Fat Guy

A good attorney talks his clients out of doing stupid things!

A new low in hospitality.

It's always disappointing, but never surprising, when restaurants fail to deliver their baseline (no less best) level of food and service on holidays, during pre- and post-theater services, during restaurant week, etc. While such lapses are hardly forgivable, it is nonetheless not reliable practice to generalize from them. The curse of Picholine is that it is so heavily utilized as an adjunct to Lincoln Center. Yes, it's probably the best place to get a meal pre-Lincoln Center. And that meal will be good. But it's virtually impossible to cram a great Picholine experience into that time slot, especially given the demands on the kitchen and waitstaff: they have to get the whole restaurant turned over by 7:45. If you want a great meal at Picholine, make your reservation for after 8pm (though not right at 8pm, because the staff will still be shell shocked). And plan your meal with cheese in mind -- the whole "we were too full/didn't have time for/didn't feel like cheese" thing just doesn't cut it, unless you're of the "we flew to Cairo but just didn't feel like checking out the pyramids" school of exploration.

Saw this on CNN.com the other day: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/12/29/wine.tech.ap/index.html Talks about Professor Larry Biegler and his experiments with computer wine flavor models. The goal is to automate the fermentation process.

Very high on my list of restaurants to try, both because I admire Bill Telepan's cooking and because my mother lives on the block.

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There's a piece about it in Newsday: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/new...egion-apnewyork (Says basically what Rich says, but with quotes and such)

I haven't heard of it, which doesn't mean it's not out there. Is there any more information available, like what neighborhood it's supposed to be in, what kind of place it is (steakhouse, dive, etc.) or anything like that?

Just heard on 1010 WINS that we're back in business.

It's likely that the valet parking concession is run by a nearby garage. In Manhattan, valet parking is not the norm even at the most luxurious restaurants -- most of them just refer you to a nearby garage. So the fact that you can pull right up to this restaurant and have your car parked for standard Manhattan garage rates would seem to represent value added.

The hotel occupancy rate is already extremely high this time of year, so the marginal increase isn't going to be huge. In any event, the vastly reduced number of commuters coming in to the city should be many times greater than the number of people added to the hotel population. Maybe you've got some information to the contrary, but I've never heard of a disruption that didn't affect the restaurant business negatively. The few people I've spoken to who remember the 1980 strike remember it being pretty bad for restaurants, and for almost all businesses.

It would be very surprising if it turned out that many Per Se patrons take public transportation... ← I'm sure plenty of them do. Even billionaires know that if you're traveling from Wall Street to Columbus Circle at any time of day other than 4am the subway is the fastest way to get there. Of course, anybody who can afford to dine at Per Se can afford to get there by cab, but it's not entirely clear that all of them will want to brave the potential competition for limited transportation resources. I cancelled a trip to Connecticut today, not because I didn't think it was possible to get there but because I didn't want to invest the extra hours in traffic both ways and then come back to find no parking. Take it from me, a guy who has written a book on this subject, today is a good day to get in almost anywhere as a pinch-diner for a cancellation or no-show.

I doubt many restaurants will do any such thing. What kinds of businesses were you hearing this about? I can see it being part of the contingency plan at Morgan Stanley for executives and their assistants, but are restaurants seriously talking about putting their bussers up in hotels?

I imagine it will be similar in effect to a major blizzard: fewer staff will come in, fewer customers will come in, fewer deliveries will come in, less money will be made. What other possibility is there?

Per Se would likely sell out the dining room at $300pp and possibly $400pp or more. There's an element of idealism that keeps the prices down even though demand for tables at Per Se greatly exceeds the supply.

From what I've seen, most restaurants that make their own fries don't freeze them. And if they care enough to fry them twice, they typically do the first frying (aka blanching) before service and keep a big pile on hand to fry the second time to order. Most restaurants, however, don't make their own fries. At a place like McDonald's, and at a whole lot of other restaurants, the fries are cut, cooked and frozen at big industrial facilities and when they're cooked at the restaurant they go directly from the freezer to the fryer. This method can produce very good fries -- not the best, but very good.

If it is the case that the kids are accustomed to fine dining, they should be plenty comfortable and welcome at Taillevent. It's not at all unusual to see children in Michelin three-star restaurants, and I've specifically seen children at Taillevent.

I'll second Karen's chicken fried rice suggestion. This is especially useful if circumstances provide you with leftover chicken and leftover rice at the same time (fried rice comes out better if you use rice that has been drying out in the refrigerator for a couple of days). I make a pseudo Thai version with May Ploy brand curry paste, ginger, garlic and onions as the base, and to that I add the rice, maybe some frozen peas, maybe an egg, the chicken and whatever else is lying around. My other favorite leftover chicken dish is chicken hash. Basically, you make home fries and, at the end, add diced chicken and a little cream. Serve with a poached egg on top.

In just about every English-language guidebook to France, you'll find the "say bonjour upon entering an establishment" advice featured prominently. And it's something my parents explained to me when they took me to France as a kid. So imagine my surprise when, traveling there as an adult, the first six or seven times I attempted to follow this advice I was either preempted or ignored. At the luxury level of dining and accommodations, I wasn't able to get a bonjour out before being greeted by the staff. In the shops and smaller restaurants, I was pretty much ignored. I've tried to keep at it, and tend to have luck in small shops especially outside Paris, but it's probably not accurate to advertise the bonjour thing as a universal French custom. Yes, if you enter an empty shop and the shopkeeper is in view and not doing something (talking on the phone, doing paperwork), you may be treated to a scene, as if from a Capretz method French language video, of happy exchanges of "Bonjour!" but is it a majority practice?

Now I'm the one who's confused. Perhaps who initiates conversation would make a difference from the perspective of a master dealing with servants, but it shouldn't make a difference to someone who is adopting the attitude of a guest among social equals. However, again in my experience, American customers are far more likely to initiate social conversation with waitstaff than French ones. I should qualify that: with waitstaff who are strangers. The example of a customer with a long-time relationship with the proprietors or staff strikes me as a separate point, and that's the same for regulars at restaurants most everywhere.

My experience has been exactly and emphatically the opposite, and indeed several French acquaintances (and European acquaintances in general) have complained to me about the over-friendliness of American servers, preferring servers who just take orders, bring food and stay out of things. But no matter -- the point I'm trying to make is that it's not as simple as a blanket statement that Americans behave as customers and French behave as guests. Nor is either model an absolute. A restaurant presents a hybrid social-business situation. No restaurateur in France who operates an establishment above the level of a neighborhood mom-and-pop bistro literally believes the customers are guests, and America is full of mom-and-pop businesses where the proprietors believe their customers are guests who should feel privileged to be there. Likewise, American restaurant customers typically understand that, while they are customers, they're in a social situation as well.

I don't think it's nearly so cut and dry. For example, do you think American or French restaurant "guests" are more likely to treat restaurant staff as social equals, to strike up personal conversations with them, etc.?

A couple of references have been made to "the complexities of French etiquette" and "strict rules of etiquette." I do think it's safe to say that, in the American dining culture, people care a lot less how you use your fork and knife, what kind of water you drink and when, how often you go to the bathroom, etc., than they do in the French dining culture. The French probably do have more etiquette, but does that make them more polite? Miss Manners offers three illustrations where rigid adherence to rules of etiquette would have come in conflict with politeness, and how those conflicts were averted: Queen Victoria had a guest at a banquet who drank the water from his finger bowl. Her immediate reaction was to drink the water from her finger bowl as well, so as not to let the guest be embarrassed. At a party at the Moroccan embassy in Washington, DC, President Kennedy dipped his fingers into his teacup and wiped them on his napkin. The King of Morocco immediately followed suit. And she tells this story: When rules of etiquette are used as justifications for contemptuousness and superiority, they have come unhinged from their moorings. They are no longer about politeness.

Stop criticizing my driving! In terms of the water customs, I agree that the request for tap water is not a problem in nice restaurants in France. Everyplace I've been that had or should have had a Michelin star has graciously provided a carafe of water. (The bistro/brasserie places can get a little huffy about water, but I think they're resigned to it in most restaurants that derive substantial income from the tourist trade). I actually wish American restaurants would leave the carafe on the table, but for some reason nice American restaurants insist on refilling your water a glass at a time from a central supply. What I don't understand is how everybody in France can survive a multi-hour-long meal of rich, salty food without drinking any water. Do French people secretly tank up before they show up at restaurants? And if they do, how do they keep from having to use the bathroom during the meal? It's beyond my ability to comprehend.

I really don't think my driving is relevant here.