MetaFilter posts tagged with dining

Undercover, uh, food, lover.

converge — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:30:23 -0800

Michelin inspectors have been anonymous as CIA spooks. Until now. And now. The New Yorker has a rare interview with one.

Your Guide To Living Out The Don Draper Dream

netbros — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:40:04 -0800

One of the best parts of watching Mad Men is the perfectly recreated world of 1960s New York. Who doesn’t wish they could simply step into their tvs for a moment and experience the romance of sipping a cocktail in an elegant 60s bar? Guest of a Guest put together a list of Mad Men inspired locales, consisting of places that have been around since the 1960s as well as their modern counterparts. Here’s everything you need to know to dress, drink, eat, and live like a character out of Mad Men.

Go on, indulge yourself.

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:21:46 -0800

As I sat there, dazed and sweating, I felt hung-over, bordering on ashamed. ”Dear Lord,” I whispered, “what have I done to myself? I still have an entree coming! Will I survive?

All You Can Hold For Five Bucks

Joe Beese — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:03:45 -0800

The New York steak dinner, or beefsteak, is a form of gluttony as stylized and regional as the riverbank fish fry, the hot-rock clambake, or the Texas barbecue. Some old chefs believe it had its origin sixty or seventy years ago, when butchers from the slaughterhouses on the East River would sneak choice loin cuts into the kitchens of nearby saloons, grill them over charcoal, and feast on them during their Saturday-night sprees. - Joseph Mitchell, 1939. The beefsteak endures - as does the writing of Joseph Mitchell.

Uniting the Beer Community

netbros — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:19:45 -0800

Greatbrewers.com releases the Beer Sommelier. Beer is increasingly considered the ideal beverage to accompany food for its palate cleansing carbonation and its diverse range of styles featuring flavor and aroma characteristics that can enhance any dish. But selecting the right beer style to complement a specific dish, and tracking down a retailer that carries that style presents inherent challenges. Masterfully select the best beer styles to pair with any dish, see examples of those styles, and track down individual beers in your neighborhood with the Beer Sommelier. "The process starts with a vertical row of large picture boxes, each repping a main ingredient, from the meaty (beef, fish, poultry, game), to the not-so-meaty (nuts, fruit, cheese, chocolate); click one and a second row'll appear, offering schloads of popular dishes within the category, i.e., Pasta breaks into mac & cheese, lo mein, lasagna, etc., Bread rocks blinis and corn fritters, and Seafood runs from chowder to caviar, for that special occasion worth a vintage 1974 Schlitz. Once a dish's specified, a third row'll appear featuring general styles of beer to pair with it (i.e., German-style strong doppelbock, Bamberg-style Marzen Rauchbier) as rec'd by a cred-heavy trio of industry vets, with links to a fact sheet on the style (flavor profile, typical ABV, bitterness, appropriate glassware), and myriad examples of the style from a database of over 2,100 craft beers, each with its own page replete with tasting notes, availability, and tap type required, aka, "keg connection." (via Thrillist Nation)

"I guess it goes with alcohol"

dersins — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:12:59 -0800

"Some American consumers believe sriracha (properly pronounced SIR-rotch-ah) to be a Thai sauce. Others think it is Vietnamese. The truth is that sriracha, as manufactured by Huy Fong Foods, may be best understood as an American sauce, a polyglot purée with roots in different places and peoples." A Chili Sauce to Crow About.

For Those Who Live to Eat

netbros — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:01:31 -0800

Communities of and for foodies. Foodbuzz is about dining out, cooking at home, discovering a new flavor, drooling over a food blog, or swapping recipes. Check out Today's Top 9, a daily feature. Chowhound is the community for Chow.com. Dozens of boards enable you to drill down to local favorites, like this request for live crawfish in Virginia. Both communities have very active memberships.

Dinner plans... for next year.

shiu mai baby — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:10:31 -0800

What's the hardest dining reservation to score? French Laundry? Nope. El Bulli? Non. D.C.'s minibar? Not even close. It's Talula's Table, a tiny shop in Kennett Square, PA that's a gourmet food store by day and a sublime dining experience by night. Located about 45 minutes from Philadelphia, Talula's Table was started by Brian Sikora and Amy Olexy, a husband and wife team who first rose to fame in the Philadelphia restaurant scene back in 2002 when they opened Django. Sikora and Olexy, both former employees of Philly restaurateur Stephen Starr, started Django with a $45,000 loan and only their mountain bikes as collateral. Within a year they were the darlings of the city, lauded for Sikora's unpretentious but innovative cuisine, and one of the driving forces behind Philadelphia's BYOB boom. Craig LaBan, the Philadelphia Inquirer food critic who can exault or destroy a restaurant with a single review, made waves by awarding Django a rarefied "four bells,"¹ a rating typically reserved for the high-end gems like Le Bec Fin, Vetri, or Amada -- unheard of for a small bistro. But at the height of their fame, Sikora and Olexy opted to walk away, selling the restaurant after a short five years to two investors². After a time bouncing around the Chester County countryside (a sojourn that included a brief stint for Sikora at Sovana Bistro, and for Olexy -- arguably one of the best cheese experts in the area -- getting turned down for a job at the cheese counter in Whole Foods), the couple opened up Talula's Table. The two transformed an old shoe shop on the main drag of Kennett Square (mushroom capital of the world!) into a warm, welcoming gourmet market that specializes in prepared foods, pastries baked on the premises, artisan ingredients, and, yes, glorious cheese. At the back of the store is the large, rough-hewn farm table referenced in the shop's name. Every evening, after the store has closed, this table is the site of a multi-course prix fixe dinner prepared for a single party of eight to twelve people. As was his style at Django, Sikora's cuisine is unexpected but approachable, original but not fussy, and always divine. Bonus: he is a firm believer in the 100 mile diet, and draws heavily from the seasonable, local ingredients available to him in the abundant Chester County countryside³. When Talula's Table first opened, getting a reservation at the table was fairly easy; only die-hard local foodies were even aware that Sikora was cooking again, and frankly, wrangling seven of your closest friends for dinner in the wilds of the Philadelphia suburbs wasn't an easy sell, not at first. But the buzz soon found Sikora, and before long LaBan made his way to dinner at Talula's, which he described as "one of the best meals [he had] eaten all year." After the LaBan review hit, the buzz only grew louder. Within just a few months Talula's had been talked up by the likes of Portfolio, MSNBC, the New York Times, and NPR. Demand for the table exploded, and now the only way to get a reservation is this: you must call at precisely 7:00 a.m. one year to the day ahead of when you'd like to dine there. If yours is the first call they take, then you can book dinner for that date the following year. Good luck. A few first-hand accounts of the folks who have had the Talula's experience are here and here. And this is a little glimpse into the kitchen. Oh, and here's a Flickr photostream for you to drool over. 1 - I would've linked to the original Laban review, but it appears that it has been removed from the Philly.com site, probably because it's no longer applicable. 2 - How far the mighty have fallen: Django closed two weeks ago, a mere three years after Sikora and Olexy sold it. 3 - Sample autumn menu from last year: Grapefruit Margarita and Nantucket Bay Scallop Ceviche, Roasted Chanterelles, Our Smoked Country Ham, Creamed Greens and Spoon Bread, Buttery Leek and Wine Poached Chatham Cod, Petite Pommes Frites and American Caviar, Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Artisan Ricotta and Maple Glazed Winter Vegetables, Cinnamon Smoked Pheasant Bastilla, Medjool Date Glazed Pheasant Breast, Crispy Phyllo and Toasty Almonds, Grilled Veal Steak, Porcini and Taleggio Ravioli and Braised Veal Shank, Scent of a Cheese: A Quintet of the Unusual, Gianduja and Dark Chocolate Caramel Tart, Nutmeg Anglaise, Port Poached Cranberries.

Mmmmm.....Endangered

Kronos_to_Earth — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:45:25 -0800

Well, that's one less Carolina flying squirrel, but having it for dinner might actually help keep them around. A list of endangered American species once common on the dinner table has become a book, its author, Gary Paul Nabham, encouraging the reader to keep disappearing local culinary traditions alive. Endangered Dinners.

dining designs

nickyskye — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:25:39 -0800

Cutlery pen caps l Top 10 Picks of the Dining in 2015 competition. Some other innovative food container design hacks and fun cutlery ideas: constructive, eating tools, finger food.

Even they get tired of fried eggs, hamburgers, and greasy coffee

ardgedee — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:01:55 -0800

My favorite entree is the salmon sandwich on foccacia bread. Water is served with a slice of cucumber which is very refreshing. Which profession dines out the most? Whose judgements can be counted on for honesty and straightforwardness? The truckers'.

Get high at your next meeting

madamjujujive — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 11:51:24 -0800

Bored with that same old business meeting? Why not try a dinner in the sky? But if it's a view you're after, you could probably take a few of your clients here for the same price. (flash & sound alert; film clip on main site is slow to load)

Food

liam — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 12:06:31 -0800

FoodCandy. A foodie hang.

Move over Ferran Adrià?

KevinSkomsvold — Mon, 22 May 2006 00:02:23 -0800

Chicago: The New Barcelona? When it comes to cuisine, GQ seems to think so.

Ewwww. That's Disgusting. You slob!

jacquilynne — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 04:55:29 -0800

Don't Gross Out the World: A Cross-Cultural Dining Etiquette Quiz.

Girls on Film

fandango_matt — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 10:31:08 -0800

Playing Flickr is a public space installation by Mediamatic on the 11th floor of the PostCS building in Amsterdam. Diners in Restaurant 11 can use their mobile phones to submit a keyword of their choice, which will later appear on the surrounding screens with corresponding Flickr photographs tagged with that word or words.

New York Haute Cuisine

watsondog — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 09:23:03 -0800

The Epicurean online. Charles Ranhofer's 1893 book The Epicurean is available online from the Michigan State University Library and the Museum as part of their Feeding America digital project. Ranhofer was the head chef at Delmonico's Restaurant from 1862 to 1894; he popularized the Escoffier version of French cooking to America, modifying it to take advantage of American foods such as turkey, squash, corn, and Pacific salmon. Besides thousands of recipes, The Epicurean discusses table settings, menus, various methods of presentation, and kitchen management. The book may be downloaded as a PDF in two parts.

Mmmmmmm...

braun_richard — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 13:41:34 -0800

A new food blog! Slashfood. Looks like a good one. They seem to be covering pretty much everything. Instant bookmark!

Nosheteria

wuakeen — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:01:50 -0800

Bourgie (boo-zhee) Entertaining food blog (previous mefi topic) Regularly updated and worth a look for those interested in food ;) Written from Berkeley but not region specific, sometimes recipes.

"what is a bourgie? First let's get the pronunciation down, boo-zhee, sort of rhymes with sue me. Actually, it doesn't rhyme at all. It's the truncated version of bourgeoisie, you remember middle school history, Marie Antoinette, the rising middle class. But to English speaking nations, assuming that is what you belong to, this is the class with which we aspire to belong. And with food, it's almost the intangible. That little bit of effort that brings the dreary to the divine."

World's Best Restaurant

peacay — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 19:07:10 -0800

World's best restaurant serves up molecular gastronomy.
(parallel thread)

wood for the trees

sgt.serenity — Sun, 06 Feb 2005 07:45:37 -0800

Wood for the trees. The Forest Cafe in Edinburgh , a volunteer run , eco - friendly , creative space thats worth a look.

Some Bribes are Legal?

EatenByAGrue — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 07:20:13 -0800

A few tips for the well-heeled gourmand. But I suspect the technologically oriented MetaFilter member will prefer these tips.

Need pancakes at 2am?

clango — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 06:39:11 -0800

Lunarama is a user-edited listing of late-night and 24-hour establishments listed by city. Anyone fancy adding a few? It'd be nice to have a resource like this when visiting a new city. It's much more comprehensive than simply looking up Kinko's in the phone book.

semmi — Sun, 18 Aug 2002 14:34:30 -0800

Ah, inspiring food and good writing. Recounting "first taste" experiences of Sea Urchin, Hearts of Artichokes à la Isman Bavaldy, and Cock in Wine, the perfect Pastrami sandwich, the sweet memory of honey and green mangoes, and about the late-onset cook, THE DOMESTIC MALE.