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Each city/region has its strong points (and I lived 22 years in the New York area and 17 in Massachusetts). New York has much better bread and rolls (New England Italian and French bread and bulkie rolls are just different shapes of Wonder Bread!) I also never once found a decent chocolate cake in either a bakery or a restaurant there; they don't know how to make a decent milk chocolate, butter cream icing. And, in general, New York has better pizza, although Boston Pizzeria Regina is very good. Both do an equally good job with beef and good French food. Where New England excels, however, is with sea food. After 17 years in New England, I cannot eat seafood anywhere else without being disappointed! Great chowder, and in particular, fried clams.

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you all on these comments, I was in Belize leading a chocolate tour and the Internet connection was down all week.

I wrote what I did in a more simplistic way than I could have, in part because I have been asked to keep my posts to a certain length (my first was way long) and in part because I wanted to be deliberately provocative. Necessarily, there are many things I wanted to say that got tossed into the editorial bit-bucket during the process of editing for length.

Perhaps more to the point is that I expect readers of Serious Eats to be, well, more serious about what they eat and more willing to consider alternate viewpoints that challenge the perceptions they hold about certain foods than a general audience. Readers of Serious Eats are a self-selected group and while mabisa might not expect there to be a linear relationship between cocoa content and chocolate quality, less sophisticated chocolate fans have come to look at 70% as a magic number that defines a minimum level of quality. It is these nouveau pseudo-chocophiles that tend to be the snobs.

It is accurate to say that while there is no consistent relationship between cocoa content and chocolate quality it is possible to generalize that a 72% chocolate is likely to be more bitter than a 60%. Likely: Not necessarily. Like most generalizations, there are exceptions, and there are enough exceptions to make the generalization not useful - for me.

As for my favorites ...

kiseichocolates talks about the 74% chocolate from the DR. This has to be the Hacienda Helvesia from Felchlin and I agree with the assessment about its lack of bitterness and the elegance (I would also add finesse) of the chocolate. If you like dark chocolate this is one of the best currently being made - but it is not widely available unless you are a professional. (If enough of you are interested I can look into getting some.) It is rich and earthy and intense and totally satisfying. The 65% Venezuelan is also from Felchlin, the Maracaibo Clasificado, another superb chocolate.

They are not Felchlin's best, however, a designation I bestow on the 2005 harvest of their Cru Sauvage, a 68% bar made from beans harvested from feral (formerly domesticated and now growing wild (or untended)) trees growing in the Beni region of northeastern Bolivia. This chocolate had a light, airy taste with citrusy notes that was high up in the nose and a texture that I refer to as dissolving rather than melting.

My favorite chocolates are ones that challenge my perception of what tastes and textures in chocolate can be. Because I like varietal and origin chocolates, I tend to shy away from picking a chocolate as my favorite because I know that next year's version is going to taste different. The wine analogy that works for me is to say that you like the style of a particular vineyard (say Clarendon Hill in Australia) because you've tasted a bunch of their wines and have liked what you taste. You'd then point to one or more particular examples, say the 2005 Grenache, that you especially liked. The 2004 you might not have liked as well.

With chocolate, you might say that you like the style of, say, Felchlin, and that you particularly like the Creole a 49% milk chocolate. Or you like the style of Valrhona, but particularly like the Apamakia.

Chocolate works that way for me. I like (among many others) Felchlin, Pralus, and Bonnat so I am willing to try anything they make because I know it will be very well made. For each chocolate maker I have specific favorites. I had a very interesting tasting of bars from Cacao Sampaka (Barcelona) while in Belize and was sufficiently impressed, especially by their 100% Ecuadorean, to add them to the short list of companies whose new work I search out to try.

And yes, it takes eating a lot of chocolate (tough, I know) to reach a point of knowing what you like so that when you taste it in a chocolate you know it instantly.

Finally the addition of soy lecithin is not necessarily an indication of poor quality. Most chocolate manufacturers use it. Lecithin is used to thin out the chocolate to make it easier to mold. One-half per cent lecithin can replace about 3 per cent cocoa butter, so it is also less expensive. Most manufacturers who have stopped using lecithin in their chocolate have done so because it's hard to find lecithin that is certified GMO-free and a surprising number of people are allergic to soy.

I don't know that it's helpful or informative to be equally as dogmatic as the "I only eat X" crowd in implying that there is little connection between cocoa percentage and taste. Sure, it's fair to say that a given 65 percent bar is not objectively better than its 70 percent counterpart, but consistently preferring the latter is legitimate perference of taste that isn't necessarily the result of kowtowing blindly to pure marketing. It's difficult to see what you're trying to get at here--all else being equal, I do prefer a ~72-plus percent bar. As a simple, non-expert chocolate lover, it is a reliable enough measure of a one specific type of flavor that I seek in chocolate that I do not expect to be magically in a linear relationship with overall "quality," but it is a variable in that equation.

It's a lovely photo, but I don't see even one speck of rosemary!

Ed is right. There is no comparison here. Boston should try to compare their food to KC or some place like that. To even mention the two places in the same breath is giving Boston way too much credit.

I received the Silver Spoon cookbook for Christmas from my daughter.

I've tried a number of pasta dishes and they were all delicious. The recipes are surprisingly simple with a limited number of ingredients but turn out great...I was tempted to tinker with the recipes but I'm so glad I didn't, they are great as written. I recommend the Spaghetti Amatriciana...a TOTAL of four ingredients for the sauce, and very tasty. The vegetable recipes are also simple and good. I haven't cooked any meat from this book yet.

Jules,

Both serve Sabrett hot dogs. This was confirmed to me not only by Sabrett distributors, but by the person in charge of private label at Marathon. Although they make franks in different sizes as well as either skinless or natural casing, there are only 2 recipes. All beef and beef/pork. The beef/pork frank is used at Jersey places such as Callahan's, The Hot Grill, and the Windmill. The beef dogs are used at pushcarts as well as Papaya King, Gray's, and Katz's. Papaya King and Gray's use identical 10 to a lb natural casing dogs while Katz's uses a slightly larger dog. But all from the same recipe. Papaya King likes to say that the dogs are made specially for them and that they have a different spice, but this is NOT true! The only difference between Gray's and Papaya King is how they are prepared at the individual restaurant. Gray's uses Sabrett mustard while Papaya King uses Admiration Dusseldorf Mustard. Papaya King is also one of the 10% of accounts where the dogs are delivered refrigerated, not frozen.

Hotdoglover,
If you think that Papaya King serves Sabrett's franks, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. Never confuse Gray's Papaya with the KING.

So, Big Mike, how do you get from 18-0 to "lost a couple close ones"? Seems to me 18-0 means LOST NONE! :-) Think you mean *won* a couple close ones. Which leads to, the difference between a champion and the runner up is finding a way to win the close ones ....

1. The Patriots are lucky they have won 18 straight - they've lost a couple of close games, including one to the Giants. Not that I'm a Giants fan....

2. Boston DOES have good Italian and Chinese food compared to most of the country, and I would say almost New York quality if not comparable can be found. Santarpio's Pizza in East Boston... that's great stuff right there.

3. Neither city wins the hot dog war, my hometown (Washington DC) wins that one - half-smokes from Ben's Chili Bowl - also great stuff. Other than that, Washington's culinary scene is rather pathetic, however, that's their one area to shine.

4. New York wins the deli and bagel war by FAR. I'm surprised, actually, at how bad these are in the Boston area - even where I live (Brighton/Brookline/Newton area) - there's not much selection and the only reason any of these places are good at all is because the pastrami is imported from NYC.

5. Boston cream pie, clam chowder, and lobster rolls - I would hardly call those "slim pickins'" - they're actually some of the best regional American cuisine there is.

SO - my final analysis - both cities have a lot going for them and I would say, along with Chicago and San Francisco and maybe another couple of cities (Providence included), they both have among the best food in the country,

I would have to dissagree with you. NE wins the hotdog war. numerous NY food writers have pointed at Flo's Hotdogs to be the best hotdog is the country. I've been to a lot of great steak house's in NY and Grille 23 trumps them all. I think I would rather have a Lobster roll or some Fried ipswich clams then a pastrami sandwhich which i will have to say is very good. And last time I heard eli's cheesecake even though not boston is much better then any thing you get in NY And boston creme pie is much better then any of them. Another one that we dominate is Chowdah. you can take your crappy manhatten chowder and shove it up yours while we savor the best chowdah in the Country. When was the last time Manhatten chowder was served at a presidentail inaguration. Also one more Thing boston has. Dunkin Donuts. 'nuff said

Lobster and clam rolls come in hot dog buns so the bread doesn't take away from the flavor of the seafood inside. It's simple. But everyone's right. The Giants play in Jersey however if you've ever met someone from north Jersey, they always claim to be from "the city" so there's that...food wise, NY wins by a long shot but its a far more diverse city than Boston and bigger too. Go Giants.

You are correct that NY outshines Boston in the food department, but you are incorrect to limit the Patriots to just Boston. If that was the case you'd have to limit the Giants to New Jersey and the only thing NJ contributed to cuisine is Taylor Ham. Those are *real* slim pickings!

I live near Boston and there are many things I don't understand about food here:

1. Hot dog buns split wrong.
2. "Regular" coffee comes with cream and sugar.
3. Why is there no good pizza here?

@chiff0nade There won't be any asterisk. Not this year, not any year. Not in football, not in any other sport.