HOOLIGAN

Yeah we know, but Ray's I'm afraid is not a rub and tug.

Three... I was hiding in the Lab with some ball'n doctors who take pity on me and allow me to share in their big boy wine.

Edited to reflect the truth behind the man shrouded in mystery, hidden in a riddle thats wrapped in an enigma stuffed into a enchillada. Once you go baller there's no going back. And remember rehab is for quitters.

Let me be the first to welcome you to eGullet My Confusing Horoscope, a name you could no doubt sell to some gloomly Brit-pop band for a pretty penny.

The short answer is yes, it would still qualify as being rude, arrogant and cheap. I'm not justifing their price gouging but but the etiquette should remain the same. So you can do one of three things: 1) Be a dink, play dumb and see if you can pull the wool over their eyes. 2) Be honest, tell them you think it's a rip off and you want to bring your own. (This probably won't get you far but you'll feel better for it.) 3) Vote with your wallet, realize it's just one of many a steak house and go to Ray's where you can drink 21 bottles of Muga Rioja and still have change left.

1) If you actually had something from from my list I'd be mighty surprised. However it is uncalled for, rude, arrogant and just plain cheap to BYO if it is represented on a restaurant's list. 2) Bringing cheap wine makes me look cheap by association as soon as it's placed on that table for everone to see. But hey I'm not a bad guy, I once had a young couple who brought a bottle a bottle of Woodbridge in and when he handed it to me you could tell he was kinda embarassed. Now the ball's in my court and I can make him feel like an asshole and a peon, but that helps nobody. Instead I offered to decant the wine and brought out the big fat Reidel glasses that you can shove your fist into. They felt important and although it was a $5 bottle of swill the $15 corkage was well spent. If the guy had been jerk or had given me the slightest air of attitude he and the wine get tossed. The moral of the story is DON"T BE A DICK. But it flows both ways. Food for Thought Jarad

It's interesting that you bring up Einstein when speaking of Jose, Feran et al... because to me Einstein is old school. He's Escoffier, he's a beginning but he sure isn't the end. (And he knew this all to well.) His General Theory of Relativity works only when working with that in the very large scale, ie... planets and the ripples, groves and tracts that gravity provides to carry them through space. This theory fall apart when talking about about the minute, read quarks and smaller and when speaking of blackholes and the Big Bang. Enter Quantum Mechanics, this would be your culinary equivalent to Senor Adria. Now this does the exact opposite in that it deals with what is know in the scientific world as "the tiny shit." We're not talking the ocean here but one little shrimp in that ocean. Alas, same problem, it all breaks down when you get to blackholes and the Big Bang. Both theories have served to push the envelope but neither can answer the whole question and complete the loop. Enter Superstring Theory which seeks to modify but unite the two. This is crazy stuff and there's are reasons why they throw around words like chaos. It takes a lot the bending and twisting to make these guys jive. String Theory demands that there are at least 9 probably 10 and currently up to 11 different planes or dimensions. Stay with me I'm about to bring this one home. Jose, Heston, Grant, Mr.Klc, Me and every whiny CIA grad with a foamer I've ever meet act in the culinary version of string theory. It's the application of new ideas and techniques rooted in an aready established arena with set perimeters, some of which a flexable. Those which are not, well, you create new ones to circumnavigate the old. Einstein made huge contributions to the scientific world as did David Gross, Brain Greene, Steven Weinberg, Syvester James Gates, and blah blah blah. String Theory is still young and has it's many detractors, it's also the way of the future. It is new and fresh but at the same time and make no mistake it is derivative of that which came before . 3 would not exist without 1+2. To disagree would be wrong. The same holds true for us. Jose and the rest are an extension of our past and our peers. Steve I'm sure you know better than I, but if I was to ask Jose "Are you derivative of Ferran?" His answer would be to the affect of: (In Spanish) "Of course, but not just him but of everything. What I do is a culmination of all that I have seen and tasted. How could my time at this wonderful place not be reflected in my own style." At least that's what I hope he would say as anything less would come from an arrogant person. And Jose is not that person. The same is true for us all. I was and am profoundly influenced by my time with Gianfranco Vissani and Gordon Ramasy. Is what I do derivative? Sure, to some extent, but they alone do not make up what I produce in the end. Food For Though, Jarad P.S. Rocks, when speaking of String Theory there are what is called W+/- force particles and these force particles have superpartner particles named WINO+/. Now although in this day and age it can not be proven, it is my hypothesis that through thermal manipulation these WINO particles could heated or cooled to a temperature suited to you ingesting them. P.P.S. Steve after reading your last few posts I would like to hire you for any future damage control/fallout PR Nectar may have.

Perhaps that's why their stock is down over 45% this year. The DOW must think they suck too. Green Bell Peppers are the scurge of the earth and need to be eliminated. Chiles are cool, but green peppers overpower everything with its evil disregard for other's flavor.

I'll certainly go that far.

Maybe back in the Harvey's days when Gordon Ramsay and J.C. Novelli were starting out there. The only thing you'd learn now is how to lose money hand over fist.

I was just waiting for someone to chime in and say "Nectar, I hate Nectar, Not only do they replace vauble personal property but they also explain each of the dishes we ordered... what a bunch of pricks. I hope they fail and are trampled by clove hoaved deer-like creatures...Assholes"

I have three guiding principles that aid me through social navigation. 1) Never trust anyone who doesn't eat bacon. 2) Never trust anyone who doesn't drink booze. 3) Never trust anyone who doesn't swear. I say on with the pottymouth. I know and like Madame Greenwood. She'll probably wear that remake as a badge on honor, that is until she kicks your motherfu..n' ass. See You Next Tuesday Opps....................

Five years ago, in one restaurant alone I've seen all this: 1) "The Pee-Pee_chino, one part espresso, one part steamed milk, one part urine, one part jerk customer. 2) "Free ball'n Friday, where there's nothing seperating Big Jim & the Twins from the guest but a thin black apron. 3) The server who in a tight sqeeze, bent over to pickup a spoon from the floor and then farted right in the face of another table. 4) The server who opened the door to the UNLOCKED restroom to find a rotund woman changing her tampon. He then vomited at her feet and politely shut the door. 5) The chef who horribly burnt five trays of pinenuts until the sous labeled the oven in masking tape "Auschwitz". The chef was Austrian and she was none too pleased. 6) The same chef was tasting though all the new ice creams and arrived at one which she proclaimed "tastes like cum." She couldn't get it around her head why no one else in the kitchen would give her a second opinion. 7) Of course many servers did huge amounts of blow during service, but one girl did so much that she couldn't remember how to speak. Which didn't stop her from taking an order from a 4-top. After many responseless questions she ecked out a smile and fell over backwards. I've got truck loads more but one must pace himself.

Extremely friendly service caught in a 1970's Alsacian time warp with boring exspensive food.

Congrats to Rob. My meal there this past winter was the best I've had in my hometown for quite some time.

Did someone go on an Absinthe bender

Joe, does it upset your wife at all having that poster of Fabio above your bed?

Hang around the Childe Harold long enough and your bound to come up with some.

Slightly off topic but does anyone know how I can come by a copy of Boiling Point and Beyond Boiling Point. The Channel 4 website is little help. Having worked at RHR I require validation for my post London habit of self-medicating with Absinth.

What's the name of the restaurant again? WD-50.5?

Love it or hate it, the only reason one should eat shad roe is that it is simply a medium for more bacon in your life.

Grab a window table at BDC when the doors are open. Michel has a little puppy drinking station just out front. I may have to start taking Willie to the office as my seeing drunk dog.

So after a four hour 86' Bordeaux fueled lunch at the office. Our tour leader (a charming polish fellow from the Ewok village.) Invited us to a cookout in the rolling countryside. Countryside as defined as "Anywhere my dog can crap on a non-asphalt surface." Speaking of crap, redemption from last years poo-tato incident is required and as it turns out our guide can cook as well and has opted to take a stab at patties of dead bovine (hold the Bourdain bukkake). But alas we're all lazy fat fucks in training so after more Bordeaux we bag the shopping trip to fresh fields. And just as well after all those Milosevician crimes agains't fromage stories that sufaced last week. Enter Ray's Growing up a child of classic rock, nothing pissed me off more than people who would say "Jethro Tull is the best flutist ever." No dumbass! Jethro Tull is the band. Ian Anderson is the singer/flutist. Ray's The Steaks is a restaurant name. There is no Ray however there is a Michael who I'm will to bet, unlike Ian Anderson has no musical talent at all. How could he, there's no time to pratice. He's lives at The Steak. Since opening he's worked every single day,seven days a week for something like nine months. Fuck that! And he was wearing a friggin smile so I had to ask "When do you even find time to rough up the suspect?" and he just kept on with that smile which I found unnerving as if I was bearing witness to the act right then and there. By nature I simply not trust people who don't drink, swear, or eat meat and so we hit it right off. Or so I think. He's probably calling Wabeck back right demanding that he never bring that prick bastard back. If that's the case tough titties, cause I'm gonna by a once a weeker. I love the place. A barren room with no art, chipped plates, crappy glassware, and cutlery to match. Oh and I forgot BOMB-ASS-FOOD! My wife consider's herself something of a connoisseur of French Onion Soup. She may have got a half a spoon in before it was removed from her. Sure she's pissed and the divorce will be hard but I'll get though knowing I can cook that burgundian delight down and mainline it as if it were synthesized heroine. For main courses you can have steak, steak, or steak. We opted for the second option all different and selected by Michael. With it comes mashed pots creamed spinach and he sent some other sides to try in addition. This is good meat as a fine piece as you'll find this side of Kobe without the unnessasary crusty DNA laden panties. At this point we're worked into an eating frenzy and families yet to be served are looking on with clear cut envy shrouded in disdain as they most certainly are taking shrapnel as we jockey plates back and forth. Michael is working the throngs and having to tell people to just ignore us. "Their chefs" he said. "Oh" as it becomes all to clear that maybe they're in to close a proximity, like zoo goers watching the lions take down one of their own. Bottom line, go to Ray's. It's easy it find, even if you loathe the burbs as I. Get a salad, pick steak they're all coming with spinach and potato so you won't have to expend brain power and drink enough to get fall down drunk cheaply. Dessert, as they say in Glengary Glenross is for closers. And there's so much damn food your not even going to be able to close your seatbelt. As a matter of fact I brought home more food than a tasting menu from my place. You owe it to yourself,you owe it Michael, You owe it to me. Check out Ray's and if you go, find out if and when I might be allowed back.

I wish I had time to go to Marcel's. His flemish redneck cook'n is far superior to his name calling.

Speak not of politics, but of another tangent. Let's say before you sits a plate of perfect cheeses, what do you drink? You now have the chance to do far more damage than WF and their cling film. I'm a big propponent of eating what you want and drinking want you want. But here it's going to get you in trouble. Nine times out of ten I'll drink white. Pick a big tannin red (probably the one that's left after your main course) with the wrong bleu, now your suck'n on rusty pennies. A delightful way to finish the night. Drink beer, champagne, Mersault, Sancerre anything just beware a Bordeaux in sheeps clothing.