Steve Plotnicki

Yes interactive is good. Maybe we can wire the panel so when they go out to eat, the results are changing by the moment. You know like the read out by the Midtown Tunnel that supposedly keeps track of the national debt.

What's the difference between what you suggested and Zagat?

Stef - Ha, ha, ha. I was waiting for someone clever to figure that out . Fat Guy - But the people who go to your website are foodies. They want unlimited information. They aren't the typical visitor who is coming to NYC for 3-4 days and wants a varied dining experience. It's the same for me. I'm as hungry and as interested in eating as anyone else but I don't need that many recommendations when I go somewhere. I really want to know what the amazingly good places are. The rest really has no meaning to me.

No I am claiming that the market that wants the information about high end restaurants and the market that wants it about cheap eats are completely different. And it isn't that the high end market doesn't want to know about NY Noodletown, but their interest in that level of dining is limited. It is like when I go to San Francisco. Their Chinatown is better then ours. But I don't need endless information. Knowing that Yank Sing has the best dim sum, and that Yuet Lee makes a salt and pepper crab from another dimension, and maybe one more recommendation, that is enough info for the average tourist who is interested in the SF dining scene. And if I needed more information about cuisines that derive from people who originate in another country, I need a book that specializes in that type of dining. Having all that information together and ranked, won't help anyone. The markets have different needs and have different values.

But why are you turning this into a conversation about Robert Parker? Though he is a good way to illustrate what 100 points means, he really has nothing to do with the original question. It's a theoretical question about what a perfect score means because 100 seems to imply perfection.

Let me try to unpack that post because you have merged a few points together. You are latching on to two different market segments. One is overstated, like the California chardonnays the Wine Spectator gives 90+ points to. The other is an understated and overlooked segment of the market that likes artisanal wines that are unpopular with the first market segment I just described. Okay, I agree with that. But put that aside for a minute. What does either of those market segments have to do with 1999 La Tache or 2000 Lafite being 100 point wines? What the people in this thread are trying to get to the bottom of, is what that means? And while I agree with you that sometimes the market blurs good and bad because it skews things, I assure you at the high end it isn't skewed at all. Not that I agree that every wine that scores that high merits the score, but that is personal to me. Clearly I can see why they get those scores based on some objective scale whether I agree with it or not.

Yes that's right it is a prediction. But in my experience, people are pretty good at predicting this kind of stuff including moi. The problem with this, like anything else, is understanding all of the inferences and variables contained within a numerical score. And to do that you need to bring personal expertise to deciphering what the ratings really mean. Some 100 point wines will last for 20 years. But some 100 point wines can last for 50-75 years. It doesn't take a quantum leap in logic to understand that wines that last 50-75 years can develop greater complexity because of a longer maturation process then wines that last 20 years can develop. Yet both wines get a rating of 100 points. So there are 100 point wines, and then there are 100 point wines if you know what I mean.

Bravo. Or is it the follow up to FX 111?

Gee did they change the map of the world? Because the one I have here shows the entire population of Europe residing north of the Mediteranean without the need to pass through Egypt to enter the sub region of Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The cities on route (at least according to my Atlas) would be Allepo, Beirut, Bagdhad, Jersusalem, Isfahan, Tehran. You can also reach the entire Saudi Arabian peninsula by foot using those routes. The only reason one would need to go to Egypt, is if you wanted to go to Africa. Or if you wanted to travel by boat though the canal. So I don't see what Egypt has to do with it? It is on the route to India and the far east, not to the sub-region. Anyway, trying to get back to the original point as to why the dominant food of the region appears to be Lebanese, since Beirut is also a port town, and it is likely that is was a shipping center for the sub region (meaning goods would move from say Damascus to Beirut for shipping) that would argue for it having more diversity then other cities in the region.

Let me take a different crack at why they are 4 stars. I think the restaurants on the 4 star list attempt a more difficult cuisine then the ones on the three star list. When I say that I mean they use a higher standard as to what is acceptable. Everything has to be perfect. But for example, Douglas Rodriguez's famous Swordfish Chop on Sugar Cane served atop, gee I can't remember now, a mofrito? Whatever, it was a great dish, but not a four star dish because it wasn't refined enougn. And I'm not saying that the dish couldn't have been four stars. But I am saying that the kitchen was more accepting of a lower standard when sending dishes out to tables. But if they wanted to, they could have cut the swordfish more perfectly (which means discarding less then perfect examples, which means the price goes up,) and they could have made the puree more refined. Whatever, to me that is the basic difference between the levels. And I agree that Union Pacific comes very close at times.

No Ivan that's your body temperature. We are talking about wine scores.

The length of time it has taken them to open that restaurant has made me circumspect. Though I could be wrong and it isn't indicative of anything. But experience tells me otherwise. And while I really liked Wylie's food at 71 Clinton, it wasn't a big statement cuisine wise. This sounds like it is much more ambitious. Let's hope dehydrated calamata olives are more then just a concept.

What does the Suez Canal have to do with it? That was for long distance boat travel. In fact if anything the Suez Canal would make Egypt even less important because you didn't have to stop there. Suez Canal It was inagurated in 1869. I would think that Beirut's dominance as a cultural center for the region precedes that date. Besides the Suez Canal was for large ships travelling to the Far East. What does it have to do with people travelling by land who needed something to eat?

Dlc - Wine is organic. Try to imagine that it is still growing and evolving in the bottle. What typically happens with a wine is after it is bottled, the balance between fruit and tannic acid is in favor of the fruit for anywhere between 6 months and 3 years. Most wines shut down during that interval. And simply put, that means the tannic acids start to dominate the fruit. The result is that the wine tastes like it has no fruit, and the tannic acid tastes like it is burning and gives the impression of drying your tongue. But when wines age, the tannins "melt" (for lack of a better way to describe the fact that they disappear) and the fruit is back in the forefront. But in addition to the fruit now being present, it also goes through a process called reduction where the fruit changes from having primary flavors to secondary and tertiary flavors. That is what is described as a mature wine. And when Parker gives a wine 100 points, he is really saying it will be perefect whn it reaches this plateau of maturity. Does that make sense?

This makes absolutely no sense. Enthusiasm and excitement about what, the label design? It has to be about enthusiasm and excitement about something that he detects in the wine that is actually different.

Have you looked at a map of the Mediterannean recently? I don't see why people would need Egypt to get anywhere other then the Saudi Arabian peninsula or central Africa. In fact you can bypass it completely. So your statement makes no sense to me. Beirut and Jerusalem and then Damascus and Amman, those would have to be the most traveled cities by any traveler that was crossing from one region to the other because they are on the east/west axis.

dlc - No you are mistaking what the proffer is when Robert Parker gives a wine a score of 100 points. He isn't making an absolute statement. He is saying that given all of the variables that impact this varietal in this region, it has reached a level of quality that he believes "is as good as it gets." It does not say that there can't be better wine made in a different vintage. For example, 1982 and 1990 Latour might both have a rating of 100 points (an example.) But the vintage characteristics are dissimilar. 1982 is higher in acidity, and 1990 has more opulent fruit. Yet they night both get 100 because they are both "perfect" expressions of that varietal, region, and style of winemaking. Perfect is not a scientific measure. It is a theoretical abstract like saying the Godfather is a perfect film. Get it now?

We wont know until we eat there will we? But I will take a wild guess. If people like the food, either because they find it pleasing, or enough people find it interesting enough to make return visits, yes it will be successful. But if people think the food is too weird, regardless of good reviews, it could have a short shelf life. Especially in the post 9/11 business environment that still besets NYC. You have to understand what is going on here. A friend of mine who is a shopkeeper in a high profile location in Soho told me he is probably going to have to close his business. And that to date since 9/11, something like 500 retailers have had to close their businesses.

Here is how we do it for Thanksgiving and it comes out great. We chop enough garlic to coat the outside of the roast. We then mix the chopped garlic with kosher salt, or I guess, Malden Salt or some other type of medium coarse sea salt will do. We then melt butter in a pan (if you are so inclined you can spoon off the fat on top so you will have clarified butter) and then we paint the outside of the roast. Then we coat it with the garlic/salt mixture until it is completely covered. You can add anything you want to this mixture like pepper, rosemary. But for us, garlic and salt are enough. The result is staggeringly good. Especially if the roast has a slight layer of fat on the outside that crisps up.

Dlc - I think you are mixing two different concepts. The score describes quality. It makes no assertion about when a wine is drinkable. When Parker gives 1990 La Chapelle 100 points, he is saying that it is a "perfect expression of Hermitage." But that wine also happens to be undrinkable right now. In fact the 1978 La Chapelle which is also 100 points is still undrinkable as well. But that is unique to those wines. Other 100 point wines might mature more quickly.

I don't find Egyptian cuisine to be known outside of Egypt at all. That is because I don't see Cairo as a major route of travel outside of people coming from points in Africa. By far Lebanon has to have had the most number of travelers, and the most diverse group. Diversity(typically religious in olden times) and more importantly choice, are the keys to building a successful cuisine. The notion that someone passing through your city has a choice of what they want to eat is a powerful one, and is at the heart of a market system (I mean economic not green grocer). And this might go to Rifga's point about the metonomyic labeling of the cuisine as Lebanese. People carried the most varied cuisine back to their own countries and that terminology eventually became dominant. That there was overlap because they all made falafal is really of no conscequence because that describes a dish, and not a cuisine.

Fat Guy - I'm not opposed to as many lists/rankings as possible. But a book where dining is dissected into all of those small parts is difficult to use by anyone who doesn't want to put in a lot of time and effort. Most people who use guidebooks are visitors to a city or region, and they are there for 2-4 days and they want a quick way to glance at all the information. In reality, information really falls into two categories. Where to eat dinner, and where to eat lunch. A book that is well organized this way is Patricia Wells Food Lover's Guide to Paris. She has all restaurants, regardless of price and type of restaurant (Chinese is listed with Taillevent) in the restaurant category, and then she has split out cafes and wine bars into their own categories. Now to me that makes sense. Like if there was a category worth having of better Greek coffee shops and other lighter meals, that would make sense. But I see no reason to split the restaurants out from each other. To me, Daniel, Peter Luger's and New York Noodletown are properly listed together. Dining in NYC is really about eating at the upper middle/high end. And restaurants where the cuisine derives from people who originated in a different country (do you like my replacement phrase for "ethnic food," catchy eh ? ) is less important and you only need two, three, four of the best examples. As a practical matter, anyone who needs to know about more then three or four Indian restaurants is in a different market from the average vivistor and needs a different kind of book that specializes in CDFPWOIADC (that's even catchier.) But of course if you want all of the information laid out in one place, you need it organized differently. In that instance the Time Out Guide's listing by category is sufficient. But they are void of any rankings and that makes it cumbersome. They used to rank the top five places in each category but they stopped doing that two years ago. But those rankings were useful when they had them.

Well the problem is that they aren't consistant. It makes sense that Daniel is four stars, Union Pacific is three, but no sense that Otto is two. So we aren't having this conversation because they star system is inherently a bad system, we are having it because the NY Times doesn't follow their own guidelines when it comes to rating restaurants.

Especially if you have like ten hours trying to figure out where to have dinner.

Michelin only publishes guides for countries in Europe. Remember they are a tire company and they started as guides for French drivers. It isn't easy to drive your car from Paris to Milwaukee.