ingridsf
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Posts posted by ingridsf
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And we haven't even begun to discuss the propriety of breast-feeding in a vegan restaurant.
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Everyone's picks are making me want to go EAT,EAT, EAT right now but gotta add one of my own: La Folie on Polk Street. (A sunset drink at Top of the Mark, followed by dinner at La Folie....ah....) I digress. La Folie is a fairly small French restaurant run by a family. The difference between many of the restaurants recommended above and this one is that is offers a much quieter room and a more relaxed pacing of the meal. Delfina, Lulu, and Zuni's food knocks me out but I have to fight to have a conversation in them. And believe me, it's not as if I would ever complain about the meal I had at Gary Danko. But La Folie was a little more personal, more a little vacation from my daily life. It seems odd to describe a thoroughly professional and elegant restaurant as "sweet," but, hey, there it is.
My favorite things there are: the roast quail stuffed with fois gras with a wild mushroom reduction and a petit salade; the roast loup de mer with truffled gnocchi and baby vegetables. There hasn't been a chicken or steak option on the menu when I've been there, imagine that! If you ever go there, ask to sit in the Green Room (chairs more comfy).
I hope you have a great time in SF. Raise a fork to those of us thinking of your tour de manger (heehee).
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Winner of the "I'd Like to Feed You Haggis, Black Pudding, and Menudo Not Because They're Bad But Because You're Mad" Award:
The Christina of a loathesome "food" program called Christina Cooks. In the happy event you've never encountered this show, all I can is, you are indeed fortunate. Equal parts nutrition psuedoscience, bizarre flavor combinations, and a cooking philosophy shivering in a cellar of deprivation, guilt, and fear of fat, this program is one I can't even watch for laughs. She reminds us all that establishing Vegetable Protective Services (VPS) may be necessary in a world that allows her on the public airwaves. ("Anyone who treats parsnips the way you do, ma'am, shouldn't be allowed to cook with them.)
Winner of the "Ooh, You Are the Human Equivalent of Duck-Fat Fries" Award:
A split decision, this. It goes to Ant'ny Bourdain and Lidia Bastianich. C'mon, you may have others besides these two, but when the shit comes down, you want the ones who bring it on home, and in most cases, bring it with a generous amount of raw olive oil, good old Parm Regg, and a pack of Luckies. Besides, both of these characters manage to share personal quirks in an endearing way. How many times have I heard that Lidia has "trouble" with garlic? Mystically, paradoxically, being privy to her lower GI problems makes her food more appealing. And Tony, delightful, delightful Tony. The composition of Tony's personality is a startling 90% personal quirk, making him not only more flavorful than other food celebrities but also a real value for your time. You'd have to watch 14 episodes of Ming Tsai's show to get the equivalent personal quirkiness of only one of Tony's shows. Sara Moulton seems like a genuinely nice person but I'd have to sit through 47 hours of her show to equal three minutes of watching Tony eat deep-fried cheesecake, or simply enjoying the silence of waiting for Lidia to finish chewing before she speaks. The greats can break all of the rules.
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As someone who is a profoundly ordinary cook, let me say this: Alice, Chez Panisse (upstairs, downstairs, wherever) are what I remember wnen I grab organic lemon thyme in the Safeway. When I was first cooking for myself in the mid-80's, it was a major coup to find fresh basil once in a while. Big news: Shopping IS a big part of cooking. Funny how people forget how things used to be. I suggest you prepare yourself a delicious salad of iceberg, Bac-O-Bits and sauteed canned button mushrooms the next time you're pondering the value of a Chez Panisse meal. If you're still unconvinced, try a Birds-Eye green bean and Durkee onion ring casserole! What's that you say? You understand good cooking's not all technique, and you need good ingredients to work with???...
I have actually eaten at CP (twice, can you believe?) AND both times were downstairs, though I was unaware at the time that this made me a rube. (Naive and credulous person that I am, I enjoyed both meals, though this apparently made me the gastronomic equivalent of a circus bear being fed buns, albeit organic, stone-ground buns. Evil, evil Alice!) The food isn't complicated and this seems to be what disturbs people. It's frustrating to hear people complain about something so simple and enjoyable -- a good meal in a good restaurant that uses excellent ingredients. Good lord, can we save the horror for the day they put chicken fingers on the fixed-price menu? (Rocky, Jr. Chicken Fingers in a Napa Mustard/Marshall Farms Honey Sauce)
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I think the reason the show didn't appear realistic was because the situation wasn't realistic -- not just in the compressed time frame, etc., but in the fact that it was The Restaurant, not a restaurant. Rather like the difference between the Las Vegas Venice and the actual city. But I do feel disappointed. Admittedly, this is like complaining that the aerosol cheese didn't quite complement the Funyuns. I expected contrived melodrama and gratuitous booty shots -- hell, they could have called it Temptation Restaurant for all I cared. But if there was going to be all that, I also wanted the screaming matches between the kitchen staff and the suppliers who fouled up orders, and the insider's look into just how they calculate how much product they have to buy without running out or going broke on things like those red prawns.
The other thing -- sorry to shift topics so abruptly -- was how weird the kitchen staff structure was. I mean, who was in charge of the kitchen? For real? You know, the place that makes the food? Mama kept getting the title, sortakinda, but there was Tony the Kitchen Manager and Rocco. Let's see, Tony had the lung power and the tongs (I kept waiting for him to channel a certain other Tony and bark, "Shouldn't you be doing something?") but Rocco had the crown, even though the visitation agreement limited him to ten minutes on weekend evenings and only if another cook was present. Though I was dazzled by hs two-handed parsley chopping. Can anyone explain if the Mama/Tony/Rocco triad was a normal relationship in an otherwise bizarro universe?
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I'm new here but have greatly enjoyed the, uh, plentiful number of postings. While I appreciate the Derrida and Baudrillard references, I offer something only a childhood steeped in Mad magazine could produce: the new The Restaurant theme song, "Placement Freak."*
*sung to the tune of "Super Freak"
Rocco’s a very special chef-boy
Who seems hung up on his mama
He hangs upstairs from the kitchen with his girlfriends --
Chef-Boy is dyin’ to be seen.
He gets grabby with the ladies
They’re all his all-time favorite.
One day he’ll be crude to the wrong woman –
He’s kind of indiscreet.
He doesn’t cook in the kitchen
And payroll’s beyond his business
Good restaurants value staffs but then I realized
Good food is served with heat.
He likes the Amex Open and Mitsubishi
They're always on display
When tension's high he breaks out the Coors Light
instead of wine from Bobby Flay.
Rocco, are you alright?
Are you alright?
Rocco, your “vision’s” a fright
To me….
He's a placement freak!
Placement freak!
The ads are freaking
out....
Thrown out of Vegetarian restaurant
in Restaurant Life
Posted
Thanks, darlin'. Hee hee, maybe we could convince Millenium to include lactating women in their dinners that feature local producers.