silverbrow

Locanda Locatelli. I third Sardo but controversially, disagree and think that Sardo Canale is good. It had some issues at first, but those now seem to be sorted.

John Whereabouts is the cheese shop, in relation to say Martyn's? I live nearby, am forever in the Hill, but for the life of my can't remember seeing this place. Happy Birthday by the way.

I rate Leith's Seasonal Bible. Lots of helpful tables at the front showing what's in season when and then detailed recipes further back. Like all the Leith's books, it tends towards being a tome. Somewhat svelter is Rowley Leigh's No Place Like Home. It doesn't list what is in season when, but he does offer up different recipes & menus for all of the seasons.

I realise that a database would be the best way to store and mine the info, but I wonder about the best way to input in the first place. Might a Wiki be the way forward?

I think the hype around food culture is not a rich thing, it's a middle class thing. It's driven by people with enough money to be concerned by what they buy and are able to afford choice, but are conscious enough of the value of money that they are careful how they spend it. I think the focus on expensive restaurants is further evidence of the impact of the middle class - it is aspirational. Most people can't afford to eat in expensive restaurants every day, but people might aspire to one day having a meal there, which is why celebrity chefs endorseendorse commercially available products. The consumer can buy into the dream. Also, real life tends to be dreary, it's much more fun to write about French Laundry and revel in the food porn, than review your local Italian - even though that might be more useful to your eating experience. Check out Jamie Oliver's Feed me Better campaign as an example of a chef doing just that for school kids.

Silverbrow--are you Frank Bruni? (just asking) ← John, no I'm not. I am however beginning to think that this thread might just be a wind-up. Either that, or a large contingent of eGullet have morphed into Grumpy Old Men. I think of eating at a restaurant as a relaxing event, rather than a process to kill some time before I go to bed. I'm surprised that so many people take such an unmediated utilitarian view of eating out.

What about atmosphere, people? A large part of what makes eating out so enjoyable, is the atmosphere of the restaurant you're in, or at least it is for me. Eating early for many of the reasons stated above sounds so mechanistic and joyless.

I agree with all the concerns regarding privacy. However, I can see the significant downsides to anonymity as raised by Michael et al. I have updated my sig line with my first name. My handle isn't a million miles from my surname, but I don't want my eG or other fora views popping up in Google searches. I'm in an industry totally unrelated to food - apart from eating lunch - and I don't want what I say on here, on my blog or elsewhere, being confused with what I do professionally. If you want my surname, PM me and I'll happily give it to you. However, I am slightly wary of the pious quoting of the UA etc that recommends the use of real names. I've noticed some odd activity in the past couple of days with some strange names popping up in the 'Users Active' section. Notably, I spotted Test Member in the thread on the Timing of update.... This member has only posted once, although I couldn't view what that post was and bizarrely they have the status of Specialist and as far as I can tell, they're not on Marlene's list of specialists. When I PM'd this member, they logged off rather quickly. I might be wrong, but I'm guessing that this member was made-up by the mods, to check that the board was working well, afterall, I notice there are similarly named members, such as Test Participant. It would therefore seem that admins and or mods are using log-ins other than their own, to disguise their presence. This may be the rantings of a paranoid fool - or it might not? I appreciate that it will be straightforward for the management to say they can't reveal members' details which is fair enough. But can the management & admin team confirm that they only ever log-in as themselves and never use their administrative access to hide their presence? Afterall, if they want us to be as open as possible, we need to see them leading by example.

Leon

I can send Cay Tre - excellent food, but you can find it pretty difficult to get a table. Another great place is Viet Anh Cafe on Parkway in Camden Town. Very cheap but really good food.

I was in Rajasthan almost 2 yrs ago and had a trip that looked pretty similar to Matthew's. One comment on Udaipur, we stayed at Udaivilas, which apart from being a fantastic hotel, had great food as well. I can't for the life of me remember what it was as it was so long ago, but I do remember the quality being excellent. We had a similarly good experience at Rajvilas in Jaipur. The various Oberoi Vilas hotels are renowned for their quality, I would expect/hope that Matthew's bad experience at Vanyavilas was a one off. For a thoroughly amusing, although by no means good meal, try to eat at Delhi golf club. If I'm honest, I found it so funny because it is just like eating in a golf club in the home counties in the UK. Not what I'd expected in the middle of Delhi.

If you want a decent kosher butcher in London, try Greenspan's on Falloden Way, which is pretty close to Golders Green. However, it is expensive. I have to say in defence of UK kosher meat, I haven't really seen good quality kosher meat anywhere except France and Israel. What I mean by good quality, is not simply a broad range, but animals that have enjoyed exceptionally high qualities of life and are butchered with care and tended to ensure the finest eating. So that when you go to buy beef rib, it is well hung, with good marbling rather than insipid looking and hardly any fat.

Jack You're right that kashrut doesn't expressly forbid such cross-contamination or poor quality cleanliness. But, local health and safety regulations do. Commercial kosher kitchens are under exactly the same H&S rules that non-kosher kitchens are. On the question of does kosher = good quality. The simple answer is no. As Melissa's link points out, animals killed under shechita are reared along with animals destined for non-kosher slaughter. In fact, in the UK, there is tendency for kosher meat to be particularly poor quality. Try getting hold of an organic or free range kosher chicken, let alone beef from a high-quality herd. The problem is that kosher meat is expensive because of demand/supply and additionally expensive because of the costs associated with being affiliated to the various kashrut boards. People seem to be unwilling to pay even more for the privelege of premium breeds, even if it does mean they're eating better food.

Pim, if you have a point to make about how the "eGullet establishment circled the wagons" with regard to Doug Psaltis, his book, or this topic, please cite examples. If you are trying to make some larger point, the place to do it is eG Forums and Society Questions and Comments. ← Dave, good point - here's the thread you suggested.

I agree, it doesn't, it was Pan who took issue with what I said. Dirk has summarised my point perfectly.

First off, I couldn't agree with Bux more: there is no reason one cannot be a professional in a number of professions, look at all the mid-career professionals who suddenly switch. Equally, just because one is lawyer doesn't necessarily mean that one is an amateur. When it comes to FG, I was saying that I would be surprised if he saw himself as a culinary professional just because of eG and the fact he's written a book. One of the meanings of the word amateur (as its derivation makes clear) is that one loves what one does ie they do it for the love. I'm sure that yet again, FG wouldn't argue that he is involved in food for the love of it - and as I said in my post - like the rest of us. Additionally, I question whether he himself would compare himself to the likes of Steingarten, Ruhlman and Rogov given their international profile and quantity of published material. I'd be happy to stand corrected. I think Pan in particular took my post the wrong way and thought I was being critical of FG. I wasn't. I was simply arguing that I disagreed with Soba's dismissive tone to GAF's post and that GAF and FG are both entitled to their opinion. FG expressed his in his book, GAF expressed his here.

Here is the thread I was referring to above, about negative reviews.

In the end, everyone, whether professional reviewer or otherwise is entitled to their own opinion. If GAF thinks it's helpful to add that FG is a lawyer then that's his call. Personally, I agree with him - apart from anything it tells the reader that FG is himself not a culinary professional, he's an amateur like the rest of us - it also gives an insight into the way he writes and the analytical tools he uses. Soba may think it's irrelevant, in the same way Doug Psaltis clearly felt it irrelevant to mention that he slapped an obnoxious waiter - but that didn't stop the whole issue resulting in one of the most read eG threads and a hotly debated issue. This seems to go back to the earlier thread about what is or isn't a decent review. No-one has to like what Fine says, but equally no-one has to like what Fat Guy says. The delight of eG is that we are a broad church and can debate these things openly, can't we?

I think the same is true in lots of countries. Not every restaurant is going to be a culinary heaven, most will be dross. But those that are really stand out. I'm intrigued to know why this is the case. I assume people don't set out to start crappy restaurants, most people want to serve good stuff. What is it that starts the horrible slide down? In an attempt to answer my own question, I would guess that care from the owner springs to mind viz hibiscus; merchant house. Although, as Kitchen Nightmares demonstrated, even then there needs to be other significant ingredients like an understanding of food, good sourcing etc

edited to say I meant to post on Bouchon rather than TFL

They are both eyecandy but don't let that stop you and they are much more besides. In both books there is a lot of detail about how to do things, who and why Keller uses particular suppliers, the right utensils for the right jobs etc. In fact, I've found some of these non-recipe pages in the book, the best. I think we can thank Michael Ruhlman for making it such a readable, but useful book. I've never been to any of Keller's restaurants but I get the impression that the books really convey what Keller's trying to do and how's he doing it. Back to which is better - really tough, but for everyday use I'd say Bouchon. They're both fantastic but frankly I think you're more likely to regularly use Bouchon recipes than TFL, if only because they're so involved. That's not to say the Bouchon ones are that straightforward. Either way, you'll love both books, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Thanks to everyone for the recs and primowino for prompting me to post. Since the somewhat muted response to my wines I bought, I reconsidered and saw this as an opportunity to buy something different and hopefully a little bit special. I decided to eschew Oddbins and headed to my local independent which always looks impressive and I appreciate the advice I've been given in the past. His recommendations which I purchased were: 2003 Willm Pinot Gris for the starter 2001 Louis Latour Aloxe-Corton Domaine Latour for main I won't be serving wine with dessert, given the difficulty of the pairing wine with chocolate. Dinner's this Saturday night, so I'll let you know how it goes afterwards.

This just boggles the mind. By allowing the book to be excerpted here, Psaltis opened himself up to such questions. Or are we just here to shill for favored authors? Any book is colored by the motives of its author(s). In order to judge the whole of the work it is absolutely necessary to know the motives of the author. If I want to look at a string of pretty words, I'll open the dictionary. ← I couldn't agree with JPW more. Unless, of course Robert, you are saying that when it comes to literature - and if a non-fiction based book is literature, then anything written is literature - one can publish whatever one wants and not have to worry about the veracity to it. Out of interest, do these threads count as literature as well? Because if they do, and going by your argument, eGullet should never delete posts or lock threads it feels uncomfortable with. Afterall, it seems that according to your argument, anything written is simply literature and should be revelled in it for its own sake. I am sure that Psaltis wrote this book - as does anyone who writes a book, article, thread - to inform/entertain others. Obviously there will be an element of self-interest but books are published for the audience, not just for the author. As such, the author absolutely should be open to criticism, and criticism whether negative or positive, always raises questions. I appreciate Doug might be busy opening his restaurant, but to argue that he doesn't need to justify himself is not only mind boggling but bizarre.

Why has this thread morphed into moderators, forum hosts and founders vs everyone else? I realise it might be inconvenient for the eG team that not everyone always agrees with them - but that's life.

It would also be good if Doug could reply himself. I don't know whether Steve has been appointed as his official defender or is self-appointed, either way, straight answers to direct questions would be helpful and interesting.