jbonne

i've now made a table game out of spotting the (usually one or two) deals on wine lists. about half the time, they're clearly fire-sale items, and often sold out. like the bottle of Deutz NV someone put on their list for $45. sounds like the permanent reductions are more fire-sale fun, though the new trend of $10 or $15 markups is one i wholeheartedly endorse. (it does make me wonder whether they're either brilliant enough with numbers to cover their food costs, or are soon to be bankrupt.) keep waiting for a Seattle joint to jump on that straight-markup bandwagon. fwiw, i've set my acceptability filter on wine prices at 100 percent, or 2x retail. beyond that, my gouging rant begins.

it ended last night. we celebrated by going to Union (an unofficial participant, with its own $25 menu). lovely food, small portions. but it was five courses instead of three, which probably equalled the same amount of food, albeit over a longer time period. the goat's milk sorbet (at least that's what i recall it being) was particularly gorgeous.

indeed. but my favorite part is the usage faux-pas in the page nav: "This topic is comprised of pages: 1 2" ixnay on the "comprised of."

sounds like a terrific trip. (and glad you enjoyed the piece on Bryce/St. Barts. he's a great guy and it's a wonderful project, if a sad one.) no huge surprise on the Joel Palmer House, though it sounds like they're serving up a slightly heartier menu than the summer. Bistro Maison is wunnerful. can't speak to much older Cristoms, but the '97 Marjorie was holding its fruit nicely, at least last week.

post-mortem indeed. (despite having launched this thread, eG inexplicably didn't tell me anyone was posting to it.) our recap ... For T'giving Day proper, we went to a friends' house and brought a Rulo 2003 Viognier to start with, plus a crappy, very bretty syrah i won't mention further. we finally did our own take on Thanksgiving last night with a bunch of friends. (two bronze heritage turkeys, sage-apple-sausage stuffing, porcini-sourbread stuffing, roasted root vegetables, butternut squash soup drizzled with pumpkin seed oil, spinach salad, pumpkin tart and ginger cookies. plus crab hors d'oeuvres topped with tobiko to start us.) the wines: three sparklers to start with (research for a future column): Gloria Ferrer NV Sonoma brut, Gruet NV brut and Paul Cheneau NV blanc de blancs cava. plus a Jezebel 2003 white, the house blend made by the winemakers at Rex Hill and Sineann. friends brought the soup, and an Austrian riesling apparently picked up at the winery in Wachau: the Gritsch Mauritiushof 2003 Riesling Federspiel. for the rest, we opened a magnum of Drouhin 2002 Arthur chardonnay and an Argyle 2003 Willamette Valley pinot, leaving a bunch of other pinots, plus some Au Bon Climat pinot gris/pinot noir unopened. dessert came with the remnants of my bottle of Henriques y Henriques 10-year bual madeira, whatever other ports and cognac i had around, and a bottle of pineau des Charentes for the heck of it. as we were winding down, some other friends showed up with a bottle of Wilridge 1998 merlot, so we opened that, plus a bottle of Foris 2000 Fly-Over Red, mostly because someone mentioned southern Oregon. and i still have an entire turkey in my fridge ...

on the still-kicking front: went back to Brad's Swingside last night after a too-long absence. i'm happy to report it's as great as ever and as comfy as ever. i've decided the wild-boar-and-venison ragu is my soul food. the seafood stew was also perfectly balanced and a healthy plate full of fish. the meat/cheese starter was terrific, with some amazing wild-boar salami. we even found a Vacqueyras we'd been dying to try, and which ended up being a perfect match for the more or less Northern Italian grub. (the seafood was Sicilian, but seemed far more subtle than a Sicilian dish.) really, a wonderful place -- and back on my list, with a bullet.

on a recent visit, i found the service OK but totally uneven. our server was very apologetic for, quite literally, not being able to find the first two bottles of wine we chose off the list. other staff were less good. food was generally quite good, even the 25/25, but with some shortfalls. the salmon was eh. the wines, though -- like you said, outrageous. the list is actually pretty good, but the markup is eye-popping.

only the latter: insofar as it exposes potential new customers to their food. these are promotions, but they're not exactly charitable endeavors. personally, i think it's a bad idea for restaurants to serve anything but their best food during these promos, because it very well could be how i decide whether to visit them again and spend a lot more money. but i think many owners have found that these promos have become an exercise in catering to a lot of folks who don't spend a lot of money dining out, and don't do it regularly. courting people who wouldn't possibly become regular customers doesn't seem like good business sense to me, but then, i'm not a restauranteur.

having addressed this topic in (sort-of) print today ("The bottle and the bird") i'm curious how fellow eG'ers are planning their Thanksgiving wine buys. honestly, i haven't started my own planning yet, though a blend of under-$20 OR pinot noirs, legacy pinots and some pinot gris i have lying around are the likely combo. a domestic sparkler to start, though i might rely on some French stuff to help with research for an upcoming column. what're your strategies for Turkey Day? what's the most important factor -- food pairing, flavor, not blowing your wine dollars on extended family?

in line with all the various bits of advice above ... my current fave is gruner veltliner, in particular the 1 liter bottles of Berger gruner that Whole Foods still seems to have around. ($10/liter, so a unit cost of $7.50/750ml.) Gruner is stark and acidic enough that it doesn't impart oakiness or too much fruit to the food, while retaining that tart note that white wine should impart to dishes without being a dominant flavor. there's almost no residual sugar, so you won't sweeten the dish at all, and it's not going to clash if you serve a different wine with your food. plus, the Berger is a good quality wine, which is really the key in cooking with wine. crappy wine=crappy dish. also, it stores rather well for a long time. i've defaulted to calling it my "cooking wine" when i see it in the aisle. i don't mean that as an insult.

a moral obligation? no. but there's a big difference between wanting to use 25/$25 as a chance to try out or revisit places that have been on your radar screen without a $100 commitment, and an excuse to use it as a chance for cheap grub in a nice dining room. this doesn't mean i think everyone should drink themselves silly on 300-percent markup wine, because some folks don't (or can't) drink. but there are other options for beverages. one person abstaining is perfectly acceptable. a *table full* of water drinkers chowing on the promo meal telegraphs a distinct cheapness. that, or people who are ascetic enough that, frankly, i wouldn't want them in the restaurants i frequent. personally, i believe anyone who has ample money and physical ability should enjoy their food with wine. or beer, if that's your thing. while i'm the first to decry beverages as the primary way restaurants recoup the money they don't make on food, i acknowledge that restaurant economics are what allow me to keep enjoying the places i like to eat, which in turn makes my life a lot happier. that's not to say i want to be soaked by unscrupulous or greedy restauranteurs. but people who want to squeeze every last dime out of a thin-margin industry are, by extension, threatening to damage my quality of life. i take that personally.

it's not annoying; quite the opposite. but i do fault the NYT for not indicating somewhere in the pieces that they're doing this as an ongoing project. seems semantic, but if i write a series about the same restaurant, it tells readers i'm giving them a broad perspective. if i keep returning to it, with little indication that i've written about it before, it seems obsessive. they were running a series called, i think, "The Chef" that basically did what Bittman has been doing with Carsberg. same concept, except in that case, they explained that it was a series.

they're generally sub-par, and i've all but stopped ordering them, though 25/$25 remains a good excuse to get friends out to a decent dinner. last night at E&O was an exception. the pork rillettes starter was masterfully done, right down to the crossed breadsticks, and the mushroom tart was a perfect second. my salmon-eating companions were very jealous. we had a truly bizarre time with the (very overheated) wine list, though our server was quite pleasant in making it up to us. Corella is a wonderful wine. as masterful a Super Tuscan replica as you're likely to find for $15 retail.

just to confuse things ... i remain very happy with Cost Plus' Conoisseur series, for about $6/glass. they're the right balance between thin and durable (even dishwasher durable, when needed) and i feel guiltless about handing them out to friends. only problem being geography -- closest appear to be OH and VA. though now i'm determined to hunt down a West Coast supplier for the Riedel restaurant series.

tasted through the Beckmen line up in Seattle this summer. all were wonderful, but the Purisima grenache was a standout indeed. i'm somehow recalling the retail as higher than that, but Wine Searcher tells me $30 at the high end. all the better. too bad no one in WA seems to want to stock it.

just to show i do still enjoy dining out in SEA ... had another wonderful dinner @ Zoe last week. the 25 for $25 offering was quite good, though i diverted to the regular menu. wasn't overdazzled by the pork confit, but it was tasty enough. everything else -- especially the wild mushroom/polenta starter -- was richly flavored, layered and divine. veal stock was the key. service impeccable too, which is saying something on a Thursday night during the 25/25 blitz.

no surprise on any of it, including the mushroom bit. i've just stopped going to Vivanda -- the price-value thing just doesn't match up. $8.75 for a glass of Six Prong is highway robbery. retail is $11.50-$14, which i'd target for a glass price of $6 to $6.50. i've seen it by the glass for around $7.50, which is still gouging in my book, no matter the quality. (and it's a great wine.) $8.75 is beyond gouging and well on the way to "we're struggling to cover our lease." but like i said, i've stopped going to Vivanda.

all i can say is ... i think next year's vacation is now planned. the pix are great, the descriptions are wonderful! now i'm on a hunt for some extra brut (no dose added) ...

i'll maintain the 50s were perhaps the worst collective era for our nation's food history. all the essential compromises required for WWII were transformed into the commercial realm. canned and frozen food became hallmarks of convenience. aseptic processing became a commonplace thing. centralized industrial food manufacturing was stamped, firmly, as a good thing. it's one thing to make food that can survive the trenches of the South Pacific, quite another to make food that's healthy and helpful in the pantries of Milwaukee. we don't conceive of automobiles or ovens the way we did then, so why should postwar science still be the operative mode for our commercial food industry? back to the matter of lingering over our meals, i'm now thinking i should refit my dinner chairs ... with seatbelts.

ditto Maple Leaf. the delivery options in this town just plain suck. i'm fortunate to at least have Snappy Dragon nearby, and there's a new Chinese contender up on Aurora i'm eager to try, but i've tried unsuccessfully for 4 years to figure out why this crucial fact of urban life is somehow lacking here. any theories?

y'know, now i'm curious whether anyone thinks a tasting fee makes any difference in behavior. in theory it's supposed to chase away the freeloading jackasses who you don't want there anyway. but does it? up here in WA, there aren't many places that charge, and i've rarely seen bad behavior. but then, i always go tasting when the hoardes aren't around ...

not for nothing, but what's Bittman's thing with Lampreia? i can't think of anyone more worthy for repeated praise in the NYT, but i don't think Thomas Keller, Jean-Georges or anyone else has gotten this much ink, much less someone from 2,500 miles away. we're suspecting there's a cookbook in the works. that, or Bittman can't resist getting the NYT to pay for free Seattle junkets. p.s. when was the last time you saw a correction like this?

Tutta Bella and Cafe Lago are the closest, and both plenty good, though having been back last weekend to show off the real, legit thing, i can safely say NYC is still far ahead of the pack. NY Pizza Place was ok, a decent facsimile of the average corner-shop pizza you might find in your neighborhood. but it doesn't draw me back, and i live three blocks away.

the more this thread extends, the better the argument for the European system, which -- granted -- generally excludes the potential for 20 percent but also eliminates this sub-minimum-wage, minimal-health-care crud that's been allowed to flourish. i say this as someone who'll top 20 for great service and seriously deduct for poor service. by that token, i guess i'm not an advocate for pooled tips, though i can't think of any other reasonable way for BOH, buspeople, sommeliers and the like to get their share. (assuming you think they should get a share.) of course, my entire family has been known to dock the overall tip for lackluster service and quietly slip a couple bills to an outstanding server or wine steward. sure, it circumvents the system -- but it's a screwy system. this at least approximates the European version, in that individual performance can still be rewarded off the books. but there must be a better way to attract more servers who consider the job a profession, not a waystation. maybe a proper wage, for starters?

water damage to their roof, i think.