Steve Plotnicki

Performance art is what the losing side calls the unimpeachable evidence when they can't argue the facts. They make statements like, "To me that just sounds like a very feeble and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to escape the consequences of previously stated theories" when they can't show a single piece of evidence that it is in contradiction to anything previously stated. Do you have any? Or they call the position absurd when the data pretty much shows that people spend around the following on meals; French - $90 Japanese - $80 Italian -$70 Indian - $50 And not only doesn't that look absurd, it seems pretty clear to me how people value things. Calling the numbers, or me absurd, just won't make facts that are sticking to your shoe like you know what, go away. Otherwise my review of Babbo is not all that different from the other times I have eaten there. Which in the past you have pretty much been in agreement with. So there isn't much to say about that one either. But if you believe that my review is somehow inconsistant with past theories about dining there, or anywhere else, or is inconsistant with my general view about life, art, religion or politics, feel free to quiz me. But only against the actual details of what I have said. I do not intend to respond to arguments that are based on; "To me that just sounds like. "Sounds like" is what it sounds like, an attempt to draw an inference that I have contradicted previous statements. You haven't offered any evidence that I have. It can't "sound like" I have, I either have or or haven't. Without you offering any contradictory statements, the inferences run in my direction, not yours. But that was a nice try.

Fat Guy - My theory is about levels of cuisines. It isn't an analysis of individual restaurants. Those are two different things. What I say is that people place a higher value on a restaurant that serves higher quality cuisine, and they are willing to show that by paying more for it. It has nothing to do with how successful a restaurant is, only what level a restaurant performs at and what type of experience they offer. Just because a restaurant offers a high cuisine doesn't mean it is any good. Take La Pyramide in Vienne these days. They offer haute cuisine. It's a poor one, but it is haute. But let's look at some of the juicy information the market does have to offer. For example, here are a few restaurants and what Zagat lists as the price of a meal; Alain Ducasse $193 Babbo $66 Chanterelle $87 Daniel $96 Jean-Georges $92 Il Mulino $74 La Caravelle $80 La Grenouille $87 Le Bernadin $88 Lespinasse $95 San Domenico $66 Scalini Fedeli $73 You see a pattern there Fat Guy? I sure do. The Italian restaurants are all in the $60-$70 range. The French restaurants are all between $85-$100, save for Caravelle and Ducasse. Now do you think that this list shows that people might value French cuisine differently then they value Italian cuisine? How about if I list some Indian restaurants; Ada $53 Chola $38 Dawat $44 Tabla $62 Tamarind $47 Tell me, that people aren't prepared to spend more than around $50 for a traditional Indian restaurant, do you think that is a meaningful piece of information? How about Japanese; Jewel Bako $61 Kurama Sushi $108 Nobu $74 Sugiyama $92 Sushi Yasuda $61 Do those numbers have any impact on you? And you know as well as I do, the Jewel Bako and Yasuda numbers are way low. It's really more like $100 a person when you order the tuna, salmon and hamachi tastings. Not to mention the Uni. So I will stick to my proffer. But I make no representations that price within a category is indicative of anything. It might be and it might not be. But it is pretty much determinative between cuisines and categories. But if you really need a formula to figure out if individual restaurants perform well, well that's an easy one. It's called ASK STEVE P.. That's the quickest and most reliable way to find out.

Well it's not boring. The menu reads interestingly enough. And it's not underpriced. It's pretty much at the right pricepoint for what it is. But it is very much unimpressive. At least as to the level of proficiency in the cooking. And it isn't like we were rushing. They were rushing because they wanted to turn the table. But actually our meal was unusually short because we didn't have any dessert. That's because as the missus said, "nothing looks good." Which was okay with me. After a week of heavy eating in Florida I could easily skip desserts for the next 6 months.

You need to restrain yourself. Actually, we requested a 5:30 reservation because Mrs. P wanted to watch the Acadamy Awards. And indeed we were out of there by 6:45. So you're out of luck on that one. Otherwise, I wonder how popular Babbo would be if they were charging $200-$300 a person for food before wine, tax and tip, just like a 3 star restaurant? Probably not very. That's because people would conclude the food isn't worth it which is the real issue. But at it's pricepoint, which is what, about a $90 check, yes it is very popular. But those were good tries Fat Guy. Keep up the good work. And while you're at it, why don't you explain to everyone why when you want to go out for a special occassion, you go to Ducasse and spend at least twice the money, if not three times, you would spend elsewhere. How come you don't you go to Babbo or an equivalent instead? Roz - She hasn't been to either. But I like Lupa the best of all of the restaurants and I'm sure she would as well. But to take it a step further, she actually said at this dinner that not only was this food sort of mediocre, most places are mediocre. I have to agree with her. It was a good evening for her pronouncements. I don't know if you've been keeping up with that crazy spice thread but, I was explaining the conversation to her and when I got to the part when I told her I was asking about a Indian version of haute cuisine, she cut me off in the middle of my sentance and said, "I'd like to try something like that." I guess that's why we're married .

We worked off a gift certificate given to Mrs P. by a client at a 5:30 table for two at Babbo this evening. I am so unimpressed. I feel like I could yawn for a month of Sundays. My Brasato was okay, but sooooo nothing special. And Mrs. P. after eating the Mint Love Letters (about which she commented while shrugging her shoulders, "tomato sauce, without really enough kick to it") and having Stuffed Pork Loin, gave the restaurant a resounding there is no reason to come back here again rating. Which is as good as the kiss of death in my book. In fact I hesitate to say this because I do not want to cause a riot amongst its fans but, the simple Bistecca Fiorentina I ate at Tuscan Steak in South Beach last Saturday evening was far better then anything we ate tonight (the 1998 Siepi we drank with it wasn't half bad either.) And I am certain that if the people who rave about Babbo were served that steak with their eyes closed, and were told it was prepared bu the great Molto himself, they would pee in their pants like they do for his lamb chops scotta ditta. But the night was saved by a bottle of 1982 Gaja Barbaresco Costa Russi. I figured since this meal was being subsidized, I would spring for an important bottle that I never drank before. Very, very good bottle that was a few mmmm's short of a great one. Didn't have the class of the Sori Tilden. But it opened up during dinner to show a pretty powerful, if slightly alcoholic bottle of wine.

Craig - It is not me who raised the issue, it was you. You said; "Without a doubt the most disappointing dining guide I have used in Italy is the Michelin guide. Time and time again I have found overpriced food in an international style often served by a bored staff with an environment and owners that are riding on their laurels. Of course, there are notable exceptions but this does not excuse the expensive disappointments." All I did was explain your disappointment to you. If you were going to praise the Osterie Guide, you didn't have to take a shot at Michelin while doing it. That was your choice, not mine. As for the ratings, they are not boring. I find numerical scores way more important then any written text can be. Especially when the text is in a language you can't read. And my menu Italian happens to be pretty good. Ratings are a clear and concise way to describe the level of cuisine a place serves, or the level of wine that is being offered. For me the text is only important once it is anchored by the rating. For example, the Osterie Guide has 8 listings in Firenze, none of which I am familiar with other then Cibreo. And I have no way to make out which ones might be better then the others, or which one serves something special. But if one was rated 15, and the others 14 and a few at 13, and they listed a special dish or two, that would be invaluable information that would go ten times further then the 5 paragraphs they typically write about each place which I can't read because it is in Italian. Sandra - I will lend you my copy. But you better spend 6 weeks at Berlitz first.

Well the reason I don't know is you haven't described what made them so unusual. Nor why it wouldn't be considered everyday cuisine. But that has been par for this thread. There have been lots of representations that what I am asking about does exist. But there have hardly been any examples of it existing other then, unexplained mystery restaurants that are up rickety flights of stairs and which serve cuisine that doesn't look like it but which really is. And I'm the one pontificating? Sheesh.

I know it runs against the egalitarian desires of the Slow Food Movement, but this is a book that is desparately in need of a rating system. Sure you can glean a lot of info from it, but you need to read and understand Italian. It would be so much more useful if they rated the places. But then that would stress the individual strengths and weaknesses of the various restaurants and that would go against the communist manifesto that the Slow Food Movement stems from. The other thing about the book, and the movement, is that it glorifies good home cooking beyond what it deserves. This is something else that gets buried in a book that is in Italian and which has no ratings. But aside from the above, it is quite a useful book. As for Michelin in Italy, well they are looking for a high Italian cuisine. And it isn't that Michelin disappoints, it's that the nuvina cucina movement in Italy has pretty much been a failure when weighed against cusines from other countries. Michelin happens to do a good job of ferreting those restaurants out. It's not their fault they aren't great restaurants. It's pasta remember? If I can throw in my due lire for a few unusual books, I have one here called Enoteche. It is a list of what appears to be esoteric wine bars all over Itay and it has descriptions of the wines they carry, and the food they serve. The other book I have, which is indipsenspible is " il dizionario dei Gesti Italiani" by Ivo Saglietti, which as the name sounds, is a book of Italian hand gestures. My favorite one is 'non me ne importa."

Okay that made me laugh. Soon I have to leave to go to Babbo for an early dinner. One of my wife's clients gave her a gift certificate and it needs to be used by Tuesday. So I'm going to suffer, all in the name of a free meal .

Pan - Someone named Dr. Parce makes the most famous Banyuls. It is also the wine they serve at the restaurant Lucas-Carton with their famoius Canard Apicius dish, which is boiled in an herb broth and then roasted in sweet and sour spices with honey. Glyn - I used to eat at Bouley Bakery quite a lot. The cuisine you described doesn't sound that different from what he used to serve bck thn, especially the phyllu crusted shrimp. Thoguh your meal sounded good, I've been waiting for a reason to go back there but you haven't given me one. Glas you enjoyed your meal though.

Tony - I was only using Dover Sole as an example. Change that ingredient for any of the ones you mentioned. I believe that if you want to taste top quality corn-fed chicken, or top quality seafood, the spicing is going to have to be toned down. Let me give you an example. Recently I had dinner at Union Pacific. They served a truffle risotto with red shrimp that were flown in from Spain's northern coast. The dish was terrific. Why? Because the truffle flavor didn't drown out the unique taste of the shrimp. But I also had what they called "Risotto" at Zaika in London last year. And I think it was shrimp as well, although I'm not sure but someone can check the archives. That dish was not successful because it was overspiced, meaning the spicing was so heavy you couldn't taste the flavor of the rice or the shrimp. Therein the difference lies. Western style dining will always revolve around the former. And while it might just be my prediction, I do not believe that what we accept in the west as the proper balance between ingredients and spices is going to change. It has nothing to do with "mildly spiced." It has to do with with what I think a universal concept of proper spicing means in the west. I predict that Indian cuisine will adapt to that standard.

This quote shows your general ignorance (or refusal to ackowledge) the validity of what I am saying. I am not talking about delicious food being the standard. I am talking about unusual and unique techniques being the standard. It doesn't make a difference to me what type of technique it is, French, Indian, Mexican etc. It just has to be a high level of technique that is not practiced in the daily restaurants people eat in, which sounds to me what you ate up those rickety stairs. Otherwise you can continue on your ad hominem. The more it goes on instead of giving examples to refute the assertion, the more it looks like you can't refute it. You can't prove anything about food by speculating what I would think about the physical condition of the restaurant. But you can keep trying and you will just keep looking foolish and like you don't know anything about fine cuisine.

India Girl - Nobody told me there is. Everyone said that it's the same cuisine prepared better. Even Tony in his last post says the following; "I've been trying to tell you that a better version of the cuisine exists than perhaps you've had." As I have been saying, I am not asking about a better version of the same cuisine. I am asking about a higher version of the same cuisine. If there is such a thing, nobody here has disclosed what that is. Even the dishes you listed, those are pretty much the same dishes you can get everywhere. Tony - While I disagree with your conclusion, at least this makes progress. But if you look around you and see how cuisines redefined or reinvented themselves, it's all about combining ingredients and techniques from different cuisines as well as toning down the spicing. "Redefining" when it comes to Indian cuisine means that somebody is going to figure out how to sauce a Dover Sole properly. And properly means, in a way where the spicing and saucing technique doesn't interfere with the taste of the fish. That is because affluent diners pay 25 pounds for a top notch Dover Sole and they are paying the money to taste the quality of the fish, not the quality of the spices (non-Indian diners that is.) I do not expect this to change. To say this is not the way it is going to go is to be blind to what is going on around you. And this has nothing to do with French versus Indian technique. It has to do with what affluent diners want to spend their money on. And if you do not think this describes Indian diners in the west, it will when we are talking about what their children and grandchildren will eat.

All of this is fine and dandy but, the conversation went down this road because you refused to accept my answer to Adam's question. If I recall correctly, my position was that as cuisine becomes more and more globalized, that Indian chefs would have to tone down their spicing routines. You took exception with that statement on the basis that their cuisine was already sufficient and didn't need any improvement or tinkering with. I disagree. I believe that there is a level of Indian cuisine, yet to be developed, that will be a haute cuisine equivelent. In fact I think you see this phenomenon going on in almost every cuisine. I don't know why this statement bothers you and some of the others so much. But it obviously does because you have been arguing with me about it for 10 pages. If as you say, you really didn't care about it, you needn't have responded to the original statement, which in my opinion is both fairly unexceptional as well as describing something that can be an improvement. But don't argue with me for ten pages and the say nobody cares about it. It's too late to adopt the "nobody cares position" because you have cared for the last ten pages. Nor have I seen you or anbody offer evidence that refutes my original assertion. Indian cuisine that is adopted as part of a globalized cuisine will be less assertive with their spicing. Maybe you should take a different approach and realize I am pointing out something that is actually happening? And if the chefs who practice it are talented, they will generally improve all cuisine[/b.] I do not see what there is to argue about with that statement. But somehow you have managed to do it for ten pages.

I'm flattered. The ad hoiminem meter always approaches the red line (and sometimes goes past it) whenever I get this close to the bone of an issue. Meanwhile, I am still waiting for someone with knowledge to demonstrate a different cuisine other then the same cuisine available at Diwan and Tamarind. Not a better version, a different cuisine. Does it exist and who knows about it?

Pan - That was true at the time but in the second half of the nineties the wines from Campania became quite famous. Two of them, Montevetrano and Terre di Lavoro sell for in excess of $100 a bottle in good vintages. I happen to like them very much, in spite of the fact that they are made in a super-modern style. Both wines, as do other wines from the region, have this great loamy and mineral quality to them from the volcanic soil in the region. There is even a grape that is unique to the region, Aglianaco which is what most of the wines are made from. Some of them, like Montevetrano, are blends and in that case they blend it with Cabernet Sauvignon. Otherwise, in the future when we discuss the failure of Italian cuisine outside of the home, I am just going to link it to this thread . One of the problems with Italian restaurant cuisine in the U.S. is that the more refined cuisines are from the North of Italy and there were not many immigrants from those places to the U.S. I mean where is there an authentic Piemontese restaurant in the U.S. White truffles, polenta, risotto are all from the region yet there is not a single Piemontese restaurant I can think of. Nor is there a true Milanese restaurant. Venetian? There was Adam Tihany's place but it was not really authentic. Ligurian? Panzotti at Mezzaluna was as close as we get. So what we end up with is sort of a mishmosh. Even in Tuscan restaurants in the U.S. , it isn't like they are authentic. People serve veal roasted with rosemary and they call it Tuscan.

Rosie - I was a long time fan of that restaurant but my last two visits (last year and the year before) were disappointing. In fact last year's visit was so bad I crossed it off my list permanently. They haven't changed the menu in years and the food and cooking are extremely tired in my opinion. And it is Aventura by the way. Stick with Norman's. My meal there last Wednesday was fantastic.

Pan - I don't have the burden of proving anything. There are people on this thread who claim to have knowledge and the best dish they can come up with is Naan, something I can order for delivery in my apartment from the local Baluchi's. I have been asking these people for 10 pages for a list of dishes or descriptions of cuisine that would be the equivelents of what I am describing and nobody has been able to do it. And you accuse me of having no knowledge? How about the people from India? You have Suvir, Anil, India Girl, Nerissa, do they have any knowledge? If they do, for ten pages they have pretty much described wet meat and tandoori. Oh yes, and you eat it with special breads. That every dish prepared in the sub-continent isn't available in NYC or London means nothing. I am asking if they have a higher cuisine that they practice in discreet places. Like the cuisine you ate with your father when you travelled in Europe. Special cuisine that is only found in certain places because the practice of the cuisine is so demanding. So far, the knowledgable people on this thread have not been able to identify if and where that cuisine exists. I will repeat what LML told one very knowledgable person on the Spanish regional thread. You can go on and on about your own cuisine and you can love it to death, but be objective about what it really is. I will not be browbeaten into agreeing it is more then it is, just because a bunch of people who love the cuisine can't hack that it might not include the level of technique I am describing. And while I will be the first to agree that when you are there it is something much more then what you can get here, that doesn't mean the type of culinary technique that goes into making its best example is on par with other great culinary techniques. That is something we can all measure without having tasted the dishes. But in order to do that, the knowledgable people on this thread have to come forward with examples of dishes and the techniques involved to make them and prove their case. They can't prove their case by making statements about me. Whether it is implying racism, prejudice or saying I have the temerity to say what I have said. This discussion is a matter of the real facts, and you either put them forth or you don't. But you can't prove anything if you don't and if you haven't figured it out by now, the burden is on you, not on me. Because a higher Indian cuisine, that is discreet from what is practiced in places like Diwan, does not exist unless there is proof that it exists. All of your protestations and dislike for hearing what I am saying will not change that fact. So far, the only people on this thread who have put forth real examples are Anil with Naan and India Girl with Biryani. Pan has now put forth wedding banquet cuisine. I guess I have to hang around Bombay and make some friends of people who are engaged to be married. Otherwise how would I get to eat it? But getting back to the main point, conceptually, and it depends on having versions prepared with the proper amount of care and precision, those dishes could be the type of thing I'm describing. But they could also be the equivelent of bistro dishes or in other words, fancier home cooking. If you really want this discussion to move on, we need more examples like those with explanations of what makes the dishes so unique and demanding. The position I originally took in this thread, that in order for Indian cuisine to gain worldwide acceptance at the level of places like Daniel or Gordon Ramsey or even Babbo, they would need to tone down the spicing routines and change the balance, seems to be a logical position. And while the response to that, which is really Tony's, that in India it is more balanced then it is in the west, is duly noted, I also make the point that it is only one of the issues. The restaurants will also need to practice a higher level of technique then what is associated with places like Diwan. Not a better version of what they do, a version that transcends what they do. For some reason, people here do not like to hear that statement. I'm not quite sure why? They want to insist that what currently exists is sufficient, even though, it might be improved on in the way I'm describing. And as long as we know Suvir has been looking on, what about Indian sweets? Personally, I happen to like the crappy ones they offer in NYC. I'm quite happy stopping at my little sweet shop in Glen Oaks and picking up some sweets to eat in the car as I drive out to the island. But you have to admit that the state of Indian desserts are atrocious compared to other cuisines. Is there a higher version of Indian pastry making or is what I get in Glen Oaks it? And I don't mean that the Dudhi Halvah is better in Bombay then Bellerose. I am asking if there is an equivelent of Payard or St. Ambrose where the creations are original and employ the same high level of technique that they would employ, and which your neighborhood bakery doesn't know how to employ? But that brings me to a question that Suvir can answer (or anyone else for that matter.) Since they have wheat flour in India, how come a tradition of baking things that rise didn't develop. The breads are flat breads. The pastries from my experience aren't made in a way that rises. I might be saying that in an unsophisticated way but I hope you understand what I mean. Tony - Thank you for adding that. I for one would very much like to see it happen. As I've stated many times, the more to eat the merrier. But I wonder, since people like Simon, Anil and you, seem so allergic to what they do at places like Tabla, Cinammon Club and Zaika, are people really open minded about the development of a new branch of Indian cuisine?

Oy. Let's forget about experience for a moment. What sets haute cuisine apart, is that it is a cooking technique unto itself. It is not bistro cuisine, not brasserie cuisine, not cafe cuisine, nor the cuisine one would find in a tea salon or a wine bar. It isn't even the type of cuisine one would find in a lesser French restaurant. In fact if you asked anyone to name a bunch of dishes that are from the haute cuisine recipe book, they could list dishes in the thousands. But from what people have said on this thread, and I am referring to people with knowledge, the same doesn't seem to be true about Indian cuisine. The Naan that has been so easily bandied about is available at my local Baluchi's. And I can get Butter Chicken at 15 places on E6th Street. Yes they are crappy versions, and yes in India they would probably be great. But it's the same cuisine. There isn't some different higher cuisine that is hiding out in the subcontinent. It's the same cuisine they serve here done well. I've been talking about a new and higher cuisine then what they serve on 6th Street, or even in Diwan. Not just prepared better. That is why I do not need the experience of eating in India to draw a conclusion. All someone has to do is to describe dishes that would meet the criteria. So far people have brought up traditional dishes like Raan and different sauces used in lamb dishes. It's not the same thing as the description of the deconstructed Tortilla someone serves in Spain, and which was described on this site. I can eat a slice of Tortilla in a tapas bar, a fancy version in a formal restaurant, and go to a restaurant that practrices high cuisine and be served eggs that have been baked and lightly set which have been layered around potato foam. What is the equivelent of that in Indian cuisine? Or let's take a Saag Paneer. There must be fifty ways to combine spinach and cheese that are interesting. They can layer it like a terrine. They can blend the two together and shape it like dumplings. They can mash the cheese on a plate and top it with a mound of the spinach mixture. They can add things like nuts to change the texture. Can I find a reinvented Saag Paneer anywhere or will I always end up with cubes of cheese in fairly gloopy spinach, i.e., a better version of the traditional recipe?

Anil - It is you who is indeed race baiting when you write in this manner. On this thread, in fact on this board, we have only discussed the proficiency of cuisine(s). NOT THE PEOPLE WHO COOK THE CUISINE AND THEIR CAPABILITIES AS HUMAN BEINGS. If you insist on raising non culinary issues in terms of race, you are the one who is indeed raising the spector of racism. If you want to make your arguments you are going to have to find a way to show them outside of calling the people on this thread racists. It very well might be superior (the raan that is). But so far only been one place has been named that serves it and it is in Lahore. And if you look at the recipe for Raan (which I have,) there is no reason you shouldn't be able to get a world class version in NYC or London. Actually, a Gigot a Sept Heures avec Fruits Confits is probably a better example because it is slow cooked. Or a Mechoui in Moroccan cuisine which is slow cooked lamb shoulder. Those three are probably equivelents. The problem is, where do we go after after Raan? Yvonne - Actually once but not very successfully. And I have attempted to cook haute cuisine at home as well. It's a big pain in the ass and after trying to it becomes obvious why it's pretty much exclusively restaurant cuisine. India Girl - Thanks for being level headed as usual. But when you say the following; You are sort of making my point. French cuisine and it's varients (modern British, upscale American, modern Spanish) are so evolved because there is such a strong restaurant culture. If this was the case in the sub-continent, the cuisine would probably be more evolved in the manner I am describing. I am still waiting for someone to come along and say that as good as Indian cuisine is, it is missing the level of cuisine I am describing. It is like there is some grudging reason people do not want to admit it. And my comeback to those who keep saying that I am approaching this with a closed mind is to say, why is it that you can't see that I also might be right about that part of it? As long as we are on the record here, in NYC, the most compliated Indian cuisine I have sampled is at Ada on 58th Street. Don't ask me what they served us. But there were a number of dishes made with soft doughs made from chickpea flour that were more sophisticated then what I usually see in Indian restaurants, including at Diwan.

Nerissa - Thank you for that. Anil can speak for himself as to what he meant. But we know that what what those chefs do is high cuisine. Why should what Indian chefs do be considered at the same level? And I am very serious when I ask that because I don't see why they should be. Have you read what I just wrote on the pasta thread about eating at La Broche this week? They served me "Melted Mozzerella Soup with Basil Pasta (made with gelatin) and dotted with bits of tomatoes. I wish I could find an Italian restaurant that was trying to be as creative and modern and sophisticated in their cuisine as they were being in a Spanish restaurant. Can I find this in Indian cuisine? And believe me when I ask, it's because I would like it to exist. I want high level cuisine regardless of where or how it originates. But if it doesn't exists, a) sombody should just say so and b) also admit that it isn't the end of the world. Because it will exist with time as the market for a "nouveau" (sorry to use a French word but what would the phrase be? ) Indian cuisine grows as the population gets more affluent. Or, it's going to be like Italian cuisine and basically be stagnant and spicing routines will be like different shaped pastas.

What makes the movement truly global isn't that the chefs are dotted everywhere, or that the ingredients come from all over the world, what the chefs who are part of the movement have accomplished is that they have not excluded any cooking technique no matter where in the globe it originates. You can go have a meal at Trio, and for example, in your 22 courses you might have foods that are roasted, sauteed, broiled, grilled, shabu shabu, from a tandoor, wood burning pizza oven, baked like a luau, and anything else you can think of. It is one of the great things about the movement. As to the status of high end dining, being the marketing guy that I am, it surprises me that so few chefs copy some of the great dishes out of the current high emd dining movement. The "upper middle" is very far behind in adapting, and that is because the class of people that patronize those restaurants are very far behind. But you would think the restaurants would implement some of the dishes slowly. I'm going to open a restaurant called Tribute and serve all the best dishes of the movement.

What is happening on this thread is that those who are partial to Indian cuisine, cannot tolerate the truth being told that it pretty much revolves around wet meat with a variety of different saucing techniques, and tandooris which from my experience most often puts out dry and overcooked meats. And rather then face up to those limitations in the cuisine, they would prefer to play the race card rather then argue it on the merits. Anil did it earlier in the thread and a bunch of us ignored it. This time I am pointing out that it is offensive and not the slightest bit funny. And it is no accident that it is cropping up at the point in the conversation where I have put forth an argument that Anil doesn't seem to have an answer to. That no matter how good the cuisine he is describing is, it is not high cuisine by the standards we use today.

You have gone too far and I am not going to participate anymore. I will not be called prejudiced because I have pointed out the limits to a cuisine. If there are examples of Indian cuisine that rise to the level of high cuisine I would be happy to hear about it. But right now the only examples have been wet meats and tandooris that are spiced in a complex manner. That in my opinion is not high cuisine, and I don't know a single publication that considers it high cuisine either. In fact, I believe it will never be considered high cuisine no matter how complex the spicing gets. The point is made and as far as I see, no one has been able to refute it.

Gavin - That was a nice report. I for one like when a chef creates a tasting menu that uses a special ingredient in a few different settings.. It sort of gives the meal an anchor. I also don't think 700 euros is unjustified for 9 courses and wines. Finally, Jamet is one of my favorite Cote Rotie producers but something went wrong in 2000. It isn't the greatest vintage to begin with but some producers made nice wines. Jamet missed the boat for some reason. Too bad they didn't pour you '99 Jamet which is stellar.