Lebanese Meat Loaf with Potatoes (Kafta w Batata) - كفتة بالصينية

Ingredients: (4 persons)
Half a kilo of lean minced meat (or1/3pound)
1 cup of chopped parsley
1 medium onion chopped
1 tablespoon of all spice
1 egg
1 teaspoon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 big potatoes, peeled and cut in medium rounded slices
1 big onion sliced in medium rings
1 big tomato sliced in medium rings
1-2 cups of tomato sauce
Vegetable oil for frying the potatoes
1 teaspoon of flour

Mix meat, parsley, chopped onion, spices, mustard, salt and the egg all together, let it sit for at least an hour in the refrigerator. Meanwhile, half-frie the potato slices, and let drain on paper towel. Get the meat from the fridge and make patties then in a non stick hot pan let the patties slightly cook then remove into a seperate dish. Now get an oven serving dish deep enough to hold the tomato sauce, rub it with some butter and start layering: the meat first, then the potatoes, then sliced onion, then sliced tomato and finally add the sauce mixed with 1 teaspoon of flour. bake into a 375 degrees oven for half an hour or until the sauce cooks with the rest of the ingredients.

The non-open opening

December 19

You must keep your eyes peeled as you walk down West 77th Street, west of Columbus Avenue, on the north side of the street, to spot Dovetail, the new restaurant of chef John Fraser (age: 31; favorite color: green). The entrance is easy to miss.
That might change once the restaurant is actually open. That was slated to happen last weekend, but you know how that goes. They’re still working on some gas issues — John says that at the moment they don’t have enough gas to both run the kitchen and heat the dining room, but they’re getting there.
The sherry cave isn’t set up yet, either.
But the opening party happened as scheduled, so there I was last night, sampling hors d'oeuvres of fish roe and cubed vodka gelée on spoons, of skewered duck, of little cucumber sandwiches to be served during afternoon tea service, of tiny puff pastry filled with truffled scrambled eggs.
There was plenty of heat, so I guess the kitchen wasn’t operating at full power.
John is a big fan of both sherry and tea, and so they have prominent roles in the restaurant.
I brought my friend Yishane Lee with me to the party. It was her first night out without a baby strapped to her body in five-and-a-half weeks, since her daughter Tashi Ming Lee-Garcia was born. Click here to learn a lot about Tashi and her family and their friends, and to see many pictures.
Yishane found it extremely amusing and interesting that Dovetail’s tea supplier is owned by a former boyfriend of hers. It’s not that interesting — he supplies many fine dining restaurants — but I suppose it is kind of interesting. And it’s very good tea.
It was a good party, too. Yishane and I were among the first to arrive, and John gave us a tour of the basement, where the kitchen and sherry cave are. Then I caught up with Chris and Catherine Matthews, a handsome, charming couple — he writes about wine and spirits, she about food. Thrillist’s David Blend was there, chatting with Jesse Gerstein, a publicist who worked with John when he was the chef at Snack Taverna some years ago. He also worked with John’s current publicist, Aurora Kessler, when she was at Baltz & Co., where Jesse still works to this day.
Penny and Peter Glazier, owners of Monkey Bar, Michael Jordan’s The Steakhouse, the country's various Strip House restaurants and other things, also were there. Penny says she doesn’t often go to restaurant openings, because she wants to give the restaurateurs space to spend time with the press. That’s nice of her.
The Glaziers gave me good information for some stories I’m working on. Pity that I didn’t have a pen, but I’ll give them a call.
Erica Duecy, formerly of Nation’s Restaurant News and now of Fodor’s, was there, too, and, because I asked, she updated us on her husband and his brothers, the Pandolfi boys. Husband Jono is working for a design company. Banjo playing brother Chris is doing well, too. His band, The Infamous Stringdusters, won all sorts of awards this year.
Littlest brother Nick has had his internship at Food & Wine extended, which is great news. That magazine’s Nick Fauchald was at the party, too, although I didn’t catch up with him until we were leaving. He expressed fondness for young Nick Pandolfi, which is always nice.

Oh happy day

December 18



It looks like Grant Achatz is better.

Grant, the chef-owner of Alinea in Chicago, was diagnosed with advanced squamous cell carcinoma in his mouth earlier this year. That’s bad news for anyone, but for a chef — and the chef of one of the most avant-garde restaurants in the country — the implications of anything going wrong with your mouth are horrible.

But here’s a note he just sent out:

It is with a tremendous sense of gratitude and relief that I have successfully completed my course of therapy at the University of Chicago. It was incredibly important to me to remain as engaged as possible at Alinea while receiving treatment, and during that time I only missed 14 services. I continue to stand committed to innovating fine dining long into the future.

At this time I want to thank everyone at Alinea -- the staff, investors, and patrons of the restaurant have offered their unwavering commitment and support in ways large and small. The community of restaurants, chefs, and industry professionals who reached out to us was exceptionally gratifying.

Most of all, I must make special mention of doctors Vokes, Blair, and Haraf at the University of Chicago Medical Center, as well as the countless number of medical professionals and support staff there who cared for me. Where other doctors at prominent institutions saw little hope of a normal life, let alone a cure, these doctors saw an opportunity to think differently, preserve my tongue and taste, and maintain a long term high quality of life. Through the use of a new and rigorous Chemotherapy and Radiation protocol, they were able achieve a full remission while ensuring that the use of invasive surgery on my tongue was not needed.

Onward.

Grant’s a former protégé of Thomas Keller and he seemed to learn more during his stay at El Bulli — the crucible of much of the most experimental cuisine in the world — than most chefs who have spent time there. I’m sure I’m one of many, many people who are delighted by his good health and looking forward to what he’s planning next.

Playing with The Sun

December 18

Last Thursday I had dinner at Sanctuary T with its publicist and then walked the brief mile to QDT, a narrow corridor of a bar where the arts section of The New York Sun was having a holiday gathering.
I was there because my very kind bosses at Nation’s Restaurant News let me have a steady freelance gig at the Sun, where I write the weekly Kitchen Dish column about restaurants in New York that are opening or closing or changing their chefs or offering special deals or festive menus or otherwise behaving in ways that might be of interest to Sun readers.
QDT is a long corridor of a bar and more than one impromptu holiday party was being held there. It was packed, and I was being jostled, elbowed and knocked around by purses more than I’m accustomed to.
I brought this up with some of the Sun revelers and I fear I might possibly have been rude to the paper's new book review editor, David Wallace-Wells. He observed that this was typical New Yorker behavior, and I remarked rather obtusely that that seemed like an outsider’s view of New Yorkers, who I have found are better at managing crowds than most other Americans.
“But David’s a native New Yorker,” someone observed.
Oops.
David didn’t seem to mind, but I wouldn't stop being annoying for some reason and asked him for book recommendations (he suggested Tree of Smoke). Asking a book review editor for book recommendations is very much like asking a food writer for restaurant recommendations. It’s a tedious question. But at least I didn’t ask him what his favorite book was. The only question more tiresome to a food writer than “what restaurants do you recommend?” is “What’s your favorite restaurant?” How could I have a single favorite restaurant? Why would I want one?
But he was curious to get recommendations for restaurants near The Sun's offices, so I gave him some.
He seemed like a nice chap, tolerant of loud-mouth smart asses like me. Quite coincidentally, he went to high school with Eater’s Ben Leventhal.
Small world.

What I ate at Sactuary T:
amuse-bouche fo grilled gulf shrimp with fired shallots, truffle honey and cantaloupe
bread with lapsang-souchong-smoked oil for dipping
bruschetta with heirloom tomatoes
lamb with blue foot mushrooms, hazelnuts and banana-vanilla bean paste
slow-cooked black cod with lychee tea, asparagus, feta and saffron sauce
gnocchi ccoked in brown butter with Hudson Valley black tea, grilled pumpkin and cranberries
fingerling potatoes cooked in Belgian beer with apple-smoked bacon and shallots
salmon poached in Red Moon tea with caramelized Brussels sprouts, cucumber and kaffir lime sauce
free range chicken ballotine with chanterelles, prosciutto, smoked paprika and goat cheese paste

meringue cloud with tiramisu rooibos in condensed milk
doughnuts (doughnut holes, really) with chocolate and strawberry dipping sauces
cheesecake infused with jasmine tea and topped with Moroccan mint whipped cream

A Look At The Crew

Welcome everyone, to Golden's first blog. Sorry it has taken so long. So my original plan was to have my first post about Vancouver, but when I tried to sit down and write about it nothing really interesting came to mind. So instead I'll sum it up in 5 words...it was cold and wet. The end. The most exciting thing for me was watching the seaplanes land in the harbour (and Stanley Park was pretty sweet too). Anyway, hopefully on our way back through at the end of our trip it will not be as rainy.

My idea for this blog came to me when I was pondering the dynamics of our very peculiar group. So below is a brief overview of some of the intricacies of each person.

Alex

Heathy has a profound ability to quickly memorize things. In particular he can remember the location of certain shops/places almost perfectly having only been there once before. He is our own Mr.Reliable. For instance, whenever someone has a question like "where is the nearest bus stop" or "how do we get to the liquor store from here" they will always - almost automatically - ask Heathy before anyone else, because he will almost certainly know the answer. This has lead to us giving him the nickname 'G-Plex', a mixture of GPS (Global Positioning System) and his name.

Alex is also regarded as one of the more handsome members of the group. It appears that he too, agrees with this. One night in Vancouver, Jin - looking into the mirror at himself - says "Hello handsome", to which Alex immediately looks up from his book and responds "Yeah?".

Josh

Apart from being the exceptionally tall member of the group, Josh can be defined in his very 'thrifty' nature. He has close to perfected the art of money-saving. For example, upon locating a pizza shop in Vancouver which sells large pizza's for $7.99, he immediately bought one for himself, and ate half that night for dinner, with the intention of saving the rest overnight to have for breakfast and lunch the next day. I've gotta say it is funny watching a tall dorky bloke wonder around Vancouver carrying a pizza box wherever he goes (see picture). He certainly blended in well with the local 'bums'. Moreover, upon our arrival in Banff, Josh insisted that he not go in on the communal 'food money pot', and instead buy all his own food, because he believed we could not live up to his thrifty standards.

Josh also has an uncanny ability to misplace things. I think his pockets are some kind of black hole. He just shoves all kinds of random shit in there, and it is just pure luck as to whether it will come out again.

Campbell

Oh camby...where should I start? Well I suppose I could start with his exceptional sleeping ability, which has lead to us coining him 'the Koala'. Indeed, I think if Campbell had his way he would sleep 20hrs a day, and spend his 4hrs awake chomping on eucalyptus leaves.

He has also developed a reputation as being a 'Fun Sponge' - a term I think I picked up from someone at college - used to describe people who 'soak up' all the fun in a social situation. For example, when walking down to main street Banff from the hostel, Jin and I often start imitation Liam Gallagher (who has a ridiculous walking style) or just start goofing around in general, to which Camby will always say "I hope you slip on your ass and die". Another time we were standing in a circle kicking around a block of ice, and it gets to Campbell, who immediately kicks it away. I think his fun-sapping ways may even be related to his Koala-ness, since he will often look far too tired and drained to have any kind of fun.

Campbell also loves spreading his knowledge of random pointless information. Here are some examples (they may not be perfectly phrased, but you get the jist)

-"the black squirrel is actually rarer than the common North American brown squirrel, and they are also smaller in size"

-"did you know King Arthur was seduced by his step-sister"

-"two thirds of the world's eggplants are grown in New Jersey"*

*I may have made up this one

Jin

And finally, there is Jin, who for some reason I found the most difficult to write about. Well, apart from being the token Asian guy, he has developed into the group photographer (like the play on words there?). And, as you can see from the previous posts, his work leaves a lot to be desired. He is certainly not close to the standard of his big bro and photographic mentor Mr. Sam. Don't worry Jinna, I'm sure you'll get there eventually (unfortunately by then the trip will be over and all Kodak moments gone with it).

One thing we have also noticed about Jin is the incredible time and care he takes when eating his food. By the time Campbell has finished his meal, Jin will usually be about half way through his first potato gem. In fact, as you read this he is still finishing off his first meal.

For all of you hanging out to see videos, keep your hats on and keep waiting...

Golden