yeasted bread chronicles, chapter II

this one's a keeper. there was a post about this bread/cake at thekitchn, which is originally from flo braker (via leite's culinaria). i love sweet yeasted breads and buns, and this is the best of the bunch. really, it's a cake, but i always think of yeasted things as breads, so there you go. essentially, this is a yeasted dough that gets rolled out after the second rise, then cut into rectangles spread with lemon zest and sugar, and stacked into a loaf pan. the dough gets one last rise and then goes into the oven. when you eat it, you can just pull the sheets off one by one.

this dough is less eggy and less bready than the overnight cinnamon buns, but somehow manages to be richer. ok, the butter brushed between the rectangles of dough helps a lot. and this dough is moister than the cinnamon buns, which makes it seem more like cake, less like bread. regardless, it's delicious, and after being attacked by four of us for dessert, it was more than half gone. it's not too sweet - the cream cheese icing has a bump of lemon juice in it to balance the sweetness of the bread - and if you eat it the day you bake it, the top will still be crispy.

if you have the time, make this right now. i did this over two days, refrigerating the dough after the first rise, and assembling it the next day out of the fridge. i was a bit overzealous in getting the dough to room temp after assembling it (putting it in a hot water bath that was probably a bit too hot), so that's why the bread is super-puffed on the ends. i think i might try the alton brown technique next time, and put the assembled dough in a cold oven with a pan of hot water underneath it. one other thing - i have never understood how other people manage to roll doughs out into rectangles, so if you can do it, please inform me of your technique. i always end up with oblong ovals, rather vaguely rectangular. that's not a real problem with this bread, so don't worry about it.

i love yeasted breads, but i always dislike how much effort you have to put in to get the final product. while the dough is rising, i'm not actually doing anything, but i'm impatient to get the dough into the oven so i can eat it. it would even be better if i was really busy during the rising time - for example, i have no problem making really complicated things that require hours, as long as i'm kept busy chopping, stirring, etc. waiting for dough to rise is like watching water boil - interminable. i do think this bread is worthwhile, though, so maybe the solution is to double the recipe and make two loaves, freezing one to bake later.

lemon-scented pull-apart coffee cake (adapted from flo braker via leite's culinaria)

for the dough

2 3/4c (12.25 oz) flour

1/4c (1.75 oz) sugar

2 1/4t (1 packet) yeast

1/2t salt

1/3c (2.5 fluid oz) whole milk

2 oz (4T) butter

1/4c (2 fluid oz) water

2 eggs, at room temp

for the filling

1/2c (3.5 oz) sugar

3T lemon zest (from 3 lemons)

1T orange zest

1.5 oz (3T) butter, melted

for the icing

3 oz cream cheese, softened

1/3c (1.25 oz) powdered sugar

1T whole milk

1T fresh lemon juice

1. stir together 2c (9oz) of the flour, the sugar, the yeast, and the salt in a large bowl. in a small saucepan, heat the milk and butter over low heat, until the butter melts. add the water and continue to heat the mixture until it's about 130F.

2. pour the milk mixture over the flour-yeast mixture, mixing with a rubber spatula until well combined. add the eggs one at a time, mixing with the spatula each time until completely incorporated. add 1/2c of the remaining flour, and mix with the spatula until the dough is smooth. add two more tablespoons of flour and mix until the dough is smooth.

3. flour your countertop and turn the dough out on the counter. knead until smooth and only slightly sticky (add a few more tablespoons of flour if it's stubbornly sticky), about 10-15 minutes. the dough will be quite soft. place the dough in a buttered or oiled bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. let the dough rise in a warm place (at least 70F) until it doubles in size, about an hour. if it's winter, you can warm up the dough's environment by putting the bowl in a warm water bath, though you should be sure not to make the water too hot. if you're doing this, make sure you use a plastic bowl - it will conduct heat a little more gently than a metal bowl. if you're refrigerating the dough overnight, punch the dough down and re-cover with plastic wrap, and pop the bowl in the fridge.

4. to make the lemon filling, mix together the sugar, lemon zest, and orange zest in a small bowl. let this stand while you handle the dough, as it will get wetter as the sugar draws moisture out of the zest).

5. butter a 9"x5"x3" loaf pan and line with parchment paper; butter the parchment paper. flour your countertop and roll the dough out into a 20"x12" rectangle. brush the dough with butter, using a pastry brush (be generous). using a bench scraper, pizza cutter, or knife, cut the dough into 5 vertical strips, each 4"x12". sprinkle one of the strips with a fifth (about 1.5-2T) of the sugar-zest mixture and press it into the butter. top with another strip of dough and sprinkle it with the sugar-zest mixture, pressing it into the butter; repeat with remaining dough strips until you have one stack of rectangles. (the last layer does get sugar-zest mixture on it, btw.)

6. slice the stack horizontally into 6 strips, each 4"x2". fill the loaf pan with the stacks (see photo above to see what it should look like), cut edges facing up. loosely cover the pan with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place (or, if the dough is cold from the refrigerator, set in a cold oven with a pan of boiling water on the rack underneath it), until the dough doubles in size, 30 to 50 minutes. (press the dough gently with your finger; if the indentation remains, the dough is ready to be baked.)

7. bake the cake until the top is a deep golden brown, 30-45 minutes. let cool as you make the icing.

8. to make the icing, mix the cream cheese and sugar until smooth with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula (or use an electric mixer). mix in the milk and lemon juice and stir until well combined.

9. remove the coffee cake from the pan, and put it on a serving plate. using a spatula, knife, or pastry brush, ice the top of the coffee cake. serve at room temp. store in an airtight container.

active cooking time: 2 hrs; total time ~4.5 hrs

[makes 1 loaf; serves 8-10]

dulce de leche (v1.0)

my love for dulce de leche started about five years ago, when nina happened to make a banoffee pie one weekend. i had heard of it (from the musical "guys and dolls"), and possibly had had it a few times, but i had never paid it much attention. now i know better; like condensed milk, i'm pretty sure i could sit on the couch like a lump and consume entire jars of it. it's like caramel, but at once not; while caramel is more about the sugar, dulce de leche is all about the milk. somehow it's more comforting than caramel - and that's saying something, because i love caramel like nobody's business. i confess that i also like the time it takes to make dulce de leche - there's something comforting about its cooking process consisting of stirring it for hours on the stove.

you can buy dulce de leche, but many people just make it from scratch, or (more frequently) by boiling a can of condensed milk in a pot of water for four hours. supposedly, as long as you keep the can covered with water, it won't explode all over your kitchen (and you). i've gone the condensed milk route, but i wanted to try making it from scratch, especially as i had a quart of whole milk on hand from yesterday's lemon coffee cake. it takes about as long as the condensed milk takes, but with some stirring thrown in. the recipe i consulted instructed me to combine milk, sugar, and vanilla in a pot and wait for it to simmer, then stir in some baking soda. no idea what the baking soda does - maybe it thickens it? what i do know is that it gives the dulce de leche a faint acidic aftertaste - not so good. the dulce de leche experiments will continue. in my consequent google searches for "milk jam," none of the recipes contained a trace of baking soda, so i'm going to try making this without the baking soda at all. it was also very sweet, so maybe i'll try a version with evaporated milk. the basics of the recipes seem pretty standard, though - 1 quart milk, 1 cup sugar, 1 vanilla bean.

just to clue you in regarding the photos, the top is the ingredients in the pot, then after i had added the baking soda and it was simmering. the third photo is missing a couple of steps - first, i walked away from the pot and when i came back, the milk was boiling into a semi-solid froth, and i stirred that down and it became a lot more liquid. second, my milk jam separated into curd and whey (both caramel-colored) and so i food-processed it, per another recipe i consulted. so the third photo is when i had returned the food-processed dulce de leche, to reduce a bit further (you can see a little bit of the lumpy dulce de leche on the spatula). the fourth is to show you how thick it gets.

dulce de leche 1.0

1 quart whole milk

1c sugar

1 vanilla bean

1/2t baking soda, dissolved in 1T water

1. in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, stir together milk and sugar. split the vanilla bean; scrape the seeds out of the pod and add both to the pot. heat on medium-low until the mixture boils (if you leave the milk out and bring it to room temp, this step will take much less time).

2. remove the pan from the heat and stir in the baking soda mixture. stir until the froth subsides a little, then return to heat. simmer on medium, taking care not to let the mixture boil (turn down the heat if it boils), until the mixture has thickened a little and is a dark caramel-esque brown - give it a stir every now and then to make sure nothing's burning.

3. transfer to a food processor or blender (there's not quite enough of it to use an immersion blender) and process until smooth. you can return it to the pot to reduce it a bit further over low heat, or transfer to an airtight storage container and let cool before covering.

prep: 5-10 minutes

active cooking time: 3-4 hours

[makes 1 cup; stays good in the fridge for 3 months or the freezer for 1 year]

the myth of "melt in your mouth"

these cookies look pretty good, right? unfortunately, they're not. well, they're ok, but they were enough of a disappointment that you won't find the recipe here. i saw a post on photograzing for "peppermint meltaways" and was intrigued. i've always been intrigued by things that claim to "melt in your mouth," be it chocolate, meat, or cookie. for example, how does meat melt in your mouth, exactly? surely a bit of steak isn't going to melt in your mouth the same way that, say, butter will? and even if it did, would you really want meat to melt in your mouth? i know that meat wouldn't "melt" the same way butter would, yet i expect it to because of the connotations i attach to the word "melt" (probably, in no small part due to the ubiquity of those m+m commercials during childhood).

that isn't to say that there aren't things that melt in your mouth. the lemon-buttermilk pudding (essentially a pudding cake) at rendezvous recently reaffirmed that, indeed, something can look like cake, but literally melt away in your mouth. (sidebar: it's been about two years since i had this pudding, and i had remembered it as being good, but not as good as it was that evening. it was exactly what i wanted at the end of a meal - cool, refreshing, light but rich...)

it was with all of these things in mind that i made these cookies. i wanted them to be impossibly light, airy, and crispy; buttery and pepperminty. the mechanism in the recipe that renders them "meltaways" is the replacement of some of the flour with cornstarch, and the use of powdered sugar. unfortunately, the meltaway effect was not the epiphany i expected. maybe it's that i just don't like cookies that "melt" - chewing some crispy thing just to have it dissipate immediately is a bit odd, and very different than chewing something soft (ie, cake) and have that "melt." so these cookies were ok, but not amazing. i swapped out the sugar glaze for chocolate, which i thought complement the cookies pretty well; and they do look pretty if i say so myself. their mediocrity, though, is affirmed by the roommate test. after a week in the cookie jar, it's still half full. this, after a batch of chocolate chip cookies lasted about three or four days. i guess it wasn't meant to be.

chicken - not frog, shark, or snake - tastes like chicken

when top chef first started airing, i was one of the skeptics. without willy wonka's magical tv, i reasoned, it's just not possible to be able to live vicariously through chefs in competition the way that one can with fashion in project runway. whereas in project runway, the way we consume fashion is to wear it and see it, in top chef, the way we consume food - eating and smelling it - is impossible.

i realized that, over the past few years, my position on this issue has softened - slightly. every day, i look at seriouseats' photograzing section to see what other people are making. and through looking at these photos, i've found that i have been developing my faculty of being able to tell how something will taste, based on how it looks. the powers of observation will not always hold true, but they do admirably well most of the time. in these photographs, i can see when the onions haven't been properly browned, when shortbread hasn't been cooked enough and remains hopelessly pale, when meat is overcooked and looks dry. i can see when a ganache-covered confection has been refrigerated and brought back to room temp too quickly (condensation, and a certain type of slick shininess that isn't the soft sheen that ganache should have). i can see when something is overly yellow and a custard is too solid from too many egg yolks. and these are things that transcend bad presentation, over-exposed or unfocused photographs, and their related ilk - these are things that you can see that actually make you not want to eat something.

that said, i do bookmark recipes that i find quite often, and the following recipe is an adaptation of something i made tonight. remembering the fridays on which i typically make dinner with mary, the first thing that comes to mind is that we end up eating at 9 or 10pm. usually we don't end up at the supermarket until 7:30, and then we get home at 8 or 8:30, and then we start cooking - you can see where this is going. determined to eat before 9pm, i bookmarked a recipe for a roast chicken that requires fairly minimal prep - just chop stuff, throw it together, and roast. (the recipe below is wordy because i, in my recipe-writing, am wordy.) this chicken is quicker than a typical roast chicken because it's roasted in pieces, and you can do all the prep ahead of time, then throw it in the oven the next day.

this recipe is delicious, and though it has a fair number of ingredients, it's still all about the chicken. this preparation yields a chicken that is tender but toothsome, and tastes very wonderfully of, well, chicken. this is the way you can tell your ingredients are good - if they taste more like themselves than they "usually" do: good potatoes taste "more like potatoes," good chicken tastes "more like chicken." but there is also a certain style of cooking that isn't afraid to season aggressively with herbs and garlic, and those who employ it know that the showcase ingredients can stand up to that aggression. this recipe hews to that philosophy - that chicken is not bland, but has its own flavor, which is enhanced by its accompaniments. it didn't hurt, either, that the chicken we got was some sort of organic or free-range chicken from the store (we were at the organic foods supermarket because it's closest to home).

there is a certain the pancetta is a little more subtle than bacon would be, especially when it's sliced thin, because it gets very crispy but doesn't burn because of the relatively short baking time. the original recipe uses a lardon-sized dice of pancetta, but when i got mine at the new wine store, they sliced it thin, assuming that i was going to use it in canapes. well, this was a blessing in disguise, because it's not particularly fair to overpower chicken with bacon, so using the thin ribbons produces more of a textural effect with some salt and a smack of ham. i didn't use lemon zest, but i think that the addition of a bit of it would help further balance the saltiness of the olives and pancetta. i think the bread is key, too, instead of a traditional starch - the way the bread sops up the herby chicken juices is reminiscent of that nytimes chicken recipe in which you roast a butterflied chicken on top of chunks of bread so that they get soaked with roast chicken juices. just trust me - it's good.

roast chicken with crispy pancetta

1 chicken, 4 to 5 lbs

1/4c olive oil

1-2T fresh thyme (leaves stripped from stems)

1 1/2T fresh rosemary, chopped fine (this definitely should be fresh; i never use dried rosemary as it tends to stay too hard, and can stick in your throat)

1 medium head garlic

1t freshly ground black pepper

1/2c kalamata olives, pitted (~4 oz, not including the brine)

3-4 ounces pancetta (sliced thin by your butcher)

1c white wine

optional: 1t lemon zest

fresh bread (preferably some sort of hearty multigrain)

1. first, do the prep: strip the thyme from the stems, chop the rosemary. separate the cloves of garlic and smash them, then remove the skin - you'll want to smash them fairly hard so they break up instead of staying whole, but don't break up completely. cut the chicken into 10 pieces, leaving the skin on: thighs, wing+drumette, drumstick, breast (quartered by halving lengthwise and crosswise), reserving the back/neck/guts for other uses. (i froze the back to use later for soup.) shred the pancetta into 1/2" strips with kitchen shears or a knife - the pancetta i got was about 4" in diameter, and so my strips were about 1/2"x4" with some smaller bits.

2. in a bowl, combine olive oil, rosemary, thyme, garlic, pepper, and lemon zest (if using) and stir well. place the chicken pieces in one layer in a 9"x13" baking pan and pour the herb-oil mixture over it, turning the chicken in it to coat. scatter the pancetta over the chicken pieces, making sure it gets coated in some of the herb-oil mixture. scatter the olives between the chicken pieces, rolling in the herb-oil mixture to coat. at this point, if you're doing this ahead of time, you can cover the pan and refrigerate the chicken until you want to cook it the next day. let it come to room temperature before you put it in the oven for best results - sometimes pyrex can shatter if it's old and it has to jump temperature too fast.

3. preheat the oven to 450F. put the chicken in, and roast 25 minutes. you'll hear the oil crackling but don't worry - that's normal. after the 25 minutes, open the oven and drizzle the wine over the chicken. continue roasting for 10-15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. remove from oven and cool slightly to allow the meat to rest. serve with hunks of bread to sop up the sauce; don't forget to make a side of veg to complete the meal.

prep time: 20-30 minutes

cook time: 30-40 minutes

[serves 6-8]

and now, something sweet

long overdue, but finally here! i am going to make these a few more times and will post adjustments as necessary.

overnight cinnamon rolls (adapted from alton brown)

notes: i have written this recipe for those who don't have stand mixers - i don't have one myself. it is also written in weight (standard for bakers, and more accurate) but also cups in case you just have measuring cups. i will likely be experimenting with the egg content of this recipe in the future - it uses a lot of egg yolks - and will let you know the results. i've been pondering iles flottantes to use up the egg whites, which are frozen for the present.

dough

4 egg yolks, room temp

1 egg, room temp

2 oz sugar (1/4c)

3 oz butter, melted (6T)

6 oz buttermilk (~scant 1/2c), room temp

20 oz flour (~4c)

1 pkg instant dry yeast (2 1/4t)

1 1/4t kosher salt

vegetable oil

filling

8 oz dark brown sugar (scant 1c packed)

1T cinnamon

1t salt

3/4 oz butter (1 1/2T)

icing

2 1/2 oz cream cheese, softened

4 oz powdered sugar (1c)

1. first, heat the buttermilk in a small saucepan or in the microwave (on medium power, until it's hot) and scatter the yeast over it; let it stand (i like to proof the yeast to make sure it's good). in a large bowl, with a whisk or an electric mixer, mix together the egg yolks, eggs, sugar, and butter, and buttermilk-yeast mixture. add 2 cups of flour and the salt, mixing until well combined (if you're using a whisk, switch here to a rubber spatula). add all but the remaining 3/4c of flour, and mix into dough with a rubber spatula until completely incorporated. turn the dough out onto a clean, floured countertop and knead until the dough is soft and elastic, and doesn't stick to your hands. this will take about 15 minutes, varying based on how vigorously you knead the dough. add the remaining 3/4c of flour if your dough remains very sticky after about 10 minutes. lightly oil the bowl you mixed the dough in, put the kneaded dough in it, and turn the dough in the bowl to lightly coat with oil. cover with a damp cloth and let rise until it doubles in volume. if it's winter, or you live in a cold climate, you can help the dough rise by putting it in the oven (after preheating it to the lowest temp and turning it off), or by putting the dough bowl in a larger bowl full of hot water (keep replacing the water as it cools).

2. combine the sugar, cinnamon, and salt for the filling, mixing until well combined. melt the butter in a small bowl.

3. butter a 9"x13" baking pan. take the dough and punch it down, then roll it out on a floured countertop, to an approximate 18"x12" rectangle and a 1/2" thickness, with the long edge facing you. brush the rectangle with butter, leaving an inch margin along both long edges. sprinkle the dough with the cinnamon sugar filling mixture. roll the rectangle of dough tightly, starting with the long edge facing you. when you get to the other edge, pinch the edge to the side of the roll to seal it shut. using a serrated knife (really), slice the roll into 1 1/2" thick slices, or about 12 slices. arrange in the baking dish, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. this prep session will take about an hour of active time, an hour of rising time - less as you get more practice.

4. remove the rolls from the fridge and place in a cold oven (don't turn it on). fill a large baking dish 2/3 full with boiling water and put it on a rack underneath the pan of rolls (to bring them to room temp before baking). let the rolls rise for about a half hour, until they start puffing (rising) again. remove both pans from the oven, and preheat the oven to 350F. return the rolls to the oven and bake in the middle until just golden brown (190F inside, if you have a thermometer), about 30 minutes. make sure you don't overbake these - they are infinitely better if they're softer and moister.

5. while the rolls are baking, make the icing - beat the cream cheese in a bowl with an electric mixer (or microwave very slightly until very soft). sift the powdered sugar over the cream cheese, then mix until combined. when the rolls have cooled slightly, you can ice them with a knife. the rolls are best with a few days of baking.

overnight prep: 2 hrs

day-of prep and baking: 1 hr 15 min

[makes 12 rolls]

day-after-xmas dinner in nyc

locanda verde / 377 greenwich st / nyc / (212) 925-3797 / dinner mon-sun, 5:30-11p; breakfast mon-fri, 8-11a, sat-sun, 8-10a; lunch 11:30a-3p / reservations recommended / dinner ~$50-60 per person (no wine) / 2 1/2 stars out of 4

it's not often that hyped restaurants live up to the hype. especially restaurants that are minorly owned by celebrities. in this case, locanda verde, part-owned by robert deniro (whose previous restaurant in the same space, ago, folded), lives up to the food hype, but falls short in other ways that prevent it from being the whole package.

i read up on the restaurant shortly before we walked over, and let me just say that a lot of the yelpers who reviewed this place are a little...well, let's be clear here: robert deniro may have invested in the restaurant, but he does not run this restaurant. when writing your review, should you feel a need to address a specific person, try the chef, the sous chef, the pastry chef, the manager, etc - not the investor who just wants a return on said investment. also, please employ correct spelling, and do not address anyone as your friend or "buddy" unless they are, indeed, your friend or buddy.

on to the food, which was quite good. it's slightly better than craigie, if i say so myself. there are not many good italian restaurants that are modern, and in any case, italian restaurants structure meals differently than the typical american meal. in any nouveau american restaurant, you're likely to do the traditional appetizer, entree, dessert sequence. in an italian restaurant, dinner is a longer affair, encompassing primi (appetizers), secondi (pastas), entrees, and dessert. when i went to babbo with shirley and lilly, we did the whole four courses: two appetizers, three pastas, two entrees, three desserts. not even a "full" four-course dinner for each of us and we were totally stuffed. so in that sense, it was a good idea not to do the full four courses at locanda verde - we still ordered enough food to be quite pleasantly full.

for appetizers, we shared the sheeps milk ricotta with grilled bread; marinated beets with goat cheese and gorgonzola; steak tartare with crispy guanciale; and lamb meatball sliders. the ricotta is almost worth the hype - you've certainly never had ricotta like this, and i'm not even sure what they did to it. it's silky, creamy, almost like mascarpone, with just a tad too much richness, actually. maybe they strained it, then whizzed it in a food processor? i wanted to believe that it was just made in a way that produced silky, creamy ricotta, but i know better. points off, too, for not providing the correct amount of bread for the amount of ricotta served. the marinated beets were good as well, especially with gorgonzola - not a combination i'd had before. the lamb meatball sliders were good, but not particularly memorable. however, the steak tartare was absolutely fantastic - perfect texture, perfect temperature, perfect seasoning, with a bit of tang from some scallion or cilantro or something like that. i like steak tartare and have had it in a few places, and this was the best of the bunch. it was completely unadorned - no cornichons, mustards, fig jams, etc - and it needed no adornments.

for entrees, i had the fennel glazed duck with tuscan kale, yukons, and concord grape conserve. this was nearly as fabulous as the steak tartare. it was perfectly cooked, but more importantly, the combination of flavors was stellar. the fennel was understated, coming through with bites of duck, while the duck jus saturated the kale. i was surprised by the concord grape conserve, though - you hear about these mythical ingredients that tie a dish together, but you rarely encounter them. this was one of those mythical ingredients, beyond tasting like someone had put a lot of love into it. i think it was cooked in some sort of red wine reduction, and it was deliciously juicy, a textural contrast to the solidity of the rest of the dish. i do wish there had been a few more potatoes - these days, restaurant potatoes are so deliciously potato-y in flavor, yet dwindling in number on the plate. i don't really understand this fear of starches, and i think everyone should just get over it - as long as you balance starches, proteins, veg, and fat, it's ok. really, put the starch back on the plate already.

my parents had the fire-roasted garlic chicken for two and i grabbed a bite of it before i was irrevocably stuffed. it was delicious - and somehow, so much more vivid than any chicken i've had recently at a restaurant. it wasn't boring, it wasn't mild - it was every bit as daring as any other entree at the restaurant. perhaps it lacked nuance of the duck, but its vibrancy made up for that - just depends on what you're in the mood for. my sister had the veal shank (a special that evening) and man, was that thing huge. you don't think of veal having such large shanks - but apparently they do.

my parents and i shared the maple budino with candied pecans, cranberry sorbetto for dessert. this was a bit of a letdown, actually - i love pot de creme, i love maple, and it should have been a home run, especially with the cranberry sorbet to cut the intensity of the maple. but somehow it wasn't - it was too sweet, too much of a confection.

all in all, the food was great - a little uneven, and nothing was a home run, but with flashes of actual brilliance. unfortunately, the service and decor were enough of a distraction that the overall dining experience rates lower than at restaurants like craigie, babbo, and alinea - all restaurants which i would go to first over locanda verde. notes on the negatives are below:

service: i am so tired of pretentious service. to all restaurants i may patronize in the future: i am not a rube about food and i am going to not only behave, but tip well. i am not an overly demanding or picky customer. so stop kicking my chair as you walk by, acting as if i know nothing about food, being inattentive, and pretending that we're hicks. please remember who ordered what, too - i would understand if the restaurant were totally in the weeds, but that was not the case when i was there. in short: don't be a jerk, because that's just going to make me want to be a jerk back.

on the decor - well, it's all oddly mismatched, and not in a good way. it's part pub, with piney wood paneling and lots of ugly mirrors, but has the arched plaster ceilings and chandeliers of a more ritzy restaurant. the back of the restaurant is a more family-style area with long tables, whereas the front is more slick and modern with shiny black tables and a bar. the height of the space is nice and airy, but i would have preferred an interior without the occasional broken mirror. further about these mirrors, which line the back and side walls of the room - they are obviously a relic of the previous restaurant's interior, which presumably had booths that matched the mirrors. now that those booths are gone, the mirrors seem out of place.