Sneakeater

Nathan, you're assuming everyone is like you: you hate to make any reservations at all and prefer all dining decisions to be last minute. I, of course, assume everyone is like me: I hate making dining plans months in advance -- but like to be able to make them a few days or a week in advance, so I know I don't have to concern myself (and my dining companions) about it after that. (Frankly, most people I go out with -- either on dates or socially -- don't like to have to wait till the last minute to be told where to meet me. And I don't want to be in the position of having to say to someone, "I'm taking you out to dinner Saturday. Wait till Saturday afternoon and I'll let you know where.") This "service" makes things better for people like you. But for people like me, it makes an already bad situation worse.

one difference is that the service presumably is essentially blocking out tables that someone might possibly get without paying the fee. let's take it to the extreme and now this service books every table in the restaurant 30 days out. no chance for any diner to get a table without the fee. that's not the case (i guess) but it illustrates the difference. i think it's easy to see and hard to debate the value-added for the person who uses the service. however, it's the people who don't use it who are now getting the short(er) end. ← This is exactly the difference I see. (EDITED TO ADD: And I see I'm far from the only one.)

Shit . . . I just tip the amount of additional tip I'd give if I were charged for the comped dish.

As they should! The point of a review is to inform the reader whether or not they should shell out their hard earned money on a dining experience at X restaurant, no? It's hard to make that judgements when you didn't have to part with your dough. ← I think you and I have radically different ideas of what constitutes criticism. It's interesting. In the Bruni thread, there was some discussion recently of the role cost should play in evaluating a restaurant. Some people, like you, say it's a primary factor (and it certainly seems to be so for Frank Bruni, even though he doesn't personally pay for his meals). But I hold with those who say it's at most secondary. When I say "evaluating", I'm talking about a real critical evaluation -- not a consumer recommendation.

That isn't the point, though. The point is that it's just as much work for the busboy to bring you a dish you weren't charged for as one you were charged for.

Indeed, I'd also say that, when you think about it, paying for a meal out of your own pocket renders your judgment almost as suspect as when you accept a comp. I know that I, myself, really strain to like meals I pay a lot for. Why not? When I pay hundreds of dollars for a meal, I'd much rather be happy with it than unhappy. I think you can only expect a truly disinterested evaluation from someone who has no financial stake. (To be painfully clear and avoid any possible misunderstanding, I'm not arguing that getting comped remediates this. When you get comped, you STILL have a personal financial stake -- and you're grateful to the restaurant. I'm talking about having someone ELSE pay for your meal -- to my mind, the only way to isure disintersted criticism.)

It's just self-serving for the blogger to say that the comps don't affect his judgment. All he can and should say is that he got one. It's up to the reader to draw his own conclusions. I agree with you that if a blogger wants to be taken truly seriously as a critic, he ought to adopt a no-comp policy. But if he doesn't do so, I don't think there's much harm done (except possibly to his own credibility), as long as he discloses each comp. I think you have to bear two things in mind. First, unlike professional critics, bloggers don't get paid for reviewing restaurants. Second, unlike professional critics, bloggers pay for their restaurant meals out of their own pockets.

To me, the definitive 80s dinner party dish was Chicken Marbella, from The Silver Palate Cookbook.

I agree that (to the extent this is a matter of any moment at all) if you disclose it you can't really be criticized.

Once again Pan speaks for me as well.

Believe it or not, I would say mostly my gut (a pretty big source, unfortunately).

But there's still the main question: if you were eating at an Italian restaurant in Tel Aviv, would you automatically pair an Italian wine (preferably from the same region your dish is from)? I know I normally would (although you obviously are worlds more sophisticated than I am). But what this thread is bringing out is that that's probably misguided.

That's a loaded question, though, since one of the two (related) main problems with Frank Bruni, IMO, is that he's insufficiently objective.

I think there are two different sub-questions here. When traveling, of course you'd tend to have local wines with local food. But as Fat Guy said in one of the initial posts in this thread, that's almost more touristic advice than anything else. A different and more interesting question -- and the one I think this discussion has mostly focussed on -- is what to do when you're eating "foreign" food in a place with a cosmopolitan restaurant culture (and no true indigenous wine culture) like the U.S. (and probably Israel as well, but I don't know enough to say so).

Also, for the purposes as to which this discussion originated, you have to distinguish between your subjective feelings (including "new to you") and more objective criteria. I say that because this discussion started from a question why critics aren't rallying behind Ramsay at the London.

Now that it's finally cold out, my thoughts have naturally turned to cassoulet. When I go out to have a cassoulet, I will reflexively order a madiran to go with it, if it's available. After all, that's what you'd drink with a cassoulet in Toulouse. But let's think about it. The cassoulet I'm served in New York will really not taste anything like a cassoulet in Toulouse. The ingredients are different. Most places don't use the same kind of beans as is used in the Languedoc. They use duck instead of goose. And even to the extent they use the same types of meats, our pork (say) tastes different from pork in the Languedoc. So the assumption that terroir tells is, when you think of it, misguided, since of course the food doesn't come from the same soil as the supposedly "local" wine. Cassoulet is a fairly extreme example, but when you think about it, the same is true of any foreign cuisine served in the United States. You couldn't replicate the taste of any dish from anywhere in Italy, for example, because no matter what you do the ingredients will be different. If you look at it that way -- as a matter of terroir -- no matter what type of food I'm eating in New York City, the only local wines are from Long Island and the Hudson Valley. Anything else is foreign to the food I'm eating, no matter what the origin or orientation of the recipe. And there's no way I'm limiting myself to Long Island and Hudson Valley wines. (Even if you look at it as a matter of flavors developing together, the "local" wine assumption doesn't hold, because, as I said, the flavors of foreign food cooked here are going to be different from the flavors of foreign food cooked in its place of origin.)

I've also been contacted after unfavorable write-ups, to have an opportunity to be shown what they can "really" do. I turn down all that stuff, for the same reason you (Pan) do.

My follow-up dinner here last night confirms my suspicion that this one of the best Mexican restaurants currently operating in New York, and has the potential to be something really special. Chef Amezcua is already beginning to spread his wings in developing recipes. Witness last night's entree special of a chopped-egg enchilada in a feather-light pipian. I'm pretty sure that's a new dish (obviously, my knowledge of all the many Mexican cuisines is not encyclopedic), but boy did it work. And boy was it well-made: it's rare to have a pipian so smooth and subtle. Of course, Papatzul is not up to the great Nuevo Mexicano restaurants of Mexico City. But I'll tell you what: it's certainly comparable to some of the more modest ones, and is the only place I know in New York that's worthy of being mentioned in the same paragraph. (FULL DISCLOSURE: the chef/owner spotted me and figured out that I was the person who wrote the review at the top of this thread. We chatted for a while and he comped me a dessert. I don't believe that any of that affected my high opinion of last night's dinner.)

I'm ashamed to say I actually know that word. I just feel so pretentious when I say it (or, as a non-francophone, just about any French term).

I'm afraid you might be right about that.

I agree it's not any kind of big deal.

How do you remember all that????????

I don't know that I see that, FG. The people I think Nathan is talking about purport to do reviews, not just "reporting". BTW, you can see some of the same syndrome on the boards. People get too cozy with management and lose their objectivity, virtually becoming shills for places that have sucked up to them. You even sometimes see turnarounds in the midst of discussions, where it's clear that management has "gotten" to someone.

What's not to like is that I don't go to the places that take two hours to get a reservation. But this service, if it catches on, will turn just about EVERYPLACE into a place where I have to pay a premium to get a prime reservation.

The point is, these guys are taking something away FROM ME. Why shouldn't I be pissed off? ← They're not taking anything from you SE. If you wanted to eat there that bad, you would have the reservation way in advance. It actually helps you. You enjoy going to places at the last minute - now you have a means (if you choose) to get a table at a prime hour. ← They are, though. I don't make reservations way in advance. (That's why I've never eaten at Per Se, rarely eat at JG, and Ramsay is still a ways off for me.) And they're virtually ensuring that I have to (or else pay a premium). You can say that, since I don't want to pay the premium, it must not be important enough to me to eat at the restaurant. I'd only reply: enough already (with the cost, I mean).