leviathan

In California, at least, the popularity of it is probably due more to its perceived health benefits and low calories.

What about Lutece? Would that still get four stars today?

Since the last post, anybody have any other comments about how the mall is performing for the non-new yorkers reading this thread. I don't know about that. The sterotypical suburban mall's popularity has been waning for the past decade. Traditional anchor stores like Sears are trying to decouple themselves from malls, and build stand alone stores. Developers are coming up with different types and variations on the mall to revitalize the format.

How big of a role do undocumented workers play in the highly regarded, high end restaurants? I can see how undocumented workers would negativley affect wages at the local lower tier and mid tier restaurants and diners but my argument is that you're seeing the biggest wage disparity at the high end restaurants. Would these high end restaurants really need to turn to undocumented workers and train them to execute the restaurant's dishes? I always thought that there was an oversupply of chefs who were willing to work at these restaurants to gain experience and to learn from the work, where they were willing to get paid less money. These same chefs and cooks could probably make more money if they worked elsewhere.

D'oh!! I need to stop reading and replying so late at night/early morning. What do you think about these pans specifically for eggs, ie omelete pans and egg pans? Does that specificity transalate to a better food product? Or, should I just stick to a more versatile tool, where I can use it for more than just making omeletes? And, I know that you highly recommended pademo and sitram for sauce pans, but do you also recommend these brands for skillets as well?

I kinda have to disagree with that. For some people, service is more important than the food. In those cases, I could see why wages for FOH would reflect that. But, for others, like me, the food is more important than the food. I'll be willing to go somewhere where the service is abysmal if the food is good enough. Yet, in both cases, the FOH is rewarded more. I would argue that you're seeing the biggest wage disparity at the high end restaurants, where the FOH can really make serious coin even as the line chefs and other chefs in the kitchen do not share this wealth. Lower end restaurants, there's still a baseline for chefs but not the same upside for FOH. And, if the above statement is true, then from an economic point of view, the reason this is because we're witnessing a upward sloping earnings profile for chefs in that situation. In these high end restaurants, line chefs and other chefs are underpaid and willing to be underpaid because of expectation that they will be compensated for this experience and thus rewarded in the future. What these chefs are essentially doing is building up their resume, where they're willing to get paid less now, with the expectation that they'll be rewarded in the future with executive chef positions and salaries. But, they need the experience and the prestige of the restaurant on their resume to get to that point. With waiters, they're getting paid an efficiency wage because they don't have the same motivation as the chefs. There's more or less a ceiling on these waiters. There's no point getting paid less today because they're not going to get overpaid in the future. I think the tip should be split, where some of the money goes back to the chefs. When I'm tipping, my tip does not reflect just the service, but the food as well. By keeping a percentage of the tips, the waiters would still have incentives to perform a good job. Of course, I could be totally wrong here. You're talking to a guy who seriously thought he was going to fail his economics class and get kicked out of school.

Is blanching a popular technique in a Chinese kitchen? I've never seen it, but I've noticed some Chinese cookbooks that utilize it.

Sure, if there was a French restaurant, we would be talking about the high price. But, there wouldn't be this same reaction here where people are implying that its a ripoff and how it couldn't possibly justify that price given its ingredients. Let's face it. There's a certain hierarchy with regards to price points for different styles of food, where people are willing to pay more for french food. A chinese place could use the same vendors as the french place, but it would be exceedingly rare if it could get away with charging the same prices. And, there's no similar restaurant where you have a master chef basically preparing all the dishes for you in a similar manner as Masa's. If Kellar or Ducasse was doing something similar to this, how much do you think they'd be charging for that? Hey! As somebody from Orange County, next to LA, I must defend the honor of LA. I think somebody is just jealous that they can't live in a McMansion, where we have more closet space than clothes, more bathrooms than necessary, and gourmet kitchens that we don't even use.

I don't know if we would be having this discussion if Masa was serving French food. To me, if you're going to spend serious money at a restaurant, I would think you'd want to put it down for sushi to get the freshest sushi possible. And, I'll point out that for this money, you get to actually taste what a master chef was himself cooked. Masa is the one, with the help of two or three helpers, who's doing all the work. The same can not be said for other master chefs like Ducasse or Keller or Colicchio. As their empires have expanded, those chefs have had to spend less time in the kitchen. Even in restaurants which aren't try to brand itself and roll out other ones across the nation, the chef isn't personally making all the dishes but is taking on more of a supervisory role to make sure that the dishes pass his muster. What would you pay to have Thomas Keller in front of you, making all the dishes personally?

Along with the alcohol and subsidized rents, I'd also point out that sometimes, that these high end restaurants real value is the prestige and name and the brand which you can then spin off to more profitable ventures aimed at more mass market audience. In fashion, the haute coture lines don't make any profit from selling its line of dresses, even if the dresses cost a small fortune. Instead, the real money comes in from licensing the brand of the haute couture into products such as perfume. Most people can't afford a haute couture dress but they can afford to buy some perfume. I think you're increasingly seeing this phenomenon in high end cuisine, probably started by Wolfgang Puck. You've got a number of highly regarded chefs who are then spinning off restaurants and chains off their high acclaimed, prestigious restaurants- Jean George V., Tom Collichio, etc... For most people, they're not willing to spend the money to dine at Craft or Jean George. But, then they hear Tom C. has opened up some stores that are selling sandwiches, and they'll try those out sandwiches because those are more in their price range.

I've noticed that most Chinese restaurants don't emphasize wine or alchol as much as other types of restarurants. I guess, in part, it might be harder to pair wine with Chinese food. But, at the same time, that's always puzzled me because I know that the sale of alcohol is where most restarurants make their biggest profit. How do Chinese restaurants compete with the loss of that revenue? And, why don't they?

Interesting thread. But, its funny about your critisims about repeating flavors and ingredients and wanting to be Iron Chef, since don't you have to do that on that show. Its difficult to judge a dish, without tasting it, but I can see why you weren't fond of the whole thing. Were the crusts supposed to go along with the scallion flan? They're so small, that it would have been difficult to pick them up to eat, right?

I've eaten there a number of times, but I usually stick to the same dishes so I don't how well they execute all the other dishes on their menu. In fact, I remember when it was Seafood Paradise across the street that got all the business and would send overflowing customers to Cove, which I believe was its little sister station. But, then Cove was sold off, and the new owners just used the exact dinner dinner dishes Paradise used for its lunch specials and so then everybody started to go to eat at Cove instead of Paradise. Last time I went to Paradise, the dishes were different and more influenced by Thai.

In business jargon, they use the term 'sticking to your knitting', ie sticking to what you know and what's made you succesful. You see this same idea when consultants tell restaurants to edit down their menu, to focus on a limited number of good dishes rather than a much longer list of dishes that end up tasting mediocre. I think the same idea would apply to a pan asian cookbook. It takes a lifetime to master Chinese or Japanese cooking, so I don't see how a author could succesfully master all the different cuisines of Asia and understand the differnent nuances you're looking for. By its very nature, these pan asian are usually painted in broad strokes, where the nuances get lost because the author only has a certain limited number of pages and time to focus on a particular region before the author has to race to cover another region. Perhaps, you might be better served by getting several different books, where each book focuses on a particular style like Chinese or Thai cooking.

But, in Chinese culture, we respect our elders. Unlike the youth-obsessed culture in America, we don't see somebody as peaking when they're in their 20s and everything else that follows as downhill. With age, comes wisdom. I'm really impressed by all the things you're teaching us here, and I don't think that you as a twenty year old you would have been able to pass down all this knowledge that you're currently feeding us. If you ever come down to SoCal, I want to treat you to lunch for all the things I'm learning from your posts. As somebody who has a family history of diabetes, I'm curious what changes you need to make. Rice would be a no-no, right?

Oops. Yeah, that's what I meant. So, I guess I can finally go out and buy a cast iron skillet- I saw a cast iron skillet and cast iron grill pan and didn't know which one to buy, if there was any signifigant difference between the two. And, let me add another question: when we're talking about nonskillet pans and how they need less oil than using a conventional skillet, isn't that a bad thing? I would think more butter or oil would add to the flavor and taste. And, that that the high boiling temp of the oil would encourage more maillard reaction than using no oil.

Would it be accurate to say that western cooking has had a bigger influence on chinese cooking rather than vice versa? Maybe, I'm wrong but I always thought blanching was a western cooking technique that later became popular in chinese cooking. With limited fuel, would it really be feasible for blanching to take place? And, there's peanut oil which was introduced by western traders but has become so ingrained into chinese cooking that when I automatically associate peanut oil with chinese cooking.

When you do use a cast iron skillet vs. a cast iron frying pan? I understand that in a frying pan, the rigdes would get the food apart from the oil or fat but I don't understand what the advantage to that would be. I guess I'd be mainly use the cast iron for pork chops and steaks but it seems like you were saying you could use either one, provided the skillet was large enough.

Okay, I just read through the entire eCGI course and the subsequent Q&A, and I've got a massive head ache from reading it. But, so far, this is what I got from the person who was responsible for the course: 1) woks may be good for braising, steaming, frying, etc.. but they are not good tools for stir frying in a american kitchen. 2) if you are going to use a wok, cast iron wok would be the best solution and the thicker the cast iron, the better for stir frying 3) cast iron woks are traditional and authentic in chinese kitchens 4) since woks aren't that good for stir frying, he recommended you to use a stainless lined heavy copper curved sauteusse evasee

When I buy a can of grass jelly to drink, I always find the strands of grass jelly too long and so there's always some left at the bottom of the can after drinking it. Anybody have this problem? I've also tried making it, but when I tried fiddling around with ratios, it never tasted the same as the canned ones.

What's the difference between congee and shi fan? Maybe, in SF that's where the money is and american diners are more adventerous in SF, where both factors help support higher quality chinese food in SF. LA and NYC are the richest cities, and they can afford to buy and support high quality food.

If you look back at Season 1, I don't think that's true at all. They had a couple of people like Candace, who was still a student at culinary school, and other contestants who never had a shot of winning. Before Season 1, this show didn't have any credibility so it seemed at times that they were scrapping the barrel. But, with the success of season 1, they were able to get a higher caliber of contestants. Yet, even with more qualified applicants, the show still picked up chefs like Mikey. From what I've read, the producers thought Mikey was hilarious, and chose him on that basis. Only afterwards, did they ask about his cooking background. What the producers are really looking for are archtypes and entertaining characters. The producers know that they can fill the show with a number of chefs who don't legitmately have a chance but still retain its legitimacy by choosing a couple of contestants with some real skills. If you wanted to, I think you could get on the show despite limited culinary background if you were willing to play up the home cook angle. From a story point of view, that storyline of home cook vs. professional chefs would be a winner- the nonchefs at home would root for one of their own, there would be a certain amount of drama seeing a non-professional try to compete, etc.. But, if you did go, be prepared if you go onto the show, where they'll edit your characater into a one dimensional portrait. Even if a chef doesn't win, the exposure would certainly help you as long as you didn't come off too badly. It would certainly open up oppurtunities and doors.

I suspect there might be a difference when you're using a toaster oven vs a standard oven. I took some of the dishes that the Union Tribune used specifically for a toater oven, and compared recipes using a standard oven for the exact same dish. Specifcally, I was using the roasted asparagus recipe since it doesn't have a lot of components and would therefore isolate the differences between toaster oven and regular oven as much as possible. The Union Tribune's recipe called for you to preheat the oven, then bake the asparagus at 375 degrees for twenty minutes. No two recipes are going to be exactly alike. But, I found a recipe pretty similar to Union Tribune, where they preheated the oven, and used a temp of 350 degrees. But, for this version, they were baking it for only 10-15 minutes. So, it seems that you may have to adjust the recipes if you're using a toaster oven, at least, in terms of time. Too bad since this means I would have to go out and get a specific cookbook geared directly for toaster oven users. If the house passed the home inspection, does this mean that the oven should work? So, in this case, I can't turn to a building manager or even neighbor for help. Its unlikely that neighbors have the same oven as I do; mine is one of those GE ovens, circa mid 80s, with a built in oven and microwave on top of each other. I haven't ever used it, so its not like it would have since broken down from overuse.

Any recommendations? I know there's a thread about Thai places for LA, but I didn't see any recommendations for the Orange County area even though I've passed by a number of Thai places behind the Orange Curtain.

I can see your point, but I was thinking more in terms of quality of the menu, where its better to concentrate on a limited number of good dishes rather than a longer list of mediocre dishes. This way, a customer is less likely going to encounter a mediocre dish if the restaurant edits down its choices. I think I read in some of your older threads that you used to work in a Chinese restaurant. You should join us in this thread, and offer us some of your insights: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=98909