Fat Guy

I think the Polder is a useful item if you get a feel for your particular unit and you know how to compensate for its deficiencies. But it's just not a very good product -- no cheap digital thermometer is. One Polder unit I used was easily 15-degress off the mark when compared to a trusted analog thermometer. The last time I used one, at a friend's house in North Carolina, the reading was so far off that we overcooked a roast by at least 10 degrees. I kept saying that, by touch, the thing was done, but he insisted that because it's digital the thermometer is more accurate than my hand. Whatever. Really, the units and the probes are quite crappy. You can get lucky and get one that's properly calibrated (in other words the unit and the probe, by random chance, work together such that 140 degrees will really be 140 degrees) but you'll still have a lot of precision issues. What I find is that the probes themselves are affected by conditions other than just the temperature at the tip. As for how much accuracy is really needed, well, that depends on what kind of cooking you're doing and how much you care. There are situations where the difference between 139 and 141 degrees represents an almost complete color-change for a piece of meat, such as veal. So there you want a pretty high degree of accuracy. And if you're doing sous vide type cooking in vacuum pouches, forget about it. Nothing less than a laboratory-quality thermometer will do.

Many thanks for the report, and we hope to see much more of you on the boards. I'd like to add, however, that while there have been some negative comments by individual eGulleters, my sense of the overall mood of the site is that we are quite pro-Adria. Perhaps someone can assemble the key Adria links again so we can include those cross-references here.

Right. If you're going to sacrifice a lot of features anyway, you may as well use a temperature probe combo unit. My crappy Polder thermometer-timer is always right there on my range hood and I use it often because it's in reach. Still, as with timers, the kitchen thermometers sold at the consumer level are total crap: they're inaccurate and their probes are too large. If you want a really good temperature probe thermometer, you need to go to a scientific instrumentation company like Hanna and get one of the waterproof K units, which are ideal for kitchen use.

Right-o. That announcement was I believe being discussed on eGullet before this thread started. ( http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=40519 ) Nonetheless this topic seemed different enough to keep at the independent/generic level. It would be great if we could leave Mr. Bruni out of it because, perhaps, this topic will still be here when the next critic comes along.

People like Ed Levine do that, though. It's their job and it yields the best reviews. Eating nothing but steak for forty days and forty nights isn't the most pleasurable way to eat steak (that's why they get paid money to do it), but it's the most informative (that's why it's the best way). And it avoids the wild inconsistency and wasted space of steakhouse reviews in the main review slot. You don't need multiple visits to dozens of steakhouses. The first cut gets made by research and experience: you can immediately narrow the field to the 15 or so places that are worth reviewing. The Times has virtually no budgetary restrictions, so you go to each meal with 6 people and you do a lot of tasting. Presumably you're eating at these places year-in-year-out so you also have historical/institutional memory to draw upon -- this helps identify whether a visit is possibly atypical. If your visit confirms what you already know, you're done. If the place seems better or worse than you remember, you do 2 visits, which is more than fair (some of the main restaurant reviews are written on 2 visits). If for some reason a stellar performer like Peter Luger is fucked up on 2 visits, you possibly go 2 more times. Likewise, if you're hearing from a lot of your trusted sources that a new place is good, you try it 1 time and if it crosses a certain threshold you do visit number 2 and you include it in the roundup.

That Polder unit is the best kitchen timer I've seen, and I've looked for good kitchen timers not only online and in the catalogs but also at the professional kitchen supply places in New York. That being said, it sucks. I don't think anybody has actually managed to build an excellent dedicated kitchen timer. Here's what it would need to have: - A numeric keypad with keys arranged as on a normal numeric keypad, with sturdy tactile buttons - A dual display large enough to read if it's not around your neck - A durable case, like what they make good notebook computers out of - Adjustable tones and options for alert patterns during overtime - Runs on a AAA battery - A strong magnet, a removable neck lanyard, and a removable belt clip The best source for timers, in my opinion, is the lab-equipment industry. Ever since I saw a chef sporting one, I've been considering this $20 unit from Technika ( http://www.technika.com/Sper/s810027.htm ), which has multiple timers, a clip, and an extremely loud beep. If you're the type of person who has wifi and a notebook computer that hangs around in the kitchen area anyway, you can also use your computer as a timer with any number of freeware and shareware programs.

I don't want to conduct a taste test. I want the New York Times to conduct a taste test, spending all the money and time necessary to do so, so that I can read the results for free on the Internet. So sure, let them go catch two fish and freeze one of them. If enough credible, controlled taste tests proved that freezing doesn't damage the flavor or texture of fish, I'd be entirely willing to accept it as gospel. But at this point all we have are assertions, and they go against most everybody's personal experience as well as what the best chefs routinely say. Granted perhaps most of us haven't had fish that was frozen the right way and have mistaken plenty of frozen for fresh, and granted some of the chef talk may be propaganda, but I think the burden of proof is squarely on those who want to freeze fish into a block of ice. One thing I can say is that I've heard this same set of arguments from those who advocate freezing beef. And in that regard, I have been told by ranchers, processors, scientists, and chefs that you can't tell the difference between fresh and frozen beef so long as the beef has been frozen properly using super-expensive equipment at a billion degrees below zero or whatever. And I have been told that, moreover, the frozen is actually better than the fresh. And I have done a tasting under the best possible circumstances, using super-premium product from a single farm, which some Canadian beef-industry guys set up for me in '02. And guess what? All those claims are total bullshit. Any idiot can taste the difference between fresh and frozen beef and the fresh tastes much better. I'm also extremely curious about the cultural side of all this. The consumption of raw oysters is deeply embedded in American culture. We know that there will be a certain number of deaths per million people who eat oysters (something like .2 per million -- http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00020736.htm ), and a not-totally-insignificant number of illnesses. Yet the consumption of raw oysters remains legal. Meanwhile, when it comes to something foreign like sushi, our regulators are running roughshod over it. And why not? There's no significant Japanese population to rise up in protest, and there's plenty of anti-Japanese sentiment to go around. I can't seem to find the numbers per million for deaths and illnesses from eating raw never-frozen fin fish, but if those numbers are lower than for oysters . . . well, the conclusion wouldn't be appealing.

No I'm sure they have a national healthcare system or whatever. I was just trying to point out the absurdity of treating raw fish as a national health risk when one of the healthiest populations on the planet has been eating the stuff for generations. Cross-cultural an international comparisons often make a mockery of food-safety claims, not to mention other types of health claims. Meanwhile, while we're busy obsessing about the hazards of raw fish, we're stuffing ourselves with shit from McDonald's. So are the Japanese, which is why the next generation will probably be just as unhealthy as us.

I would add that, structurally, I think a lot of pressure could be taken off the lead reviewer's schedule if resources like Ed Levine were more explicitly put to use for analysis of restaurants that fit into clearly defined categories. Levine could knock off every Balthazar wannabe brasserie in the city in one big article. I see no reason why he shouldn't also just give each of them zero, one, or two stars. Ditto for steakhouses. Unless a place is doing something particularly interesting, just let Levine do a big steakhouse roundup once a year. Then we'll never have to waste another review on a brasserie or a steakhouse. Which isn't to say it's a waste to rate such restaurants. It's just that there's not enough to say about them to justify a whole review, yet if you deal with them collectively it gives you the opportunity to lay out background information and criteria for comparison: the history of steakhouses in New York, the methods of cooking, the cuts of meat, a discussion of dry aging, criteria for evaluation, the important side dishes and what makes them good, etc. They're much better dealt with collectively.

No but we're sure you're Sam Sifton.

They've been eating sushi in Japan since before refrigeration was invented, and the emergency rooms and courthouses of Tokyo have hardly been overrun by hordes of uninsured with sushi-related illnesses and lawsuits. In most of these food-safety cases, we're talking about risks on the order of being struck by lightning. If every risk on that order is regulated in every facet of living, you have totalitarianism. There has to be a balance, and the FDA tends not to strike that balance very well.

Monica, I predict your journey is going to take you places you never imagined. Good luck!

Oh, I'm going to be the Times reviewer. My first review is scheduled to run when hell freezes over.

If Gramercy Tavern shut down for two months Danny Meyer would have his people on the phone with the customers as often as necessary to make them feel remembered and wanted. It would be one of his top priorities. I'd bet all the money I have on that, if I had any. More importantly, he would communicate with the press, he would have his people answering phones, and he would have informative messages on the phone at times when nobody could answer. Someone should check my math, but assuming 10 minutes per completed call (two attempts plus one connection and conversation), I think we're looking at 105 hours of employee time for the whole Per Se reservations project. Per Se has 100 employees getting paid to stand by for reopening. Even if only 5 of them were used to make reservations-related phone calls, the job could be done in 2-3 days. By the way I still haven't received my call.

Just poach them in simmering stock. They'll come out fine. And if you're confident in the quality of the product, go to 145. A lot of the best restaurants actually use 141 as the target for chicken breasts.

One thing that would have enhanced the article would have been a taste test. As much as I admire and respect Shin Tsujimura, his testimony that he can't taste the difference between fresh and frozen tuna just doesn't cut it as the whole evidentiary basis for a New York Times article. The Times should assemble a panel of its food writers and maybe some chefs and really get to the bottom of this. Because the article raises some interesting issues, but it doesn't answer the fundamental question: is it possible to freeze fish in such a way that not even the world's top sushi chefs can tell the difference? If there's no difference in taste or texture, by all means, go ahead and freeze it all. If not, let's hear what the differences are so we can decide -- as with raw milk cheeses -- whether or not we support the regulations.

I think four-star restaurants should be reviewed every two years as a matter of course. A four-star rating from the Times still commands millions of consumer dollars. The Times should send a clear message to four-star restaurants that they can't rest on their laurels. There are too many two- and three-star restaurants for the Times to devote an entire review to each one on a regular basis. Still, the reviewer should be checking on these places behind the scenes, and should re-review the ones that have slipped. The non-updating of a two- or three-star review should mean there is still confidence in the restaurant. And the Diner's Journal should be used on occasion to reaffirm a two- or three-star rating (there's no need for a full review if the rating hasn't changed). There should never be a situation where a place like Sammy's Roumanian holds three stars from the days of Mimi Sheraton and was never downgraded. In order to restore credibility to the process, the new Times critic should commit to re-reviewing each of those restaurants by 2005. 52 reviews, well allocated, can do the job. What has to happen for it to work is for the Diner's Journal to be utilized more often as a way to give non-rated reviews to restaurants that aren't all that interesting. I think the column still works, though I'd rather see more true cheap-eats coverage and less middle-market reviewing. Use the Diner's Journal for that. The difference between a real restaurant review and what you seen in Zagat and Michelin is that there's actual content in the real review. So I don't see a need for an elaborate multi-category rating system. That can all be explained in the text. The stars are sufficient to convey the broad categories, but they should be better and more consistently applied (and explained). Yes, the explanation on offer -- and there is also a different wording that sometimes appears -- is bullshit. I don't see it as a bias. It's a recognition of the facts. Someone needs to build a four-star non-French restaurant before the Times can award the rating to it. Assuming a broad definition of French that includes Bouley, Jean-Georges, and Per Se, I can't think of an existing non-French restaurant that's a candidate for four stars.

I think Asimov has aspired to the lead wine position for quite some time. He has been writing those short wine columns every week for years. He'll be an excellent choice, combining expertise and passion with a long track-record of skilled writing. Frank Bruni is to me a totally unknown quantity. The memo refers to his past restaurant writing, so let the hunt for links begin. Bringing someone over from another area of the paper was a failure in Grimes's case, but that doesn't mean it's a fatally flawed strategy. I look forward to reading Frank Bruni's work.

Chefs who have identified successful restaurant formulae are under tremendous pressure from their customers and their investors not to change. Predictability and repetition are the dominant forces in the short-term. The long-term problem is, if you refuse to update your formula, you will wind up with an aging customer base, a lack of media interest, an absence of buzz, and ultimately with food that is considered stodgy and boring. And in restaurant terms, this happens very quickly. At the top levels of the industry, even in France where things move slowly, the restaurant scene in 1990 and the restaurant scene today are radically different. Whatever was happening in 1970 is almost completely irrelevant now. And pre-1970s cuisine is only relevant now for technique (fundamental stocks, sauces, etc.) and for inspiration/homage/retro-type dishes.

Sushi was originally developed, as I understand it, as a way to safely preserve fish by controlled fermentation under rice. Freezing is also, coincidentally, a method of safe preservation. It's interesting that the piece begins with the statement that "50 to 60 percent of sushi in the United States is frozen at some point in its journey from the ocean." That number strikes me as extremely low. I bet it's more like 95%. The article also says that tuna is the only exception to the freezing rule. I'd have to check with the FDA, but it was my understanding that mollusks, crustaceans, and some farmed fish were also permitted. You can't tell me it's illegal to serve oysters that have never been frozen. And I think it may be permissible to serve farmed salmon raw. The article also conveniently skips over the rampant lawbreaking that occurs at the top sushi places. Copper river salmon season will soon be upon us, and I assure you the better sushi places in New York and California will be serving specimens that were never frozen.

I sympathize with some of that view, but definitely not all of it. I too prefer gossip-free reviews, and I think a balance between the spirit of the amateur and the rigor of the professional defines a good restaurant reviewer. But access isn't only, or even primarily, about gossip. Restaurant reviews aren't simple consumerist documents like Zagat. They're also about information, and in many cases access leads to a better class of information. Sure, you can find out basic data about ingredients and cooking techniques on the phone, but really understanding a place often takes more than that. I'd be happy to spin this out on another thread, but I think we're now off topic for this particular discussion.

I certainly agree that there's a continuum from acquaintance to friend to dear-friend to business associate to lover and beyond. And while theoretically a reviewer should have the requisite level of professionalism to write an independent and fair review of anybody's work, it's reasonable for a newspaper to draw the line somewhere. And it may be reasonable, at a publication that distinguishes between the reviewing role and the food writing role (a distinction I think is probably not a particularly good idea, but which is standard), to draw that line in different places especially on a going-forward basis. But in drawing that line, one has to take account of the normal course of business in an industry. Food writers and chefs travel in the same circles. That's just the way it is. Acquaintanceships and casual friendships are the order of the day. But more importantly, with respect to Hesser who is the subject of this thread, it should have been totally obvious before her appointment as interim reviewer that she has many acquaintances and friends in the business. Look at all the articles she has written over the years. She has been up close and personal with most of the big names. Again, what the hell were they expecting when they gave her that job? And it's not as though Hesser and Vongerichten are dear friends. She seems to be more of an admirer than anything. The relationship they have seems to be centered mostly around this book blurb, and the book blurb is such a minor thing I just can't imagine why the Times got so persnickety about it.

alanamoana, there are two restaurant reviewers at the Times. They split the territory roughly by price. That seems to be the tradition as it has arisen in restaurant reviewing at the major papers. Film reviews seem to be assigned more randomly, though maybe there's a system I'm not aware of. In any event you never see two Times reviewers reviewing the same movie, and they don't have a star system for movies -- it's different in several ways. I also think, with restaurants in a local market, many of which are competing for slots in a hierarchical star system, it makes sense to have a consistent voice. But even if having two or three fine-dining reviewers made sense conceptually, I think as a matter of resources it would never happen. It costs a hundred or maybe two hundred thousand bucks a year for the Times to send a restaurant reviewer out to eat often enough to write one review and one diner's journal a week. There just isn't the demand for six or seven restaurant reviews a week (movies are national, restaurants are local; everybody goes to the movies, only a small percentage of people go to nice restaurants), nor are there enough interesting restaurants to review.

Nobody agrees with the three-star assessment of Spice Market. Not one single person has stepped up on eGullet and tried to defend it, nobody I've spoken to in the industry thinks it makes any sense (I wonder if Vongerichten himself thinks it's a three-star restaurant), and that's a very rare circumstance here -- usually at least one person here will agree with the minority position (often that person is me). No, this goes beyond the margin of error and beyond the realm of principled disagreement. I disagree with plenty of reviews without it causing me to fundamentally question a reviewer. The fact that I know a lot of food industry people is one of my food writing credentials. Do you want to read work by sports columnists who don't know any athletes or coaches? I think, however, that most people would make a distinction between "food writing" and "restaurant reviewing." I don't know anybody who takes the position that food writers shouldn't be connected to the industry. That perverse fate is reserved for the restaurant reviewers, who are somehow expected to be total outsiders yet expert and capable of writing something meaningful and interesting. Fat chance. The notion of restaurant reviewer as outsider is completely absurd and is a virtual guarantee of mediocre reviews -- and I say that because it's what I think, not because I'm trying to get a job. I have no intention of ever being a restaurant reviewer again. I haven't covered that beat in years -- since before eGullet existed. I consider her level of access and her extensive connections to be one of Amanda Hesser's credentials as well -- and she surely knows a lot more people than I do. My concern with her reviews is simply that she hasn't used this knowledge and access to make her reviews more informative. I like and respect her writing and her intellect. From the very limited contact I've had with her, I like her as a person. But she sucks as a restaurant reviewer. "Badthings" mentioned nostalgia for Grimes. I feel no such nostalgia. His cranky and un-insightful reviews were a many-years-long example of how someone can be an excellent writer and smart as hell yet be a mediocre restaurant reviewer on account of lack of knowledge, enthusiasm, and involvement.

There's already a new chef named at Mix. If you go check out the Mix thread, the info is all there.