32rueduVertbois

I had lunch at Le Bernardin about two weeks ago. Disappointing. The room is nice enough but has no real style or character. The menu was dull. I found myself searching for something that sounded special rather than struggling to choose among several enticing offerings. The monkfish, which I ordered at my host's suggestion, was dull too, in both taste and appearance. The tuna paillard appetizer, however, was very nice, and the service was fine. It was just one meal, but my impression was that Le B has become a tired restaurant that is not really in the game anymore. For fish, I would choose Aquagrill, though I have not been there in a while. For haute cuisine, La Grenouille, Ducasse, and Jean Georges are all better.

Our annual trip to the Adirondacks is our time for gorging on red meat, and on the way up we always stop a certain butcher/smokehouse to get a load of thick steaks and wursts for the grill. This year, we were disappointed to learn that the butcher no longer sells any steaks with the bone. The proffered explanation: mad cow. Does this make any sense?

The Food Lion case is quite different from the topic under discussion. In Food Lion, the reporters used false pretenses to obtain access to non-public areas of the supermarket. By using a disguise, a restaurant critic is merely attempting to discover how the typical customer is treated in an area to which the public is invited. I find it startling that anyone could question whether a restaurant critic should do what the critic can to have an experience as close as possible to the restaurant's unknown customers. Remember, a restaurant invites the public into its dining room, and everything that goes on there is public. If a critic passed herself off as a health inspector in order to get a tour of the kitchen, you'd have an issue to discuss--indeed, that would be illegal. But the incognito critic is merely trying to gain access to the experience and the food that the restaurant is offering to the general public. Frankly, I question the journalistic competence, if not the integrity, of any reviewer who does not use reasonable means to pass undetected when reviewing a restaurant. I find it equally startling that anyone who has been in a restaurant kitchen or dined with a known customer (whether the customer is a regular, a celebrity, or a critic) could think that the restaurant cannot offer such a customer a different experience than it offers to unknown customers. There are many things about the food that cannot be changed, but also many that can. Do you know that in some restaurants--even expensive ones--the chef is absent from the restaurant on certain days? Do you think that a critic ought to lose any chance of tasting the food on such a day by making reservations in his or her own name? Also, made to order dishes can be made to order, even if the general public gets versions that have been made in advance and warmed over. Portions can be made more generous--especially when the restaurant is looking for a positive comment on its $25.00 bowl of pasta. The freshest piece of fish can be served to the critic while the rest of the room consumes what was not sold the day before. The service that known customers receive can also be markedly different than the service provided to unkown customers. A restaurant may be quite rude to the average customer, but watch them bow and scrape and dote when a celebrity, or a known critic, walks in. You can't make up for this by asking other people about their experiences at the restaurant. That can help, but it is not first-hand reporting. If a restaurant is rude to the average customer, then the reviewer should experience that so that the reviewer can weigh it against whatever might be good about the restaurant. It's much easier to discount someone else's unpleasant experience than it is to discount your own. Also, perceptions differ. One diner may find the waiters at Chez L'Ami Louis characteristically, and charmingly, brusque; another may find them rude. And a diner who eats out once a week is likely not be as sensitive as the critic is to the level of service that should be expected based on the character and price-range of the restaurant. It should go without saying that the critic also cannot rely on what someone else thought of the food. The critic has to sort these issues out for himself or herself. It is the critic's experience, expertise, and judgment on which we rely. If we wanted a poll, we'd read Zagat.

To understand the screen name is to know why it was chosen, no? For the poulet roti, for the gigot, for the fois gras, for the escargots.... No mystery here.

Mimi, Did you consider and reject southern fried chicken? And do you think that porterhouse or T-bone might need an Idaho baked potato, or maybe side orders of fried onions and creamed spinach, in order to be appreciated fully? Finally, is there no room for an ear of corn with butter, salt, and pepper? If not, I say slip it in alongside the lobster anyway, and make excuses later. 32

Thank you all for your replies. Very helpful.

I have seen at least one line of cast iron cookware that is thinner (and thus lighter) than most of the others, including my Lodge frying pan. Does anyone know the name of this line, or any other maker of thinner cast iron, and where it can be bought? Thanks in advance.