g.johnson

Yes, but they're trying and sometimes a big flavor does get through. Generally I think their ambition exceeds their ability but what do I know? (Sorry, bux, just not a big fan.) Loved Daniel, loved J-G/Nougatine recently. (The latter so much we're going to the real J-G shortly.) Both delivered the FMJD.

You cannot be serious. (Oo, mother, I've come over all Plotnickian.) GT is too muted and BH too muddled to seriously challenge the four star boys. And FdS, much as I love it, is too predictable (predictably reliable, too). Are any of those places capable of delivering the fuck me, jaw-droppers of which J-G, Daniel and the rest are still capable.

If it's a cyclical slump in the restaurant biz, it's a much longer slump than has occurred in popular music – although there may have been no bands bigger than the Beatles (there have been plenty of better bands, IMHO) there have certainly been new injections of energy every few years. Psychadelia, punk, new wave, grunge, rap, etc. Why would Jean-George need to reinvent his food unless we have, indeed, become jaded. If the frogs legs in garlic broth was good ten years ago, why is it no good now? Or if J-G has just lost his enthusiasm, why are there no young chefs who, though maybe not as innovative, can produce a high quality facsimile of J-G type food.

But why should there be a malaise? Why are there no new chefs with new tricks to delight us?

The New York Times ‘New York Today’ is listing Bouley as 4 star, but I don’t think it’s received a full review yet. Otherwise you’ve got them all. Majumdar brought this up recently – that there’s a certain blahishness about restaurants now, but I think it’s more to do with jadedness than a drop in quality. Personally, ten years ago it was much more of a treat to eat at Jean-George because we had less money. Eating out more, we’ve become blasé. Furthermore, if it were a drop in quality, you’d find that there were new restaurants opening that overtook the older ones. But would anyone claim that there are better restaurants than the ones you listed in NYC? (OK, maybe Lespinasse is crap…) I suppose it could be a malaise that’s overtaken the entire restaurant business, but if so it’s not just in the US -- I thought my recent meals at Daniel and Jean-George (only the bar room, whatever that’s called) compared favorably with Gordon Ramsey. (Le Bernadin was, I agree, a little below that level.) [Duplicate of post on duplicate thread. Never trust a philosopher with technology.]

If the restaurant can't accomodate us before 7.30 there's no reason why those of us with a pathological thirst (me and Tommy) can't meet in a bar. Then I can confirm that I really don't want to sit anywhere near him.

The French have been selling cheap table wine in plastic bottles for as long as I've been going there -- getting on for 30 years, horrifyingly.

hmm. i'm buying it now. i'm trying to think if the bag that we're talking about would have different properties than a ziplock in this situation. the ziplock, however, will not completely empty. that's my guess. i'll try tonite, although i doubt that a zip-lock is completely air-tight. but it's close enough for this experiment. The bags in the boxes I used to buy (student days) were very thin, aluminium coated plastic. They collapsed even more readily than a ziplock bag. When the wine gets right down to the bottom of the box, I imagine you could get some air leaking in, but by that time you don't care.

So did Life is Sweet. Licking the chocolate off Jane Horrocks.

The bag is flexible. The pressure is exerted on the outside of the bag. Fill a ziplock bag with water. Seal it, hold it up and puncture it at the base. I guarantee no air will enter.

Life is Sweet also had Jane Horrocks (Bubble), naked and covered in chocolate. But no fondue.

Naked was savage but not, I thought, snobbish unlike Abigail's Party which left a nasty taste.

You called? The wine sits in a plastic bag inside the box. The bag is not attached to the box so that as the wine comes out the bag collapses. There is no need for replacement by air.

$350 to $600.

Incredibly, none of Wiseman's films are available on video.

Just waiting for you to ask. OED: Origin unknown: apparently not related to preceding Cf. north. dial. naffhead, naffin, naffy ‘a simpleton; a blockhead; an idiot’ (Eng. Dial. Dict.); niffy-naffy adj. ‘inconsequential, stupid’ (Gloss. Whitby 1876); Sc. nyaff ‘a term of contempt for any unpleasant or objectional person’ (Scot. Nat. Dict.). Preceding is naff, v: Of uncertain origin: Partridge links the word tentatively with old backslang naf = fan (the female genitals: see FANNY4 2). Cf. EFF v. (perh. with metanalysis). A euphemistic substitution for FUCK v. Freq. used imp. with off: ‘go away’. Why they don’t conclude it’s derived from ‘naffy’, is anyone’s guess.

'Artisanal' will probably be in the new edition, then, since it's already made it to the abridged dictionaries which are published more frequently.

There’s definite snobbery about this, isn’t there? Prawn cocktail and fondue are naff because they’re the lower class’s idea of a ‘sophisticated’ dish. Abigail’s Party again. (Am I the only one that finds early Mike Leigh overly cruel?)

This gets stranger and stranger. The OED online to which I have access (http://dictionary.oed.com/) gives for mechanical: 2.a. Of persons: Engaged in manual labour; belonging to the artisan class. Now rare. Hence, characteristic of this class, mean, vulgar (obs.).

Controlled, along with hirsute, handsome and tall are not words I readily associate with you.

I don't quite know how to break this to you, Simon. Better just come right out with it. Sugar is a carbohydrate.

There's a smug scientific bastard who did. Pay attention.

This article from a researcher at the University of Maine says that lobsters have no brain and an insufficiently complex nervous system to experience pain. The article also describes experiments performed at UoM measuring the length of time the lobster twitches around in hot water. “Hypnotizing” and slow heating increase the time; both chilling and steaming reduce it. They recommend chilling and plunging in hot water. New Zealand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fishheries recommends chilling and splitting.

OED: Unfashionable, outmoded, or vulgar; unselfconsciously lacking style, socially inept; also, worthless, faulty, ‘dud’.

Not only old, but most likely unclean meat as well. Although it may have been irradiated, meat with sh*t on it is still meat with sh*t on it. Irradiation will kill bacteria, but will do nothing to improve the smell or flavor of spoiled meat, so I think your concerns might be exaggerated. Furthermore, one of the plusses of irradiation is that it increases shelf life, so the point would be to irradiate the meat as soon as possible after slaughter.