LaNiña

Sure, many health problems are self-imposed, but some are not. If someone eats at restaurants frequently, and for example high blood pressure is a problem, they might have no choice but to reduce their salt intake on a regular basis. Of course the restaurant doesn't *have* to accomodate them, but if they want to keep a customer coming back, that's what they'll do. And most do whatever they can to accomodate a customer because that's what they're there for - to get and retain business, in order to make money.

I found the acoustics to be really awful. I couldn't speak to SA at the other end of the table, and it wasn't that far away. The music was too loud for my liking, the whole evening. Unpleasant from that perspective. I had a glass of sherry at the bar before dinner - but was surprised that my first choice of sherry was not served cold, and the bartender told me that they only serve 2 out of their 6 sherries cold, which is absurd. My friend asked him why that was so, and he had no idea. The Rosso di Montalcino was a 1998, Flavio Fanti, La Palazetta. I liked it very much. I thought the wine service was superb. They rinse out each glass with a tiny bit of the wine first, and of course that allows the sommelier to open the bottle and make sure it's okay. The sommelier was attentive, interested, and knowledgeable - and quite willing to educate me and answer all my questions. The wine list there is extraordinary, to say the least - quite daunting. 3 of us also had a glass each of a marvelous sweet Asti Spumante, which was recommended as an accompaniment to the foie gras ravioli. A perfect combination - just enough sweetness, and carbonated but not too much, and nicely chilled - lovely. I didn't love the testa (head cheese) - too tart for my taste, but the lamb tongue was really good. I also particularly loved the oxtail ravioli, the octopus (very flavorful and so tender!), and the foie gras ravioli - although it was incredibly rich, by the end of the plate it was a little much. I really enjoyed the semifreddo I had for dessert. I'd like to go back and sit at the bar at a less zooey time - it was indeed an insane zoo up there - when is it different?

heheh.

Even iceburg is crunchier in leaf form than in shredded form. I don't like shredded lettuce. I just don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like the shredded pieces. I like to take a bit outta my lettuce leaf. I like it flat, in leaves. That's just how it is. It ain't a better or worse thing.

I owned a jewelry business for 7 years. Believe you me, I know from customer manipulation. The bottom line is money. Money, money, money.

I just don't like the texture of shredded lettuce, ever.. It loses it's major crunch appeal for me.

Ah, ok. Well I suppose in part it's economically driven. A chef may loathe the idea of making shoe-leather steak, but he/she doesn't want to lose a customer... ...but I believe Steve's contention is that there *is* an objective standard of good/bad, right/wrong in food preparation. I'm not sure, myself.

How about neither? It's just about money, opportunity, time, and interest.

I don't think anybody's disagreeing with a business' right to determine what it offers. Of course it has that "right." We're talking about whether or not there exists an objective good/bad, right/wrong where food preparation is concerned.

I don't like bubble tea at all. The slimy little "bubbles" are tasteless and, well, slimy and I don't understand the point. Do the bubbles add flavor or only texture? Steve, that's a good idea, to order it without the pearls.

That's funny - I can't stand the shredded lettuce thing. It often makes me not get a sandwich if they don't have leaves of lettuce.

Ali's having a hernia repaired soon. So when he gets ready to work again, he's going to keep Kabab Cafe closed for a month but cook with Mustafa at Mombar. It's their fantasy to do this menu together, and it's their opportunity to do so. Mombar is bigger, the A/C actually works well, etc. Speaking of Ali, his baba ganouj last night was bland, chewy, yucky.

Yes, I agree with you. That's one of the reasons that there are these pushes toward playing pieces on "period instruments" - I have mixed feelings about it. Had Beethoven had today's instruments available, might he have preferred them? Who knows. But about food, like with the doneness of steak example, I think it's more difficult to set a standard, a "right" way, because it is not a select group which eats - every person eats, and every person is somehow "entitled" to choose, subjectively, what tastes good to them. I'm not sure we'll answer this question. Perhaps it's a question of exposure and training and interest.

When I try to explain this to people, I usually do a comparative listening of several versions of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. I am most happy with the tempi in Isaac Stern's performance with the NY Phil, conducted by Bernstein. People are often shocked when they hear the significant differences - but it really is a matter of taste, or perhaps simply what one is most used to. Maybe this could also be done with bouillabaisse, for example. We could do a tasting and see which is "better," and try to figure out which is the best, and why, for all involved. I'm wondering whether some of us would recognize when it is "as it should be," and what that would mean for different people.

Speaking of Steak Diane and Beef Wellington, Ali and Mustafa are doing a menu of those kinds of things in August at Mombar. You should hear the list of planned dishes - hilarious. I can't wait.

I just bought a mixed case of wine. Included a 1998 Gigondas, Domaine du Gour de Chaule (nothing shmancy), recommended by the shop owner. Can't wait to try it. Thank you all once again.

"Doesn't Moonlight Sonata sound *right* in a certain key?" That's not a good analogy, because the Moonlight Sonata was *written* in a certain key, and it is not meant, ever, to be transposed to another key. It would be like taking a great painting and putting some kind of translucent colored film over it to change the hue. That would not be a matter of interpretation, it would just be wrong. On another note (pun intended), my family and I have been drowning in these discussions for 24 hours now. My mother apparently stayed up half the night thinking about the hierarchy of art as she views it, and we asked some questions this morning that warrant some thought. First of all, what makes one art higher on the hierarchical scale than another, for example, when we compare cooking with music? Is it that the "raw ingredients" are further and more dramatically transformed from beginning to end? For example, I don't think embroidery is very high up on the hierarchical scale. It's purely technical execution - as opposed to the person who may have designed the pattern. Why do we, as a society, value music and fine arts above cooking, as art forms? I suppose partially it's because a composer starts with nothing - a pencil and a piece of paper. A painter starts with blank canvas and a medium of some kind. A cook, on the other hand, has some science to use - or so I believe society perceives it. Even a moderately experienced cook knows how an onion reacts when it's placed in hot oil. I think society believes that anyone can cook - after all, all you have to do is follow a recipe, right? Anybody can be Julia Child if you just pay attention to the steps. Of course it's not true, but the same can't be said for other art forms. My 4 year old nephew, listening intently to all of this, says in an exasperated tone: "Hey Nina, can we just bake some brownies already? I have a recipe."

Oh don't, please.

Choice is a big one, and it's a major factor that differentiates dining from all these performance- and studio-art endeavors. The dining experience is an interactive and individualized one. It is not a passive viewing of a performance or artwork. Although I appreciate omakase as a choice, it would be the death of the restaurant industry to make all restaurants like that. That would be the case in France as well as anywhere else. And I don't see how it would make anything better. But I know lots of people for whom the dining out experience is a passive one. They order, it arrives, they eat without comment. They wouldn't dream of requesting anything special or variable. I'd bet that most people are that way.

Just a note about Ali's baba ganouj - it varies wildly from visit to visit. Sometimes it's sublime, sometimes it's inedible. I think it depend on the mood of his helper guy.

I'm sad. My grandmother and/or my father used to take me after Carnegie Hall, and after the opera. We used to get zakuska, and lots of caviar, and I would get to have little sips of vodka. I always loved the samovar collection (will they be sold?) That being said, I went for a a late night supper after Carnegie Hall a month or so ago, and was very disappointed. The service was not so good, and the food was nothing special, although the vodkas we drank were interesting. Oh well. Another NY institution gone. If I weren't in CT, I'd go for a last visit.

People pay good money for bad opera all the time. There is very little truly excellent singing these days. Very few people, even opera-goers, know real quality singing from mediocre singing. Just like very few people, relatively speaking, know good wine from mediocre wine, good food from mediocre food, etc.

Does anyone happen to know if Connecticut is one of those states with state-controlled wine and liquor prices?

i'm having heart palpitations.