markk
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Posts posted by markk
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And if somebody asks them "do you make your tortilla chips with a paper shredder as I've heard?" do you think they should lie, or tell the truth?
I'm well aware that most restaurants that aren't starred establishments (and then some of those too) get a lot of their foods already prepared from Sysco. So when I'm in a restaurant, I always ask about each thing "Is this homemade? Do you make it here?"
I'm sure you'd hate me.
But when they say yes, and then I ask what ingredients are in it and they have to change their answer to "no", I come away with a terrible feeling about the place and usually leave.
But yes, more common than keeping a paper shredder is buying pre-fab foods and passing them off as your own. But I'm not shocked by it; I've come to expect it. I'd only care if people lied when asked about it. Same as using cake mixes and packaged sauces. Everybody does it.
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Okay, people in business should always tell the truth. You keep skirting around it, and that's dishonest, especially when somebody asks you a question. The customer said she'd like brownies that were baked the day she picks them up. If you can't tell which days you bake them, or bake them the day she comes, then you should tell her that they're frozen the other days. Only bad things come to people who lie, and that's especially true of business owners and politicians, but except for when your spouse asks you "do I look fat in this dress?", telling the truth is always the best way to ensure that people don't get hurt, ultimately, by your lies.
If you care more about the sale of 8 brownies than your integrity and reputation, it's not going to bode well for your business.
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Though I've been yelled at by our Orlandoian eG members for saying this, I have a very hard time finding good food in Orlando. I generally spend two weeks a year there, mostly in dining despair.
But I too have had many enjoyable meals at Coq au Vin in the past.
And I would suggest that you not overlook the Orlando branch of Texas de Brazil for a very enjoyable meal (despite the horrendous upsell that sometimes happens at their restaurants). And speaking of horrendous upsell, you can get utterly delicious steaks at Vito's Chop House and Charley's Steakhouse (same owner), though, as it was commented on another Orlando dining website, many people use the wording "we left in tears" to describe the experience; but if you go in forewarned and don't pay any attention to it, you can get a magnificent steak at either place. And since Orlando once used to be famous cattle country, it's an authentic experience, perhaps wiser than looking for water in the desert. But the Orlando residents get really mad when I say that.
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As I read this, I wasn't sure what specific question you'd be asking at the conclusion, so I had all my answers ready in my mind, and then you asked something I didn't see coming.
Not to sound nasty, but I don't have any concern for the innocent bystander who wanders in.
For myself, my main concern, I wouldn't be going to Z, but I'd go to X and Y when I was craving one of the good dishes. And if I sent somebody there, I'd warn them about the bad dishes to avoid. If somebody asked me about restaurant Z, I'd tell them just what you stated. But as far as an innocent bystander, it wouldn't be a concern of mine at all.
I guess that in the case of Restaurant Z, if the critics and the members of the online community making public comments luck out badly and get mostly the dishes on their bad days, it's going to make it harder for that restaurant to survive. Same for just the word of mouth of the innocent bystanders. (In my town, it wouldn't make a difference; people line up for restaurants so horrible to my taste that it's like begging for school cafeteria food, but that's not NY now that I think of it.)
So for me, I wouldn't give any thought to the innocent bystander, and I don't know why in this context I would. Oh, maybe if I happened to see one studying the menu outside such a restaurant I'd warn him as I passed by, but that'd be the extent of my concern.
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As I also said on the other thread Carolyn's referring to, I agree! Here's what I had posted right after:
After reading the Renaud study (I was in Europe when it came out, and they concentrated on his findings about the beneficial nature of the fat, and discounted red wine because that's a constant in European diets - unlike the 60 Minutes reporting which gave the credit to red wine and omitted the very part of the study results that were reported all through Europe.) - anyway, after reading that, and having been diagnosed with high cholesterol, my partner and I created a pretty scientific study of our own - for six months we carefully elimated all the animal fats and sugars that you'd normally associate with high cholesterol, but we ate duck and foie gras on average 2 nights per week (easy for us to do). And our cholesterol levels dropped low into the range of normal for the first time. Even my doctor was convinced because of the European media coverage we dug out for him, and how well we had designed the experiment.
Reconciling markk's comments with HKDave's, shouldn't Italians have the lowest rate of heart disease then if they (presumably) mostly olive oil?Olive oil: 74% monounsaturated, 9% polyunsaturated, 14% saturated fat.
Duck fat: 49% monounsaturated, 13% polyunsaturated, 33% saturated fat.
Duck fat does have less saturated fat than butter, but it contains about 91mg/100g cholesterol (similar to butter), vs zero for olive oil.
Well, maybe they should, but they don't. Renaud discovered that in his study (much to everyone's surprise).
You know, the chemical elements of food that we are able to isolate for study actually exist in food in symbiotic and synergistic relationships with thousands of other elements in the food. So perhaps it's not just monounsaturated nature of the duck fat; maybe it's that particular ratio of mono-unsaturated to poly-unsaturated; maybe it's that the cholesterol in duck is the good cholesterol, and maybe we just can't second guess Mother Nature. But the people who live in the regions of France where duck fat is used for cooking and spreading instead of olive oil and butter, and where they eat a lot of duck, have lower rates of heart disease than the olive-oil-eating Italians, and Dr. Renaud's study, after scientific analysis of the factors and constants, decided that duck fat is good for your heart.
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the woman wanted them baked the same day she came to pick them up. I am well aware that many people don't realize that it is impractical and nearly impossible to bake everything we have available fresh every day. ...
is it better to preserve the image than tell the truth?
In life, there are no better, or safer options than to tell the truth. I think Sir Walter hit the nail on the head when he wrote, exactly 200 years ago, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!" Nothing good ever comes from lying.
Why not tell the woman just what you wrote, "it's nearly impossible, and impractical to bake everything we have available fresh every day, so we freeze many things when they come out of the oven, so they're just as fresh and delicious for our customers every day, and if you could taste any difference, I wouldn't be doing it that way; the brownies are baked on (this day) and (that day) if you want to pick them up the day they're baked, but any day you get them they will taste identically delicious." ??
Then, word can get around that people can trust you for your delicious baked goods and your honesty.
You can't know her reasons. If she didn't know what you're doing, and wants to get them fresh from the oven and freeze them herself (perhaps so she could thaw one every day for a lunchbox), she'd be double-freezing them. How can it ever be better than to tell the truth?
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From the front-page New York Times (Nov. 17, 1991) "Can Foie Gras Aid the Heart? A French Scientist Says Yes".
The actual publication of the "French Paradox" study by Dr. Serge Renaud in 1991 concluded that because duck fat (and the fat in foie gras) is mono-unsaturated, it's what's responsible for what he termed the French Paradox - it's why people in regions of France that eat tons of foie gras and cook with duck fat have a rate of heart disease lower than anywhere else.
When "60 Minutes" did its famous French Paradox segment, they ignored this, and played up the 'red wine' angle. But in Europe, when the results of the study were published, it was explained in detail that researchers were trying to find why it was that France had the lowest rate of death from heart disease in the world; (in fact, when they showed the rates, they had to break the axis to include France at the bottom) and it was also found that the rates of heart disease were so incredibly low in the regions of France where duck fat is the principal fat, that the brought down the entire French national average, which is what led them to study the fat. They also went on to report that while wine was suspected as one possibility, wine drinking is a constant throughout Europe, and was ruled out because it could not explain the results. (That is to say, other places drink a lot of red wine, but they don't eat the same amount of duck fat.) They truly believe it is the mono-unsaturated nature of the fat.
Though I can't find the articles that I read in London when the study was reported on, I do remember one story that talked about the life of the typical farmer in Gascony. It said that he gets up at the crack of dawn when the ducks and geese start quacking; he goes to the kitchen, pours himself a tumbler of rustic red wine, cuts a slice of bread and slathers it with duck fat from the omnipresent crock, calls it breakfast, and lives to an average age of over 100.
So that's why they make those claims. The duck fat is good for you.
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In search of comfort food I made Steak au Povire, green beans in lemon butter and All Crust Potato gratin from Happy in the Kitchen:
Your steak looks delicious!
I was craving beef, and made some club steaks topped with a little butter, and some parmesan and truffle-salt potato puree.
I thought of making it au poivre, and then didn't, and I was sorry as soon as I saw your photo. These steaks were natural Angus beef, and they were completely and totally tasteless.
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markk - thanks for the link. 'Looks like you have a nice website of food-porn. Already bookmarked for some nice reading later.
Thanks! The "France" pages are full of hot foie gras preparations, many you'd never think of (cromesquis, ravioli, etc.) so I hop you enjoy!
A bit of understatment. I think you meant to say that 1.5 pounds will feed ten and kill two people.
Actually, you should locate the front-page New York Times article from Nov. 17, 1991 "Can Foie Gras Aid the Heart? A French Scientist Says Yes".
The actual publication of the "French Paradox" study by Dr. Serge Renaud concluded that because duck fat (and the fat in foie gras) is mono-unsaturated, it's what's responsible for the French Paradox, which he named for that - it's why people in regions of France that eat tons of foie gras and cook with duck fat have a rate of heart disease so low that it lowers the whole national average!
Ms.W and I ate there two to three times a month for an entire year. When Chef Mary Dumont left I went and got a physical and my colesterol was only around 180!Yes! After reading the Renaud study (I was in Europe when it came out, and they concentrated on his findings about the beneficial nature of the fat, and discounted red wine because that's a constant in European diets - unlike the 60 Minutes reporting which gave the credit to red wine and omitted the very part of the study results that were reported all through Europe.) Anyway, after reading that, and having been diagnosed with high cholesterol, my partner and I created a pretty scientific study of our own - for six months we carefully elimated all the animal fats and sugars that you'd normally associate with high cholesterol, but we ate duck and foie gras on average 2 nights per week (easy for us to do). And our cholesterol levels dropped low into the range of normal for the first time. Even my doctor was convinced because of the European media coverage we dug out for him, and how well we had designed the experiment.
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just some advice from a non chef--in my experience, with a home stove it was difficult to get a good sear on the foie--too much melting occurred.
It's really not hard - it just requires a tremendous leap of faith in getting the pan hot enough - it wants to be much, much hotter than your instincts tell you to let it get. That's where the quick sear comes from.
The liquefying is normal, even in the 30 seconds it takes to get that sear. This photo was taken at 30 seconds when I flipped it.
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It's intimidating to play with foie gras, but it's actually pretty hard to screw up.
Exactly right! I was afraid my first time, but it's fine - and I have photos of it.
As far as slicing, set it down on a plate or board the way it wants to be, then slice down through it. If you think a slight bias cut will give you nicer slices or better use of it, that's fine. A tremendous amount of fat is going to liquefy and run into the pan, so when you cut the slices, make them thicker than you imagine them when they're plated. Absolutely don't cut them any thinner than a very generous half-inch. 3/4 inch, or somewhere inbetween would be perfect.
Sprinkle with some salt and pepper if you want, get a nice heavy pan good and hot, and put the slices in. They'll start to sizzle immediately. In the 30-45 second range you'll be ready to flip; do it, sear the other side the same way, and serve.
If you're wanting some kind of complementary sauce, have it ready. Or if you're doing a deglazing with some older vinegar and anything, do it quickly. If you have a Sauternes, which of course is sweet, you might not need anything more than some bread or toast for sopping up the fat. The liver, quickly seared, with a teeny bit of salt on top, is really all you need. Just don't be afraid to get your pan nice and hot, and don't be scared by the amounts of smoke and grease.
If you want to see this technique in action, we photographed me doing it my very first time. Follow the link in my signature, and choose the "duck" pages.
What you didn't mention - have you eaten sauteed foie gras before? Or have you never tasted it either?
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Yes, I think you have to think along the lines that what you described initially is just eating butter, something that probably sounds better in theory than in practice. I was going to suggest as well that you make a compound butter and serve the fried butter balls over a steak as well. Of course, it's Chicken Kiev without the chicken - hey, why not put something inside the ball of butter, like an inverse Kiev? Depending on how big you can make them, you could put pieces of nicely charred steak; hmm, have to think this part through a little more.
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Are we talking fast food? Airline food? Upscale chains?
No, not fast food actually. I accept the trade-off that in return for being able to drive through and be handed a bag of food that can be assembled from the time I place the order at one window and pick it up at the next, I'm not going to have a chef whip me up a meal.
We're talking sit-down restaurants that aren't fastfood places; I guess I'll give as a criterion a place that has servers and printed menus. If they then bring me what amounts to "arline food" on a plate, this is my problem.
I am not sure what you are calling "real" food.The only way I can answer that is by reverse-example.
I keep thining of Bonefish Grill. Every dish on their menu is made with four or five "sauces" - gloopy, cloying things with what I consider to be strange consistencies. I can't say for sure whether these are made at one central plant and shipped to the locations in huge containers, but if they're making them at each place, they must be using something like a precise chemical formula, because they're frighteningly identical from place to place.
And putting these 'sauces' over, or in things, comprises all their offerings. The other day I called to ask their specials, and there was one that sounded different, so when I asked for a description of it, they told me "it's really just grilled swordfish with a combination of our 'lime-tomato-garlic' sauce and our 'pan-Asian' sauce.
So to me, this isn't really "cooking". Do not get me wrong here: the second time I had to go to a Bonefish, I asked them to omit these sauces. The server said "Well, if we leave them out of the mussels, you're just going to get a bowl of mussels steamed with white wine!" They agreed to throw a little chopped garlic in with it, which they had, and what do you know - it was great. As for my swordfish, they grilled a piece really well, and gave me a wedge of lemon, and with a sprinkle of salt, it too was delicious. I'm not saying that you can't make a meal out of some of these places.
But since they're primarily staffed by people with no culinary training or talent, just people assembling ingredients on a plate following a laminated, illustrated photo-tutorial poster hanging in the kitchen, I'm not calling them "real" restaurants.
And I'm wondering if their popularity and omnipresence is discouraging chefs and cooks around the country from opening their own places. Maybe the independent places we have that are horrible, as you say, are because nobody who could do better is willing to take the financial risk any more of opening a "real" restaurant? With a chain restaurant every few hundred feet now, and perishability of ingredients being what it is, maybe startup restaurants can't get enough business soon enough to stay in business until they make it through and onto the radar? Maybe most of the country just prefers "airline food" on a plate when they go out to eat?
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Peter: I believe wine tastes grow as you add experiences and knowledge. When I began drinking wine years ago, I started with $8-14 wines, but after time and a few experiences with some more expensive bottles, I started to gravitate upwards a little. Most of what I drink now is in the $15-$30 range,
I agree that wine tastes grow. Now I'm unable to enjoy anything I can afford. I wish (in one sense) that I'd had less great wine in my journey. Wouldn't have spoiled my tastebuds so. But that's not meant to be a pretentious comment, just a lament that after learning what really great wines taste like, sometimes it's hard to go back to what I can afford everyday. (I am more easily satisfied with an inexpensive red than white, though; I think that a lot of other factors in a red can make it enjoyable at the low end, but I don't think that there's anyway to give a lively acidity to a white wine that's lacking in it.)
But- do you not find in a lot of cases that today's $15-$30 dollar wines are simply last year's $8 wines which Parker has discovered and driven up the price of?
I think the mid-range is now a very strange area of wines (and I think it's really sad when these wines go through restaurant mark-up). I believe this is the reason people are seeking out the under $10 wines, and rightly so.
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If you are sure your products taste exactly the same as just baked than I would lie.
I think that it's terrible when people lie about food that they serve to other people. And misleading.
Why would you lie about a thing like that? If you freeze them because you think they're just as good, stand by your beliefs! Aren't they more important than the sale of 8 brownies?
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One thing I noted, upon reading some of the names being bandied about, is that I can't think of a single chain that has improved over time. Can you?
No, I can't think of a single chain that has improved.
I can think of some that haven't worsened, like KFC. Or my favorite, White Castle. But McDonald's sure is worse. I remember a time when you stood a good chance of getting a burger that had very recently come off the grill. Now they cook them in advance (in the morning?) and just keep them in a drawer all day?
On the related thead, "Chain Restaurants-, "cycling out" anytime soon?" was this comment, though:
Fast food and convenience food is getting a lot better due to technology not in spite of it!I don't find that.
How come you ask if they've improved?
Would you expect or need them to? I mean, I'd be happy if they had stayed the same. How could you improve a White Castle Hamburger or a piece of KFC extra crispy?
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I have a 31" side by side, because it had to replace the original top-freezer model that came in my apartment kitchen. Either side is woefully inadequate in width, and I find it totally frustrating. A friend of mine has the same fridge, much wider model in his house, and it seems sooo much better to me.
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Now we're getting there. I didn't have an answer when I threw this out for discussion, and a lot of these replies are most helpful!
I had started with what somebody else wrote in another thread: "The chains have saturated all other markets and are now entering the upscale casual / affordable fine dining realm. They are like a giant blob picking off local independants left and right."
I know there are a lot of people who agree with that. Finding out why they think that was my exercise.
I also fail to see any valid argument that chain restaurants are destroying the mom and pop businesses. In fact, I would argue that many mom and pop businesses have gone out of business due to factors unrelated to the growth of chains.... I can list other small stand alone fast food operations that thrive around the area.
The best burger place in Detroit (maybe in the US) is a local place that has been open for decades and continues to thrive.
This flies in the face of claims that small start ups are being quashed by the big guys.
I'm not questioning that there certainly are small places that are thriving locally. I would think that as in the examples you cite, people are realizing that these small places can, and do offer better food than they can get at the chain down the street.
I'm wondering why that's not widespread. I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of people prefer the standardized food they get at chains to even the excellent cooking they can get at a mom and pop?
Maybe he meant by "picking off" that when a chain opens somewhere, people flock to it for a while, during which time the small, independent restaurants, unable to wait-out the time till people return to them, go under? Or is it the case that by the numbers, more people in America prefer chain food to great independent foood? Is the economics - the chains have locations that are more visible and more easily accessible, so people are just going there and not seeking out the independent restaurants on a large scale? Are fewer independents giving it a try any more?
Sure, we can have a mixture of some small, independent places, and the chains at the same time, but a lot of people agree with the statement that "It is a sad state of affairs. This problem however is not secluded to nashville, it is a national crisis. The chains have saturated all other markets and are now entering the upscale casual / affordable fine dining realm. They are like a giant blob picking off local independants left and right."
Is that wrong? Are they not picking them off at all?
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I just now learned that a restaurant I remember fondly from the 1950's on Long Island, Patricia Murphy's Candlelight Restaurant (waitresses roamed the many dining rooms with warm popovers), was part of a chain! They had branches in Yonkers, Brooklyn, Ft. Lauderdale, and Manhattan. I had absolutely no idea!
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I've always loved that site!
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There's a curious little pizza chain out in the heartland called Il Vicino.
At the time we thought it was a local place. There was absolutely nothing in the restaurant to indicate that it was a chain; it wasn't until we returned home & I googled it that I realized.
I had the reverse once. I ate a few times at a little place in France whose low prices and extremely cute logo, and mostly the plasticized menus, in a shape that wasn't rectangular, screamed out that it had to be a chain, but it wasn't. It's called Le Baeckeoffe", and in fact it serves 7 varieties of "baeckeoffe", individual pots of differening ingredients (meat, or duck, or chicken, etc.) slow baked under a layer of sliced potatoes, which is a traditional dish. It screamed "chain" but it was not. My subsequent Googling showed that they had wanted to chain it or franchise it, but that never happened. I guess printing the menus like that was the first step. It was good, too.
I think that in the US, when I see a restaurant with any decor or physical traits that had to cost a lot of money (other than a very fancy downtown restaurant, I mean), I just assume it's probably a chain.
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I would also argue that the Wolfgang Pucks and the California Pizza spots in airports are a hell of a lot better than you give em credit for
I hope so! I was citing the Hoboken one as an example of possibly the worst chain food I've ever eaten; what was especially amazing about how bad it was is that I was at one of the very first ones (I believe) in a terminal at LAX, and the food was fantastic - fresh tasting, vibrant, good enough to rival lots of "real" restaurants. And yet 15 years later and 3,000 miles away, the one in Hoboken tasted like I remember school cafeteria food. If they're not all terrible, I'm really glad to hear it.
IMO it's unrealistic to think that chains will suddenly start "buying lcoal" or "cooking seasonally".I agree! So I was wondering, if people start craving that again, will the chains fall out of favor?
The economies of scale and centralized distroubtion are among the basic business tenets to which they subscribe and on which their profitability is based.Absolutely. And I like that in an appliance store where they're selling inanimate objects. When applied to food, it scares me.
BTW - I've been to Syracuse. I don't think you have worse restaurants there than we have in Hoboken. But if the choice is reduced to those and pre-fab chain food... well, that's scary too. But that wasn't my point. I guess nobody thinks that the chains will fade away.
I also wonder about all the Barnes and Nobles and Bed Baths and Beyond (and LNT's) that are springing up all over. I know they're all the rage now, bu I wonder if years from now those will sit empty and people will be opening restaurants in them.
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I read in one of the local threads, "Middle TN is the testing ground for all new chain concepts. It is a sad state of affairs. This problem however is not secluded to nashville, it is a national crisis. The chains have saturated all other markets and are now entering the upscale casual / affordable fine dining realm. They are like a giant blob picking off local independants left and right."
I think that there are a lot of misperceptions here.
First, chain restaurants are not inherently good or bad so to start with a premise that these operations are somehow evil or detrimental is IMOP wrong. There are good chains and bad.
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Let's not forget that this is an ever evolving scene--remember McDonald's started as a mom and pop operation.
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Some regional chains are much better than most of the mom and pops they are supposedly replacing. I would offer Legal Sea Food's, Fuddrucker's, and Jasper White's Sea Shack's as evidence of very fine chain operations.
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Here in the NY area there are hundreds of local non chain diners. I would say that very few of them are all that good--in fact--most offer the same menu items and the same level of mediocrity that one could lump them all together and call them a "chain."
I think that the OP is a genius for having started this thread, but let me add my two cents based on your excellent reply. To me, the only "evil" of the chains is the thought that somebody is standardizing and cooking (or prepping and freezing) a product somewhere in a central kitchen, and shipping it out to be reheated, and/or sending out ingredients that are cookie-cutter identical to be cooked on location in all 50 states.
An example of this is Wolfgang Puck Express, which opened a branch with much hype and fanfare in Hoboken (NJ) and quickly closed. I remember one of the very first branches, and the food was vibrant and delicious. It was the case in Hoboken that everything comes from the central kitchens in Arizona - the pizza dough (not such a terrible thing), the famous Caeser Salad dressing, and everythng inbetween. The food tasted dull and lackluster. It tasted exactly like airline food.
(Once in the 70's while asking the airline reservationist on the phone what I'd get for buying an upgrade to Business Class on a particular transcontinental flight, she replied 'a bigger seat, and you get the Coach meal served on china'.)
Now I don't have tremendous experience with chains because, based on early experiences, I began to avoid them. Sometimes in traveling, that's not possible. But I've had "airline food" served on real plates at them. And when the economics of the marketplace mean that the chains that serve "airline food" on real china prosper while places trying to cook from scratch die out to the point that nobody even tries any more, that'll be bad to me.
I've experienced this at Olive Garden when I've had to go there in my travels, and I've experienced it at Houston's as well. To me, it's just Howard Johnson's frying up a trillion tons of clam strips somewhere and sending them by the truckload to the various locations to serve. My first meal at a Bonefish Grill had everything covered with, or cooked with, four identical, goopy, gluey, cloying sauces that kept repeating throughout the menu; on a subsequent visit I ordered everthing without the sauces, just some salt and lemon, and the mussels and fish were quite good, I must say.
Yes, my local Jersey diners are one worse than the next, and I know a lot of mom and pop places with horrible food. But what I meant was, with so many chains able to buy their way in to the boulevards and hearts of so much of America, and with local places being given only the very briefest window of opportunity to make it, it seems like one day we'll have absolutely nothing but chains with standardized food.
Yet, in a lot of cities, independent restaurants are opening up. Frequently it's in questionable neighborhoods where the rent is low (which ultimately turn around and become fashionable), but people go there specifically because they want real food.
So what I was asking is, does anybody predict a scenario in which enough people will want real food instead of "airline food served on china" that at some point the masses will get fed up with the chains and they'll die out?
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I had been thinking about this even before the story broke about Thomas Keller using Sysco frozen French Fries at his Bouchon restaurants. I know a couple of independent restaurants who use the very same prepared foods from Sysco (and for the same reasons that Keller gives: quality, consistency, convenience). So what we're perhaps thinking is "homemade" at the mom and pop, and even upper-scale independent restaurants may be the same 'prepared in a central kitchen somewhere and packaged and frozen and trucked everywhere' food components that we assume are part of the horrors of chain and fastfood restaurants.
Does anybody have any experience with this? Has anybody spotted this in what they eat? (Okay, the bathrooms stocked completely with Sysco hand soap and paper products may be a give away even before you taste it in the food!) And do any restaurant insiders have tales to tell?
Are they making anything from scratch at the non chain restaurants either? Are we eating Sysco-made foods no matter where we eat?
Corkage fees
in Restaurant Life
Posted
That, in absolutely in no way whatsoever, addressed the question I posed about the partially consumed second bottle, which had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with "cheap ny diners" as you call them, nor did it have anything to do with New York. Nor was the restaurant in question a "wine themed" restaurant - it was exactly the opposite.
And, nobody is questioning corkage fees.
What's with the obnoxious attitude then?
Is $80 your profit on your average bottle of wine? If not, why would you set a corkage fee higher than the profit you'd make on a bottle of wine that you sell? Is that an emotional decision based on your hatred for customers rather than an economic one? It sure seems like it.
Maybe the moral of the story is that restaurants who view customers as adversaries go out of business. (I certainly hope so.)
As far as bringing a bottle of wine to a "wine themed" restaurant, I would never think to do it myself.
But as far as your "great" winelist, you mean to say 'in your opinion'. If it's filled with Australian Cabernets and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and the like, you may be delusional when you declare it "great". Likewise, if it's made up of bottles whose markup is $80, it's not a "great" wine list- it's an attempt to gouge customers. It's all in the perspective of the person commenting, non?