Fat Guy

Given jsmeeker's budget of $30, I don't know that he'd have been able to find a good, subtle, aged Bordeaux. And while a pinot noir like Bethel (the Estate bottling) would be a good choice for a group of wine aficionados (I'd go with Argyle Nuthouse, just a personal preference), I'm not sure I'd serve it to my family. I mean, I can pretty much guarantee you that if you take a bunch of Americans who like wine and good food but don't make a study of it, you're going to get stronger positive responses to Zinfandel with beef than to pinot noir. I've wasted several good bottles of pinot noir on that experiment, before and after Sideways.

You may never find out exactly what happened, or who was thinking what (if anything). It's hard to know what goes on in a particular restaurant, especially behind the kitchen doors, on a particular night. Restaurants try to project confidence and competence, but behind the scenes things are often a complete mess. It's can be like a movie, where the actors are amazed at the final product -- they have no sense of it while they're in the thick of filming. So, for example, depending on who clears the plates and what's going on at that moment, it's quite possible that the chef will never learn that a portion went back uneaten. Some chefs make more of a point of checking on that sort of thing than others, and the design of the kitchen vis-a-vis the location of the dishwashing area can make a difference too. The thing is, for a restaurant that has had a long relationship with you, the plus or minus $80 is just not a big deal. A restaurant of that caliber is accustomed to taking losses on much more expensive items than that. It's part of the business. They do it for bad customers all the time, so for a good customer they really shouldn't mind.

I often wonder, when I hear about expensive mail-order hams, where the smokehouses are getting their raw hams from. I bet in a lot of cases they're using the same hams as the supermarket brands. I've found that a well-prepared supermarket ham -- not the absolute rock-bottom ham but the next one up -- at a couple of dollars a pound is often as enjoyable as a mail-order ham at six or seven dollars a pound.

Again, I'm not trying to say it's an easy situation. It isn't. And in a totally superficial situation where some server interrupts your meal to ask how everything is, your best move is probably to say "fine" and move on -- offering a serious critique would be a waste of breath. But when you have a relationship, you're kind of stuck with the truth because anything else eventually comes back to haunt you some day, some way. So, when it comes time to deliver the bad news, you fall back on general rules of constructive criticism and hope for the best: start with the positives ("This stuffing is awesome!"), try to turn the critique into a discussion ("Have you tasted it? What did you think? I'm wondering what other cooking methods you considered . . . I'm no expert on this product but I'm accustomed to it tasting more like . . ."), move off the uncomfortable subject quickly once you've made your point, follow up with more thanks and praise if needed. At this point, I'd suggest writing him a note, saying he caught you off guard, you really appreciate how accommodating he was, but that the dish wasn't good. Make sure he understands you're not complaining, not asking for anything, but just giving constructive criticism as a friend of the restaurant because you'd feel bad if he served that dish to anybody else. Conclude enthusiastically with a comment about how excited you are to return soon.

I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make, Nathan.

That's some powerful testimony there.

You may not be as good at identifying people's origins as you think, however if you define "B&T" paradoxically to include people who live in Manhattan then nobody is going to be able to test your hypothesis.

Even assuming such sweeping generalizations can meaningfully define a group of people, is this really the group that follows restaurant trends as reported in Time Out New York? I go to a decent number of new restaurants -- ones that have just been written up in Time Out, New York Magazine, "Off the Menu," etc. -- during their shakedown periods and I don't think I've ever found a lowbrow, unsophisticated, yokel crowd at one of them.

No question, offering criticism under the circumstances you've described is a challenge. And maybe the chef would have been wounded by it. But you rewarded the restaurant's willingness to please a regular customer with misinformation! Now what happens when another customer asks for something special, and the chef remembers how much Mr. & Mrs. markk loved that delicious goose preparation and found it well worth $80 a plate? Honesty would have been the lesser evil, I think. (And you know, there's always a chance an employee at the restaurant is going to read your post, put two and two together, and take it back to the chef . . .) We used to be regulars at a restaurant that did a lot of nice things for us. The day did come when we were served a lousy dish -- a special preview of a dish that was going on the menu soon -- after having been served about a thousand good dishes over a period of years. We equivocated, but eventually told the chef we thought it sucked -- I mean, we did so politely but we made clear that it was bad. He was a little miffed, I think. He put it on the menu anyway. It didn't do well. By the time he took it off the menu a few weeks later he had regained his sense of humor and was telling us stories about how the cooks had gotten tired of eating all the portions that had been sent back.

No contest, you want On Food and Cooking. I'm probably in the thousandth of a percent of the population with the most use for Larousse, yet like Anna I hardly ever use it. As a practical reference work, it's pretty much a failure. If there's a competitor for the Larousse position on the shelf, it's the Oxford Companion, but that's also not a particularly good practical reference -- though it's more enjoyable to read than Larousse. On Food and Cooking, which is a kitchen science book, is not really in the same category as Larousse and Oxford. It is, however, indispensable.

The best rib roast I've had in the past few years was slowly spit-roasted using a gas rotisserie (flame behind not under the meat). If you like crust, I can't imagine a better method.

Dijon-style mustard can be made with vinegar, white wine and/or verjuice (the last being the most traditional). The Grey Poupon brand, very popular in the US (it's a Kraft product), is made with both vinegar and white wine. By comparison, French's yellow mustard is made with vinegar and water. As everybody is saying, Grey Poupon (or any Dijon-style mustard) and Colman's (or any dry mustard) are going to have different flavors. They are, however, both mustard. I don't think it will ruin a big pot of beans if you switch back and forth. It might taste a little different to you if you're accustomed to tasting the same recipe again and again; nobody else will likely notice.

There is such a thing as dry-aged tenderloin -- there has to be, because if you dry-age a short loin you by definition wind up with dry-aged tenderloin. And it is better than wet-aged, because tenderness is only half the reason you age beef -- the other half is flavor. However, it's quite rare to find dry-aged tenderloin sold as a whole tenderloin roast. When dry-aged short loins are butchered so as to get porterhouse and T-bone cuts, there's no tenderloin independently available for sale because the fattest cross-sections of the tenderloin are attached to the strip to make up those cuts. So, if you pull the tenderloin out of the short loin, you sacrifice the most valuable steaks. The only place I know of where I could walk out tomorrow and get a dry-aged USDA Prime tenderloin is Lobel's, where a 3.5-pound whole tenderloin costs $174.48. Lobel's can offer this product, first, by charging $50 a pound and, second, because Lobel's also sells the whole shell roast (8 pounds for $318.98). There may be a couple of other places where you can get USDA Prime dry-aged tenderloin but I'm not sure where they'd be. Maybe Florence down on Jones Street.

I'm assuming the dry mustard you're accustomed to using is Colman's. You can mix Colman's dry mustard with water to create prepared (wet) mustard, so in theory there's no problem substituting prepared mustard for dry. Grey Poupon, however, has quite a different taste -- Colman's is a very spicy mustard. So, you might notice a slightly different flavor, but I'm sure the recipe will work just fine.

I believe it's the other way around, Pan: the restaurant's actual name is Il Toscano.

The Costco tenderloins are excellent, if you like tenderloin. I can't imagine that two days of resting open in the refrigerator would improve the meat. I'd just leave it in the bag until it's time to prepare it. I agree with everyone who has recommended high-temperature roasting. You'll also find that the graduated shape of the tenderloin will yield slices of varying doneness, which is good for groups where you have some folks who prefer rare and others who prefer medium rare or medium. There may even be a piece all the way at the end that's medium well. An alternative to high-temperature roasting is grilling. I've had many a Costco grilled tenderloin -- I have a friend who cooks that exact dish every time we go there for dinner -- and they've been great. I mean, I'm not exactly a partisan of the tenderloin -- I think you sacrifice flavor for tenderness when you opt for tenderloin -- but as tenderloins go this is good stuff.

The concern with most shellfish is that they naturally play host to a lot of bacteria that, while they're alive, they keep pretty much in check. Once they're dead, the bacteria can grow rapidly on the flesh, which both degrades the flesh and creates a risk of foodborne illness. Shellfish are much more susceptible to this process than fin fish. That's why we are repeatedly cautioned never to cook a dead lobster. Commercially, they use HPP (high-pressure process) to process, "cold pasteurize," and pack raw lobster meet for food service operators. I don't believe there's any equivalent process available to a home cook. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that restaurants that store raw lobster meat overnight are doing so contrary to regulations. I'm not sure that vacuum sealing makes a difference from a safety perspective, since the concern is with bacteria that already live in the lobster's flesh (I believe they're mostly in the digestive tract, so you want to be particularly careful getting that black line out of the tail). For storage, I'd think what you want to strive for is the coldest possible temperature -- just above freezing. It may make sense to use the vacuum sealer to create watertight packages, and then to place those under ice in a plastic bin in the refrigerator -- that would probably retard bacterial growth. Deep frying should also add a measure of protection. Lobsters should be able to live for about two days after purchase if their gills are kept wet. Oh, by the way, the Lobster Institute calls it "meat," as do other sources I've checked.

Or, if they do survive, will they still be four-star restaurants? Or will they become barely star-worthy restaurants like the Four Seasons, which was once by all accounts among the best restaurants in America and is now taken seriously by exactly zero percent of the serious foodies I know; or even if they maintain their current standards will that be enough to merit four stars in 2020, 2030 and 2040?

With respect to terminology, the "prime" in prime rib doesn't refer to the grade "USDA Prime" but, rather, I believe, to its location in the carcass. A good California zinfandel, like any of the vineyard-designated bottlings produced by Ridge (Geyserville is one of them), would be an unassailable choice.

Perhaps, but you're the only person I've ever heard make that claim. That's exactly the point.

I'm also not sure free fatty acids and acidity are the same thing -- I have to find an authoritative reference.

Preeminence and relevance are two different things. I love dining at Jean Georges. It's my go-to place for four-star dining, because Ducasse and Per Se -- the only two places I think are arguably better -- are not affordable (and Ducasse is closing, and hasn't been open for lunch in years). But the food at Jean Georges in many ways seems downright old fashioned now. It maintains its appeal because it's really great and has continued to improve, but has at the same time been losing the part of its appeal that came from being really new.

Right, that chart focuses on free fatty acids, but filtration should be the more important factor -- those floating bits and pieces are what's really going to burn, though that phenomenon may not technically be the "smoke point."

Thomas Keller is 51, so he could live 50 more years -- but there's no way he's going to maintain his current level of activity in the kitchen for more than another ten or so. But the question for Keller's restaurants is more than just whether they'll be able to survive a succession. I mean, there are examples of chef-driven restaurants that have survived just fine. Le Bernardin was totally identified with Gilbert Le Coze before he died, and a lot of people didn't think Eric Ripert could pull it off -- yet today pretty much all those people (me included) identify Le Bernardin totally with Ripert and think of him as one of the top chefs in the business. Likewise, Lespinasse made the transition from Gray Kunz to Christian Delouvrier with at least initial success -- a four-star review -- and Ducasse sort of survived through two chef changes. (There are also restaurants, like the Danny Meyer restaurants, that barely feel it when they change chefs.) But even if Keller plans well for succession, and even if Jonathan Benno without Keller is as good or better than Jonathan Benno with Keller, will Per Se remain relevant for that long? One issue we haven't touched upon is that for most of the 20th Century the pace of change in cuisine was glacial. Now it's supersonic. Can any restaurant keep up for an extended period of time?

The really interesting thing, to me at least, is that despite its bad reputation in North America as a frying oil, the light, filtered, refined olive oils that you'd actually want to use for frying have higher smoke points than the frying oils like Canola, peanut and even grapeseed.