Thanks to a very slow holiday weekend I've taken some time to get caught up on a show I'd never watched before: Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.
While "Diamonds on my fish, diamonds diamonds on my fish" from the American version of the show has entered my casual reference lexicon, I haven't become a fan of the Fox version in my limited viewing because it really does focus on anger, incompetence, and Ramsay berating mental midgets. That's uninteresting. I can watch VH1 for that.
I was rather pleasantly surprised to discover that the original BBC show is everything great about a restaurant program.
The restaurants on the show are failing, to be sure. But they're failing primarily as a result of ignorance, ego, and overambition, not inherent incompetence. As a result Ramsay's presence is actually (usually) beneficial. Sure he plays his mean shouting chef character but he honestly seems to care about the restaurant. And it's mostly in instances where the owners themselves don't care about their business' success that the restaurants go on to fail. If the staff commits to what Ramsay proposes they're usually able to staunch the bleeding and move forward.
It's a testament to Ramsay's intuitive understanding of restaurants as well as the magic of BBC's editing.
The Fox version, in the grand tradition of American television misunderstanding the intent of BBC programming, doesn't seem to care whether the restaurant succeeds or not, instead hoping for shouting, screaming, and fights.
Some basic rules about restaurants gleaned from Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares:
1. The customer comes first. You have to make a restaurant that people want to go to. Most of the problems come from a chef and owner who put their own egos ahead of what people want. They stubbornly stick to their concept, menu, or "master plan," even when they face empty restaurants and mounting debts.
2. Customers want value. That's not to say they want cheap, but they want a sense of quality for their money. People will pay more for a quality product but will not come back if they feel they've been ripped off, abused, or treated like idiots.
3. Know your audience. If you're a pub, don't try to be a hotel dining room. If you're in the Midlands, don't pretend that you're in the City. If you're in Brighton, serve food that tourists and homosexuals love.
4. Keep it simple. Flourish, grandeur, and pretentious ingredients will lead to failure if the fundamentals are flawed. It's better to serve fresh, local fish, meat, game, and produce simply, inexpensively and well then to fuck up or freeze expensive imported ingredients.
In my own experience these rules hold true. I worked at a neighborhood restaurant with an outstanding chef that went bust after one year because, despite a nice dining room and warm service, we served old frozen food garnished with spirals of bean sprouts and plantain spirals.
Where some of the even most esteemed California Cuisine restaurants fail is that they treat their customers like they're children, being rewarded with exquisitely fresh produce because they drive a Prius and live in Berkeley. Fresh quality ingredients are a given! It's not magic, it's what should be served. Let's move on from there. That's why, despite some wonderful meals, I don't really want to go back to Chez Panisse Cafe. I don't like being treated like I'm blessed to pay $25 for undercooked mackerel and treated like I'm retarded for suggesting that perhaps it needed to be cooked through.
The Oceanic Dinner at Oliveto pissed me off because I had had better meals with better prepared and better quality ingredients for a third the price.
Conversely, Redd was awesome because despite a similar price tag I felt I had tasted simple, fresh, and innovative food, enough of it, and smartly-paired wines.
Seeing the unpretentious, warm, and home-y British pubs serving fresh, exquisitely cooked game at strikingly reasonable prices (for Britain) was inspiring. So far the gastropub movement in the United States has meant either over-priced bar food or over-elaborate Cal cuisine served in an under-elaborate dining room.
Next on my agenda? Hitting up the somewhat critically maligned Gordon Ramsay's at the London West Hollywood to see if his restaurant practices what he preaches, even when the chef is thousands of miles away.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
HFF Quickie: That Superfluous "S"
Why the fuck do people add an "S" to the end of so many goddamn restaurants' names? In Berkeley, you went to "Cesar's," "Fonda's," or "Zuni's."
And yet, strangely one of the few restaurants that actually had a possessive "S" in the name, Lalime's was often called simply "Lalime."
In LA, it's "Ugo's," "Bastide's," and "Pintxo's."
Why can't we just call something what it's named? There is no Cesar or Bastide to own the restaurant. It's not Pintxo's Bar, it's Bar Pintxo. It's not Humperdinck Fonda's Solana, it's Fonda Solana.
It's okay to end a word on a vowel or soft consonant. Really, I promise.
Changing the name of an establishment for your own linguistic convenience is on par with calling somebody by a name they don't want to go by. It's sort of an unintentionally asshole-y East Coast/Midwest habit that masquerades as friendly or quaint.
And yet, strangely one of the few restaurants that actually had a possessive "S" in the name, Lalime's was often called simply "Lalime."
In LA, it's "Ugo's," "Bastide's," and "Pintxo's."
Why can't we just call something what it's named? There is no Cesar or Bastide to own the restaurant. It's not Pintxo's Bar, it's Bar Pintxo. It's not Humperdinck Fonda's Solana, it's Fonda Solana.
It's okay to end a word on a vowel or soft consonant. Really, I promise.
Changing the name of an establishment for your own linguistic convenience is on par with calling somebody by a name they don't want to go by. It's sort of an unintentionally asshole-y East Coast/Midwest habit that masquerades as friendly or quaint.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
HFF Tells You: How to Dress for Going Out to Dinner
There was a time when getting dressed for dinner meant putting on your dinner jacket or evening gown and sitting down at a tastefully appointed table to be served grey meat and table-side Caesar salad by closeted homosexuals.
Thankfully times have changed, especially in California where the line between "fine" and "casual" dining is very very blurry and where one's appearance is judged on fashion and style rather than "appropriateness" and formality.
And where our waiters are out and proud.
There are some basic rules for what to wear when going out to dinner, and I now set them forth thusly for posterity.
I'll be speaking mostly about what men should wear, since I don't really know too much about women's fashion and men, generally speaking, need the most help in dressing for dinner. A couple basic rules for women:
1. When in doubt, wear a dress. I don't care if it's a gown or a cute little retro hipster thing, you'll always look good in a dress that fits you.
2. Strappy tops, skinny jeans, and stiletto heals are for the club and/or going out for cosmos with your girlfriends after seeing Sex and the City, not for dinner. Seriously, you don't look like Miranda, you look like a tramp.
On to the men:
1. A well-made solid colored t-shirt, stylish jeans, nice shoes, and a sweater or sport coat will work in 99% of instances.
2. Shoes are key. If you're going to wear sneakers they need to be distinctive and scuff-free. No jogging shoes or hiking boots (unless you're a lesbian). And don't wear black leather oxfords to dinner. Save those for the office.
3. If you're going to wear a sport coat and jeans, make sure you're wearing a true sport coat, not a suit jacket. It looks terrible. If you're to wear a t-shirt and sport coat, wear a very casual sport coat. Something made from cotton with patch pockets or vaguely safari-style is good. You can also opt for something nice but unconventional like a workman's jacket, Eisenhower jacket, or unadorned leather jacket. Wool jackets should pretty much always be worn with a collared shirt.
4. Unless you want to look like a 70 year-old man, never under any circumstances tuck any shirt other than your undershirt into your jeans. There are many nice collared shirts available that are darted and square-cut for this purpose. Do not wear a belt with your jeans if you can avoid it. Conversely, always tuck your shirt in (and wear a belt) if you're wearing slacks to dinner.
5. If you wear a jacket to dinner, leave your jacket on at the table. Especially if you are dining with a lady.
6. Do your research. If you're going out to dinner at night in the city at a restaurant with white tablecloths where you think you'll be spending $50+ a person on dinner, you can never go wrong with a jacket and tie. Period. Nobody's going to think you're cool because you went to the French Laundry in your True Religion jeans and English Laundry shirt you freakin' douche bag (see Women's Rule #2)! At any nice restaurant after dark you'll never be out of place in a jacket and tie. And you can always take off your tie and unbutton your shirt a couple buttons if you really do feel overdressed.
7. No shorts, no short-sleeved button-up shirts (just roll up your sleeves man!), no sweatpants, no athletic gear/sports team/designer logo t-shirts (go either solid/pattern or hipster ironic), no Velcro (ever), no sandals with socks, no white socks, no parkas/ski jackets/any coat you'd buy at REI or the North Face, no $5 digital watches (unless chosen very deliberately as part of a campy/ironic ensemble or featuring a calculator), no baseball/trucker hats , and no hats in general worn at the table.
Most importantly...
8. Dress consistently! Just because you're wearing slacks and a collared shirt doesn't mean you're "dressed up" and just because you're wearing jeans and a t-shirt doesn't mean you don't look "nice." These are standards that have been set for people under the age of fourteen and should remain such. Don't wear your dirty scuffed Rockports with a jacket and tie and don't wear Allen Edmonds bluchers with jeans and a t-shirt. Don't wear a long-tailed dress shirt untucked with jeans and don't tuck a pastel "South Lake Tahoe, California" t-shirt into your khakis.
But if you must tuck your novelty t-shirt into slacks, at least have the decency to complete the ensemble with an appropriate woven leather belt, and Tevas worn with white gym socks.
Going out to dinner is just that, going out. You're leaving the house to have fun, enjoy yourself, and be civilized. Dressing right (I don't mean fancy, I just mean with some thought and care) shows respect for yourself and, more importantly, respect for those around you.
Sorry to say, but being around nice-looking people is nice.
Thankfully times have changed, especially in California where the line between "fine" and "casual" dining is very very blurry and where one's appearance is judged on fashion and style rather than "appropriateness" and formality.
And where our waiters are out and proud.
There are some basic rules for what to wear when going out to dinner, and I now set them forth thusly for posterity.
I'll be speaking mostly about what men should wear, since I don't really know too much about women's fashion and men, generally speaking, need the most help in dressing for dinner. A couple basic rules for women:
1. When in doubt, wear a dress. I don't care if it's a gown or a cute little retro hipster thing, you'll always look good in a dress that fits you.
2. Strappy tops, skinny jeans, and stiletto heals are for the club and/or going out for cosmos with your girlfriends after seeing Sex and the City, not for dinner. Seriously, you don't look like Miranda, you look like a tramp.
On to the men:
1. A well-made solid colored t-shirt, stylish jeans, nice shoes, and a sweater or sport coat will work in 99% of instances.
2. Shoes are key. If you're going to wear sneakers they need to be distinctive and scuff-free. No jogging shoes or hiking boots (unless you're a lesbian). And don't wear black leather oxfords to dinner. Save those for the office.
3. If you're going to wear a sport coat and jeans, make sure you're wearing a true sport coat, not a suit jacket. It looks terrible. If you're to wear a t-shirt and sport coat, wear a very casual sport coat. Something made from cotton with patch pockets or vaguely safari-style is good. You can also opt for something nice but unconventional like a workman's jacket, Eisenhower jacket, or unadorned leather jacket. Wool jackets should pretty much always be worn with a collared shirt.
4. Unless you want to look like a 70 year-old man, never under any circumstances tuck any shirt other than your undershirt into your jeans. There are many nice collared shirts available that are darted and square-cut for this purpose. Do not wear a belt with your jeans if you can avoid it. Conversely, always tuck your shirt in (and wear a belt) if you're wearing slacks to dinner.
5. If you wear a jacket to dinner, leave your jacket on at the table. Especially if you are dining with a lady.
6. Do your research. If you're going out to dinner at night in the city at a restaurant with white tablecloths where you think you'll be spending $50+ a person on dinner, you can never go wrong with a jacket and tie. Period. Nobody's going to think you're cool because you went to the French Laundry in your True Religion jeans and English Laundry shirt you freakin' douche bag (see Women's Rule #2)! At any nice restaurant after dark you'll never be out of place in a jacket and tie. And you can always take off your tie and unbutton your shirt a couple buttons if you really do feel overdressed.
7. No shorts, no short-sleeved button-up shirts (just roll up your sleeves man!), no sweatpants, no athletic gear/sports team/designer logo t-shirts (go either solid/pattern or hipster ironic), no Velcro (ever), no sandals with socks, no white socks, no parkas/ski jackets/any coat you'd buy at REI or the North Face, no $5 digital watches (unless chosen very deliberately as part of a campy/ironic ensemble or featuring a calculator), no baseball/trucker hats , and no hats in general worn at the table.
Most importantly...
8. Dress consistently! Just because you're wearing slacks and a collared shirt doesn't mean you're "dressed up" and just because you're wearing jeans and a t-shirt doesn't mean you don't look "nice." These are standards that have been set for people under the age of fourteen and should remain such. Don't wear your dirty scuffed Rockports with a jacket and tie and don't wear Allen Edmonds bluchers with jeans and a t-shirt. Don't wear a long-tailed dress shirt untucked with jeans and don't tuck a pastel "South Lake Tahoe, California" t-shirt into your khakis.
But if you must tuck your novelty t-shirt into slacks, at least have the decency to complete the ensemble with an appropriate woven leather belt, and Tevas worn with white gym socks.
Going out to dinner is just that, going out. You're leaving the house to have fun, enjoy yourself, and be civilized. Dressing right (I don't mean fancy, I just mean with some thought and care) shows respect for yourself and, more importantly, respect for those around you.
Sorry to say, but being around nice-looking people is nice.
Friday, June 20, 2008
The Cheese Store of Silverlake
I'm skeptical of "gourmet food" markets. Especially in this day and age (and place) of California where most most large urban areas have some sort of full-service grocery store where you can find a dozen different kinds of marinated olives and where Trader Joe's has a selection of fine cheeses from all over the world that rivals even Wicked Entertainment's contract girls.
Most "gourmet food" markets are just slightly oversized delis selling expensive sandwiches, salty Spanish ham, and the shelf-stable imports that inevitably become coated with a delightful layer of dust as they sit so stably on the shelf.
My disdain makes me all the more pleased to say that the Cheese Store of Silverlake freakin' rocks. Where most stores like this fill their shelves with tuna packed in oil and a dozen different kinds of creepy Spanish cookies made with beef fat, CSSL has a selection of packaged goods the likes of which I've ne'er seen in all my years of poking through specialty food marts looking for salt-packed anchovies. Rice-a-Roni-esque packaged paellas from Spain (including octopus)? Check. Impossibly enormous and colorful dried pastas? Check. Locally made cookies and compotes? Indeed. Bottles of thick and sickeningly sweet coffee and strawberry flavored syrups from Rhode Island (the proprietor's home state)? Abso-freakin-lutely with a pickle on a stick!
When I browsed through the selection I got a sense that every product had a purpose and that whoever decided on the selection had a passion for every product sold, no matter how weird or obscure.
And of course the cheese, the selection of which towers throughout the well-chilled store. Cheese Store of Silverlake puts even the Cheese Board in Berkeley to shame with its selection. There's also the added bonus that the Cheese Store of Silver Lake is run by a former tour manager for Pat Benatar and Van Halen and staffed by a team of cute hipster girls and not by surly middle-aged Berkeley housewives looking to find "meaning" in their lives. The cheese selection is incredibly comprehensive but the Store has none of the California Cuisine and "I vacationed to Europe once" pretentiousness and self-importance that usually accompanies such establishments.
As an aside, while I was there a punk rock girl with short hair done up in a fauxhawk, tiny despite being close to eight months pregnant (with gorgeous milk-laden breasts), bought a couple cheeses and some fregola. It was without question the second the hottest thing I've ever seen.
CSSL also has a nice small selection of domestic and imported charcuterie, boquerones, olive oils (including "fill your own" from two large dispensers), dressings, locally-made candies and chocolates, and a small but global selection of hard-to-find small production wines (even some from Rhode Island).
I like parentheses.
The sandwich I had was excellent. Selection changes daily and most of the sandwiches are served hot, panini style, showcasing the well-selected cheese, pairing it simply with one or two meats and some sort of chutney, tapenade, or other semi-preserved vegetable.
I'll report on the octopus paella as soon as I bust open the box.
I know I'm probably very late to the game since the Cheese Store's been open for close to six years now, but it's new to me.
The Cheese Store of Silverlake
3926-28 West Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90029
323-644-7511
www.cheesestoresl.com
Most "gourmet food" markets are just slightly oversized delis selling expensive sandwiches, salty Spanish ham, and the shelf-stable imports that inevitably become coated with a delightful layer of dust as they sit so stably on the shelf.
My disdain makes me all the more pleased to say that the Cheese Store of Silverlake freakin' rocks. Where most stores like this fill their shelves with tuna packed in oil and a dozen different kinds of creepy Spanish cookies made with beef fat, CSSL has a selection of packaged goods the likes of which I've ne'er seen in all my years of poking through specialty food marts looking for salt-packed anchovies. Rice-a-Roni-esque packaged paellas from Spain (including octopus)? Check. Impossibly enormous and colorful dried pastas? Check. Locally made cookies and compotes? Indeed. Bottles of thick and sickeningly sweet coffee and strawberry flavored syrups from Rhode Island (the proprietor's home state)? Abso-freakin-lutely with a pickle on a stick!
When I browsed through the selection I got a sense that every product had a purpose and that whoever decided on the selection had a passion for every product sold, no matter how weird or obscure.
And of course the cheese, the selection of which towers throughout the well-chilled store. Cheese Store of Silverlake puts even the Cheese Board in Berkeley to shame with its selection. There's also the added bonus that the Cheese Store of Silver Lake is run by a former tour manager for Pat Benatar and Van Halen and staffed by a team of cute hipster girls and not by surly middle-aged Berkeley housewives looking to find "meaning" in their lives. The cheese selection is incredibly comprehensive but the Store has none of the California Cuisine and "I vacationed to Europe once" pretentiousness and self-importance that usually accompanies such establishments.
As an aside, while I was there a punk rock girl with short hair done up in a fauxhawk, tiny despite being close to eight months pregnant (with gorgeous milk-laden breasts), bought a couple cheeses and some fregola. It was without question the second the hottest thing I've ever seen.
CSSL also has a nice small selection of domestic and imported charcuterie, boquerones, olive oils (including "fill your own" from two large dispensers), dressings, locally-made candies and chocolates, and a small but global selection of hard-to-find small production wines (even some from Rhode Island).
I like parentheses.
The sandwich I had was excellent. Selection changes daily and most of the sandwiches are served hot, panini style, showcasing the well-selected cheese, pairing it simply with one or two meats and some sort of chutney, tapenade, or other semi-preserved vegetable.
I'll report on the octopus paella as soon as I bust open the box.
I know I'm probably very late to the game since the Cheese Store's been open for close to six years now, but it's new to me.
The Cheese Store of Silverlake
3926-28 West Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90029
323-644-7511
www.cheesestoresl.com
Monday, June 09, 2008
Seriously, Can We Stop This Already?
For those handful of regular HFF readers out there, most of my points that I'm about to expand upon in vitriolic rant form you're probably already familiar with.
However, as I've learned from careful study of my Google Analytics, most of my search engine hits have come from people searching "Yelp Sucks" or "I Hate Yelp" or a couple other anti-Yelp! combinations. This means that many people find my blog as a result of being pissed off and annoyed about SOMETHING, and usually those people like to read someone else being pissed off and annoyed.
I will not be ranting about Yelp! this time. Sorry.
Relatedly, if you happen to be the one person who stumbled across Horny For Food by searching for "Rachel Ray's Ass" on Google, please do leave a comment. You are my hero.
So, what can we please stop talking about already?
1. "Gourmet" hamburgers. This really has supplanted "gourmet" pizza as the go-to gimmick food of choice. Pretty much every restaurant of any sort where it wouldn't be remotely out of place serves a burger. And while there are the higher-end places like Spago, Boulevard, Zuni, Comme Ca, and Saddle Peak Lodge serving some version of a burger, what is more noticeable is the proliferation of the "gastropub" and "burger bar" style restaurants where (in theory) celebrity chefs have pissing contests with each other as to who can make the best burger and then charge $12-$16 (or more if made from Wagyu or foie gras is added).
So what's the problem? The problem is it's a goddamn freakin' burger! That's what the problem is. Burgers came out of a need to utilize and extend small quantities of meat of a middling quality. The poor discovered that, hey, I can chop up this meat and mix it with some bread crumbs, egg, and spices and form it into a steak-like patty and this ain't so bad. And I can make a pound of food out of a half-pound of meat. I would argue that perhaps the oft-touted McDonald's "100% Beef Burger" is more of a misnomer than it was before, as what we now consume are ground beef sandwiches and not hamburgers.
Fatty ground beef, cooked appropriately, and served on a roll with whatever assortment of condiments, is going to be delicious. Period. Making a burger out of Prime tenderloin is ridiculous. Making a burger out of Kobe-style beef is also ridiculous. In fact, eating Kobe-style beef in any form other than in seared-to-raw steak form is ridiculous. You want a Kobe-style beef burger? Add some butter to your ground grocery store chuck when you make the patties.
Let's look at the great scaling effect of prices.... I can get a 10 oz. prime rib at Sizzler for $9.99. I can get a 10 oz. prime rib at Epic Roasthouse for $33. Will the Epic prime rib be at least three times better than the grey gristly Sizzler prime rib? Hell yes. Will my whole $38 roast chicken at Zuni be four times better than the $9.99 one from Boston Market? Good freakin' lord yes.
But is the $14 burger from Father's Office three times better than a 4x4 animal style ($4.75) from In-N-Out?
I mean, REALLY think about it. Is the beef better quality? Well, yes but it's also ALL GROUND UP so what's really the point? In-N-Out always has respectably fresh produce for the price. And I'll take the soft sponge bread at In-N-Out over the weird fresh-from-Costco looking roll that Father's Office uses.
And for that $4.75 you get a fully customizable half-pound burger, not a take-it-or-leave-it prima donna burger.
Is the Father's Office burger "better"? Sure. Is it an equal (or even 1/3 equal) value? Hell no. Hell no with a cherry on top.
"Gourmet" burgers cater to people with limited taste who still want to indulge in fanciness. It's the "I drive an Escalade and wear a Rolex but I'm scared of food shaped with a timbale" crowd. It's the "I want to go to a fancy restaurant and spend $50 on lunch, but I want a steak and a caesar salad" crowd. It's a cousin of the "look at me I'm drinking Charles Shaw and that's just as classy as drinking something for $20 a bottle" crowd.
And of course restaurants are more than happy to oblige, as they make a pretty decent margin on their $14 burger, even if it is made from supermagichappybeef from beyond the moon.
That being said, everything I've had from Father's Office has been interesting, innovative, well-priced, and pretty damn good. I'm glad they sell hundreds of burgers a night to help subsidize the smoked eel and softshell crab.
I would even posit that the "who has the best burger" debate is more absurd than the "who has the best pizza" debate, since it's pretty clear to my mind that the $14 scarole pizza from Pizzeria Delfina is without any hesitation three times better than a $5 pepperoni pizza from Domino's (which in and of itself is probably better than most $10 pizzas offered at the scores of characterless "Trattoria" that populate the world).
2. Sweet Potato Fries. This is weird because I really like sweet potato fries. But they're everywhere now! At least in Los Angeles. It's like we all woke up one day and said "Hey, let's like sweet potato fries instead of regular potato fries. They're orange!" I think this is perhaps based on the incorrect reasoning that the sweet potato is better for you than the potato. The sweet potato is richer in certain nutrients than the potato, but the potato is a more well-rounded source of nutrients. I'm going to say that Mariah Carey started this trend because that makes the most sense. And anyone who has seen her cameo in Don't Mess With The Zohan knows that she makes excellent career and nutritional decisions.
3. Complaining About Food Being Overpriced. Dining out is inherently overpriced. Get over it. If you really care about it that much, then cook at home or eat at Del Taco. Most of the time, these people only complain about really expensive restaurants being overpriced. I find the bowl of mediocre dried pasta with a quarter-cup of bad vegetables passed off as "gourmet" pasta by Cafe Ugo for $9.99 to be way more overpriced than any $30 entree I've had out.
These people also have no understanding of the elaborate equations that go into pricing food at a restaurant, so they really can't speak to something being overpriced. They can speak to it being "not worth their money," but that's pretty much it.
4. Complaining About A Restaurant Being Overrated/Underrated. Of course it is! Anything that's rated is going to be overrated or underrated. That's the way it goes. I don't think Father's Office burger is overrated. I don't care. I just think it's a rip-off.
As an aside, I do enjoy all my dining companions who say that the Father's Office burger is "Good, but not worth the hype." Of course it's not, because (everyone now, all together) IT'S A MOTHERFUCKING BURGER! You're surprised?
That's a dig at the concept, not my friends. I adore my friends. I promise.
5. Bitching About "Incorrect" Ethnicities Cooking Food At Ethnic Restaurants. "Please, any sushi prepared my Mexicans isn't sushi." I've seen that on Yelp! innumerable times. How can that possibly be true? We don't say "any French food prepared by Mexicans isn't French food." Anthony Bourdain will tell you that of anybody he's ever worked with, the Mexicans from Puebla are the most talented cooks he's ever encountered. The current chef at Les Halles hails from Puebla.
It really smacks of racism. And it's the worst kind of racism: the racism from people who would be shocked and appalled to be called racist because they're worldly, liberal, support amnesty for illegal immigrants, and voted Green. So why don't you want brown people making your sushi? Why can it only be magical Asians?
After having worked in restaurants for so long, I'm skeptical of any skinny white kid wearing a "Le Cordon Bleu" culinary school jacket than I am of a Latin American, regardless of cuisine.
Yeah sure there's a cultural mystique around sushi, but unless you're going to one of those hallowed bastions of traditional Japanese dining and spending $100 a person you're not going to be getting an "authentic" Japanese experience anyway. Hell, when I went to Sebo I was served by the Japanese sushi chef, but it sure as hell looked like the white sushi chef serving the couples at the other end of the bar was quicker, more intense, and had better presentation skills. People are people, some are more talented, experienced, and better trained than others. Little if any of that has to do with race, culture, or gender.
And can we really trust all the rules of a culinary culture whose de facto prohibition of female sushi chefs was supported by the assertion that a woman's hands are too warm and would "cook" the fish in preparation?
I'm going to piggyback on this rant a rant against people who make a personal cultural identification claim to support their dismissal of a restaurant. Things like "My Tia Maria made me tamales growing up and these are NOT authentic tamales" or "My grandma is from Ireland and this was NOT real Irish soda bread" or "I dated a Korean chick once and this Bi Bim Bap sucks worse than she did." Why the fuck should I care? I don't know your Tia Maria. Maybe she sucked at making tamales. Maybe your Irish grandma used too much baking soda. And maybe that Korean chick had herpes.
Unless your assertion is "I've been a working food critic in Mexico City for ten years and have eaten at a broad assortment of that nation's finest restaurants and this American restaurant that makes a claim to provide that same type of cuisine falls far short of that aim," I don't care.
And a Subset-A piggyback on that piggyback point point, can we stop with this myth that "In Mexico, they don't actually eat spicy food." In Mexico they probably don't use the pure capsicum extract hot sauces that are popular among a certain American "let's see who has the bigger dick based on our ability to tolerate spiciness" culture, but they do use a lot of chili peppers. And every staff meal the guys in the kitchen made at the restaurants I've worked have been close to face-meltingly spicy. Do some people in Mexico not eat spicy food? I imagine so. Some people in America don't eat spicy food too.
You see, not everyone in Mexico is a tequila-drinking, sombrero-wearing, jalapeno-chomping stereotype.
Just as not every American is an obese, sandal-and-gym sock wearing, xenophobic, unworldly ignoramus.
I'd wager it's probably a helluvalot easier to find the latter before the former though.
However, as I've learned from careful study of my Google Analytics, most of my search engine hits have come from people searching "Yelp Sucks" or "I Hate Yelp" or a couple other anti-Yelp! combinations. This means that many people find my blog as a result of being pissed off and annoyed about SOMETHING, and usually those people like to read someone else being pissed off and annoyed.
I will not be ranting about Yelp! this time. Sorry.
Relatedly, if you happen to be the one person who stumbled across Horny For Food by searching for "Rachel Ray's Ass" on Google, please do leave a comment. You are my hero.
So, what can we please stop talking about already?
1. "Gourmet" hamburgers. This really has supplanted "gourmet" pizza as the go-to gimmick food of choice. Pretty much every restaurant of any sort where it wouldn't be remotely out of place serves a burger. And while there are the higher-end places like Spago, Boulevard, Zuni, Comme Ca, and Saddle Peak Lodge serving some version of a burger, what is more noticeable is the proliferation of the "gastropub" and "burger bar" style restaurants where (in theory) celebrity chefs have pissing contests with each other as to who can make the best burger and then charge $12-$16 (or more if made from Wagyu or foie gras is added).
So what's the problem? The problem is it's a goddamn freakin' burger! That's what the problem is. Burgers came out of a need to utilize and extend small quantities of meat of a middling quality. The poor discovered that, hey, I can chop up this meat and mix it with some bread crumbs, egg, and spices and form it into a steak-like patty and this ain't so bad. And I can make a pound of food out of a half-pound of meat. I would argue that perhaps the oft-touted McDonald's "100% Beef Burger" is more of a misnomer than it was before, as what we now consume are ground beef sandwiches and not hamburgers.
Fatty ground beef, cooked appropriately, and served on a roll with whatever assortment of condiments, is going to be delicious. Period. Making a burger out of Prime tenderloin is ridiculous. Making a burger out of Kobe-style beef is also ridiculous. In fact, eating Kobe-style beef in any form other than in seared-to-raw steak form is ridiculous. You want a Kobe-style beef burger? Add some butter to your ground grocery store chuck when you make the patties.
Let's look at the great scaling effect of prices.... I can get a 10 oz. prime rib at Sizzler for $9.99. I can get a 10 oz. prime rib at Epic Roasthouse for $33. Will the Epic prime rib be at least three times better than the grey gristly Sizzler prime rib? Hell yes. Will my whole $38 roast chicken at Zuni be four times better than the $9.99 one from Boston Market? Good freakin' lord yes.
But is the $14 burger from Father's Office three times better than a 4x4 animal style ($4.75) from In-N-Out?
I mean, REALLY think about it. Is the beef better quality? Well, yes but it's also ALL GROUND UP so what's really the point? In-N-Out always has respectably fresh produce for the price. And I'll take the soft sponge bread at In-N-Out over the weird fresh-from-Costco looking roll that Father's Office uses.
And for that $4.75 you get a fully customizable half-pound burger, not a take-it-or-leave-it prima donna burger.
Is the Father's Office burger "better"? Sure. Is it an equal (or even 1/3 equal) value? Hell no. Hell no with a cherry on top.
"Gourmet" burgers cater to people with limited taste who still want to indulge in fanciness. It's the "I drive an Escalade and wear a Rolex but I'm scared of food shaped with a timbale" crowd. It's the "I want to go to a fancy restaurant and spend $50 on lunch, but I want a steak and a caesar salad" crowd. It's a cousin of the "look at me I'm drinking Charles Shaw and that's just as classy as drinking something for $20 a bottle" crowd.
And of course restaurants are more than happy to oblige, as they make a pretty decent margin on their $14 burger, even if it is made from supermagichappybeef from beyond the moon.
That being said, everything I've had from Father's Office has been interesting, innovative, well-priced, and pretty damn good. I'm glad they sell hundreds of burgers a night to help subsidize the smoked eel and softshell crab.
I would even posit that the "who has the best burger" debate is more absurd than the "who has the best pizza" debate, since it's pretty clear to my mind that the $14 scarole pizza from Pizzeria Delfina is without any hesitation three times better than a $5 pepperoni pizza from Domino's (which in and of itself is probably better than most $10 pizzas offered at the scores of characterless "Trattoria" that populate the world).
2. Sweet Potato Fries. This is weird because I really like sweet potato fries. But they're everywhere now! At least in Los Angeles. It's like we all woke up one day and said "Hey, let's like sweet potato fries instead of regular potato fries. They're orange!" I think this is perhaps based on the incorrect reasoning that the sweet potato is better for you than the potato. The sweet potato is richer in certain nutrients than the potato, but the potato is a more well-rounded source of nutrients. I'm going to say that Mariah Carey started this trend because that makes the most sense. And anyone who has seen her cameo in Don't Mess With The Zohan knows that she makes excellent career and nutritional decisions.
3. Complaining About Food Being Overpriced. Dining out is inherently overpriced. Get over it. If you really care about it that much, then cook at home or eat at Del Taco. Most of the time, these people only complain about really expensive restaurants being overpriced. I find the bowl of mediocre dried pasta with a quarter-cup of bad vegetables passed off as "gourmet" pasta by Cafe Ugo for $9.99 to be way more overpriced than any $30 entree I've had out.
These people also have no understanding of the elaborate equations that go into pricing food at a restaurant, so they really can't speak to something being overpriced. They can speak to it being "not worth their money," but that's pretty much it.
4. Complaining About A Restaurant Being Overrated/Underrated. Of course it is! Anything that's rated is going to be overrated or underrated. That's the way it goes. I don't think Father's Office burger is overrated. I don't care. I just think it's a rip-off.
As an aside, I do enjoy all my dining companions who say that the Father's Office burger is "Good, but not worth the hype." Of course it's not, because (everyone now, all together) IT'S A MOTHERFUCKING BURGER! You're surprised?
That's a dig at the concept, not my friends. I adore my friends. I promise.
5. Bitching About "Incorrect" Ethnicities Cooking Food At Ethnic Restaurants. "Please, any sushi prepared my Mexicans isn't sushi." I've seen that on Yelp! innumerable times. How can that possibly be true? We don't say "any French food prepared by Mexicans isn't French food." Anthony Bourdain will tell you that of anybody he's ever worked with, the Mexicans from Puebla are the most talented cooks he's ever encountered. The current chef at Les Halles hails from Puebla.
It really smacks of racism. And it's the worst kind of racism: the racism from people who would be shocked and appalled to be called racist because they're worldly, liberal, support amnesty for illegal immigrants, and voted Green. So why don't you want brown people making your sushi? Why can it only be magical Asians?
After having worked in restaurants for so long, I'm skeptical of any skinny white kid wearing a "Le Cordon Bleu" culinary school jacket than I am of a Latin American, regardless of cuisine.
Yeah sure there's a cultural mystique around sushi, but unless you're going to one of those hallowed bastions of traditional Japanese dining and spending $100 a person you're not going to be getting an "authentic" Japanese experience anyway. Hell, when I went to Sebo I was served by the Japanese sushi chef, but it sure as hell looked like the white sushi chef serving the couples at the other end of the bar was quicker, more intense, and had better presentation skills. People are people, some are more talented, experienced, and better trained than others. Little if any of that has to do with race, culture, or gender.
And can we really trust all the rules of a culinary culture whose de facto prohibition of female sushi chefs was supported by the assertion that a woman's hands are too warm and would "cook" the fish in preparation?
I'm going to piggyback on this rant a rant against people who make a personal cultural identification claim to support their dismissal of a restaurant. Things like "My Tia Maria made me tamales growing up and these are NOT authentic tamales" or "My grandma is from Ireland and this was NOT real Irish soda bread" or "I dated a Korean chick once and this Bi Bim Bap sucks worse than she did." Why the fuck should I care? I don't know your Tia Maria. Maybe she sucked at making tamales. Maybe your Irish grandma used too much baking soda. And maybe that Korean chick had herpes.
Unless your assertion is "I've been a working food critic in Mexico City for ten years and have eaten at a broad assortment of that nation's finest restaurants and this American restaurant that makes a claim to provide that same type of cuisine falls far short of that aim," I don't care.
And a Subset-A piggyback on that piggyback point point, can we stop with this myth that "In Mexico, they don't actually eat spicy food." In Mexico they probably don't use the pure capsicum extract hot sauces that are popular among a certain American "let's see who has the bigger dick based on our ability to tolerate spiciness" culture, but they do use a lot of chili peppers. And every staff meal the guys in the kitchen made at the restaurants I've worked have been close to face-meltingly spicy. Do some people in Mexico not eat spicy food? I imagine so. Some people in America don't eat spicy food too.
You see, not everyone in Mexico is a tequila-drinking, sombrero-wearing, jalapeno-chomping stereotype.
Just as not every American is an obese, sandal-and-gym sock wearing, xenophobic, unworldly ignoramus.
I'd wager it's probably a helluvalot easier to find the latter before the former though.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
HFF Has Lunch: Govinda's - Los Angeles Ca
I never had Thai Temple brunch.
That's right, I admit it. For some reason I never had the urge to drag my ass out of bed early on a Sunday to then drive way out into West Berkeley to then circle for parking for twenty minutes to then stand in a long line around really really really (really) ugly Berkeleyans, so I could THEN get what I can only assume will be competent home-cooked Thai food for a relatively low price.
After reading some Yelp! reviews of the Thai Temple, I can assume that my experience at Govinda's here in LA was pretty much exactly the same, only with vegetarian Indian food in the place of Thai cuisine.
When I moved to LA, I moved to an area called "Palms." Palms is considered the last "ungentrified" area of the Westside, though admittedly it looks pretty g-d gentrified to me. I suppose that the the fact that 92% of Palms residents live in apartment buildings prevents the inevitable influx of Persian Palaces and McMansions. Still, I do like it here because there is a nice diversity, it's very close to trendy downtown Culver City, and it lets me take surface streets or I-10 to most of my necessary destinations, eliminating the dreaded 405 and 101 commutes.
The other exciting part? I live about a block from the biggest International Society for Krishna Consciousness center (read "Hare Krishna Temple") in California. When I go for my morning (okay, late morning) jog, I dart past innumerable saffron-robed white men with shaved heads and the, surprisingly enough, occasional Indian woman.
It's kinda nice. The Society also owns several of the apartment buildings on my block and everything is kept pretty neat and tidy. And the temple has a restaurant serving up lunch and dinner in buffet form every day of the week.
Once-a-week Thai Brunch can suck it.
For $6 I get either a dine-in plate or a to-go box loaded with Indian food from a buffet. I'm told that during the week they also operate a takeout stand with sandwiches and roti wraps. This stand was closed when I went.
After entering the temple, I stood in a relatively short line behind a woman who looked a lot like what dirty middle-aged white collar hippy douchebags in Berkeley would look like if they actually exercised, wore make-up, and cared how they dressed. But looking presentable can only go so far as I had to listen to her attempt to make friends with every person who served her and had to watch her as she stuck her hand underneath the sneeze guard and pointed with her finger at every item she wanted.
There are only, like, six things, so I don't see the need for such an invasive examination.
Anyway, I was greeted by a surly Indian gentleman (the only one--everyone else working behind the counter were earnest young European-Americans). He scooped some Jasmine rice on my plate, added some Dal, a couple pakora, some stewed cauliflower, a potato and cabbage dish, and some other very yellowish green vegetable items.
It's a well known fact that religious cults (and prisons) keep their members (prisoners) in thrall partly through sensory deprivation.
I can see how after eating Govinda's food for any period of time, even the mindless chanting of "hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare" might be exciting.
Where's the fucking flavor people? We're talking Indian food here! Up there with Ethiopian in terms of spice per square inch! Unfortunately the Krsna folks don't believe in onions, garlic, and (one would presume) salt, three ingredients which have done more for providing pleasure to the masses than the Dolphin Vibrator, Hitachi Magic Wand, and me combined.
I'm not going to say the food was bad. It wasn't. It was decent. It was the type of food that I'd expect a modestly skilled family in India to prepare on a daily basis. And it was only $6, so who am I to complain?
I wouldn't be complaining were it not for the glowing reviews of this place on Yelp! and other sites. This just reinforces my opinion that the Powers That Be on the Internet (middle class and wealthier whites and east Asians) find things produced by those not in the Powers That Be on the Internet (poor whites and other minorities) absolutely fascinating and worthy of praise when in fact they're probably no different than yourselves, except that their moms can't afford to grab takeout or Costco lasagna for every meal and instead have to, you know, cook a meal with cheap staples instead.
My food from Govinda's was strikingly lacking in, well, flavor. It just tasted like potatoes, cabbage, chickpeas, et al. These things are really really bland by themselves. They take great to spices, which is why Indian food is able to create magic from these bland components, but if you're unwilling to saturate them in spices and ghee, well, then they just taste like "meh."
The dal was respectably okay, the caulflower and zucchini dish was very bitter, the cabbage and potato dish was pleasantly wholesome, the pakora weren't crisp, and the roti was decent.
I'm not saying it was a bad meal! I'm not!
I'm saying it was a mediocre meal, worthy of it's $6 price tag, but not worthy of its innumerable praise on Yelp! by any means. I can toss a bunch of vegetables in a pot with spices and create a reasonable approximation of the food at Govinda's, devotion to God or not.
And it should be mentioned that Indian buffets in the $10 range offer a marked step up in quality, variety, and complexity.
That being said, I'm glad Govinda's is there and I imagine I'll make a return trip. I mean, you can't fault the place for producing a cheap product of respectable quality. I can only fault the innumerable douche bags who vaunt this meal as somehow better than their local fine dining restaurants, or even on par with a modest for-profit Indian buffet.
It's mediocre and inexpensive. That's it.
Govinda's
3764 Watseka Avenue
Los Angeles, Ca • 90034
310-836-1269
www.govindasla.com
That's right, I admit it. For some reason I never had the urge to drag my ass out of bed early on a Sunday to then drive way out into West Berkeley to then circle for parking for twenty minutes to then stand in a long line around really really really (really) ugly Berkeleyans, so I could THEN get what I can only assume will be competent home-cooked Thai food for a relatively low price.
After reading some Yelp! reviews of the Thai Temple, I can assume that my experience at Govinda's here in LA was pretty much exactly the same, only with vegetarian Indian food in the place of Thai cuisine.
When I moved to LA, I moved to an area called "Palms." Palms is considered the last "ungentrified" area of the Westside, though admittedly it looks pretty g-d gentrified to me. I suppose that the the fact that 92% of Palms residents live in apartment buildings prevents the inevitable influx of Persian Palaces and McMansions. Still, I do like it here because there is a nice diversity, it's very close to trendy downtown Culver City, and it lets me take surface streets or I-10 to most of my necessary destinations, eliminating the dreaded 405 and 101 commutes.
The other exciting part? I live about a block from the biggest International Society for Krishna Consciousness center (read "Hare Krishna Temple") in California. When I go for my morning (okay, late morning) jog, I dart past innumerable saffron-robed white men with shaved heads and the, surprisingly enough, occasional Indian woman.
It's kinda nice. The Society also owns several of the apartment buildings on my block and everything is kept pretty neat and tidy. And the temple has a restaurant serving up lunch and dinner in buffet form every day of the week.
Once-a-week Thai Brunch can suck it.
For $6 I get either a dine-in plate or a to-go box loaded with Indian food from a buffet. I'm told that during the week they also operate a takeout stand with sandwiches and roti wraps. This stand was closed when I went.
After entering the temple, I stood in a relatively short line behind a woman who looked a lot like what dirty middle-aged white collar hippy douchebags in Berkeley would look like if they actually exercised, wore make-up, and cared how they dressed. But looking presentable can only go so far as I had to listen to her attempt to make friends with every person who served her and had to watch her as she stuck her hand underneath the sneeze guard and pointed with her finger at every item she wanted.
There are only, like, six things, so I don't see the need for such an invasive examination.
Anyway, I was greeted by a surly Indian gentleman (the only one--everyone else working behind the counter were earnest young European-Americans). He scooped some Jasmine rice on my plate, added some Dal, a couple pakora, some stewed cauliflower, a potato and cabbage dish, and some other very yellowish green vegetable items.
It's a well known fact that religious cults (and prisons) keep their members (prisoners) in thrall partly through sensory deprivation.
I can see how after eating Govinda's food for any period of time, even the mindless chanting of "hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare" might be exciting.
Where's the fucking flavor people? We're talking Indian food here! Up there with Ethiopian in terms of spice per square inch! Unfortunately the Krsna folks don't believe in onions, garlic, and (one would presume) salt, three ingredients which have done more for providing pleasure to the masses than the Dolphin Vibrator, Hitachi Magic Wand, and me combined.
I'm not going to say the food was bad. It wasn't. It was decent. It was the type of food that I'd expect a modestly skilled family in India to prepare on a daily basis. And it was only $6, so who am I to complain?
I wouldn't be complaining were it not for the glowing reviews of this place on Yelp! and other sites. This just reinforces my opinion that the Powers That Be on the Internet (middle class and wealthier whites and east Asians) find things produced by those not in the Powers That Be on the Internet (poor whites and other minorities) absolutely fascinating and worthy of praise when in fact they're probably no different than yourselves, except that their moms can't afford to grab takeout or Costco lasagna for every meal and instead have to, you know, cook a meal with cheap staples instead.
My food from Govinda's was strikingly lacking in, well, flavor. It just tasted like potatoes, cabbage, chickpeas, et al. These things are really really bland by themselves. They take great to spices, which is why Indian food is able to create magic from these bland components, but if you're unwilling to saturate them in spices and ghee, well, then they just taste like "meh."
The dal was respectably okay, the caulflower and zucchini dish was very bitter, the cabbage and potato dish was pleasantly wholesome, the pakora weren't crisp, and the roti was decent.
I'm not saying it was a bad meal! I'm not!
I'm saying it was a mediocre meal, worthy of it's $6 price tag, but not worthy of its innumerable praise on Yelp! by any means. I can toss a bunch of vegetables in a pot with spices and create a reasonable approximation of the food at Govinda's, devotion to God or not.
And it should be mentioned that Indian buffets in the $10 range offer a marked step up in quality, variety, and complexity.
That being said, I'm glad Govinda's is there and I imagine I'll make a return trip. I mean, you can't fault the place for producing a cheap product of respectable quality. I can only fault the innumerable douche bags who vaunt this meal as somehow better than their local fine dining restaurants, or even on par with a modest for-profit Indian buffet.
It's mediocre and inexpensive. That's it.
Govinda's
3764 Watseka Avenue
Los Angeles, Ca • 90034
310-836-1269
www.govindasla.com
Friday, May 30, 2008
Imitation, Flattery, and Everything in Between
Are you familiar with the concept of the "Plague Doctor?"
In the 14th century dudes dressed up in a long overcoat and leather breeches sealed with wax or suet, donned a wide-brimmed black cap and a freaky bird-beak mask stuffed with aromatic herbs and which had red glass lenses over the eyes. They went around town with a long stick and poked sick people to determine whether or not they had the plague.
Some people say the outfit had mystical properties to draw out illness when in fact it probably had the very real property of protecting the doctor while simultaneously making him a handy disease vector as he roamed around town in his leather and animal fat outfit, high off of rosemary fumes.
A Plague Doctor probably looked like this:
The inimitable style of the Plague Doctor would then be oft-imitated by many a goth or medieval fetishist, while also making for a pretty spooky Halloween costume.
The Plague Doctor costume is number two on the list of "What to Wear to a Party to get a Chubby Goth Girl to Go Home With You." Number three on the list is Ogre from Skinny Puppy strapped to your back. Number one on the list is a Fine Christmas Ham.
What's my point in this random madness? Why it's an opportunity for me to discuss yet another interesting distinction that I see in the restaurant business here in LA versus back home in San Francisco.
For those of you not attuned to the obtuse clues I've been leaving, I moved to Los Angeles about a month ago.
In SF very few restaurants would deign to serve something that another restaurant also was serving, unless said item came from that Hallowed Pantheon of Culinary Things--fish and chips is a "thing," steak frites is a "thing," foie gras and brioche is a "thing," roast chicken and bread salad is a "thing," et al.
But say a restaurant served some sort of mild white fish crusted with herbs, olives, and bread crumbs, on a bed of fondant leeks; no other restaurant is going to do that. That would be ripping them off. As delicious and simple as portobello fritters are, no other restaurant is going to serve them because that's one of Rivoli's signature dishes.
Though last time I checked fried mushrooms were on the menu at TGI Fridays for a long time.
That's not the case in LA. In fact, you can find certain menu items at many trendy new restaurants (particularly those with a "wine bar" emphasis) in disparate locations. These include blue cheese-stuffed bacon-wrapped dates, truffled grilled cheese sandwich, truffled mac and cheese, truffled frites, and lollipop-style petit lamb chops.
LA, even among the upper-echelon of restaurants, is perfectly willing to do what another restaurant is already doing. Because hey, if it works for them, why not?
While I don't inherently object to this trend, it definitely goes a long way to showing the restaurant's hand. It immediately exposes the restaurant as a place that is all about providing an immediately appealing product for the masses as opposed to a restaurant that wants to provide a innovative quality product. They want to go with what works.
It's sort of a classier version of fried calamari or fried shrimp. It's just something that Joe and Jane Midwest expect to see on the menu at every restaurant, regardless of location or cuisine.
I admire restaurants that don't want to do that. I admire restaurants that offer food that people haven't heard of. I admire restaurants that challenge their diners.
And the funny thing is, a helluva lot more restaurants that cater to the masses got out of business sooner than restaurants that are pushing that oh-so-cliche envelope.
So I raise a proverbial (and literal) glass to those restaurants that achieve success on their own terms. To those restaurants that force their diners to experiment, learn, and enrich. To those restaurants who show their customers that there is more in this world than filet mignon, roast salmon, and Caesar salad.
Cheers.
In the 14th century dudes dressed up in a long overcoat and leather breeches sealed with wax or suet, donned a wide-brimmed black cap and a freaky bird-beak mask stuffed with aromatic herbs and which had red glass lenses over the eyes. They went around town with a long stick and poked sick people to determine whether or not they had the plague.
Some people say the outfit had mystical properties to draw out illness when in fact it probably had the very real property of protecting the doctor while simultaneously making him a handy disease vector as he roamed around town in his leather and animal fat outfit, high off of rosemary fumes.
A Plague Doctor probably looked like this:
The inimitable style of the Plague Doctor would then be oft-imitated by many a goth or medieval fetishist, while also making for a pretty spooky Halloween costume.The Plague Doctor costume is number two on the list of "What to Wear to a Party to get a Chubby Goth Girl to Go Home With You." Number three on the list is Ogre from Skinny Puppy strapped to your back. Number one on the list is a Fine Christmas Ham.
What's my point in this random madness? Why it's an opportunity for me to discuss yet another interesting distinction that I see in the restaurant business here in LA versus back home in San Francisco.
For those of you not attuned to the obtuse clues I've been leaving, I moved to Los Angeles about a month ago.
In SF very few restaurants would deign to serve something that another restaurant also was serving, unless said item came from that Hallowed Pantheon of Culinary Things--fish and chips is a "thing," steak frites is a "thing," foie gras and brioche is a "thing," roast chicken and bread salad is a "thing," et al.
But say a restaurant served some sort of mild white fish crusted with herbs, olives, and bread crumbs, on a bed of fondant leeks; no other restaurant is going to do that. That would be ripping them off. As delicious and simple as portobello fritters are, no other restaurant is going to serve them because that's one of Rivoli's signature dishes.
Though last time I checked fried mushrooms were on the menu at TGI Fridays for a long time.
That's not the case in LA. In fact, you can find certain menu items at many trendy new restaurants (particularly those with a "wine bar" emphasis) in disparate locations. These include blue cheese-stuffed bacon-wrapped dates, truffled grilled cheese sandwich, truffled mac and cheese, truffled frites, and lollipop-style petit lamb chops.
LA, even among the upper-echelon of restaurants, is perfectly willing to do what another restaurant is already doing. Because hey, if it works for them, why not?
While I don't inherently object to this trend, it definitely goes a long way to showing the restaurant's hand. It immediately exposes the restaurant as a place that is all about providing an immediately appealing product for the masses as opposed to a restaurant that wants to provide a innovative quality product. They want to go with what works.
It's sort of a classier version of fried calamari or fried shrimp. It's just something that Joe and Jane Midwest expect to see on the menu at every restaurant, regardless of location or cuisine.
I admire restaurants that don't want to do that. I admire restaurants that offer food that people haven't heard of. I admire restaurants that challenge their diners.
And the funny thing is, a helluva lot more restaurants that cater to the masses got out of business sooner than restaurants that are pushing that oh-so-cliche envelope.
So I raise a proverbial (and literal) glass to those restaurants that achieve success on their own terms. To those restaurants that force their diners to experiment, learn, and enrich. To those restaurants who show their customers that there is more in this world than filet mignon, roast salmon, and Caesar salad.
Cheers.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Grapes: The Next Generation
Many people come up to me and ask: "Hey Dave, what're the next hot wine grapes?" And I tell them "Hey, what the fuck are you doing in my dream?"
And while grapes and Star Trek may share nothing more than the smooth roundness of Patrick Stewart's cranium, here're the grapes that I think will be the next big things.
First, let me say that I'm ruling out all the grapes that others have already been called "the next Chardonnay" or "the next Pinot Noir." These grapes are: Albarino, Gruner Veltliner, and Hondarobbi Zuri/Txakoli (white) and Grenache, Tempranillo, and Carignane (red).
On to my picks.
The whites:
Godello. This floral and crisp Spanish varietal is going to be the next rock star wine. It's brisk and zippy like Albarino or Gruner Veltliner, but more strongly floral like a good Riesling or Semillon. It's swiggity swiggity awesome. You thought I was going to say sweet?
Verdejo. So yeah, "Rueda" isn't a grape, it's a region. In most instances Verdejo is the grape that you mean. So ask for a Verdejo. Some examples are crisp and clean like a lean Sauvignon Blanc, others can have a more pronounced tropical fruit character like... a more tropical fruit-heavy Sauvignon Blanc. But it's not like a Sauvignon Blanc, I swear! Did I mention that Rueda also grows excellent Sauvignon Blanc?
Maria Gomes. Sure it might sound like a Univision soap opera star, but this Portuguese Muscat cultivar is pretty freakin' great. It's dry without being overly acidic, has a nice softness and a fuller mouthfeel. Some of the best examples taste like a nice white Bordeaux. It also takes well to sparkling treatments, tasting somewhat like a Cremant d'Alsace or a drier Sekt. Some of the finer examples compare favorably to Champagne for a fraction of the price.
And now, the red wines.
Let me just say that I think we're going to see red blends make a push for dominance over single-varietal wines in the near future. Red wines, more so than white, take well to blending to temper the strengths and mask the weaknesses of the individual varietals. Blends to watch out for:
Port-style blends in table wine. Many of the Port varietals (Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Franca, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Cao) make excellent dry table wines. Besides Tinta Roriz (which is the Portuguese name for Tempranillo), Touriga Nacional and Tinta Franca blend quite well together and with Tinta Roriz. These wines typically have nice plum-y fruit, good light tannins, and a food-friendly acidity.
Spanish red blends. Sure Spain makes excellent single-varietal Tempranillo, Garnacha, et al, but the blends are where value can really be found. Look for Garnacha-heavy blends that may also utilize classic varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah. Capcanes and Montsant are two good regions with quite a few experimental bodegas.
And then two single varietals to watch out for:
Mourvedre. This oft-marginalized Rhone varietal is only given a regular opportunity to express itself in the red wines of Bandol in Provence and the wines of coastal northeastern Spain (where it's known as Monastrell). A few California vineyards in hot Contra Costa County and the Central Valley around Lodi are growing Mourvedre with some solid results. When given the chance to ripen properly, Mourvedre presents solid fruit, smoke, and dusty earth. It's higher yielding nature means it should always offer a quality wine for the price.
Tannat. Uruguayan Tannat will be the next Argentinian Malbec. Another instance of a Latin American country embracing a marginal French grape with excellent results. When grown in Uruguay, Tannat loses much of it's grippy tannic edge and instead presents a medium bodied, firmly structured wine with lightly steeped tannins and a surprising minerality. Production currently isn't enough to push prices down to Argentinian levels of five years ago, but superb examples can be found for $15-$20 retail. You can also find excellent (and much fuller-bodied) Tannats from the subregions of Madiran and Irouleguy in France. These can offer some of the finest values in French wine.
You heard it here first. I'm calling it now. This is my 1982 vintage.
And while grapes and Star Trek may share nothing more than the smooth roundness of Patrick Stewart's cranium, here're the grapes that I think will be the next big things.
First, let me say that I'm ruling out all the grapes that others have already been called "the next Chardonnay" or "the next Pinot Noir." These grapes are: Albarino, Gruner Veltliner, and Hondarobbi Zuri/Txakoli (white) and Grenache, Tempranillo, and Carignane (red).
On to my picks.
The whites:
Godello. This floral and crisp Spanish varietal is going to be the next rock star wine. It's brisk and zippy like Albarino or Gruner Veltliner, but more strongly floral like a good Riesling or Semillon. It's swiggity swiggity awesome. You thought I was going to say sweet?
Verdejo. So yeah, "Rueda" isn't a grape, it's a region. In most instances Verdejo is the grape that you mean. So ask for a Verdejo. Some examples are crisp and clean like a lean Sauvignon Blanc, others can have a more pronounced tropical fruit character like... a more tropical fruit-heavy Sauvignon Blanc. But it's not like a Sauvignon Blanc, I swear! Did I mention that Rueda also grows excellent Sauvignon Blanc?
Maria Gomes. Sure it might sound like a Univision soap opera star, but this Portuguese Muscat cultivar is pretty freakin' great. It's dry without being overly acidic, has a nice softness and a fuller mouthfeel. Some of the best examples taste like a nice white Bordeaux. It also takes well to sparkling treatments, tasting somewhat like a Cremant d'Alsace or a drier Sekt. Some of the finer examples compare favorably to Champagne for a fraction of the price.
And now, the red wines.
Let me just say that I think we're going to see red blends make a push for dominance over single-varietal wines in the near future. Red wines, more so than white, take well to blending to temper the strengths and mask the weaknesses of the individual varietals. Blends to watch out for:
Port-style blends in table wine. Many of the Port varietals (Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Franca, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Cao) make excellent dry table wines. Besides Tinta Roriz (which is the Portuguese name for Tempranillo), Touriga Nacional and Tinta Franca blend quite well together and with Tinta Roriz. These wines typically have nice plum-y fruit, good light tannins, and a food-friendly acidity.
Spanish red blends. Sure Spain makes excellent single-varietal Tempranillo, Garnacha, et al, but the blends are where value can really be found. Look for Garnacha-heavy blends that may also utilize classic varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah. Capcanes and Montsant are two good regions with quite a few experimental bodegas.
And then two single varietals to watch out for:
Mourvedre. This oft-marginalized Rhone varietal is only given a regular opportunity to express itself in the red wines of Bandol in Provence and the wines of coastal northeastern Spain (where it's known as Monastrell). A few California vineyards in hot Contra Costa County and the Central Valley around Lodi are growing Mourvedre with some solid results. When given the chance to ripen properly, Mourvedre presents solid fruit, smoke, and dusty earth. It's higher yielding nature means it should always offer a quality wine for the price.
Tannat. Uruguayan Tannat will be the next Argentinian Malbec. Another instance of a Latin American country embracing a marginal French grape with excellent results. When grown in Uruguay, Tannat loses much of it's grippy tannic edge and instead presents a medium bodied, firmly structured wine with lightly steeped tannins and a surprising minerality. Production currently isn't enough to push prices down to Argentinian levels of five years ago, but superb examples can be found for $15-$20 retail. You can also find excellent (and much fuller-bodied) Tannats from the subregions of Madiran and Irouleguy in France. These can offer some of the finest values in French wine.
You heard it here first. I'm calling it now. This is my 1982 vintage.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Organic, Sustainable, Biodynamic, Sulfite-Free
In Berkeley, these four words, Organic, Sustainable, Biodynamic, and Sulfite-Free have become commonly heard in wine shops and restaurants.
Here's the problem. Nobody has any fucking clue what they mean.
I've long said that wine is a drink you can feel good about, assuming we mean small-production wine and not massive factory-farmed estates.
Good wine grapes grow in soil that is otherwise not particularly great for anything else. It is a quickly renewable crop that doesn't damage soil. Vineyards can prevent erosion and create natural firebreaks. And many many vineyards dry farm their grapes, meaning that no additional irrigation takes place. Even if irrigation does take place it's in most instances negligible when compared to many other crops.
Most importantly, grapes aren't a staple crop, so consumption of wine (as opposed to say, beer) isn't contributing to the rapid price inflation coupled (strangely) with rampant subsidizing of staple grains.
But there's nothing wrong with seeking out wines with these descriptors, but before you just go out searching for these products, here's a basic layman's rundown:
1. Organic. Organic wine means just what it means when we're talking about other produce. The grapes are grown according to one of the many organic certifying-organizations, most commonly the USDA, Oregon Tilth, or CCOF. Note that truly "organic wines" are very rare as the United States prohibits the addition of sulfites in organic wines (even though sulfur dioxide itself can be organic and has been used for centuries) and other aspects of the wine making are restricted. It is much more common to see "wine made from organic grapes." You can feel equally good about either. In most instances organic grape wines will be superior to fully organic wines, as the lack of sulfur will reduce stability and increase the likelihood of spoilage.
2. Sustainable. Sustainable is a bit more nebulous term as there are very few regulatory bodies. Sustainability means that the wine makers ascribe to basic fundamentals about responsible farming practices, utilizing organic pesticides and natural pest controls. But it's hard to know if a winery is merely playing lip service to sustainability or actually providing an environmentally conscious product. There is a voluntary sustainable-certification organization in Sonoma County and a government certification in Spain. There may be others, but I'm not aware of them.
3. Biodynamic. Okay, this is a weird one. Biodynamic isn't just organic, and in many instances biodynamic isn't organic due to the aforementioned sulfur problem. Biodynamic means the grape growers and wine makers practiced farming and wine making practices that are certified by the international Demeter association. The vast majority of biodynamics is medieval-era geomancy. Included in biodynamics are the planting of a horn full of manure in your vineyard, treating pest problems by burning one of said pests, mixing it with wet sulfur (gee, I wonder why this worked), and then casting it on the grapes.
Oh, and by the way, if there is a field mouse problem you're supposed to scatter the ashes of field mouse skin in the vineyard...when Venus is in the Scorpio constellation, just to be sage about it. Biodynamics is a big scam with no real significance to wine making except that 1, you know that your wine is made completely naturally, and 2, the process is so detailed that you know that the vineyard managers at least have to pay very close attention. It doesn't mean they're GOOD grape growers, but at least they're paying attention.
4. Sulfite-Free. You will find very few sulfite-free wines. There's a reason for this, for a wine to be sulfite-free it actually needs to undergo a sulfite-removal process. Now that's hardly naturally, isn't it? One of the reasons we can make wine is that grapes have a decent amount of naturally-occurring sulfur dioxide on their skin. Many fruits do (apricots most significantly). This sulfur dioxide is a natural defense from disease and rot. It's a preservative.
The reason we can make raisins right out in the sun without having to add sulfur or acid to the grapes is because of this sulfur. The reason pressed grape juice can ferment into tasty wine instead of rotting into spoiled juice is because of the sulfur dioxide and to a lesser extent, tannins.
Are there people who are sensitive to sulfur, even deathly allergic? Sure. But there are a whole fuck ton more people who just think they are because it's yet another thing they can feel special about.
How do I know this? Two reasons. Most people who claim sulfite-sensitivity also note they have more of a problem with red wine than white wine. This is retarded. There are more sulfites in white wine than red wine. Red wine has more natural preservative from the tannins than in white wine, so white wine requires additional sulfur dioxide. Secondly, most people describe their sulfite-sensitivity as causing headaches. This is also retarded. Sulfite-sensitivity manifests in respiratory problems, not headaches.
Many wines in Europe that are drunk domestically and meant to be consumed within a year or two don't often have added sulfur since the natural sulfites will be enough of a preservative for that short period, but wine that is meant to endure the trials of shipping and export and the rigors of aging require sulfites or this wine will spoil. Period.
And then if a wine has no sulfites at all it becomes very unstable even for short periods of time and really won't last more than six months if you're lucky.
So yeah, you know what? If you actually have a legitimate sulfur allergy, then don't drink wine. Sorry. Drink beer, spirits, kombucha whatever. And if you DON'T have a sulfur allergy (and most of you don't) then just get over it and enjoy. Why waste so much time worrying when you can just enjoy yourself?
I'm convinced that people use "sulfur" as an excuse to hide their hang-ups about drinking. It's a way to self-regulate something without having to assume personal responsibility.
Here's the problem. Nobody has any fucking clue what they mean.
I've long said that wine is a drink you can feel good about, assuming we mean small-production wine and not massive factory-farmed estates.
Good wine grapes grow in soil that is otherwise not particularly great for anything else. It is a quickly renewable crop that doesn't damage soil. Vineyards can prevent erosion and create natural firebreaks. And many many vineyards dry farm their grapes, meaning that no additional irrigation takes place. Even if irrigation does take place it's in most instances negligible when compared to many other crops.
Most importantly, grapes aren't a staple crop, so consumption of wine (as opposed to say, beer) isn't contributing to the rapid price inflation coupled (strangely) with rampant subsidizing of staple grains.
But there's nothing wrong with seeking out wines with these descriptors, but before you just go out searching for these products, here's a basic layman's rundown:
1. Organic. Organic wine means just what it means when we're talking about other produce. The grapes are grown according to one of the many organic certifying-organizations, most commonly the USDA, Oregon Tilth, or CCOF. Note that truly "organic wines" are very rare as the United States prohibits the addition of sulfites in organic wines (even though sulfur dioxide itself can be organic and has been used for centuries) and other aspects of the wine making are restricted. It is much more common to see "wine made from organic grapes." You can feel equally good about either. In most instances organic grape wines will be superior to fully organic wines, as the lack of sulfur will reduce stability and increase the likelihood of spoilage.
2. Sustainable. Sustainable is a bit more nebulous term as there are very few regulatory bodies. Sustainability means that the wine makers ascribe to basic fundamentals about responsible farming practices, utilizing organic pesticides and natural pest controls. But it's hard to know if a winery is merely playing lip service to sustainability or actually providing an environmentally conscious product. There is a voluntary sustainable-certification organization in Sonoma County and a government certification in Spain. There may be others, but I'm not aware of them.
3. Biodynamic. Okay, this is a weird one. Biodynamic isn't just organic, and in many instances biodynamic isn't organic due to the aforementioned sulfur problem. Biodynamic means the grape growers and wine makers practiced farming and wine making practices that are certified by the international Demeter association. The vast majority of biodynamics is medieval-era geomancy. Included in biodynamics are the planting of a horn full of manure in your vineyard, treating pest problems by burning one of said pests, mixing it with wet sulfur (gee, I wonder why this worked), and then casting it on the grapes.
Oh, and by the way, if there is a field mouse problem you're supposed to scatter the ashes of field mouse skin in the vineyard...when Venus is in the Scorpio constellation, just to be sage about it. Biodynamics is a big scam with no real significance to wine making except that 1, you know that your wine is made completely naturally, and 2, the process is so detailed that you know that the vineyard managers at least have to pay very close attention. It doesn't mean they're GOOD grape growers, but at least they're paying attention.
4. Sulfite-Free. You will find very few sulfite-free wines. There's a reason for this, for a wine to be sulfite-free it actually needs to undergo a sulfite-removal process. Now that's hardly naturally, isn't it? One of the reasons we can make wine is that grapes have a decent amount of naturally-occurring sulfur dioxide on their skin. Many fruits do (apricots most significantly). This sulfur dioxide is a natural defense from disease and rot. It's a preservative.
The reason we can make raisins right out in the sun without having to add sulfur or acid to the grapes is because of this sulfur. The reason pressed grape juice can ferment into tasty wine instead of rotting into spoiled juice is because of the sulfur dioxide and to a lesser extent, tannins.
Are there people who are sensitive to sulfur, even deathly allergic? Sure. But there are a whole fuck ton more people who just think they are because it's yet another thing they can feel special about.
How do I know this? Two reasons. Most people who claim sulfite-sensitivity also note they have more of a problem with red wine than white wine. This is retarded. There are more sulfites in white wine than red wine. Red wine has more natural preservative from the tannins than in white wine, so white wine requires additional sulfur dioxide. Secondly, most people describe their sulfite-sensitivity as causing headaches. This is also retarded. Sulfite-sensitivity manifests in respiratory problems, not headaches.
Many wines in Europe that are drunk domestically and meant to be consumed within a year or two don't often have added sulfur since the natural sulfites will be enough of a preservative for that short period, but wine that is meant to endure the trials of shipping and export and the rigors of aging require sulfites or this wine will spoil. Period.
And then if a wine has no sulfites at all it becomes very unstable even for short periods of time and really won't last more than six months if you're lucky.
So yeah, you know what? If you actually have a legitimate sulfur allergy, then don't drink wine. Sorry. Drink beer, spirits, kombucha whatever. And if you DON'T have a sulfur allergy (and most of you don't) then just get over it and enjoy. Why waste so much time worrying when you can just enjoy yourself?
I'm convinced that people use "sulfur" as an excuse to hide their hang-ups about drinking. It's a way to self-regulate something without having to assume personal responsibility.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Frozen Delights: Wherein the Protagonist Discusses the Merits of Pre-Made Frozen Dinner Items from Trader Joe's
So here's the thing. I love to cook, I really do. Cooking is a blast. Making food for friends is great. Entertaining and enjoying others' company over an ambitious home-cooked meal is one of life's great pleasures.
That being said, I have a hard time finding the effort to devote the significant investment of time and money (nowhere are economy of scales more prevalent than in purchasing food) for just myself.
And despite my obvious love for dining out, I've found myself in recent months to be paying a little more attention to the bottom line as I've left the lucrative world of table waiting for a moderately less lucrative but infinitely more rewarding line of work.
So I've been eating a lot of Trader Joe's lately.
Don't get me wrong, I do cook. I made an excellent turkey loaf which lasted me quite some time--fry it up with eggs for a sort of turkey scrapple breakfast, slap it on some bread for a meatloaf sandwich, or throw it out the window to get your cute neighbor's attention. It's your world, the loaf's just along for the ride. I also can still make a nice from-scratch pasta sauce, assemble a mean sandwich, cook the shit out of some cranberry beans, and steam up the quinoa.
I know that one doesn't actually steam quinoa.
But what's the harm in letting Trader Joe's do the work sometimes?
I'm not a big fan of the fully-made frozen entrees, like the heat and serve pasta dishes, mac n' cheese, taquitos, and burritos. The heat-serve pastas aren't any better than if you make dried pasta and add a sauce and some chopped meat yourself, I can't bring myself to eat mac n' cheese as an entree even though I love it, and the Mexican stuff you can get fresh from a good taqueria for the same price.
What I mostly eat are the Asian and Asian-esque rice and noodle dishes. Some of them are pretty damn solid.
I like this stuff because it's really quick to cook, unlike the Mexican and Italian stuff which often take two or three repetitions of the on-the-box instructions to render the innermost delights not ice cold. Of course the outer layers will be molten as soon as you open the package. The rice dishes just take a quick sautee in the skillet and they're ready to go.
I also like these dishes because they're easy to doctor. You can cook a little garlic first, add some additional veggies or some scrambled egg, or grill up a piece of fish or chicken (or turkey meat loaf!) to throw on top.
Really what Trader Joe's is doing is saving me the time and annoyance of cooking rice only to have re-fry it and the tedium of dicing up some veggies really small.
Obviously it's not as good as the real fresh thing, but it takes 10 minutes and costs a few bucks.
The hits and misses of Trader Joe's frozen Asian-esque entrees.
Chicken Fried Rice: HIT! Cooks easily. Lots of big chunks of chicken. And the rice, although already fully cooked and frozen, doesn't leach out too much water into the pan (a common problem with this stuff). With enough patience (and enough canola oil) you can make a reasonable approximation of Durant food ghetto fried rice.
Chicken Chow Mein: MISS! I should clarify this. Overall it's pretty tasty, but the noodle preparation instructions are ridiculous. The already fully-cooked noodles come vacuum packed in the bag with the chicken and vegetables. You're instructed to let the noodles run under cool water for 5 minutes or so to thaw them while you prepare the chicken and veggies. Five minutes leaves them just as rock-freakin'-hard as before. And then even if you finally thaw them out, they're still all stuck together, which means you'll never actually have chow mein noodles but rather a bunch of two or three inch pieces of chow mein noodle resulting from you violently hacking the noodle-blob apart. At the end of this traumatic process you're still left with a pleasant-tasting dish but at the expense of your dignity.
Nasi Goreng: HIT! Really aromatic and flavorful with lots of chopped vegetables. Pretty much my favorite of the bunch, though it's lack of significant protein requires the addition of at least a couple eggs. My favorite additions are a scrambled egg and some frozen shrimp (also conveniently available at Trader Joe's!)
Vegetable Biryani: HIT! Good and surprising flavor combinations thanks to the addition of apples and cashews to the mix. Unfortunately the vegetables in the biryani sweat a bit too much and you're never able to get the nice dry, ever-so-slightly crisp texture that makes restaurant versions of this dish so appealing. Like the Nasi Goreng, it requires the addition of a couple things to make it a meal.
Sweet and Sour Shrimp over Rice: MISS! Simple dish to prepare, but found lacking in a number of ways. The cooked frozen white rice gives off a ton of moisture when thawed which takes a while to steam off and leaves the rice tasting, well, wet. The shrimp are nice and the vegetable quantity generous, but the sauce is a big miss. I appreciate the attempt at making a sauce that isn't overly sweet and syrupy, but unfortunately this was done at the expense of flavor. The sauce tasted pretty much like watered-down syrup from canned pineapple. Ah well.
Join me next time for a detailed discussion of boil-in-the-bag Indian food.
Not really, they all taste like cumin and ghee. Good though.
That being said, I have a hard time finding the effort to devote the significant investment of time and money (nowhere are economy of scales more prevalent than in purchasing food) for just myself.
And despite my obvious love for dining out, I've found myself in recent months to be paying a little more attention to the bottom line as I've left the lucrative world of table waiting for a moderately less lucrative but infinitely more rewarding line of work.
So I've been eating a lot of Trader Joe's lately.
Don't get me wrong, I do cook. I made an excellent turkey loaf which lasted me quite some time--fry it up with eggs for a sort of turkey scrapple breakfast, slap it on some bread for a meatloaf sandwich, or throw it out the window to get your cute neighbor's attention. It's your world, the loaf's just along for the ride. I also can still make a nice from-scratch pasta sauce, assemble a mean sandwich, cook the shit out of some cranberry beans, and steam up the quinoa.
I know that one doesn't actually steam quinoa.
But what's the harm in letting Trader Joe's do the work sometimes?
I'm not a big fan of the fully-made frozen entrees, like the heat and serve pasta dishes, mac n' cheese, taquitos, and burritos. The heat-serve pastas aren't any better than if you make dried pasta and add a sauce and some chopped meat yourself, I can't bring myself to eat mac n' cheese as an entree even though I love it, and the Mexican stuff you can get fresh from a good taqueria for the same price.
What I mostly eat are the Asian and Asian-esque rice and noodle dishes. Some of them are pretty damn solid.
I like this stuff because it's really quick to cook, unlike the Mexican and Italian stuff which often take two or three repetitions of the on-the-box instructions to render the innermost delights not ice cold. Of course the outer layers will be molten as soon as you open the package. The rice dishes just take a quick sautee in the skillet and they're ready to go.
I also like these dishes because they're easy to doctor. You can cook a little garlic first, add some additional veggies or some scrambled egg, or grill up a piece of fish or chicken (or turkey meat loaf!) to throw on top.
Really what Trader Joe's is doing is saving me the time and annoyance of cooking rice only to have re-fry it and the tedium of dicing up some veggies really small.
Obviously it's not as good as the real fresh thing, but it takes 10 minutes and costs a few bucks.
The hits and misses of Trader Joe's frozen Asian-esque entrees.
Chicken Fried Rice: HIT! Cooks easily. Lots of big chunks of chicken. And the rice, although already fully cooked and frozen, doesn't leach out too much water into the pan (a common problem with this stuff). With enough patience (and enough canola oil) you can make a reasonable approximation of Durant food ghetto fried rice.
Chicken Chow Mein: MISS! I should clarify this. Overall it's pretty tasty, but the noodle preparation instructions are ridiculous. The already fully-cooked noodles come vacuum packed in the bag with the chicken and vegetables. You're instructed to let the noodles run under cool water for 5 minutes or so to thaw them while you prepare the chicken and veggies. Five minutes leaves them just as rock-freakin'-hard as before. And then even if you finally thaw them out, they're still all stuck together, which means you'll never actually have chow mein noodles but rather a bunch of two or three inch pieces of chow mein noodle resulting from you violently hacking the noodle-blob apart. At the end of this traumatic process you're still left with a pleasant-tasting dish but at the expense of your dignity.
Nasi Goreng: HIT! Really aromatic and flavorful with lots of chopped vegetables. Pretty much my favorite of the bunch, though it's lack of significant protein requires the addition of at least a couple eggs. My favorite additions are a scrambled egg and some frozen shrimp (also conveniently available at Trader Joe's!)
Vegetable Biryani: HIT! Good and surprising flavor combinations thanks to the addition of apples and cashews to the mix. Unfortunately the vegetables in the biryani sweat a bit too much and you're never able to get the nice dry, ever-so-slightly crisp texture that makes restaurant versions of this dish so appealing. Like the Nasi Goreng, it requires the addition of a couple things to make it a meal.
Sweet and Sour Shrimp over Rice: MISS! Simple dish to prepare, but found lacking in a number of ways. The cooked frozen white rice gives off a ton of moisture when thawed which takes a while to steam off and leaves the rice tasting, well, wet. The shrimp are nice and the vegetable quantity generous, but the sauce is a big miss. I appreciate the attempt at making a sauce that isn't overly sweet and syrupy, but unfortunately this was done at the expense of flavor. The sauce tasted pretty much like watered-down syrup from canned pineapple. Ah well.
Join me next time for a detailed discussion of boil-in-the-bag Indian food.
Not really, they all taste like cumin and ghee. Good though.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Pintxo - Santa Monica, Ca
When the "small plates explosion" hit the Bay Area about ten years ago with the opening of the "big three" Cesar, A Cote, and Fonda in the East Bay over the course of a few years, not to mention countless others in San Francisco and elsewhere, everyone (and by everyone I mean mostly single professional women in their thirties) fell in love with dining "tapas style."
The thing is, these restaurants offered very little in the way of true "tapas" dining and the aforementioned "everyone" definitely wasn't dining "tapas style" since dining in that manner involves traveling to multiple locations and imbibing indescribable quantities of wine, beer and sangria, not plunking one's ass at Cesar for three hours and drinking a Cuban Manhattan and half a glass of Cava.
Most importantly though it seemed that these restaurants were using this as an opportunity to serve less food for only marginally lower prices. The "casual" nature of small plates also allowed for slashing service requirements, as waiters are little more than order-takers and food runners (notice I didn't say "plate clearers") at most of these small-plates restaurants. The demands on the server are mostly physical and very little knowledge or refinement is required. This service mediocrity is sometimes a result of rampant understaffing (Cesar) or a general culture of incompetence (A Cote).
My grander point is that despite the "fun" aspect of sharing food and getting to try a lot of flavors (a form of dining I wholeheartedly endorse), rarely does one spend any less money at a small plates restaurant than one does at a more "refined" dining establishment. You are left with an inferior experience overall because of crowds, noise, and service inconsistencies. My dinners at Cesar, Va de Vi, and Fonda have been some of the most expensive I've had in the East Bay (not to mention I'm out of there in an hour as opposed to close to two hours at a more formal restaurant). And with the lack of other similar establishments within a close stumble, one can't really live the "tapas" life as I'd like to envision it: a drink and a bit of food before moving on to your next stop. I'd love to go out with a friend and spend $100 eating and drinking at four or five locations instead of spending that some amount at one spot, especially a spot where the service sucks and it's too awkward and crowded to linger even if I wanted to. As it is, $100 at Zuni buys a better dinner experience for a better value (not to mention the added bonus of an actual reservation) than $80 at Cesar (or $40 at A Cote).
As an aside, I think that a better integration of our eating and drinking cultures in America--that is the concept of "going out" to both eat and drink continuously throughout the evening rather than dining as either the beginning of a night of bar-hopping or the as a result of the beer munchies at the end of a night of bar-hopping (or both)--will go a long way to improve how we treat alcohol in our society. If you're always eating while you're drinking, you drink more slowly, alcohol is absorbed more evenly, and you probably consume less alcohol overall. Four drinks over four hours of a tapas crawl (drinks more likely to be beer and wine) versus four drinks over two hours at a bar (drinks more likely to be spirits and cocktails). You'll also consume more nutrients (including all-essential sodium), which will go a long way to ameliorate your hangover symptoms the next morning.
But here's the good news!
In Santa Monica, right by the water, I think I've found a spot for a legitimate tapas evening, though so far I've only eaten at one bar, Pintxo.
Pintxo (from the same people who brought Venice the esteemed, Michelin-starred Joe's Restaurant) is the first true tapas bar that I've been to in the U.S. Specifically, it's a style of tapas bar common in the Basque regions of Spain and, to a lesser extent, Catalonia that focuses on fish, cured meats, and chunky sauces served on top of slices of bread. These types of tapas are called "pintxos" from the Basque word for "thorn," originally referring to the small wood skewer that was used to hold the toppings on the bread.
Although the pintxos are served pre-made from a sushi bar-style fridge, there are never more than four or so of any dish in the fridge, so everything is served fresh. Pintxo also has a number of hot dishes, including a plate of pescaditos fritos--a pile of tiny fish dusted in flour, deep fried, and served with romesco--and a decently sized seafood paella. Prices start at $2 for a pair of toothpicks with chunks of avocado, radish, and jicama skewered on them, topping out at $12 for a foie gras parfait. Most of Pintxo's plates are between $4 and $6 and a serving is two individual pintxos.
The food was full of deep rich flavors coupled with a simplicity--only a few ingredients, basic spices, and loads of olive oil. The highlight was a slice of bread topped with chorizo, potatoes, romesco and a tiny sunny side-up quail egg.
As great as the food is, Pintxo's wine list is off the charts. 25 wines by the glass, all Spanish, all frequently changing. Wine's by the glass start at $5 with a huge selection falling under $8, something absolutely unheard of in a restaurant of this quality in the Bay Area. Especially given that even the $5 and $6 wines are quality small production Spanish imports.
So what did this all mean? When I left Pintxo's I was stuffed, had two glasses of wine, and spent about $35 or so. I easily could've had one fewer pintxo and I definitely didn't need the second glass of wine, so a less gluttonous me could've eaten extraordinarily well for about $25.
On those same few blocks of Santa Monica there's Bar Robata, a Japanese small plates bar, Chloe, an eclectic (gimmicky?) bar and lounge, and 3 on Fourth (a higher-end restaurant offering small plates as well as entrees) and several other pubs/bars/taverns that maybe, just maybe, are offering an opportunity for an eat and drink, eat and drink, eat and drink, evening out in California.
I'll find out soon.
Bar Pintxo
109 Santa Monica Boulevard
Santa Monica, Ca 90401
310-458-2012
www.barpintxo.com
The thing is, these restaurants offered very little in the way of true "tapas" dining and the aforementioned "everyone" definitely wasn't dining "tapas style" since dining in that manner involves traveling to multiple locations and imbibing indescribable quantities of wine, beer and sangria, not plunking one's ass at Cesar for three hours and drinking a Cuban Manhattan and half a glass of Cava.
Most importantly though it seemed that these restaurants were using this as an opportunity to serve less food for only marginally lower prices. The "casual" nature of small plates also allowed for slashing service requirements, as waiters are little more than order-takers and food runners (notice I didn't say "plate clearers") at most of these small-plates restaurants. The demands on the server are mostly physical and very little knowledge or refinement is required. This service mediocrity is sometimes a result of rampant understaffing (Cesar) or a general culture of incompetence (A Cote).
My grander point is that despite the "fun" aspect of sharing food and getting to try a lot of flavors (a form of dining I wholeheartedly endorse), rarely does one spend any less money at a small plates restaurant than one does at a more "refined" dining establishment. You are left with an inferior experience overall because of crowds, noise, and service inconsistencies. My dinners at Cesar, Va de Vi, and Fonda have been some of the most expensive I've had in the East Bay (not to mention I'm out of there in an hour as opposed to close to two hours at a more formal restaurant). And with the lack of other similar establishments within a close stumble, one can't really live the "tapas" life as I'd like to envision it: a drink and a bit of food before moving on to your next stop. I'd love to go out with a friend and spend $100 eating and drinking at four or five locations instead of spending that some amount at one spot, especially a spot where the service sucks and it's too awkward and crowded to linger even if I wanted to. As it is, $100 at Zuni buys a better dinner experience for a better value (not to mention the added bonus of an actual reservation) than $80 at Cesar (or $40 at A Cote).
As an aside, I think that a better integration of our eating and drinking cultures in America--that is the concept of "going out" to both eat and drink continuously throughout the evening rather than dining as either the beginning of a night of bar-hopping or the as a result of the beer munchies at the end of a night of bar-hopping (or both)--will go a long way to improve how we treat alcohol in our society. If you're always eating while you're drinking, you drink more slowly, alcohol is absorbed more evenly, and you probably consume less alcohol overall. Four drinks over four hours of a tapas crawl (drinks more likely to be beer and wine) versus four drinks over two hours at a bar (drinks more likely to be spirits and cocktails). You'll also consume more nutrients (including all-essential sodium), which will go a long way to ameliorate your hangover symptoms the next morning.
But here's the good news!
In Santa Monica, right by the water, I think I've found a spot for a legitimate tapas evening, though so far I've only eaten at one bar, Pintxo.
Pintxo (from the same people who brought Venice the esteemed, Michelin-starred Joe's Restaurant) is the first true tapas bar that I've been to in the U.S. Specifically, it's a style of tapas bar common in the Basque regions of Spain and, to a lesser extent, Catalonia that focuses on fish, cured meats, and chunky sauces served on top of slices of bread. These types of tapas are called "pintxos" from the Basque word for "thorn," originally referring to the small wood skewer that was used to hold the toppings on the bread.
Although the pintxos are served pre-made from a sushi bar-style fridge, there are never more than four or so of any dish in the fridge, so everything is served fresh. Pintxo also has a number of hot dishes, including a plate of pescaditos fritos--a pile of tiny fish dusted in flour, deep fried, and served with romesco--and a decently sized seafood paella. Prices start at $2 for a pair of toothpicks with chunks of avocado, radish, and jicama skewered on them, topping out at $12 for a foie gras parfait. Most of Pintxo's plates are between $4 and $6 and a serving is two individual pintxos.
The food was full of deep rich flavors coupled with a simplicity--only a few ingredients, basic spices, and loads of olive oil. The highlight was a slice of bread topped with chorizo, potatoes, romesco and a tiny sunny side-up quail egg.
As great as the food is, Pintxo's wine list is off the charts. 25 wines by the glass, all Spanish, all frequently changing. Wine's by the glass start at $5 with a huge selection falling under $8, something absolutely unheard of in a restaurant of this quality in the Bay Area. Especially given that even the $5 and $6 wines are quality small production Spanish imports.
So what did this all mean? When I left Pintxo's I was stuffed, had two glasses of wine, and spent about $35 or so. I easily could've had one fewer pintxo and I definitely didn't need the second glass of wine, so a less gluttonous me could've eaten extraordinarily well for about $25.
On those same few blocks of Santa Monica there's Bar Robata, a Japanese small plates bar, Chloe, an eclectic (gimmicky?) bar and lounge, and 3 on Fourth (a higher-end restaurant offering small plates as well as entrees) and several other pubs/bars/taverns that maybe, just maybe, are offering an opportunity for an eat and drink, eat and drink, eat and drink, evening out in California.
I'll find out soon.
Bar Pintxo
109 Santa Monica Boulevard
Santa Monica, Ca 90401
310-458-2012
www.barpintxo.com
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Father's Office - Los Angeles, Ca
I'm going to declare the term "gastropub" dead.
Maybe there was a time where the idea of a casual establishment with a haute cuisine take on American/British bar food was innovative and rare.
That time has long passed. Just because you sell $7 pints of beer and are known for having "a great burger" doesn't make you something distinctive. It means you're a pub that has (gasp!) GOOD FOOD!
In fact, the basic premise of delicious well-made food in a casual atmosphere with copious amounts of alcohol is something that only the British or Americans would have to separately classify. Apparently in the Anglophonic world you either eat trash or you put on your smoking jacket and head out to spend 100 pounds sterling on an eight course tasting menu. God forbid you find someplace CASUAL that doesn't compromise on quality.
You know what? Most of the rest of the world calls that "dining." Cf. tapas, izakaya, brasserie, trattoria, meze, et al.
That being said, Father's Office was pretty damn good.
I'll be the first to declare that I like ordering at the counter. I think it's a nice streamlined way of operating. But when you combine that with a crowded scene-y spot like Father's Office the result is, at least for now, some degree of confusion.
The basic course of an evening at Father's Office: stand in line for a while (we didn't, we got there early). Enter, finally. Gaze around in confusion for a while. Finally find a table in the corner. Find out that table is reserved by one petite Armenian girl and her hand bag. Convince three other parties to reconfigure themselves so as to allow you four adjacent seats. Sit. Realize no food is coming. Right! Order at the counter! Find a menu. Decide what you want. Realize as you walk to the bar that there are also a bunch of specials. Damn. Change mind. Approach bar. Be served surprisingly quickly. Order a $7 beer and your food. Return to seat with little Carl's Jr.-esque plastic number. The food comes very quickly, thanks to a very limited menu driven heavily by burgers and the now-ubiquitous sweet potato fries.
While I'm declaring the word "gastropub" dead, I'm also going to declare "$4 pints of beer" dead, at least in Los Angeles. Ah well. It was bound to happen.
The beer selection at Father's Office is excellent. My only complaint is that it's not clear on the menu which of the many beers are draft and which are bottle. Order what you see from the wall of taps or risk spending a lot of money on a bottle of beer that you could track down at BevMo easily enough.
My duck confit salad, one of that day's specials, was great. Good fresh greens and a whole confit duck leg. I was expecting a smattering of pulled duck meat, especially given the incredibly reasonable $12 price tag. But nope, I got a whole crispy, juicy, fall-off-the-bone tender duck leg. Brother Noah and I also shared an order of grilled asparagus with hardboiled egg and serrano ham (rockin') and an order of the sweet potato fries which were also excellent. Perhaps the best I've had so far. Sweet potatoes, because of their higher sugar content, have a tendency to overly-brown on the outside while still remaining soft and undercooked. Through some mix of par-frying/blanching/black magic the Father's Office sweet potato fries are crisp, not burnt, and fully cooked.
The meal was great and the vibe's not too bad. I'd recommend going during off times because trying to mix a place that crowded with trying to actually enjoy food is just not worth it. Hit it up early for dinner and a pre-party before heading out to contract chlamydia.
Father's Office. Check it out.
Father's Office
3229 Helms Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90034
310-736-2224
www.fathersoffice.com
Maybe there was a time where the idea of a casual establishment with a haute cuisine take on American/British bar food was innovative and rare.
That time has long passed. Just because you sell $7 pints of beer and are known for having "a great burger" doesn't make you something distinctive. It means you're a pub that has (gasp!) GOOD FOOD!
In fact, the basic premise of delicious well-made food in a casual atmosphere with copious amounts of alcohol is something that only the British or Americans would have to separately classify. Apparently in the Anglophonic world you either eat trash or you put on your smoking jacket and head out to spend 100 pounds sterling on an eight course tasting menu. God forbid you find someplace CASUAL that doesn't compromise on quality.
You know what? Most of the rest of the world calls that "dining." Cf. tapas, izakaya, brasserie, trattoria, meze, et al.
That being said, Father's Office was pretty damn good.
I'll be the first to declare that I like ordering at the counter. I think it's a nice streamlined way of operating. But when you combine that with a crowded scene-y spot like Father's Office the result is, at least for now, some degree of confusion.
The basic course of an evening at Father's Office: stand in line for a while (we didn't, we got there early). Enter, finally. Gaze around in confusion for a while. Finally find a table in the corner. Find out that table is reserved by one petite Armenian girl and her hand bag. Convince three other parties to reconfigure themselves so as to allow you four adjacent seats. Sit. Realize no food is coming. Right! Order at the counter! Find a menu. Decide what you want. Realize as you walk to the bar that there are also a bunch of specials. Damn. Change mind. Approach bar. Be served surprisingly quickly. Order a $7 beer and your food. Return to seat with little Carl's Jr.-esque plastic number. The food comes very quickly, thanks to a very limited menu driven heavily by burgers and the now-ubiquitous sweet potato fries.
While I'm declaring the word "gastropub" dead, I'm also going to declare "$4 pints of beer" dead, at least in Los Angeles. Ah well. It was bound to happen.
The beer selection at Father's Office is excellent. My only complaint is that it's not clear on the menu which of the many beers are draft and which are bottle. Order what you see from the wall of taps or risk spending a lot of money on a bottle of beer that you could track down at BevMo easily enough.
My duck confit salad, one of that day's specials, was great. Good fresh greens and a whole confit duck leg. I was expecting a smattering of pulled duck meat, especially given the incredibly reasonable $12 price tag. But nope, I got a whole crispy, juicy, fall-off-the-bone tender duck leg. Brother Noah and I also shared an order of grilled asparagus with hardboiled egg and serrano ham (rockin') and an order of the sweet potato fries which were also excellent. Perhaps the best I've had so far. Sweet potatoes, because of their higher sugar content, have a tendency to overly-brown on the outside while still remaining soft and undercooked. Through some mix of par-frying/blanching/black magic the Father's Office sweet potato fries are crisp, not burnt, and fully cooked.
The meal was great and the vibe's not too bad. I'd recommend going during off times because trying to mix a place that crowded with trying to actually enjoy food is just not worth it. Hit it up early for dinner and a pre-party before heading out to contract chlamydia.
Father's Office. Check it out.
Father's Office
3229 Helms Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90034
310-736-2224
www.fathersoffice.com
Thursday, May 01, 2008
The Neighborhood Restaurant
After having spend so much time buried in the world of urban Bay Area fine dining I'd forgotten about what really makes the dining world turn: The Neighborhood Restaurant.
And I don't mean a neighborhood restaurant in the sense that the Chronicle defines it, where any restaurant that won't automatically get people to drive across a bridge is defined as a neighborhood restaurant. Nevermind that these would be among the best restaurants in town in virtually any other city in the country.
I'm talking about the neighborhood restaurant that provides a modest fine-dining experience with a decent wine list and good service for around $20-$30 a person instead of $40-$50.
Restaurants like this are the bastion of the sprawling suburbs. These are restaurants that cut corners in terms of ingredient quality in exchange for excellent prices. A place where the salmon might be wild, sure, but it's also frozen. Or a place that doesn't see the point in serving Niman Ranch pork if it means their sandwich is going to cost four dollars more.
And you know what? These restaurants are beautiful things.
They allow you to have an upscale night out without breaking the bank. I don't care to think about the number of nice dinners I've had wherein the bill for two people has been solidly over $100.
Shouldn't we be able to dine well for $50 or $60? We shouldn't have to go to TGIFriday's or Macaroni Grill (recently lambasted for the amount of sodium in their food, by the way) for an affordable meal out. We should still be able to patronize a quality, locally-owned, neighborhood establishment and not have it be so expensive we can't go back a few times a month.
Unfortunately I think the immediate Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Marin) is so ingredient-obsessed that we don't understand what this really means for prices. One trip to Yelp! will show you so many "overpriced" complaints that you'll shit your pants, or at least really want to.
The first restaurant I worked at in the "gourmet ghetto" area was excellent. We served excellently prepared, flawlessly presented cuisine for extraordinarily reasonable prices. Appetizers were almost all under $10, entrees hovered in the upper teens. The menu changed often and was somewhat exotic. I think at one point we had a dozen different species of animals on our menu, including ostrich and antelope. Unfortunately the chef just didn't "get it" for that community. We served tomatoes out of season. Our lauded french fries were from Smart & Final. Our burgers were premade and basically everything other than produce was frozen. Yet we garnered good reviews and had a busy first wave. But nobody came back, because nobody really cared. We weren't offering what everyone else was offering for only marginally more.
I've come to think that we don't actually think our restaurants are overpriced. It just becomes a kneejerk response to sticker shock. Because the moderately priced restaurants close down and the $50 a person restaurant succeeds.
Except for Maritime East.
But I don't WANT to be stuck with a choice between sub $10 ethnic food and $50 California Cuisine.
Can't I have a nice place to go on a date with a girl I'm not sure I really like yet? I mean, that's not worth $100, is it? I probably won't even get any at the end of that date anyway. I should've taken her to P.F. Chang's.
So that being said, as I kinda mentioned before I spiraled away on this tangent, I ate at two good moderately priced restaurants recently. Both were in suburbia. Well, one was in San Jose, but most of San Jose is a massive suburb.
Did you know the Santa Clara Valley was developed by the same planner who plotted most of Los Angeles' postwar expansion? Explains a lot, no?
First, we have Elements in San Jose's southern Almaden Valley. This place is neighborhood restaurant exemplified. Solid food, solid wine list, great prices. Nothing phenomenal and the service was amateurish (but that weird overly-trained amateurishness), but it was good. My papaya salad had a pile of nicely dressed green papaya topped with a pair of fried prawns. For like, $6. My entree of stuffed pork loin was inexpertly stuffed and slightly overcooked, but it was decent and the price was right (about $17).
Strangely the wine list wasn't quite in line with the food, being priced at a slightly more premium markup with surprisingly few wines in the sub $30 range given the price of the cuisine. Perhaps that plays a role in subsidizing food prices?
Second, I had lunch at Eddie Papa's American Hang-Out in Pleasanton. The elegant interior doesn't match the kitschy theme (American classics from all over the country), and the service is embarrassingly amateurish (but also in that overly trained sense). The food, however, was respectable. My pulled pork sandwich was quite good and decently priced at $9. The admittedly smaller and french fry-less pulled pork sandwich at T-Rex is a good step and a half better for only $2 more. My dad had the halibut fish & chips. Why we keep insisting on deep frying halibut I don't understand, given it's propensity to overcook. The fish was decently prepared but dry and the fries were undercooked and underseasoned.
Okay, so maybe Eddie Papa's wasn't all that great. Nor was it particularly cheap. But the food was okay and prices were okay and the service was okay, and the space was warm and home-y. I appreciated the effort.
I'm hoping that there'll be room for places like this in more "refined" food communities in the Bay Area.
Though first thing we have to do is want it, I suppose.
Elements Restaurant
6944 Almaden Expressway
San Jose, CA 95120
408-927- 8773
www.sanjoseelements.com
Eddie Papa's American Hangout
4889 Hopyard Drive
Pleasanton, Ca 94588
925-469-6266
www.eddiepapas.com
And I don't mean a neighborhood restaurant in the sense that the Chronicle defines it, where any restaurant that won't automatically get people to drive across a bridge is defined as a neighborhood restaurant. Nevermind that these would be among the best restaurants in town in virtually any other city in the country.
I'm talking about the neighborhood restaurant that provides a modest fine-dining experience with a decent wine list and good service for around $20-$30 a person instead of $40-$50.
Restaurants like this are the bastion of the sprawling suburbs. These are restaurants that cut corners in terms of ingredient quality in exchange for excellent prices. A place where the salmon might be wild, sure, but it's also frozen. Or a place that doesn't see the point in serving Niman Ranch pork if it means their sandwich is going to cost four dollars more.
And you know what? These restaurants are beautiful things.
They allow you to have an upscale night out without breaking the bank. I don't care to think about the number of nice dinners I've had wherein the bill for two people has been solidly over $100.
Shouldn't we be able to dine well for $50 or $60? We shouldn't have to go to TGIFriday's or Macaroni Grill (recently lambasted for the amount of sodium in their food, by the way) for an affordable meal out. We should still be able to patronize a quality, locally-owned, neighborhood establishment and not have it be so expensive we can't go back a few times a month.
Unfortunately I think the immediate Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Marin) is so ingredient-obsessed that we don't understand what this really means for prices. One trip to Yelp! will show you so many "overpriced" complaints that you'll shit your pants, or at least really want to.
The first restaurant I worked at in the "gourmet ghetto" area was excellent. We served excellently prepared, flawlessly presented cuisine for extraordinarily reasonable prices. Appetizers were almost all under $10, entrees hovered in the upper teens. The menu changed often and was somewhat exotic. I think at one point we had a dozen different species of animals on our menu, including ostrich and antelope. Unfortunately the chef just didn't "get it" for that community. We served tomatoes out of season. Our lauded french fries were from Smart & Final. Our burgers were premade and basically everything other than produce was frozen. Yet we garnered good reviews and had a busy first wave. But nobody came back, because nobody really cared. We weren't offering what everyone else was offering for only marginally more.
I've come to think that we don't actually think our restaurants are overpriced. It just becomes a kneejerk response to sticker shock. Because the moderately priced restaurants close down and the $50 a person restaurant succeeds.
Except for Maritime East.
But I don't WANT to be stuck with a choice between sub $10 ethnic food and $50 California Cuisine.
Can't I have a nice place to go on a date with a girl I'm not sure I really like yet? I mean, that's not worth $100, is it? I probably won't even get any at the end of that date anyway. I should've taken her to P.F. Chang's.
So that being said, as I kinda mentioned before I spiraled away on this tangent, I ate at two good moderately priced restaurants recently. Both were in suburbia. Well, one was in San Jose, but most of San Jose is a massive suburb.
Did you know the Santa Clara Valley was developed by the same planner who plotted most of Los Angeles' postwar expansion? Explains a lot, no?
First, we have Elements in San Jose's southern Almaden Valley. This place is neighborhood restaurant exemplified. Solid food, solid wine list, great prices. Nothing phenomenal and the service was amateurish (but that weird overly-trained amateurishness), but it was good. My papaya salad had a pile of nicely dressed green papaya topped with a pair of fried prawns. For like, $6. My entree of stuffed pork loin was inexpertly stuffed and slightly overcooked, but it was decent and the price was right (about $17).
Strangely the wine list wasn't quite in line with the food, being priced at a slightly more premium markup with surprisingly few wines in the sub $30 range given the price of the cuisine. Perhaps that plays a role in subsidizing food prices?
Second, I had lunch at Eddie Papa's American Hang-Out in Pleasanton. The elegant interior doesn't match the kitschy theme (American classics from all over the country), and the service is embarrassingly amateurish (but also in that overly trained sense). The food, however, was respectable. My pulled pork sandwich was quite good and decently priced at $9. The admittedly smaller and french fry-less pulled pork sandwich at T-Rex is a good step and a half better for only $2 more. My dad had the halibut fish & chips. Why we keep insisting on deep frying halibut I don't understand, given it's propensity to overcook. The fish was decently prepared but dry and the fries were undercooked and underseasoned.
Okay, so maybe Eddie Papa's wasn't all that great. Nor was it particularly cheap. But the food was okay and prices were okay and the service was okay, and the space was warm and home-y. I appreciated the effort.
I'm hoping that there'll be room for places like this in more "refined" food communities in the Bay Area.
Though first thing we have to do is want it, I suppose.
Elements Restaurant
6944 Almaden Expressway
San Jose, CA 95120
408-927- 8773
www.sanjoseelements.com
Eddie Papa's American Hangout
4889 Hopyard Drive
Pleasanton, Ca 94588
925-469-6266
www.eddiepapas.com
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Millennium - San Francisco, Ca
Stop the presses! Catch the flying pigs! Start building the snowmen in hell! Start the George W. Bush impeachment proceedings!
I agree with Michael Bauer.
I know, right?
That's something of a hyperbole, as I often agree with Michael Bauer's reviews in the Chronicle in many instances, at least in part. What I object to is his slavish devotion to "chef" cults, his adoration for ingredient at the expense of innovation and (in my mind) flavor, and the weird relationship he seems to have with the Kuleto restaurants.
What I'm saying is, rarely do I agree 100% with any Michael Bauer review, but in this instance I think he's nailed Millennium dead-on. I'll let you go to www.sfgate.com and look it up for yourselves.
Having once had a vegan girlfriend, I've actually been to the esteemed center of no-animal fine-dining a couple prior times and recall enjoying my meals, however this visit to celebrate a friend's 20th vegeversary was my first visit in a number of years and my first after having spent the last four firmly entwined in the world of Bay Area fine-dining.
The wine list here is excellent, very very well-priced, and food-friendly. They are a bit disingenuous when they label all their wines as either "organic," "biodynamic,"or "sustainably farmed," because only the first two labels mean that they are beholden to any sort of regulatory boards. Virtually all small-production wine of any quality, particularly in Europe but also domestically, is produced sustainably. Any non-factory farmed wine's pretty damn eco-friendly.
The food, overall, is quite good. That being said, in many instances it's very complicated to the point of being muddled, as Bauer mentioned in his most recent update. I'm not one who believes that one needs meat as a centerpiece for an entree to have a point--I've had some spectacular vegetarian entrees before and often find a big chunk of meat to be as boring as a plate of spaghetti.
At Millennium, however, so much of the food relies upon a truckload of ingredients and a shit ton of spices. There's a somewhat lackadaisical approach to presentation, many of the dishes arriving somewhat lukewarm (distressing given that food poisoning occurs most often from produce, not animal products). The pickles and beets that we shared at the table were delicious, the beets in particular were cooked nicely and accompanied with a well-made balsamic reduction. My appetizer of grilled flatbread was underwhelming--the only indication that the flatbread was "grilled" were the black marks--the bread was otherwise room temperature and a bit stale. The accompanying eggplant was nice, the cucumber was overloaded with spice. Girlfriend Charlie's shaved asparagus salad was perfectly cooked and dressed, but the little caraway cracker thing was stale.
Entrees showed Millennium's talents a bit more strongly. My injera crepe was pretty good, though served under-temperature. In this case I was expecting a spice orgy anyway due to the Ethiopian-inspired nature of the dish, so that wasn't a problem. I did find the dice of the vegetables to be too small to easily stab with a fork but too large to scoop and bits of food fell out of the crepe with every bite. Charlie's seared polenta cake with vegetables was delicious, though this dish in particular looked like it was missing a chunk of chicken or a rack of lamb short ribs sitting atop the vegetables and starch. Most other preparations did a good job of showcasing their vegetable protein centerpiece well. The hit of the evening was the chard roulade, stuffed with some sort of very well-executed vegan ricotta and mushrooms and nuts and all sorts of good stuff. Meaty, moist, flavorful without being overwrought, and served piping hot.
In every instance I would say that the plates were overconceived while still not having much of a point. Every dish was sort of "little chopped ingredients! spices spices spices! sauce sauce sauce! Pan-ethnic influences!" But with the exception of perhaps the roulade, nothing I tasted had any sort of gestalt, the sense of a whole of the dish that is greater than the sum of its parts. Which is the principal distinguisher of exquisite professionally prepared cuisine and a really good home-cooked meal.
I throw everything out the window when it comes to Millennium's desserts, however. The desserts are retarded good. Creamy, rich, decadent, and remarkably well assembled given their lack of eggs and dairy. The non-dairy ice creams have always been the best I've tasted. The chocolate almond midnight and the pistachio cake were two particular highlights. Desserts also had a distinctive quality of assembly where I felt there was a sense of the completed product throughout the preparation as opposed to the entrees, which had that "little of this, dash of that" quality of an accomplished amateur cook.
Sort of like Bob Ross messing around with watercolors on a canvas versus Michelangelo freeing his envisioned David from a single piece of marble--both results are pleasing, only one could be called transcendent.
And it's not the happy trees.
Not to say Millennium wasn't very good--it was and is still at or near the pinnacle of vegan fine-dining in America. I'd gladly go back and I'm curious to see if they're ever able to achieve what their chard roulade came very close to doing: an innovative, fully articulated, vegan dish to rival, say, Zuni roast chicken or Redd horseradish-crusted shortribs.
I'm pretty sure it's possible.
Millennium
580 Geary Street
San Francisco, Ca 94102
Reservations: 415-345-3900 or www.opentable.com
www.millenniumrestaurant.com
I agree with Michael Bauer.
I know, right?
That's something of a hyperbole, as I often agree with Michael Bauer's reviews in the Chronicle in many instances, at least in part. What I object to is his slavish devotion to "chef" cults, his adoration for ingredient at the expense of innovation and (in my mind) flavor, and the weird relationship he seems to have with the Kuleto restaurants.
What I'm saying is, rarely do I agree 100% with any Michael Bauer review, but in this instance I think he's nailed Millennium dead-on. I'll let you go to www.sfgate.com and look it up for yourselves.
Having once had a vegan girlfriend, I've actually been to the esteemed center of no-animal fine-dining a couple prior times and recall enjoying my meals, however this visit to celebrate a friend's 20th vegeversary was my first visit in a number of years and my first after having spent the last four firmly entwined in the world of Bay Area fine-dining.
The wine list here is excellent, very very well-priced, and food-friendly. They are a bit disingenuous when they label all their wines as either "organic," "biodynamic,"or "sustainably farmed," because only the first two labels mean that they are beholden to any sort of regulatory boards. Virtually all small-production wine of any quality, particularly in Europe but also domestically, is produced sustainably. Any non-factory farmed wine's pretty damn eco-friendly.
The food, overall, is quite good. That being said, in many instances it's very complicated to the point of being muddled, as Bauer mentioned in his most recent update. I'm not one who believes that one needs meat as a centerpiece for an entree to have a point--I've had some spectacular vegetarian entrees before and often find a big chunk of meat to be as boring as a plate of spaghetti.
At Millennium, however, so much of the food relies upon a truckload of ingredients and a shit ton of spices. There's a somewhat lackadaisical approach to presentation, many of the dishes arriving somewhat lukewarm (distressing given that food poisoning occurs most often from produce, not animal products). The pickles and beets that we shared at the table were delicious, the beets in particular were cooked nicely and accompanied with a well-made balsamic reduction. My appetizer of grilled flatbread was underwhelming--the only indication that the flatbread was "grilled" were the black marks--the bread was otherwise room temperature and a bit stale. The accompanying eggplant was nice, the cucumber was overloaded with spice. Girlfriend Charlie's shaved asparagus salad was perfectly cooked and dressed, but the little caraway cracker thing was stale.
Entrees showed Millennium's talents a bit more strongly. My injera crepe was pretty good, though served under-temperature. In this case I was expecting a spice orgy anyway due to the Ethiopian-inspired nature of the dish, so that wasn't a problem. I did find the dice of the vegetables to be too small to easily stab with a fork but too large to scoop and bits of food fell out of the crepe with every bite. Charlie's seared polenta cake with vegetables was delicious, though this dish in particular looked like it was missing a chunk of chicken or a rack of lamb short ribs sitting atop the vegetables and starch. Most other preparations did a good job of showcasing their vegetable protein centerpiece well. The hit of the evening was the chard roulade, stuffed with some sort of very well-executed vegan ricotta and mushrooms and nuts and all sorts of good stuff. Meaty, moist, flavorful without being overwrought, and served piping hot.
In every instance I would say that the plates were overconceived while still not having much of a point. Every dish was sort of "little chopped ingredients! spices spices spices! sauce sauce sauce! Pan-ethnic influences!" But with the exception of perhaps the roulade, nothing I tasted had any sort of gestalt, the sense of a whole of the dish that is greater than the sum of its parts. Which is the principal distinguisher of exquisite professionally prepared cuisine and a really good home-cooked meal.
I throw everything out the window when it comes to Millennium's desserts, however. The desserts are retarded good. Creamy, rich, decadent, and remarkably well assembled given their lack of eggs and dairy. The non-dairy ice creams have always been the best I've tasted. The chocolate almond midnight and the pistachio cake were two particular highlights. Desserts also had a distinctive quality of assembly where I felt there was a sense of the completed product throughout the preparation as opposed to the entrees, which had that "little of this, dash of that" quality of an accomplished amateur cook.
Sort of like Bob Ross messing around with watercolors on a canvas versus Michelangelo freeing his envisioned David from a single piece of marble--both results are pleasing, only one could be called transcendent.
And it's not the happy trees.
Not to say Millennium wasn't very good--it was and is still at or near the pinnacle of vegan fine-dining in America. I'd gladly go back and I'm curious to see if they're ever able to achieve what their chard roulade came very close to doing: an innovative, fully articulated, vegan dish to rival, say, Zuni roast chicken or Redd horseradish-crusted shortribs.
I'm pretty sure it's possible.
Millennium
580 Geary Street
San Francisco, Ca 94102
Reservations: 415-345-3900 or www.opentable.com
www.millenniumrestaurant.com
Thursday, April 17, 2008
HFF has Lunch: Lola's
I want to bring up a place that I've been frequenting lately that is awesome, inexpensive, and unpretentious: Lola's on Solano Avenue. It's solely takeout and while Gregoire it surely isn't in terms of breadth of selection, there's a character to Lola's that Gregoire lacks and an immediacy to that food that is refreshing. Instead of a fixed monthly menu, the limited Lola's lunch offerings change almost daily.
The husband-wife (John and Donna) team spend the day roasting their famous chickens which I admittedly haven't had yet. Rather, I've come to enjoy their tasty focaccia sandwiches. A different sandwich each day, almost always only one, usually pretty eclectic (turkey and guacamole, coppa and roasted peppers, chicken and mango chutney, tuna salad with black olives) and always simply dressed on Donna's perfect lightly salty fresh-baked foccacia.
The sandwiches are on the small-ish side, but when you pair it with a slice of vegetable-studded frittata or savory vegetable tart you've got a rockin' awesome meal for less than $10. Lola's salads are also big and fresh and a nice change of pace.
It's also worth a drop-in for one of Donna's baked goods. Her pound cake in particular is spectacular.
The simplicity and lack of pretension is great. Get there early because they'll probably run out of their sandwiches. They make maybe a dozen or so each day and they're usually gone by 2:30 (sometimes earlier). Same goes for their daily soup and the roast chickens in the evening. While one might mistake it for surliness and poor planning, I see it as efficient food cost management. Why waste?
Lola's
1585 Solano Ave.
Berkeley, Ca
510-558-8600
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
A Wine Primer Part 3: Safe Bet Wines
In my continuing effort to steer people away from Charles Shaw and into the many many higher quality wines that can be had for only a couple dollars more, I present to you today some general guidelines to buying quality inexpensive wine.
I sell wine and many many people come in asking for one specific wine. Wine is a finite thing each year. There's only so much 2005 Chardonnay made by X Winery in a given year. When it's gone, it's gone. Additionally, wine can be allocated to retailers and distributors making it impossible to get more of it once it's gone. Many customers try to seek out a wine they loved that they'd had at a restaurant or a wine they'd had wine tasting, but many many wineries only sell direct through the winery or through restaurants.
Thankfully virtually every winery has embraced the internet as a means of selling their wine and shipping costs are relatively nominal.
So what can you do if you have a wine you really really like? There's surprisingly a lot of useful information on a label that can be very helpful. Here's a step by step:
1. Make note of winemaker, though this might not be as useful as you think.
2. What's the vintage?
3. Where is it from? (This is key).
4. What are the grapes?
5. Note the price (know that the retail price will be 30%-50% less than the wine list price).
Something that the Europeans have always recognized about their wines is that WHERE it's from is inextricable from WHAT'S in it. Soil and climate is the most important consideration in a wine--for instance Sancerre and Chablis taste strikingly similar even though one's Sauvignon Blanc and one's Chardonnay. Sancerre and Chablis are virtually next each other and their terroir consists of the same white chalky soil. A Chablis is more similar to a Sancerre than to another white Burgundy from across the region in, say, Macon or Meursault.
That's more for the advanced class though.
What I'm saying is, if you have a 2004 X Winery Dry Creek Zinfandel, you'll probably like MOST 2004 Zinfandels from Dry Creek. If you enjoyed a 2005 Jumilla Monastrell from Juan Gil, you'll like a 2005 Jumilla Monastrell from Casa Castillo. Though you probably won't like 2005 Yecla Monastrell.
More advanced class stuff, but you get my point. Admittedly a talented winemaker can do glorious stuff with excellent fruit and can MAYBE make a respectable wine from mediocre fruit, but what it really comes down to is the fruit. So instead of our American fixation on brand brand brand, let's take a different approach and think about PRODUCT.
You like a hamburger. You like roast chicken. You like ravioli. Sure if you had your druthers you'd get a Whopper, but you'll get a Famous Star before you get a BK Broiler in a pinch, because you know that in the end you like a greasy fast food burger regardless of producer more than you like a greasy fast food chicken sandwich from the same producer. You see?
But money's limited and sometimes you're just stuck someplace and need some wine. So what do you do?
I present to you a list of SURE THINGS! They're like a chick with tattoos who smokes and is overweight but in that still sorta hot way (i.e. big tits and a pleasant face), she'll pretty much always say yes.
1. Shiraz from Australia. It's never great, but it's always pretty rich and tasty without being tannic.
2. White wines from Spain or Italy. Unlike most other regions' whites that rely upon oak and weird herbal grassiness, Spanish and Italian whites are brisk, crisp, and innocuous. Guaranteed not to offend.
3. Gruner Veltliner. This might set you back a bit more than other wines, especially given its local trendiness, you can still get a liter of this tasty dry Austrian white wine for less than $15.
4. Cava & Prosecco. Fuck Korbel's. If you want a cheap sparkling wine grab one of these from the value bins of Spain and Italy. Always crisp, almost always bottle conditioned, and almost always for under $10 (especially Cava). Trader Joe's has one right now for $5.99 that is pretty wickedly inoffensive.
5. California Merlot. As maligned as this grape has been lately, it really does deserve its consideration as one of the most esteemed grapes in the world. It's lush and soft, mellow, and with a few hints of earthy complexity even in lower priced examples.
6. Red wine from the south of France for under $10. For some reason France doesn't let much bad cheap wine get out, I don't know why this is, but it seems to be true. Look for stuff from the Southern Rhone, Languedoc, and Provence. Grenache from this reason is a particularly good bet. Nothing great, but tasty and versatile.
7. Queer varietals (I'm reclaiming the word!) from California. A lot of wineries are experimenting with some funky grapes these days. Sylvaner. Grenache. Carignane. Albarino. Petit Verdot. Viognier. Chenin Blanc. Muscat. These're being done by a handful of producers with some excellent results and since the wines have virtually no demand, they're almost all under $20 with many around $10 or less.
Hope that helps.
I sell wine and many many people come in asking for one specific wine. Wine is a finite thing each year. There's only so much 2005 Chardonnay made by X Winery in a given year. When it's gone, it's gone. Additionally, wine can be allocated to retailers and distributors making it impossible to get more of it once it's gone. Many customers try to seek out a wine they loved that they'd had at a restaurant or a wine they'd had wine tasting, but many many wineries only sell direct through the winery or through restaurants.
Thankfully virtually every winery has embraced the internet as a means of selling their wine and shipping costs are relatively nominal.
So what can you do if you have a wine you really really like? There's surprisingly a lot of useful information on a label that can be very helpful. Here's a step by step:
1. Make note of winemaker, though this might not be as useful as you think.
2. What's the vintage?
3. Where is it from? (This is key).
4. What are the grapes?
5. Note the price (know that the retail price will be 30%-50% less than the wine list price).
Something that the Europeans have always recognized about their wines is that WHERE it's from is inextricable from WHAT'S in it. Soil and climate is the most important consideration in a wine--for instance Sancerre and Chablis taste strikingly similar even though one's Sauvignon Blanc and one's Chardonnay. Sancerre and Chablis are virtually next each other and their terroir consists of the same white chalky soil. A Chablis is more similar to a Sancerre than to another white Burgundy from across the region in, say, Macon or Meursault.
That's more for the advanced class though.
What I'm saying is, if you have a 2004 X Winery Dry Creek Zinfandel, you'll probably like MOST 2004 Zinfandels from Dry Creek. If you enjoyed a 2005 Jumilla Monastrell from Juan Gil, you'll like a 2005 Jumilla Monastrell from Casa Castillo. Though you probably won't like 2005 Yecla Monastrell.
More advanced class stuff, but you get my point. Admittedly a talented winemaker can do glorious stuff with excellent fruit and can MAYBE make a respectable wine from mediocre fruit, but what it really comes down to is the fruit. So instead of our American fixation on brand brand brand, let's take a different approach and think about PRODUCT.
You like a hamburger. You like roast chicken. You like ravioli. Sure if you had your druthers you'd get a Whopper, but you'll get a Famous Star before you get a BK Broiler in a pinch, because you know that in the end you like a greasy fast food burger regardless of producer more than you like a greasy fast food chicken sandwich from the same producer. You see?
But money's limited and sometimes you're just stuck someplace and need some wine. So what do you do?
I present to you a list of SURE THINGS! They're like a chick with tattoos who smokes and is overweight but in that still sorta hot way (i.e. big tits and a pleasant face), she'll pretty much always say yes.
1. Shiraz from Australia. It's never great, but it's always pretty rich and tasty without being tannic.
2. White wines from Spain or Italy. Unlike most other regions' whites that rely upon oak and weird herbal grassiness, Spanish and Italian whites are brisk, crisp, and innocuous. Guaranteed not to offend.
3. Gruner Veltliner. This might set you back a bit more than other wines, especially given its local trendiness, you can still get a liter of this tasty dry Austrian white wine for less than $15.
4. Cava & Prosecco. Fuck Korbel's. If you want a cheap sparkling wine grab one of these from the value bins of Spain and Italy. Always crisp, almost always bottle conditioned, and almost always for under $10 (especially Cava). Trader Joe's has one right now for $5.99 that is pretty wickedly inoffensive.
5. California Merlot. As maligned as this grape has been lately, it really does deserve its consideration as one of the most esteemed grapes in the world. It's lush and soft, mellow, and with a few hints of earthy complexity even in lower priced examples.
6. Red wine from the south of France for under $10. For some reason France doesn't let much bad cheap wine get out, I don't know why this is, but it seems to be true. Look for stuff from the Southern Rhone, Languedoc, and Provence. Grenache from this reason is a particularly good bet. Nothing great, but tasty and versatile.
7. Queer varietals (I'm reclaiming the word!) from California. A lot of wineries are experimenting with some funky grapes these days. Sylvaner. Grenache. Carignane. Albarino. Petit Verdot. Viognier. Chenin Blanc. Muscat. These're being done by a handful of producers with some excellent results and since the wines have virtually no demand, they're almost all under $20 with many around $10 or less.
Hope that helps.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Opinion! Adventure! Consensus!
I've been thinking more about my hatred of Yelp! and crap like that, and I think I've distilled it down to one very basic thing:
A disdain for this human need to have some sort of consensus opinion to reference before said human tries something.
Obviously, this is something that is necessary in things like popular elections and Constitutional Amendments, but I don't think it's necessary for things like finding a place for lunch or deciding whether you want to try a new sex toy.
Because, first and foremost, is there anything more distinctive and person-specific than one's tastes in music and tastes in erotic stimulation?
To what end is establishing some sort of broad-based record of what a bunch of individuals think about largely inexpensive holes in the wall? Why are we so insecure about trusting our own instincts? They're the only instincts that matter, right?
Some of the best meals that I've had have been serendipitous mosey-ings into restaurants that I had no previous knowledge of their existence. Like Wakasan and Brandywine in Los Angeles, for instance. Or Sophia, Gregoire, and Lanesplitter in the East Bay.
Why are we so afraid to look at a menu, check out the type of food, the price, and then just walk in and give it a go? And hell, if the place is pricey, look up some critical reviews from newspapers--not for the final declaration of stars, but for the narrative description of what was consumed and make a decision. Knowing that will allow you to judge your own tastes against the tastes of the reviewer in reference to the food served.
It's also a helluva lot more fun. You discovered some place ON YOUR OWN! You actually UNDERSTAND what YOU like and can reason out a judgment on a restaurant based on YOUR tastes! Amazing! You're an unique, self-determining individual.
w00t!
A friend of mine discussed her growing disdain for Yelp! because she had tried numerous highly recommended taquerias and found them lacking. I had to explain to her that people on Yelp! by and large don't really think too critically about their food and render broad judgment based primarily on the quaintness of the taco truck and the spiciness of the meat. Tacos are one of those things like pizzas, burritos, and burgers--they're pretty easy to do well, difficult to totally fuck up, and nearly impossible to make transcendent.
My basic premise is this: you are just as likely to like or dislike a restaurant whether it was reviewed by 100 of your closest Yelp! friends or it has yet has yet to grace Yelp!'s hallowed halls. Because it's just a matter of your taste and your taste in food and dining is uniquely yours.
Here's my challenge: if a specific restaurant is a place that you'll get out of for less than $20, look at the menu and if it looks good, give it a go. If it's over $20, I give you the right to go online and do some additional research, but avoid anything that gives you a capsule summarization on something like Citysearch or Yelp! Try to find something more detailed.
And at the end of the day whether you had a wonderful experience or a terrible one, you'll be a better person for having tried something new. Take that risk and just go for it. Dining out is all about the experience anyway.
If all you cared about was the food, you could just eat at home.
Adventure!
A disdain for this human need to have some sort of consensus opinion to reference before said human tries something.
Obviously, this is something that is necessary in things like popular elections and Constitutional Amendments, but I don't think it's necessary for things like finding a place for lunch or deciding whether you want to try a new sex toy.
Because, first and foremost, is there anything more distinctive and person-specific than one's tastes in music and tastes in erotic stimulation?
To what end is establishing some sort of broad-based record of what a bunch of individuals think about largely inexpensive holes in the wall? Why are we so insecure about trusting our own instincts? They're the only instincts that matter, right?
Some of the best meals that I've had have been serendipitous mosey-ings into restaurants that I had no previous knowledge of their existence. Like Wakasan and Brandywine in Los Angeles, for instance. Or Sophia, Gregoire, and Lanesplitter in the East Bay.
Why are we so afraid to look at a menu, check out the type of food, the price, and then just walk in and give it a go? And hell, if the place is pricey, look up some critical reviews from newspapers--not for the final declaration of stars, but for the narrative description of what was consumed and make a decision. Knowing that will allow you to judge your own tastes against the tastes of the reviewer in reference to the food served.
It's also a helluva lot more fun. You discovered some place ON YOUR OWN! You actually UNDERSTAND what YOU like and can reason out a judgment on a restaurant based on YOUR tastes! Amazing! You're an unique, self-determining individual.
w00t!
A friend of mine discussed her growing disdain for Yelp! because she had tried numerous highly recommended taquerias and found them lacking. I had to explain to her that people on Yelp! by and large don't really think too critically about their food and render broad judgment based primarily on the quaintness of the taco truck and the spiciness of the meat. Tacos are one of those things like pizzas, burritos, and burgers--they're pretty easy to do well, difficult to totally fuck up, and nearly impossible to make transcendent.
My basic premise is this: you are just as likely to like or dislike a restaurant whether it was reviewed by 100 of your closest Yelp! friends or it has yet has yet to grace Yelp!'s hallowed halls. Because it's just a matter of your taste and your taste in food and dining is uniquely yours.
Here's my challenge: if a specific restaurant is a place that you'll get out of for less than $20, look at the menu and if it looks good, give it a go. If it's over $20, I give you the right to go online and do some additional research, but avoid anything that gives you a capsule summarization on something like Citysearch or Yelp! Try to find something more detailed.
And at the end of the day whether you had a wonderful experience or a terrible one, you'll be a better person for having tried something new. Take that risk and just go for it. Dining out is all about the experience anyway.
If all you cared about was the food, you could just eat at home.
Adventure!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Lunch!
Having spent much of the last three years either working or going to school almost every evening of the week I haven't been one to really "go out to dinner" much. Most evening meals are a quick slice of pizza or some Chinese takeout. When I do go out to eat it's an occasion, planned in advance with the location deliberately selected.
The flipside? I I've had the pleasure of enjoying what very few normal folks get to do.... Frequent long leisurely off-hours lunches on a whim. I don't have to blast through a sixty minute power lunch, nor do I have to eat between noon and 1:30.
Lunch has its advantages.... It's more laid back, especially if you get there after the rush. The menu, while generally smaller, will usually offer the dishes the restaurant's known for and usually have a broader array of sandwiches, salads, and smaller plates which often are a better showcase of a kitchen's abilities and innovation. And also the servers are typically less experienced, which means they're usually younger and cuter.
So in my travels I've found some rockstar fabulous lunch spots worth a drop-by.
First, the good cheap spots:
1. Sophia on Solano Avenue in Albany
2. Yammy Sushi in El Cerrito Plaza
3. King Tsin on Solano Avenue in Berkeley (Dim Sum!)
4. Magnolia Pub at Haight/Masonic in San Francisco
But recently I rediscovered A16 and have quickly found one of the best lunch spots in town. I found myself with time to kill in the Marina and I caught A16 on one of its open days for lunch (Wed-Fri only). Assortment of salads, a few pastas and small plates, and their full array of pizzas--probably the best in town.
Glass of wine, salad, and a pizza and I was out the door for $43. Of course one didn't need the wine or the salad, and I took half the pizza home so realistically you could be out of there sated and pleased for under $30.
Hard to beat for a meal at one of the better restaurants in SF.
A16
Chestnut at Divisadero
www.a16sf.com
Reservations: 415-771-2216 or www.opentable.com
The flipside? I I've had the pleasure of enjoying what very few normal folks get to do.... Frequent long leisurely off-hours lunches on a whim. I don't have to blast through a sixty minute power lunch, nor do I have to eat between noon and 1:30.
Lunch has its advantages.... It's more laid back, especially if you get there after the rush. The menu, while generally smaller, will usually offer the dishes the restaurant's known for and usually have a broader array of sandwiches, salads, and smaller plates which often are a better showcase of a kitchen's abilities and innovation. And also the servers are typically less experienced, which means they're usually younger and cuter.
So in my travels I've found some rockstar fabulous lunch spots worth a drop-by.
First, the good cheap spots:
1. Sophia on Solano Avenue in Albany
2. Yammy Sushi in El Cerrito Plaza
3. King Tsin on Solano Avenue in Berkeley (Dim Sum!)
4. Magnolia Pub at Haight/Masonic in San Francisco
But recently I rediscovered A16 and have quickly found one of the best lunch spots in town. I found myself with time to kill in the Marina and I caught A16 on one of its open days for lunch (Wed-Fri only). Assortment of salads, a few pastas and small plates, and their full array of pizzas--probably the best in town.
Glass of wine, salad, and a pizza and I was out the door for $43. Of course one didn't need the wine or the salad, and I took half the pizza home so realistically you could be out of there sated and pleased for under $30.
Hard to beat for a meal at one of the better restaurants in SF.
A16
Chestnut at Divisadero
www.a16sf.com
Reservations: 415-771-2216 or www.opentable.com
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