Suzi Edwards

well i'm glad this diary has helped someone make a choice about where to eat. the more time i spend in chicago the more i realise how many more places i have to go to...it's a bit like going into a bookstore and getting novel prevarication. spring is one place that i will return to before i leave. i am sleeping a lot this weekend (still exhausted from my three day trip to london last weekend) and i had a huge meal at monsoon last night, so i'm planning to eat light.... i have a lot of stuff to catch up on and hopefully will get to tell you all about my meals at moto, monsoon, pasteur, le coloniel, nomi and cafe bolero by the end of the weekend. i'm also planning to go to the seurat exhibition at the art institute and do the architecture river tour tomorrow morning. and i'd like to go to the cat/dog santuary on la salle today to play with the animals. i miss my cats so... i think i'm also going to treat myself to ghiardelli hot chocolate and maybe pop by vosges to see if they do it too.

you know, i did give her the option to decide when i dined. but she handled it quite well. i think you might have trained her lady t! Suzi: Hey there. I would like to make a reservation one night next week for one person. I don't want to come Friday or Saturday. R2D2: (calculating ah, i have faced this situation before, i have a choice to make.) Thursday then. Our dining experience takes 2-3 so you must set aside that time. Suzi: That's fine. I'd like a table at 8.00pm R2D2: Would you like our first or second seating. Suzi: Which one of them is at 8.00pm? R2D2: The first seating is at 6.00pm. et cetera

so i've booked to go next week. it's the little things that make you look forward to a place. so make what you will of the following it took 6 MINUTES TO MAKE THE RESERVATION BECAUSE I WAS FORCED TO LISTEN TO AN ADVERT FOR HIS RESTAURANT IN MEXICO (complete with description of the swin up bar) AND ANOTHER FOR TROTTERS TO GO. they are so unsubtle the adverts had literally just ended when she picked up the phone. erm. i don't mind that if i am trying to buy car insurance, but this has rankled a bit. the reservation taker was completely robotic. from my accent she assumed i was staying in a hotel. this was the only personal interaction i had with her. still, i am pleased to know that the restaurant is non-smoking and has full disabled access. it makes no difference to me, but it's the little details, yeah? especially when they're read out to you in a monotone. still, i am now looking forward to my "dining experience" :-)

Suzi - if you get the reservations, I'll drive! oh. i just read this. serves me right for just reading the last post in a bid to save some time/get some work done this week. of course, other people do drive....right mobes, i'll be in touch about this. i think we're going to edinburgh for the festival in august so we should think about trying to squish this in. i'll pm you.

i can't drive. so l'enclume will remain a distant dream for me. i tend to take cabs everywhere and just factor it in to dining costs. but i thought the cost of getting to and from le manoir was a bit much and it is making me rethink my cabbing habits.

did you use your phone for the photos or a camera?

i'd never read this thread because it was too long. i thought i'd just dip into it and have just printed the whole thing out ready to eat over my supper at monsoon tonight.

Any perfume department at a high end store (like Neiman Marcus). Robyn Here is a picture of one of the atomizers we were served... That's not a Neiman Marcus thing. That's a dime store thing. Probably made in China and ordered by the 1000 (or 10,000). I don't know if the restaurant fills the things itself - or whether it contracts the work out. Robyn i just noticed this. robyn, this is trio we're talking about, not burger king.

erm. yes. i like that.

i really, really, really want to go here. the menu sounds a bit like veyrat's to me...might be wrong though. hummmmm. how far is the lake district from leeds? would it be possible to go to both in a weekend if you didn't have a car?

good question. i rarely eat outside of london so i can't comment on the quality of the gastropubs there. is it worth us defining what a gastropub is? not sure we've done that so far. i think i'd like a list. to me, a gastropub is an independant/non chain pub that serves homemade food It is different to a restaurant because the food is generally grounded in european peasant food and there isn't linen on the table what do people think? is that right? it doesn't feel right to me. i'm trying to work out what differentiates a gastropub from a. a pub and b. a restaurant and what sort of food i expect to find on the menu.

you know, it never struck me that the waiter would be getting so much a smaller tip from me than from a two. i feel a bit bad now.

I nearly put that in NulloMondo. So my list is completed by 10. Waiters. Read my body language. If I am totally engrossed in "Lighthousekeeping" by Jeanette Winterson and keep scribbling in the margins, it's likely I don't want to chat about why I am in Chicago. Equally, if every time you come over I ask you a question...maybe I want to chat. What I really mean is, you know when a deuce comes in that if they're holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes it's likely you won't get much out of them in terms of conversation. So you adjust your service according. If they ask you what your favourite thing on the menu is though....

i am here until the end of july.....i really would love to meet people. if it's not too big a group we could do a curry crawl around devon? not sure how logistically do-able it is. i went on a chaat crawl in bangalore earlier this year. my oh my, pani puri streetside. now that's what i call street food.

i think it's because they think you might be from michelin. trio in chicago was the first time i ever ate alone and i was sooooooooooooooooooo scared. petrified in fact. i took three books with me. and my laptop. the laptop was a shield really, it was supposed to signify that i was a business person. i've since found out that one of the waiters told everyone that their job was to make sure i didn't read any of my book. i had the best dining experience of my life. btw, i know my demand for half portions would be a nightmare for the food costs. but i fgiure i ask for that people might come up with something else that works for them...like maybe a tasting plate of desserts. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Doesn't remind me of Willy Wonka a bit. It's the process of "deconstructing" food - pure and simple. Similar to deconstructivist art - or architecture. What would you have thought if the entire dinner was sprayed into your mouth? Would you have considered it a "meal"? Robyn but the whole meal wasn't sprayed into ron's mouth. why doesn't it remind you of willie wonka? why should one atomiser make you think of deconstructivist architecture? i have a basic understanding of what deconstructivism means in terms of buildings (a dismantling of the core elements to disrupt the visual harmony), so transferring that to food, an atomiser of shrimp cocktail isn't deconstructivist at all as it's the flavours of a shrimp cocktail sprayed into your mouth and it still tastes like a shrimp cocktail. it's not abstract, it's a whole flavour profile, it just happens to be served in a different way. jose andres at the mini-bar has produced one deconstructivist dish. he recreates white wine through flavour profiles. i think his clam chowder and caesar salad might fall into this realm, but i'm not sure the analogy really stands up when you think that the food is still recognisably a clam chower just broken down. all of the constituent elements are there... i'm thinking about how a lack of visual logic would translate into food terms and i think it has to come down to flavour. so for a dish to be truly deconstructivist, maybe something radical would actually need to happen to the flavours. there was one incredibly dissonant dish from my first meal at trio but i don't have my menu here so i can't talk about it in depth, but i'm wondering if dissonance could be the key element of decribing food as deconstructivist. or maybe it's the fat duck's jellies. one's beet and one's pepper and you think from looking at them that you know what each one is. but the flavours don't match the colours. hummmm. lots to think about. but i have work to do.

nope, tell me more :-)

And why did you love it? Why did it take you two visits? Robyn i've waxed lyrical about trio lots already and i really don't want people to get bored of me saying the same thing time and time again. did you read the very long report i wrote? it's at the top of the third page of this thread. i personally find grant's food stunning. it works on all of my intellectual and emotional levels. my first meal was so incredible (and i mean that in the truest meaning of that word) that i had to go back. it was not a case of really not knowing why i loved it after the first meal, it was a case of needing to have my reaction to it checked again. it was like reading a great book for the second time. if that book were ulysses. and to be honest, my third visit was even better than the first two. there's something about watching dishes evolve. makes my heart beat a little faster...

isn't that a bit like saying that jaques torres chocolate bought in brooklyn is better than jaques torres chocolate bought anywhere else? i just don't think their couverture is very high quality and personally didn't enjoy it. that doesn't stop anyone else enjoying them. they are beautiful, have very innovative fillings and the shop is so cute it's unreal...but i wouldn't buy the chocolates. now, i didn't notice when i wandered past the store, but do they have a small cafe in the store like in NY? that might be worth a visit.

you can buy enemas in american supermarkets? now i am *really* glad i boycott supermarkets.

I don't rate Vosges to be honest. I went to their store in NY and while they are beautiful I didn't think the chocolate was very good.

egullet as catharsis. it's great. means i can stop pulling the legs off spiders now. am going to try and get out to pasteur tonight so then i can compare it with le colonial. hurrah.

So I just started this thread on another board. Can you guess which Chicago restaurants I am talking about? Solo diners of the world unite

So, I'm on business in Chicago at the moment. I'm eating out a lot. Usually by myself. Sometimes at the weekends, as London isn't exactly commutable. Here are my pointers to any restauranteurs who may wonder how to treat a solo diner. 1. If your restaurant has a great view and there is only one table in the whole place where you cannot see that view, you might not want to sit a solo diner there. 2. Equally, if there is a large mirror in your restaurant, don't sit the solo diner so they effectivily face themselves. 3. Solo diners do not necessarily need to be comped a glass of wine. Especially if it appears that you have chosen the cheapest glass on the list to go with the $40 entree. That's not generous, it's disingenuous and cheap. 4. A degustation menu for a minimum of two diners is a very, very bad thing. 5. I'm not eating by myself because I don't have any friends. So please don't look me up and down like that when I walk in on a friday night for a table for one. 6. Half portions are a good thing. If you're a destination restaurant and your word of mouth is good, it's likely that a serious diner will want to eat with you. If they're a really serious diner they'll be missing the opportunity to taste the food of the person opposite them. Let them build a menu of half portions. 7. It's also likely they're on some sort of expenses deal so they do have some cash to spend. If you treat them well they'll also come back, time and time again because your competitors treat them so bad. They may even bring a friend or two. 8. Maybe your noisiest table of six is not the best place to seat someone by themselves. Just a thought. 9. Nor is the table by the toilet/door/kitchen. But then, no-one deserves to sit there. It's just when the restaurant is half empty you have seating options...it's highly unlikely that a solo diner will scare couples off. I'm not a harpie, I'm on business. Glad I got that off my chest. Am feeling *much* less grumpy now.

it's on my list. as is sugar. thanks for the reminder!