Capaneus

He's called them "friends", in other settings. What exactly that means you'd have to find out from him.

Not really the point. Or not my point, at any rate: the issue is the entirely exceptional nature of the product anytime LaBan comes within worshiping distance of Bryan Sikora; and (most importantly) the fact that his bias is never, ever, even hinted at in the reviews. I considered the issue of his ability to get in multiple reviews. It just so happens that I know of three parties in the last month that had dinners there who have, in the past, served as LaBan Beards. None of them were at full twelve-seat capacity, and none of them would have strongly demurred had he sought to be included. His "inability" has, at a minimum, been little contested. To be entirely clear: I have no quarrel whatever with his opinion of Talula's Table - I haven't eaten there. I do, however, have issue with the fact that he failed to disclose his relationship with Sikora and Olexy, and - most importantly - found a way to give this non-review an amount of space that dwarfs any restaurant he's written up before. As far as I'm aware, anyway. Well, that and the fact that he, having previously warped the Bell-continuum to accommodate a BYOB, has now gone a large step beyond and found a way to elevate a country store to Double-Secret Non-Probationary Honorary Stealth-Four-Bell status. Which rankles, given the standards he's held others to. Well, that and the fact that his opinion of Django always seemed a bit overheated to me, and his review of Sovana seemed like nothing much beyond a way to give a friend a leg up.

Amazing review of Tallulah's Table in Sunday's Inky. Sort of rapturous ejaculations that leave you feeling vaguely embarrassed to be a witness to what is clearly the consummation of a passionate relationship. Seriously folks: three-quarter front-page three-picture article. More than any of his special features - Year In Bells, Dining Down The Shore - usually get. Heck, most of his reviews don't even rate the front page of the section, let alone virtually the whole damn thing. The prose is suitably warm. And then I look for the Bell-rating, wondering whether LaBan has the testicular fortitude to rate a country store Four Bells, or whether he's being coy and will somehow limit himself to three. And guess what: he finesses the whole thing by Not Rating the place. The supposed reason: that, for unclear reasons, he hasn't made multiple visits. Which, of course, begs the question of "Why not?"; closely followed by "Why the review, then?" I honestly do try to give people the benefit of the doubt (though past Sikora-related writeups have certainly sown the seeds of this rant). But Sikora and LaBan are supposedly good friends, and he's trying to tell me he does not have a clear read on the guy's new place? Honestly, do I need to swallow? Because at this point I'm gagging a bit. The claim strikes me as a profoundly disingenuous way of sidestepping the issue. And! And! How does a place he couldn't be bothered to visit multiple times rate the most prominent review space I can recall ever being assigned *any* restaurant review in the Inquirer? Gah! I'm sorry, but this is just bush league. Can anyone imagine The Times letting Bruni get away with this? Forget the ethical issues, it's *tacky*! Couldn't he just wait for the Valentine's Day issue? The place might be as good as LaBan implies. But LaBan himself just lost a couple of Bells in *my* ratings.

Assorted thoughts, in order: Started with a Butt Monkey. The local ale, that is. Perfectly correct brew, but a beer with a name like that, seems to me, has an obligation to deliver some sort of jolt to the senses. Not so much here: pleasant light ale. My response to the Hamachi Crudo was much more positive than some: the Campari, passionfruit and preserved orange, taken all in all, provided a tangy citrus counterpoint to the fish - not a new notion, but definitely given a kick by the presentation and the "caviar" globules. For me, this definitely worked. The Pinot Grigio was a decent match. I'll agree that the Not So Tossed Salad was one of the hits of the evening: not all the veggies were SV. In fact, the different preparations were part of the point, I thought, as you encountered different textures, flavors and combinations as you progressed down the plate. The Gruner Veltliner worked beautifully here, in a difficult match. The Chicken Wing Confit was good, but lacked maybe a bit of richness to take it over the top. I can see either letting the meat retain some extra fat from the slow cooking, or bringing the chocolate and cheese a bit forward. Even so, the Gruner Veltliner had little to say in this match. Needed something red with a bit of earth, I think. A light, dry Pinot Noir, maybe. Changed my mind on the poached cod: when I first tasted it, the cherries were pretty overwhelming. After that, though, balancing the forkfuls differently, the dish fell into balance, and the cherries became more of an accent. Delicious. Only suggestion might be to serve the cherries in smaller chunks, so idiots like me don't screw things up. The Rose was very pleasant here, with just enough cherry notes of its own to harmonize. I didn't find the lamb chewy myself. Mine was actually very tender, which I'd expect from SV, and had the clarity of flavor the process gives the meat. The chickpea puree was a good accent here, but the Minted Lamb Tea was, for me, the hit of the evening: light, profound lamb flavor, a mint note running clear through every sip. The absolute shizzle, my friends. The Shiraz was a perfect match. I might have gone for a leaner iteration of syrah, but that's a petty quibble. The cheese was sharp and rich. The preparation did no harm, but it needed to be kicked up a notch to have much of an impact. The Port was a perfect match. The dessert... I can see, from a purely intellectual standpoint, that it was very good. I just happen to not be a great fan of the caramel-sweet approach to meal-ending. More of a tangy-fruity fan. The Port worked decently here, but I think a Tawny, say one of the great Australian stickies that crowd the shelves, would have been perfect. And they're dirt *cheap*, Jonathan! Overall, an excellent meal, and great value. There were no clunkers in the lineup, in my opinion, and the food was as interesting as it was delicious. The wine matches were good in general, though they could have been more adventurous. Still, for the price I can hardly complain...

As of yesterday, Michael Klein had a list up on the Inky's Food & Drink blog that contained no errors I could spot.

I don't know of any appelation that would allow it, but if they're not designated then they're often under very little regulation. Did the bottle identify the wine as Viognier, or just the list? Anyway, Marsanne and Roussanne are the big hitters in most Rhone white blends, so they would make sense together here (while Gamay is a Burgundy grape, and doesn't thrive in quite the same climate). But those varietal names are pretty difficult to identify as something US consumers will recognize: it's illegal to depict the wine as Rhone, even by mentioning the region, or CdP, or Hermitage. Viognier, on the other hand, is gaining in popularity.

Nor is Django, I believe.

A little throwaway comment in an Inky piece mentioned that several of the places that supposedly stopped serving foie gras will still serve it on request. Under the table, as it were. Ansill in particular strikes me as a likely foie gras speakeasy. Just look the waitron in the eye, say "My friend Donald sent me", wink, and waggle your eyebrows. Seriously, it might be worthwhile inquiring discreetly.

Red skins, not flesh. Not that difficult to vinify it white. I haven't seen it done, though.

Yeah, I'd be interested to know if that's a typo or what. I've never heard of a corkage fee that high. If a party of two wants to split a bottle, you're talking $40 corkage for one bottle of wine. Unless it's just meant to deter people from bringing their own in the first place. In that case, it worked. ← I guess it depends: $25/bottle isn't unusual, but even that tends to be at places where the wine list is fairly high-end. Given the bottle prices at snackbar, it does feel pretty steep. This is barely more than a guess, but I suspect that someone looked at how much per head a "normal"-drinking table would generate in liquor revenue, and called that a corkage fee. Not completely indefensible, but sort of defeats the purpose. And it places them very much at the upper end of these kinds of fees. When even Georges Perrier is allowing BYO nights, you would think the resistance across the board would lessen.

Once upon a time - well, ten years ago or so, anyway - there was a very beautiful woman. Because she was beautiful in a difficult, sharp-edged way, and because she lived in a distant place, a land of craggy barren hills and short-spoken people, her beauty was not widespread knowledge. But secrets will out, and in time travelers came and went, and took with them word of this acidulous beautiful girl from a harsh place. So people came and looked. And they saw that she was beautiful. But, they said... Her cheekbones could be softer, more round, like Aunt Pegs, only nicer. And her eyes... must their green stare pierce quite so? Would not a pleasant brown be ever so much nicer? And why so tall? Certainly four inches less would be quite enough for any girl, no matter how beautiful... She might not have listened. But this girl, beautiful as she was, was from a small and harsh place, and she had grown up with tales of faraway princesses. So she did listen. And she stooped slightly. And she dropped her green gaze. And she ate a good deal of high-milkfat premium ice cream. So this girl... Oh, okay, let's call her Priorat. Priorat became easier to like. But I for one would not make the trip when she became just another pretty girl. I liked the '03 Torres Emblema, PLCB number 26471, I honestly did. But whatever cheeky Spanish Marketing Guy decided to call this a Priorat should be dunked head-first in a vat of the real thing. Procedure to be repeated until he became able to discern the vineyard of origin a full four inches before immersion. It's a good wine. Plenty of fruit, a decent backbone - more acid than tannin - perfectly approachable at this early date. Went nicely with a great dinner at Apamate, which entailed a good deal of limberness and adaptability. At $12.99, it may be a *great* wine, though I would have been disappointed to find such commonly attractive good looks had I paid retail. But it's not the girl I knew.

Southwark.

"...like a hot dog..."? That doesn't sound like any chorizo I've ever met. My guess is that it's a completely different deliciousness-enhanced wrapped-cured-pig-meat, which someone had no name for. So they just grabbed the nearest thing they did have. There are many many different Iberian iterations. Kind of like a million different Italian meats all getting called "ham".

The man is obviously some sort of Visigoth throwback. In spite of the handsome offspring, he's got Bad Blood in 'im, plain as daylight. And that chorizo is most likely not Mexican, not with the way it slices all neat and shapely like that.

All true. If Plotkin really cares about the facts at issue, that is. Everything about this smells of harassment by lawsuit, as far as I can tell. Certainly the request for a video deposition seems like a strong hint. As to the issue of identifying the meat... LaBan ordered the "steak frites"; the meat was identified as a "strip steak" by the waiter; LaBan reported this identification. I'm not sure he can be held responsible for the restaurant's training issues when he reports this information as he received it. In fact - arguendo - given the possibility that other patrons might face the same issue, to correct the mistake might be viewed as negligent.

No, I think that's right. There's just a lot more levels below Tinto than you seem to believe there are. My own experience has persuaded me never to order a tasting menu on a weekend or otherwise especially busy night, unless I fully know what I should expect. Even some of my favorite places, like Vetri and the late lamented Pif, often cut some corners on those nights - mainly by assembling the "tasting menu" from dishes on the main menu, which to my mind entirely defeats the purpose. So now I just stick to off nights. On a bit of a tangent, in the last week I have had to deal with two absolutely abysmal service experiences at places that are generally highly regarded (by myself as well, it should be said). In both cases, I thought the miscue was due primarily to the inexperience of the staffers concerned. Is this the much-bruited restaurant labor shortage finally hitting me? Have other people had similar recent upticks in bad service experiences?

I believe Ruth Reichl's wig collection had the most fame among NY food critics'. But it's a common enough practice. As to the suit, I find it amazing that it hasn't been thrown out of court yet. I wonder if all the publicity is making the judge a bit cautious.

Congratulations on a noteworthy achievement! Who are the other four dairies to be so certified and where are they located? ← From the website, these are clearly three of them: Cricket Creek Farm Cheese and Milk Green Pasture’s Farm Dairy Prairie View Dairy Hendricks isn't listed yet, and there are several Farms whose production isn't specified. They don't list location for producers, just retailers.

Sorry, you're right again. We'll get you into the city yet, my pretty. And your little dog too!

- The Daily News story is pretty informative, I'll agree. And it's remarkable that, in spite of being the ones given a voice, the Market Board comes off as poorly as they do. Someone should ask Dunston to shut up. - The new lease structure reportedly consists of a maintenance fee based on square footage, which applies to all merchants, and an additional levy on lunch merchants based on a percentage of profits (or revenue, not clear on that). Or at least that's what I've gotten from cobbling together the various sources - The existence of the e-mail seems to be tacitly granted by Rick's lawyer, Harvey. But it may still not be the sort of e-mail that would justify the Board's actions, so yes, releasing it would be useful. Though possibly not for the Board.

Agreed. Christos gets my vote for best food truck in the city. Go for the platter which includes the falafel but also all the sides he makes along with souvlaki. A bit expensive for a food truck but the food is great. I wait in line even in the middle of January. ← Personally, I love his grilled chicken pita. And it is not fast food. Christos looks like he's working fast, but somehow a five-person line turns into a fifteen minute wait. But it's absolutely worth the wait, and watching him work makes for really entertaining street theater.

Quotes ©Holly Moore 2007 "Out of curiosity were you around Philadelphia in the late 70's and early 80's when the market was a dark, dank public embarrassment? I'm guessing not. Anyone who was realizes that it was the tenacity of the long term merchants and the savvy leadership of David O'Neil that saved the market and started it well on its way to what it has become today." I was not. My sense of it is that the merchants ultimately deserve no more credit for the market's rejuvenation than they deserve blame for the decline. My understanding is that it was a public outcry about the RTM's imminent demise that brought together a number of people and organizations that took it over and brought it around. "Kitten Syndrome? Rick Olivieri? Cute. Nah." Wrong subject. I was commenting on the prospect of "the People" taking over the Market. "Pussy Syndrome? As in RTM board and management trying to rule by intimidation. Closer. But not working for them." Possibly. Not really convinced that's a fair characterization yet. In either case, I see no choirboys on either pew. "Actually, this is simply about righting an injustice and protecting the merchants in the future, and therefore the market." As should be obvious from everything I've posted so far, I see "protecting the merchants" and protecting the Market as very different objectives. Not necessarily incompatible, and occasionally congruent, but different.

Couldn't disagree more with the proposition that either "...it's the merchants that have made the Reading Terminal Market what it is..." or that "...the merchants are the ones that have the best interest of the market as their number one priority." Fact is, human nature and our economic system being what they are, if left to their own devices most merchants, at RTM or anywhere, would mostly be concerned with squeezing more profit from their businesses. Which is perfectly fine: it's their function, that's why they're merchants. But it's also why having someone else with a broader view running the show is essential. Or we're going to end up with, for instance, a Market festooned with Coke signage. And if I understand things correctly, the merchants were brought in to meet someone's vision of what the market should be. If that is true, they didn't "make" anything, other than in the obvious sense of being present on a daily basis. As for customers... Kitten Syndrome: people root for whatever's cuter, or most immediately in their interest, not for whatever makes for a better market in the long run. I have no illusions that current management is anything remotely approaching perfection. And reform may well be called for. But please lets not allow hackneyed populism drag down yet another institution. We have so few left.

I'm not really that good with the quotation-making widget, so I'll try to make this self-contained: - As to "revenue-sharing", what Mr. Liebkind said, and that has seemed clear to me from the get-go: the two-tiered lease shifts the burden away from purveyors, and generally asks the more successful businesses to support the rest. Un-American, I know. Tough. - Which is how Management sees themselves protecting the long-term viability of the merchants who further the Market's mission. Which, once again, does not involve cheesesteaks. Your point, if I may, is actually that those purveyors are not *currently* threatened. I wonder, however, exactly what self-serving motive one would ascribe to management in such a plan? In all, I'll take their word until I'm shown otherwise. I believe the plan may or may not be effective. But its intent is fairly unambiguous. - As to "Management's spin", well, I'm open to a better alternative. - As to other merchants supporting Ricks, consider that there are many aspects to the changes being attempted. The Amish, for instance, aside from their admirable, selfless outrage, oppose Management on the question of hours of operation. In spite of that, the only merchant I can find on the record in support of Rick's is DiNic's. - Tony Luke's failed at Penn, for a number of reasons. The 18th St. outlet, I thought, was not actually part of the same organization at all from a very early point. Moreover, they do in fact decent serve a decent roast pork sandwich. More to the point, the New York and Atlantic City ventures, which are a truer test of the brand's portability, are extremely successful, both from a business and from a quality standpoint. Several friends who should know tell me that apart from the weirdness of eating them in NY, the roast pork there is much as it is at home. - As to competing with the Headhouse Market, to some hitherto unexplained purpose... As Rob said, I don't think I'd be happy to see Farmer's Market prices being the only alternative. As I see it, they have tried to increased local farmers' presence over the last few years, while maintaining a broad-based clientele, thanks to a healthy mix of vendors. Personally, I like the result. Look, I'll cut to the chase: I like what I see as the ultimate goal of the changes being made. I'm not altogether happy with the cowardly way the Market Board handled Rick's lease, but I believe it is their complete right to handle it whatever way they see fit. And I am even less happy with the way Rick has tried to use the media and the courts to bully his way out of a situation that I feel was essentially of his own creation. I see no hint of Robin Hood in his behavior. If there is a "little guy" in all this, it is much of the (largely quiet) tenancy, and their interests are best served by a management victory, as far as I can tell. I fail to see who besides Rick's profits from a Rick's win. I don't agree with DiNic's portrayal of the likely consequences of Tony Luke's arrival, even if they do in fact sell roast pork sandwiches. Which I dearly wish them to.

hey now, they've always had sharp provolone. ← Yes. But it belongs with provolone and broccoli rabe. Not that flavorless Popeye nonsense they give the undiscriminating.