silentryan

I'm trying to decide if this is a knock on SF restaurant culture relative to the stars given out last year in NYC, or if these ratings are just a half-step closer to genuine Michelin standards. Any thoughts?

In general, there is a real dearth of cooks in Boston, relative to the number of high-end restaurants. I'd just keep an eye on job posting sites like bostonchefs.com and craigslist. There should be enough leads where something will turn up. Even if people 'prefer' younger cooks, given the limited talent supply out there, if you can cook they will be glad to have you.

Sad or happy news, depending on how you look at it: SAM MASON, the pastry chef at WD-50, plans to leave that restaurant to open a spot, yet unnamed, in SoHo by the end of the year for tapas, desserts and drinks: 525 Broome Street (Thompson Street). http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/dining/17off.html

Undergrads love to dismiss b-school students as money-grubbing intellectual lightweights. It was like that at Chicago. Just wait until a few years after graduation. ← Graduate students and professors join in on the fun as well, but you can chalk that up to envy if you like.

I know this isn't on topic really, but I can't believe that no one has refuted this. An MBA from Harvard looks a hell of a lot better than a BA. ← I know it's off topic, but I'm with you Bryan. To say that an MBA from HBS doesn't have the cachet of, well, just about anything, including a BA from Harvard College ... well, it just doesn't compute. It's like saying 100 - 13 equals 77. ← Mmm, actually on Harvard campus "business school kids" aren't held in very high intellectual regard at all. So, insofar as cachet tracks perceived intelligence...

Yes, lets let market forces deal w/ child pornography and slavery too.

Gordon is one of the long-time downstairs cooks, so that probably just means it's a menu he wrote. As far as the cafe/downstairs difference, I don't think it's as great as that between FL and Bouchon. Still, there is a greater degree of complexity in the dishes served downstairs, if only because they only have three dishes to focus on each night, rather than 8-9. The plating downstairs is probably also a little more intricate, for the same reason.

The chef is Wesley Genovart, formerly of Perry St.

I love Chez Panisse, but if it recieves any more than 1 Michelin star, that rating system will have lost whatever significance it had left.

While the deep fried twinkie comment was meant as hyperbole, during my time as an undergrad in NC I did come across a fair share of deep fried twinkies, snickers bars, etc., mostly at music festivals in the area. Though not as well established as collard greens or grits, they did seem to be a sort of 'regional cuisine'.

Two stars. Has to be somewhat of a disappointment, no? Four would have been too much to hope for, but I think three was a reasonable expectation, given the ambitions of the place.

Certainly general life-style plays a role here, but at the same time, certain foods simply are less healthy for you than others. Moderation may help with damage control, but a deep-friend Twinkie is always going to be a net negative in terms of nutrition. Further, just because foods generally aren't by themselves sufficient for unhealth, it's absurd to pretend that they play no role at all. While much of our culture's collective weight problem is the result of the largely sedentary life-style that many of us lead, it is still true that you are less likely to have health issues if you are snacking on apples at work instead of potato chips. While I whole-heartedly agree that we as a culture tend to fetishize food as the root of all evils, ignoring other cultural sources of unhealth, the reactionary stance of denying the potential harms of certain foods seems equally as absurd. All of that said, as Tarragon points out, amongst food 'culprits', refined sugars are much more of a threat these days than are fatty foods. Though foods high in saturated fat and cholesteral can indeed be problematic, the weight gain our culture has experienced over the past half-century is due mostly to the massive increase in the use of high-fructose corn syrup. Of course, because the corn industry has an effective set of lobbyists, the issue has recieved less attention than it merits. Again, I do think the degree to which our culture demonizes food is awful. It is terrible that such culturually produced fear deprives so many of the enjoyment of something that is a naturally pleasurable thing. That said, the knee-jerk stance of 'don't blame food, blame life-style' is just to refuse to acknowledge the realities of the situation we face. We are in the midst of a serious health crisis as a nation. Certainly, life-style contributes largely to this epidemic. Nonetheless, encouraging people to eat more nutritious foods can help to alleviate the problem to at least some degree. I love food too, but not to the point of turning a blind eye to the fact that the majority of our population will soon be stricken with Type-II diabetes.

You can usually find them at Monterey Market in Berkeley as well, during the season. And while I haven't been to the Berkeley farmers market in a bit, I think you can find them there as well. I think I have heard that they are also available at the Ferry Plaza market. ← I've seen them at the Thursday farmers market in Berkeley. Not sure about the other days of the week.

That's more than enough for me. I am now convinced that it is not rigged and I am glad as I had always hoped guys like Batali would not be involved in a crooked contest. Is there just no accounting for taste? ← You must really want to be convinced, since #3 suggests that it is fixed...

Both menus are now posted.