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Steve Plotnicki

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Everything posted by Steve Plotnicki

  1. In my opinion, Parker is not the best source in this category. Not that he is a bad source. But there are better ones. Problem is, no single place does a good job in this price range and to get the info you need to read a number of publications.
  2. We ate different things? I thought we had the chef's tasting menu and they served the same food for the table save for dishes with wheat in them?
  3. Hugh Johnson and Robert Parker do not appeal to the same marketplace in my opinion. Parker is really geared towards the long term collector investor who is drinking expensive wines. With an emphasis on the high end of the market. I don't think of Johnson as being that sepcific in terms of who he writes for.
  4. You mean "could have had." You might have enjoyed it for other reasons we didn't notice and you could have made the convincing argument.
  5. Because ultimately what the responses are about is denying the use of the word "better" etc. All of these people have a vested interest in denying the use for some reason that they haven't explained. I thought it was reasonable to say that Picasso is a better painter then child in kindergarten. But they will even begrudge that comparison in order to deny use of the word.
  6. I think you guys all are taking these comments too far. The original premise for any of this is that Italy is disorganized as a country. Little things that are simply either don't work correctly or are a pain in the ass to accomplish. Pumpkino's tale of the post office being out of stamps is a good one. Because to set up a system that would ensure that would never happen is so easy that a child can do it. When I go to a small Italian city to find a restaurant and its a holiday and the police station is closed so I can't get directions, I find that more frustrating then words will allow. Some people find those things charming and don't care, I find them maddening. The reason I find it maddening is that when I plan a trip somewhere, I do not leave extra time for those type of little ineffiencies. I just don't have time to hear that you can catch the next train. But I am sure that if I lived in Italy I would get used to it. But I am also sure that I will never live in Italy because I don't want to get used to it either.
  7. Ah that's not what I heard (and what I heard might have been wong.) I had heard it came out a discussion you had at DiFara's about a meal we had together at a certain NYC restaurant. But even if that is incorrect, the meal I am referring too is a good example for what we are discussing. You liked it more then we did. Why?
  8. Britcook - But your whole point is bogus. It equates too, you can enjoy literature better if you are less well read. That is total and complete relativism. You are insisting on defining personal enjoyment as something that is set by the limit of one's capabilities. That does not take into account complexities offered by an item that you are unable to discern because of lack of experience. In all of your writings as well as writing of others on this thread about how things are a matter of personal taste, I have not seen anyone make an allowance as to how to describe something you are inexperienced at analyzing. In addition, you insist that the criteria adopted for analyzation of a food or wine be limited to the criteria you want to choose. Look at the verbiage. This thread is postured on the concept of "enjoyment." What about people who eat and drink for cerebral purposes? Where is there room allowed for their hobby? You might eat for sensual pleasure but why can't the people at this dinner eat out for the purpose of comparing that meal analytically to other meals? Why can't their enjoyment be cerebral as well as sensual? And why can't people who eat and drink in that manner think that people are wrong about eating only from a sensual perspective? Isn't Jaybee's post a backdoor way of criticizing people with too much analytical experience so it "hampers" their ability to enjoy the meal? It seems to me, and a number of us have been saying this, that the concept of "reasonableness" takes all these things into consideration. Sphere of experience, sensual pleasure, analytical capability. And I see that people like you are willing to discard that reasonableness when you get to the limit of your own capabilities. Well I hope you enjoy that spot. I would like better then that and you are going to have to excuse me if I state that out loud. Tony - Why, when we are served something good we enjoy it. I loved New Tayeb didn't I? Why? Because it is good. What we were served at the meal Jaybee was referring too was not very good. This all gets back to people being able to identify good from bad and my example about Tesco. I submit, people shop in Tesco instead of Borough Market because they don't know, or don't care about the difference (mind you I am not dealing with people who do it for economic reasons.) Those people are wrong about it because much of what they sell at Tesco is unacceptable when you apply any quality standard to it. But I am sure there are families all over Britain who eat all of their meals with food bought at Tesco and think they are delicious.
  9. But your whole point is bogus. It equates too, you can enjoy literature better if you are less well read. That is total and complete relativism. You are insisting on defining personal enjoyment as something that is set by the limit of one's capabilities. That does not take into account complexities offered by an item that you are unable to discern because of lack of experience. In all of your writings as well as writing of others on this thread about how things are a matter of personal taste, I have not seen anyone make an allowance as to how to describe something you are inexperienced at analyzing. In addition, you insist that the criteria adopted for analyzation of a food or wine be limited to the criteria you want to choose. Look at the verbiage. This thread is postured on the concept of "enjoyment." What about people who eat and drink for cerebral purposes? Where is there room allowed for their hobby? You might eat for sensual pleasure but why can't the people at this dinner eat out for the purpose of comparing that meal analytically to other meals? Why can't their enjoyment be cerebral as well as sensual? And why can't people who eat and drink in that matter think that people are wrong about eating only from a sensual perspective? Isn't Jaybee's post a backdoor way of criticizing people with too much analytical experience so it "hampers" their ability to enjoy the meal? It seems to me, and a number of us have been saying this, that the concept of "reasonableness" takes all these things into consideration. Sphere of experience, sensual pleasure, analytical capability. And I see that people like you are willing to discard that reasonableness when you get to the limit of your own capabilities. Well I hope you enjoy that spot. I would like better then that and you are going to have to excuse me if I state that out loud.
  10. What is on page 16, that Tylenol is not available in France? It isn't available in the U.K. or Italy either under that name. But it is available under the generic name which is Acetaminophen. I even have a story about this too as over the years I have sought out Tyleneol in the U.K., France and Italy. In drug stores in both the U.K. and France, they all seem to know that the generic replaces the brand name. Even at the little local drug store on Westbourne Grove. But I can recall being at the farmacia in the Pizza del Duomo in 1998 in need of Tylenol and they did not know what I was talking about and they did not know the name of the generic. They didn't even speak English. I find that astounding in what is thr single busiest location in Italy. Unfortunately, I didn't know the name of the generic either at the time so I left without anything and suffered the night away. Well I didn't say that the U.S. doesn't have its own set of strange laws. Forget about laws relating sex because they belong in their own category. But how about not being able to buy hard alcohol on Sunday? But the U.S. doesn't specialize in the same type of funny administrative laws and customs like they do in many places in Europe.
  11. Well I was at that meal in question. And the reason we didn't enjoy the meal as much as you is because we have more experience both at that restaurant and probably eating that type of meal then you do. So our sphere of experience is different then yours. That is my entire point. Your liking it is relative to your sphere of experience which is fine. But maybe if you had eaten there a half dozen more times, and you had eaten in a half dozen contemporary Paris bistros recently, you would have felt differently about it. This is why I see Britcook's post as a complete waste of time. Fancy relativism. Because Picasso is a better painter then Poussin and we can probably come up with a dozen or more ways to measure that. But since none of the ways will result in a mathematical formula showing that he is absolutely better, Britcook wants to say that you can't make a meaningful comparison between the two. I think that is nonsense. Let's get on the slippery slope. Can we say which one is a better painter in this example; Picasso versus the average child in kindergarten? I would like to ask Britcook if he believes that you can't say that Picasso is a better painter then your average child? And if he thinks that isn't true, that indeed Picasso is a better painter, at what point as you go up the scale of painting expertise does it switch from your being able to make a concrete distinction to relativism on the subject? Without trying to insult anyone, the only people who complain about too much eductation are people who are having trouble keeping up with the topic. A body of people are allowed to be interested in a subject to a far greater extent then I am and they are allowed their space and verbiage to practice their hobby. I have done this with many of my wine friends who are interested in the minutia regarding wine to an extent that doesn't interest me. And my stepping back from the situation, and realizing that their interest is more intense then mine, and might result in a different point of view as a result, allows them for example to tell me I am wrong for liking chardonnay better then riesling. But somehow we can still go to dinner together and have fun in spite of it. And the reason for that is that although I think they are dead wrong about it, I see their argument from an intellectual standpoint and do not discount the fact that I might adopt it myself if I had a different sphere of experience. In other words, I am trying to be open minded about it based on external evidence of what knowledgable people like to drink. Which is exactly what I've been trying to say in this thread.
  12. Well hang on here. You are changing the subject. I agree with you that part of the enjoyment of going other places is to experience the change in culture, but silly man made administrative rules that aggregate to considerable inefficiency are just not charming and are really not part of the culture. When you go to Cannes for vacation or business (which I have probably done two dozen times,) they shut the drug stores at 7:00pm at night. In fact by law, aside from restaurants, all shops are shutdown at 7:00pm. That in and of itself is a strange law but let's put that aside for a minute. This includes drug stores and pharmacists. But since Cannes is an international city and there are people visiting from all over the world all year long, and people take ill after 7:00pm, there is a drug store/pharmacy that stays open 24 hours 7 days a week. Except that it isn't the same drug store every night, they rotate. Not only that, they keep the identity of it hidden until that very day when they publish the information in the local newspaper in a very small box which is hard to find unless you know where to look. I have experienced this mishegas (yiddish for craziness) firsthand by appearing at the concierge desk at my hotel at 7:15 in the evening with a fever that was slightly higher then 100 degress. When I asked him where I might find Tylenol at that time of night, he responded by saying "it's not so easy" and he went to get a newspaper to figure out where I had to go. Tylenol not so easy? Already you have a silly administrative rule that diminishes your time there if you happen to have the type of problem that clashes with their system. By the way, when I asked the concierge why the crazy rule about the drug stores, why not just let whichever one wants to stay open remain open and they can duke it out for market share, his response was that they are trying to keep the name and location of the drug store from drug dealers. Huh? It doesn't happen everytime but is has happened to me on at least 3-4 occassions. I have flown into a city in either France or Switzerland and rented a car when I arrived, on those occassions they make me sign a piece of paper saying I won't drive the car into Italy. Regardless of what good things you have to say about Italy, and I can find plenty of good things to say as well, that sort of speaks for itself.
  13. I find that you have the best success in matching food and wine when you concentrate on matching the sauce and spicing routine. It is more important to match acidity and level of sweetness then anything else. For example, I would never choose anything other then red wine with my Pot au Feu but if you make it in a Mittleeuropa style with a creamy horseradish sauce, I would want a rich, spicy white wine because of the sauce. There are hundreds of examples like these I could offer. The other thing that you have to match is sweetness. If you are going to eat a very sweet dish, Sauteed Foie gras with grapes and cumquats, you need a wine that has sufficient sweetness to stand up to the sweetness from the fruits. Another factor is the texture of the food. Have a pot of mussels and you can have a nice stony and flinty, acid heavy sauvignon blanc or muscadet. But add a cup of cream and a pinch of curry to the broth and you will do well with a drier Alsatian Vendage Tardive that has some viscosity to it. Or take tomatoes, extrmely problematic for wine. But if you find an extremely dry, intensely acidic white wine like a pinot grigio or pinot bianco you will find that it pairs nicely. To match wine to peaches you need to find a sweet wine that has a requisite amount of residual sugar with peaches or a similar fruit in the flavor profile. Not that difficult to find. The pairings are endless. And like the original question asks, if you care to spend the time, you can find a wine for anything. But I find that you quickly reach a point of limited returns and I am quite happy switching beverages over pulling my hair out looking for the perfect wine. A mismatch can ruin a meal. Mineral water never does.
  14. You guys are the barrista apologistas. You can't compare Peck, the chicest food store in Italy and the bar they have in it with Starbucks and McDonald's. I am describing places that are supposed to give good customer service which make you pay first. Not fast food places. And for whatever reason, I have never been to a fine food establishment in the U.S. that makes you pay first other then Legal Seafood which did it because so many college kids stiffed them on the check. You will have to admit that it is typically not the custom to do this. And you are doing a poor job of convincing me that there is a valid reason like efficiency etc. for doing it and it wasn't a system created because of people stiffing places on the bill. They even had this system at St. Ambrose in NYC for awhile. You had to pay first and then order your cappucino. But it drove people mad and eventually they changed it. Pumpkino - Indeed that is bizarre. Maybe you should just pay everyones fines if you think it's okay. And I can have all of those drinks in my hotel and they will present the check afterwards. Like other civilized establishments around the world. The issue is that bizaare rules and regulations that make no sense end up making your country run screwy. It might not bother you but it bothers me intensely. I have no patience for them. But it even gets worse then that. Someone somewhere thinks they make the country more efficient. You know who? Lario...... Pumpkino, why not regale us with your list of Italian oddities? Make my case for me.
  15. The problem with Parker is that he doesn't have any competition. A clear voice with a different point of view has not figured out how to reach the marketplace. For example, Parker has a preferrence (bias?) for wines made in the New World style. And while there are critics of that style as well as people being critical about Parker liking that style, there isn't anyone who has been able to build a business on promoting themselves as the "anti-Parker." And lord knows how many things were
  16. I agree with Marcus. No comparison between Barthelemy and Cantin. How about Alleose? I don't think they are as good as Bathelemy but they aren't bad. And it is probably the closest of the top chesse shops to the Hotel Verney.
  17. I'm having a hard time believing this one (not that I think Craig is lying.) But 20 year old Ca. pinot noir? And it lasted? I can't find a Ca. PN that i think is any good to begin with save for one that is 20 years old.
  18. Well I knew it was too complex for you so I'm not surprised .
  19. Nobody sits in judgement of anyone else. But yes people are told they are wrong for liking things like a McDonald's burger better then one made from top quality meat. And you would probably be okay with that ananlogy except that sometimes you are that person when the item changes. So which shall we adopt, your standard, which I think is a low standard, so your feelings aren't hurt? Or do you think that you can get over the fact that the conversation isn't personal? That we aren't judging people, we are judging food. And when we say that someone is wrong for not liking oysters (me in this example) we are talking about the oysters being good, not the person being less of a person.
  20. The best wine I've had, not that I've had that many, although every one I've had was good or better, was the 2001 Maximum Gruenhauser Von Shubert Auslese. Killer stuff. I'd like to lay a case of that stuff away for 15-20 years.
  21. Actually I need to add more to this. None of this thread has been about my opinion about any food in particular. I've painstakingly pointed out that everything I have said is based on looking at what people actually like to eat and comparing people who don't like to eat those same things to those groups of people. Yet you have to make it personal by making it a matter of my opinion. Which one is it, are you doing it on purpose to push my buttons or do you lack the ability to have this conversation in the abstract?
  22. Now what does what I think have to do with any of this? And carry on at your Caribbean night.
  23. But this is exactly what I have been saying. He is not a reliable source for those things. But he is a reliable source for other foods and wine. Nobody has said that any one person's taste is infallable across the board. La Nina - Me too. I am not a black licorice guy although my tolerance level towards it has imporved in recent years.
  24. What do you mean? Do you not think that Fay Maschler, Jay Raynor, Patricia Wells, Giles Pudlowski etc. drive traffic at restaurants? Do you not think that certain opinions on this website and others drive traffic? How is it that people in London know that shopping at Borough Market is good on Saturdays? Does everybody know? Do the people in the Sainsbury's down the road know? Do they care? Do the people who only shop in Sainsbury's have a reliable opinion about food? Does the guy who likes white button mushrooms and has never tasted a morel know about mushrooms? Is his opinion reliable? How can you say that there isn't a body of knowledgable people out there. What do you call the people who shop at Borough Market and not Sainsbury's because the food is "better"? Are they "wrong" about it and the food is just as good at Sainsbury's? How about Tesco? Aside from that, both Tony and LML confuse popularity with acceptance by a knowledgable group of people that creates some type of standard. That is what I said. Again, I didn't say it was a popularity contest among the masses. I said it was decided according to a market made up of knowledgable people. Call it a group of people with discerning taste. Call them gourmands or gourmets. Call them whatever you want. Whatever, it isn't controversial to say that oysters are good based on who we know likes to eat them. But it is unreasonable to say that McDonald's and Coca Cola are good based on their popuarity because you are using the lowest common denominator of taster to evaluate them. Second, you both miss the point about market value. Nobody like truffles because they are rare, people like them because the taste is complex. That they are willing to pay a premiuim might be because of the shortage of supply, but that has nothing to do with why they want them in the first place.
  25. This is just not true. I just had to pay first at both the bar at Peck as well as at the bar of that chic tea salon that is at the corner of via Montenapoleone and via della Spiga. In fact I cannot recall a bar in Italy where you do not have to pay first. And I have found that many restaurants in Europe demand conformation including ones in Italy. Many years ago I remember showing up at a restaurant in Firenze for dinner and they had given our table away because we had forgotten to confirm the day before. And last year when I made a reseration at Gambero Rosso for dinner, they were adamant in telling me that they would "automatically" give my table away if I did not call the day before. And as for European restaurants not turning tables, it isn't that they let you have the table for the evening out of benevolence. In many instances they don't have enough demand to turn them.
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