Capaneus

By "micro-vineyards" I presume you mean places like Chaddsford winery and such. We can deal directly with them, but only the ones IN PA. If a smaller winery doesn't have a purveyor that represents them in Pennsylvania, I cannot buy that product for the restaurant. Period. Could lose the liquor license for doing so, in fact. That Supreme Court case is about wineries shipping directly to consumers, not for "wholesale" customers such as restaurants. But if that loosens up (and I pray daily that it does, since the arguments against it made by the large purveyors are specious at best), hopefully it will ease restrictions on wholesale purchasing next. No reason a restaurant with a corporate credit card couldn't be a "consumer" - except for that pesky resale thing, of course... ← Well, for reason's I don't quite understand, the plaintiffs in Swedenburg elected to challenge the NY statute on a fairly narrow violation of Interstate Commerce. However, there are a number of other cases working their way through the lower courts that are argued on much broader Commerce Clause grounds (see link for handy precis). It is likely the Seven Wise People Plus Scalia And Thomas will elect to dispatch them all with a single decision. If that is the case, your situation should be addressed as well. In fact, even a fairly narrow decision should force the PLCB to allow wineries they do not carry already the means to do business within the Commonwealth. Or not. I'm an amateur lawyer at best. http://www.techlawjournal.com/courts/swedenburg/Default.htm

Well, I mentioned I was trying to figure out the menu when I called for a reservation (asked if the one available online was correct - it wasn't), and when I was offered no further info, I didn't push the matter. If it comes right down to that, I'll bring burgundy. I've yet to find much that a middleweight burgundy cannot match.

I have to be in West Philly tonight, so i gave them a call on a whim, and they couldn't squeeze in 2 at any time...on a tuesday.... jeeze, I hate it when places succeed! Seriously, good for them, but sorry Capaneus, no recon from me... ← *No* time? Jeez, even Django can usually come up with a "All we have is 5-or-10, sorry!" mercy meal, once in a while.

Has anyone been to Marigold since they've made the most recent menu changes? I'm going Thursday, the online menu is wrong (I checked), and I'm trying to pick wines blind, which I hate. Any recollections you'd care to share would be greatly appreciated.

It's an unintended consequence of our restrictive liquor laws: there is a limit on how many licenses can exist in a given area. Since once issued they are transferable, they trade at market price. Currently, that is something like $75k in Philadelphia. For a young chef, wanting to set out on his/her own, that can be prohibitive. So, many forgo the profit from liquor sales in exchange for much lower startup costs. At the same time, wine-selling restaurants have to buy from the LCBP, and at what essentially amount to retail prices, creating restaurant wine lists that are even *more* overpriced than they are elsewhere. Take both together and you get a thriving BYO culture, for which I am ever-thankful.

I wish we *were* planning a dinner. This is just the post-mortem, though.

Here is an eG review of Next. And another one. I was underwhelmed; but I ought to give them another try one of these days. ← Yeah, the wild disparity of impressions everywhere was the reason I qualified my rec. It's strange, because all my half-dozen meals were very good. Makes me wonder if I'm missing a defect somewhere. Still, if our esteemed Ms. Loeb is in my corner I can't be *that* far off Unless she's just being nice again...

Marigold Kitchen has been widely praised, I think deservedly. In the same neighborhood, I also like Rx very well. Next is, I think, underrated. At least my experiences there have been very good. These are all New American. There are other possibilities in other cuisines.

My point was just that opentable is not a representative sample because many of the best small, independent restaurants don't use it. You could look at these BYOs as being for all practical purposes fully booked. The incentive for them to pay opentable.com is minimal. Another point worth making is that, while you used the rate of usage to establish a hierarchy, the fact is that a restaurant that *never* has an open table will show up very, very low on that scale. To rank high on opentable.com requires that you start out with a large number of open tables. If you don't have those, usage cannot go up. I'm not implying that these places *aren't* popular - there are other considerations, such as price and size. But invoking the website as a comprehensive measure of popularity is unsound. As to the difference between Vetri and them... pricepoint, I would think. An open top is worth much more to Vetri than to less expensive places, so it is worth paying whatever the commission might be to fill it. Just a guess, mind you.

Well, you're not going to see Django, Matyson or Marigold on opentable.com, are you? Aside from that, the very fact of their success is what annoys some - because it is often undeserved, and is syphoning dining dollars away from worthier kitchens. Or to put it another way: all you can argue from the website numbers is popularity. Which means McDonald's trumps them all.

Pretty straightforward, really: call ahead. There's nowhere to wait, so you'll be thankfull you did. By the way, how many is "a few"? They have no easy way to seat more than four, I'd think. "Carman's: we put the c**t back in country". Actual business card. Heh.

Depends on your taste: Buddakan has a good deal more wow-factor going on, and the food *is* very good, though also overpriced; it's also loud, garrish (to my taste) and too full of itself. Fork is a cute space, intimate, quieter; their food, while very good, is definitely less polished, and that will come through mostly on presentation. Service at Budakan can alternate between smarmy arrogance and phoney chumminess, whereas Fork's folk seem genuinely pleasant, although if it is a very crowded Saturday they may be rushed. All things considered, I prefer Fork. The deciding factor for me is the very well thought-out wine list, but in general my tastes run much more to their sort of unpretentious hominess.

Evan, thanks for the Hahn Ah Rheum heads-up. I'm going to head over there this week (spring break road trip: woo hoo!) and we'll see what we find. The leaves are on the regular menu (and at $10.50 or so are the most expensive of the vegetable dishes), so they must have them year round. It's easy to believe that they'd be best seasonally- early to mid spring, I'd guess? But these were pretty damn good. ← Yeah, they are definitely seasonal: late Winter to early Spring (*snow* peas, after all). They've been available in Chinatown for a long time (I first had them at Sang Kee in the early '90s), but only recently made the leap onto the Caucasian Menu. Until now, you had to ask, and even then often got the blank-stare brushoff. I always wonder what other wonders are being kept from me for my own good.

I can sympathize. Nico passed on a month ago today. Hasn't gotten any easier yet, sorry to say. I've tried to spend a lot more time and attention on Rupert: he's eleven himself, and I'm pretty scared. I'll drink one to Clancy when drinkin' time next rolls 'round.

During the Bad Old post-9/11 days of 2002, a number of Manhattan restaurants offered promotions like"BYO Mondays". According to the Times, not only was the practice successful enough to get the credit for keeping a couple of them afloat, many of the managers reported the goodwill generated tended to carry over to other nights of the week, and even past the slowdown. The general drift was that they were *very* good for business. I believe a number of such nights still exist. Those of us who care enough about wine and food to build a cellar tend to be people who spend on dining out, well above the average. I know I do. I also happen to live in a city (Philadelphia) where many places do not carry liquor licenses, so I get to enjoy great food *and* great wine. Which I could never, ever, afford to do if I had to pay standard industry markups for the wine. I'd also like to point out the BYOs in town are generally thriving, whereas the licenced establishments are a much more mixed bag. All of which addresses only the argument from self-interest. There are others.

You may continue to trust your friend. I like Ray's not only because the food is good in its own right, but because it's different from everything else in Chinatown. My (possibly mistaken) recollection is that it's Taiwanese. Otherwise, I'll second the rest of the crew, adding only that I like Imperial Inn for dim sum (and only for dim sum).

that is a nice way of storing it for a little while. i use those voss water bottles for this purpose, since they're 375 ml and i can just pour half the bottle in there right away and seal it up for the next day (for when i'm the only one drinking with dinner). ← A well rinsed Snapple bottle is a good vessel for this as well. And then refrigerate. ← Well, sure - if you want to be *that* way about it On a tangential point, Corey (to whom all praise is due) mentioned that the PLCB carries *some* selection of half-bottles, and that he was hoping at least some of that order might be in tomorrow. Hope to find some nice stuff.

That wasn't my drift at all, I've no such prejudice. I'd be interested to see such arguments. (I gave an ad-hoc example of an argument from external basis, for an individual restaurant "X," in my previous posting, and I've seen real examples of those.) I was only saying in this context that there's plenty of grousing online (in general, not specifically here) with evident support of the armchair. Theorem: Given any mark-up, Internet readers can be found who will complain. (Corollary to the old principle that given any California wine at all, a county fair can be found that will award it a medal!) ← Cool. Happens to be one of my pet peeves - on the other side of the fence, I take it - and I'd like to believe I can make a rational argument (on occasion, and assuming it does not involve my home country's football team). Still, this is, unfortunately, probably not the thread for it. Close, but not quite. Thanks for the clarification.

that is a nice way of storing it for a little while. i use those voss water bottles for this purpose, since they're 375 ml and i can just pour half the bottle in there right away and seal it up for the next day (for when i'm the only one drinking with dinner). ← This is another one of those never-ending topics, but... I myself have found that just simple refrigeration works best in the short term. I've tried other methods, like nitrogen, vacuum, small containers, usw, but refrigeration yielded the best glass, come the next day. In retrospect, I've also come to believe this makes sense: the purpose of all these methods is to retard chemical reactions, and given the difficulty of *completely* taking oxygen out of the system, lowering the temperature would likely do that best. Or possibly not, of course.

I see. Thank you for the clarification. I take it then that you don't hold it possible for there to be an objective-reality-based, rational argument against the wine-markup system as it now exists in the hospitality industry?

As someone whose whim is more limpid than lucid, I fail to comprehend. Would you terribly mind explaining why this is objectionable?

Which leaves them ahead of CC on at least the Saintsbury When I went into 12th St. to pick up my six-pack, they had sold every drop in the store (including *my* drops!!!!) to some resto shmoe (hmmm... Katie? ). Fortunately Corey (who rocks, by the way) tracked me down the *last* six bottles at 19th and Chestnut. So happy ending.

If anyone is waiting (I was), the Saintsbury PN is in at 12th and Chestnut. They got eight (well, seven, now) cases. I also cracked a bottle of the Norton Malbec last night with my first attempt at a bigos. Purple/cranberry color, very even, velvet-smooth very dark fruit, just enough acidity and soft tannins. A very pleasant drink right now, though not exactly the acme of sophistication. At $12.99 it's a steal, though.

The "French Atomic Commission"? They do cork technology?

Yeah, he is. In fact, being too loud was his one other complaint about Barclay Prime.