baphie

How does the earth and climate of a particular place tell anyone what a finished wine should taste like? I suggest you delve into the topic a little deeper before writing. It would help to avoid the superfluous redundancies of your arguments. Any predictive powers of terroir have been developed empirically from tasting a range of wines from a particular geographic locale. Chablis is a classic example - the Kimmeridgian substrate does appear to impart a particular quality to the finished product. The classic AOC boundaries of Chablis do have a remarkable correlation with the geological properties, surveyed independently. A winemaker can easily over-oak some Chardonnay that is too high yielding. The end result is something that is Chablis in name only and is of little value to those who seek terroir. I really get the feeling you have never tasted a proper Chablis or a Bourgogne Blanc from Kimmeridgian soils or a Daganeau Silex or ... If tasting is too much to ask, I suggest you read something like Wilson's Terroir and gain an actual understanding of what you are attacking. The ideas are certainly not without reproach, but you are not even in the ballpark. A.

Sharksoup, I don't think anyone is suggesting that it is not possible to remove terroir from the finished product. At least 95% of wines on the market either do this or had none to begin with. So what? To people who appreciate it, that remaining 5% is of profound interest and much investment of time and money. Earlier you suggest that discussing such matters only serves to confuse the beginner or dilettante. Well, screw 'em! Are you suggesting we lower our discourse to the lowest common denominator? The initial writer posted a brief, flawed, but useful entrée into the discourse of terroir. This should not be dismissed so cavalierly wth a list of winemaking trends and techniques. Your DECISION POINTS (sic) are actually extremely relevant to terroir. A winemaker who decides to express terroir is faced with decisions every step of the way. These decisions can either obliterate the unique character of his or her vineyards or express it. Sometimes only trial and error can show the way. That is why the great terroirs of someplace like Burgundy have a pedigree of hundreds of years. Yes, terroir has been and still is used as excuse for deplorable winemaking techniques. Yes, it is not relevant for a large amount of the table wines consumed around the world and for a goodly amount of the best wines as well. It does exist nonetheless. I have a report from a friend of mine, a geologist who recently attending a symposium on the matter, of tastings between identically viticultured and vinified wines from a contiguous slope with differing substrata that show distinct differences between the two wines. Personally observations and prejudices aside, there is a gathering of real evidence for the idea of terroir. A.

Yeah, ask Tony about that look of utter bliss after his experience at the French Laundry. If dining at the best if not for you, just say so. Don't slag it as if anyone who does is wrong and being conned. The phenonemon of elite restaurants long pre-dates the modern cult of the celebrity chef. It is rather nice to see chef's getting their due (and gaining economic power) now. Why is there is need for these asinine pseudo-populist rants from people? Not once has anyone who appreciates the best restaurants ever said that is the only place to get good food and don't go anywhere or you are being swindled. Not once has anyone said to not ever darken the doors of our favorite temple of haute cuisine. It is actually the opposite- just like appreciating any art that is full of subtletly and grace, it does take time and exposure to gain maximum pleasure from it. Learn to use a keyboard and read what people actually wrote since no one said anything you are claiming. A.

I hate to be contrary, but I would give 'M' the highest recommendation to avoid. The price far exceeds the value as it is bad facsimile of top dining establishments in other cities. The food is well-presented and sounds impressive, but has been decidely mediocre in execution. Cameron Mitchell restaurants also have the worst wine markups in Columbus. To be fair, the restaurant has been improving and has made an effort to become more wine-friendly. It is still not at a level commensurate with its ambitions or price. A.

Cincinnati: I reviewed Maisonette in detail here about a year ago. I can also add that Nicola's Ristorante is a very good Italian restaurant. We did a huge wine dinner there in August and he produced some wonderful food including osso buco which could compete for the best I have had in the US. Excellent staff and a lot of fun as well. The Precinct (website devoid of info due to revamping) is a very good steakhouse - one of the few that dry ages their own beef. Great space as it is truly in a converted old police precinct station. I live in Columbus. tammylc's restaurants are OK for the middling end of things here. The North Market is a great place - I shop there nearly daily and Jeni's ice creams are not to be missed. Tapatio is a shell of what it was and not worth the price. Barley's does make excellent beer, especially the seasonal ones. The food is fairly standard bar food, though the deep-fried sauerkraut balls are a occasional guiltly pleasure. Betty's is a somewhat fun pseudo-dive, but if you can't take smoke, stay out completely. If you are downtown, you are in reasonable proximity to three excellent choices for a little higher range of dining: The Burgundy Room (no website)is in the Short North, just above downtown. It features small tapas-style plates and a large by-the-glass wine selection to match. Some of the dishes have been outstanding and the worst have been average. A lot of good wines and at reasonable (for Ohio) prices. Rigsby's Cuisine Volatile is also in the Short North. It is one of our top 5 restaurants and really responsible to pushing our dining scene to new levels starting close to fifteen-twenty years ago. Mediterrean in influence, excellent pastas, laid back, but serious about the food. Finally, there is Alana's. Alana is simply the best chef in town for creativity and energy. Extremely laid-back place just north of OSU campus with funky, eclectic art everywhere. Menu changes constantly as Alana forages for the best and more interesting ingredients. Wines are price at retail + a couple of dollars and the sommelier/co-owner Kevin is a great guy who can find a good wine for anyone. That would be the top three really worth checking out, meaning they are of a high enough quality and are rather singular. There is a very good sushi/asian fusion spot called Haiku, also in the Short North. Very good noodle bowls. Also something on the more unique side is Dragonfly Neo-V , a totally vegan restaurant that can create some excellent food - excellent on an objective scale, not just for its genre. It is just south of campus. There is a smattering of diverse restaurants, ethnic, casual and high end. If you tell me where you will be and what type of things you are interested in, I can be more specific. You might check out Columbus Originals to find out more info on some of our better restaurants who are non-chain, based-in-Columbus, small-proprietor kind of places. A.

Bux, Pax. A.

The point is Bux was guilty of not doing the five seconds of research needed to find an answer that was better than the best of his knowledge, which fell short. And yet he directs hostility at the initial reviewer for same. It isn't about whose mojo is better or whose has a culinary dictionary in their mind. It is about motes in one's own eye and all that. A.

Which is precisely correct. A.

Poussain is a sexless chicken? Weird thought indeed. I'm a poor speller myself and understand why greater minds have trouble with little things like spelling, but it hinders communication sometimes. Poussain is likely a last name in France, or maybe Cajun country. Poussin, to the best of my knowledge, is a little chicken--bred that way rather than just young. Capon is a desexed (castrated?) rooster. The confusion here doesn't speak well about the depth of your interest in food. You are wrong as well, Bux. And showing some un-needed hostility when you are wrong. I initially referred to a poussin as being 'unsexed.' This was probably unclear to someone with no agricultural background and came across as 'sexless.' A poussin is a very young chicken, less three weeks usually. It is not a breed or a chicken bred to be small. Referring to it as 'unsexed' simply means it is too young to have developed secondary sex characteristics which is around 4-6 weeks. "Sexing chickens" has a long history wrapped up with old wives tales about the best way to do it. Modern breeding has eliminated most of the problem by breeding species who have sex-linked characteristics which show up almost immediately. The reason it matters is one doesn't want to waste feed and resources on a cockerel who will have no value in egg production and one is all that is needed to fertilize the hens. Roosters will fight as well. Poussin is considered a luxury item since traditionally the chicken would have been butchered before its sex was determined, thus having the potential of eliminating the resource of an egg-laying hen. A.

Well, you heard from someone else that night who ate the exact same food and said: "I agree that the food was very good, but not spectacular." And I completely, 100% disagree that I was in a "state of inattention": I was incredibly focused on the food. Did I understand everything I ate? No. But did I want very much to enjoy it? Of course! I think your "arch" take on the dinner dynamic is incredibly off. Instead of me trying to impress Alex with mockery and scorn, it meant very much to me that she be blown away by the food. You have to understand that I am a lone rider in my group of friends when it comes to eating: I am trying to convince them that the pursuit of good food is, indeed, a noble one. If anything, I was incredibly sensitive to the food that night because it would have been the best thing ever if Alex had burst with excitement at the table, smacking her lips and saying "this is the most amazing meal I've ever had!" The fact that it wasn't and she didn't may be due to an off night in the kitchen or unreadied tastebuds, but in either case the idea that we blithely dismissed the food is wrong. Fair enough. I think I was unclear - my reading was not that you were trying to impress Alex by heaping scorn on the food or by otherwise betraying what may have been your first inclinations. I felt you were more playing off of her, obviously a strong and witty personality from her profession, though also of a certain anti-elitism/classist edge from your account of her. I feel your own, authentic account or reaction was subsumed or supressed by her reactions. The food may not have provided an epiphany - it did not the last time I was there - but Alex may not be of a mind set to have had one regardless. As I said, that is my reading based soley on your text. Good luck, in all seriousness, on your pursuit. If next time you are in Chicago, I would recommend Tru as a better place for both of you to go. It has a different vibe, no less serious about the food, but also not attempting the same all-encompassing experience as CT. We have taken our (then) 3 yr old son there, not something we would do with CT. A.

I think this is where you will find the biggest disagreement from at least me. Such an account is worthwhile pretty much either for entertainment or for exposing the psyche of the writer. I know it is rather fashionable and post-modern to mock expertise and consider all POVs equal. I think it is solipism run amuck as the writer places themselves before the material and spends more time navel-gazing than interacting with the subject. Interestingly you did attempt to stake a claim to 'expertise' or at least something more than a random truth-spouter. You called yourself an 'aspiring gourmet.' It is also not pretentious in the least if one is an expert on something. Maybe you didn't know what poussin was, but you didn't ask either. It is little intra-textual cues of that sort that lead me to believe you were more entranced (and penis was meant more archly than sexually) with your companion than the food or the dining experience. While it is well and good to post a piece about your experience, you can hardly expect to not be called to account for it - and you have handled that far better than your defenders. Finally, it is common rhetorical dodge to claim to be telling the truth, no matter what. Let me ask you this: The truth is you don't remember the food. Was this because the food was intrinisically unmemorable or were you in such a state of inattention to it that it was not remembered by you? Those who criticize you tend think the "truth" is the latter. A.

When you dine at some place in the upper .01% percent of restaurants, you are paying for a whole experience, not just food. Ingredient costs are higher to a degree as items are rapidly shipped from producers who sometimes produce exclusively for that restaurant. Items are also chosen with extreme care and some restaurants (Chez Panisse orginated this) have dedicated 'foragers' whose job is to find the best .01% of ingredients. Also on the food, there are larger labor costs. Certain preps are labor intensive and will have a dedicated person for that job alone. Other items may take two or more days to prepare. It is true that a lot of the expense goes to things like the flatware, the china, the linens and other element of the decor. The idea is to create an environment that removes the diner completely from the mundane and places them in a world of nothing but the dining experience for 3.5 hours or more. The job of the staff is the same and there is an abundance of staff to ensure that no single thing is overlooked. This staff is also very well-paid, vis-a-vis restaurant averages and places like Trotters have nice benefit packages to ensure loyalty and reduce the turnover rate. When you go to a place like this, you are buying more than nourishment. Evidently for a lot of people, it is not worth it. That's fine -don't go, don't slag it. OTOH, you can look it another way - if you appreciate fine things like high-thread count linens or beautiful china and you can't afford it (and its maintenance) in your household, the price of dinners at these restaurant can be within your reach. A.

We know more about Adam than about the restaurant or the food. That is why it is a pseudo-review. When the "well-dined" have criticized CT, they are actually able to describe what they ate and what was wrong with it. If a dish is remarked upon as being 'unmemorable', the reviewer has credibility, often within the context of the review itself, that it was the dish, not the inattention of the diner. His pseudo-review is like that of someone who wore a walkman to the opera and then criticized the soprano. A.

Ian, I think the issue is that he had to begin somewhere with an open mind. I think, based almost solely on his review, that it was impossible for *him* to have had a great experience at CT *that* night. His mind was far more focused on other things like yukking it up with his companion. If was he following his stomach and not his penis, he might have done a lot better. I remember your review of CT which was less than positive. Your age had nothing to do with it. You precisely and accurately noted the dishes and where you found fault with them. Some defenders of CT attacked you. Since you had actually paid attention to the meal and focused on it, you defended yourself quite well. It was not about you, it was about the restaurant and its triumphs or shortcomings. That, in a puff pastry shell, is the essence of my problem with the pseudo-review. A.

At a time like this I miss those whose electrons no longer grace this place... The quote I believe captures the essence of what troubles me about the review. Poussin is a small, unsexed chicken. It is not 'poisson' or fish. It is like you don't really remember this dish at all (a criticism of the dish or a criticism of you as a critical diner, I can't say), but in using your menu as an aide-memoire, invented what it tasted like. Your prose, while punchy and dramatic, really does lead me to believe you went in with a certain attitude at least subconciously. While there, it was all too easy and fun with your companion to egg on one another one and giggle and dramatize and try to out-do one another in the wit department. I bet the cab ride back was a blast too. That is all well and good and can make for great reading, but is really not conducive to any restaurant criticism of merit. A.

Rent a car and go the the Grey Moss Inn. It is a drive and looks completely whacked in the middle of nowhere. It does absolutely fantastic food like a smoked prime rib. Very good wine list and great people. Well-worth the excusion. I will second Biga on the Banks for more modern cuisine and La Reve for classical French. A. And for BBQ, head elsewhere like Lockhart.

Freisa. Pigato. Ciliegiolo. What's next on the horizon for devoted DEWNies? Have you considered working with some of the autochthonous grapes of the Balkans and Baltic regions? It is always a treat to receive my DEWN wine suprises. Thanks for keeping wine fun and surprising. And pass on a special thanks to Rachel at DEWN Central for being my hook-up. A.

Where the heck are you? First, so I can join the fun and I have a couple of good sources for what can be hard to find rums. Lemonhart is still around and their 151 Demerara is servicable, if not actually good for overproof rum. It actually has some flavor, unlike Bacardi or other frat bar 151s. Cadenhead makes an incredible regular proof Demerara, 25 yrs old. It will make an absolutely divine Mai-Tai, but is also 80$/bottle. You better exclaim 'mai tai, ro ai' after that. For regular rum, I have found that New Orleans own N.O Rum is excellent. It has a complexity and sweetness that really shows in even in fruit juice laden drinks. Trader Vics also makes Mai Tai mix, which I assume it what you mean when you say your ordered mixers. It is passable, but making up your own fresh is preferable and easy. Speaking of which, Vic's original recipe calls for 'rock candy syrup.' This is a fancy sugar syrup and can be re-created using rock candy crystals (often most available at beer brewing shops where it is used for certain Belgian beers). A better alternative I find is to make my own syrup using unbleached organic sugar or, second option, Sugar-in-the-Raw. The other advantage to either of these options is that molasses elements present in the sugar can compensate for less than great rums. On your choices - Appleton is very servicable. Can you be more specific about which Appleton? Coruba is not one I am very familar with. For very dark rum, I tend to use Barbancourt 10 or 12. I absolutely loved one from (I think) Guatemala, but have not been able to find it recently. The important thing is to find one you like drinking straight - the Trader liked for the real rum flavor to come out in the ones that specify dark rums. Have a great time! A.

Hmmm. That brings back good memories of Baum Vivant. We last went there five years ago when Death in June played in Pittsburgh. My overiding memory is finishing not one, but two foie gras and wild rice stuffed quail. Absolutely delicious, but totally lamentable as we stood in line in freezing winter temperatures smoking clove cigarettes in a futile attempt to keep warm before the concert. From a couple of threads, there seem to be more than a couple Pittsburgh area Egulleteers around. If you haven't been to Baum Vivant, it is well worth it. Maybe some sort of gathering is in order? I would gladly come in from Ohio. A.

As Rocco sat there on the Tonight show, fake smile plastered on his face, listening to Daryl Hannah's rambling, I almost started to feel sorry for him. He looked like he was having an epiphany ... oh Gawd, next stop, Hollywood squares!

I got the New Braunfels one that CI recommended and have to say they messed pretty good in recommending it. The construction is completely flimsy and barely lasted the entire grilling season last summer. It got to be totally useless for smoking as none of the interfaces closed tight enough to seal and I had only a vague control over the amount of air passing through. My biggest complaint was that the pan for the charcoal is made of very cheap sheet metal and warped so completely that it no longer fits in the grill easily and make flame control a joke. I think CI just gave it a couple of quick tests and that was all. I just got a CharGriller and, even before assembly, am impressed with how heavy the box is (cast iron grate and solid metal construction.) A.

We stayed at a hotel called Terrassa which was suggested by the staff at El Bulli. Pleasant and functional and inexpensive (two rooms for two nights < 200 $) and right on the beach. The biggest plus was a beachside cafe about one hundred meters away that had perfect roast chicken. El Bulli is not hard to find - you just drive from Roses through a lot of curves and you are there. I don't recall too many choices. The intial turns involve navigating Roses itself which is stretched out along the beach. I would allot 2.5 hours for the drive. Even on a Sunday AM, there were a lot of wierd slow-downs and other problems that prevented optimal driving. I also remember the rental car return being extremely slow and time-consuming. OTOH, we were flying out on the first plane to the US post 9/11 so my time recollections will be a little subjective. A.

For an individual diner, no. As a general rule, yes. There must be a critical number of diners who can both afford to eat at a restaurant and who wish to eat there at the prices set. "Upper-middle" restaurants rely on some pretty tricky economics which very nearly equate to income/class analysis. Business and speaker dinners, theatre/sporting events and local-enough-to-drop-in diners who can afford 100$/head are what keep these restaurants afloat. Those conditions both require and generate the economic critical mass in which a restaurant can thrive.

Our middle-class, I think, is less homogenous than in Europe. That is why we have a plethora of middle and upper-middle restaurants that do very good and creative cuisine, are able to charge relatively high prices and attract a diverse clientele. We have a large enough middle class who have the means and desire to go to these restaurants on a whim as well as a strong business class which helps support them as well. In Europe, the price level of some our middle restaurants would make them special occasion only restaurants.

Thanks. A history of aesthetic criticism is too far out of bounds for here (and brings back too much painful memories of grad school.) My really short, fast opinon: My inclination is to say that thoughts about food seperated themselves from thoughts about art long before there were sociologists. Even leaving aside the major religious aspects of food and food choice, the classical era writers looked at foods in physical and metaphysical terms: Foods as medicines. Foods to achieve goals like strength or sexual attraction. The Pythagoreans avoiding beans is well known - the reason debated. Detienne (I think) has written about some really bizarro stuff involving lettuces. In short, aside from a handful of conoisseurs who wrote chronicles or travel guides, classical writers almost uniformly considered food on the material plane only. From classical times to the modern era, food writing falls into two categories: commercial and proscriptive. Commercial writing is the source of food and restaurant criticism as it evolved from simply cataloging yields and transactions to judgements and criticism. (The history of the 1855 Bordeaux classification is a nice example, especially how it has evolved from its commercial roots to pretty much the basis of wine criticism today.) Proscriptive writing is by far the majority - food as medicine compilations, recette books, etc. On the aesthetic level, food exists almost purely in the symbolic realm - Renaissance painting being a great example. As sociology begain to take form, food was naturally part of it. It would be fairer to say the *lack* of food was part of it. And where food was present, sociologists and cultural anthropologists were more interested in analyzing the role it played in the larger society, especially the symbolic role. Levi-Strauss' 'The Raw and the Cooked' is a perfect example. Sociologists didn't co-opt food later in an academic power grab - it was theirs from the beginning. Aesthetes and aesthetic criticism had never really embraced food for itself. Some reasons are purely practical as unlike even a play whose words and directions can be written down, the experience of a meal is very hard to communicate. One can write about a progression in Aristophanes plays w/o actually seeing each one. It would impossible to do the same about a chef w/o experiencing personally each dish or meal. Secondly, there is a very strong, almost Manichean split in aesthetic attitudes. Experiences that do not involve direct contact, like viewing painting or sculpture, hearing music, reading words, are given a moral supremacy to experiences in the physical world like food, wine or sex. Christianity is only partly to blame as this attitude is readily apparent in Classical times. In fact, we still have it at least subconciously as we (as a society) equate overweightness with a lack of moral qualities. Lastly, and as an off-shoot to the above, even jaded aesthetes viewed what occurred in the mind as the primary goal. In 'A Rebors,' Huysmann's ultimate aesthete uses food simply as a tool to a mental state - eating rosbif at a Parisian English pub while wearing English clothes to mentally take a trip to England. To answer your question, aesthetes did reject food as real art. When criticism as an academic discipline really took off, all the factors above were already in place. In addition, these new disciplines were either formed almost entirely out of Marxism or deeply informed by them. A pre-occupation with food and enjoying it would be most bourgeoise and hence rejected. The conservative critics almost universally came from a social background where 'good' food was simply just part of life. Roast beef, stilton and claret, regardless of actual quality as we would perceive it, was part of the expected means of life and only worth comment on the same level as a well-tailored suit. Actually learning about food, which is necessary to properly criticize, would also be condemmed as bourgeoise and arriviste. As aesthetic criticism grew and took more forms under its wing (eg movies), it just left food alone as the territory of the symbolic - what you ate (McDonalds vs cheap, ethnic) as a political choice is far more important than criticizing the food itself. It even goes as far (as I can personally attest) that to call the output of some cheap "Indian" restaurant 'shit on a plate,' makes you politically and morally suspect. That is not an environment to foster serious critical methods. Also, aesthetic criticism is not at all in fashion in academia, even with the fine arts. The type of analysis of the morphological evolution of a dish is considered hopelessly old-fashioned (and smacking of conoisseurship) when applied to the arts. Along side all this academic/aesthetic writing has always been commercial writing which naturally ranks, rates and criticizes as a tool for making markets work better by providing more information. Historically this is the origin of restaurant and food criticism and, as your lament which started this topic indicates, restaurant reviews display their roots with every sentence. Before I left academia, I used to get into rousing debates as I would argue that a serious aesthetic approach to food was at least as worthwhile as blathering about the latest moronic, shock-value performance art, mainly since here was an 'art' form taken all-too-seriously by the critical community that was at least as transient and experiential as a restaurant dish or meal. No dice. Or julienne either. Sorry for the excursion into academic drivel, but I hope it answers your question, A.