Too Black, Too Strong

"It's just like when you've got some coffee that's too black, which means it's too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won't even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep."
- Malcolm X

(It's Going To Be) Late Night Mah Jong

Just after 11pm at the mah jong table - the night is still young...

My cousins from San Francisco decided that they would do a weekend trip to Washington DC and stay overnight at the house. Evidently, this means serious mah jong. For money.

Now, I've played quite a bit of mah jong, but these were usually friendly games where we didn't know all the rules. My cousin knows the rules and, obviously, plays quite a bit for money. With specific payout rules for bunot, escalera, doble, secreto and the number of games you've already won as multipliers, even a one dollar game escalates wildly. Good thing I didn't push for a twenty dollar game.

Luckily, I didn't lose money. I made seventy-five cents!

I Must Be Desperate

The Aricha Natural brews away.

With this new tide of seasonality in coffee brings scarcity of the coffees I seem to enjoy most: Africans. While I know quite a number of people detest or despise the fruity natural process of East African coffees, I tend to like them Stumptown's 2003 lot of Ethiopia Harrar and Caffe D'Bolla's 2009 lot of Bonko Black Sun were particularly memorable coffees for me.

Lately, it's been non-stop Indonesian and Central American coffees. Non-stop. One after the other. Over and over again. I'm awash in earthy and bright coffees. And I'm getting tired of it.

Yes, this movement towards seasonality is a good thing, but while I've been able to process and put down foodstuffs like corn and preserves, this whole seasonal coffee thing is still new and storing coffees for the lean times hasn't come to fruition (yet).

Meanwhile, the parade of Central American and Indonesian coffees continues and I'm starting to drag. I need variety and I'm starting to despise this whole seasonality thing. At least when it comes to corn in February, I've got frozen stock from the height of summer to enjoy.

Desperate for some relief, I dug into the deep recesses of the freezer at The Spro looking for something, anything that would offer me a respite. Even that Target Archer Foods brand 2009 CoE El Porvenir was looking tempting. But lo and behold, tucked into a deep corner of the freezer was a little black bag with the green "TW" logo of that Swedish barista champion cum coffee roaster Tim Wendelboe.

Tim had given me this bag back in April while attending the SCAA conference in Atlanta. It was a bag of his Aricha Natural and there was just a little bit left. Maybe I could get a small press pot out of it and onto the scale it went.

Six grams.

Ugh, six grams. Six. Grams. That's not even enough to make an eight ounce cup. Crap, I'm doomed. Maybe I should toss it. Oh no, one whiff of the berry explosion and I had to have it. Six grams be damned, I'm gonna drink it all.

After a quick (and careful) calculation, I determined that six grams would produce 3.3 ounces of coffee. Should I run it through the pour over? Ugh, no. French press is my preferred method of brewing and french press it would be.

In the end, I had about half a cappuccino cup of the Aricha Natural. Delicious and beautiful - even after all this time in frozen storage. Thank you Tim Wendelboe and may I have some more, please?

Loving Your Chemex

Multiple brew samples from today's Chemex run.

In spite of a fellow up north's encouragement for the industry to hate their Chemex brewers, we've decided to embrace it and bring it into our fold. Barista Candidates K. Eliot and Lindsay have been busy testing and developing chemex brew standards and the results have been surprising.

It seems that the Chemex is a finicky beast indeed. Just a couple of seconds too long during a step and it all goes to hell. The barista is under the gun to brew the Chemex within parameters or face a difficult tasting cup of coffee. Because of its' inherent difficulties, I can see why the guy from up north would encourage people to abandon it, but I'm finding this to be an exciting reason why we need to forge ahead with exploring Chemex and implementing it for production.

The more difficult it is, then the greater the accomplishment should we be able to execute it successfully.

Elation Over at Serendipity 3

Drinking monster "Frozen Hot Chocolates" at Serendipity 3, Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas.

It wasn't until Verna and I were sitting on the veranda outside of Seredipity 3 with the sun on my face that it hit me: freedom.

I was free, and I didn't know what to do with myself.

Unlike employment, running your own business is a 24/7/365 affair. The weight of business is always with you. Even on weekends at home, there's something to be done. There's always something on the mind. It's relentless and exhausting. And it's only something that owners know and feel. When you have a job, you go home and it's pretty much out of mind. When it's your company, there is no escape.

Which is why moments like these are rare. Usually when I'm away, there's some sort of issue that still needs addressing. There's still something on the mind. I haven't taken a real "vacation" in years - no matter where in the world I've gone. A "vacation" meaning a trip void of concern, thought or worry about business.

That's why it hit me so hard sitting there in the sunlight. All of a sudden, I felt as though a tremendous weight had been lifted from my chest. I was released. I was free. I literally floated.

The feeling itself is difficult to describe. Elation comes close. A burden gone kinda tells the story. No worries. No troubles. No thoughts. Just pleasure. Pure, unadulterated pleasure. Nothing to do, nothing to think about, nothing to worry. Amazing. I hoped it would last forever.

It was right about then when Arianna called with scheduling issues. Elation over.

La Reve Onstage at Bite of Las Vegas

To Vegas!

Frito Pie & Tamale at DIA

This is the Off Season?

Cupping The Barefoot

Jeremy, Ilenia, Lamarie and Nikki cup samples from Barefoot Coffee.

As we grind closer to the opening of project hampden, the crazies at Barefoot Coffee were excited to send us some samples. I've known Andy Newbom, owner of Barefooot, since I really started getting into the business in 2004. He's a crazy guy with whom I haven't always seen eye-to-eye with (mainly when we served on the Barista Guild of America's Executive Council). Regardless I've always liked the guy and have always respected his passion and the company he's worked so hard to create, which is why it's now an honor to work with Barefoot for project hampden.

If you ever have the chance to visit their original cafe in Santa Clarita, I think you'll find a remarkable place. Dab smack in the middle of a very suburban strip mall is Barefoot - an urban oasis of bohemian coffee amongst soccer moms and technology wizards. The first time I visited in 2004, Andy was just getting started and it wasn't too radically different than most Third Wave shops at the time. When I stopped by again last December, I was amazed at the transformation. That it was possible to create an urban oasis in the middle of suburban hell.

When I went to visit Barefoot again during my brief four-hour stopover in San Francisco this past August (on the way home from the Western Canadian Regionals), I found Andy and company in a mission-style mansion not too far from downtown Santa Clara where everything was churning along. Since it's forty minutes each way, I only had about fifteen minutes to stop in for a chat and a quick tour. After meeting much of the crew and chilling with Andy, I was on my way back to SFO.

Like I said, Andy is a crazy guy. To my mind, there is no one coffee professional in our generation crazier than Andy Newbom. The guy is completely psycho about coffee and creating a rock culture of passionate coffee people. Which should have prepared me for the day that our Barefoot account rep Tony Serrano came-a-calling.

There was Tony, on the phone and just as crazy passionate about coffee as Andy. He was hyper excited about coffee and working with us, which in turn made me even more excited about working with them. Speaking through the phone, across America, in a high-speed, rapid-fire staccato about sending us an assortment of coffees to try. I was so swept up in his enthusiasm, how could anyone say no?

Not that I wanted to say "no" but I wasn't sure if now was the right time to start bringing in coffees for operational evaluation. We don't have a firm opening day yet.

Needless to say, the coffees started arriving and we started cupping. Many of the roasters we work with provide tasting notes with their coffees and Barefoot does the same. However, I think it's important for our baristas to know the coffees so, instead of memorizing the note cards and giving rote recitations of the descriptions, I have them cup the coffees, identify the characteristics and develop a description of the coffee based on their own tasting notes.

I tend to withhold the roasters' tasting notes until they are finished with the descriptions so as not to color their interpretations of the coffees. And while the differences can be starkly different, the commonalities are what I find most interesting. Here's Ilenia's description of Barefoot's Sumatra Gayoland Water Processed Decaf Coffee:

Barefoot Coffee's Sumatra Gayoland Decaf delivers a delicious cup of coffee with milk chocolate flavors and hints of fresh-cut honeysuckle. This crisp, yet thick but never heavy cup leaves a lasting aftertaste that will leave a spritely punch of rich, dark chocolate notes."

Now, here's Barefoot's description:

"Deep and earthy, heavy body and low bass notes heavy chocolate, rich nuttiness, loamy power creamy cherimoya and hints of tropicals."

The Brew Challenge

Writing their cupping notes on the 8 Estrellas.

Training continues in Towson for our new group of baristas. This weekend's exercise was to cup a coffee, identify its' components, develop a unified description of the coffee, then pinpoint that coffee's preferred brew method.

All of these steps are going to be an integral part of the barista's work. Our baristas need to taste the coffee, identify the flavors and discuss those with interested customers. They also need to understand why a particular brew method has been selected as our "default" choice for that coffee.

Let's say a customer walks in and wants to try the Aida's Grand Reserve. Our baristas have cupped that coffee and identified a brew method that we feel best exemplifies the flavor of that coffee. Of course, our customers have the prerogative to choose any of the brew methods available to them, but we will offer a brew method of our choice for that coffee for those who don't want to ponder aeropress, french press, chemex or eva solo.


Writing descriptions based on their cupping notes.

We started off by group cupping a lot of the Bolivian 8 Estrellas coffee from Square Mile Coffee Roasters in London. James and Anette were kind enough to share some of this coffee with us and I let our candidates loose on the cupping table. It was their second formal cupping and I think they're starting to get the hang of things.

When it comes to cuppings with people who are not very experienced, I tend to encourage them to describe the coffee in whatever way they can. I encourage colors, music, rock bands, seasons, whatever. The important thing for me is that they're expressing the characteristics in one way or another. This starts the dialogue necessary for them to develop their palates. Those "eureka" moments when they equate what they've tasted to a description.

And while the cupping itself is done in silence, the discussion afterwards can take a life of its' own. The 8 Estrellas garnered such descriptions as: woody, chocolate, yogurt, sweet earth, yellow, vanilla tobacco, maple syrup, cinnamon, syrupy, mahogany, wet leaves, slight tart, cider, autumn, heavy, wet chalk, semi-sweet chocolate, orange, peppermint patty and caramel.


Tasting the second round of brews.

Once the discussion was complete, the candidates were each tasked with writing a brief and concise paragraph describing the coffee in under four sentences. And while I was pleasantly surprised that all of them were well-written and conveyed the coffee accurately, only one could remain. So, after a couple of elimination rounds, the group collectively decided the final description:

"8 Estrellas is an aromatic coffee with a complex, smoky, yet tangy fragrance. Its' low acidity allows for a sweet balanced flavor concentrated on notes of autumn. A woodsy and full body leaves a pleasant aftertaste of semi-sweet chocolate and caramel."

I had cupped this coffee previously when it first arrived and this is the description I wrote for the coffee:

"...very sweet with strong notes of caramel. Rich and full with a light acidity. Chocolate, vanilla and toffee notes."

After reading the previous description to the group, they were pleased that they could taste very similar notes in their cupping. But the point I wanted to make was yet to come: that description was written on April 24, 2009. Nearly six months ago.

Between myself and one of the coffee growers I deal with, we've been freezing roasted coffee for over ten years now. While many in the business will argue until they are blue in the face that freezing is destructive to coffee, the unscientific tests I've conducted over the years don't support that destruction.

By now (presuming they're reading this), James and Anette are probably cringing at the fact that I've taken one of their wonderful coffees and subjected it to freezing. Rest assured, the coffee is still delicious.


White board filled with tasting notes, the final description, the brew vote tally and the blue notes are from an "identify the ingredients" challenge where they had to taste and identify the ingredients in a hot sauce.

After lunch, the crew regrouped and broke off into two person teams. The task at hand was to take the description and create hand brewed coffees as close to the description as possible. Thirty minutes to brew up to three attempts and bring the best example to the judging table.

The Spro isn't really a small space. As far as espresso bars go, it's pretty spacious. Over twenty-eight feet of linear bar space and a twenty-five foot aisle that's three feet wide with a back counter that's twenty feet long, which is ample for up to four baristas, but when you start cramming ten baristas, plus the actual working shift baristas, it starts to get really claustrophobic behind the bar.

As the girls broke off to prepare examples of Chemex, Aeropress, Eva Solo, Syphon, French Press and Pourover, I started to feel like Gordon Ramsay in the television show Hell's Kitchen during one of the challenges, barking out the remaining time and putting the pressure on. Three attempts at a brew but only one can be brought to the table. Definitely stressful.

With time running out, the girls were doing a good job brewing, tasting and evaluating their coffee, making adjustments and doing it again. As the clock ticked down the drinks started coming out from behind the bar to the judging table.

As we gathered around and started tasting, it became apparent that there were no cut and dry winners in the challenge. No one coffee exemplified what we had tasted in the cup. Back to the brew!

Round Two of the brewing challenge had the teams work up two more brews in twenty minutes, bringing their best back to the judges table. This time, the tastings revealed a distinct winner: french press, with the Chemex and Syphon in 2nd and 3rd. Sadly, neither the Aeropress, Eva Solo or Pourover had any supporters with the 8 Estrellas.

In the real world, a group of baristas will do exactly what we did today: cup the coffee, develop a description and prove the default brewing method for the coffee. Had this been an actual production coffee, the default brew would be french press. Rest assured that the new Spro will not be serving six month old frozen coffee.

ph: A Calm Before The Storm

Training Baristas

Ilenia and Rebecca work out details on the Syphon.

I don't think that in the ten years I've been in business have we hired such a large staff all at once. Even in the heyday of Jay's Shave Ice, where our ranks swelled to twenty-five, I don't think we brought on so many people at the same time. With only a few weeks to go and my time split between overseeing the buildout and running the company, finding the time to bring everyone up to speed is proving itself to be quite the challenge.

Training to be a Barista for the new Spro is not easy. There's a lot to learn about procedures, philosophy, service methods - and that doesn't include coffee knowledge or brewing skills. It's a challenge all the way around. For the new barista candidates, I push on them tough and high standards. I'm expecting and demanding their best. The first round is easy because they're just learning the ropes and receiving the technical details. As the rounds progress, I become tougher and more demanding. I want them to excel. I'm not interested in producing baristas and coffee that's "good enough" for Baltimore. I'm intent on producing baristas and coffee that will be nationally notable.


Lindsay and Kimmy ponder the mysteries of the Chemex.

Maybe that sounds egotistical, and since I don't like to lie - perhaps it is egotistical. I want us to excel. I don't want us to be just another coffee house. If that's the case, then I might as well screw off and go back to making movies - at least then I'll be making wild amounts of money while stabbing myself in the neck waiting for The Lord to call me to Pasture.

Personally speaking, I think the field of candidates we have today is a great one. Lots of energy, enthusiasm and potential. I'm excited and enthused that we have such a great group of people. Back in the day of Jays Shave Ice, I used to do personality tests as part of the hiring process and I found it really quite interesting that most of our people back then fell into a couple of personality profiles. While I'm not doing personality tests at The Spro, I've noticed a lot of similarities in interests and lifestyles amongst the new candidates.


Bonnie addresses the finer points of Japanese-style cold brewing.

Of course, what I'm planning for Hampden is going to be something a bit different than what the new candidates or most people think a coffee house is about. Our plan is to take things further, to refine and finesse what we do - and, to borrow a term from my barista class in Colombia, do things with Eleganza.

There's a lot to learn and I'm excited for them. It reminds me of the time I spent in Seattle with The Two Johns and Bronwen, learning all I could about coffee and the craft of Barista. Those were fun and heady times and I remember them fondly. While my experience was more casual absorption these candidates are learning our ways in a more structured setting. One that I hope has been successfully designed to build upon each other resulting in a Barista that understands not only coffee and brewing but also service and customer interaction.

For me, it's been a tremendous learning experience as well. Unlike the relatively unstructured nature of training a solo barista one-on-one. Doing a large group has forced me to think about the progression of learning, the structure and how to present the material in a manner that is accessible.

Give us a few weeks then come visit and join us for a coffee.

First Fire

Attempting to force myself to believe that the heat of fire will cleanse my soul.

I seem to be having a rough (read: shitty) week that seems to compound itself. Yesterday was probably the worst when it became difficult to contain my mood. Today was better since I was able to conceal my thoughts better from those around me.

In an attempt to soothe my soul, I headed over to Bud's house for an evening of raging fires and a big cigar. Here in Baltimore, autumn is looming on the horizon with the leaves slowly turning ochre and the weather teasingly crispy in the evening. It's not cold per se, but it's pretending.

The nice thing about the colder weather are the raging fires at Bud's house while smoking cigars. It's not the dead of winter when it's too cold to do anything outside but it is crispy enough to build fires. Happily, Bud is well equipped for raging fires with piles upon piles of dried firewood. Big fire, tasty cigar and good conversation amongst friends is a recipe for a good evening.

Too bad the evenings' niceties wasn't enough to quell my anxiety.

Spro Swag

A VWR branded PolyScience immersion circulator, Mahlkonig VTA6S, Bunn tower, Tru Bru and a bunch of other gadgets.

One of the best things about opening a new place is the massing of equipment that precedes the opening. Suddenly, there's a need and resources (supposed financing) to buy aplenty. From benign under mounted stainless steel sinks to big, honking grinders, it's fun and exciting - even though it may threaten the company's bottom line.

Meanwhile, the garage is full of equipment waiting to move to project hampden and The Spro of Towson is slowly filling up with equipment that has nowhere else to go.

Here are some of the equipment highlights for project hampden:

Mahlkonig VTA6S
Compak K10 WBC
Compak R80
Bunn G1
PolyScience Immersion Circulators
Brew Towers
Randell FX Refrigeration
Tru Bru
Chemex
Aeropress
Clever
Eva Solo
La Marzocco (duh, of course!)
Liquid Nitrogen Dewars
PacoJet
C-Vap
Multivac C200
Sodir SEM60
Hines
Stumptown
Intelligentsia
Ecco Caffe
Barefoot
Counter Culture

ph: Just Another Day at Permits

project hampden: at Night

ph: Hiring Again

With the somewhat, sort of, impending opening of project hampden (it's still like four weeks away - at least), the time has come to seek out new baristas. Surprisingly, posted notices of a barista opening to CoffeeGeek and Barista Exchange yielded zero results, so it's time to turn back to Craigslist.

Craiglist has become my economic barometer of sorts. A year ago, it wasn't uncommon to place a Craigslist ad and receive a few candidates. I even had one round of Craigslist postings where I might have received fifteen applicants, none of whom panned out.

Perhaps the world has changed and it's suddenly become chic to be a Barista but after three rounds of Craiglist ads since April, I've steadily been deluged with applicants in an ever-rising tide. The most recent posting has resulted in over 65 applicants.

How does one sort through this many applicants? It's tough.

Years ago, at Jay's Shave Ice, we had a system where the current staff reviewed the applicants and gave their recommendations. Back then, we used to field roughly the same amount of applicants for summer positions. Today, I no longer have the large staff of Jay's Shave Ice and am wading through the applicants by myself.

Which is how I found myself at Nautilus Diner tonight in Timonium with a pseudo Loco Moco to keep me company whilst I pour over the latest applicants. The goal: hire on a qualified staff of baristas to begin training this weekend.

Ideas in... Disaster

Circulating for the Glory.

They say that the path to greatness is littered with failure.

And that hindsight is 20/20.

Whatever the case, my breakfast today was an utter disaster.

Inspired by Alex and Aki's recent victory with eggs and the ISI whipper, I decided to get my morning meal off to a different start by taking some eggs, butter, salt, hot sauce and skim milk and whisking it all together. As I was cracking the eggs, I started to realize that 500g is a lot of eggs for one guy. I decided to halve the recipe, which probably led to my downfall.

From there, it's into an ISI Whipper and the whole thing goes into an 82C water bath for one hour. Again, that decision to go for one hour after halving the recipe added to the disaster on the horizon.


Egg Disaster.

An hour and five minutes later, I pull the ISI from the water and hit it with two nitrous charges. Things sound like they're shaking in there. On a plate, I've got some applewood smoked bacon from Springfield Farm and a nicely toasted everything bagel. The stage is set and I've got the charged ISI in hand. Time to pull the trigger.

Molten butter blows furiously from the nozzle, but no eggs. I'm expecting the sabayon-esque egg to come oozing out but all I'm getting is hot butter. I shake the whipper some more. More butter. Shake again. Still butter. Crap. Shake, shake, shake. All that is, is butter. Dammit!

What the heck? I blow through the charge and screw open the whipper knowing full well what I'm going to see: poached egg inside the ISI Whipper. It's a crushing defeat. I'm in anguish. I'm in anguish because I'm hungry.


A close-up look at the egg detail. Interesting.

Regardless of the failure, I use a knife to dig out the eggs. They fall out and are quite fluffy and moist. The texture is nice and I'm finding the intertwining of the yolk, whites and scrambled mixture to be visually appealing.

It's a complete disaster but I eat half of it anyway. Turns out that 250g of eggs is still a lot for one person.

Next time I'll be victorious.

It's Blog Birthday, It's Blog Birthday!

9/26/04 @ 10:32PM

That's the date all of this foolishness started. The day I decided to enter the fray with the very first post, which I ended with:

"I'll return later with more blog stuff."

Of course, it took another four months to pen the second post.

What started out as an occasional outlet changed into an ongoing dialogue about coffee, food, travel and life. It's been interesting chronicling my adventures and experimentations, triumphs and outright failures. Hope you've enjoyed reading.

Thank you for five years of readership and support.

Buy (Don't Steal) This Book!

Buy it. Now.

I'm not one to hawk things on this blog but dear friend Gesine just had her book "Confections of a Closet Master Baker" published and I thought I would offer a little encouragement to the Onocoffee World.

It's more memoirs than cookbook but it's a good read and you also get to support my photography efforts a little!


Guess who took the authors' photograph...?

Clarifying Coffee

Clarified Coffee.

While out last night at Les Halles, I mentioned to Philip that I've been interested in clarifying coffee. Truth is, I think coffee is a very unfortunate ingredient. It's so brown. So very dark brown that the color interferes or destroys anything and everything mixed with it. It's God-awfully ugly and a real challenge to utilize and create into a color that's actually appealing.

I've tried using a gelatin suspension to create a clear coffee but all it did was clarify the brown liquid. James Hoffmann has attempted to clarify coffee using a centrifuge with mixed results. Philip suggested we give it a go utilizing the rotary distiller.

The next day, an Americano goes into the chamber and starts spinning. The idea behind the device is to distill liquids by using a vacuum to lower the boiling point. Our first results were less than appealing but that was more due to not having the proper facilities to clean the apparatus at the conference than anything else.


The rotary evaporator distiller makes its' move.

The day before, they had been distilling Meyer Lemons and the lemon residue remained resulting in a clear coffee liquid with a strong and definitive lemon character.

More testing will ensue in the coming months but the initial test looks promising. I'll report more once the distiller is installed at The Spro.

Star Chefs 2009

Mike Love doing a demo at the VitaMix booth.

I've been in New York City attending the annual Star Chefs International Chefs Congress - a three day exposition of chefs and cuisine. Overall, it's an amazing experience that puts you in close proximity to some of the greatest modern-day chefs. This weekend, I've listened to people like Pierre Gagnaire, Juan Mari Arzak, Paco Torreblanca, Daniel Boulud and Grant Achatz discuss and demonstrate their philosophies and techniques. Just watching them in action has helped to prod and invigorate my own thoughts on processes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a number of the presenting chefs were a bit unbalanced and even downright poor showmen, meaning that while they can cook, not many of them are great in front of an audience. Jose Andres and Masaharu Morimoto, however, were brilliant showmen. Both commanded the main stage in their own distinct style. Andres was clearly the more experienced entertainer of the two, not only engaging the audience with humor and philosophies on cooking, but also directing the cameraman towards what he wanted us to see, not whatever random imagery the cameraman and technical director were cooking up.


Yoshihiro Murata discussing aspects of umami.

Which brings me to the weirder aspects of Star Chefs. The camera work was absolutely horrible. In a main stage presentation where the audience is up to a hundred fifty feet away from the dish that's being prepared, good camera work is crucial. Following the narrative of the presenting chef and the action is critical. It's completely infuriating that the camera is off watching water boil (literally) while Morimoto is discussing and demonstrating the intricacies of cutting a tuna.

Then there were the seats. Bleacher style seating with these molded plastic "chairs" that were uncomfortable to sit on. Sitting on them for any amount of time was excruciatingly painful - and the hosts kept asking everyone to stay.


April Bloomfield caresses the pig before butchering it.

By now, I've been to a lot of shows and events and I was struck at Star Chefs how the event hosts saved the front and center seats for themselves, as if they were the stars of the show. Never mind the guest attendees, they can sit in the back. The hosts seemed more concerned about hob-nobbing with the famous chefs and placing themselves front and center for everyone to see and adore than actually taking care of guests.

This was most evident when one of the lighting fixtures blew up overhead and cascaded various bits of lighting and glass on a part of the audience. The hosts, sitting no more than twenty feet away couldn't be bothered to investigate or check on the attendees who had been showered with glass. Instead, they sat there pretending that nothing had transpired. Certainly these two were not hospitality people.


Gifts from April.

After the first day, it struck me that these were like some of the coffee geeks I had observed in the coffee world - outsiders obsessed with wanting to be considered "insiders" and therefore, "cool." I remarked to a friend that this is how a coffee event would be if a particular coffee geek had been the one staging it. My friend noted that it would be even worse.

Speaking of which, I'm disappointed that I didn't see baristas at the event. No one from our end of the world was in attendance. Here, we have an amazing gathering of chefs from around the world discussing their philosophies and techniques and no baristas. All that lip service we give about product and there's no one else here exploring techniques and ingredients? I just don't get it.


Pierre Gagnaire!

Of course, the only other coffee person there was notable rabble-rouser and Man Critical of Coffee Cronies in the SCAA, Mike Love - former chef and owner of Coffee Labs. In a sea of cooks and chefs, Mike and I were the only coffee people. Sad.

What might have been worse was the espresso from La Colombe. I tasted a shot of espresso from their booth and tossed it after a couple of sips. My adventure was rewarded with forty minutes of charcoal in my mouth - and this from one of the most touted restaurant coffee roasters. We still have a long way to go.


Jose Andres commanding the stage.

Otherwise, it was a great time. Most of the chefs gave great presentations and I it's always great to catch up with industry friends like Philip and Jason from PolyScience, Giuliana from Waring Commercial, Howard from Winston Industries, Greg from the NRA and Alex from Ideas in Food.

One chef that did not disappoint was Paco Torreblanca. Perhaps you've read his book (and you should) but he came out to demonstrate his technique for making oysters out of white chocolate, acetate and some powders and it was absolutely amazing. I was furiously punching notes into my iPhone the whole time. The man is a wizard.

In spite of the weirdness and oddities, I'll definitely be back next year 'cause where else can you go and be surrounded by such talent? Plus, the official book of the event is killer and worth the price of admission alone.


Masaharu Morimoto showing his yellowfin technique.


Josh Emett saw through a lamb - New Zealand, of course.


Daniel Boulud, Grant Achatz and Pierre Gagnaire waxing.


Paco Torreblanca ripping it up with chocolate oysters.

Encore Les Halles

The maestro prepares the tartare.

There's really only one place that I wanted to eat during this trip to New York City, and that's Les Halles. Once upon a time, their Washington DC outpost was our spot. We knew the staff, we knew the food, they knew us and it was a beautiful relationship. I'll grant that the food might not be the pinnacle of French cuisine but it was damn good, darn consistent and we loved it.

For me, there's not too much that I ask of a brasserie other than to give us consistently good food at good prices and take care of us. So many of today's "brasseries" and "bistros" charge and arm and a leg that you wonder if you aren't eating haute cuisine instead of just regular fare for regular people. In Baltimore, there simply is no place for simple French food prepared simply and affordably.


Shaping the tartare.

Les Halles DC closed last November and I've been without a French home for nearly a year. A lonely year. A long and lonely year. I just want a simple Steak Frites.

So when Philip mentioned that they were hungry but didn't want to go out to yet another fancy, fine dining place, I suggested Les Halles and off we went. Jason had his first experience with Steak Tartare and I had my standby: Onglet Aux L'Eschalote - butterflied hanger steak with fries and a small salad. Perfection. If I wasn't such a masculine sort of man I might have cried.

Philip went for the duck confit and Greg for a salad duo. French comfort food simply prepared. It was a nice respite from the fine dining that we're surrounded by normally.


Photographing the tartare.


Onglet, Frites and Salade.


Coconut and Chocolate Ice Cream.

DBGB's

Wine Number One.

Trips to New York City with Spike usually mean one thing: a full-on total attack on food.

Never in my life have I ventured so deep into the heart of the restaurant beast than when traveling with Spike. No restaurant is too intimidating and no menu is too vast for a thorough vetting. In fact, it's never just one restaurant, on a typical evening, it hasn't been uncommon for Spike to lead the charge in hitting up to three restaurants for three complete meals, which usually leaves me unable to sleep and in various stages of discomfort. A learning experience for sure, but I pay in the end.

With Star Chefs in full swing, it was time to head down to The Bowery and check out Daniel Boulud's new joint, DBGB - a riff on the famous Bowery music venue CBGB's (now defunct).

Oddly enough, I'm old enough to have actually seen shows at CBGB's so going to DBGB was an interesting experience. The restaurant is more French brasserie and doesn't share the same location as the old club but it's pretty darn good. The fries were done right and generally the food is quite tasty.

But the true star of the menu are their sausages. The flavor and texture of the currywurst was just spot on. Creamy, smooth and with a little texture - sausage perfection. The Basque Boudin was just as good with the perfect balance of texture, spice and blood. I wanted more but there was so much to explore.

Soon Josh and ladyfriend Mo joined us and it was Game On. We went to town on the menu, and we hit it hard.


Octopus a la Plancha - eggplant, tomato, crispy panisse


Oysters.


Boudin Basque - blood and pigs head sausage, espelette pepper, scallion mashed potatoes.


Berliner - german currywurst, turnip confit.


Beef Bone Marrow - katz pastrami, watercress, pickled mustard seed, rye bread toast.


French Fries


Veal Tongue Sauce Gribiche - egg dressing, fingerling potatoes.


Tablier de Sapeur - lyonnais-style crispy tripe, mustard sauce, spicy tomato-tripe salad.


Pied de Cochon Pane - crispy pigs feet, romaine heart salad, sauce dijonnaise.


Red Curry Mussels - spicy coconut milk, tomato & thai herbs.


Handmade Strozzapreti Pasta - spring peas, zucchini & tomato.


Paleron Carbonnade - flat iron steak braised in dark beer, root vegetables & gingerbread croutons.


Wine Number Two


Fig Tart with vanilla ice cream


Lemon


Chocolate


and a Sundae


A bit of fanboy-ism: Thomas Keller's copper pot.


DBGB Kitchen & Bar
299 Bowery Street
New York, New York 10003
212-933-5300
www.danielnyc.com/dbgb.html