Steve Plotnicki
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Posts posted by Steve Plotnicki
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"One can only hope for Janet Street Porter's sake that she has no need to avail herself of the services of an ear nose and throat consultant"
Tony - She must not be Jewish. If she was she would share the chronic sinus troubles that plague us due to thousands of years of Jewish inbreeding. I wonder how she feels about gastroenerologists?
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Jin-I am certain that if you served the type of people we are talking about a mass produced chicken, they would have convulsions of disgust. But serve them the same exact chicken but having been prepared by a newly arrived immigrant chef who prepares a cuisine that isn't often found in NYC, it becomes fantastic. And this reverse elitism operates at a higher level as well. Take the same person to France and the Poulet de Bresse they hate at a 3 star restaurant is the same one they love when it's served by some old fashioned Grandma type still running a bistro.
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Bux-Over the years I have found Sietsema's work to be pretty reliable. But he has always been a sucker for authenticity over
deliciousness which has made me wonder about his palate. Here, as soon as he says;
"the meal affords a chance for bored sushi chefs to show off, and compete with their haute-cuisine colleagues to pluck the largest bills from your pocketbook."
Sietsema is just another writer (whether in print or on the Internet) who relies on the standard derogation that is code for, this is food for people who have more money than sense. Why do I feel that he would write the same thing about Bras, Adria or Robuchon?
Negativity for Sietsema and his ilk isn't only driven by price, it is often driven by who patronizes a restaurant and do they find the people acceptable. A famous argument amongst that crowd was about the restaurant Elias Corner in Astoria, Queens. It was one of those unknown, cheap Greek fish houses that everyone dreams about finding. Well one day Eric Azimov found it and as a result of newly found patronage from Manhantanites who drove or trained out to Queens for dinner, it moved across the street to a larger home. Well it didn't take long for it to go onto all of the must avoid lists. Now while the quality might have varied some due to increased business, I assure you that they used the same fish supplier, same cooking implements, and from what I saw every dish was grilled to order the exact same way it used to be. But to read about it you would have thought the quality of the food became the same as what they served at Red Lobster.
I often wonder why there is such consternation about food, the price of food, and who gets to eat food. I'm quite happy that dinner tomorrow night might be a $5 souvlaki sandwich and a beer from a storefront on MacDougal Street and then the Taylor Bay Scallops with an expensive bottle of old riesling the next night at Union Pacific. Tis a shame that not everyone sees it that way.
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The best pilaf I know of in NYC is available at the Uzebekistani
Cultural Center (kosher) just up the street from the Kew Gardens, Long Island Railroad Station. "Plov" as the Uzbecks call it is a sort of dry stew using rice and lamb. It's quite good, and a heaping portion of it is available at the center for about $10. I've enclosed a recipe.
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Ah this is typical rich-baiting. Anytime I read a review that focuses on describing who else is dining there, that is code for not like us.. While I can understanding describing the crowd in general terms, focusing on specific people to the extent Sietsema has, is of no relevence to the food in any way, or to the experience of eating there. And while I am someone who certainly looks the crowd over whenever I eat anywhere, it hardly affects my meal. But when he says "they give a collective cheer, as if savoring the cash flow," he isn't holding back any punches.
Regardless of whether one likes the food at Sugiyama or not(and I know people who go both ways about it,) one couldn't possibly describe Nao Sugiyama any other way but as being sincere. To eat there and to describe him or his staff any other way than being at your beck and call, one has to have gone there with an attitude to begin with. And if you wanted to understand why the prices are so high, all you have to do is have a conversation with Nao and he will tell you all about the special effort it takes, not to mention the cost of flying in many of the ingredients from Japan. That Sietsema, who would gladly delve into the most obscure details when reviewing an Egyptian meal that only costs $10 and would try and learn the source of the molokhiyya the chef used, would gloss over the big point of Suigayama tells me that he is more interested in appealing to his own sensibilities (and those who fit the Village Voice demographic) than getting to the bottom of the truth, or actually finding something delicious for his readers.
To me this is a perfect example of restaurant reviewing being about something other than the food and the service. And although there are many who spoke out in the other thread about the need for restaurant reviewers to be completetly anonymous and free from conflict, may I point out that in this instance, it was the restaurant who needed anonymity from the reviewer. That's the only way they could have gotten a fair and unbiased shake.
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Tony-Well that's because Pires didn't play. And come to think of it, Parlour sounds like a French name to me.
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I had a list of these once from someone who was going. If I only knew where to find it. If I recall correctly, there a few hotel restaurants and the rest bistros.
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Gavin-I forgot about the bread at Patogh. They don't serve pita but serve large flat breads straight from the ovens that they put the meat directly atop when serving.
Tony-How about those Gunners yesterday? Weren't those goals gorgeous.
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Mogsob - Haven't been to any other Sofra location. I left out one of my favorites because I thought it was a little too bare bones for Charles's. Patoug on Crawford Place off the Edgeware Road. It's Persian, which is a little different than your basic middle eastern. But the kebabs are fabulous. Amaizingly cheap too. But a real hole in the wall.
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Ckbklady-Excellent responses. But isn't the easiest way to solve the booze problem to have a seperate check for booze so those who boozed it up can pay for it? What does that have to do with splitting the cost of dinner?
"Gosh, it seems odd to be defending that when the original argument in this thread was about folks who don't pull their own weight.
Well that all depends on how you define pulling your weight doesn't it? I would define pulling one's weight as offering to split the check equally. And when you say this,
"so successfully that it eliminates thorny issues of resentment "
In my experience people who try and calculate a check to the level you are describing cause resentment.
Maybe everything in Vancouver is backwards?
Bux-So far despite offering to pay the extra charge caused by a supplement on numerous occassions not a single person we ever dined with accepted my offer. In fact, I stopped offering because of it. But I have to add to this that quite often I will offer to buy the wine because I see a bottle on the list that is out of everyone elses price range (either because they don't have it or they don't have a tradition of drinking good wine) and I would say that about 80% of the people accept, and the other 20% insist on paying their share no matter what it is.
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Jeremy - You are both a brave man, and an honest one and you should get an award. And your theory about subjugating is correct. Except it wasn't people to the kitchen, it was those fresh ingredients to boiling water. I recently ran across this in an old book.
Ye Olde British Recipe
Take one gallon of water and being to a boil in a pot that is twice the size of the water. When the water reaches a spirited boil, throw every ingredient in your kitchen into the pot, larger ingredients first. Add one pinch of pepper and one pinch of salt. Stir occassionaly. Cook until every ingredient loses its shape and color. When the contents of the pot reach the deepest color of grey and brown possible, cover the pot and cook until all of the moisture has been cooked out of the mixture and the contents of the pot turn to a paste that is sticking to the side of the pot.
Take a pie tin. With a large slotted spoon, fill the pie tin about half way up the side. Cover with a sheet of fresh pastry. Keep filling tins until you have used the delicious looking contents of the pot up. When you have used it all up, let the dog lick the spoon. Melt some butter and brush each pastry. Take a fork and run it along the pastry making crow's feet on top. Put the pies in the oven and bake until the pastry has browned Serve with a side salad and a pint of mead.
Yum.
Tony-I just want you to know that at 9:00am NYC time tomorrow morning I'm going to the Sporting Club on Hudson Street with my sons and 7 Brits to watch Arsenal whoop Chelsea in the FA Cup Final on the big screen. Go Gunners!
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"Dear me, Bux, do I belong to the Wrong Circles? "
Ckbklady-Gee that's old school. Is it still the 50's out there?
In my best imtitation of Cabrales;
1. Has it ever occured to you for any reason that you should just split the bill equally?
2. If you split the bill equally, do you think the results would be much different?
3.Did anyone ever suggest to do it differently?
(And this one is a real Cabrales specialty, a multi-parter
)4. And if someone suggested that you do it differently, and your portion came out to more that your meal actually cost, would you feel gypped? And conversely if it came out to less would you feel like you cheated anyone?
5. What if anything do you think this custom says about your relationship with the other people?
6. If you switched to splitting up the bill in equal proportions, would you feel differently about them? Would you feel closer, more distant?
7. And finally, after all these questions, aren't you sorry you admitted to this?
Yvvone-I didn't raise Balducci's to claim that things are top quality there. I only used them as an example as better than the A & P. But in the days I used to shop at Balducci's, things were pretty much top quality. Maybe not the very top, but pretty good. But those were the days when my office was on Astor Place, and Citarella and Eli's had not yet opened on the Upper East Side. I hear the quality at Balducci's has fallen since Sutton Place Gourmet took them over. But maybe while we're at it you can enlighten us as to where you think you can get top quality downtown. This way if you and Dr. Mr. Yvonne invite me for dinner, I won't show up with one of those gauche gifts from Balducci's.
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Bux-I think, and I think that most will agree, that dining is a social occassion first and an expense second. The cost of going out to dinner isn't really the cost of the food, it's the cost of the experience. And when two couples split a bill equally, even though there was some disparity as to the cost of what they ordered, it's a statement that says they equally had a good time. On balance, that equity outweighs the inequity in the cost of food ordered.
In any event, people on tight budgets can navigate their way through this by announcing at the beginning of the meal that money is an issue, they are watching their budget and they would like the bill to be split according to what they order. I do not know anyone, including me, who would be put out by this or find it offensive in any way. Unless they really could afford it and they were just being cheapskates. But to go through an entire meal, only to have this issue come up at the end appears as pettiness because as you point out, that isn't the social custom in NYC.
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"I'm telling you, there are innumerable people who feel deep in their souls that a hamburger made from supermarket chopped meat can make a hamburger every bit as good as ground Kobi beef"
Stefany-While this is true, what is also true is that people have come to my house for a BBQ and announced "this is the best hamburger I ever eaten." Two weeks later they call up to reciprocate and when you show up they serve you Puppy Chow. But it would be just as easy for them to say to us when inviting us that they enjoyed the burgers we served them at our house that they wanted to know where we got the meat from? You see, it isn't really all that difficult if you think about it.
I think most people don't know how to spend money on food (I am going to start a whole thread about this later.) I think they have preconcieved notions and habits that they just can't break. Many people would never in their right mind think of going into a place like Balducci's and plunking down the cash for top quality ingredients. Of course they like it when it is served to them in someone else's home or a restaurant, but they define eating at home a different way.
I think it's a leftover (good pun no?) from the way Americans organized their lives in the 50's and 60's which is when the great food consoldation happened in this country. Dining started with a weekly budget to be spent in a large grocery store. When purchases were pretty much confined to a single place, people got used to buying whatever it was they offered. As a result, quality dropped and items like margerine were able to make headway with a captive audience. Can you imagine margerine being a big item with an old fashioned dairy store? Of course not. It's a mass-market item. So your father's right. But that's because the food industry has confused the butter/margerine issue so badly, demonizing butter in the process, that people can't tell the difference.
"All I know is that anyone invited to your place is pretty lucky."
Play your cards right
Jaybee-I think selfish is just a variation on cheap. It just adds the component of self. Why someone's cheap doesn't really matter, Cheap is cheap.
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""people who do not know how to reciprocate". I don't quite get this"
Stefany-Reciprocating is not innate. You have to learn how to do it. For some people it's easy. My father would never show up anywhere without at least bringing a cake so I learned from that. But lots of other people have no compunction about showing up emptyhanded. It doesn't even occur to them to bring something, or send something afterwards.
"If you, Steve, entertain in the way you describe, I can see someone not wanting to reciprocate by entertaining you in their home. You just do it too well.
But that's silly. We're happy if people grill up hot dogs and hamburgers. The issue with people entertaining isn't what they serve, it's the quality of what they serve. Hot dogs and hambugers can be great, but not when the chopped meat is from Pathmark.
Rachel-1990 Dominus is about $150 a bottle.
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What an interesting thread. And what a bunch of nitpickers you guys are !
I think this topic falls into three categories.
1. People who are cheap.
2. People who do not know how to reciprocate
3. People who do not know, or are uncomfortable entertaining in their homes, or being hosts in a restaurant
I think things like Adam's Anglican friend expecting to be paid for falls into door number 1. I mean at least she coiuld make a speech about making it up to you someday, or even saying a few special prayers so you'll get nice seats in heaven. Cheap is cheap, whether it be in money, gifts or words. When I was young and I didn't have any money I used to have many friends who were sticklers for splitting up the bill exactly, including assessing the tax (assess is the right word no?) And this was a couple who were almost living together. And even when they started making enough money to discard that habit, they still did it. It drove me crazy because I wasn't really looking for an assessment as to how much Pelligino I drank versus anyone else. Dinner is a social occassion that everyone shares the burden of and if you happen to order the $16 chicken entree instead of the $21 Pork Roast, that's just the luck of the draw. The roles could be reversed the next time. And it isn't that I don't understand that people are on tight budgets. But at some point pettiness outweighs being prudent. Penny wise and pound foolish I guess is the phrase.
My wife and I are very familiar with door number 2. Some people just do not know how to reciprocate at all, or adequately. There is a couple who we let have our very nice weekend home for a week every summer and the gift they leave might be a set of coffee mugs that cost $60. And while one can never have enough mugs, the gift is disproportionate to what they are getting. Not that I care about the gift. But I am certain that nobody evaluates how much it would cost them to rent a house like it for a week, or even how much they save if they were going to vacation in a place like Cape Cod etc. for the week. If it was me, I would take what I got into consideration and buy them a gift, or take them to dinner, etc. in a way that expresses more than here is the requisite gift I have to buy you for this favor.
As for people not inviting you into their homes, I have found that most people do not know how to entertain. And if you and your wife are good at it, they are even more uneasy about having you in their home. My wife and I entertain people in our homes all of the time. We cook extravagant meals for people and serve good bottles of wine. Yet aside from one couple, people don't reciprocate. When people have tried to reciprocate, I have been amazed many times as to how little they know about food or serving a good meal. As you can all imagine, if you come to our house for dinner we put on a production, going out of our way to buy top ingredients. But the types of dinners people reciprocate with are often lame at best. Like you go to someone's house in the Hamptons to find out that they have marinated the swordfish steak with bottled salad dressing. Or they bought rubbery Florida corn at the A & P when there is a stand down the street from their home that has hundreds of ears of freshly picked corn for sale. Sometimes it is so bad it is shocking.
As for me, I'm happy if whomever I am entertaining offers a proportionate response. We have a number of friends that we know from the days before I was a success in business, who can't afford to reciprocate in a manner they would like to if they could. And if they show up at my house with a cheap but interesting bottle of wine, or a tub of some artisinal hot cocoa mix that they picked up while touring the universe, or a box of knishes from Mrs. Stahls in Brighton Beach they picked up on the way out to our house, we really appreciate it. Offerings of reciprocity are as valuable as the thought that goes into them. And a $20 box of knishes that my guests know I will enjoy, and that we can eat all weekend together as friends is worth 10 times more than those nondescript coffee mugs that cost $60.
But nowhere does thus issue come to the surface more than over wine. Since I have a wine collection of a certain magnitude, if you are having dinner with me and it is at a BYO place, I will most likely show up with a few hundred dollars of wine. Sometimes you are dining with people who are wine collectors as well, and they can bring something of interest to contribute to the dinner. But most people do not have a clue about wine, or are happy drinking plonk. Nobody has ever asked me how much the wine I brought cost. Not a single person. And I say this not because I care, but to show that people are clueless. I am quite happy providing the wine at a dinner so I have people to open and share the bottles with. Expensive wine by yourself is a lonely habit. And sharing great wine with others is one of the great joys of life.
There is one couple we dine with about 3-4 times a year. The husband really likes 1990 Dominus and I would bring it with me for dinner, along with an older white Burgundy. Then one day his wife called me because she was planning a birthday party for him and she asked me how much it would cost to get that wine for the 30 people at the party. When I told her the per bottle price, she couldn't believe it. Well she decided it was too much to spend for the party, but since that day, when we have dinner with them and I bring wine, they pick up the check. Now they can easily afford it but that's not the point. Not everybody would be a mensch about it in the same way.
I think that keeping friends is a hard thing. There are so many issues to deal with to keep up a friendship. And when friends grow apart, it happens slowly. And it happens in a way that lags behind the friendship. There are usually small resentments about whatever, that don't get properly aired out (like Jaybee and his non-reciprocating friends) and they grow like mold on cheese until one day, poof. That's why with all of these things, cheap friends, ungrateful friends, awkward friends have to be worked out or forgiven. Or else, poof.
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You know what I love at Kabab Cafe, they take leaves of Swiss Chard and they throw them into a fry pan bubbling with hot oil and they crisp up in about 20 seconds. Then they throw a pinch of salt and something else, possibly sumac on them and they dress various dishes with this garnish. It even inspired me to make them at home and they were fantastic. People gobbled them down. But I have had mixed experience eating at Kabab Cafe. Some great meals, and some really bland ones, though I've never delved into the offal. I find the meats to be too lean at times. And as a result, too dried out from cooking in that saute pan Ali likes so much. And Mombar is cool, but sometimes they are in it a bit over their head there.
Yvonne-Did you just look at Simon's tongue?
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Charles-I often arrive in London between 9:00 and 10:00 at night when taking the dayflight from JFK so I'm used to heading out for a middle eastern meal. There are loads of them that serve late, easily up to 10:30. Probably the best place these days is Noura just behind Buckingham Palace. It's posh too, a nice place to take your wife. Can't be more than a 5 minute cab ride from wherever you are staying. If you are staying on the Park Lane side of the park, you can walk over to Shepherd's market. There are three choices there. Al Hamra and Al Sultan which are both Lebanese (and they alternate as to which one is better for some reason,) and Sofra which is Turkish. But if you get in really late for some reason and are going out at say 11:00, Maroush is good and they have two locations. One on the Edgeware Road which is the main middle eastern shopping street and one on Beauchamp Place which is two blocks west of Harrod's.
Another way to go if you aren't fixed on middle eastern is the Indian restaurant Tamarind. I think it's the best in London (though there will be some dissenters here) and they serve late. It's in Mayfair across from Shepherd's Market. Also a nice place with modern decor. Not a bad wine list either.
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Mogsob-I agree. The 1994 Latour is a terrific wine, as is the Leoville Las Case you mentioned. You should try the Leoville Barton which is really terrific. When they first released the '94's, I bought one and opened it, left it on my kitchen counter. The sucker didn't opened up until the 3rd day and didn't hit its stride until day 4. It lasted until the 5th day! Clinet is good too. There are also a few '93's that are good and really cheap. '93 Clinet being one of them. 1994 will be like 1985 pricewise. Good value and a bunch of good wines to choose from.
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" your anti-Britishness is hippocritical and highly innappropriate. "
Michael-Who is anti-British? I love Britain and the Brits. They just have a history of eating boiled, overcooked gray mush and liking it. What's even worse is the people who like it often cannot discern the good from the bad in other cuisines but they think they can. But one thing is clear after your post, it would seem that the Brits should be expert in jook (or juk if you may.). Their specialty seems to be making gruel out of things.
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Conrad-I will tell you what the issue is. Robert Brown put his finger on it when he said that there isn't any real restaurant criticism. Food isn't substantial enough to shoulder the weight of real criticism. We can view a bad film and learn something from it. Even find something good within it. Technique, directing, good acting screenwriting. Many bad films have excellent aspects to them. But a bad dish merely stinks. Less chance for meaningful criticism.
As for your editor wanting a list of the Top 10 wines, I think that's a good thing. Consumers need to know what to do, where to do it and how to do it. Just yesterday I got my new issue of the Wine Advocate in the mail and it had 1999 Northern Rhone wines. Some of the scores were stunners with a few 100 point wines in there. But Clusel-Roch was mired at 88-89 or something like that. That is a story worth telling for the hard core collectors, but one not worth telling at all for the people who just want to know what to buy.
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Tony-Well you have put your finger on why food isn't art. Food is consumable goods with a high sense of aesthetics that evolves from a design phase. It's the same with cars, fashion or furniture. And that is why reviewers write from a consumer perspective (see should critics be anonymous thread on General Board,) and not from a purely aesthetic perspective. Sarris could do what he did becase films are permanent. They don't change, only our opinion of them changes. He would never have had the same success as a food writer. I think the exception to the rule are architecture critics. Since the aesthetics are so intertwined with the functionality, their writings usually are joyous exposes on how architecture changes peoples life for the better. Just read how excited Paul Goldberger in the Times gets when something new and interesting comes along.
I wish more publications adopted this approach for food and wine. And I dare say this at the risk of slapping ourselves on our backs, I think that is the approach we tend to take around here. Except for that critical Cabrales whose expectations are so high that not just any three star restaurant is worthy of her praise.
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Conrad-You have opened up a new flank in this discussion. There was a discussion similar to this on a wine chat room I frequent that is populated with many professional wine writers. The conclusion the lay people reached was that critics tended to be "critical" of things. The bad they reported on outweighed the good by a large percentage. The critics on the board defended their actions by simply saying that this is what critics do. "Our job is to be critical" they said. But then some smart person came along and said that most people who become critics are frustrated because they have failed at their chosen vocation and have ended up as critics. They then proceeded to name countless food writers, music writers, etc. who fit the description. And it was all too true. It just crystalized in everone's mind.
Even though that might be the case, it seems odd that the public that reads newspapers or magazines would want to read a slew of negative comments about restaurants. But if you look at their penchant for negatitvity as being inclined to root against people and things posh, it sort of makes sense. If you are truly middle, middle class, reading silly things about a place like The Square only reinforces the fact that you weren't going in the first place.
Then there are those who are going to go. That minute percentage of the population that might ever set foot in the place. But even among that peer group, there is class infighting. There are those who yearn for places like The Square in order to be upwardly mobile, and there are those who want to dimiss it in order to establish rhetorical class superiority. Just like your little story of what happened with the trolly at the Connaught. In my not so humble opinion, this is why the quality of the writers, no, I don't mean to say that. I'm certain that given different circumstances people would write well. Let me leave it as saying, why the output seems so poor in many instances.
As an aside, I happen to think that I have named a few of the reasons why the people who frequent this board have been exiled here. I think to a writer, nobody here stresses the negative and we all stress the positive (this wasn't always true but the few who were inclined otherwise are being force-fed
) But I think many here would agree, that our penchant is for hearing about places that we would all want to eventually experience and our attention span for what can be described as a poor experience is limited. We all want to eat. Not just read. -
Mathhew-I think there are two ways to look at this. On the bright side, maybe the numbers are up because of the proliferation of Modern British places. But on the dim side, maybe they just have British palates and don't know any better
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Côte d'Azur Riviera
in France: Dining
Posted
"<i>In some circles the Côte d'Azur has a bad reputation for food</i>"
JD - Isn't it that in some circles the Cote d'Azur has a bad reputation period? I mean the way people feel about the food is just a byproduct of how they feel about the place. It is built up and congested, with apartment buildings and homes almost completely covering the natural landscape. To fly into Nice Aeroport, the view of the coast after the plane makes that left turn at Frejus is pretty shocking. And if it was just the coast alone that was populated it would be one thing. But you can go 5 miles deep into the hills and nearly every buildable piece of land has been built out. I would love to see statistics as to what the summertime population is as opposed to the year round one. I'm not sure if it is the same ratio but, I know that the summertime population in a vacation region like the Hamptons in the U.S. grows appx. 4 times during the season. If you multiply the year round population of the Cote d'Azur alone by 4, you are probably well over 2 million people. And that doesn't count the Var, Luberon,
Vauclause etc.
As for the food on the Cote d'Azur, if you transpose what is happening with food all over France onto the Cote d'Azur, how the quality of ingredients isn't what it used to be because of EU regulation, or because the consolidation of food distribution in France means that the choice of products has diminished, or that interest in food was created by a generation of chefs that are old and retired (though many are still working as ghosts of their former selves), that takes care of a good part of the decline. But the problem is then exacerbated bt the price of real estate on the coast which has gone up so dramatically that nobody can afford to open a proper place anymore. Especially a young chef and his wife who do not want to bury themselves in debt making the investment that Michelin requires they make in order to get 2-3 stars.
I was just in the Cote d'Azur three weeks ago. As I was driving from my hotel which was located a few kms east of Nice to Cros-de Cagnes for dinner, I was noticing how there are dozens of restaurants on the strip between the airport and the restaurant and how amazing it is that none of them are good. Not only that, they are almost all the same in what they serve and they don't vary much in quality. And I think there are only two conclusions you can draw from this fact. One, the French population isn't discerning enough in what they eat outside their homes. Their palates have been "dumbed down" for lack of a better phrase and they are quite content eating mass produced slop. And the second one is that everyone else is a tourist who doesn't know better, or doesn't really care about food.
And the great chefs of the coast are all of a different gereneration, or have passed on. Outhier, Rostaing, Maximin (considering his former life at Chantecler) have not been replaced. Stephane Raimbault, Philipe Rostaing and Alain Llorca will never be worthy of becoming household names. And that is 8 stars right there (really 9) and three towns that make up 3/5 of the geography of the coast losing their gastronomic center. The better question (not to diminish yours just a reframing of it,) is why haven't those restaurants replaced the founders with great young chefs who maintained the glory? Why are the Pascal Barbots of the world cooking at L'Astrance making $60 a head dinners when they can be making $200 a head dinners places like L'Oasis?
And if you think that food is bad on the coast, I think the food in Provence proper, starting with the Var and ending up in the Vauclause is much worse. Of course there are the few places that are terrific, but my experience is that finding a good meal in Avignon or environs is a struggle. I don't know if that it is because the food is bad there, or used to be good and has gotten worse, or that what is available to me on a dialy basis in NYC has made my palate more discerning. Probably some combination of the three.
Now despite my criticism of the Cote, it's still a place I love dearly, both for it's atmpsphere as well as the food. Regardless of the effects of modernization, consolidation and the lack of replacing the food guard, the indiginous flavors of the coast are still a delight to the palate. If you pick your restaurants properly, you can have all of your gustatory buttons pushed in a long weekend, From the taste of the sea, to the way the fish and meat taste when they are grilled in that uniquely Provencal style, to the truly unique veggies they have there, and mostly to the spicy and fruity olive oil which pervades all, including your soap if that is what you want.
So while you find that eating in the hills brings a better result than eating on the coast, I find the exact opposite. Yes I have enjoyed Chibois, and I have had my share of good meals at Verge in the day. But those are internationally styled meals that do not reflect the local terroir in the same way the generation of three star chefs of the 70's and 80's did.
But if you want to eat the real food of the region, where the locals are eating, you need to go to places like La Petite Maison, Loulou or Le Cave or the handful of other places that still exclusively cook in the style of the region. You might not be able to get Fleur de Courgettes au Truffe, but you'll get a hell of a fish soup.