For my own future reference:

• Brillat-Savarin, a triple-cream Brie from Normandy. Named for Jean-Anthelme.


• Humboldt Fog, a ripened goat's milk cheese from Cypress Grove. We had this last night, along with its inspiration, Morbier, and the Fog was clearly more popular. It's fascinating how it becomes runny along the rind; a unique cheese.


• Midnight Moon, another goat's milk cheese from Cypress Grove, but aged six months-plus. Slim's favorite cheese, so what better justification does one need?


• Lamb Chopper—one might as well get a third cheese from Cypress Grove, this one a dense sheep's milk.


• With sheep- and goat-milk cheeses inspired by Gouda, one might as well get a real Gouda for contrast. Roomano, a skimmed cow's milk Gouda from Holland, is aged up to six years, giving it a crystallized texture. Perhaps my favorite.


• Mimolette Extra Vieille, a French cow's milk that's a cross between Edam and Cheddar, dyed with annetto, aged two years.

All we're really missing from this list is a good blue. I'm inclined to choose Point Reyes or Big Woods or Cabrales, but I'm not convinced that will be what I would choose a year from now.

To try: Pierce PT and Rogue River Blue.

Leaving New York Wednesday, it took me 40 minutes to get from Lexington to 9th Avenue going down 37th Street, which is supposed to be an express cross-town street. It was because movie trucks were blocking most of the street; they were filming on 38th Street.

But thumbs up on Chinese Mirch (28th & Lex), which is a wonderful, if New-York-priced Chinese-Indian fusion restaurant.

Press coverage has been interesting: the New York Times got a tiny detail wrong, and it's fascinating to see all of the other press coverage that is clearly getting its information from rewriting the Times story (and repeating the mistake, and often exacerbating it as in a game of telephone) rather than original reporting. Wired, in particular, botched the story, as has the Guardian.

Before 1997, Oreos were made with lard, and my family was sufficiently kosher that that meant we were a Hydrox family. I haven't had a Hydrox in at least fifteen, maybe twenty years, and that is perhaps why the cookie went off the market. Hydrox came four years before Oreos: the knock-off was what succeeded and surpassed the original. I suppose Hydrox have actually been off the market since 1996, when Keebler bought Sunshine and changed the recipe.

Carne asada fries and barbacoa in Los Angeles. (via Newmark)

The New York Michelin ratings are out (and the Times steals their thunder by printing them all) and Slim and I were discussing the economics of Michelin stars. The restaurant where we had our best meal, Taillevent, dropped from three stars to two shortly after we were there. The third star adds demand and creates a premium in the pricing. But there are restaurants nearly as good that don't get the premium because they just miss the additional star. Quality is continuous, but rankings are discrete: surely there are one-star restaurants nearly as good as two-star restaurants, and zero-star restaurants nearly as good as one-star restaurants. Too, restaurants whose business model depends on the Michelin accolade would try to step things up a notch in response to a downgrade (assuming their chef doesn't commit suicide from despair).

If one buys into this theory, the quality restaurants that are the best bargains in New York are Craft (recently mysteriously lost its star), Lever House (recently lost its star), Sushi Yasuda (zero stars that should be one), Union Square Cafe (ditto), 11 Madison (ditto), Tamarind (ditto), Aquavit (ditto), Cafe Boulud (one star that should be two), Robuchon (arguably worth a second star), Gramercy Tavern (at the high end of the one-star range), and Masa (two stars that should be three). Except that the theory depends on Michelin having market-moving power. That's true in France, where each additional star adds 25-60% in tourist business (depending on which news story you read about the subject), but it's not clear to me that Michelin has that much influence in New York City relative to Frank Bruni or even Zagat's.

I'm surprised so few people are aware that a couple of local shops import H&H bagels:

*Calvert-Woodley Liquors in Van Ness
*Arrowine in Arlington

H&H will also ship, albeit at ludicrous prices.

In addition, Brooklyn Bagel Bakery by the Arlington Courthouse Metro creates a reasonable facsimile, since they actually kettle-boil.

Liberally spray non-stick frying pan with no-stick cooking spray for two seconds. Chop one medium onion into slices, heat at high. Add 1/4 tablespoon of chili powder over onion, plus garlic and black pepper to taste, stir. As onion begins to brown, lower heat to medium, and add 1/2 cup of Lightlife Smart Ground veggie crumbles. Heat for five minutes, add 1/2 tablespoon cumin, stirring. Remove from heat, scoop into bowl, add 3 tbsp of spicy chunky salsa. (Optional: add non-fat Greek yogurt as a sour cream substitute.) Serves one when Slim is working late.

Calories: 180
Fat: 1.5 g
Sodium: 640 mg
Potassium: 685 mg
Carbs: 22 g
Fiber: 6 g
Sugars: 8 g
Protein: 19 g

Mark Evanier also prefers Five Guys to In-n-Out after his visit to the East Coast.

For a burger qua burger, the second-best burger I had in Los Angeles was at Jeff's Gourmet. Which is Glatt Kosher, so no cheeseburger or bacon topping or milkshake or food on Saturday, which is certainly a downside for the secularly-minded. (The best was at the now-closed Mo Better Meaty Meat Burger, which probably added to the flavor just by the name alone.)

In Slate.

The cheese burek was very good, but it was the cevapcici that made Restaurant Cosmopolitan worth a twenty-mile roundtrip in my book. Friendly service, cheap prices, but no tables, so "Restaurant" is a bit of a misnomer. (There is a counter on the wall with a few chairs, and they'll give you a paper plate if you ask.)

Speaking of long round trips, Slim and I have been to Saravana Palace five times in the last six or seven weeks. It's that good, though the gulab jamun isn't as good at dinnertime when they aren't loading up the buffet with fresh ones.

We also made it out to Grill from Ipanema in Adams-Morgan; decent Brazilian food, but fairly pricy (especially if one takes parking into account) for what it is. And no cheese-bread.

Crustacean without the crust; that Whole Foods methodology doesn't seem quite as humane as first advertised. But I'm not a big lobster fan to begin with, so perhaps I'm just biased.

(Update: Pure coincidence. I honestly hadn't seen that post when I wrote this one. But, hey, it's cool that we're impressed by the same stuff.)

I only eat out once a week, if that, these days, so I haven't been out as much, but I do have a couple of ratifications of Tyler Cowen endorsements:

Kotobuki (MacArthur Blvd.) is $1/piece sushi. They don't take reservations, and they don't have a wide selection, and I don't buy into Tyler's assertion that this is the best sushi in town, but I will say that it's good enough to be the best sushi value in the city, and perhaps the Eastern seaboard. I'd certainly rather go here than Kaz Sushi Bistro; I still prefer the much more expensive Sushi Taro, but Slim keeps getting sick every time we go there.

When I was in college, friends would take me for sushi. I was okay with it, but I didn't understand the enthusiasm for sushi—until I got to Los Angeles and discovered the difference between really good sushi and the run-of-the-mill stuff.

I had another revelation yesterday. A good college friend had an Indian girlfriend, and took me out when a Waltham restaurant started offering Southern Indian. Dosas, iddly, uttapam: it was okay, but I didn't get what he found exciting about it. Now I do: Saravana Palace (Fairfax) is quite phenomenal, by far the best Southern Indian and the best vegetarian restaurant I've ever been to. (Though I have not yet been to Udupi Palace in Takoma Park.) Everything from the dosas to the warm gulabjamun was impeccable. The menu is huge, and the weekend buffet offered a sampling of a couple of dozen of the items, plus seven chutneys for make-your-own dal papri and bhel puri. To top it all off, it's ridiculously cheap: only $9.95. Amazingly, this is right across from the Wegman's, it just got named to the Washingtonian Top 100 (and with three stars, no less), and yet Slim and I were the only non-Indians in there. People are missing out. We loved our meal, and didn't even have the paneer makhini or channa batura that Washingtonian raved about.

We craved Ethiopian another night, but couldn't find parking at Abiti. It was a cold night, so for some reason Adams-Morgan offered more parking, and we made our way to Meskerem, which is competent and enjoyable, but not as good as Abiti—though the service is certainly much better and quicker at Meskerem.