Fat Guy

Kerry, I'd love to see a photo of that.

If your definition of capitalist is "profit maximizing" then, sure, any decision that doesn't maximize profit (giving to charity, taking a day off, trying to make your product better even though it won't make you any more money) is anti-capitalist. But of course, as you learned about in Economics class, that's not what the word means. In any event, what DutchMuse was really saying was that American restaurants seek to maximize profit while European restaurants seek to maximize service. And that's just not the case. For one thing, in many cases profit maximization and service maximization go hand in hand. For another thing, there are plenty of American examples of businesses that could make more money but choose instead to prioritize other goals -- Per Se would be a good example of a business where demand exceeds supply yet the restaurant hasn't raised its prices to maximize the supply-demand equation in its favor, so is essentially subsidizing your meal out of idealism and dedication to principles other than profit maximization. And for still another thing, profit maximization is a complex process that can involve much more than this month's balance sheet. The loss leader, the long-term investment, the investment in goodwill, the assigning of value to non-monetary goals (pleasure, recognition, etc.) . . . these are all part of the system.

That kind of behavior can cost you a star!

My grandmother was a serious fencer, and had an amazing collection of sword-motif jewelry. I got one piece of jewelry -- a tie pin (yeah, guys wear those all the time in the 21st Century) -- and also this: It's a set of eight sword toothpicks (aka swordpicks). The handles seem to be gold plated, and the blades steel. The rack is pretty cool. Note that some of the swords are foils and others are sabers. I was just having a conversation and something triggered the memory of these unusual items, so I searched through the china cabinet, unearthed them and took a photo. I've never used them. Maybe I will soon. Who's next?

1. Freeze the bread. 2. Pack the sandwich in an insulated bag, the kind available for a couple of dollars at any supermarket these days (e.g., Kold-To-Go). 3. Put all that out of the sun. Even in 80 degree weather, this arrangement should give you 3-4 hours before your sandwich reaches ambient temperature. In addition, you add very little weight -- these bags are extremely light -- especially if you get one that's sized right for your needs.

I thought I had cracked the code. "Thai spicy!" I declared to the waitress at Sripraphai, which is not only the best Thai restaurant in New York City, but also one of the very few acceptable ones (for this reason, I suggest you avoid Sripraphai unless you're willing to become jaded about all the Thai places you currently enjoy). She nodded -- clearly, this clever turn of phrase (simply saying "very spicy" won't even get you to square one) indicated an in-the-know Caucasian customer who could tolerate spicy food the way Thai people eat it. It was spicy enough to cause perspiration and some discomfort, but as with all the best spicy Southeast Asian cuisine, the heat was not simply for its own sake but was balanced by the other flavors in the dish. Most great Southeast Asian cuisine -- to paint with a very broad brush -- is characterized by a balance of tastes, particularly between sweetness and spiciness. It also tends toward the extremely aromatic. In its Americanized incarnations, however, this cuisine can be either sickly sweet or one-dimensionally spicy -- the kind of food you eat only on a dare. Sripraphai is one of the few restaurants in New York that strikes the right balance, and where the dishes give off the aromas of the genuine article. I ordered this same dish, "jungle curry" with one or another meat (most of the dishes on the menu are protein-interchangeable: chicken, beef, pork, tofu), on my next four visits, each time feeling exceptionally proud of myself for having reached across the great cultural divide that so often makes it impossible for non-Asians to get the best food in Asian restaurants. And then, on visit number six, I started in on my jungle curry (with chicken this time) and, as I was blithely approaching the second bite, I realized that a dull pain was beginning to radiate outwards from the roof of my mouth, up my sinuses and all over my head, which was beginning to throb. I dropped my fork on or near the plate, instinctively drank a glass of water -- which only made it worse -- then ate my rice and my wife's rice and attempted to recover. Eventually, the waitress noticed my distress. She apologized, "Oh, sorry, this time I forget to tell chef you're not a Thai person. That one, it's real Thai medium-spicy." A humbling experience, to be sure, but it enabled me to ascertain the only effective way for a non-Asian to get full-strength versions of the dishes at Sripraphai: lean in conspiratorially and say to the waitress: "Don't tell the chef I'm not Thai." A Pyrrhic victory, perhaps, since my subsequent Sripraphai meals have been a blur of pain and suffering -- but a victory nonetheless.

I think at this time I'd like to add an anecdote to the topic. A few months ago, five friends came down from Canada. Various business obligations made their schedules unpredictable, so it wasn't until around noon one day that the ringleader called and said they were free for dinner. Oh, and they wanted to go to "the best new restaurant in town." So I called the Modern, and I said, "Hi, do you have a table for seven people available this evening by any chance." And the answer I got, in the most polite Danny-Meyer-trained language possible, was, essentially, "Are you fucking crazy?" So I said, okay, is there a manager I can speak to? I was put through to Graceanne Jordan, and I said, hey, I know it's a long shot, but seriously, tell me what you have on your book tonight. Turns out, they had a 9pm reservation at their eight-top. So, okay, I said how about we come in the second you open, and we'll be sure to move things along and be out by 8:45? No no, said Graceanne Jordan, we don't like to set time limits, and we find that three hours is really tight for a large party. And I was like, look, this is consensual. We want to eat there. My friends are in from Canada. They come once or twice a year. This is the night they're free. We'll skip the cheese course. We'll have coffee in the bar room if things run long. I promise we won't complain. Please, please, please. And she said, and I quote, "I'm finding it hard to say no to you," and she made the reservation. We had a great meal -- we even had time for cheese and for a couple of extra courses that the kitchen sent out -- and the people coming in at 9pm were probably late anyway. If that's not a win-win situation, I don't know what is. The restaurant made about $1,500 extra for the night, the servers got extra tips, and we got the dinner we wanted. Everybody was happy. Now, I can assure you, if I called up a Michelin three-star restaurant in Europe and tried to have that negotiation, the seven of us would have been eating dinner at Brasserie Flo or some other lame-ass place. So which system is better? Which system represents better "customer service"? I guess it depends on your perspective. If you're one of the customers lucky enough to be safely ensconced inside the 7-11pm window, it's great that the table is yours for the evening. If you're the customer who gets turned away even though there's an empty table, three hours, and plenty of food, you're likely not to think it's such a great system.

50% more diners can be accommodated by 1.5 sittings than by 1. Per Se isn't just a restaurant for New Yorkers. It's a destination for visitors as well. But yes, there are plenty of people who try to do two things in an evening. It's not possible to catch 8pm theater comfortably after dinner at Per Se, but there are, for example, plenty of music performances that start at 9:30 and 10:00pm. People who might visit New York once a year or once in a lifetime understandably want to pack as much into the visit as possible, and plenty of locals dine out at the luxury level so often that it's just not that big a deal -- they want to get dinner and move on. But really, it's just silly to project one's own personal preferences onto the entire population. People choose to dine at 5:30 for a variety of reasons: 1- because they just plain like to eat early (I count myself in this category -- the only time I ever make a reservation later than 6pm is when schedules or guests demand it), 2- because they want to do something after dinner, 3- because that's the only available reservation and it's better than not being able to eat at the restaurant at all. Sometimes people regret making choice number 3, and therefore feel the need to complain about it forever, but it's just that: a choice.

I'm trying to remember the blurb process for my book -- it's such an insignificant part of the publication process that it doesn't really stand out -- and I think there were some blurbs I solicited and some my editor solicited, and then she chose the best ones for inclusion on the book jacket, whereas some others were used in marketing literature (press releases, etc.) but didn't appear on the book jacket. I think the paperback may have had different blurbs from the hardcover. Regardless, I can't imagine how any of that would impact my ability to review a book by John T. Edge, Mimi Sheraton or Anthony Bourdain.

The strange thing to me about this purported policy (again, I've not been able to find it in the Times ethics policy) is that the Times has no trouble assigning book reviews to the enemies and competitors of authors. Apparently, there's no conflict of interest in having the author of a competing book on a subject review another book on the same subject, or to have political enemies review each other's books.

I can't imagine why the Times would make such a big deal about book blurbs. Certainly, there is no actual conflict of interest. Book blurbs are just no big deal. The people who wrote blurbs for my book don't necessarily even like me. They don't think I owe them anything, and neither do I, and neither does anybody who has ever blurbed or been blurbed. If a publisher, author or agent sends me a book and asks for a blurb, I always provide one, assuming I like the book. Most of the time I don't know the author. Most of the time the blurb doesn't even get used. Anyway, the only thing I can think of is that the Times is concerned about the possible appearance of conflict of interest, and while that's often stated as a standard it's a ridiculous, untenable, unattainable, self-defeating goal. Instead, the Times should focus on the quality and professionalism of the actual content of the writing in the paper, instead of obsessing about book blurbs. I don't even know what the policy is, because there's nothing in the Times "Ethical Journalism" policy that I can find that covers book blurbs. I also think Gawker got this story wrong. Amanda Hesser was not slated to be William Grimes's replacement. I've never heard anybody say that. And was the Magazine position seriously a demotion? If so, it was a strange one, because it put her in a position of greater influence than before.

I didn't realize everybody in Italy lived in cities, within walking distance of espresso bars, gelaterias and pizzerias. Of course, if you live in a place like New York City, you have all that within walking distance too. Either way, it still requires expensive technology to make these foods well, whether you're in Florence, New York or Tokyo.

I've had obnoxious service at the French Laundry. It can happen. I'm sure Thomas Keller (or Danny Meyer, et al.) would be the first to say that, despite the incredible lengths to which his organization goes to train its service staff, the servers are ingenious at coming up with new and inventive ways to mess up. I've had obnoxious service at a couple of the best restaurants in Europe too, including Taillevent, which is legendary for having the best service in the world. Maybe it does, but not the day I was there, not the server I had that day. Any restaurant, on any given day, can mess up. That's axiomatic in any business where people interact with people. But some things are more understandable than others. When we get to the things that make no sense at all, chances are we're looking at miscommunication and misinterpretation. That can happen too.

Of course you get better service if you order a $2,000 bottle of wine! I've seen this many, many times (in Europe too). The only surprise would be if you didn't get anything special for that kind of a purchase. However, in a restaurant with 16 tables that's booked solid every single night, there's not a tremendous amount of flexibility. At Daniel, sure, they can swap some things around and extend a table's time when there's a high roller in the house, but that might not even be possible at Per Se. There are a lot of holes in the anecdote relayed above, but it's probably not worth pointing to all of them. The accuracy or lack thereof of the anecdote doesn't change the issue, that European three-star restaurants have single sittings and American restaurants at that level don't.

Would somebody please explain to me how seedless fruit is accomplished?

XiaoLing, what's your particular safety concern here? I don't think refrigerated fish that was previously frozen is suddenly going to develop parasites, and chances are if you've observed safe handling guidelines you're not going to be subjecting yourself to bacterial or viral infection. The only real issue, then, is freshness -- and that you can judge with your nose. If the fish still smells good, eat it. You can be sure that most sushi restaurants don't throw out all their unused fish at the end of the day.

That's a false dichotomy. Capitalism favors good service. Just try getting good service in a non-capitalist restaurant. Good luck with that. All the restaurants with Michelin stars everywhere in the world operate under principles of capitalism. The issue isn't capitalism versus service, it's how to serve your market. The markets in the US and Europe are simply different. When Per Se opened, it had one sitting. So did Alain Ducasse at the Essex House -- a restaurant operated by the chef who operates more Michelin-starred restaurants than I can keep track of. But, eventually, both went over to the 1.5 sitting model, where about half the tables in the restaurant (the early and late reservations) are re-seated and the other half (the ones with reservations in the middle of the evening) are not. Why? Because that's what the New York market demanded. Restaurants in New York operate for many more hours a night than European restaurants, because consumers in New York want the option of eating and then going to the Jazz Standard for the 9:30pm show, or they want to be able to catch the 7:30pm show and eat afterwards. European consumers are content to come in within a fairly narrow range of seating times, and to conform their schedules to the restaurant's schedule. When you start serving at 5:30pm and you have people eating dessert at 1:30am, guess what happens? Half the dining room is always empty. The people dining at your restaurant don't like that -- they want to be in a dining room with some energy, and with 16 tables you only get energy if they're all occupied. Moreover, the people not eating at the restaurant get irate when they find out that half the dining room is kept empty out of religious adherence to some inapplicable European business model. People want to eat at Per Se. More people want to eat there than can be accommodated. How is Per Se to manage that situation? Let's say there's a table reserved at 9:30pm, and someone calls up begging for a reservation. Should that person be told, no, get lost, we only do one sitting and we're full. Go celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary somewhere else. We're going to keep that table empty from 5:30 to 9:30 so we can be more European. Or, do you say, you know what, we have a 9:30 reservation, but if you want to come in at 5:30, come on in, we just need to have the table back by 9:30. I can also guarantee you with a 99.9% level of certainty that nobody with a 7pm reservation at Per Se has ever been told to vacate the table by 9pm. There's no way Per Se plans anything less than a 3-hour turn. I like a single sitting as much as the next hedonist, but I'd rather be able to get in to a restaurant than not.

Italy has a reputation as the home of rustic, simple, earthy, agriculturally driven cuisine. Yet, some comments on the recent gelato topic got me wondering: how many core Italian foods are actually dependent on expensive and elaborate technology? For example, gelato. Serious gelato seems to require a super-expensive machine. If you don't have such a machine, you aren't going to be turning out a top-notch product. Espresso. Sam Kinsey pointed out this similarity. You need substantial, and substantially expensive, equipment in order to pull really great shots and steam milk up to standard. Another one that occurs to me is dried pasta. Just try making it at home without heavy-duty extruding machines. Pizza. You need to build a wood-fired brick oven costing tens of thousands of dollars if you want to make Neapolitan pizza at a high level. I'm sure there are other examples. Meanwhile, it seems you can make most of the French haute cuisine repertoire with a spoon.

I will say that, other than the words "Gray Kunz" etched on the back of the handle, the Gray Kunz sauce spoons appear utterly unremarkable. They're not particularly hefty, shiny or unusually shaped. They don't even come in a nice presentation box -- according to my wife, the spoons are just standing loose in a jar behind the cash register in the J.B. Prince it's-not-a-store-it's-a-showroom. My fantasy, however, is that once you dip your Gray Kunz sauce spoon in a sauce of Sherry vinegar, apple juice and caramelized shallots, it transforms into the 1987 Ferrari Testarossa of chef's tools. I envision myself garnishing plates in the manner of Picasso, Pollock and Dali, but with the accuracy of a Breitling watch and the spiritual discipline of the Yogi Gupta. And then, with a spinning toss in the air and a single fluid motion, I reholster my Gray Kunz sauce spoon with the studied, manly nonchalance of a Wild West gunslinger.

In 99% of instances, we can be sure that the products we purchase at the supermarket will not be the best of their kind -- not even close. But once in awhile, I'll buy some seemingly generic, commoditized, bulk product at the supermarket and it will be amazing. For example, the other day I bought some onions on sale, something like two bags for $3. I imagine one of the world's greatest onion farmers sold his crop to a bulk processor, who mixed them in with the rest of the stream of that commodity, and they wound up in my crummy neighborhood supermarket. These onions were so good, I've never had better ones -- not at the fanciest restaurants in the world. They were better than any Vidalias I've had. Just amazing. The incident reminded me that this has happened a couple of times before. You never know what you're going to get that's going to be bizarrely good. It could be some sort of fruit -- rare, but it has happened to me. Or it could be a piece of beef -- that's actually happened to me a few times with supermarket beef. Never with fish, though. Not yet for me, at least.

So . . . . the people who don't believe in it should be in charge of that?

The block association on the block where I grew up has held competitions of this nature, albeit with desserts. It's nice to have several categories and prizes so there can be lots of winners. Also, it's possible to have a set of winners chosen by the judges and, if everybody gets to taste, a set of winners chosen by the public (or, there can be specific category awards from the judges and an overall most-popular award from the public). One thing to watch out for: one year on the block the same person won in EVERY category. He was just a much better baker than anybody else, so much so that it was obvious to all. So, a one-award-per-person rule can also make sense for a fun, community event. Oh, and if there are any professional cooks competing, it's probably smart to put them in a separate category.

Spurred by the rumors, Frank Bruni of the New York Times took the unusual step (for a fine-dining critic) of reviewing Katz's. The Times published his glowing review on 30 May 2007. The review contains, at the end, a bit of reporting on the rumors:

Your best bet is probably to get on the subway and get out of the area. Every restaurant from Madison to Lex will likely be mobbed. If you're going to stay uptown to eat, try someplace on Third or Second Avenue, like Nick's or, as suggested above, Wu Liang Ye. El Paso on 97th is good Mexican but might not be far enough East to be out of the danger zone -- you could walk by and check.

I was blown away by just about every dish we had at A Voce tonight. It was the best Italian meal I've had in New York City -- better than my best meal at any Mario Batali or Scott Conant restaurant, or San Domenico or Felidia, or anyplace else. For pure joy of eating, Andrew Carmellini has raised the bar. The Sardinian sheep's milk ricotta, served with toasted, garlicky bread is one of the best ways imaginable to start a meal. Order it the second your server approaches, before you even think about cocktails, menus, etc. One of the things that struck me about A Voce's menu was that I wanted to eat every single thing on it. True, I'm more of an omnivore than most, but I can't remember the last time I read such an appealing menu. Usually, I look at a menu and immediately dismiss the majority of the dishes as wastes of my time. There wasn't a single thing on the A Voce menu that seemed like a waste. Not even close. Another excellent appetizer item was a wooden board of salumi, called "Paul's Salumi" on the menu. Perhaps the Paul refers to Paul Bertolli, perhaps not, but it was certainly on that rarefied level. Cubes of local yellowfin tuna, marinated in olive oil with Sicilian oranges, fennel and oregano was another star. The best appetizer, the best dish of the night, and one of the best restaurant dishes you're going to find anywhere (better even than the Momofuku version of the same dish) is the "asparagus parmigiana." It comes as several spears of superb asparagus topped with a runny fried egg and a truffle dressing. Along with that are big chunks -- I mean big like 3/4" cubes -- of pancetta "affumicata" (aka smoked) and a few slivers of cheese. Serious umami. Requires bread to get every drop. The duck meatballs are delicious, as everybody says they are, but I think every other appetizer we had deserves to be the signature appetizer more than the duck meatballs do. Pastas, we tried the gnocchi with a reappearance of the sheep's milk ricotta, plus lamb ragu. Small, light gnocchi and a sauce that would have been excellent even without the dollop of ricotta, but which was raised to a higher level by that excellent ingredient (the stellar ricotta also makes an appearance on the dessert menu, in its ice cream phase, as an accompaniment to a blueberry-topped olive-oil cake). Also, and forgive me for not being able to keep my technical pasta names straight, we had, uh, pasta with rock shrimp and zucchini, and a special of, well, pasta with rabbit sausage (from the market specials list). Both great. For secondi, country-style Tuscan tripe, with borlotti beans, tomato and a fried duck egg is a dish you just have to try if you like tripe, and have to try even more if you think you don't. (The only way to improve the asparagus dish would be to make it with a duck egg instead of a chicken egg). Also wonderful diver scallops (I've noticed this year that the diver scallops the better restaurants have been getting are bigger and better than I ever remember) served with a pesto that I believe our server said was made from broccoli rabe. And, from the market specials, black cod (sable, whatever) with a sweet pepper glaze -- oily, flaky, just as black cod is at its best. We had very strong service. Our server, when invited to do so, made a number of enthusiastic recommendations, and she really took responsibility, following up and seeming interested in discussing our reactions to everything from the cocktails (surprisingly well-conceived and -made) to the desserts (quite good, though not at the level of the savory food). A word about Cafe Boulud. On the one hand, it was a terrific restaurant under the Carmellini regime (better than Daniel, certainly, if you knew how to order); on the other hand, there are plenty of excellent restaurants in Cafe Boulud's category. It's not as though Cafe Boulud ever really delivered on the promise of being a casual cafe; it's a fancy restaurant in a crummy space with hit-or-miss service and a depressing crowd. So, I really don't miss having Andrew Carmellini at Cafe Boulud. I can go to any number of other restaurants (more comfortable, with better service) and get a meal like that. A Voce, on the other hand, is serving Italian food at a refreshingly high level. It really contributes something to the New York dining scene. I'm also not sure I agree that Cafe Boulud under Carmellini was a better restaurant than A Voce. My two or three best meals at Cafe Boulud were more complex than the meal I had tonight, but not necessarily better. The purity of flavors, the gregariousness, the spectacular ingredients, the balance of A Voce's dishes count for more in my book than the often uptight engineering of Cafe Boulud. I'm as dedicated to French-influenced haute cuisine as anyone, but I lean towards the A Voce camp on the comparison. I also wonder if there might be a way to order at a higher level at A Voce. I was trying to work through the menu, but I wonder what happens if you ask Andrew to cook for you . . . . The new outdoor seating area (we didn't sit there, instead opting for a table right on the other side of the glass, with air conditioning) is great. It's on the side street, not Madison Avenue, and is well protected from pedestrians by a wall of potted lemon trees. Inside and out, A Voce is a comfortable, stylish place.