robert brown

That's a bit of a coincidence in that I was spending Passover with a fellow who grow up on Broadway and 76th St. in the 1940-50s. He mentioned those places as well as Gitlitz which I only vaguely recall since I wasn't born in New York. Murray's must have been around then as well. Is there any others we havn't mentioned?

I am curious to find out what Suvir likes, thinks, whatever. Suvir, if you have already commented and don't want to make a fresh post, can you tell me where the original post is?

Steven, I agree that having a fun meal is more important than writing a good eGullet post (or having a good meal and writing a fun eGullet post). However, there is a matter of pride in that we at least want to give an accurate and substantive portrayal. I am interested to know to what extent you use a digital camera and, if one were to use one, do the site administrators encourage posting photographs? If so, how do we post them? Do you even want a lot more photos than what people are posting these days?

Wilfrid, do you know of this guy Harry Layne who teaches you how to improve your memory? A good test of his effectiveness would be to go to El Bulli with its 18-course or so tasting menu and then make your notes after you have finished your meal. I know what you mean, and it is a good solution in conventional circumstances. I am curious to hear from a few others who describe in detail the looks of a dish. That seems hard to do aposteriori.

I am impressed with the detailed tasting notes some of the members take in restaurants. (Either notes or they have a photographic memory). I do it from time to time, but I find it diminishes my enjoyment of the meal and makes me anti-social with my dining mates. It should be useful for many of us to know how other people make notes and the consequences of doing it. Taking photographs of the room and the food is something I have tried as well. Photographing seems to depend mostly on the design and ambiance of the room and if you can forget about what people around you may think. I haven't tried a mini-disc recorder with a microphone now that such a player-recorder can fit in a shirt pocket. Please share your thoughts.

The favorite trip of traveling gastronomes was for many years the Paris-Lyon one with stops taken in places where the three-star restaurants were: Joigny, Vezelay, Saulieu, Chagny Vonnas, Lyon. Now I would counsel going east to west starting out on the Lake of Annecy eating at Marc Veyrat and staying (but not necessarily dining) at L'Auberge du Pere Bise. Then you could spend two or three days in Lyon and then head a little south through the Rhone Valley possibly dining at Restaurant de la Pyramide or Pic. You should head west at Ampuis, spend a night dining and sleeping at the Auberge des Cimes in St.Bonnet-le-Froid, ending up in Laguiole to dine at least once at Michel Bras and to stay in his recently-built hotel-restaurant. It is a trip we have done once or twice and would do it again. In fact, Bux has just left for the airport to do an abbreviated version:Lyon-Lagiole-St. Bonnet-Lyon with a few other stops in the Auvergne. Bon Voyage, Mr. and Mrs. Bux. Oh yes, itthe route can be done economically except for dining at Marc Veyrat or staying at Pere Bise. However, there are lots of comfortable hotels around that are not expensive.

Roger, I can't find the post I put up about Baan Chiang in which I said we felt it was the best restaurant we had been to in the week we spent in Bangkok last June. It touts its Royal Palace-trained chefs which may sound gimmicky. I guess it isn't however. This was before e-Gullet was around, so I don't have any notes. We just recall a level of delicacy, finesse, refinement,etc. that was a tad higher than, say, the Celadon which is also a great address. Actually, the three meals we had in former homes were all delicious (Lemongrass, Baan Kanetha, and Baan Chiang.) My guess is that Thai food hates to travel more than any other and that you would have to spend a lot of time in Bangkok eating in places a few times to really be able to pull them apart. Regardless, it's just a great city to eat in.

Wilfrid, thank you for doing what I wanted to do or hoped someone else would do. Here's a little background according to what I have observed. It would be interesting to know when the idea of a "prix fixe" came into being. Regardless, I first became aware in the late 1960s of the "prix fixe" menu (talking about France) within the context of other (either less or more courses) fixed-price menus and a la carte dishes. The first "degustation" menu I would guess appeared in the mid-1970s, preceeded by fixed-price menus with a bit of choice. In fact, I remember in France one or two restaurants that would treat, say, a four-course meal that one chose a la carte by putting it on the bill as a "menu" and charging at a fixed price. The practice of making the table take the "degustation" menu is something I first saw in France as well. It annoyed me from that very moment. (It was in the window of Restaurant Gerard Pangaud in Paris in the mid-1970s. Pangaud later moved to the USA, by the way). Whether or not a restaurant in France made the whole table take the tasting menu varied from one to the other. In higher-end restaurants that offered three or four tasting menus, most would, as I recall, would let your party choose whichever one they wanted and some even would let guests order a la carte if they wanted. When the restaurant was rigid, the stated reason was that it would create uneven service due to people receiving courses while others did not:something I never understood and still do not today when this happens. I am not a big devotee of tasting menus. If I order one, it is usually because it shows the restaurant off at its best. If in France, a restaurant offers the dishes that are listed as the specialties in Michelin or mentioned in Gault-Maillau, say, as ones you should have, I wlll often order it if the restaurant makes it easy on everyone. I give this background because I think the primary role of the tasting menu has changed from a way to offer the best a chef has to give into a tool of restaurant efficiency. I think in a lot of restaurants, GT for one, the tasting menu is for the kitchen something akin to a single dish lots of people order. The more clients they can direct to ordering it, the better off it is for the bottom line and the division of labor or tasks that each person in the kitchen performs. Tasting menus make it possible to get to the ideal place of a chef: either the single-menu format of a Chez Panisse or a catered affair. Getting as close as possible to that means,to a bottom-line type, hiring less kitchen help; getting closer to anticipating what people will order, therefore avoiding extra waste; being able to prepare more in advance; and even creating a better flow in the service. In other words, the tasting menu has transformed the restaurant business into more of a business, and the more a restaurateur can get people to order it in a rigid ordering environment, the more he can buy a second home, stock his wine cellar, or send his kids to good schools (at my expense, of course).

Steven, I believe "Stick to Your Ribs" was the name before he tried in Manhattan. The guy's name is Pearson. I'm talking 1989 about, which was when you were still eating dormitory food. Do you know what happned to him after his failed Manhattan venture? Is he still purveying (and he could purvey!!!).

Do you mean "Stick to Your Ribs"? It was by the Con Ed plant in LIC. The bloke who owned it was English. He started out in Stratford CT. He was to move to Amsterdam Ave. (Maybe he did for a brief while) with backing from Marshall Cogan who owned the 21 Club for several years. Where is the British guy now?

Thanks Bux and Steve for posting. Now I feel obliged to write the last part, something I was not going to do if I drew a goose egg on the thread. You are both perceptive and have rounded out my observations and brief experience of two weeks ago. I hope by the end of summer we have, along with others, elevated Spain to a significant factor on the site.

It's Regis "MaRcon". Bux, I wouldn't worry about going to Michel Bras in early April. I went religiously from 1986-1998 and never had a bad meal. Integrity is his middle name, as they say, and the thought of his not putting out his best would never enter his mind. I am sure he is revving up as we speak and would not make his opening date ahead of when he was satisified with his materials and readiness. I have a hunch it's the same with Regis Marcon, based on my going there several times as well.

Steve, leave enough room in the back of the van for a case of Pepto-Bismol.

Barcelona picks up where Madrid leaves off. In terms as broad as their “avenidas”, one is roughly to the other as Milan is to Rome. With its modernity, fashion, art scene, and after-hours living-it-up, Barcelona, like Milan, is for the traveler for whom lifestyle comes first. Madrid, the capital, on the other hand, is the heart and soul of Spain; Royal, historic Spain versus the upstart Spain that has taken shape since the end of the Franco era. Of course, there are exceptions such as Old Barcelona off the Ramblas and the best repository of 20th-century art in Spain, the Reina Sophia Museum in Madrid (where Picasso’s “Guernica”, the most famous work of art of the last century, resides). Nonetheless, despite other diversions, particularly the awesome Antonio Gaudi structures, Barcelona still lacks a great historic art museum to equal Madrid’s Museo del Prado. To be inside this extraordinary repository and stand mesmerized in front of two Hieronymous Bosch’s masterpieces, “Garden of Earthly Delights” and “Paradise & hell” or be surrounded by the large portraits by Velazquez of the Spanish Royal Family is one of the towering peaks of international museum-going, perhaps an experience only equaled at the Louvre for intensity. Ensconcing yourself in one of the several hotels across from the Prado puts you an easy walk away as well from the Reina Sofia and the marvelous museum that is a panorama of most of the history of Western Art, the Thyssen-Bornemisa Collection. This “Museum Quarter-Mile” can by itself chew up a three-day weekend. As implied, I am partial to Madrid. It was the first piece of Europe I set my foot on when I was just a teen-ager; it is the center of my brother’s distinguished career as an art historian; and it is where I was recently to partake in the festivities around his crowning public achievement: the opening of the exhibition at the Prado that he curated with the highly-decorated British historian of Spain, Sir John Elliott, ”The Sale of the Century: Artistic Relations Between Spain and Great Britain,1604-1655”. I thought this brief four-day sojourn would relegate gastronomy to a place behind the exhibition festivities. Not only did it not, but as it worked out, it permitted me to put together a string of dining that was a good cross-section of the underrated glories of Madrid gastronomy along with moments that were reminders of why Spain’s capital still takes a bad rap from the traveling gastronome. One reminder, different from the heavy cusine rap, came in the form of a restaurant titled “Paradis”, of which there are two. I don’t know if I ate in what is the original Paradis, at Marques de Cubas, 14 near the Palace Hotel and the Thyssen Collection, as there is a second Paradis in the Casa America. All I know is that the Paradis I ate lunch in committed the original sin of restauration: not caring a whit.. How ironic it was that the restaurant itself, discreetly tucked away on a narrow street, was tastefully designed in a spare, modern fashion with an abundance of glass and chrome, walls paneled with expensive, if not exotic, wood, and rather pleasing Miro-inspired contemporary prints. Yet they knew they had a captive audience of local businessmen for lunch who have to not know or care about food. My squid salad had been overly refrigerated and a Norwegian Skrei fish that the restaurant made a big deal about by printing a special little brochure was ruined with a tasteless cream sauce. The lack of care and effort made me so incensed that I told the waiter what a terrible meal I had had. His answer was to shrug his shoulders, walk away, and say, “I’m sorry”. Previous expeditions of Spanish bar-hopping for the purpose of eating Spain’s best-known food category, tapas, had always left me with the belief that the category was vastly overrated until by chance I walked past a classic circa 1900 bar that appeared both welcoming and, judging from the window display of foodstuffs, appetizing. Just a block up the street after making a right turn out of the main entrance of the Palace Hotel, this “taberna” named Cerverceria Cervantes at Plaza de Jesus, 7 provided me my first memorable tapas séance. Sidling up to the big “L”-shaped mahogany bar manned by half a dozen or so bartenders and tapas-preparers, I decided to make a dinner out of my visit as soon as I saw the most extensive tapas menu of my life; approximately 50 choices of shellfish, pates, “tostillas”, hams, anchovies, tortillas, potato dishes, and then some. I began with impeccably fresh baby shrimps served on a large piece of toast and covered with a rich, creamy sauce of garlic and parsley, followed by a slab of pheasant pate accompanied by several pieces of toasted bread. I ended up with a plate of perfect- textured and slightly saline grilled octopus in olive oil. By the time I had finished, the Cervantes was jammed packed: a testament to the superior quality of its food. Note: www.alreddedores.com lists the names, addresses, and telephone of well over 100 tapas bars in Madrid. Second only to tapas as Madrid’s best-known food form is the “Cocido Madrileno”. In the tradition of hearty cold-weather traditional, heart dishes such as “bollito misto”, a “cocido” is a must-have dish in any survey of Madrid dining. I must admit I was uninformed about “cocido” until I mentioned to eGullet’s parapetetic Plotnicki that I was going to Madrid. He highly recommend a hotbed of “cocido”, Taberna de la Daniela (General Pardinas, 21) in the Salamanca section of Madrid, a rather gentrified and residential part of Madrid not far from the city center. A preliminary evening visit to Daniela for tapas revealed another old “cerverceria”, brightly-lit and with old decorative blue tiles and a dining section where should-be-hungry diners ate their lunchtime “cocido” every day. The tapas selection here is much smaller than at, say, Cervantes, sticking pretty much to shellfish and the wonderful fresh, unpreserved anchovies. Daniela is a friendly spot, but one that I wouldn’t recommend for tapas per se, although my “bomba” of roasted potatos covered with a spicy red peper sauce was hearty and delicious. When we returned a couple of days later for the “cocido”, for which one is well-advised to reserve ahead (91-575-23-29) as we were almost shut out reserving during our tapas visit, we made sure our stomachs were almost on empty as the owner of Daniela warned us on our first visit that we wouldn’t feel much like eating dinner after their mid-day “Cocido”.It turns out he was right, although it seemed to us that we exercised some restraint once we started in. “Cocido” consists of three parts: a soup, a platter of vegetables, and another platter of beef and variations on a pig. Daniela passes out a history and general description of the dish to each customer. I was able to read enough of the Spanish to learn that “cocido” is several centuries old, has no religious bounds ( a couple of parts were very Jewish,: obviously all the pork stuff wasn’t) nor class bounds as well since rich and poor have always partaken of this creation. Our waitress first brought a large bowl of chicken soup with thin noodles; nothing more and not for putting anything in it, unlike, say, with a cous-cous. It was agreeable, nothing special and not necessarily better than your grandmother’s version. Several minutes later the two platters arrived together. Chickpeas dominated the first and were accompanied by boiled potatoes, cabbage, carrots, and what I could only describe as “kishka”. When I asked our waitress to write down the ingredients of it, she wrote in Spanish what my brother translated as “stuffed balls”. The meat section was unstinting. My dining companion and I each were given a boiled chicken thigh;a ham hock; a beef bone with marrow; several slices of boiled beef; a small piece of “morsilla de Burgos”, which is a sausage of pig’ blood made with onion, butter and stuffed with and rice; a slab of pork fat; and some boiled pork from the same breed of pig that the “morsillade Burgos” was made from. With all of this were two thick sauces you put on everything, of which one is a natural tomato sauce and the other made from garlic and parsley. There was no question that this “cocido” left me full, but whether it also left me full of enthusiasm is questionable. The experience is best characterized as “eating for the sake of eating”. As far as its ranking in the “unadorned, down-to-earth, multi-ingredient” food universe, it wasn’t near the top for me. I found the going rather bland, without as much the contrasting flavors and textures of, for example cous-cous or “bollito misto”. Cocido strikes me as a dish to have once or twice a year. Of course, I intend to try it again in another restaurant or in another variation or season. It is an integral part of dining in Madrid. These reservations aside, I am more enlightened for having lunched on one. (Coming later: An institution for seafood, an Old Madrid restaurant, and the city’s Michelin two-star chef from El Bulli).

Ajay, always make eye contact with every staff member and say "merci" for every little thing they do for you. In other words, give everyone (and that includes busboys) their dignity. You cannot lose doing that.

Andy, I never spent enough time amongst you to develop a phony British accent. Thanks for your understanding. You're a good lad.

I apologize and deserve the bashing I got. I guess that's what happens when you spend just a bit of time in England and hear an epithet we don't use in America.

You cannot leave as vital an issue as this is in the realm of "It could have happened this way, so let's leave it at that". This is an etymological concern that must be nailed down by getting as close as possible to the genesis of the use of the word among New York Jewry. Never give up. Call in the Safire Brigade. Go to 42nd Street if need be. Don't be a quitter.

I knew I would hear from the usual suspects. Maybe we should have gone there instead last Tuesday. How many eGullets can fit at the counter? Oh yes, anyone know where you can get a good cherry lime Rickey? I used to score that at the Gems Spa.

Steven S. I guess it comes down to how you equate what one does at Alain Ducasse, NY and in the rest of the Essex House.

A friend of mine told me he was going to the B&H Photo-Video Store this weekend. In my sometimes-whimsical manner I asked him if he were also going to get something to eat at the B&H Dairy Luncheonette, which I though had ceased to exist some years ago. To my surprise, my friend told me this morning that he had walked past the place on Second Ave. at 7th Street on his way to see if there were still egg creams at the Gems Spa (There no longer are, for it has become another Paki newspaper and magazine store). Having spent many hours eating sour cream and berries; fruit and cheese blintzes; borscht and sour cream; and even delicious tuna sandwiches during my Bohemian youth in the 1960s, I am dying to know if anyone has eaten at the B&H lately. Of course I'll be heading down that way, hoping to relive memorable meals and noshes of my distant past and seeing if my man Neil is still behind the counter. (I figure he would only be 72 years old or so). Nonetheless if there is someone with whom I can compare notes, fire away please.

My academic pal, holder of the Chair in Jewish Studies at Austin doesn't have a clue. My own view is that it is derived from what I call the "Essex House Sign" phenomenon in which whatever came after the adjective "appetizing" somehow became extinguished or obliterated, altering the sense of the original intent.

Steven, it is starting look like the origins are oral in origin. But let's see what the academics say.

Making use of a Safireian device, starting a sentence with a gerund is the mark of an accomplished writer. Regarding the origins of the word "appetizing", I am using the resource of my academic/intellectual relationships to try to find a definitive answer. Discovering it may just be impossible, however. Wishing you all a good and appetizing weekend, Robert

Adam, have you considered going to the latest Michelin three-star L'Arnsbourg in Alsace instead of, or in addition to, L'Auberge de L'Ill? You'd be hot stuff and have a great conversation piece. Furthermore, we need a report.