Wilfrid

Well, so much for Caribbean Blue! I like Meson del Jamon (I thought it was Museo del Jamon, but I am not absolutely sure) - but like so many Santo Domingo restaurants, the servers (while perfectly nice) have little idea what they're doing. I'd say the same of La Bahia, the fish restaurant on the old part of the Malecon - nicely refurbished, with good, simply grilled fish, but the staff are a bit puzzled by the whole deal. I asked one of the captains at Vesuvio about training waitstaff in the DR, and he said there were some schools. At Vesuvio, it looks like the waiters train on the job, and the skills get handed down generation to generation. Damian - in my experience DR and PR food are indeed similar, but some dishes are made with variations. For example, I understand PR sancocho includes potatoes, while DR never does.

That's the bit without which we can't get much further. Tommy, the knife storage thread looks pretty safe.

I would rather eat my shoes than question the sincerity with which, Adam and Craig, you advance the premise about red wine and cheese, but it has also become a rather fashionable thing to say. It doesn't prove anything that millions of people have enjoying red wine with a range of cheese for a couple of centuries, but I submit that one can't simply sweep that aside. And there were a number of experts in that sample, along with all the tourists. Yes, there are mistakes to be made. Pungent blues, served at room temperature, will challenge most red wines (if you serve the cheese cool, it's a different story; I suspect because some of the chemicals responsible for olfaction are less volatile at refrigeration temperature). But try a Roquefort with a beefy south western red like a Madiran or Cahors. Try a cheddar at its proper age with a Syrah or a gutsy Cabernet (no, not Cheval Blanc 1929 necessarily) . I hope your local cheesemonger, Adam, doesn't keep all his cheddars until they are dry, blue-veined and crumbly. Okay, here's a specific recommendation. Try some Single Gloucester (not Double) - again, you're looking for a fresh specimen, not dry and certainly without any veins - and try it with a light, affordable Burgundy. I would suggest a Volnay. Does that work for you?

What I meant to imply was that I don't think this discussion group - and I include myself - has any great contribution to make to the field of sociology, and should perhaps stick more closely to what it does well. As an example, "Jews have a family unity ethic " strikes me as an assertion with little explanatory value; I mean, Chinese people don't? Mexican people don't? Unless these debates are conducted with some theoretical rigor, we run the risk of coming across as ill-informed, patronizing and smug. We're better off coming across that way on the subject of food.

I look forward to hearing about it.

Thai was about the only plausible contender last time we discussed this. That may be an exception at that level. I agree about French and Japanese food, of course, which largely make up the fine dining category. But if you put Thai in one pan on the scales, in the other pan - just for New York - you have German, Mexican, Latin in general, Italian, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Jewish, need I go on?

And so did I. Investigated it last Friday in the company of an expert. I enjoyed the pizzas enormously. You can mix toppings (maximum two maybe?), so we shared a soppressata/margherita. The crust was delicate, crisp, but still pizza-like, with the little charred puffs around the crust which remind me of pizzas actually eaten in Italy. The topping was tasty. The chef ventured out of the open kitchen, so one eGulleter pinned him to the wall, while the other shone a torch in his eyes and peppered him with questions about his pizza methodology. They cook the pies entirely on a grill, with no overhead heat. The grill is set to different temperatures so the pies can be moved around (must be a big grill), ensuring that the toppings become molten without the base becoming burnt. No oven. Well, for me, that answers the question whether excellent pizza can be made without an oven. The slices are easy to cut, and can also be approached as finger-food. They hold their shape beautifully, only the moist center showing some sag. We also found room for some hot, crispy deep-fried olives. My entree was the quail: a sausage and apple stuffing in the de-boned - a flavor which I'd associate more with a goose or turkey, but it was fine. Good crunchy brussel sprouts from the long list of sides. We didn't take in much wine - just a drizzle of Dolcetto. Too loud, of course, but I thought the church-like look of the place was most attractive. Service de-celerated markedly after we'd been served entrees.

Time off for good behavior?

Not to reject that completely, I need a lot of persuading that immigration is not far and away the most important means by which cuisines travel. I've always said that French is a special case. Japanese too - in both New York and London, Japanese cuisine entered the market at the top end, catering just about exclusively for a populous, very affluent Japanese business class, not necessarily resident in those cities. I do have trouble thinking of example of cuisines travelling through promotion, connoisseurship or tourism, though. As to the white noise on the thread, the generalizations about the class-identity, motivation and aptitiudes of various ethnic groups, strike me in each case as largely false. That's often the way with generalizations. But, merchants - are they related to tourists?

Nobody's perfect. Glad you enjoyed it - certainly I recognize some of those dishes from my recent dinner there.

Shad roe. Shad roe. Bless it. This time, each carefully separated lobe well-seasoned and wrapped in a strip of bacon, sauteed in butter. Pan deglazed with white wine (the roe still in there), and a further five minutes gentle poaching. Sprinkled with chopped fresh cilantro and the buttery pan juices spooned over.

Is another factor the likelihood that the overwhelming majority of readers are not actually going to use the review like a consumer report? I suspect that, like book and theater reviews, most readers read for pleasure or casual interest. They may use restaurant guides to help choose where to dine, but I wonder how much stanb-alone reviews are used like this on a regular basis. If my premise is right, there seems to be no need for a reviewer to do any more than is necessary to produce a readable, entertaining and reasonably fair piece of criticism.

Thank you, Jaymes. Meantime, I walked past Monte Tecla at the weekend, which brought back some memories. On Eight Avenue in the theater district, it's been closed for a couple of years now, but I see no new business has dared invade it's malodorous premises. This was a Latin-run dive, smoky and grim. The regular clientele seemed to be Cubans, still wearing the white suits and fedoras in which they left Havana around the time of the revolution, playing cards and drinking tequila. I also have a vague memory of a woman of around ninety, dressed in a Flamenco costume with heavy, heavy make-up, clearing the tables. A different world.

What is this "cherve" of which you speak? If you mean "chevre", that's just French for goat's cheese and covers such a wide range of soft to medium-hard, mild to overwhelmingly strong cheeses, that to discuss it generically is meaningless. Oh, I'm stern today. I think your premiss is wrong too - failed matches between wines and cheese always strike me as the exception. Maybe the best way to do this is to list the best cheeses you can source, and then we can instruct you what to drink with them. See any Isle of Mull cheddar around your parts, for example?

Indeed, I haven't seen it reported here, and haven't been myself. Look forward to hearing how it goes.

I've been to Hartford. Must be nearly ten years ago, and in the dead of winter. This is a great thread. I am not participating much because I don't have many suggestions - why I asked. But I'm certainly getting good ideas, and I hope others are too.

Would I be disappointed if I assumed this was some kind of "pub"? Not donuts and beer, in other words?

Of course, of course.

Damn. Hard evidence. We're not used to that kind of stuff round here.

Canned beans.

We have a Dominican Republic-based member at last, so maybe we can breathe some life into this old thread. My enduring favorite in Santo Domingo remains Vesuvio, but I quite liked La Reina d'Espanya last January: elegant dining room, professional service (rare in the DR), and acceptable, not brilliant, food. I recently read, however, that Caribbean Blue is by far the best restaurant in the city. I don't suppose anyone has been there? It's in the Zona Colonial - I've walked past it but had no reason to go in.

One of the many deficiencies with that approach is that it leaves you unable to explain change. Ten years ago, that position would have dismissed rabbit and oxtail, for example, as inferior ingredients, on the basis that they people won't pay for them at fine Western dining establishments. Of course, rabbit preparations turn up these days on the most expensive menus, and oxtail noses in everywhere - in ravioli, with foie gras, with monkfish. Equally, foods which were once prized at that level have, rightly or wrongly vanished from such menus. It's the familiar case of a partial, ever-changing perspective being held up as an absolute standard.

I do agree with the proposition. In fact, I asked Danny Meyer about it in the Q&A. I put it as delicately as I good - in terms of "How do you try to maintain your standards?" rather than "Why aren't Gramercy tavern or Eleven Madison Park as good these days?" Interestingly, his view was that restaurants take a year or so to settle in, then really start performing at their best. That hasn't been my experience.

Pueblan? Mmm, you're half right, Steve, which is better than completely wrong. Yes, we evaluate cuisines within a framework created by our own experience, perspective and understanding. If a cuisine doesn't fit that framework, however, that doesn't necessarily indicate that the cuisine is at fault. It may be that we need to re-calibrate - if I may - our critical parameters. I can conceive of a cuisine so poor that we can't find any parameters by which it can be judged positively - but I think such cuisines are pretty rare. Evaluating all cuisines by a single, narrow set of standards - as my signature now indicates - tells you very little.

It's not Tuesday. Wrong again, Tommy.