Chrysler

Chrysler has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The government had tried to sit down with the bondholders to work out a deal. Basically Chrysler owes creditors a lot of money which it can not pay back. If they went into bankruptcy, the thinking went, the creditors would lose much more than if they forgave some of the debt. J.P.Morgan Chase and other banks have complied with the governments negotiations. However some hedge-funds refused to take the markdowns and that led to the Chapter 11 filing.

So why did the hedge-funds resist? When they lent money to Chrysler, they basically went out and bought a lot of insurance, the now infamous CDS. So if Chrysler goes bankrupt the hedge-funds will get paid from the CDSs which they most probably bought from ... take a guess ... AIG. So Obama indeed has cause to be pissed. This is an unfortunate misalignment of interests and the taxpayers are in the hook for it.

I think that the primary person responsible for this situation is Paulson for not forcing a haircut on AIG. Basically, in distressed times lender and borrower (for example troubled homeowner and mortgage lender) work out a deal, debt forgiveness and such. The Obama administration had similar plans for Chrysler. But in the last administration, Paulson made sure that all of AIGs clients got paid in full. The biggest beneficiary? ... Goldman Sachs, Paulson's old bank. So once AIG started paying out in full, they'll now have to payup these hedge-funds as well and the whole process has become a moral hazard. Read more!

Blue Hill @ Stone Barns

April 19, 2009: The best restaurant I have been so far. Anyway I woke up a little late and took the taxi to the midtown rental place but Gene was a little late. We started off and were soon driving up the West Side Highway, didn't realize that the drive by the river was so beautiful. In those parts even The Bronx looked charming. We reached Tarrytown within 40 mins, drove into the farm but we were really early for our tours so we went for a spin around the town. It is quaint but we exhausted all that there was to see in ten minutes, took a detour and found Sleepy Hollow but there's nothing there really. We came back to the farm and the animal husbandry tour began. More after the fold. Basically the farm is a non-profit and a part of the Rockefeller legacy, and Blue Hill is a for profit restaurant which is a tenant of the farm and consumes about 75% of their products.

We saw sheep, chickens, ducks, geese and pigs as well as the newly born ones. The don't keep any cows which are kept by the next farm. After the first tour which lasted from 12 to 1pm, we had lunch at the cafe. My impression was that the cafe was separate from Blue Hill the restaurant, but I could be wrong, the food there was very refreshing, I had lamb with broccoli raab, a salad with carrot and parsnips, cauliflower soup and a macaroon.

After that we went on the vegetable tour to see the different kinds of vegetables they grow both in permanent and portable greenhouses.

By 4:30 the others had arrived and we retired to the lounge, their cocktails looked interesting, but I didn't try any. Almost on the dot at 6 pm they sat us at dinner. Flash photography is prohibited so photographs came out rather dark. So here's a picture of the ceiling of the barn.


I couldn't take too many pictures of the food since I was really enjoying the meal. So here's a link which shows a very similar dinner. The dinner was excellent, the best I have had. The choreography of the servers was also beautiful. We were at a circular table, three would get behind three seats and on cue simultaneously plate the dishes. Was fun to watch. Also they were extremely helpful with advice and information.

There is no menu at Blue Hill, basically you can choose a 5 course for $95 or an 8 course for $125. Of course the 8 course won the vote and we are really lucky to have made the absolutely right decision. After Del Posto, I was suspicious of pork chops, so I asked them to leave it out of my main course. Here's what we were served. (courtesy Jeff's memory)

• Potato chips - served upright 2 ways between a needle holder, faro chip was thin and rectangular, gold potato chip was lightly sea salted
• Baby carrots on stem, cauliflower - cauliflower was vinegared
• Beet burgers - 1" buns
• Sea trout tempura lollipops - served on bamboo skewer
• Parsnip soup shot
• Charcuterie (copa, speck, beef salami, fennel sausage) - beef salami was the standout
• Potato onion bread (w/ butter, ricotta, beet salt, arugula salt) - salts were genius, BEST BUTTER I've ever had, they get their dairy straight from Dan's grandmother's farm Blue Hill @ the Berkshires!
• Bone marrow (w/ caviar)

After this the server mentioned that the first course would arrive soon!! These were only the amusements! In fact Renee asked for bread at the beginning and was advised that to wait for it, it was indeed excellent advice as you can see.

1. Spanish Mackrel sashimi (w/ lettuce and dandelion vinaig.) - not briny at all, 3 chunks
2. Beets (w/ mache, yogurt, pine nut butter, maple gelee) - yogurt was genius
3. Rhode Island farm fresh daily egg (in speck, ramp marmalade w/ pine nuts) - they say the smaller eggs are from the 1st lay and taste better, pine nut flavor was bursting in this!
4. Goose egg pasta (w/ black trumpet shrooms, shaved embryonic egg) - yolky, they physically go into and take the embryonic egg from a recently retired (slaughtered) chicken and cure it, it's pricked onto a needle holder then shaved upside down over your pasta
5. Berkshire pork belly (w/ chickpeas, rappini) - small sliver but damn tasty. After Del Posto I was suspicious of pork chops, so I had asked for something else, mistake!! Blue Hill is not Del Posto, anything here is good. I got sticky chicken wings, tasty but probably the pork belly was better. Next time!
6. Lamb neck (w/ swiss chard, parsnip puree, scallion stick) - the star of the show
7. Passionfruit gelee on meyer lemon rind, yogurt sorbet and foam, choco bits) [palate cleanser] - takes 48hrs for the lemon rind to be edible
8. Beet w/ chocolate cake, espresso sorbet - half of the table had this
   [Pineapple cake w/ formage blanc ice cream and heirloom greens - half of the table had this, i tried this]
   
9. Gin (sorbet) and tonic (gelee) w/ buddha's hand - buddha's hand tastes like orange zest
10. Espresso stick, bourbon chocolate, marshmallow [petit fours] - aka a deconstructed s'more

After this awesome dinner we were given a tour of the facilities and the kitchen and the herb garden and the barn and the banquet rooms. This was a fantastic day and can't wait to go there back again.

Might have to try the bar area if I can't get a reservation which is like 2 months in advance. Also they do Sunday brunch, same problem, two months even during recession.




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Del Posto

April 8, 2009: Went to Del Posto, the decor was very classy albeit a bit dark. No flash allowed so had to really go slow on the shutter speed, so I am impressed with the hand held lobby shot. Previously there was some talk about the 20 course menu, but simply there was no consensus so we settled for the Il Menu Del Posto for $95. Basically one appetizer, choice of two pastas chosen by the whole table, a main course and a dessert. Somehow my picks for the pastas got the most votes so here's the menu we had. More below the fold. For appetizer I had the lobster salad, a bit too spicy and the taste of lobster was slightly obscured by it, but after all it's lobster.

Then we had potato gnocchi with Pork Shoulder, Spiced Prunes & Pine Croccante, shown below, this was extremely good.

The other pasta dish was the Caramelle di Robiola with Black Truffle Butter, looked like Werther's originals, but was also excellent.

Next came the main dish, I didn't really like anything on the menu so I chose the arctic char thought that would be the most inoffensive, turned out reasonably O.K. had lots of squid ink and black truffle, so overall can't complain.

Jeff and his buddy (can't recall the name) both ordered pork chops, was so bad that they both returned it and got the char which was much better. You simply don't expect that from a restaurant of this level. I think he gave it a two star review. Dessert was also unremarkable, and not bothering using up my free internet bytes.

Overall, pasta was good but the other stuff doesn't stack up. Will have to try Babbo sometime. Read more!