Fat Guy

Nathan, I'm sure I'm not alone when I ask what it is you're trying to prove here. You started out by saying that dim sum is a niche product and that you're not a fan, however you're denying that those comments translate to you claiming that dim sum is unworthy of serious attention. So what exactly were you saying? Your comments and tone certainly seem to confirm Eddie's claims that local critics and consumers don't have much appreciation of this kind of cuisine -- the word parochial comes to mind. Now, having apparently pre-judged the cuisines of the world, and having tried to focus on various red herrings about pastrami and stars, you're challenging CB to produce a meal experience that will for you be on par with Alinea, even though nobody ever said you'd have an experience like that at CB. What Eddie said was that being one of the top dim sum chefs in the world is on par with being a top French chef, and I think that's a valid claim: the level of skill and artistry required, the training, the commitment . . . they are certainly comparable. I'm sure if you asked any chef with three Michelin stars you'd receive emphatic confirmation that the top practitioners of Asian cuisines are in the same league. In terms of price, while there are certainly some expensive Chinese restaurants around, those prices are just not comparable to what Western haute cuisine restaurants are getting on a per-cover basis. The question isn't are you going to get the Alinea meal experience at CB. The question is what could a top dim sum chef do in a Per Se environment where there are 16 tables, 100 or so covers a night, with each cover guaranteed to be $200 or more and with several tables each night spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on wine. When the market is ready to support such a place, I'm sure you'll see the Chinese equivalent of Masa. Until then, what we're lucky to see is a new breed of near-haute Chinese places popping up (Mainland, CB, et al.) where we can perhaps hope to get a taste of some of the interesting stuff that's going on in Asia right now.

Thanks for your comments, Si. I think one stumbling block for a lot of people is, as you indicate, a conceptual problem with the concept of "confidence." Confidence isn't about pretending you're something you're not. True confidence is sometimes just the confidence to be ignorant.

The Shake Shack "Chicago Dog" consists of a Vienna all-beef dog on a poppy seed bun with lettuce, tomato, sport peppers, green peppers, pickles, onion, neon relish, cucumber, celery salt and mustard. My understanding is that the most traditional Chicago-style dogs, as originally served at Fluky's, would include all those items except lettuce and green peppers. That said, I'm not sure the inclusion of additional toppings (except maybe ketchup) makes it inauthentic. There are (or were back when I used to go there a lot) places in Chicago that do include lettuce and green peppers.

Nathan, I've got to assume that, even though you've had dim sum in Vancouver, you've never been exposed to great dim sum. Maybe you've focused on the high-turnover, mass-production operations where the dim sum brunches are terrific for what they are but are several notches below the top of the form. I've been to several such places in Vancouver, and I think they're the best of their kind in North America -- but they don't represent world-class dim sum. They're just better versions of the cart factories we have here in New York. A few years ago I had the pleasure of dining at the Golden Peony in Singapore. The dim sum brunch served there was a demonstration of true culinary artistry. We're talking about magical, ethereal, lovingly crafted morsels -- each a bite-sized demonstration of the greatness of Chinese cuisine. Once in awhile, at one of the dim sum factories, you get a real eye-opener of a creation -- imagine a whole meal consisting of one such A+ example after another, each one assembled with great care and cooked to order. Later, when I first went to Dim Sum Go Go in New York, I could see hints of that artistry -- though I think Dim Sum Go Go falls short of the mark in too many ways. I recently tried some of the dumpling items at Mainland and they had some commonalities with this style as well -- and the photos of some of the Chinatown Brasserie selections seem really promising. More importantly, though, as a theoretical matter I think in your attempt to be provocative you're completely missing the point here. Dim sum is not some minor offshoot of Chinese cuisine. It's at the leading edge of the form. Dim sum is a beautiful tradition that is also decidedly modern and international, combining deep appreciation of flavor and aesthetics and at its best producing world-beating results. The training and dedication of great dim sum chefs is incredible -- love it or not, it's pretty damn insulting to say that dim sum is unworthy of serious attention. (I still haven't got a clue what pastrami, or steak, has to do with any of this, so I won't waste the pixels following up on your comments there.)

Michelin does not side with you on that issue: nobody at Michelin has ever said anything like "I don't care if it's the best pastrami on the planet, it's still pastrami." Just the opposite: the Michelin position, as indicated by their announcements and their other inclusions, is that the best of everything should be included. The Michelin people, not I, have made the claim that the New York guide attempts to find the best examples of each cuisine regardless of other factors. Thus, the guide includes NY Noodle Town, Jackson Diner, Sripraphai and other quite informal, downmarket places. Viewed in that context -- a context proudly trumpeted by Michelin -- the omission of Katz's pastrami is as clueless as the omission of Peter Luger's steak would be. But I digress. We already covered this on the Michelin topic and I'm not sure how it's really relevant here. As to your larger point, what is it that makes dim sum more of a niche product than, say, French haute cuisine? Dim sum sits at or near the apex of the culinary arts. Every Western-trained chef I've ever spoken to who has made a pilgrimage to Hong Kong has come back humbled at the level of craft in the kitchens over there. What about dim sum exactly do you think requires less skill or training, is less complex or subtle, than French haute cuisine? I understand that you're not a fan of dim sum, but that doesn't justify dismissing one of the world's great cuisines.

There doesn't actually seem to be anything in the inspection result that equates to unsanitary conditions. Several of the violations seem unavoidable given the nature of a park kiosk food concession. I mean, you look at something like "Toilet facility not provided for employees or for patrons when required," and you have to wonder how this applies to a place like Shake Shack. There are hundreds of street vendors all over New York City, and not a single one of them has a bathroom. You don't have bathrooms in this sort of operation. The Union Square Hospitality Group has two restaurants right beside the Shake Shack, where employees can go to use a bathroom. Danny Meyer sent out the following letter today. I tend to think his summary, "The major violations for which we were cited were either structural or operational. None found conditions of vermin, mucus, urine or feces," gets to the heart of the matter. This is the attachment, reformatted not particularly well by me:

To the contrary, Janet: I think the bar is often the best place to sit in any restaurant that takes bar dining seriously. There are a few local restaurants where Ellen and I make a point of sitting at the bar even when tables are available and even when we're not having cocktails. A well-schooled bartender will know as much about the menu as anyone, and the bar at most any restaurant tends to be closely monitored by management. I mean, I wouldn't recommend the bar for a multi-hour, extended tasting menu -- the ergonomics of stools and counters just aren't right -- but for most anything else the bar is a great choice for two people or even three if you can grab a corner. Establishing a relationship with the bartender is also one of the quickest, surest ways to become a known customer. Bartenders tend to have elephantine memories, and you can be sure that if you make an impression on your first visit you'll be welcomed by name on your second. Needless to say, this is doubly true at sushi bars, where the people sitting at the bar are being served by the actual chef. There's very rarely a good reason for sitting at a table when sitting at the sushi bar is a viable option. I wouldn't worry about feeling uncomfortable dining alone at a table, though. Modern restaurants are hip to the fact that solo diners expect to be taken seriously. In the mid 1990s I heard tales of substandard treatment for solo diners, especially from women and minorities, but I rarely hear such complaints anymore. A lot of evolution has occurred in this area in just the past decade.

There's always Tad's. It's pretty bad, but it will get them the most alarmingly huge steak for the money and it's a legitimate New York tradition.

Uncle Jack's steakhouse, the original branch in Bayside, is as good as any non-Peter-Luger steakhouse in the city. I've been there twice and was impressed. It's pricey, though -- certainly there's no discount for being in Bayside. Trivia: my dog is from Bayside.

Just this very afternoon I had a bizarre experience worthy of reporting here. As in most New York City apartment buildings, we get a lot of menus in the lobby. Unlike most people I know, I'm in favor of the practice, because I find a lot of new places this way (I also like junk mail and spam email; call me crazy). Today we got a menu from a restaurant that apparently has no name or address. On the front of the menu it says "Good Chinese & Mexican Food." It's a professionally printed color menu with two Asian fans and two cacti on the front. Sample item from the menu: "Super Special: Grilled shrimp, chicken, sweet banana, sauteed broccoli w. rice." I suppose it's possible that the name of the restaurant is "Good," though I think there's already a restaurant by that name downtown. Or perhaps the name is "Good Chinese & Mexican Food." Careful examination of the menu, however, shows no address. I'm tempted to call them and place an order, just to see what comes. (P.S. The other day I got a menu from a Halal restaurant called, curiously, "J.F.K." I didn't feel it was remarkable enough to post about, but since I'm posting anyway I note it here for the record.)

The amount of food consumed was obscene, even by eGullet Society members' standards. I believe this was due to a mathematical error: for each course, enough food was prepared such that if the whole meal had consisted of just that one course then it still would have been enough. It was exhausting. Everybody was full before the first actual course was even served -- we had gorged ourselves on fried calamari and butter-tossed fries at lunchtime, tasted 21 wines in the afternoon, flirted with the green fairy, consumed about a hundred dollars worth of cheese, bread and pate and, oh yes, there was the matter of Ronnie's charcuterie spread. That was before dinner. Then we ate an excessive meal. And when we finished with the meat course, a whole fresh crew of folks moved in to the kitchen and started producing desserts and, somehow, like five more cheeses appeared. Wish you had been there.

Number 7 and number 19 were, in my opinion, the best white and red respectively. Both exceptionally complex, unusual, not expensive wines that I'm going to seek out.

I love how my name has been attached to various dishes. I assure you my net contribution was zero, in that I made one dish a little better but another a little worse. I got lucky cooking the foie gras for the grilled-peach-and-foie-gras garnish for Kris's salad -- pure, dumb luck. For whatever reason, I pulled the skillet off the heat at the right moment and the foie came out a delightful medium rare. I take no credit for this. I had no idea what I was doing. Tammy's squash trio was coming along fine until I screwed up a third of it by altering the plan to use guanciale instead of pancetta. The guanciale was just too salty. We should have blanched it before cooking it, but I didn't have my thinking cap on. It was a good idea in theory: chopped up crispy-chewy bits of guanciale with fig jam stuffed into individual pattypan squashes. But in the end it was too salty. The other two thirds of the squash trio -- the ones I had nothing to do with -- were wonderful, though. I also want to emphasize that the rave reviews for tino27's bread are totally legitimate. Let's face it, praise for bread is always suspect: most people are suckers for any homemade bread even if it sucks. Well, I'm here to tell you that tino27's bread was totally up to top-tier professional artisan bakery standards. We all ate so much of it we almost died. I think the majority favorite was the roasted pepper bread, but personally I think the one that showed tino27's talent to the fullest was the basic French. It wasn't technically a sourdough -- he made it with a poolish -- but the end result was similar to a mild, subtle sourdough and the crust and crumb were texturally amazing. I've observed some professional baking classes and tino27's work was definitely A++, extra credit, honor roll, Phi Beta Kappa, MENSA level work. Everything else I didn't cook was great -- someone must post photos of Ronnie's incredible, amazing charcuterie creations -- and it was terrific to see everyone and to meet new people. Thanks, Tammy, for making this happen. I know how much work you put into it.

We've just wrapped up the sous-chefs' meeting and have settled on the menu, which I've been charged with reporting here: 5:30pm -- As we speak, a selection of cheeses and breads is going out buffet-style, for consumption as we work. 6:30pm -- Charcuterie buffet. 7:00pm -- Trio of squash preparations. 7:15pm -- Green salad with grilled peaches and seared foie gras. 7:45pm -- Grilled bacon-wrapped porgy, pasta primavera and Greek salad. 8:10pm -- Chilled heirloom tomato soup with avocado sorbet. 8:30pm -- Beef braised with chiles and Michigan cherries, with tomato salsa and sweet corn. 9:00pm -- Additional cheeses, and desserts.

Matt was an incredibly charismatic, interesting, quirky, brilliant young man. He'd walk into a room filled with 50 people and come out with 50 new friends. Matt passed away only a few days before we were scheduled to complete the editing an eG Radio interview we did together with Will Goldfarb of Room4Dessert -- one of the many eating and drinking establishments where Matt was known and loved. It was all done except for some narration he was supposed to add between the segments. I'll try to pull that together this month so you can all hear his voice. Matt was an unapologetic champion of excellence in food and drink. He demanded the best from every meal. If an experience fell short, he let it be known. If it met his standards, chances are he'd be back again and again, and that soon enough he'd be hanging out with the staff after work. He and I spoke many times about how dedicated he was to the goals of the eGullet Society, and how he felt as though he had found an online extended family of kindred spirits here. My deepest condolences to his family. Matt's youth makes his loss all the more painful, however he has touched more people's lives than most people three times his age. All of us who had the privilege of interacting with him, virtually or in person, will I'm sure do our best to carry on the spirit of adventure and connoisseurship that he embodied.

We're deeply saddened to announce the death of eG Forums host Matt Hassett (M.X. Hassett). Before joining the eGullet Society staff, Matthew was a dynamic eG Forums participant, particularly in the New York, New Jersey and Fine Spirits and Cocktails forums. He added a great deal to our staff and to our discussions, and he will be greatly missed. The following is Matt's family's announcement, with details of the memorial service and information on donations. We ask that you click here if you would like to send condolences to the family. This link will take you to the Volk Leber funeral home's main page, from which you can navigate to the condolences page. We invite you to honor Matt's participation in eG Forums, and to share your remembrances of his love and appreciation for food and drink, cooking and eating. Click here.

Having done some writing for Saveur (I also have some close friends who have worked there) I wouldn't necessarily say Saveur equals Colman Andrews. Colman was one of Saveur's founders, along with Dorothy Kalins and Christopher Hirsheimer. During the time that all three were active at Saveur, the magazine took shape according to a joint vision. Margo True has also been very influential. The decline of Saveur started around the time of the sale to World Publications in 2000, and there have been rumors of its impending demise pretty consistently since. I wonder how much steam the magazine has left in it. The brand has value, so I suppose the parent company will keep it on life support as long as there are a few dollars to be squeezed out of it, but it's the 2000 sale, not Colman's departure, that for me marked the beginning of the end. At the same time, James Oseland possesses all the ingredients that could make him a great editor-in-chief. I don't know that he'll have the support needed to pull it off, but I see no reason why, with such support, he couldn't continue the Andrews/Kalins/Hirsheimer vision and maybe even inject the magazine with some new life and rigor. Not that I think it's going to happen, but he surely has the personal ability.

There's a woman in California, Devin Alexander, who did a book called Fast Food Fix, wherein she reverse engineers many fast-food dishes, including Arby's seasoned curly fries.

We used to order from a Chinese place called Hunan K, until it closed without warning back in '02. The delivery guy always came up the stairs (my apartment door is at the top of a flight of stairs) laughing. "Ha ha ha ha, hello how are you sir. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ten ninety five. Ha ha ha ha ha. Thank you very much have nice day. Ha ha ha ha ha." We came to refer to him as "the guy with the maniac laugh." Once I was walking on Park Avenue and the guy with the maniac laugh rode past me on his bicycle. As soon as I registered in his consciousness, he slammed on his brakes. "Ha ha ha ha ha. Hello sir! Ha ha ha ha." And then he observed, with existential flair, "You on the street! Ha ha ha ha ha."

Cold cereal no; toast yes. We had everything they cook or manipulate in any way; we skipped the few packaged items that they simply resell without alteration.

Telephone interactions are fertile ground for bizarre takeout and delivery stories. I'm sure I've told the story of the time, when I was practicing big-firm litigation, that two of my paralegals and I knew we were looking at a solid week of all-nighters or at least extremely late nights preparing findings of fact and conclusions of law for one of these trial-of-the-century cases. The firm had accounts with a number of restaurants, and if you worked late you could bill dinner, so we decided, after counting the options, that if we ordered something like three times as much food as we could eat each night, we could in the space of a week sample every item on the menu at the Carnegie Deli. I'm reasonably certain we're the only consumers in history to attempt this experiment -- certainly we're the only ones ever to complete and survive it. Every night, the food would come -- Carnegie delivers until 4am or at least did at that time -- and every night we'd eat maybe a third of it and give the rest to the overnight word processing staff. The food would get delivered, usually, in two cartons -- like the size you'd use to archive legal size file folders. About half of one box would always be filled with plates, forks, napkins and condiments. Carnegie was operating under the assumption that we had ordered food for a dozen people. After a few nights of this, the woman who took the orders finally asked me, "How many people is this for?" When I told her it was for three people, she said, "Mr. Shaw, if you don't mind my saying, yous guys is pigs!"

I haven't been there in the past couple of years. According to my brother-in-law, there was an ownership change, but the place is still good. If you go, let us know.

Oh my. It never even crossed my mind to make stock. I'm so incredibly stupid. I actually have a bag of several pounds of beef bones in the freezer. And there I was in possession of all those carrots and all that celery, for several days, and it never once occurred to me to make stock. Every day I ate a handful as snacks and never made a dent in the monolith. Eventually I threw them out. Shame on me.

alanamoana: I love those waffle-cut fries, but they don't hold up well under the stress of delivery. They can be brought somewhat back to life in the toaster oven, but you have to lay them flat on the tray in a single layer, which means you need to do it in about five batches -- and at that point the convenience of takeout food is substantially diminished. Maison Rustique: When you call Atomic Wings, the moment the connection is established (usually after so many rings that you're sure they've closed down) you're blasted by the cacaphony of a busy twenty-something aging-frat-boy bar. Atomic Wings (at three out of its five locations, at least) doesn't operate standalone restaurants but, rather, operates concessions inside other people's bars. My local is "Atomic Wings @ Bar Costal." I'm really not sure there's ever a manager on duty to whom I could speak, or who would care. It's hard enough to communicate the order. I felt the carrot-and-celery incident was more of a humorous anecdote than a consumer issue that I'd bother to report to management. Maybe at the 5-pound mark I'd change my mind.

Like many New Yorkers I'm a major consumer of takeout and delivery cuisine. Most of the time it's a smooth process: you call up the place, put in your order, awhile later a guy (in 37 years, always a guy) brings the food, you pay, you eat. Occasionally there's an error -- the other day they sent two wonton soups and one egg-drop soup instead of one wonton soup and two egg-drop soups, and recently an order arrived minus one avocado maki. No big deal. But once in awhile something happens that's so bizarre, so unusual, so unexpected that it has "eG Forums post!" written all over it. Not long ago, while my wife and son were out of town visiting the inlaws, I decided to indulge a craving for Atomic Wings. (This is a small Manhattan chain that I believe makes the best wings in town.) I got a double order of wings -- 20 wings -- which usually comes with two very little containers (I don't know the technical term for these squat clear plastic containers whose lids often pop off) of blue cheese dressing and a small sandwich-size bag of carrot and celery sticks. I usually ask for extra blue cheese, but forgot to do so. Anyway . . . when the order arrived, the bag felt quite heavy. But the price was right and I figured maybe they threw in a couple of sodas or something (the Chinese places do this all the time). I untied the plastic bag and inside were two bags, each also tied, one much larger than the other -- so much larger it seemed ready to roll over and crush the smaller one. I untied the smaller one first and inside was a double order of wings. The other bag contained, according to my postal scale, 4 pounds 7 ounces of carrot and celery sticks -- and two very little containers of blue cheese dressing. Now I'm not sure if you've ever seen 4 pounds 7 ounces of carrot and celery sticks. Let me assure you, it's a lot. A single pound would be a lot. Two pounds would be comically overwhelming. But 4 pounds 7 ounces -- it's way beyond anything my life experience up until that point had prepared me for. Upon reflection, I'm thinking what happened was I got the carrots and celery that should have accompanied the "PARTY PLATTER (100 WINGS) $62." Although, even if I'd ordered 100 wings, I'd still have felt it was an overwhelming quantity of carrot and celery sticks. And it still doesn't explain why I only got two very little containers of blue cheese dressing. I suppose it will remain a mystery.