Soba Totto

December 28

Hungry for a little something after work last night, I popped my head into a new place that the very enterprising people at Urban Daddy alerted me to, Soba Totto (211 East 43rd Street, between Second and Third avenues, 212-557-8200. For more descriptions of the place, please take a look at this entry and this one. Thank you).
Not surprisingly, the restaurant’s specialty is Japanese buckwheat noodles, called soba. Also not surprisingly, sitting with the owner and some guy from Chicago, was Grub Street’s Josh Ozersky.
Josh seemed, oh, I don’t know, maybe just a tiny bit troubled that I, too, had heard of Soba Totto, which had just opened a couple of days earlier. Maybe he doesn’t subscribe to Urban Daddy, or maybe it’s his week off and he hasn’t been reading his e-newsletters. People do need a week off from time to time, you know.
Josh is probably best known for his job as editor of New York magazine’s food blog, but what he really is is a meat expert — hence his nickname, Mr. Cutlets — and he was gracious enough to send me a galley of his soon-to-be-published book, The Hamburger: A History, for an article I’m working on. It’s a terrific read, clever and witty, informative and sometimes strident in that way that Josh can be with regard to subjects pertaining to meat (I think we amused casual listeners with our conversation about deckle at the reopening-party of Picholine).
To wit (from his book):
"To admit ground beef on toast as a hamburger is to make the idea of a ‘hamburger’ so loose, so abstract, so semiotically promiscuous as to have no meaning."
Because hamburgers come on a bun, you see.
He's right, of course.
Anyway, I ate at Soba Totto’s bar, which is sleek and decked out in earth and wood tones. Behind it are young, hip-looking Japanese chefs, heads covered with urbane-Japanese-looking versions of do-rags, grilling things with a sort of casual earnestness.
Soba Totto is owned by the same people as Yakitori Totto, and so grilled meats are another restaurant specialty.
I had two draft beers (Kirin, I believe) assorted Japanese pickles, a skewer of chicken oysters (the “oyster” is the bit of meat on the chicken’s lower back, just above the thigh, that is highly prized by certain meat aficionados, maybe including Josh, although I can’t say for sure) and a bowl of hot soba with "poached egg” although really it was more of a swirled egg in the style of egg drop soup.

A 16-ounce Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee is 16 ounces

December 27

If I’m doing the math right, only about 11 percent of you come here unbidden, just clicking on your bookmark and landing here. A fair amount, but fewer than half on most days, are referred here by one of the nice web sites that link to this blog. The rest come because of keyword searches — because some combination of words I used match the ones that you typed into a search window.
Sometimes I think that my blog delivers what you’re looking for. If you’re interested in finding out more about the bull named Prime in Kentucky, I’ve written about that. If the keyword search prime the bull ky had another meaning that I choose not to speculate about, well, then I’m sorry. If you have been wondering about James Bond’s taste in Martinis I’ve written about that, too. Curious to find others who prefer their tomatoes cooked? You’ve found one here.
But I don’t know when popcorn was invented or what Jimi Hendrix liked to eat. I don’t know about the sexual orientation of Mario Batali (not that it’s any of your business), but I do know that he has thanked his wife (“without whom I would be nothing,” he said) at award ceremonies.
Incidentally, "Mario Batali" and "gay" apparently are referred to in close proximity fairly often. One person who used those key words made it to this blog, even though it was the 40th entry in a Google search.
As for Pedro Yanowitz, I heard that he recently married (a woman).
A disconcertingly common keyword search that brings people here is dog fuke woman. I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for with that search, but I hope you spelled it right.
Let me take a brief moment to answer some other questions implied by the searches.
I think I’d like a creamy gorgonzola with Poire William.
Jeans can count as smart casual, depending on how you wear them.
Anything will help you lose weight if you just eat less of it, but I'm not sure how to loose weight.
I’m not sure how you comb a fauxhawk (pronounced fo-hock), but I believe it requires a lot of gel.
Tony Esnault is a man.
As for the other keyword searches listed below, well, I just don’t know what to say (I apologize for the first one, but it did lead some troubled soul to this blog entry):

after dinner seduction mother
are laura cunningham and thomas keller back together
bad booths at the national restaurant show
bathroom plants
candied sturgeon
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cork braised octopus
do jeans count as smart casual
does chrysanthemums,walnut, rose, green raisin help loosing weight
dog fuke woman
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fuke woman
give me a speech on tomato ceviche apptezier
hate raw tomato
how does james bond order his martini, shaken, not stirred
how to arrange bongos for wow
how to comb faux hawk
how to eat eggplant?
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interesting words about chrysanthemums
is pedro yanowitz gay?
james bond martini vespa
jean-georges chef what is his wifes name and is she black
jimi hendrix favorite foods
mario batali gay
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prime the bull ky
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what size is a 16 ounce dunkin donuts iced coffee
what was jimi hendrix's' favorite food
when was popcorn invented

Aneliz Tang

These were my last customers before I left for my Australia vacation last October. I was very excited because the next day after the dinner will be my 8 hour trip going to Sydney. My luggage was almost packed but I still had some stuff to bring that I wasn't able to put in my hand carry bag. Despite that I was still up to whip the night for this extra ordinary couple Aneliz and Charles. Aneliz was the one who reserved their date months in advance that's why I knew that she's really looking forward to their dinner. I don't want to fail every customers I have so I really prepare the food to guarantee their satisfaction. So when Aneliz and Charles arrived that night I was bubbly, happy and excited to welcome them in my little pad. I assumed that I will surprise the couple but it turned out that I was the one being surprised. Wanna know their surprise? Find out as you read this post...

Enjoying their Creme Brulee

Aneliz and Charles were very thankful that night for the dinner I prepared. They told me that I made them so full with the food I served and commented that Mango & Sausage Medley was truly a good salad appetizer.

Chinkee Sweet Smile!

I was also surprised seeing Aneliz wearing a nice shorts, quite cool...

Janjajaran...!!! Aneliz and Charles handed me this box of cake from ESTRELS as their surprise for me at that night.

I know that Aneliz doesn't really know that it was my favorite cake, but now I guess she'll know that she gave me my MOST favorite cake which is the CARAMEL cake from ESTRELS!

I'm very thankful meeting couples who appreciate my cooking and my idea of intimate dining. To those couples who are very sweet and thoughtful giving me token like this as part of their gratitude, I should be the one giving thank you. :-)

Hmmmm... very, very, very delicious cake! Burp! I look forward to the day that Aneliz and Charles would dine again. Thanks to both of you!

A thinking man’s chef

December 21

Sometimes when I interview a chef, I diligently write down everything he (or she, but usually he) says, and then look at my notes and throw them away because everything he said was a load of gibbering nonsense. Those chefs wax philosophical about their food or life or some pseudo-intellectual topic, get lost in their own train of thought and never come back to Earth.
It happens more often than you might think.
Others just aren’t very articulate. They know how to cook, but are neither capable nor interested in describing what they do. That's great for their guests, but bad for food writers. I remember interviewing a really talented chef in Texas who made a delicious galangal panna cotta. I tried to get him to wax philosophical about galangal, which is a rhizome related to ginger but with a distinct taste that’s spicier and I think a bit less aromatic, used in various Southeast Asian cuisines.
All he could say was that it was like ginger, but a little different. That’s true, but it makes for really dull copy.
Then there’s Michael Psilakis, who thinks a lot about his food, reflects on it, can talk your head off about it, but at the end of the day it makes sense.
Michael got started in the restaurant business as a manager of TGI Friday’s on Long Island, but he made a splash on the New York City food scene a few years back with Onera, a Greek-inspired restaurant on the Upper West Side. Then he opened the more Mediterranean-inspired Dona in Midtown East to wild acclaim, only to close it because of construction on and around the restaurant property. But soon after that he opened Anthos, in Central Midtown, which was Greek-inspired but fancier than Onera. To further distinguish Onera from Anthos, he rechristened the Upper West Side place as Kefi and made it traditional Greek food.
Now, as Grub Street reported, Michael is going to open a new version of Dona, with a slightly different name, a more casual environment, and, he told me, a menu that’s more distinctly Italian-influenced, rather than Italian-Greek, Mediterranean or whatever. He says it’s on track to open sometime in the second half of January.
There will be some Greek and Spanish stuff in there, but he wants the new restaurant to be more approachable than the old Dona. That’s very much in line with current food trends. So is a fine-dining chef opening a more casual restaurant, but Michael has already done that with Kefi, anyway.
His reasoning behind the Italian orientation of Dona, however, is that New Yorkers are well acquainted with Italian food, which means if he does a riff on a tried-and-true Italian dish, his guests will get the joke. Something Greek or Spanish might go over their heads.
So although some of the new Dona’s food will not be traditional Italian dishes — he might bring influences from different Italian regions into a single dish, for example — he expects that his guests will have the eating background “to understand what the food is on a cerebral level.”
Michael talks that way, but it makes sense.
He also likes to talk like this: “I’m hoping it’s just a fun place that you can come and eat.”

This picture of Michael, provided by his publicists, was taken by Battman.

Vegetarian Grape leaves (Wara2 Enab Bzeit) - ورق عنب بالزيت

In this recipe, you need to eyeball the amount of grape leaves, depending on the size of the leaves too. So I'm just gonna assume that we're using 100gr of leaves and here's a useful tip: if you roll them all and still have some filling left, very simple: stuff a potato, tomato or a bellpepper!

Filling Ingredients:
1 big tomato or 2 medium ones diced.
1 medium onion diced
3/4 cup of rice (any kind, I prefer white)
1 bunch of fresh parsley chopped
Juice of 1 big lemon or 2 small
1/2 tablespoon of allspice (or 7 spices)
1/2 tablespoon of salt
1/2 cup of olive oil (or a bit more)

Preparing the Pan:
Take few leaves and line them up in the bottom of the pan (why? cause grape leaves stick quickly to any pan! and then add on top of those the sliced potato.

If you are using fresh grape leaves, soak them in hot water and some salt for half an hour, or until completely soft then drain. If you are using the ones that you buy in the jar, soak them in warm water for few minutes then let them drain.

- Mix all the ingredients together and get ready to roll.
Rolling grape leaves:
Cut the stems if there's any and start adding the filling in the middle of the leaf, then fold the sides and roll while pressing a bit to let the juice out and also to make it a bit tight so it doesn't fall apart. (just like spring rolls). Then line them up in the pan on top of the potato layer. After you finish, get a plate that can fit inside the pan, flip it upside down and place it on top of the grape leaves to press them so when they start cooking they don't fall apart. Now add water just to cover them and let them cook on medium for about 12 minutes, if they boil too much reduce the heat. It's optional to add more lemon juice while they cook. Tasting one is always better to check if they're done :)