MitchW

I'm just going to start this thread with this little ditty from one of the best pizza makers around, Gio - at Luigi's Pizza, in Park Slope. https://www.instagram.com/p/C8AuFBCyiNo/ That's a quick couple of slices I had a while ago. They know what they're doing... No smoke signals!

Oh, you got the old rabe chef!

I guess its moment has been going on for a while (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/kitchen-notes/tomato-tonnato-is-the-sauce-of-the-summer), since this piece is from 2022. But I know I saw it at least once in Montreal recently, and on the return trip it was ordered at Twelve, in Portland. With the asparagus. Did a simple asparagus vinaigrette last night: Served alongside: Roasted chicken thighs. Potato salad. Corn.

There is tonnato on so many menus right now. It's the something of 2024. Though it's still best with vitello.

While @Sneakeater likes the New Yorker cartoon about Hot Sauce, I think this week's cover is pretty good.

I often cook broccolini without cutting it up as I find it not anywhere near as fibrous as rabe can be.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen - even though it has taken a long time (about 25 years, actually). Once, one of our favorite restaurants, with fine service, cooking Roman/Italian food just about right, then falling out of favor for reasons maybe not totally related to food. So, before a show at The Bitter End (!!), we decided to pop in for a few bites, as it's just around the corner. The apps we started with were pretty good; baccala croquettes and marinated artichokes. No complaints there. I ordered a special pasta (linguini with Jonah Crab) and here's where things started to go awry: Now, I have no problem paying $38 for this pasta (I think they may feel a little guilty about charging so much, but then they've basically doubled the portion size), but enough with the bread crumbs! And so much Jonah crab - which was basically tasteless. Kind of a hot mess, as was Significant Eater's ricotta gnocchi, which lacked both sausage and fennel in the sauce, at least to our taste. We didn't order secondi, as how can one eat another full plate of food after so much pasta? So maybe the play here is to order apps and secondi? Oh, lest I forget - don't order the broccoli rabe...this is how it is served: And this is how it ended up: Impossible to eat, as it wasn't cut into any sort of pieces, which if you are going to not cook broccoli rabe as they do in Rome, is a necessity. I could not cut this broccoli rabe into pieces with the knife I had on the table. Oy. Note how I cook and serve it at home, if I want it to remain bright green: Either that, or cook the hell out of it!

Top 3? And probably didn’t do too many steroids.

Is that a “golden” car wash?

Wild gulf shrimp. Anson Mills grits.

Good job!

I'd be sending a picture of that to Danny Meyer.

Oh, I wish!! There's a "new" shack in the location where Schiller's once was. We tried it one night before a show at the Bowery Ballroom' let's just say - Never Again! They're nicer at the airports, if you can believe that.

We're going away tomorrow for a long weekend, so no purchase of these fruits until we get back. However, I did buy peas and made pasta.

Nice day at the greenmarket yesterday. Peas (fresh shelling), pancetta, Parmigiano, pasta. With an endive salad.

While I quite enjoyed my meal at Disfrutar, I thought I might die, or be dead, upon awakening the next day.

I'm quoting @Orik here: STOP!!

Pre or post-stroke? I definitely missed that one! It must've been a night when he was playing somewhere else, and the only times I can remember him being here in NYC solo, he had played at City Winery. Post-stroke.

He left out 2A (and the dancer).

This one, for sure...

I'm hoping this will make the real line in Whitestone shorter! But seriously folks, Utopia is a top 5 bagel place (in the world of NYC), and this might be good news. (It also doesn't mean that I still don't hate bagel "sandwiches!)

This was kind of a special trip to Portland, because for the first time we were able to visit a place that had not been easily accessible on past visits. It started at the Portland Museum of Art, where a number of Winslow Homer works are on display. This is Weatherbeaten; I do not believe it made it to the grand show that the Metropolitan put on in 2022; that was called Crosscurrents. But the fun was just starting; after a quick tour of a few of Homers' works in the museum, we headed out to Prouts Neck... And Winslow's studio. The only way to visit the studio is via the Portland Museum. His studio was originally a carriage house next to the family home, but the carriage house was moved a number of yards away from the home, and it was expanded to eventually include the 2nd floor, a gift from his brother (who was a chemist for Valspar, and a co-inventor of clear varnish!). When you visit Prouts Neck, not only can one look out this window, which is the exact same size as the painting Weatherbeaten... But one can also stand at the approximate spot where Homer worked on that piece of art... On a much nicer day. That's our guide. Pretty great day for a fanboy like me.

I'd only correct the sentence if their bagels had been any good...but they weren't.

Even though I haven't tried it, I'm certain that if the lobster being served at Foxface is currently coming from Maine and is being caressed by Dave, it's gonna be good. Because we had these beautiful 1.5 pounders last week, in Portland, at Scales. And they were among the best whole lobsters I've eaten. Oyster list (here) was much shorter this time vs. last visit... The bar is the place to sit... They serve them right up in a trough... Oysters from Maine are my favorites... This special of clams with house cured hunks of bacon wasn't bad, either... Just to round it out... Three peas. And apparently a little ham. Good, fun place. And they make a proper cocktail, at least at the bar. A place we'd wanted to try on our last trip, but didn't get around to, is Twelve, located at the new-ish waterfront development known as Foreside. It's not in this building... But it's close enough... The whole complex sure looks better on its website than it did in person! Twelve has a distinguished team, led by... They offer both a la carte and prix fixe dinner. Everything on the menu is available a la carte: The app portions are not skimpy...they're huge. The quite wonderful asparagus with a morel vol-au-vent. Just as good fluke crudo with rhubarb and cucumber. Had to have the pain as well. This is the tautog, in a carrot bisque. Tautog, if you've never had, is a pretty delicious fish. But enough of fish...I had well-cooked duck; the confit portion of the dish is the fried "stick," which really didn't work for me. The beets I put up with. Dessert was good, no pix. Had a good time and an excellent waiter.

Can't you just continuously watch Hinds' videos?