a "Smoky Bones"
 DS> restaurant (the BBQ place owned by Red Lobster/Olive Garden;
 DS> we should have known better.) It was the only place that
 DS> Saturday night that didn't have a line snaking out the
 DS> door and an hour+ wait. When we got our food I learned why.

One lives and learns, doesn't one. A sad thing, though, this
particular learning process.

 ML> Last but not least, the "flounder"
 ML> was a split regular fish (not a flatfish)
 DS> Your description (oily, soggy) sounds like you got some cheap-ass
 DS> tank-raised crap like swai or tilapia.

My thoughts exactly. The Boston Globe did an expose a month ago
in which it found that almost all restaurants misidentified their
fish on occasion, and
  Overall, the testing revealed that nearly half of 183 fish
  samples collected at restaurants and supermarkets were not
  the species ordered. [Boston Globe, October 24, 2011]

Which is a remarkable record.

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v7.07

      Title: Fish Cutlets with Curry Sauce
 Categories: Indonesian, Seafood
   Servings:  6

      1 tb Oil
      1    Onion, sliced thickly from
           -top to base
      1 ts Fresh ginger, grated
      8    Candlenuts, chopped into 8
           -pieces
      1 ts Curry powder
      2 ts Light soy sauce
      2 ts Lemon juice
      1 c  Water
      4    Fish cutlets
      2    Spring onions, chopped

  1.  Heat oil in frying pan, add onions, stir-fry until tender.  Add ginger,
  candlenuts and curry powder, stir-fry over low heat for 3 minutes.

  2.  Add soy sauce, lemon juice and water, bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and
  simmer for 3 minutes.

  3.  Add fish cutlets in single layer, cover, simmer for 5 minutes on each
  side or until just cooked through.

  NOTE:  Any white fish cutlets or fillets are suitable for use with this
  recipe. Source: Indonesian Cooking

MMMMM

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