The Portly Chef

Last week Restaurant Girl wrote about “Off the Menu” secrets at various eateries in New York. As she put it, off the menu items seem “so much sexier than anything actually in fine print” but also might cause one to feel “like you’re dining in coach while in-the-know regulars are feasting in first class.”
I don’t understand […]

Both David Lebovitz and Simply Recipes (among others) have covered this story, but I thought I’d provide the link for you as well, in case you don’t read those sites (as you should).
Anthony Bourdain (whose D.C. Les Halles is one of my favorite lunch places) was a guest blogger over at Michael Ruhlman’s blog and offered his […]

Restaurant Girl has this interview with Josh DeChellis of New York’s West Village restaurant Sumile and it’s new sushi bar Sumile Sushi. The entire piece is a great read, but the following really piqued my interest:
Restaurant Girl: What culinary trend do you most detest?
DeChellis: None of them, there must be sin in order to appreciate virtue.
This is […]

As I’m feeling a little under the weather today, I’m going to take the easy way out and provide a newswrap of the various stories I found today covering Valentine’s Day Chocolate. Besides, I experimented with the chocolate cake in the post below. Chocolate once a week is about all my waistline can handle.
Back tomorrow with…The […]

A collection of what was posted here and elsewhere during the work week.

I introduced my orange tres leches with chocolate candied orange peels, experimented with neck (which my friend Greg pointed out can be done in numerous forms of braising) and we debated pre- and post-tax tipping.

The ever-talented Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate & Zucchini provided a […]

Maybe I was wrong when I suggested that the British receive a bum rap for the quality of their food. Reuters today ran an article headlined “Britons risk arrest in search of decent pub food.” Maybe the rap is well deserved.
The article highlighted a poll suggesting that the gastro pub (see wikipedia and The Food […]

Finally, this season, which feels like it debuted during the Clinton Administration, comes to an end. I’m going to offer my thoughts on the episode, but more importantly would like to provide an open forum for you to share your thoughts about the results. Because this post is going to contain lots of spoilers I’m […]

Yesterday’s lenghty post on my homemade ketchup making has taken the fire out of me. So I thought I would offer up a collection of recent interesting food stories from around the country.

Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune has followed up the story on Maytag blue cheese (that served as the muse for my post […]