288257 Tue Jan 15 22:44:48 -0800 2002 5 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1554442 Simple store bought, porcini, puffballs, shiitake, morels, chantrelles, polyporus sulfureus, you name it, I gorge myself. But, as far as restaurants go, where have all the mushrooms gone? Does any chef still use fungi in a delightful, creative way, other than sauteed in butter? And, by the way, where have all the steak houses gone, with which to serve these lovely mushrooms? Tue Jan 15 22:44:48 -0800 2002 0 Deirdre 1 1554449 CRAFT in Manhattan does wonders with mushrooms. Search that board for more specifics. Wed Jan 16 00:53:04 -0800 2002 1554442 0 Fred and Wilma 1 1554486 I ate at Nick & Stef's Steakhouse in LA on Sunday night. Weird menu: 12 appetizers; 12 vegetable sides; 12 sauces; 12 cuts of meat; 12 potato sides. You pick the hunk-o-meat and then your choice of sides. Three of us, not realizing how much food it was, each ordered a hunk-o-meat, a vegetable side and a potato side. The sides were served in small metal dishes like those you see in Indian restaurants, not on our individual plates. It lent to sharing but it was so much food! I specifically ordered the marinated mushrooms with roasted garlic. It was a lovely combination of portobello, shiitake, chantrelle, and button mushrooms with almost a dozen garlic cloves. It was lovely. BTW, I think they are a chain and have one in Vegas and DC, at least. Wed Jan 16 12:34:45 -0800 2002 1554442 0 Renee 2 1554523 nick & stef's is part of chef joachim splichal's patina group restaurants. there are two more n&s locations - nyc and d.c. see link below. Link: http://patinagroup.com/cgi-bin/htmlos.cgi/0087.2.3354198428816973225 Wed Jan 16 17:27:11 -0800 2002 1554486 0 louisa 1 1554562 Are you a mushroom hunter? Years ago, my husband and I went on some guided mushroom walks, led by experts from the Mushroom Society in L.A. We learned enough about edible and poison 'shrooms, habitat, etc., to get into mushroom hunting. It was great fun and took us to some beautiful places around southern and central California. One day, we found more than thirty pounds of chanterelles in the Santa Monica Mountains. We found some morels high up in the San Bernardinos, searched in vain for boletus edulis in Cambria, the southernmost place they occur in California. Ate lots of lepiota rhacotes. We haven't done much mushroom hunting in recent years, but whenever we are out in the country or up in the mountains, we're looking on the ground for "mush humps," the tell-tale bulges in the leaf duff that often are hiding an interesting 'shroom. Sunday night we celebrated my birthday at Kinkead's, a well-regarded seafood restaurant in DC. I had monkfish that was served with pommes Anna and a yellowfoot mushroom sauce, which was superb. Wed Jan 16 23:28:57 -0800 2002 1554442 0 zora 2 1554642 Did a lot of mushroom hunting while caretaking a gold mine in Big Sur back in the sixties, and I've done some in the Upper Peninsula, Michigan. You can find boletus edulis in both places, plus puffballs, shaggy manes, pleurotis, morels, hedgehogs, chantrelles, et al in the fall. Even found lin tzu (sp), a favorite of Chinese herbalogists, in Michigan. Like you, I don't get to the spots anymore, and I miss treks through the woods with the added bonus of discovering edible fugi. Thu Jan 17 18:47:43 -0800 2002 1554562 0 Deirdre