DonRocks

Chef Cesare Lanfranconi will be joining us this week, so please feel free at this point to begin asking questions. Here is a brief bio of Cesare: ---------------- Growing up in Lecco, Italy, a small town located in the magnificent Lake Como region, Cesare Lanfranconi learned a great appreciation for farming. “Every household raised their own chickens, and grew vegetables on small plots of land. We would make our meals from what we grew ourselves,” said Cesare, who is now the chef/owner of the award winning Ristorante Tosca. At a young age, Cesare was in the kitchen creating recipes and cooking with the help of his grandmother, whom he considers his culinary inspiration and role model. Through these experiences, he gained his passion for creative Italian cuisine, spurring him on to attend culinary school. While working as a chef in Italy, Cesare grew his own fresh herbs and berries, which he used in his cuisine and made into jams to sell at the market. When he fulfilled his dream of opening his own restaurant in the United States, along with partner Paolo Sacco, Cesare carried on the culinary tradition of his hometown, by building Ristorante Tosca’s menu around fresh, local ingredients. He enjoys sharing his favorite family recipes, as well as reinventing dishes reminiscent of his native cuisine. “To guarantee the success of any recipe, you must start with the best ingredients,” said Cesare, who seeks out farmers who have the same passion for their crops as he has for his cooking. When he could not find the sweet San Marzano tomatoes he cooked with in Italy, he worked with local farmers to grow tomatoes to his own specifications. He favors small batch artisanal cheeses made from farm fresh goat milk. And he often hunts for his own mushrooms, such as morels and chanterelles, to use in his recipes. “I feel the most relaxed when I am in contact with nature, and can feel the soil under my feet,” he said. Out of this love for the land, Cesare works to continue his connection with small farms, and has evolved into a proponent of sustainable agriculture. “It is extremely important for future generations,” said Cesare, who instills these values in his daughters Tosca (whom he named the restaurant after), Tea and Caterina. To show his support for local farmers, Cesare organized a gala benefit for the Fresh Farm Market at Ristorante Tosca in 2002 and 2003, recruiting chef friends such as Michel Richard of Citronelle, Roberto Donna of Galileo and Todd Gray of Equinox, who created a dinner with foods provided by area farms. The event was so successful, Cesare plans on recreating it every year. Prior to opening Ristorante Tosca, Cesare served as executive chef at Roberto Donna's Galileo in Washington, D.C., where he was a prominent force behind Galileo's award-winning dining room. He earned the title of the restaurant’s executive chef in 1998, after serving as sous chef for three years. Prior to his career at Galileo, Cesare gained experience as consulting chef at The Lodge of Vail in Vail, CO. He was also the head chef at the opening of Cafe Milano and Trattoria al Sole in Washington, D.C. Before moving to the United States, Cesare worked in some of the finest restaurants and hotels in Italy and England, including The Hotel Slendido in Portofino, Gualtiero Marchesi in Milano (Italy’s first three-star Michelin restaurant) and San Lorenzo restaurant in England. He also served as managing partner in his family-owned hotel in the Lake Como region. As an active member of the Washington area culinary community, Cesare is involved with Gruppo Ristoratori Italiani, Share our Strength (S.O.S.), D.C. Central Kitchen and Food and Friends. He is frequently invited to cook at the illustrious James Beard House. In 2001, D.C. Central Kitchen, the Washington area’s most efficient food recovery and culinary job-training program recognized Cesare as “Chef of the Year.” In 2002, Ristorante Tosca was voted as Washington’s “Best New Restaurant.” Cesare was a 2003 finalist for “Chef of the Year” at the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington annual awards gala. He sits on the board of advisors for L`Academie de Cuisine, and is a board member for the Jean-Louis Palladin Foundation. ---------------- Cesare, welcome to eGullet, and thank you very much for being a guest here. The great Italian skier Alberto Tomba had won gold medals in the Giant Slalom in 1988 and 1992. During coverage of the 1994 games in Albertville, CBS aired a highlight film of Tomba - who is nicknamed La Bomba - and a mortified Bob Costas apologized to the viewing public for the cringingly embarrassing background music to the highlight film: a recording of Richie Valens' La Bamba which they apparently felt sounded "close enough." Do you find it annoying that people might confuse "le vrai article" - your outstanding Tosca restaurant - with the second-rate tapas chain La Tasca that recently elbowed its way into town? Is Tosca named after the Puccini opera? We're all looking forward to you being on this forum!

The point I was trying to make with my list is that the guide seems to be most noteworthy for its exclusions, and I assure you that Tom has been to each of the above restaurants multiple times in the past year. It's important for everyone to read these few paragraphs of text before wondering what Tom's list of restaurants is all about. Once you read this, you'll be well-armed to praise or criticize as you see fit. Cheers, Rocks.

But where are: Ardeo, Bistro Bis, Cafe Atlantico, Caucus Room, Ceiba, Circle Bistro, David Greggory, Dish, Ella's, Gabriel, Galileo, Gerard's Place, Indique, Kaz, Kinkead's, LeftBank, Marcel's, Matchbox, Obelisk, Le Paradou, Pizzeria Paradiso, Poste, Red Sage, Sette Osteria, Taberna del Alabardero, Ten Penh, Tosca, 2941, Vidalia, Yanyu? Hmm...

Okay, this has turned into a sneaky behind-the-back look into the mind of a hard-core Burgophile. I just went upstairs and confronted him. I jotted down his thoughts, and I'll paraphrase them here: I asked him to guess the year. I listened to him, and only replied when asked to reply: 'Well, the nuances say 90-or-earlier. There's really good richness and flesh. Could be a 92, but it has too much acidity. It's a little fleshy for a 93. It's not as old as the mid-80s. A 90? ["Nope."] Younger? ["Yep."] Then I'm going to say 93. ["Why?"] Because it has more acidity than a 92, and I don't know what else it could be.' So he got the year on the second guess. Then, it was time for the producer: 'Hmm... it's really good. (I hope I have some of this!) Who makes Batard that you would buy? The Ramonet Bienvenue is not nearly this good in 93. Bernard Morey... Leflaive... Sauzet... This is really good! Hmm... how can I make a rational decision as to who this might be? Have I named the producer yet? ["Yes."] Scratch Leflaive - he wasn't making wines this good in the early 90s. It could be Ramonet - the 85 is this good. Bernard Morey? I just don't know. Okay, I'll guess Ramonet even though there's no mint in it. ["Nope - but there's one other producer you named."] Oh! Sauzet? ["Yeah."] Well, so much for people saying that Sauzet's wines don't age!' Give the guy credit for performing well under pressure! On to the barbecue (after setting the white aside and moving to a red - now it's going to be my turn to be blinded, I'm afraid). Rocks. P.S. Now I'm going to email him this link - he has no clue I've been doing this. P.P.S. I just did, and I hear him upstairs laughing.

Update: he has just guessed, on his first attempt, that it's a Batard. "Why do you say that?" I asked. "Because of it's power. Doesn't seem like Bienvenue." "Why not Monty, or Criots, or Corton, or Les Clos, or whatever?" "Well, first of all, I've never had a Criots." Now, we'll see if he guesses producer and year... I have a sneaking suspicion he'll nail the year, because of the amazing acidity supporting the huge fruit (this wine will last for twenty more years), but the producer ... unlikely. He's gonna jump the shark and guess Ramonet, I just know he is. We'll see.

My friend arrived this afternoon from Richmond, having smuggled in a motherlode of Buz & Ned's Barbecue, and so as payback, while he's upstairs working on his laptop, I blinded him with a 1993 Kaiser Sauzet Batard (okay, so it's Etienne Sauzet, but you have to permit me my pet names). I haven't had this wine in several years now, but remember the trilogy of Grand Cru 93s from The Kaiser as being over-the-top good, the Monty being one of the singularly great bottles of wine I've ever tasted. This has only been opened and decanted (yes, decanted) for about twenty minutes, but I can already tell this is going to be a phenomenal showing. About two minutes ago, I heard a shout from upstairs, which is what prompted this posting. He's up there, working on his laptop, drinking a glass of wine, double-blind, and he wailed: "This is GREAT!!!" "No shit!" I yelled back up. "This is the best aged white Burgundy I've had in a long, long time!!" (He has apparently guessed it is an aged white Burgundy.) Details forthcoming... Rocks.

Translation: Don, you're a peon; Terry, you're not. I'm working on him, I'm working on him! He's shy! Seriously though, Terry may be busy right now, and doesn't have the time for a full-fledged discussion while at the same time wanting to participate. Terry, maybe you could chime in and post your thoughts on that last sentence?

[Reef-rain from spawning off-tropic post-stings, Uni.]

The parent company of Oceanaire just received a $20 million investment (go here for details). But do they have any sole? Maybe they can rename their $69 seafood appetizer Trump(et Fish) Tower.

I heard back from Terry this morning, and he has been following this thread. Here's his reply to me, which he has allowed me to post: --------------- There were some thoughtful responses here, and I really appreciate how considerately people wrote and how carefully they examined the ideas I propounded. I have two comments to make. As you know, I lived in Europe for ten years and am back there for 9-10 weeks every year, so I'm not a naïve American thrown off his stride by the formalities of European culture. Indeed I RELISH those formalities in many ways. My wife and I kept trying to reassure each other we weren't becoming ossified old geezers when we disapproved of people sitting in 3-star dining rooms in blue jeans. Thus I sympathize with the argument that French service rituals have evolved and codified based on a goal to serve diners competently and unobtrusively. I'd only say this: does such evolution STOP when it reaches some (arbitrary) point of fruition? Or does it KEEP evolving to account for changes in cultural mores and behaviors? I wonder how the rule was written that a dish's wine isn't served UNTIL the dish is served. To me, as a wine-guy, this makes no sense. I want to have a few sips of my wine before the food arrives, to appraise and enjoy it without distraction, and THEN to consider it as it interacts with my food. Surely this desire isn't incompatible with offering proper service. Similarly I am happy to enjoy unobtrusive service and am very happy when servers notice as if by telepathy that I need more wine in my glass. But what if they don't? What if all the black-coats are on the other side of the dining room while the nearby white-coats are forbidden from handling my wine? I am made to pay for the observance-of-the-niceties by an empty glass. I can't help but conclude this is contrary to all the goals of good service. You know my restaurant behavior very well Don; you know I love putting servers at their utmost ease, you know I'm there to have the best possible time, you know I'm very willing to let sommelieres suggest wines (and equally willing to keep mum when the wine they suggested wasn't as good as my own choice) and you know I never make unreasonable wishes. I ask in return to be made comfortable, and if that entails a modicum of flexibility from wait-staff then that's what it entails. Sometimes - with emphasis on "sometimes" - French service feels like a very stiff new pair of shoes they won't LET you break in because stiff is how they're Supposed to feel. Last, I was a guest in the hotel-restaurant whose wine-list I asked to take to my room to study before dinner, and where they wouldn't let me. If a list is serious it warrants at least 10 minutes of perusal, during which time your luckless dining companion is being ignored. So when possible I like to arrive at table with a mental short-list which lets me order my wines in seconds rather than minutes. Anyway, when they told me the somm didn't like lists removed from the dining room I offered to SIT in the empty dining room and read the list. Sometimes people need to ask themselves "What is the EFFECT of the policy?" I mean in the actual world. I'm not insisting people smash centuries of service tradition just because I'm some redneck iconoclast Yank who wants to show them up. I am claiming that in the real world some of these traditions accomplish the opposite of their intent: to provide competent and caring service to the guest.

No Michael, the debt of gratitude is ours. This was a red-meat chat (I'll spare you further puns such as how "rare" it is to find someone as engaging as you). The defining aspect of this interview was that we got to see glimpses of the real Michael Landrum, firing up the grill and tempering a ferocious, perhaps even heroic, individuality with elegance and politesse. When Michael and I were arranging this, he insisted that we wait for several days after the chat with Tom Power had ended, because he felt that would be a proper gesture of respect to one of the great chefs in Washington. There was no fanfare or drama in this statement; it was just Michael being Michael. Can you imagine Arlington without Rays The Steaks? I'm certain I speak for everyone when I say thank you very much for being here, and just for being - once you've tasted prime, there's no going back.

Are you talking about an engagement ring? Ah! Maybe you can try Michel Richard Lounge formerly known as The Bar At Citronelle. I'd bet dollars to Komi-doughnuts (take the Komi doughnuts) that they could whip up a vegetarian plate for a pre-engagement dinner (although there might be a one-carrot minimum (sorry)), and at less money than you might think, too. And then you could walk down 30th Street to the Harbor (or pogo-stick over the mule crottes on the Canal towpath), tiptoeing around the kitschy J. Seward Johnson sculpture of the Lifelike Businessman, or continuing on that leit-motif, just drive down to The Awakening at Haines Point and climb the jungle gym. Mighty Sommelier, maybe you could send a PM? Nuptials, Rocks.

Any entity handling meat in the wee hours of the morning has got to have multiple STDs (Steak Tartare Dudes).

Minister, I'm pretty sure it was just something limey in the froth (also keep in mind this was just a test meal and that's what those comment cards they handed out were for, hint, hint). You blitzed through quite a few dishes Monday night - what were some of your favorites? What did you think of the desserts?

Terry's catalogs are online here.

I'm never drinking again. Okay, let me try and write something constructive. It's very hard for me to talk about a weak point in this wine, which comes across as a perfect sphere. Some people might want a bigger sphere, with more of everything, but I don't care about size or weight as long as the wine is in balance, and so often when a wine has additional oomph, it bears the burden of lumps and spikes tainting the sphere - toast, or smoke, or presumptive viscosity, etc. Maybe a "weakness" of this wine is its lack of versatility: something that whispers is probably best had alone rather than with a meal. It's extremely primary and gives the mistaken impression of being lean, and it will probably never show more terroir than it does right now although with additional bottle age it will take on additional weight and depth, making it more food-friendly in the years to come. Sheepishly, Rocks.

So if I use the word "gobs" will you guys believe me that this is a prodigiously good wine? How many people rave about elegance in explosive terms? Fuck it, let's go... It's GOOD. It rocks. Kicks major, actually. It blows you away with its lack of new oak. It'll mow down your chops with its chalky understated finish. It's so balanced that it will truck a breezy flare from your dimple, rid instinct, verbose defamation, and enable you to gloss over it in an unabashedly joyous celebration of editorial elegance. That, my friends, is the 02 Fevre Clos. Word. Buy this beautifully transparent gem-of-a-wine, and enjoy a great terroir, in its full glory, unobstructed by long hang times, excessive toasting, and ego-lick winemaking signature, and enjoy it at a bargain price considering it's one of the world's great soils. Cheers, Rocks.

Hello everyone, Terry Theise wrote me this letter a couple of days ago, and I convinced him that it was too "global in scope" to be wasted on just lil' ol me, so he agreed to let me post it on the French forum on eGullet. Happy reading! Rocks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey Don, A few thoughts to share with a friend who dines out in France as often as I do. First, I have to distinguish between fine-dining restaurants (hereafter “FD”) and just-plain-eating restaurants (hereafter “JPE”). I think all in all one eats extremely well in the JPEs, much better than at equivalent places in the U.S.. Indeed I wonder if there are equivalent places in the U.S., Jane and Michael Stern notwithstanding. KO and I had an improv dinner on a Sunday night in Pau, just wandering around until we happened into an attractive place, and we ate a truly tasty meal. Two days later in St Jean Pied-de-Port we improvised lunch and had a rockin’ meal, so good we were seriously tempted to forgo the dinner rez we’d made and just tuck into a bunch of courses in this nondescript little café. And I think the most sheerly sensually gorgeous food we ate was at a place in Larrau called Etchimaïte, where the food just made us happy. The Larrau place was a Michelin “Bib Gourmand” and was a Gault-Millau “heart” (i.e. a favorite of theirs), without pretensions except to freshness, vividness and a kind of honor, as if to pay a natural homage to fresh ingredients and human appetite. Yet all of this with no strictly “culinary” affect – just fabulous cooking. On the other hand, as well as one can dine in the fine-dinings (FDs), I’m beginning to wonder if, all things being equal, we don’t dine even better at that level over here. I won’t repeat the platitudes about tradition versus innovation, as you know them in your sleep. Nor will I detail the pitfalls inherent in both sensibilities, as again we both know them. But I will observe this: I discern a prevailing assumption of creativity in American FDs which I sometimes yearned for in equivalent FDs in France, whose food was at times rather too neo-classical to really feed, as if it was less a meal to be eaten than a lesson to be learned. Less food qua food than a kind of principle of food. For the first time I chafed under the rigid service ballet in FDs in France. You sit, and are promptly asked if you wish an aperitif. All well and good. But as you know I’m a guy who likes Champagne with my food, not merely to wash to road-dust from my throat, and there’s always better choices on the list than whatever mundane selection they’re pouring by the glass. So I ask for the list. I get the list. Eventually….and I do mean eventually, someone arrives to take the order, and eventually….and I really do mean eventually, the Champagne arrives, often insufficiently chilled. Their whole ritual is set up inside one single groove, and if you try to vary it you pay with an empty glass for fifteen minutes. Then there’s the whole matter of the wine pas de deux. Often you won’t get the list at all until after you’ve ordered your food, unless like me you insist on it along with your menus. Sometimes there are gems on these lists and you build your meal around them, as you know. At one hotel-restaurant we stayed and dined in, I asked to take a wine list to our room to study at leisure before dinner, and was refused. “The sommelier doesn’t like the list removed from the restaurant,” I was told. Usually your wine isn’t poured until its partner-dish is served. That’s if the sommelier is in the vicinity. If (s)he isn’t, woe betide you if you suggest the food-runner fill your glass. Oh no no: only certain people are permitted certain steps in the service ballet. Meanwhile your food steams away enticingly, growing colder by the second while you wait for the proper person to find you and pour your wine. But god help you if you try and pour your own. Then staff will stampede to your table reprovingly. It’s all part of a know-your-role mentality which places strait-jackets on staff and diner alike. When I consider the easy fluidity of service in great American restaurants (Trotter’s, Per Se) it seems entirely more gracious and welcoming, without any sacrifice of the competencies. I thought of the numbers of times I’ve ordered wine in American FDs and asked the kitchen to do a menu around the wines, and this would be inconceivable in the French FDs I know, possibly excepting the few at which I’m a “regular”. In another instance there was a dish on a set-menu I wanted. I didn’t want the whole menu – I don’t like degustation-style dining, as you know – but the attractive dish didn’t appear on the a la carte menu. So naturally I asked. I have never been told “no” to this request in FDs in America, but I was quite definitely refused in this FD in France, with an attitude between perplexity and affront I found incomprehensible. My wife’s a chef, we know how kitchens work, we knew perfectly well it could have been done, but it wasn’t done because….it isn’t done. Yet in every single FD, including two 3-stars, there were men in the dining room in jeans, sneakers, open-collared casual shirts, none of which I mind in the least, but the almost comical observance of the service niceties was at odds with the anything-goes flouting of the occasion of fine-dining by most of the diners themselves. We ate some superb food. Regis Marcon is a thrilling chef in St Bonnet-le-Froid at his place the Clos de Cimes. There’s a young man Nicolas le Bec in Lyon whose food scintillated and tingled. There’s a chef at the Chateau de Codignat near Clermont-Ferrand whose food was bright and lively. Yet for each of these there was another whose food seemed devoid of light. Too-tight sauces created opacity, black-holes from which no flavor could emerge. I’ve sometimes walked through rooms of Old Masters in Art museums (or “mvsvms”) and wondered “Didn’t they ever have a bright sunny day in the 14th Century?” and then walked into a room hung with Impressionists where the brilliance was such as to persuade you if the lights went out the paintings would cast their own light. There’s a lot of dark food in some French FDs. And barely a vegetable to be seen. There’s a 3-star in Puymirol called Aubergade. I don’t want to say mean things about it, because the welcome was completely lovely, the place is sensational, the dining room delightful, and it’s a wonderful place to be. But the food was so rich I thought I’d shit ortolans. There was a vegetable dish on this menu, and a very good one too, not up to Michel Bras, but superb in its own right. Yet is was as if to say “If you want vegetables, OK, we have them here for you inside this cage because we daren’t permit them to creep off into the other food…” And Don, you know me: I like voluptuous food, but one course after another of thick wool socks of flavor – even fabulous flavor – and you crave a pair of sandals. Which brings me to Michel Bras, the most important restaurant in the world. The best? I’d never try to say. But for me, the most significant. And not only because it was the seminal cuisine of local wild plants and shrubs and herbs. But because it makes the profoundest statement of place of anywhere. The Aubrac is a very high plateau in almost the dead-center of France. From any direction you approach it, you notice you are climbing climbing climbing and at some point you just stop climbing but you don’t descend. You’re just in this empty rolling upland, and Michel Bras is near the summit of a little hillock, from which there’s a 180-degree view of stupendous vastness. His promotional literature refers to an “Overwhelming sense of space” and you’re certain it’s just PR-fluff….until you’re there, and see it for yourself. Then there’s the quiet. You feel very near the sky. You hear every inference of wind. You hear the bells of the church of Laguiole, 6 miles away. You watch a cloud-shadow thirty miles away skimming towards you. Cows graze just outside the grounds of the property. Each room is a kind of cabin, with a pebble back-yard, and on one damp day we saw a little ermine come to within eight feet of our room, with a mouse in its teeth and a challenging little “huh!” in every atom of its bearing, as if to say “I’ve got my dinner: what are you eating?” And this sense of hovering over the world inside a little silent penumbral world of your own pervades your senses until everything is nearly unbearably real. And then you sit down to dinner. You notice several things. This is not any sort of food you’d get in New York or Paris or Hong Kong or Kuala Lumpur or Los Angeles; this food arises from the Aubrac, the very place you are, the very space and the very light and the very vastness and the very wind and all the things that grow here. Even the wine list eschews all the trophy selections, so if you’re some sort of hot-shot racking up 3-stars and thinking you’re gonna get `59 Mouton from jeroboams, think again. The food is fabulous, considered merely as food-art: it’s complex and creative and haunting. Yet there’s something else, some way it seems to reach into you at some cellular level. It is consciousness-altering food. Bras does a dish he calls a “gargillou” (I have to check the spelling) of vegetables, which is a constantly changing composition of veggies and herbs, thirty or more, which is the only food that has ever made me weep. And not for its beauty, or not only for its beauty, but rather for its truth. But I’ve already gone too far. One doesn’t yell about food like this, and I’m given to superlatives when my feelings are stirred. Better to whisper go there. Go there. Even if you read the cookbook you see the photograph of the dish and think “It sure looks good, but c’mon, enough with the woo-woo, it’s just a plate of vegetables”, and maybe you’d even go there and order it and be let down because I’d raised your expectations too high. Just go there. Arrive as early in the day as you can. If your room’s not ready, stash your bags, gape at the views and go out tromping. Then later you can sit in the glass-enclosed salon looking out at a view of such stirring loneliness you’ll think No one can find me here. Then go into the dining room and order the vegetables, and see what it can mean to be a human being. Terry

This is exactly where service comes into play. Call Jarad at Nectar or Sebastian at Komi and see what they could do for you. For something like this? You might be surprised - maybe they'll hide the ring in a flowered carrot, who knows. Rocks.

I didn't initially convey this because I feared the meal we had wasn't representative of the Osteria (no doubt about it, when Mark Slater walks into a restaurant, the red carpet is rolled out). We had a couple courses (the really good anchovies, the not-so-good pigs feet, the bread plank) from the Osteria, but other items came from the Galileo and Laboratorio kitchens, which are separate. That spaghetti we had was fresh pasta from Galileo (which costs in the mid-$20s), as opposed to the dried pasta you get for $8 at Osteria. You can order anything off of Galileo's menu while sitting at the bar, but you pay the same price as people sitting at tables with white linens and full service. I've been back to Osteria several times now and can talk enthusiastically about the wines and the plank of bread (this is an impressive assortment of bread, and it's hard to believe they can offer this for free much longer). Plus, it's hard to quibble about much of anything that costs eight bucks. The service has tended to be inattentive and nonchalant, and on two of my last three visits, I wasn't even offered the Osteria's wine list - I was handed the by-the-glass list from Galileo which is much more expensive, and had to ask for the less expensive list from the Osteria, which they reluctantly provided. The "Osteria del Galileo" is a fancy name - let's face it - for "the bar menu," really nothing more than Italian pub grub in a luxurious setting. What is the definition of a restaurant? Is it a wall between dining rooms with a separate grilling area (Bardeo)? A separate lounge area and distinct menu with things coming from the same kitchen (Cityzen, Citronelle, Palena, Corduroy?) A little alcove within a larger space (Minibar)? A sushi bar that also makes food for table service (Sushi-Ko, Kaz)? A chef's table (Eve, Citronelle, Laboratorio)? Things have become fuzzy of late, and I don't think the answer is clear anymore. Cheers, Rocks.

X

Michael, A couple followup questions and comments based on your latest replies: Here you've stated what, I believe, you're really wanting to say. But you've said it in such stately, noble terms that it has come across as entirely noncontroversial and inoffensive. That's fine, if this is what you choose to do. However... No, to get a real rise, you're going to have to name names. And also... Here again you've dropped The Bomb, but have done so in such a non-offensive way that you're almost surely not going to create much controversy. All of this leads in to the following quote: That is not true, Michael. You are a guest in this forum precisely because we wish you to speak your mind, and yes, this certainly means being more specific should you wish to. So who are these thieves? And in what way do the critics and community support them? Who are these multi-restaurant owning chefs who don't share with their employees? Which restaurants cheapen other cultures and heritages? What do you mean by "treating some guests differently than others," and which restaurants do you feel engage in this? Which owners are so far removed from their staff that their restaurants are like "a plantation system?" As moderator of these chats, and host of this forum, I want to stress to you there is no obligation or pressure to answer these questions, and this is your podium to answer however you'd like. But I sense a real desire coming from you to take off the gloves and let the punches fly, and wish to reassure you that IN NO WAY would you come across as a "poor guest in this house" by speaking your mind anyway you wish, even if that means criticizing me as a forum host, or anyone else in the industry as being guilty of the things you cite up above. You mentioned continuing support from "critics and the community." You are, I believe, part of the community, so perhaps you'll look at this opportunity as "day one" of reversing the ongoing trend of support. At some point, I will offer equal time to any person or establishment you choose to criticize, so you need not worry about lack of fairness. This has been a fascinating chat so far, and I'm certain that every person on this forum would encourage you to speak freely, if that is what you wish to do. I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone here in saying that you are doing a terrific job with this, and we all owe you a debt of gratitute for joining us. Carry on Michael! Rocks

By the way, has anyone here heard of a sandwich known as a Sebastian? My friend's father (whose name, not surprisingly, is Sebastian, and is native to the Washington DC area) invented it as he submitted it many, many years ago for a contest, and won. I can't even remember what's in it, but it's pretty basic stuff.

(Corduroy flirts with the upper end of this price range).

This is a fascinating thread, because it has veered towards peoples favorite everyday, staple low-man work-a-day get-em-and-go sandwiches, even though there hasn't been any particular impetus to do so. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I'll ask this just to, erm, "Conduct a Pole" (as if I were frying Wabeck): if you were being frizzled in the electric chair tomorrow, and you had one sandwich as your last meal, would your answers be the same? Here's mine: a good friend of mine brought back a kilogram of illegal caviar from Russia a couple of months ago. He had so much he didn't know what to do with it, and was giving it away to his friends in bulk. I had a tupperware container full of the finest beluga and needed to eat it in a couple of days, and so went to Einstein Bagels one morning, got two plain bagels, had some Creme Fraiche from Whole Foods, toasted the bastards, slathered on some Creme Fraiche, and tablespooned what must have been a hundred grams of perfect beluga onto each bagel. You'd bite into it, and since the inch-thick caviar would overflow and spew out onto the plate, you'd have to teaspoon it up afterwards. It was the ultimate decadence that would have spoiled had it not been eaten - what else was there to do? Citronelle's lobster burger (and wagyu burger?) and Palena's hamburger are contenders, sure. But for everyday stuff? A great sandwich must start with great bread, and despite the imbalances, Breadline sure makes a pretty good run for the money. Still waiting for a Po Boy at Johnny's Half Shell. Fast food? I liked the Chick-Fil-A thread. But Bojangles makes a mean Egg-Bo-Biscuit. Roy's in Gaithersburg has always been overrated and sort of cruddy, don't you think? Everything is a formula, with too much golden sauce on their "chicken chest." The lobster salad is expensive and not all that special. Buz & Ned's pulled pork barbeque in Richmond. Oh... Rocks.