Sneakeater

Maybe I am mildly allergic to some ingredient. It's Ted Breaux's "Nouvelle Orleans." Anyone else have any kind of reaction? (It's not so much a headache as extreme listlessness combined with a feeling my head is stuffed with something unpleasant.)

Wait a minute! I didn't see any pictures of anybody consummating their passion and love in the White Castle! (Aren't there other kinds of boards for that?)

First, now that I think of it, I think my dinner guest probably had a glass of riesling, not vidal. The riesling is slightly more expensive. (I love them both myself; in theory, or as a matter of principle, I prefer the vidal as a native grape; but in my heart of hearts I probably like to drink the riesling a little more.) Second, if I remember correctly, at retail in NYC, bottles of Inniskillin Vidal Icewine usually go for something like $50 or $60. (Can anyone confirm or correct?) They're usually more recent vintages than the 1999 your friend treated you to.

Don't worry THAT much. Some NYC restaurants have HUGE mark-ups.

I'd like to say something about the entry concerning reservations. It sheds light on a topic I've been somewhat annoyed about. People constantly castigate Bruni for including sometimes extensive quotes from his dining companions. People say this shows insecurity, or a lack of original thought. I think that's nonsense. Isn't it clear that Bruni quotes selectively, to bolster points he wants to make or to present counterarguments he can disagree with? It's not a sign of insecurity or lack of original thought; it's another resource to use. I mean, I refer to what dining companions say all the time when I describe restaurants. Not because I can't think for myself, but because if someone I'm eating with says something I think made a point, why not quote it? (I say this as someone who is by no means a fan of Bruni's writing.) Does anyone think there's anything wrong with the quotations from Bruni's friend in the "reservations" entry?

Delightful post-blizzard dinner at Tocqueville Sunday night. It's easy to see why this place inspires such loyalty and affection among its fans. It's one of those places that seems to run on the premise that people return to restaurants where they're treated as if they're friends of the house. We -- first-time guests -- were treated with the friendly solicitousness you usually expect as a regular. Nothing cloying or obtrusive, mind you. Everybody was just . . . nice. The food, in a way, furthers that philosophy. It's VERY well-prepared, and very well thought-out, but not particularly innovative, or challenging, or even (to be honest) outstanding in any way. But it never falls below very good. You can't quite call it comfort food; it's too fancy for that. It's more like, very comfortable fine-dining type food. I started with an "uni carbonara" (with angel hair pasta) that, I regret to say, was not quite as spectacular as it sounds like it should be. (Uni is absolutely one of my favorite foods.) I guess I was hoping for an overwhelming uni flavor, and didn't get it. But there wasn't anything else of great interest to make up for it. Don't get me wrong: not a bad dish, just a slightly disappointing one. (Certainly nowhere near as good as Honmura An's celestial uni on soba noodles.) My entree was loin of venison, with the usual juniper and berries. This was extremely well-cooked (tender without being mushy). Not a flag-waving barnstormer of a dish, but something very good and very satisfying to eat as you look at the snow out the window. I may be one of the last people here to eat in Tocqueville's current dining room, from which they are moving to bigger quarters nearby in a matter of days. I have to say I'm not worried at all. The kitchen gives every sign of being able to handle more volume. And, frankly, to me, the current dining room lacks charm (as distinct from the entry-room bar, which has charm to spare). Maybe they can come up with something a bit less impersonal (to match the vibe of the restaurant) in their new premises.

This is obviously bigger news for me than for anybody else, but I made myself a Sazerac last night. The reason it's such big news for me is that this is really the first real cocktail I've ever crafted. (I mean, things like gin and tonics don't really count.) I have to say that it was amazingly delicious. As someone (or ones) said above, coating the glass with absinthe before pouring in the rye/sugar/bitters mixture permits the absinthe to permeate the drink in a way that's really unique -- and gives the drink a bouquet such as I've never experienced before. OTOH, even with the small amount of absinthe used, I still got the same weird and unpleasant hangover I get whenever I drink absinthe. That's a pity. (Not that anyone cares, but next I'm going to try a Negroni.)

To support your worst fears, I paid $30 (NYC -- USA) for a glass of that as a special treat for someone I was taking out to dinner a few nights ago.

Not that hard, based on my recent experience making sequential sets of reservations (all of which I unfortunately had to cancel).

Vidal is type of grape. That wine is as spectacular as you thought. You are VERY lucky to have started seriously drinking dessert wines near the top. (Don't let it spoil you.)

FWIW, Bruni lost it for me with the Wolfgang's review. He had this really interesting set-up (if you ignored all the stupid gratuitous heart desease jokes) for a Wolfgang's/Luger's smackdown (cuz really, the only thing you want to know about Wolfgang's is, how does it compare to Luger's), but then, when you finally got to the meat of the review (he's not the only one who can make stupid jokes), there was nothing there. He did not have the vocabulary -- the technical chops -- to write a comparison of a Luger's steak with a Wolfgang's. All you could tell is that he liked Luger's better -- but there was not enough back-up description for you to be able to tell why (or even how much). This is a major failing, since what's important in reviews isn't so much the bottom-line conclusion but the analysis that supports it (since the bottom-line conclusion is just one person's subjective opinion, whereas the description and analysis allows you to "test" the conclusion and match it against your own preferences) (this is really the fundamental reason some of us object to the "star" system, BTW). And that's the problem with Bruni's reviews in general. He's like me: some guy who likes food and eats out a lot, but lacks technical knowledge and a deep familiarity with the literature. It's really a pity that the Times appoints people like that as principle restaurant reviewers.

I think that, in terms of the mania for overly dry martinis, Auntie Mame was probably part of the problem, not part of the solution.

All I know is that it is almost impossible now to get collard greens with ham hock instead of smoked turkey in a restaurant in NYC, and I am pissed as shit about that.

What I think about 10 Cane is that when I got it and tried sipping it I thought it was a complete hype and rip-off. But then I tried mixing it, and as a mixer it is truly superior. Now you can say that it costs an awful lot for a rum you're going to mix, and I wouldn't disagree with that. But if you're at a bar, I think that right now it's nuts NOT to specify (say) a 10 Cane mojito.

This probably isn't remotely convenient for you, but I recently stumbled upon an EXCELLENT "bagel and" place called Daniel's on 3rd Ave. near 38th or 39th in Murray Hill. Certainly not worth going out of your way for. But if for any reason you're near there . . . .

I have another name (believe it or not, I wasn't born Sneakeater), but not one that you'd recognize. I have to tell you this, though, Gary. You're this incredibly important person to this young friend of mine. I have this eleven-year-old friend, the son of some good friends. After a vacation in a Southern resort area, he became fascinated by mixology. He's not allowed to taste cocktails, of course. But he loves making them. He loves the craft, the detail, the whole thing. Your martini book is like his bible. (I've since given him Dale DeGroff's Craft of the Cocktail, but your book is still the one he reaches for. The Joy of Mixology's next!) You're like this major influence on him. I have to say, from my perspective as consumer of his efforts, that contrary to one's intuitions, there's a lot to be said for having drinks made by someone who's making them by the book. For example, he's not been affected by the general prejudice for (overly) dry martinis, so he's far more likely than most bartenders (i.e., he's CERTAIN) to make a properly proportioned classic martini. I'd say that right now, he makes my favorite martini in Manhattan.

(Ummmmmm, who was it created in honor of?)

A great drink. A great, great drink.

I live in Brooklyn, so believe me I'm not one of those people who get all nervous whenever someone mentions travelling to an outerborough -- least of all the one I live in. That said, I really question whether it's worth schlepping out to Red Hook (no direct public transportation) if you're only here for "a quick weekend".

Right, and under "Danube" nobody is identified. I'm not accusing them of being actively misleading or anything. I'm just saying.

At 9 PM on a Friday, about 1/3 of the tables were empty and stayed that way. You can't stay open for long if that keeps happening. I don't know if that is a result of the NYT or not. I just did a seach on Open Table, and Gilt has more opneings for next Saturday night than either Daniel or Danube....not a good sign. Trotting out my 1968 NYT Restaurant Guide, Craig Claiborne gave four stars to Peter Luger and three stars to P.J. Clarke's. In fact, he gave three stars to several bars. Not to mention two stars to Benihana of Tokyo...... In fact, if you think Bruni's reviews are wacky with stars, I suspect you would think Claiborne's were from another planet. People have been complaing for years that the NYT isn't what it used to be, in all areas. I think this is a variation of "nothing is as good as used to be". Given that I have Claiborne's 1968 book, anyone is going to have a very hard time convincing me of the decline in qualtity of NYT food reviews. ← I can tell you from personal experience that when Gilt first opened, you couldn't get a near-term reservation there. I don't know if the Times review is what changed that (actually, I'd bet it was the Times price-gouging article), but something did. As for Claiborne and his stars, it's long been noted in the "stars" discussions that pop up in various threads here that back in the days of Claiborne and Sheraton, the "star" awards were much more, um, whimsical than they are now, recognizing "off the beaten path" places and types of places that would now be thought to be "definitionally" unworthy of high ratings. In an extremely illuminating post, Fat Guy explained how "institutionalization" of the star system was necessary as, over time, the reviewing post passed (as it inevitably had to) from culinary gods to mere mortals. In other words, someone of the stature of Craig Claiborne could give two stars to some bar and make it credible, whereas even someone like Bryan Miller couldn't.

FWIW, Mario Lohniger isn't mentioned on the menu at Danube because he's been gone for something like a year. His replacement was (I think) a sou-chef from somewhere in the Bouley organization who has much less of an individual "identity" than Lohniger.

I know I promised to keep quiet, but just in the interest of clarity, none of my comments was directed at anyone's expressing disappointment with the Bruni review. Hell, I've expressed disappointment with the Bruni review. I was talking about something else.

Useless Boasting I somehow seem to have a bottle of real absynthe in my closet. I'm happy to use it in a cocktail like this, cuz when I try to drink it just deluted with water, it gives me the worst hangovers I've had since I tried to down entire bottles of tequila by myself (well, not really by myself: in groups where each of us tried to down his or her own bottle) in college. Too bad I have to go all the way to the Pegu Club, and subject myself to some wonderful cocktails, in order to buy a bottle of Peychaud's, thought.

Mmmmmmmph. Mmmmmmmmmph. Not saying anything. I promised.