Après Strand

Klong Restaurant
7 Saint Marks Place

Although the Klong Restaurant was recommended (and dissed) as a good (horrible), cheap place to eat lunch near the Strand, I became a bit nervous while looking at their website. Something creepy about walking under a steel ribbon ...

Upon arrival our customers enter under a curved, undulating, golden ribbon cast of smoothly polished steel.

The English grammar does hint at a possible DEMI (Double Entendre Menu Item) award. And the menu does sound just right ...only question would be ... which appetizer a or b?

a.Grilled Squid Legs $3

Served with fresh chili lime juice sauce

b.Pan Steamed Mussels Eastern Country Style $5

Lemon grass citronella chopped, shallots, basil, lime juice and mixed herbs

Mussaman Curry w chicken $10

Southern Thai spices blended in chili paste with potatoes, peanuts and onions simmered in coconut milk

Here are some reviews:

• "A better-than-average thai place at lower-than- average prices." - zagat.com
• "I recommend it to anyone looking for a great meal and a way cheap price." - citysearch.com
• Poor customer service that the cheap Thai food can't make up for. Not worth the aggravation from the nasty tactless waitress who insisted we leave a 20% tip for a party of 2 after telling us our 10% tip wasn't good enough for the service provided (which consisted her checking in on us once). She told us to never come back again, and trust me, we never will. reviews - zagat.com
• A better-than-average thai place at lower-than- average prices. The lunch special, at $6, is a great price but more important, there are interesting dishes, not found in many thai places. $3.50 for the fish/rice balls! reviews- zagat.com
• Klong heaps flavorful noodle dishes with the perfect intensity between mild and atomic. The usually on-par service outweighs the pitfalls (noise, crowds, and an overall … lack of space) -- common in any East Village eatery -from gridskipper

I will let you know if I get there.

eating in NYC

I will have 2 nights free and two lunches free during the two weeks of cooking classes. I am pasting the map so you can see what I have picked out. The fork and knife shows a possible spot.

View New York ICE in a larger map
The restaurant to the farthest north (by the NY public library) is the
Szechuan Gourmet on 21 West 39 Street. This will probably be a miss, but a just in case spot. It gets mixed reviews from chowhound, but it is cheap and within walking distance. The next one, headed south, Woorijip on 12 West 32nd Street. Here is one of the big reviews:

This place is so great... I come here every other day! All the food is cooked fresh every day. There is a wide array of hot and cold dishes and snacks all ready to go in take-home containers. During lunch & dinner, they also have a delicious Korean buffet for only $6.49/lb. Best of all, the place is open from 6am-3am, so you can grab delicious fast food at almost any time of day!! Be sure to try the grilled eel lunch box... So tasty and only $5!‎

Nearby the hotel and the cooking school is Rickshaw Dumpling Bar on 61 West 23rd Street. They have very inexpensive, pretty good food.

There is Wichcraft on 11 East 20th Street. Their menu looks great for lunch, and word has it that the dinner menu is not expensive, either. I will be nearby book shopping.

I have left off two restaurants that might make the cut, Nisos and Lucky's Famous burgers.

Gerri Sarnataro

Teaching the Pizza in Rome course March 5th night

Comments on Gerri Sarnataro:
(from seriouseats )

Beginners thrive in a classroom with Gerri, as she demonstrates and then individually assists if necessary (she actually took my hands in hers to knead the dough so I could get the feel of it). 

ratemyteacher had these comments about GS:

• 
  Amazing and inspiring!
• 
  She is a wonderful chef! Ultra helpful! I wish she could be my chef for all 4 mods!!! She is just a wonderful person!
• 
  gerri is a wonderful chef and teacher. she is extremely intelligent, patient and a enthusiastic. although i enjoyed cooking before taking her classes, she has truly inspired me to go above and beyond.
• 
  she is the best, well educated, deals with students very effectively, good person, knows her breads, good teacher

Looks like a great teacher for pizza and whatever. I am looking forward to this, even though it ends at 11pm and we have to clean (mop, wash dishes, etc) after cooking.

International Cooking Education, Recreational Division

I have been searching on the web for critical comments about ICE. Nothing. All but one of the comments were complimentary. So I took a closer look at some of my instructors. For the first 5 days I will be taking Fine Cooking 1 from Chef Richard Ruben. He is also teaching sushi, italian, Carribean, etc. One comment from a past student:

In terms of instructors, you can't go wrong with Melanie Carmichael-Karmazin and Richard Ruben. Both are superb and superior - fun, interesting, great recipes, consummate professionals.

This quote came from  Nation's Restaurant News, May 19, 2003 by Dina Berta

Richard Ruben's teaching career began when he started answering customers' questions about the dishes he was making. The semintive of New York started holding classes for customers of his catering and retail business in Sydney, Australia. Twelve years later the International Association of Culinary Professionals honored Ruben as the Cooking Teacher of the Year. The association gave its award of excellence to him during its annual conference in Montreal in April.

Ruben is an instructor at The Institute of Culinary Education, formerly the Peter Krump's Cooking School in New York City. Over the years he has maintained a catering business, working for private and corporate clients. He's also worked in restaurants and held posts as executive chef But the most rewarding career by far, says Ruben, has been teaching.

He wrote "The Farmer's Market Cookbook," Lyons Press, 2000
He has a blog called "UNITED TASTE with RICHARD RUBEN" This was just the other day:

Stuffed Bake Plantains – yields 6 servings
3 yellow plantains
1/4-pound ricotta salata or feta cheese
4-ounces guava paste
3-tablespoons olive oil

Pre-heat the heat to 350-degrees.

Slice the plantain down the middle from stem to end. In the slit divide the cheese and guava paste amongst the three plantains.

Place the plantains on small baking dish, and drizzle a tablespoon of oil over each plantain. Cover with aluminum foil, and place in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes.

Cut in half and serve.

I love the combo.
On starchefsjobfinder this question gave me confidence:

EK: Do you have any advice for aspiring chef instructors?

RR: If you’re teaching recreational students or professional students, and they can’t make a perfect brunoise right away, don’t beat them up about it. Tell them to pick a cut they are comfortable with and have them start finessing that. After they develop muscle memory they can start working on other cuts. Try to give the students the encouragement they need. Cooking is an art. Anyone sitting in a classroom should be perceived as the next greatest thing, even though most will end up in a more technical position.

Then ratemyteacher gave these two scathing reviews:

This guy is a complete culinary charlatan...very poor cooking skills....sloppy, unprofessional, anti-social and abusive...i want my money back!!!! He won an award for sometrhing..what is it? misanthrope of the year!!! avoid his classes like the plague....
and ...

it is strange that he doesn't teach in the pro sections, he seems to have bipolar relationship with students in the classes--some he gets along with great, others he gives the 'one word answer' or the 'look it up in the book' answer, he won some teaching award, but it seemed bogus..