Wilson

Speaking of Pac NW wines, I'm a tad bit underwhelmed by Oregon pinot noir. I am familiar with the reputation, but what I've had so far strikes me as being overwhelmed by the fruit. Irwin, you seem to be a pretty knowledgeable guy to put it mildly. What do you think? Am I nuts or am I onto something? When we went to Mistral, one of the wines they served was a California pinor noir by Arcadian (Santa Lucia Highlands). I recall telling the folks how refreshing it was not to be smashed in the forehead with a strawberry pneumatic drill.

Doesn't surprise me that the place would be noisy, what with the linoleum floors, hard-edged sheetrock walls and no drop ceiling to deaden any sound. There is a cohort of people who equate noise with a "happening scene." I'm not in that cohort, being one of those curmudgeonly sorts who harbors this quaintly old fashioned idea that he'd like a little peace and quiet while he eats, and doesn't want to have to shout at his companion. So sue me ...

p.s.: I almost always get chef's tasting menus in top places. I enjoy the surprise of it.

Irwin, Thanks a lot for the recommendation, and I will absolutely follow up and report back. I have relatives in Eugene and get down that way a few times a year. Wilson

Well, Joe, this part of the thread started with my comment that $189 doesn't matter by comparison to $159. I then took the bold step of declaring that $175 doesn't matter relative to $125. But yes, I will admit that $500 does matter relative to $10,000. You've got me there. Good thing I never liked Japanese or Chinese food very much anyway.

p.s.: Irwin, thanks for the stuff about white truffles. How about a compare and contrast with black truffles? An elementary question to you, I'm sure. But I really am interested and am not pulling your leg here. I'm starting to reach that point where I really pay attention.

Irwin, your criticisms of Herbfarm's theatricality and inflexibility strike me as well-taken reservations, and they are issues in my mind as well. My companion doesn't like fish, and if Herbfarm requires that fish be eaten then we're not going. So, I guess that means that I am one of the customers who will be "assertive" about the menu. Anyway, this has been sort of a wild discussion because I don't care nearly as intensely as I've portrayed. It's one of those Internet arguments, I guess. I'll be sure to let everyone know how it works out!

It's simply not true that the top restaurants "hover around $125 for their menus." I can't remember the last time I walked out of a top restaurant for less than $200 a person, and usually significantly more. Sorry, but when I go to a restaurant I don't look at the prices. I've already decided before I walk in the door whether we can afford it. Trust me, there have been times -- admittedly in the past, but not all that long ago -- when we couldn't afford certain places. So we ignored them? Just like now. I can't afford a mansion in Medina; am I going to quibble about whether a $2.5 million place that I can't afford is really only worth $1.9 million, which I also can't afford? No, I'm simply not going to think about living in Medina. And I don't feel one bit deprived by it! Whether or not the wine is included is beside the point. If you can't afford $160 a person, you can't afford $125 a person. In this regard, I'm in agreement with whoever said if you have to ask the price of a yacht you can't afford it. If you're worrying about how much it costs to eat at Herfarm or French Laundry or Charlie Trotter's or Lucas Carton or Rover's or Mistral, then I think you're best off to skip them altogether. Those places aren't about "value" as it's commonly presented in most of the economy. They are about seeking the very best that can be obtained, regardless of the cost. I completely respect someone's decision to opt out of that game; what I don't respect is someone's decision to judge these places by the irrelevant criteria best symbolize by Comsumer Reports magazine. I might add that I'm a big fan of CR when it comes to products that I'm not really passionate about. But as an arbiter of excellence for its own sake, no one in their right mind turns to CR or its analogs for guidance.

We went there a couple nights ago for the first time in six or seven years. It was very different from what I remembered, which was a dark and intimate (o.k., cram-packed) place with really tasty food. This Cafe Lago was bigger and it has a black-and-while linoleum floor, with spartan looking walls and the requisite '90s glass block windows. All that was missing was buzzing flourescent lights. I was looking around and wondering whether I'd see software geeks hunched over their laptops, connected to the Internet via wireless access points. To put it differently, it's a cold space. Now, I've had the good fortune to eat good Italian food in Italy, and the places I went to were organized on a human scale. The faux-industrial look is (at least where I went) absent in Italy. But hey, we're really here for the food and the service. The service was excellent, once we got past the maitre d', who ushered us to a microscopic table equidistant from two large family groups each with an infant. That's o.k., I guess, because Cafe Lago isn't a terrifically upscale place of the type where bringing an infant would be an act of hostility. But there weren't many people, so I asked the maitre d' (maitress d'? a female) for a different table and was asked to wait for a couple minutes while they decided if they could reseat us in this cavernous and three-fourths empty space. Evidently the manager approved our request and we were reseated. Our waiter was excellent. We really liked the service and we liked him, which at the end you will see reflected in the tip. My companion had a green salad and a pizza, and I had a Caesar salad and lasagna described on the menu as light and unique. My compansion has been eating like a bird lately so we took half the pizza with us, boxed with no attitude at all. What I tasted was very good. My Caesar was probably the worst Caesar salad I've ever paid for. It reminded me of efforts by my father, who never met a garlic bulb he didn't want to clone, and whose stance on Worcestershire sauce was if a little is good then why not a quart? I was literally tasting it a full day later. But the lasagne was out of this world. It lived up to the billing on the menu. Light and airy, such that I felt as if it was filled with whipped ricotta. The tomato sauce was bright red and tasted like it. Truly inspired. We had a nice Italian white wine by Zenato with lots of fruit in it, and of course coffee afterwards. Our bill was $69. Tax brought it to $75. Tip for our pleasant and attentive waiter brought it to $90. We won't be going back, and I'm really sorry to write that given how much we liked our waiter. But the salad was terrible, and the space was a baby step above a 7-Eleven. O.K., I exaggerate, but I've rarely been to a restaurant where the decor was so out of step with the cuisine as this one. And someone needs to fix that Caesar. It's lethal.

I'm not questioning his ability. Hell, I don't know his financial situation. Don't want to. My point was that, when a meal costs what it does at a place like the Herbfarm, you've slip'd the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God with respect to any kind of budget. I don't believe in throwing money down the toilet -- I shopped around for 3-cent long-distance calls to replace my 7-cent Qworst service -- but when you've decided to go to an ultra-luze foodie temple, I think complaining about whether the bill is $159 a person or $189 a person is really trivial. No, I really don't know. But I'd be interested in knowing. As an old song goes, Every man is no more than a river Travelin' every coming mile with a lesson to learn I went to the Italian place in Pike Place Market a while back and got some white truffle olive oil and cooked the veal marsala in it. My God, by the time I was done cooking it I swear I never wanted to smell or taste a white truffle ever again. Remind me to upgrade my range fan. No, but I'd love to read about it.

I don't drink. That makes my costs much lower than many peoples. I ate the grand menu at CT's, the Chef's tasting menu at TFL, and I don't think there was a choice at I@LW. All were at least $40 cheaper per diner than Herbfarm. But the money issue is more a straw that breaks the back than a determining factor. I've covered these before (and also in the Chowhound post -- I'm Nick -- that you might have read in the discussion there): course timing, meal length, expense, presentation, distance, and service charge. To me, it has a lot of barriers. It's nice (for you) that expense isn't an issue, but I think for most people it is. And paying 33% more at Herbfarm than Trotter's or French Laundry is significant. People value restaurants that serve essentially equal food when they have $15 entrees instead of $25 entrees. $175 versus $125 meals is going to have an effect on most of us. Further, the relative expense of Herbfarm is significant for the area. The bay area, and especially Chicago, have expensive food. Herbfarm may not seem like a big deal if you're from Chicago or New York, but it's significantly more expensive for someone from Portland, like myself. I haven't been to the French Laundry so I can't comment on the prices there. But we spent $315 apiece at Trotter's, which is a whole lot more than we're going to spend at Herb Farm if we go. Even if we hadn't had anything to drink at Trotter's it would have cost moer than HF, because Trotter charges extra for a chesse course and for a dessert course. If I go to Mistral or Lucas Carton or a handful of other places of that caliber, I don't want the chef to cut any corners. If you're thinking about price-to-value relationships, none of these super-luxe food temples are ever going to be a good deal. You're absolutely right, which is why you have to drive to Seattle, a significantly larger and more affluent city, to find a Mistral or (apparently) an Herbfarm. If Seattle's economy weakens to the point where "value" drives even the top end, we'll get better value but we'll lose something in the process. And at that point, I'll have to travel to Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, New York, Paris or Tuscany for the best cuisine.

I don't see how you can say that. Based on the prices I saw on HF's website + the charge for a room at the Inn, it seems that, if anything, they are somewhjat cheaper than the French Laundry and an equivalent-level accommodation. Air fares from Seattle to California, plus the rental car charges you'd need to pay, would make flying there far more expensive than going out to the Herbfarm for dinner and staying overnight. Also, when I checked HF's website they list the theme dinners so I have to assume that F-G knew she'd be doing a truffle thing when she reserved. I hope so, anyway. I don't particular go for "themes" myself so I think I'd be irked if I stumbled into a theme dinner by mistake. As for extra charges, HF's website implies that they tack on another $20 pp for the theme dinners. I must say that if an extra $20 is a problem then HF or equivalent places are probably not for you to begin with. I eat in a wide variety of places expensive to cheap, but the one thing I've always tried not to do is sit down for a meal in a place where I had to worry about the prices.

My mistake. Somehow I had gotten the impression that this was a 6-hour thing, but their website says 4-5 hours. If I can keep to four hours I think I'll be o.k.!

I have to ask what you ate at those other places. I took two people to Trotter's last spring. We did the Full Cleveland (er, the Full Chicago), with a half-bottle of Champagne to start; the wine accompaniment for each of us; the cheese course for each of us; the dessert course for each of us; coffee and after-dinner wine. With tax and tip it came to $950. Last month, two of us went to Mistral in Seattle and had the "Mistral experience" and port after dinner for $510 including tax and tip. Seems to me that Herbfarm isn't particularly expensive by the standards of super-luxe foodie places. But that's only if it really measures up, and since I haven't been there I can't say. But there ought to be some places where you truly don't worry about the bill. I thank Foodie-Girl for posting the review. I'm new to this website, and a recent return to Seattle after a long absence. I had never gotten to the old Herbfarm before it burned down and am thinking about going out there. Presuming we can get one of the "last minute tables" (I won't go along with the 30-day rigamariole on principle), I think my point of hesitation is a six-hour dinner. I can do three or four hours, but I'm not entirely sure I can last for six hours especially with a 40-minute gap between Course 1 and Course 2. The "dog-and-pony show," as people call it, makes me pause. I've dined at some of the great places (albeit not the French Laundry, which rose to stardom while I was living in the East), and have always enjoyed it when we can bond with an intelligent, committed serving group and meet the chef. But HF's thing strikes me as Disney-esque. I guess the bottom line is this: Does the food make it worthwhile? I'm going to have to re-read the reviews and think it over. But again, F-G, thanks very much for your posting. It helps quite a bit.