Thursday, January 17, 2008

big food writers at Dovetail

January 17

Food writer Jane Sigal realized that she didn’t really know anything about how restaurants work. So she got herself a job as a hostess at Dovetail. She was there last night, sorting through numbered tags and associating them with my coat and bag, and with the belongings of Dovetail’s publicist, Aurora Kessler, with whom I was dining.
“Now I know what happens when someone like you walks into a restaurant,” Jane said.
Dovetail was full of people like me last night. In fact, by my reckoning, I was the least important food journalist in the dining room, behind Food & Wine's Dana Cowin, The New York Post’s Steve Cuozzo, and the inimitable James Oliver Cury of Epicurious.
So Dovetail’s in the full throes of the opening phase of “important” New York restaurants, when we in the food world check the place out (Alan Richman and Andrew Knowlton have been in, for sure — and no-doubt countless others).
I sat in the corner, in a spot that Thais might call a chaiyaphum — a fortified position suitable for making a stand in battle.
I’m thinking in Thai a bit today because Aurora, like me, lived in Thailand for about five years. We overlapped by one year — she was there from 1988 to 1993, I was there from ’92 to ’97 — but we never met. She is, like, half my age, after all.
Between Aurora's gentle pitches about Dovetail, we gossiped about chefs, publicists and food writers, reminisced about Thailand and exchanged notes on Thai food in Manhattan — Land, Won Dee Siam, Pam Real Thai Food.
We also ate and drank, starting with a glass of Prosecco.

And from there:
lamb tongue with muffaletta pressé, olives and capers
chicken and skate wings with chickpeas and oranges
Bergerie de L'Hortus Pic Saint Loup (Languedoc, France)

Salad of Brussels sprouts leaves with Serrano ham, cauliflower purée, cauliflower florettes, Bosc pears, Manchego cheese, sunflower seeds and sage vinaigrette
Vinicola Hidalgo S.A. Oloroso sherry

Cod with coco beans, saffron and crab
Jakoby Mathy Riesling Kabinett (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Germany)

Rack and leg of lamb with Indian spices, winter tabbouleh and yogurt
Donna Luna Aglianico (Campania, Italy)

chocolate caramel fondant with earl grey streusel, hazelnuts and yogurt sherbet
brioche bread pudding with bananas, bacon brittle and rum vanilla ice cream
La Nora Pedro Ximenez sherry

I was looking forward to giving Jane Sigal a tip for getting my coat and bag — I even broke a $20 in anticipation — but they were fetched by someone else.

CANBERRA-Capital of OZ (AUS post4)

I know not everyone knows that Canberra is Australia's capital. Let me share with you how and why it happened. During the early days, Sydney and Melbourne were both vying to be Australia's capital. To stop the argument, the government decided to develop a small town called Canberra. They placed the Parliament house and all the government's important offices there. Aside from being the capital of OZ, it is also the house of the annual flower festival called "Floriade." I enjoyed all the colorful flowers and the auction of surf board houses. And one thing I will never forget is my experience at the Science Museum. I hurt my head in the vertical slide. It seem easy because small kids were doing it and having fun. I was wrong. But it's my fault because I didn't follow the proper procedure.

These were the surfboard houses auction. Wish I can afford one...

Me and my boyfriend in the Floriade. We came to visit the last day of the flower festival. Tulips and other colorful flowers in Australia were showcased.

One of my bad habits lately... posing like a Japanese with every flower I see.

Outside the Parliament House

Inside the parliament house are the rooms for senate and congress. This one is the senate house.

Doing Tai Chi somewhere in Canberra along with local Chinese residents.

The Feeling Queen meets The Real Queen!

No, it's not Juliana Palermo. She's Dewi who became my good friend in OZ. She's the sister of my cousin's wife. Quite a connection there. We were asked to wear this suit because we were going to try the vertical slide inside The Science Museum. There are a lot of fun stuff inside it but for me this is the most interesting and memorable.

So there goes The Artist Chef who took the risk and hurt her head badly.

Josh Blogs!

Ok, so I have finally gotten around to doing my first blog. Was it worth the wait? Probably not. Anyway, so here goes:

On Tuesday, Golden and I decided to make the trip up to Calgary - I needed to get my shoulder checked by my Auntie (I possibly have a hairline fracture in it after battling a sleuth of grizzlies), and Golden needed to buy some underwear to add to his current collection.....of two (someone stole the rest out of the dryer at the YWCA - who does that?).

We got up bright and early and caught the Greyhound bus. Unfortunately I wasn't awake enough to remember to take photos at this point. But don't worry, I expertly photshopped an excellent representation of how it looked.

(Picture to scale.....they just have really small buses in Canada)


So, first things first. We did some a little shopping at Sears.


We then took a leisurely stroll around the city. That's the Calgary Tower in the background. And if you look closely you can see down the end of the carpark a police car which we didn't realise was in the photo at the time. On closer inspection two guys were getting arrested - ahhh what a lovely city.


Anyway, as you can see, our trip to Calgary was fast becoming boring, and you're probably thinking "for the love of God, don't let Josh post again". So to make this trip (and blog) a little more interesting, Golden and I decided we needed......an adventure!




As many of you know, we quite regularly frequent the fine restuarant Nando's up in the Ivanhoe shops. We had previously been told there was one Nando's in Calgary, so we set about to find it.


Golden checked out the map to help find the best way to get there.




He decided it would be fastest by cheetah.

As you can see, it turned out the cheetah was more interested in Golden's neck. But this kind man was nice enough to give us a ride.

At this point of the story I fell asleep and woke up in this spiffy new suit and hat, Golden had somehow regrown a neck and gotten us a car (apparently the deal for the day was rent a car and get one free Neil Patrick Harris).

Luckily for us our buddy Neil knew where Nando's was, so without further ado, I present:






Looked slightly more up-market than our Nando's at home. Much nicer inside.



Mmm YUM! One of the best meals I've had in Canada - mine was the two on the left.

How would I compare it you ask? Welllllll it was gooooood, but not quite the same. The bun was more like a tougher roll, and it didn't quite have the melt in your mouth deliciousness.




Ok, Ok, so maybe our story wasn't that cool, I guess we only really caught a train, waited at a shopping centre, got picked up by my auntie and got driven to nando's:




Oh but we are quite the bargain hunters, we went to the $1 shop and bought all this stuff for $16:


A few more random photos on the way back to the bus terminal:




All in all it was a fun day. The Nando's definitely made it worth it (oh and by the way I didn't end up getting my shoulder checked by my Auntie, I spent the whole time with her eating Nando's and then she had to go to work). Ahh well, what's medical attention when there's a delicious burger to eat.





JOSH