melkor

It lets you compare cities against others of approximately the same size. As I mentioned, using that as a criterion is just as good as any other. And not deserving of your derision and unrelenting cynicism. ← Few cities in this country are culinary destinations. The question posed at the start of this topic was why Detroit isn't a restaurant city. Somehow that got derailed by a handful of upset locals with the incorrect believe that their town was being derided. It seems that none of the people suggesting Detroit is a culinary destination actually live in Detroit proper, we've gone round and round about including the surrounding half of the state in 'Detroit' to no avail. As I've said countless times earlier, I'm sure there are plenty of good restaurants - that doesn't make it a culinary destination. Citing Mobil or AAA or any of the other irrelevant tourist guidebooks won't change that fact.

I've corrected the San Francisco numbers above to include the restaurants in wine country that I had previously excluded (even though I think they are a much further stretch than, say, including Ann Arbor in a discussion of Detroit). Manresa was already included in the numbers I originally posted. ← I'd drop the surrounding areas and stick the population at 750k, but it's your list... Either way, what's the purpose of sorting by population other than to show that there are other cities with lots of people and nothing to eat?

Have a look at the Bay Area page. The population you cite includes the restaurants you exclude.

I'm not sure what the point of sorting by population is - Charleston SC has a population of 600k in the neighboring three counties and 100k in the city itself, and has one five star and three four star restaurants on the list you cite... Sorted in some sort of sane way it would rank in the top five or ten nationally by Mobil Travel. It does confirm that Detroit has one good restaurant according to a mostly ignored authority. edit: incidentally, the population you cite for San Francisco includes the people that live next door to Manresa, The French Laundry, Auberge, Cyrus, and Terra. SF itself has around 750k people.

I'd put good odds on it being somewhere in the UK.

Thus, the reason it's called "Michigan's Best." Not "Detroit's Best." ← The results are crap either way. Can we put this discussion to rest yet? Detroit has a handful of places that are good, a large number of restaurants that are unlikely to poison you, and all the usual chains. That, spread across 2,000 square miles, is clearly not enough for Detroit to be any sort of culinary destination; world's best fish and chips, fantastic nachos and all.

Seriously. You honestly believe the best fish and chips in the world is made in some suburb of Detroit?

Seriously, WTF?? They list the olive garden as the best Italian restaurant in the state. The second best Japanese restaurant in the state is Benihana. It's good to see that McCormick and Schmick's edged out Red Lobster and Scotty Simpson's Fish & Chips (second and third respectively) for the best seafood restaurant. That list is a disaster. Maybe that truck stop with the nachos is the best place to eat...

How on earth can a restaurant with a menu like this be the best place in town? I've got no reason not to believe that the food there is well prepared and delicious, but saying that it compares favorably to the best you can find in Chicago and NYC can't possibly be accurate. If the best place in town is serving Nachos then it seems impossible to dispute that Detroit is a culinary backwater. Hopefully, this isn't the best the city (and it's surrounding 50 miles) has to offer.

I prefer the pour-in-mouth (1) pour-in-sink (0) one point rating system. I only like to drink wines that score a 1 on that scale...

So Mario Batalli runs a chain. That's fine with me... Remind me again what he has to do with the Detroit restaurant scene? ← So... Does Detroit have a restaurant critic?

"Sysco shops"? Does Sysco directly operate restaurants as well as supply them? Or does it run an operation that provides all-but-finished portion-controlled dishes? Now I'm curious. ← They don't as far as I know, operate restaurants. There are however no shortage of restaurants around the country that do little more than reheat frozen Sysco product, plate it, and deliver it to the customer.

What area do they cover? Are those places all serving food they cook or are some of them Sysco shops?

How do you define "chain"? Is a group of restaurants owned by a great chef a chain? If so,Mario Batalli and Ray Kroc are equals By the way, I am in no way saying that Kroc is a chef, but he does own a chain. Also, how do you define 'competent' as in "competent food critic"? ← Restaurant Chains from Wikipedia: As far as a food critic goes - I'd give any paper the benefit of the doubt if they've got someone on staff working as a restaurant critic full time; As long as the paper is paying for all meals (no comps), the critic is dining anonymously, and they have any sort of food section in their paper as long as it's printed every week (or more often).

Two enthusiastic locals and a dozen solid restaurants doesn't make a culinary destination. It isn't even clear that whatever area we've arbitrarily decided is 'Detroit' includes a dozen solid restaurants. Would it be possible at all to make a list of the top 50 mid-tier and higher level restaurants in the area without listing the multitude of suburban chains? Is there a competent food critic working at a major Detroit paper?

Milwaukee Public Market ← Westside Market, Cleveland

I doubt it. Convention-goers rarely use public transportation, even in cities (e.g. Chicago) with excellent public transit options. They walk to what's close by, and they take cabs to what isn't. They're usually on expense accounts. ← Maybe we should get some cabs. Detroit is the largest city I know of where you can wait on a busy corner for HOURS and not see a cab. ← And maybe some convention-goers.

Will do

I don't recall my last visit to Milan Michigan being chock-full of amazing food, in fact - I remember ending up at an 'Eye-talian' place. Isn't Milan smack in the middle of the Henry Ford legacy? It is indeed a unique culinary void in the heartland of this country. Once you start including an area a few hundred miles across, you can go from good restaurant to good restaurant until you reach either ocean.

Doesn't the lack of quality restaurants and grocery stores in the city by definition disqualify Detroit as a restaurant city? It's hard to find a populated area the size of the TriCounty region that doesn't have a handful of good restaurants - that isn't the issue. Philly is a food town because the city of Philadelphia is packed full of good places to eat. You can even walk from one good place to eat to another. Detroit (the city) is no more a food town than Box Elder Montana is.

Why not make a half batch and not have leftovers?

Either make your homemade ice cream with an obscene number of egg yolks or melt and refreeze it every few days.

Hah! I just can't afford that level of wine, and I don't have a place to store it correctly. From what I've seen of futures the last couple of years, they don't exactly seem like bargains. ← Futures aren't limited to high-end bottles. A number of the more reasonably priced wines I bought during the 03 futures campaign have moved up in price enough that I wouldn't buy them. 03 Branaire (duluc-ducru) and Pontet Canet both sell for around $80/bottle now, I paid $28 and $40 for them on futures a couple of years ago. 2003 Leoville Barton and Leoville Poyferre are both around $150/bottle now and I paid $58 and $49 on futures. Others like Pipeau, Moulin-Haut-Laroque, Cote de Baleau, and La Tour Carnet are selling for five to ten bucks more than they cost on futures, but La Tour Carnet was the most expensive of that bunch at $20. The 04 futures haven't gone up as much, but they also haven't all been delivered yet. I only bought one case of 05 Bordeaux and haven't bought any 06 - I'm not happy about being priced out of the market. Hopefully there will be some good sales down the road so I can stock up on the wines I missed.

The Detroit News reports: That can't be good...

Given that you can buy seriously good German Rieslings for $15 or less on sale at places like DeeVine Wine I've got no plans to buy any overripe domestic Rieslings. There are some good whites made in the finger lakes, they just aren't available on the west coast and what we can get out here costs significantly more than I think it's worth.