Schneier

Thanks everyone. Last night I cooked two wild pheasants using this recipe. The bird came out perfect: tender and tasty. I have two more in the freezer. Bruce

Last night I cooked grass-fed tenderloin using this method: Salt beef Preheat oven and cast-iron frying pan to 500 degrees Cook beef six minutes on a side Pepper beef Slice and serve It was delicious. Bruce

It's easy to laugh at this kind of stuff, but it can be really hard to write a good food review without some of these words. There are only so many ways one can say: "This tastes good." And like movie reviews, editors seems to want plot summaries rather than authentic criticism. So reviewers are stuck explaining what the food tastes like, and we're back to a bunch of overused words again. We try to be original on our reviews, but it's hard. Bruce

What a fastinating question. Go to the Connaught in London. Go to Arpege in Paris. Bring a very big wallet to both. Bruce

Do you mean what I think you mean? Aren't half bottles bottled at the same time/place as full bottles? I've been buying half-bottle Burgundy and Rhones for a while, and it never occured to me that someone else was taking bottles and splitting them up in his garage. Bruce

I think they're a single restaurant, and not part of a chain. I hope I'm right; I don't review chains. BTW, we're off next week because the section is shortened because of Christmas. Hoban Korean is our next review, and will appear the week after. Bruce

Good chicken-fried steak is delicious.

In general, I agree. But this only works if I trust the reviewer. Disclosure is one--but not the only--way of achieving that trust, and non-disclosure is one--but not the only--way of losing that trust. The details are up to the writer.

It depends. If I were writing a magazine/newspaper review of the restaurant, I would definitely disclose any of that. Even more so, I would take pains to ensure that none of that is true. I know this isn't true for every food writer. Some accept favors from restaurants, and I'm sure it biases their writing. But eGullet is not the New York Times, and standards are--and should be--much more lax here. As I said before, there's no pleasing everybody. If you are true to your own principles, good will win out in the end. (I just saw ROTK, so please forgive a little moralizing here.) Bruce

And on eGullet, lines are free. There's no word limit to worry about. When I write 600-word restaurant reviews for the newspaper, words are precious. Here, I can use as many as I want. Bruce

Well, let's leave what I want out of this. I have no idea what I want you to do; I was just using that as an example. But your post is correct: it is impossible to disclose properly. In my field I have more conflicts of interest than you do, and I have received more accusations (and worse) of bias. All you can do is be honest and honorable, disclose to the point that you feel good about, and damn the rest. In the end you'll live and die by your karma. Bruce

Review #9 is technically outside of our review area, but they let us do it anyway. Bruce ********* Dining South: Delivery from bad pizza Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune Published December 17, 2003 There's this thing about pizza: People will eat it no matter how bad it is. Whether it's cardboard-bottomed frozen pizza or delivered pies floating in grease, when's the last time you looked at that slice in your hand and said, "This isn't very good. I don't want to eat it"? We suppose it's because pizza is easy. Once it's done, you can't send it back, and if there were anything else around for dinner you wouldn't have ordered pizza in the first place. The key to the whole experience, then, is to start with a decent pizza. Give Angelo's a call. This is not yuppie pizza with goat cheese and artichoke hearts. Angelo's serves utterly unpretentious tomato sauce pizza with a range of toppings that covers all the basics and a few exotic choices such as sauerkraut, barbecue sauce and shrimp. Everybody will find something to like because it's darned good. Angelo's serves pizza in thin-crust and pan-style varieties. The thin crust is perfect: flexible, a little crisp, a little chewy. The sauce is good and comes covered with generous handfuls of your favorite toppings. The cheese is not so heavy that it drags the slice apart at every bite. The pan-style crust is also good, though it's thicker than we like. If a really bready crust appeals, order the pan-style. You'll get plenty of toppings and the same nicely browned cheese. Angelo's menu includes a small selection of American-Italian classics. The restaurant makes its own meatballs, which you can get with spaghetti, ravioli or baked manicotti. None of these are standouts. Angelo's also offers an all-you-can-eat spaghetti option, but there are no additional meatballs with your second helping. The chicken baked spaghetti -- kind of a chicken and spaghetti stew -- was surprisingly nice. The other entrees would be improved by more peppers and onions. The entrees come with miniature loaves of bread, a charming extra. Unfortunately, these are buttered with what tastes like the same ghastly oil found on popcorn in movie theaters that don't spring for real butter. Even ordering the bread with garlic couldn't overcome this disappointment. The iceberg-lettuce salads are uninspiring -- as well as the antipasto salad -- though the homemade blue cheese dressing is particularly good. You can also order several different sandwiches. But for lunch Angelo's serves pizza by the slice, so have that. We recommend staying away from the Italian fries and the Cinna fries. The former is strips of pizza dough that you can dip in spaghetti sauce. The latter is a sweetened pizza dough with cinnamon and icing. It's a gut bomb, and not a very good one at that. Angelo's delivers, but only to South St. Paul. That's OK. Hop on Interstate Hwy. 494, go to the 7th Street exit, and head just a few blocks north for one of the Twin Cities' pizza jewels. Eat in or take out. It's worth the trip for delicious pizza.

This is a huge issue. To answer the opening question: you should disclose things that your readers think should have been disclosed. Here's an example. In this thread I just learned that Fat Guy has a personal relationship with Alain Ducasse and Michael Psaltis. When I read that I was stunned. I had read his writings on Ducasse and Mix and...I should have been told that. This metric has nothing to do with Fat Guy's ethics, his bias, or his reviews. It's simply a matter of not surprising the reader. Whether it's a politician, a sports figure, or a restaurant reviewer, you don't want the voter/fan/foodie saying: "Hey. Why wasn't I told that?" That being said, actually following through is very difficult. The world is a small place. Anyone who writes/speaks about a topic is bound to have thousands of potential conflicts of interest, some more obvious than others and some larger than others, and it's hard to know where to draw the line. These days almost anything could be viewed as a conflict of interest. Sometimes things that some of never imagined to be conflicts of interest turn out to be. (What do you mean Fat Guy and Psaltis live within 20 miles of each other!?) In the end, you have to trust the integrity of the writer/speaker. If you trust the person, then you don't need any disclosure. If you don't trust him, then no amount of disclosure will convince you otherwise. But the point of disclosure is to keep the reader/listener from bring surprised. Bruce

Thanks for the review. How far is the restaurant from Toronto? I assume there's no reasonable way to get back to Toronto after dinner? Bruce

I've gotten my El Bulli and Alain Ducasse reservations already.

I've been real happy with the Reidel Vinum series. Bruce

Balthazar is where you want to go, but it's way too noisy for my tastes.

Well come back. We have pheasant to cook.

There's very little good in our reviewing area. If you do come down to Mpls, talk to me. There are lots of great restaurants that are outside our area, and very few within. The restaurants we review sound better than they really are because our scale is different. Bruce

Review #8. Is anyone reading these? Bruce ********** Dundas cuisine: American bistro is a country oasis Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier, Special to the Star Tribune Published December 10, 2003 We're fond of charming little neighborhood restaurants that serve interesting food and have an interesting wine list as well as a nice dessert selection. We call them American bistros, after the similar French-style restaurants. And there is something disarmingly appealing about finding an American bistro in a picturesque country town that, taken together, hardly matches the size of most city neighborhoods. In Rice County in the little town of Dundas, population just about 550, Fermentations is an oasis. It's a small restaurant, with no more than a dozen tables, fewer if there are large parties. It's only open for dinner and only six days a week. The room feels comfortably upscale with its warm pumpkin paint job and French bistro art. A nice effect for a small budget, we think. Fermentations is as much about the wine as the food. Everything except a few sparkling wines is available by the glass, giving you many options. You can also order wine in flights: small pours of three different related wines. The wine menu has a dozen and a half different flights available, priced from $7 to $20. Seemingly on a mission to educate the palates of its patrons, Fermentations suggests wine flights for every menu item. Order the Chicken Wellington, for example, and the menu suggests a flight of sauvignon blancs, a flight of other French whites or a flight of Rieslings. We love this idea. Wine can be such an intimidating thing. Not knowing which wines go with what can make someone feel downright stupid. That can't happen at Fermentations. The menu tells you which wines go with what and then gives you opportunities to learn which wines you prefer. We wish more restaurants would adopt this concept. The food menu is small, and everything is competently done. Expect frequent changes as the kitchen's inspirations and the seasons change. We liked the various crostini and sheep's cheese combinations, especially the surprise of finding fresh figs in Dundas. The Coquille St. Jacques featured huge sea scallops, sweetly oniony from leeks and nicely complemented with Gruyère cheese. The crab cakes were the weakest of the appetizers; they were dry and flavorless. One outstanding entree was the fettucine with red pepper cream sauce. This was generously flavored but not really hot, and the truffle oil added a complex note to a simple, truly delicious dish. The optional shrimp added nothing flavor-wise, and it was bothersome and messy to have to remove their tails. The braised pork was also terrific; the rich veal stock and herbs made it a succulent and memorable dish. The desserts were all quite good. The slice of spice cake was huge, though it suffered the frequent fault of being served cold. The chocolate pot de creme had a good strong chocolate flavor and a perfect smooth texture. We also liked the poached pear. Given how strongly the other patrons reminded us of liberal arts professors, the word has spread to Northfield and beyond. We strongly recommend making a reservation. And prepare yourself for a leisurely dinner; service can be slow when it's busy. Karen Cooper and Bruce Schneier are constantly on the lookout for good places to eat. If you have a favorite restaurant south of the Minnesota River, please write us at diningsouth@startribune.com.

I've trained there several times; no problems. It's only a few blocks, and a busy street. And welcome. Bruce

How did you get a discount. Our truffle tasting menu was $300 per. Bruce

That's probably best. My wife would have issues. Our hotel was in Santa Clara, a looooong way away. Bruce

Don't worry about customs. I've flown home with 30 bottles of wine--and know others who do it regularly--and no one has been forced to pay customs. And if you are, I think it's just 10% of the purchase price. Shipping is another issue. You can buy styrafoam shippers at post offices all over France. Use those to pack the bottles in. I bring a six-bottle caddy which I carry on. It's a pain, but you can do it. I don't think I would try more than 30 bottles, though--two cases in checked luggage and six bottles with me. Bruce

That's what I do.